Here’s a clear, Scripture-anchored comment that answers the claim directly, without drifting into church doctrine or modern assumptions—very much in line with a Karaite, Tanakh-first reading:
This statement collapses once we actually let the Tanakh speak for itself.
In Scripture, marriage is not defined by a ceremony, contract, or later religious framework—it is consistently described through union, consummation, and household formation.
Again and again the text says some version of:
“He knew his wife, and she conceived.”
That language is not incidental. It is the biblical marker that a marital union has occurred.
Consider the patriarchs:
Isaac took Rebekah, she became his wife, and he knew her (Genesis 24:67)
Jacob went in to Leah and Rachel, and they bore children
No priest, no vows, no covenant formula is narrated—yet Scripture unambiguously calls them wives
The Torah never presents marriage as an abstract covenant detached from physical union. In fact, sexual union is the act that establishes the marital bond, not something separate from it.
That does not mean sex is casual or meaningless—quite the opposite. The Tanakh treats it as powerful and binding, which is why adultery is condemned and why sexual boundaries matter so much.
Calling sex and marriage unrelated is not biblical caution; it’s a post-biblical redefinition. Scripture does not separate what it repeatedly joins.
If marriage were purely a covenant independent of union, the Torah would say so plainly. Instead, it consistently shows marriage recognized through taking, knowing, and building a household.
So the issue isn’t that Scripture is unclear.
It’s that later theology has tried to sanitize, formalize, or abstract what the Tanakh presents as concrete and embodied.
Read the text closely.
The pattern is there—over and over.
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