EROS MADE SACRED
OR
THE BIBLICAL CASE FOR
POLYGAMY
(Public Domain Edition)
by
J. Wesley Stivers
Copyright (c) 1991
Stivers Publications
83843
EROS MADE SACRED or THE BIBLICAL CASE FOR POLYGAMY.
Copyright (c) by
Wesley Stivers. All rights Reserved.
Library of Congress #TX-3-189-734
Published: 1991 in
the
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“To the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith”, this 17th day of December, in the Year of our Lord, 2005, J. Wesley Stivers
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
INTRODUCTION
7
POLYGAMY: A BIBLICAL CUSTOM 11
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 13
IN FAVOR OF POLYGAMY 35
THE MINISTRY OF THE PATRIARCH 47
POLYGAMY AS A TOOL OF CHRISTIAN DOMINION 51
FEMINISM, MONOGAMY, AND WITCHCRAFT 55
CONCLUSION 69
Appendix A 71
Appendix B 74
PREFACE
The task lies before me in preparing this study to give some account and explanation for an opinion on marriage which I have adopted in recent years - one which breaks away radically from what Protestants have come to accept as Christian. I speak of marriage in the form of monogamy.
I have become an opponent of enforced monogamy, but not to the destruction of marriage as an institution and ordinance of God. Unlike the erotic revolt by mainline Protestants, I do not view favorably the "alternative" lifestyles of adulterers and sodomites; such practices are under God's judgment. My departure from the tradition of monogamy has been set on a different course. I have become a vigorous advocate of polygamy.
Some people reading these pages may be scandalized by my assertions. They may self-righteously deny my conclusions. But they cannot refute my arguments. One does not assault a universal and time-honored tradition without convincing and overwhelming proof. I have such proof. And this study is a brief summary of the evidence which I present to you for examination.
Notwithstanding my boldness, I still acknowledge my position as propositional. While my mind is convinced to the point of conviction, yet I am open to debate on this issue. Certainly, others are under no moral obligation to follow my course of thought. The message must be tested before it is received.
The following is part of a continuing work on the sex and marriage customs of the Bible. My position on polygamy will be the most controversial and revolutionary part; yet will also represent the active mechanism in cleaning-up immorality - Eros Made Sacred. After you have caught your breath, please read this work judiciously, and then subscribe to my newsletter, The Family Spokesman,* where I will publish serially the results of my research. Subscription information can be found at the back of this book.
Wesley Stivers
March, 1991
INTRODUCTION
Before proceeding, let me offer a brief account of my conceptual growth on this subject.
Early in my Christian walk - while yet a child - I became an enthusiastic student of the Holy Scriptures. And I suppose, like most readers of the Sacred Writ, I wondered how it was that some men of the Bible had more than one wife. Questioning my mother, she satisfied my curiosity with dispensational arguments: "The men of the Old Testament lived under a carnal understanding of Divine things, so God ‘winked’ at their sometimes fleshly ways. But now, God expects more of us."
My next encounter with the subject of polygamy occurred while reading a book of my grandmother’s, written by the esteemed author on world missions - Roland Allen. In The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church (p. 67), he argues for a tolerance toward the polygamy of newly converted pagans:
Polygamists might have been on the right side rather than on the wrong. If their wives had not been made the objects of the missionary attack; if, when they learned to believe in Christ, they had been accepted as Christians; the ideal [monogamy] would have been before them not as something inimical, to be hated and dreaded, and resisted, not as a monstrous and tyrannical imposition but as an ideal at which they might safely and wisely look.
But this quiet growth we have declined in order to obtain a present immediate victory. [Referring to the Anglican policy to break-up polygamous households]
My first surprise in reading these words, as I was able to confirm later from other sources, was that there are women in the world who consider monogamy as something "to be hated and dreaded". It was many years before I was able to solve that mystery.
My greatest surprise with Allen’s arguments, although clearly on the side of monogamy, is that he takes polygamy out of the realm of morals and puts it into the realm of values. By this, I mean, polygamy is merely a bad custom which growth in sanctification will eventually remedy. It is not a moral crime on the level of murder, theft or adultery. The question is not a matter of good or evil, but poor, better, and best. While Allen would no doubt be uncomfortable with such an interpretation of his statements, the deduction is unavoidable. If polygamy is really a moral evil on the level of murder or adultery, we cannot imagine any Christian insisting on anything less than complete and immediate repentance.
