From: richw@mks.com (Rich Wales)
Subject: Re: Mormons and eternal marriage (was Re: Mormon Temples)
Reply-To: richw@mks.com (Rich Wales)
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 40

David Hammerslag asked:

	How do you (Mormons) reconcile the idea of eternal marriage
	with Christ's statement that in the resurrection people will
	neither marry nor be given in marriage (Luke, chapt. 20)?

Several explanations for this seeming contradiction have been proposed,
but most LDS scholars whose opinions I have studied take more or less
one of the following three positions:

(1) Jesus was talking to a group of people (Sadducees) who were trying
    to trip Him up with what they felt was a silly hypothetical situa-
    tion that ridiculed the concept of a resurrection (something they
    didn't believe in).  These people -- and those associated with them
    ("Now there were with us seven brethren", Matt. 22:25) -- would not
    be receptive to such higher blessings as eternal marriage.  Hence,
    the people in the story would likely not be married in the eterni-
    ties; but that doesn't mean other, more faithful people could not
    have this blessing.

(2) Jesus was making a distinction between the state or condition of
    =being= married, and the process of =becoming= married.  The latter
    activity (marrying and giving in marriage) will not take place in
    the eternities, because all eternal marriages will be taken care of
    before then.

(3) The account as we have it (in all three of the synoptic Gospels) is
    missing something that would make its real meaning clearer.  Note
    that we (LDS) do not believe in Biblical inerrancy, so we do not in
    general feel obliged to reconcile each and every Bible text with
    modern revelation through Joseph Smith and other latter-day proph-
    ets.  Nor are we particularly upset that the account in question
    was not significantly revised in the "Joseph Smith Translation" or
    "Inspired Version" of the Bible, since we do not believe this work
    was completed or that failure to revise a passage in the JST con-
    stitutes divine approval of that passage as it stands in the KJV.

-- 
Rich Wales <richw@mks.com>       //      Mortice Kern Systems Inc. (MKS)
35 King St. N. // Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2J 2W9 // +1 (519) 884-2251
