Grailhunter
Well-Known Member
Incorrect. The Greek word Pornia means prostitute. Which was not a negative term in the Greco-Roman culture. The Christian version of that porneia gets a little complicated.
If you noticed there was no wedding ceremony or vows in Eden. And then you can read the rest of the Bible and find no requirement for wedding ceremonies or vows. Nor does the Bible state the correct way for a man and woman to meet and join in a union. You are inventing beliefs....welcome to the proud crowd. It was 1500 years after the biblical period that Christianity developed a requirement for weddings ceremonies and vows, and that is a fact.
From the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
illicit sexual intercourse
adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.
sexual intercourse with close relatives; Lev. 18
sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman; Mk. 10:11-12
The worship of idols of the defilement of idolatry, as incurred by eating the sacrifices offered to idols
But this all involves translational errors and Christian reflection on later traditions that were retrofitted for 16th and 17th century translations of the Bible and reference material.
When the Greek text was translated into the Latin Vulgate, the Greek word porneia was translated to fornication. This is how the English word fornication arrived in the original Geneva and King James Version of the Bible. Part of the problem was that the New Testament was an attempt to write Christian moral standards using a Pagan language…ie Greek. But the Greeks did not have the same moral standards that Christians had. So the Christians writers were taking Greek words and adjusting the definitions of them, even coming up with new Greek words. Why? In the Greco-Roman culture sex was not considered immoral. It did not matter if it was temple prostitutes or orgies. Married Roman men were free to have sex with who they wanted…female or male. In the Roman culture adultery only pertained to wives. By Christian standards it was a disgusting arrangement. So Christian writers were tasked with conveying sexual morality from a culture that was without sexual morals and their language reflected the absence of words to describe sexual immorality. Now was all this confusing to the translators of the scriptures, it is a matter of debate.
Pornea in the Greek society mostly is a reference to prostitution which was not wrong in their culture. For example pornography, is an ancient Greek word that mean writings or paintings of prostitutes and many Roman homes had murals of sex acts and or prostitute on their walls.
But in the Bible the Greek word Pornea and its variances appear several times. In all cases the Christian writers were using it as some form of sexual immorality.
Examples:
πορνείας·… porneias … Sexual immorality
πορνείᾳ … porneiai … Sexual immorality in the plural
πορνεῦσαι … To commit sexual immorality involving sexual acts
πορνείαν … Idolatry involving sexual acts
πόρνος … A person that practices sexual immorality
πόρνοι … Refering to as a group of the sexually immoral
πορνεῖαι … inflectional, more or less dirty thoughts
Appearing in these scriptures
Matthew 5:32, 5:19, Mark 7:21, John 8:4, Acts 15:20, 5:29, 21:25, Romans 1:29* 1st Corinthians 5:1, 5:9, 5:10, 6:13, 6:18, 7:2, 10:8, 2nd Corinthians 12:21, Galatians 5:19, Ephesians 5:3, Colossians 3:5, 1st Thessalonians 4:3, Jude 1:7, Revelation 2:14, 2:14, 2:20, 2:21, 9:21, 14:8, 17:2, 17:4, 18:3, 18:19, 19:2
But in no case does it simply apply to two unmarried people having sex, for a very good reason. The New Testament does not have a lot to say about romantic love. But to say that Pornea, porneia is sex outside of wedlock would be inaccurate, since the Bible has no requirements for a wedding ceremonies or vows. Marriages were formed by the union and most of the time in early Christianity a lady’s father would chose who they would be married to, as was practiced in most Old Testament unions of marriages. Couples did not commit "fornication" to be married...that was how they married.
The evolution of the word Fornicate or Fornication
Fornicate comes from the Latin, the term fornix means arch or vaulted ceiling. In Ancient Rome, it was known that prostitutes would wait for their customers out of the hot sun or rain in areas that had cover…vaulted ceilings. The Latin word fornix became a euphemism for brothels and the Latin verb fornicare referred to a man visiting a brothel. Meaning a man being serviced by prostitutes.
Of course then St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the scriptures used the word fornication.
The first recorded use 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 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 there was a Hebrew marriage celebration, there was no biblically stated ceremony or vows....just the Bridal Chamber were the couple consummate 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 exist in civil laws. In most states and countries a couple that does not have sex after the wedding ceremony can get their marriage annulled.