Allen’s position is typical of many Protestant theologians. My first serious study of the subject was R.J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law (p. 362-368), a Reformed theologian. He vigorously defends monogamy against polygamy, but as a preference of values, not as a moral issue:
It is thus
apparent that the law [of
Moses, WS] tolerated polygamy while establishing monogamy as the standard.
The reason for this tolerance was the fact that the polygamous family was still
a family, a lower form of family life, but a tolerable one. . . Biblical
law thus protects the family and does not tolerate adultery,
which threatens and destroys the family.
Following this statement, Rushdoony launches out into a long denigration of polygamy using sociological arguments. Again, we see here that it is a conflict of values and not morals.
There are other Protestant theologians who can be cited, but their approach is basically the same: polygamy is to be tolerated in primitive cultures. Newly converted pagans cannot be expected to rise quickly to the enlightened status of Western Christians. Breaking up polygamous families would be cruel. Polygamy is inferior to monogamy, but still superior to adultery, and other sexual sins.
It was not until I read Martin Luther that my prejudice against polygamy was disarmed. Not only did Luther defend polygamy as a remedy for fornication, but it was preferable to divorce (see The Babylonian Captivity of the Christian Church, and Heinrich Boehmer’s Luther in the Light of Recent Research). Luther did not stand alone in these opinions, but was supported by Melancthon and the Lutheran clergy in general (including his Catholic adversary, Cardinal Cajetan). In the words of church historian, Roland Bainton:
His own solution on occasion was bigamy. This he had suggested in the affair of Henry VIII on the ground that it had been practiced by the Old Testament patriarchs with divine approval and never expressly repudiated in the New Testament.
- The Reformation of the 16th Century (p.259)
This we have from the man who is responsible for the Protestant Reformation!
Following this discovery, I pursued an extensive study of the Scriptures to rethink all of the references pertaining to this subject. When it was completed, I was forced to conclude that polygamy was not morally evil nor was it inferior to monogamy. Like the celibate, each one has his vocation and gift. There is a Christian calling fitted for the life of polygamy: the ministry of the patriarch (discussed later). While most men will prefer to be monogamous and some will be celibate, others, however, are called to be polygamous.
As Providence would have it, while I was
struggling with the isolation these conclusions would impose upon me, I found
an old book in a used bookstore which added a completely new dimension onto
this subject (The History and Philosophy of Marriage: or Polygamy and
Monogamy Compared, E. N. Jecks.
1) Sexual passion is a gift from God to induce procreation and create the bond of marital kinship. In itself, it is not evil but good.
2) Sexual passion arises from our physical, not our moral nature.
3) Sexual passion is a physical need, which if neglected, leads to a diseased mind and body.
4) Sexual passion, when fulfilled, leads to wholeness and well-being.
5) Sexual passion can be abused and indulged to excess, as can any other good thing that God has made.
6) Sexual abuse cannot be left to human reason or tradition to define, but must be defined by God’s written Word.
7) Some people vary in sexual needs due to capacity, just as they vary in other areas of physical need.
8) God’s Word provides for such needs.
9) Promiscuity and uncleanness are never godly remedies for sexual passion.
10) Marriage is God’s remedy for sexual passion; polygamy is God’s remedy for inordinate sexual passion.
The remainder of the book is spent
comparing societies which have permitted polygamy as a legitimate form of
marriage with societies which permit only monogamy. He identifies enforced
monogamy as a pagan custom inherited from the Roman Catholic Church - which
incidentally, views concupiscence as Original Sin. The Roman Church inherited
monogamy from pagan
Jecks
declares that men, if denied the opportunity of polygamy, will turn to a
perverted and decadent sex. He also predicted the specter of abortion and
the destruction of family life in the
POLYGAMY: A BIBLICAL CUSTOM
Before proceeding with a point-by-point
study of the merits of polygamy and of the arguments against it, we need a
context for discussion. We need an authoritative tradition to use for
boundaries. On this issue, we have a choice between the tradition of the Church
Fathers and the tradition of the Old Testament. The New Testament seems to be
silent on polygamy, while Church Tradition stands opposed to it (excepting the
In the Hebrew Scriptures, we find both
monogamy and polygamy as accepted and even expected forms of marriage.
