I was endeavoring in my citation to give passages which elaborated not only the conclusions but also the thought processes which brought certain luminaries to those conclusions. Like Tony? Not at all.

Augustine and Calvin denied this interpretation. There is nothing prior to Numbers 12 about the death of Zipporah, and so we must assume that this chapter refers to her. Zipporah was a Midianite, and her people were related to the Hebrews through Abraham’s wife Keturah. The Midianites lived in the land of Cush, which is modern-day Ethiopia. The 1599 Geneva Bible agrees: “Zipporah, Moses’ wife, was a Midianite, and because Midian bordered on Ethiopia, it is sometimes referred to in the scriptures by this name.” As Matthew Henry writes, the sedition of Miriam and Aaron was “because of Zipporah, whom on this occasion they called, in scorn, an Ethiopian woman, and who, they insinuated, had too great an influence upon Moses in the choice of these seventy elders.” (Harry Seabrook in his response to John Piper)

And BigCalvin, I think I finally understand your meaning. You’re asking how we can know for certain that the fleshly commonality between Adam and Eve necessitates normative racial commonality in the here and now(?). Well, as I’ve said, between Moses and Paul it seems that the creation mandate regarding congenial kinds (Deut.22:9-11) extends into the biological/ taxonomical as much as it does to the covenantal/ familial. Really, by nature of heredity, the two categories overlap. Therefore, acknowledging as we do the bio-familial nature at work in the covenant of marriage, its hard to fathom how we might take from Gen. 1 & 2 that obvious dissimilarity between man and wife be acceptable. It simply cannot be said to comport (in the full capability of man’s stewardship) with the example of the first union.
Words like “Helpmeet” (mirror, reflection) and phrases like “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh…” simply demand of us a serious and categorical pursuit of like kind. Anything short of this interpretation smacks of “hath God truly said?” (Gen.3) Really, that seems to be the nature of Christ’s dialogue with the Jews in Matt.19— notice, they weren’t attempting to deny any overt commands of the creation ordinance against divorce but rather the implications of the first union as a normative template. He was chiding them for their lack of necessary inference from the text.

Take for instance someone who marries his Grandmother (I know, ick, but bear with me) — where does the Bible explicitly forbid such a union? It doesn’t — atleast that is, not outside of implication from the creation ordinance and the multipurpose prohibitions against unequal yoking as an extension thereof. Now what if this strange someone insisted that his Grandmother is a Christian woman (maybe even still in her childbearing years) and thus fulfilled all explicit requirements for a wife? Would we consent? If his assumptions are in any way faulty, so too are those of mixed-race marriage. And accordingly, if mixed-race marriage is vindicated upon the premises which you’ve set forth, so too then is the man who marries Grammy and with him a plethora of other unusual circumstances follow. Remember our discussion of the Christian man wanting to marry a ten year old girl? It also applies.

We also garner further definition of “Helpmeet” by further textual example:

“This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.” (Gen.6:9)

Now, some take the above word “generations” as we might use it today to mean the generation in which he lived but this is demonstrably a false assumption by way of its previous usage in-text:

“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,” (Gen.2:4)

Now here’s what Calvin says concerning the meaning of “generations”:

“These are the generations. 9 The design of Moses was deeply to impress upon our minds the origin of the heaven and the earth, which he designates by the word generation. For there have always been ungrateful and malignant men, who, either by feigning, that the world was eternal or by obliterating the memory of the creations would attempt to obscure the glory of God. Thus the devils by his guiles turns those away from God who are more ingenious and skillful than others in order that each may become a god unto himself.” (Calvin’s Commentaries on Gen.2:4)

That is to say that the “perfection” of Noah in his “generations” had to do with his line of descent as a Sethite, separate from the line of Cain. And as we’ve spoken of before, the Patriarchs all follow suit by their refusal to takes wives for their sons from among any other than the Semite race. You may opt to say that they were precluded from intermarriage with Canaanites specifically as a people bound for annihilation but that doesn’t resolve the issue as there were plenty of Japhethites in the vicinity also. But still the people of God were motivated by some moral conviction to strictly marry kindred.

I know I wasn’t able to respond to everything this time around but I live the days of my labor on the minute hand of a clock. I hope to address more of what you had to say at a later time.

How is mixed marriage a violation of the 5th and 6th commandments?
Saying it doesn’t make it so. Come on Edud…marriage to a non-white is a sin if my father is white? I suppose it could be a kind of sin if I disobey him when he commands me not to marry a non-white, but it may also be a sin for him to command it. That begs the whole discussion….

