Expert: Dean Gade - 6/7/2006

Question
Thank you for that information, I was just wondering if there were any similar traditions that came from the Jewish marriage and then passed on to Christianity marriage during Jesus's lifetime?  Such as engagement? Ceremonies? I know thing have changed now, but were there similarities then?
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Followup To

Question -
In regards of the New Testament, during Jesus lifetime.  I read a small amount of information relating to marriage.  What are the similarities of marrige between Judaism and Christianity?

Answer -
There is only a very small amount of information about marriage in the New Testament. And basically they are the same in both testaments.  Jesus repeated the Old Testament command from God and St. Paul later repeats it.

Matt 19:4-6
(Jesus said) 4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'   5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."


Eph 5:27-31
(St. Paul said) 28  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church- 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
(from New International Version)

There were also many  TRADITIONS. And some of these  changed, but they were not ordained by God.  Besides this, there are a few passages which clearly tell us that a person is to have only one husband or wife.

If there is some specific part of marriage that you wanted to know about, please write again.

Answer
Yes, most traditions remained for some time. This is the way of traditions; to just come and go and later be replaced by new traditions over the years.

At Jesus time, engagement was considered to be tantamount to marriage.  Once the pledges were made, they were considered to be married..without all the marital benefits.  You may have noticed that the Virgin Mary was "engaged/betrothed" to Joseph...not yet married.  And yet when Joseph learned she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit he determined to "divorce" her.

The other tradition that we read about in the Bible were the happy and as-expensive-as-possible celebrations they had in both testatments.  Jesus FIRST miracle was changing water into wine at a wedding.  And Jesus used parables about weddings when teaching of relationship of Christians to Christ.

I don't know where many of the modern traditions of the Hebrew weddings which are now practiced come from. And Christian wedding now to vary greatly from one ethnic group to another.