Commentators, embarrassed by the polygamy in the Bible, try to mute the subject
by insisting its practice was rare and abnormal. The record does not stand up
to that assumption. Polygamy was a custom practiced extensively among God’s
people.
An example of this fact is the near
universal practice of polygamy by the Israelites during their captivity in
That has no bearing upon this remarkable
fact:
22,273
families are responsible for a total count of over 600,000 fighting men
(Numbers
The patriarch Jacob required four wives to
get twelve sons. Is it too much to suppose that the typical Israelite needed
twice as many wives to get 28 sons? What about the daughters? If there was a
daughter for every son, then there were 56 children per Israelite household, on
the average scale. There is no way to know how many wives the average Israelite
may have had, but it is impossible that the average woman could have had 56
children. Israelite society was a polygamous society.
Nevertheless, quibbling over numbers would
be beside the point. For if polygamy is immoral at all, it is immoral always.
And if it happened only once in Scripture, with God’s approval, then we are
dealing with an ethical system utterly foreign to modern moralism. Moral
absolutes cannot have exceptions, else they are not absolute.
We are left with relativism. Thus, if we
make a dogma that moral marriages are, without exception, "one man with
one woman for one lifetime", it must exclude the Old Testament as a basis
for that dogma. For such a moral law does not exist there.
That God accepted polygamy can be demonstrated by His approval and exaltation of the men who practiced it. Abraham was "father of the faithful" and Jacob "the prince of God." David was a man "after God’s own heart" and Solomon the wisest man of all time.
Christians deny the world’s claim that we can separate a man’s greatness from his moral conduct. Immoral men are not great men. Yet, Christians use such a standard in judging the Patriarchs. They overlook Abraham’s concubines (a practice considered very wicked), and still call him great (Genesis 25:6, KJV). Is this not a double-standard?
But even the morality of it is not our concern here at this juncture. I merely wish to remind ourselves that polygamy was an integral aspect of Hebrew culture - Biblical culture. Consider how at variance our Protestant culture is with that ancient one. Today, polygamy by Christian leaders would create a scandal. In Bible times, it was expected as a normal display of God’s favor. Fundamentalists boast that they do not need the sex manuals of the Playboy generation. "We have our own book on sex in the Song of Solomon." Yet, ironically, it is a book written by a man who had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Additionally, the text itself depicts polygamy as a normal expression of sexual love (6:8-9). I think King Solomon has Hugh Hefner beaten.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
#1 - The Creation Ordinance
It has long been argued that polygamy is unlawful according to God’s creative purpose. God permitted it subsequent to the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, but under the restoration of the creation in Christ, there is no longer any excuse for it. The argument says that polygamy for Christians is a step backward into carnality and the "old nature". Monogamy is more spiritual (and for some, celibacy is more spiritual than monogamy). This exaltation of monogamy over polygamy, as I see it, is based upon a false view of lust. Lust is seen as evil; so the desire for polygamy is seen as excessive lust. Such an assumption ignores the procreative purpose of sex, which we shall speak to later.
The creative purpose of God for marriage
is stated in Genesis
The logic says that since God gave Adam one wife, then His intent was that man should have only one. A faithful Christianity will seek to know God’s intent and to obey the "spirit" of the law and not just its letter. God intended monogamy at the beginning. Christ reaffirmed it. And Christian ethics must follow. So it is assumed.
This objection, which is the most formidable one to polygamy, can be answered by three arguments:
First, it cannot be demonstrated from the text that its purpose is to teach monogamy. A false hermeneutic is being used here. The very next verse (25) says the man and woman were naked. Are we to assume it is teaching us the moral superiority of nudity? Is it too difficult to imagine that clothing would not have been invented were it not for the Fall? What about polygamy?
