Grailhunter
Well-Known Member
The first recorded use of the word fornicate in English is in the 14th century in a poem called the Cursor Mundi.
The first English Bibles to use the word fornication was the Bishop’s Bible---Church of England 1568, the Catholic Bible called the Douay-Rheims Bible (early 1600’s) and then the other Protestant Bibles followed suite examples; the Tyndale Bible Geneva Bible and the King James Version of the Bible, 16th and 17th centuries respectively.
So bottom line, marriages in the Bible were formed by the union. This is a biblical and historical fact. Even if the Hebrew families held a marriage celebration, there was no Hebrew word for wed or wedding nor any biblically stated requirement for ceremonies or vows....just the Bridal Chamber where the couple consummated their marriage. Modern Jews still use a symbolic bridal chamber that is more of a canopy.
The fact that it is the union that forms a marriage still exists in civil laws. In most states and countries a couple that does not have sex after the wedding ceremony (consummate) can get their marriage annulled.
Fornication is a well known case study in how man-made terms and phrases that are false usually develop into false beliefs and skew the meaning of the scriptures and perceptions and as in this case can cause sin. The word fornication is one of the reasons why a lot of Christians believe that wedding ceremonies were required in the Old and New Testament.
For example; a man and a woman fall in love and have sex and then from there on remain together, from the biblical perceptive, they are married. But Christians, believing various false beliefs can condemn them because of what they think Fornication means…two people that have not had a wedding ceremony having sex and living together, ergo the term shacking up.
Then people believing they are “living in sin” may make the couple feel unwelcome in church and could turn them away from Christianity. Which are the only sins that occurred here. The sin of gossip, the sin of falsely accusing people of a sin, and the sin of turning them away Christianity. And then calling their children bastards.
Had a preacher tell me that the normal attraction that couples in love feel for each other is lust and so all marriages are formed by lust. That would be completely wrong. God described the process that is correct…. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. God designed men and women to be attracted to each other and form marriages and families. No sin occurs in the process that God designed.
Then according to Augustine (circa 354-430 AD) the sex act being sinful passed the sin of Adam and Eve to the babies, calling it original sin. Which is another manmade term that does not appear in the Bible, but has been taught to Christians. Original Sin is another false belief. This produced the belief that babies can go to hell.
It is better explained that Adam and Eve and their offspring promulgated the nature of man to be sinful. Mankind took after Adam and Eve’s character but it was not sex that caused it, no more than a son having his father’s nose. It is not because sex is evil that caused the son’s nose…a trait of his parent.
Fornication is a good study into how man-made terms and phrases that are not in the Bible, can become popular and can introduce false beliefs that can remain for centuries and cause sin, misery, atrocities, and death not to mention, skewing the meaning of the scriptures and the perception of history.
Of course adultery and casual sex is a sin, ie one night stands and or whore mongering, prostitution, which are sins that are mostly defined in the Bible and in general are defined in modern translations as sexual immorality.
The first English Bibles to use the word fornication was the Bishop’s Bible---Church of England 1568, the Catholic Bible called the Douay-Rheims Bible (early 1600’s) and then the other Protestant Bibles followed suite examples; the Tyndale Bible Geneva Bible and the King James Version of the Bible, 16th and 17th centuries respectively.
So bottom line, marriages in the Bible were formed by the union. This is a biblical and historical fact. Even if the Hebrew families held a marriage celebration, there was no Hebrew word for wed or wedding nor any biblically stated requirement for ceremonies or vows....just the Bridal Chamber where the couple consummated their marriage. Modern Jews still use a symbolic bridal chamber that is more of a canopy.
The fact that it is the union that forms a marriage still exists in civil laws. In most states and countries a couple that does not have sex after the wedding ceremony (consummate) can get their marriage annulled.
Fornication is a well known case study in how man-made terms and phrases that are false usually develop into false beliefs and skew the meaning of the scriptures and perceptions and as in this case can cause sin. The word fornication is one of the reasons why a lot of Christians believe that wedding ceremonies were required in the Old and New Testament.
For example; a man and a woman fall in love and have sex and then from there on remain together, from the biblical perceptive, they are married. But Christians, believing various false beliefs can condemn them because of what they think Fornication means…two people that have not had a wedding ceremony having sex and living together, ergo the term shacking up.
Then people believing they are “living in sin” may make the couple feel unwelcome in church and could turn them away from Christianity. Which are the only sins that occurred here. The sin of gossip, the sin of falsely accusing people of a sin, and the sin of turning them away Christianity. And then calling their children bastards.
Had a preacher tell me that the normal attraction that couples in love feel for each other is lust and so all marriages are formed by lust. That would be completely wrong. God described the process that is correct…. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. God designed men and women to be attracted to each other and form marriages and families. No sin occurs in the process that God designed.
Then according to Augustine (circa 354-430 AD) the sex act being sinful passed the sin of Adam and Eve to the babies, calling it original sin. Which is another manmade term that does not appear in the Bible, but has been taught to Christians. Original Sin is another false belief. This produced the belief that babies can go to hell.
It is better explained that Adam and Eve and their offspring promulgated the nature of man to be sinful. Mankind took after Adam and Eve’s character but it was not sex that caused it, no more than a son having his father’s nose. It is not because sex is evil that caused the son’s nose…a trait of his parent.
Fornication is a good study into how man-made terms and phrases that are not in the Bible, can become popular and can introduce false beliefs that can remain for centuries and cause sin, misery, atrocities, and death not to mention, skewing the meaning of the scriptures and the perception of history.
Of course adultery and casual sex is a sin, ie one night stands and or whore mongering, prostitution, which are sins that are mostly defined in the Bible and in general are defined in modern translations as sexual immorality.