The Lord commanded Hosea to take a wife of adultery. According to Christian scholars, is this text symbolic or real?

 And your Lord is not unjust to His servants. Therefore, when a Christian comes and reads the Bible and finds that God commands one of His prophets to commit adultery, it is natural that this is something in the book until he wakes up from what is in it and knows that this book is not the word of God,

unlike a person who opens a book and reads ( You alone do we serve, and You alone do we ask for help ).

The difference is great.
Let us now read the story of the God who commands the prophet to take a wife of adultery.

This is inside the Bible. Let us read the story:
Hosea 1/2-3
(The first thing the Lord spoke to Hosea was that the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of adultery and children of adultery, for the land has committed utter adultery, forsaking the Lord!” So ​​he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.)

Is this story that Christians read a non-existent story and just a symbol or is it a real story?!!

Symbolic interpretation failure

First, I must clarify that the symbolic interpretation is incapable and calls for distorting the meanings as its owner wants. This is what the Bible Readers Association confirmed in a book published by the Orthodox Bible House. This is its cover:

They witnessed this matter on the following page (1) :

From this page that we read, we find the failure of symbolic interpretation, and even find that this symbolic interpretation calls for distorting and interpreting the meaning...!

A story from the ground

Some ignorant people deny this story and say (it is a symbolic story) but it is a historical story that actually happened..!

Hosea really married a prostitute and this was by the Lord’s command and this is what the texts clarify and let us read the story with a better study:
(The first thing that the Lord spoke to Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of prostitution, for the land has committed great prostitution in forsaking the Lord! So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son . And the Lord said to him: Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will destroy the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.) Hosea 1/2-5

We read in the reality of the story thus that the Lord really called Hosea to take a wife of prostitution and indeed he went and took her and had children from her. It is a true story that was mentioned and proven historically in Christianity and even from the context of the text

Christian Scholars: The Story Is True

Although some people try to claim that the story is symbolic, there are many scholars who said that it is not symbolic, but rather that it actually happened, and this is what is confirmed by the applied interpretation, and it was said about it (2) :

Here we find that the applied interpretation states that the Lord is the one who ordered Hosea to marry an adulterous woman..!
Whoever claims that there is a consensus on the symbolism of the story is ignorant.

A problem that has nothing but distortion

Many of the prophets are adulterers and naked within the pages of the Holy Bible, but they always make excuses by saying that the prophets did something that the Lord did not say. The strange thing here in the story is that the Lord himself ordered his prophet to take a woman fornicating, but they thought a lot until they reached only one solution, which is to interpret the text and give it another meaning, which is symbolism. This is what shocked the scholars, fathers, and Christians, so they thought about changing the meaning of the text, and this is what Dr. Priest Samuel Youssef confirms when he said (3) :

Did scientists call for the symbolism of the story?

The truth is that Christian scholars did not call for the symbolism of the story, which denies its real occurrence, but rather called for it to be a true story and symbolic of other things, and there is much that proves this statement, and we will take as an example the introduction to the Jesuit monasticism (3).

We also find them talking about Hosea’s boldness in turning his own life into an example for Israel. This does not indicate that the story did not happen, but rather that the story did happen. However, despite it being true, it is symbolic for the people of Israel.

Gomer between accusation and symbolism

When I read from some that Gomer was not a prostitute but was only used as an example, I remember the words of God Almighty: ( And those who accuse chaste women but do not produce four witnesses - scourge them with eighty stripes. Do not accept their testimony ever after. And those are the wicked . )

It is as if the Lord of the Christians is accusing a chaste woman of adultery just to use her as an example..!

The truth is that Gomer is really the wife of Hosea whom God ordered to take while she was a prostitute, and this is what the editors of the Encyclopedia of the Bible confirmed when they said (4) :

It is as if this woman's honor has been violated and her image has begun to be ruined in front of her clan, and she is not a fornicator, but only a symbol...!

Orthodox Church: Symbolism is rejected!

Some Orthodox say that this story is symbolic, but this is rejected in the Orthodox Church. It is not a symbol, but rather it is the Lord’s command to Hosea to marry a woman of adultery, and this is what Father Antonius Fikry confirms when he said (5):

Thus, the Orthodox Church and its followers reject the symbolism of this story, but rather it is real and actually happened...!
Also , the same words were confirmed by Father Tadros Yacoub Malti when he said (6) :

( A few scholars believe that what was mentioned in this chapter and the third chapter was nothing more than a vision or a symbolic story, presented to the people to reveal the ugliness of their fall and their deviation from the worship of the living God and their betrayal of Him instead of adhering to the holy covenant with Him. Despite all this, God seeks them and wants to return them to Him, sanctifying them. However, the majority of scholars believe that what came here is a real truth and that God wanted the prophet to experience extreme bitterness with Him because of the deviation of Israel, and to declare to humanity the extent of God’s care and love for man .)

The story is a symbol and cannot be for God's priest..!

There are some who claim that the story could not have really happened to the priest of God because the priest of God does not marry a prostitute. They have proven this by a text in Leviticus 21/7 (They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they offer the food of their God made by fire to the Lord; they shall be holy. They shall not take a woman who is a prostitute or a woman divorced from her husband, for she is holy to her God.)

They have proven this by this text that according to the law, a priest cannot marry a prostitute. The editors of the Applied Interpretation responded to them and said (7) :
( No priest according to the law of God can marry a prostitute, except that Hosea was not a priest .)

And as we found all these labyrinths of desperate attempts by the masters of religions and the ignorant to transform the meaning of adultery into a symbol and distort the image of the wife of the prophet Hosea and her husband, and these are nothing but accusations against the prophets only, but every Christian must accept the story as it is.....!
As the writers of the Applied Interpretation confirmed when they said (8) :

So, my Christian friend, would you accept that the prophets of God be described with these attributes?!
Remember well what Christ said: ( O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent )

Is it far-fetched for the killers of the prophets to distort their book in order to show the whole world the morals of those they were trying to kill?
The Jews, according to their book, described the prophets with attributes that no normal person would accept.
The book of the Jews describes the prophets as having committed adultery.
The book of the Jews describes the prophets as having committed incest .
The book of the Jews describes the prophets as being homosexuals with each other.
The book of the Jews describes the prophets with attributes that no Christian would accept for the messengers of Christ!!

So why do you accept this talk about the prophets of God?
And God willing, we will have more if any Christian friend responds to this talk...

(1) How to Read the Bible - Bible Readers Association - Page 59 - Distribution of the Bible House..
(2) The Applied Interpretation of the Bible - Participated by a large group of Christian scholars - Page 1715.
(3) Introduction to the Old Testament - by Father Samuel Youssef - Page 344 Deposit No. 7880/1993.
(3) The Holy Bible - Translated by the Jesuit Monks, Page 183.
(4) The Biblical Encyclopedia - Letter J, Gomer - Page 591 - Deposit No. 8778/1998. Part Two.
(5) Interpretation of the Book of Hosea - Father Antonious Fikry, Church of the Virgin Mary in Fagala - Page 5.
(6) From the Interpretation and Reflections of the Early Fathers - by Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty - The Book of Hosea in his interpretation of the text of Hosea 1/2.
(7) The Applied Interpretation of the Holy Bible - by a group of theologians - page 1714
(8) The Applied Interpretation of the Holy Bible - by a group of theologians - page 1714.