What does “one flesh” signify? Fictive kinship? Or sexual intercourse? (Butler Series)

Does “one flesh” refer to the act of sexual intercourse? Or does it signify kinship?

Joshua Butler argues in Beautiful Union that “one flesh” means sexual intercourse.

…one flesh zeroes in much more directly on the center of sex itself: bodily union. … One flesh is about the merging of two separate bodies into one. (Kindle loc. 314) …one flesh is consummation language referring to conjugal union more specifically. (3971)

Opposing this point of view, Dr Sandy Richter says that “one flesh” refers to fictive kinship and she cites Frank Moore Cross’s lifetime of work on this. Marriage is fictive kinship in that when a man and woman legally marry they become kin to each other (family). The fictive kinship of marriage (the new family) comes into being when the couple gets married.

Sandy Richter challenges Butler’s view that “one flesh” is primarily about the anatomical sex act. Listen to Sandy make this case at Patrick Sprinkle’s podcast Theology in the Raw. The podcast features a panel: Josh Butler, Sandy Richter and Brenna Blain. Sandy speaks in these segments: 16:11-20:30; 26:55-30:4; 36:15-38:02. (YouTube version here.)

Sandy strongly criticised Josh Butler for sacralising the sex act. Protestantism rejected the Roman Catholic notion that marriage is a sacrament. Sandy is an expert on the Ancient Near East and she says the idea of sacred marriage goes way back to ancient Mesopotamian fertility cults, paganism, Baal and the use in pagan worship of bodily fluids relating to sex and procreation — all of which is what God was attempting to deliver the Israelites from.

I’ve transcribed and indented what I think are the most important things Sandy said:

One of my biggest questions is this business of trying to sacralise the sex act. I definitely agree with you [Josh] that the Protestant world desperately needs a healthy theology of sex. … But [it’s very concerning] for Protestants to be attempting to turn the marriage sex act into a sacrament. A sacrament should be available to every believer.

The idea of sacred marriage is as old as the hills. It goes back to the Akitu Festival in ancient Mesopotamia when the king would, in the public eye, go in to the tent of the high priestess [and] have sex with her in public to reinvigorate the land. It’s based on fertility cults and pagan religions. It’s what Baal is all about. And in many ways it’s what Yahweh is attempting to deliver the people of God from, not introduce them to. And that’s why I think that all the bodily functions of nocturnal emissions, menstruation and post-delivery fluids don’t belong in the temple. Because all of those fluids and activities were a part of the magic of the Egyptian cult, the Canaanite cult, the Mesopotamian cult. And I think the message of Leviticus is clearly communicating: That stuff is all great, and it all belongs outside the sacred precinct. Because it’s what regular folk do, as a regular expression of their lives. It has nothing to do with worshipping me.

The passages in Leviticus that Sandy is referring to are about fluids associated with reproduction: semen (Leviticus 15:16); menstrual blood (15:19-30), and vaginal discharge after childbirth (12:1-7).
Sandy continues:

The hill I do want to at least battle for, is this business of trying to move sex into the temple. Trying to move sex into the sacrament. Because, as I spend my life in the Ancient Near East, the Egyptians would walk around with talismans around their necks that were little gold and bronze penises. We have so much representation in the pagan world of the sex act being the act that awakens the gods, that re-fertilises the land, that is magical. And of course, the way a penis behaves looks a little magical. So I certainly understand where this is coming from. But it’s coming from a pagan world view. And the idea that the stuff that creates new life (and especially semen, because it’s visible, and the way it shows up on the scene) that this is magical, it is a way to tap in to the primordial stuff that causes the earth to rise — these are not new ideas. These are ancient ideas. And I’m really troubled by them. And I know they’re all over so much of what’s going on with “Canterbury Trail Evangelicalism”, if you know what I mean.

The term “Canterbury Trail Evangelicalism” refers to the trend of people moving from fundamentalist and confessional Protestantism, to conservative liturgical Anglicanism and Anglo-Catholicism.

In my view, the points that Sandy raised are very important. Attempting to turn the marriage sex act into a sacrament, moving sex into the temple, moving Protestantism back towards Roman Catholicism, and blending in pagan fertility-cult imagery — those things are all very dangerous. Sex must not be construed as “magic”.

Butler proudly states that Beautiful Union is inspired by Pope John Paul II’s book Theology of the Body. Christopher West, a Roman Catholic who has popularised Theology of the Body, put out a video Don’t Cancel This Man! A Defense of Josh Butler.

Sandy Richter is correct to be concerned about “Canterbury Trail Evangelicalism”.