I do not believe we can find here any more of a moral law against polygamy than we can a moral law against wearing clothes. Clothing is used for purposes other than covering genitals. Our first parents would have observed, no doubt, the heavy fur coverings of other mammals (some mammals also are polygamous). They would have discovered the usefulness of coverings to protect themselves from the dew of the morning and to reduce the abrasion of manual labor. Digging and planting would have required shoes of some kind. Climbing trees would have been simplified by at least a loin cloth. Eve would have appreciated its ornamental value and Adam its usefulness in conveying distinctions of vocation and status. Nakedness is normal. So is wearing clothes.
In a pre-Fall world, polygamy may have been chosen, on occasion, as a personal preference. Polygamy is normal. So is monogamy.
The Creation Ordinance does teach monogamy, but only as an inference. Monogamy is normal. Using this Scripture to prohibit polygamy, however, is an unwarranted extrapolation, just as is the prohibition of clothes because Adam and Eve were naked.
Second, the primary teaching of this passage, as it is also used by our Lord (Mark 10:6-9), is the bisexuality of mankind. Just like the other mammals, man is male and female. Man is not unisex. He cannot be fruitful and multiply in a homosexual or androgynous manner. Mankind finds its social and sexual fulfillment in a sexual counterpart. What we see here is the foundation for marriage in general. The Creator intended procreation, and the coming together of the two sexes in a permanent union was necessary.
Third, polygamy was
not a consequence of the Fall, but would have arisen in a perfect world anyway.
God instructed the animals He created to "be fruitful and multiply"
(Genesis
Man faced the responsibility to engage in sexual intercourse and to "multiply". What are the demographic consequences of this fertility? In a perfect world, mankind would double every biological generation, at least. What would happen if we conservatively estimate a biological generation at twenty years?
If we accept the biological fact that females mature faster than males by two or three years, and mature psychologically by four or five. If we accept the premise that the average male does not have the economic independence necessary to support a family until he reaches his Biblical age of majority (20 years - Numbers 1:3; Leviticus 27:3), we can easily provide a 5-10 year age gap (or more) between males and females at marriage (in Bible days the spread was much greater). If males and females married at their earliest possible ages of maturity - 20 for the male and 13 for the female (or any age as long as there is an average spread of 7.5 years) - then there would be a male/female ratio of 1 to almost 1.4 among marriageable persons. That is an excess of females over males by 30%. We may conclude that in a perfect society, the ages of maturation and the pressures of population growth would require that a third of the households be bigamous. This estimate also assumes an equal birth rate for both sexes.
The above assumptions are not far-fetched.
Biological differences between the sexes have not been affected by the Fall of
Man. Rather, they have been intensified (Genesis
The Bible does
not require us, therefore, to think of the character and working of man’s
natural environment before the Fall as radically different than is presently
the case.
God gives his angels charge over the one who stands in his favor lest he should dash his foot against a stone (Ps.91:12). Blessing consists not in the absence of the potentially harmful stone, but in the presence of God’s providential care over the foot. Adam’s world before the Fall was not a world without stones, thorns, dark watery depths, or death. But it was a world where the angels of God were given a charge over man to protect his every step and to prosper all the labor of his hand.
-
As quoted by Gary North in
Is The World
Running Down? (p.124)
The above scenario is the only one which
can explain the polygamy of the Israelites in captivity. There were no
conquests and the taking of war brides. The infanticide of Israelite males, commanded
by Pharaoh, was unsuccessful (Exodus 1). Men exchanged daughters. Young men spent
their early manhood in a celibate condition, learning self-control and laboring
in their dominion task.
Later, having accumulated necessary capital to support a family and provide a dowry, they married. They married many wives - but not all at once. A slow process of family growth through polygamy is possible for the man; for he has a much longer reproductive life than the woman.
Polygamy is not possible in a static society or one of declining population. Outside the cataclysms of war, which greatly reduces the male population and creates an occasion for polygamy, polygamy requires an expanding economic base and a growing population. In other words, conditions approximating the pre-Fall world are ideal for the custom of polygamy.
With such arguments, I cannot see how the Creation Ordinance, even in a perfect world, could be used to prohibit polygamy.
