Question about New Testament (with OT)

[bluesqueak]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Kathryn Cawte" 
<kcawte at b...> wrote:

> 
> Of course according to St Paul sex wasn't really something he 
> approved ofanyway. He said that if single people and widows 
> (oddly )afaik not widowers absoutely *had* to have sex they should 
> get married, but it was better not to have sex at all (I'm seeing 
> some major problems with that attitude, like the extinction of the 
human race) - this btw is what was said in a
> documentary on the history of sexuality that I saw yesterday.
> 

Yeah, that one always gets quoted [grin]. Usually people (like the 
makers of your documentary) miss out the one vital little 
phrase: 'Because of the present crisis...' [1 Corinthians Chapter 7 
v. 26, New International translation. RSV has 'impending distress']

*What* the present crisis was, we have no way of knowing. Theories 
have included the idea that Paul expected the Second Coming any 
moment now. Alternatively, there is some evidence that there may 
have been food shortages in Corinth [which would also explain why 
the question of whether you could eat food that may have been 
sacrificed to idols was also dealt with in that letter. ]. Or it may 
have been a political crisis(this was not a fun period for the Roman 
Empire). 

But the implication is not that marriage was a bad thing full stop 
[period], but that marriage was a bad thing *at the present time*.

Pip!Squeak