Quote:

Methos said:
The Bible - Genesis 16:3, to be more specific - says otherwise.

From http://www.utj.org/Torah/parshah/03Lech_Lecha.html



It doesn't say once that Hagar was taken as a wife. Maybe acted as a wife, perhaps, but beyond that she is never referred to as Abram's "wife". In fact, that term is completely monopolized by Sarah. And more than that, it is not said once, that it was legitimately allowed.

Quote:

Methos said:
If you'll forgive my saying so, reading over the debate over multiple marriages, it didn't start out as a question of endorsing them.



Yes it did. You're confused due to the lack of spoken context. r3x obviously referred to multiple wives in the Bible to make it seem like my views, taken from the Bible, were contradictory. Now, I already knew that there were cases of multiple wives in the Bible--However, the context he was implying was that it was proponed by the Bible. In which case, I've never heard of such a thing, so I asked him to point out his particular reference, which I expected to be something saying that multiple wives was allowed.

Quote:

Methos said:
As for the question of the Bible endorsing them, the Bible gives us a bunch of cases and examples where men have more than one wife, and those are presented as acceptable scenarios.



Where?

It was said that they had multiple wives and that they allowed themselves muliple wives, but where was such a "scenario" approved by God.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm actually open to the idea that back then, multiple marriages were allowed--Although I haven't actually seen any scripture in the Old Testament that gave precise instruction regarding the legitimacy of multiple marriage. However, whilst I can attune myself to the idea that it was allowed in the Old Testament, there are specific references in the New Testament that forbid it.