#2 - The Sin of Lamech (Genesis 4)
Lamech was a seventh generation Cainite who killed a man and apparently took his wife. This is the first recorded instance of polygamy in the Scriptures.
From this episode, it has been argued that polygamy was the invention of a wicked race. And it is true that the wickedness of man has greatly increased the need for polygamy. War, sickness, and calamity take a far heavier toll on the male sex than on the female.
But we cannot argue from this instance that polygamy is evil. Murder is evil and that is what is taught in the text. Again it is bad hermeneutics to say that because Lamech was a bad man, then polygamy is also bad.
Lamech’s sons were also distinguished as inventors of tents, animal husbandmen, musicians and makers of musical instruments, and workers in metallurgy. Must we abandon these practices simply because they are the inventions of an evil race? I think not.
#3 - Domestic Discord
It has been argued that polygamy is evil in its influence upon spouses and children. The domestic discomforts suffered by the Patriarchs are presented as the fault of polygamy. Upon closer examination, however, such is not the case (see the book of Genesis for these accounts).
Much has been made of the rivalry between Leah and Rachel, sisters who were both married to Jacob. Whose fault was it? Rachel’s barrenness was the source of bitterness. And her barrenness was a sovereign act of God. God favored Leah because Jacob could not find the grace within himself to love Leah as he did Rachel. Jacob’s favoritism for Rachel and her son Joseph was the source of discord.
It is never mentioned in the text that a rivalry existed among the rest of Jacob’s wives: Leah’s handmaid Zilpah and Rachel’s handmaid Bilhah. Nor was there a rivalry among the sons of the respective wives. They all got along with Leah and her sons. Rachel and Jacob’s weakness for her and Joseph - this was the thorn of contention. Jacob’s intemperate and discriminate love was at fault.
Excepting Rachel, Jacob's wives illustrate what researchers typically find among women of polygamous households: they establish sisterhoods. Polygamous women are gifted with the social skills at working together. Their division of domestic labor provides them with sufficient leisure time for personal pursuits. I find it curious that women in monogamous cultures crop their hair short, while polygamous women grow their hair long and spend much time on it. The monogamous woman’s "harried" lifestyle (even with all the technological wizardry) still leaves her hair a nuisance. So, she cuts it off.
Abraham’s and Sarah’s bitter experience with Hagar and her son Ishmael is well known. But again, there is no hint in Scripture that bigamy itself was at fault. Hagar’s insubordination and contempt for Sarah, to the point of persecution, is what made the relationship unworkable (Proverbs 30:23).
We can explain David’s misfortunes to his murder of Uriah and his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, not his polygamy. Indeed, up to that unfortunate incident, we find all light. Following, "the sword shall not depart out of thy house" became a reality (2 Samuel 12:7-12). David’s crimes are not unique to polygamous cultures.
Solomon's apostasy toward the end of his life was not the result of having many wives, but for having foreign wives. These were women who brought with them their pagan beliefs and practices (1 Kings 11:1-8).
While we can demonstrate other explanations for the domestic discord in households which happened to be polygamous, it should be added that there is ample proof of discord among monogamous households in the Bible, as well. The rivalry of Cain and Abel, and Esau and Jacob come immediately to mind. All of these were children of monogamists. Domestic discord is a consequence of sin and is remedied by God’s grace, not by some unique form of marriage.
#4 - Old Testament Laws
And you shall
not take to wife a sister of your wife, to distress her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.
- Leviticus 18:18
The above passage is relied upon heavily by some commentators in prohibiting polygamy. This is because a case can be made for a translation rendered thus: "you shall not take one wife to another". Others see it as a prohibition of sister bigamy only.
Neither interpretation seems possible. In all the Prophets, it is never singled out for rebuke. We cannot imagine that bigamy never occurred. If it was a violation of Mosaic Law, its extensive practice surely would have been noted. It is never mentioned.
Consider for a moment that Leviticus
The above passage was not meant to prohibit bigamy or sister bigamy. The qualifying clause is "to distress her" - referring to the first wife. It is speaking against the man who marries a second wife to displace the first wife (Proverbs 30:23). We have Old Testament examples of this: Abraham and Hagar; Jacob and Rachel; Elkanah and Hanna. In each case, it was the intention of the man to show favorites or for the second wife to be preeminent. God sees this as persecution and judges it with barrenness (e.g. 1 Samuel 1).
