If the Bible supposedly is the origin of marriage, why were Native Americans married when Europeans arrived?

Question

So people are saying that marriage is not a government thing because marriage was invented in the Bible?

Why, then, did Native Americans, the Chinese, Indians (from India) and many other cutlures performing marriage ceremonies before ever hearing about the Bible?

And what about the Ancient Egyptians and other ancient cultures that were marrying well before the bible was even written?

Answer 1

Who ever said that is a categorical idiot.

to say that marriage originated from the bible not only ignores the fact the bible says it was the norm in all societies, but ignores human history.

Answer 2

Jesus was white? Wasn't he Semitic (or a least a nice shade of brown)? He would certainly have looked more Mediterranean/Middle Eastern. He was Jewish after all. He would have been more or less the same colour as the Native Americans, or perhaps a little darker no doubt. The Vikings visited at least 500 years before America was noticed by the rest of Europe (via Christopher Columbus). I often find it rediculous when people ask who discovered America, and give some European as the answer. Surely it was the Native Americans who discovered it first.

Answer 3

Who is saying that marriage was invented in the Bible??? That's ridiculous!

In fact, in the early stages of the development of the concept of marriage, in ancient societies LONG before the bible was written, long before Judaism existed, long before Christianity existed, it was the act of having sex that made a man and woman married! "You're going to have sex? Then when you're done, you're married!"

I don't think that's in the bible. LOL

Marriage was a social custom even back as far as the Sumerians and the Ubaids, which were, as far as anyone knows at this time, the very first documented and discovered society ever in existence in our world. Before Egyptians, before Hindus, before Jews, before Christians, before anyone.

In Sumerian history not only was marriage a custom between regular men and women in Sumerian society, but there was a "sacred marriage" between the King and the Goddess Inanna as well.

Anyone can google and find information on marriage in Sumer on university sites, archealogical sites, etc.

Answer 4

It's silly to say that marriage was established by the Bible because, as you say, older cultures and cultures that were geographically isolated from the Old Testament had marriage customs. Marriage is a societal construct that occurred throughout the world. People who say that the Bible established marriage are not seeing the big picture.

Answer 5

We are not talking about marriage before the Bible was written. We are talking about marriage being started with Adam and Eve. Obviously the marriage tradition was handed down with the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve which would cover EVERY human from creation on.

God created marriage. The Bible simply records the creation. Marriage was still a God given institution even before Moses recorded it in the scriptures we call Genesis.

Just because it wasn't written down, does not mean it did not exist.

Answer 6

The flaw in your question is in attributing marriage to the Bible. The concepts of marriage were not peculiar to the followers of the Holy Bible which, by the way, was not assembled until thousand of years after humans first appeared, formed tribes, married and had children.

Answer 7

Well, the Bible didn't invent marriage....God did. Since God existed before the Bible was written, then it makes perfect sense that all those cultures had marriage. Romans chapter 1 makes this clear. God placed knowledge of himself in all men, so why would it be weird that there's a world wide tradition of marriage.

Answer 8

One thing the other answers have not covered is the Native Americans originally came from the middle east, from Noah. They walked across to Alaska and down is one route.

As others have pointed out, God began marriage before the Bible was started.

Answer 9

Because christians are so arrogant that they cant accept the fact that others might be right as well. If it's not in the bible, its not truth to them. And how much truth is in the bible? It has been changed so many times that it isnt even funny.

-Joshua

Answer 10

Your answer is not found in the introduction of the "Bible" to man, but man's introduction into this world by GOD. Let's read the following text:

Genesis 2:15 - 25
"15Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
18Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
19Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
20The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
22The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
23The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
24For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."

You see? God made man and woman to become husband and wife. Adam and Eve were the first husband and wife. Mankind, thereafter, as they populated the earth, were simply doing that which they had been created to do and had naturally seen done by those before them. Man did not create marriage, God did. Man did not introduce marriage to races and cultures and tribes and civilizations. God created the family and marriage with the very first man and his wife to be the model for the rest of mankind as his perfect design. It is man that has disobeyed and perverted what God had made through disobedience.

Your question is great because it only further proves how God originally created things to be from the beginning being naturally carried out through many generations according to the Bible yet having never read it yet.