Charles B. Keeling: Refuting biblical claims

Regarding the May 4 Points of View “What God designed” and “Using selective literalism”: The juxtaposition of opposing views on same-sex marriage made for an interesting read. However, I found the Bible-based defense of traditional marriage by Danny Akin, the head of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, to be surprisingly weak.

He cited 10 scriptural passages to make his case.

John 1:14 does not address the issue of marriage at all. As to Genesis 1-2, God never marries Adam and Eve. (Gen. 2:24 does not pertain to Adam because he had no father and mother). Matthew 19:4-6 basically repeats Gen. 2:24.

In Ephesians 5:21-33, the terms “wives” and “husbands” can be read as nongender specific (as verse 32 says, “This is a great mystery”).

The interesting thing about Gen. 2:18 is that woman was not God’s first choice as a suitable help meet for Adam – it was animals (females and males)! It was only after Adam rejected the animals that God went to His Plan B – a female human. (And of course that has to be inerrant and infallible.)

In Psalms 127 and 128, there is no indication that the children mentioned are necessarily the products of marriage or that children who aren’t are of lesser status than those who are.

This story was originally published May 9, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Charles B. Keeling: Refuting biblical claims."