The case of Elkanah and Hannah is useful in illustrating this point. Hannah was undoubtedly the second wife; for had she been the first, Elkanah would not have married another, in spite of her barrenness. He told her she was worth ten sons to him. Elkanah married Hannah, not for children, but for love. However, it was not a marriage his first wife approved, because it involved an alienation of his affections. Consequently, the LORD made Hannah barren.
What is prohibited here is not polygamy, but
polygamy without the counsel and consent of the first wife. This
principle is reinforced by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:4. In marriage, the man
surrenders sovereignty over his sexuality and shares it jointly with his wife.
Therefore, for him to belligerently engage in polygamy, it is a trespass
against his wife's claims upon the marriage and the covenant he made with her
before God (see Malachi
#5 - The New Testament Prohibits Polygamy
It is true that there are no New Testament examples of polygamy. Nor is polygamy openly taught. However, while it is not visible, one errs to say the New Testament prohibits it. The New Testament openly and vigorously condemns adultery, divorce, and fornication; but in the long chronicles of human depravity, not one mention is made of polygamy (e.g. Romans 1).
In every detail, the New Testament is entirely consistent with the Old Testament. Three references, however, have been construed by commentators to condemn polygamy.
The first is Matthew 19:9 - "But I say to you, whoever leaves his wife without a charge of adultery and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries a woman thus separated commits adultery."
It is really not appropriate to use this passage to prohibit polygamy. For the previous verse (8) tells us that the topic of discussion is divorce. Divorce is not polygamy. Nevertheless, commentators have used the language to teach against polygamy, because they suppose a man marrying a second time was considered an adulterer by our Lord. This hermeneutic is used by some religious groups to condemn as bigamy the marriages of widowers.
The obvious answer is that in this text, the man must leave his first wife to marry the second. That is what happens in divorce, but not polygamy. In polygamy the one flesh - cleaving - relationship is preserved with all the wives. Divorce requires the breaking of one relationship in order to establish a new one. It is that practice which is condemned by our Lord.
The second New Testament passage
used against polygamy is 1 Corinthians 7:2 (with repetitions in Ephesians
"Nevertheless,
because of the danger of immorality, let every man hold to his own wife, and
let every woman hold to her own husband."
Commentators reason from this passage, that a woman cannot have her "own" husband in a polygamous marriage. She shares her husband with other women. Thus, these Scriptures are used to support monogamy.
On its face, such reasoning seems a bit stretched. If the Apostle favored monogamy, why did he not come out and say so? He did not, and for a very good reason. It is because closer examination of these passages reveals the opposite to be true: Paul and Peter went out of their way not to implicate polygamy. Observe the Greek used here. In every case in which the man is the subject, the word is heauton. When the woman is the subject, idios is used (see Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words - Nelson, p. 455).
The above reference is rendered thus by The Expositor's Greek Testament (Vol. 2, Eerdmans, p. 822):
"Let each (man)
have his own (heauton) wife, and each (woman)
her proper (ideos) husband."
The word "own" for the man does not mean the same thing as "own" for the woman. Two different terms are used. Without going into a long word study, it is sufficient to point out that Biblical doctrine does indeed teach that a wife belongs to her husband exclusively in a sexual sense. But such is not the case with the husband. He does not necessarily belong exclusively to his wife.
To support this assertion, note that Titus 2:5 speaks of wives being "obedient to their own (idios) husbands." This is the same word used in 1 Corinthians 7:2. It is also used in Titus 2:9, four verses later, where Paul says "Exhort servants to be obedient to their own (idios) masters." We know that a master owns his servants exclusively, but servants share their master with other servants. Additionally, 1 Peter 3:1, 5 says that the Old Testament women had their "own" husbands. The next verse (6) refers to Sarah, who we know shared her husband with other women. From this evidence, we may safely conclude that the Apostles did not intend to enforce monogamy in these passages.