I find Sandy’s argument that “one flesh” refers to fictive kinship persuasive. Legal marriage creates fictive kinship between husband and wife, and when their sexual union produces offspring the children have true biological kinship with their parents and ancestors.

Adoption is another form of fictive kinship: a child may be adopted by adults who are not the child’s biological parents and the adopted child is then considered a full member of the adoptive parent’s kinship network.

People who have kinship bonds bear obligations and responsibilities for each other. Many readers of this blog have had parents and relatives who did not fulfil their kinship responsibilities properly; but that does not negate the fact that kinship responsibilities are part of God’s good design for humanity.

How can “one flesh” relate to prostitution?

The Bible says that the outcome of prostitution is “one flesh”. In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul tells Christians not to use prostitutes and he argues his case by citing the “one flesh” term. How can “one flesh” relate to prostitution, if “one flesh” does not mean the anatomical sex act?

A prostitute might become pregnant by the man who bought sex from her. A child borne from prostitution is biologically kin with the man who impregnated the prostitute, but that child is fictively “non-kin” with that man — the man thinks he bears no obligations or responsibilities to that child, or to the child’s mother — and sinful culture allows men to have this attitude. This is a gross inversion of what “one flesh” kinship is meant to be about. Children conceived that way will lack the stability and protection of lifelong kinship bonds with both of their biological parents and the network of kinship connections which come with that. They will never be adopted by that man. They will be socially “fatherless”. The man who does such things will bear guilt for his illicit sexual encounter.

Side note: Another plausible reason for saying prostitution results in “one flesh” might be that all illicit sex is sinful, and the habitual practice of sin can attract demons around the sinner. In illicit sexual acts, I do not discount the possibility of one party being contaminated or infiltrated by any demonic spirits that are hanging around or dwelling in the other party.

In prostitution (and pornography consumption) the man pays funds to get his sexual desires met. The prostitute makes the transaction not from hospitality, but in order to meet some need of her own — e.g., to avoid being beaten by her pimp, or to feed her children or her drug habit, or pay the rent.

However, the Bible has a story of woman prostituting herself to seek redress from injustice — Tamar the daughter-in-law of Judah. It’s a story that sheds light on the possible interconnections between sexual intercourse and “one flesh” kinship obligations.

A woman who prostituted herself to seek redress from injustice

Genesis 38 recounts how Tamar married Er, Judah’s firstborn son. Er then died, leaving Tamar a widow. At Judah’s behest, his second son Onan took Tamar as wife; but Onan prevented Tamar from conceiving a child by practising coitus interruptus. Onan then died. Judah ought to have let Tamar marry his third son when that son came of age, but Judah did not. Tamar had the right to have the opportunity to give birth to a child who would carry on the name of Er (her first husband). Er, although deceased, had the right to his “one flesh” line of kinship being continued. Tamar his widow ought to have been given the opportunity to continue Er’s line of kinship. It is reasonable to suppose Tamar would also have desired to bear a child who could support her in her old age.

The custom of a man having to marry the widow of his deceased brother who had died childless was widespread in the Ancient Near East¹. Judah had deprived both Er and Tamar of their rights, so Tamar sought redress from Judah’s injustice. She disguised herself as a prostitute and stood in Judah’s path. Judah bought sex from her and she became pregnant. The story plays out in a surprising and wonderful way, but I’ll let you look it up for yourself. Judah was made to eat humble pie.

Kinship obligations in levirate marriage

Long after the story of Judah and Tamar, Moses codified this custom into a law for the Israelites. The law said that if a husband died childless, his closest brother in order of birth must marry the widow and “the firstborn who she bears shall be established in the name of his dead brother, that his name not be wiped out from Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6). In other words, the widow married her brother-in-law — her brother-law was obliged to become his brother’s “proxy” raising up seed for him. This practice is known as “levirate marriage”. It provided the widow with financial protection. The children of such a sexual union would have possessed somewhat similar DNA to that of the deceased brother. The practice was therefore a blend of biological kinship and fictive kinship.

Jesus is our brother — if we are born again we are members of his family and therefore his kin.

“One flesh” meaning fictive kinship relates to the fact that, as Christians, we are all siblings in Christ with Jesus as our older brother. Christians who are same-sex attracted and choose to live in voluntary celibacy take great solace in the truth that we are all siblings in Christ. Since they never marry, they often find it the most comforting kinship concept in the Bible.

The truth of our having Jesus as our brother has been neglected, while Ephesians 5’s use of the term “one flesh” as metaphor for Christ’s relationship with his betrothed bride has been excessively elevated, allowing people to make an idol of human marriage.

Footnote

¹The Hebrew Bible: A Translation and Commentary, Robert Alter, Vol 1, p 145.