As for mixing fibers and mixing with unbelievers…that I agree is a nice way to make the inference. I agree totally. Apparently Paul is explaining the meaning of these seperatness laws: Prefiguring of the strict seperation of believers from non-believers. The Sons of God, the Race of the Redeemed…must never be yoked with the Sons of Men or the pagans.

On Congeniality:

Moses to Paul: veggies to marriage. Good. We agree. The thing we don’t agree on is that race is an essential difference such that mixing it is a sin. You claim that it is just like mixing with an unbeliever and not honoring your father. That is the thing yet to be proved E-hood.

Now I’ll leave in your Timothy citation. It’s good.
1st Tim.5:7-8
“7 And these things command, that they may be blameless. 8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Again, you are begging the question. Those of his own household means those of his own household. He goes from “his own” to “his own household”. Wider to narrower. His own is the important point. His own could be expanded indefinitely. Where does it stop? Paul means relatives, then relatives under your care. Relatives could be expanded indefinitely, but we all know who relatives are. In fact, many have relatives of other races. Both you and I do. Again question begging.

If you still consider the specifics of the first marriage descriptive only rather than prescriptive also I think you argue with Jesus on the matter. And if you’re unwilling to acknowledge presciption where God has so clearly called us to take a thing as templative example you wind up foregoing our Knoxian understanding of Rom.13 for it surely has less in it to lend toward prescription than had Gen.1 & 2.

As for any “Unwritten Ten Commandments”, I in no way intend to insinuate such a thing. I do however intend to acknowledge that there exist many applications of the decalogue which we must reason out of the scripture as a whole. We nolonger fence rooftops but we do fence swimming pools for the sake of stray children. Are we therein partaking in a set of “Unwritten Commandments”? No. They are written plainly enough. But again, this is Christ’s issue with the Jews in Matt.19 who refused to acknowledge the necessary implications of God’s example for the family. Any violation of the institution as exemplified in the creation would then accordingly violate some measure of the decalogue also. To the issue in dispute I beleive the fifth and perhaps the seventh commandments are transgressed in mixed-marriage. If there is in some way a disregard for the Father (earthly or heavenly)in our bridegrooming it also undermines the concept of marital fidelity.

You could persist in calling it “weak” but if so it must be asked what connection you beleive Deut.22:9-11 has to the Ten commandments(?). First or second tablet? You may defer to say its ceremonial but if you do you’ll be arguing with the Apostle Paul who identifies it as pertaining to marriage in 2 Cor. 6:14.

9 Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. [a]
10 Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. (Deut.22:9-11)

It’s an acknowledgement of what Rushdoony called “congeniality” of kind as a directive amidst the creation. As God’s Viceroy on earth man’s role is in part to categorize and steward the myriad differentiations in the world. Again, where Moses applies it to a mundane swath of biological things, Paul applies it to Marriage. And…

1st Tim.5:7-8
“7 And these things command, that they may be blameless. 8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

…Paul reinforces the notion of ethnic responsibility to the families of our nativity.

Out of time. Gotta go—

As for a woman reflecting her husband, the argument that she should look like him is a whole bunch of nothing. It is to place a premium on cosmetic differences. You know it, but you still press it. Having no actual command in the Bible of course forces you to insert race into passages that give no indication that they are about race. It is really more like wishful thinking. Please meet the mentioned task: Where does the Bible forbid interracial marriage? I know, it nevers says trinity…but there are plenty of passages that make the doctrine clear. “Inference” is not license to put the meaning you like in. There are good inferences, bad inferences, and shaky inferences. Good ones are supported by “logical” inferences and sometimes even deductive. Bad ones are when you assume as a premise what you intend to prove. Shaky ones…well…somewhere inbetween…tenuous inductive and cumulative arguments.

There is no logical reason to assume that all things being equal, pigmentation and skull structure is a major component of “congenial”.

The fact that you can quote Rushdoony, Calvin, Machen, et al…, does not prove your point. It only proves that they agree on some point with you. You know this. The hard work would be to prove this thesis with the text of scripture first. You sound a lot like Tony. Seriously, quoting people who agree with you, without any actual exegetical argument is a waste of bandwidth.

I will exercise my excuse at this point: I am in a law school class while typing this and I should be paying more attention. My attention is split, so I may have made some serious blunders in responding to the man with a hypertrophed left forearm.