To the contrary, such carefulness in the use of words can only be explained by an effort to accommodate polygamy. Husbands do not share their wives with other men. But women may share their husbands with other wives.
The last passage used to prohibit polygamy is 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 (also Titus 1:6), which reads:
"He
who becomes an elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife . . . Let
the deacons be appointed from those who have not been polygamous. . ."
(Ancient Eastern Text)
I must admit my curiosity as to why this Scripture has been used as a standard argument against polygamy. On its face, it is clear evidence that polygamy was being practiced by New Testament Christians, although as extra-biblical sources tell us, it was practiced by the Jewish and Persian Christians, not the Greek and Roman ones. Greek and Roman law legitimized monogamy, not polygamy.
This Scripture is really a restriction, not a prohibition. Church officers were not allowed to be polygamous; laymen were. Commentators sometimes concede that point, but quickly add that this Scripture sets polygamy in a bad light in terms of its moral status. They lump polygamy with the other vices which disqualify men from the ministry: drunkenness, pride, greed, and so on. If these vices are bad for laymen, so is polygamy.
In reply, it should be pointed out that not all qualifications for deacon and elder are moral. The elder must be "apt at teaching" and "given to hospitality." These are not strictly moral. That a layman is not a scholar or an eloquent speaker does not disqualify him as a good Christian. If he is too poor to invite guests into his home, that is no reflection upon his status as a believer. So, we cannot necessarily make polygamy a moral issue here.
If polygamy be not immoral, then why were church officers prohibited from practicing it? There is a very good reason: nepotism. Nepotism is the granting of public favors by a government official to his blood relatives. This practice has been considered a misuse of a public trust in all societies influenced by the Bible. Unlike pagan cultures, the Bible presents public officers as ministers to the good of all. Their positions are not meant for personal gain. In the context of polygamy, a man who used his power as a public servant to establish a harem and a dynasty would create an enormous concentration of power into the hands of a single, dominating family. The opportunity of aristocratic tyranny is awesome.
That is why the Old Testament forbade
kings large harems (a law Solomon did violate), private armies, direct
taxation, and so on. Obviously, these privileges pervert the civil power and
create despotism (Deuteronomy
Since under the New Covenant the church is the training ground for civil magistrates and public dominion, its officers are not allowed to concentrate power in themselves by keeping a disproportionate share of the church monies or possessing an exceptionally large family through polygamy.
A public trust is a stewardship responsibility, and it is also a unique concentration of collective power. That power can be easily abused so must be guarded by careful restrictions. The prohibition of polygamy is one of them. Upon this principle, we may safely assert that polygamy is a right left only to the layman and private citizen. It is off-limits to the public officer, enfranchised individual, or any other person enjoying corporate privileges.
#6 - Polygamy Violates God's Types
Some commentators, finding precious little
evidence against polygamy, fall back upon symbolic theology. Specifically
they argue that polygamy violates the Son/Bride imagery of Christ and the
Church. Since a man represents Christ, and his wife the Church, he can have
only one wife. Christ, his example, has one wife - one Church (Ephesians
Further, it is argued that man, being made in God's image, should seek to continually reflect that image in his life. Since Cod is depicted as monogamous, so should man be.
To answer such arguments, it should be said first that symbolic theology is descriptive theology, not dogma. There is much value in it pedagogically - that is, it teaches doctrine so as to make its applications understandable. Like mathematics, it uses symbols to make the laws of reality - abstractions - visual to the mind. Mathematics does not invent physical laws; it describes them. Likewise symbolic theology does not create morals and dogma, it explains them. Therefore, it requires a revelation to work from; it cannot act as one in itself.
Second, without the boundaries of the doctrinal and preceptive statements in Scripture, symbolic theology can be used to prove anything. It becomes a theological form of quantum physics. I can use Biblical symbolism to prove polygamy.
For instance, in Ezekiel 23, God is
depicted as a bigamist, even a sister bigamist. In Ezekiel's
allegory, Yahweh is depicted as being married to two sisters, Ahlibah and Ahlah (
If a bigamist (or sister bigamist) is so evil, how is it that God could present Himself as one? Surely, a different allegory would have sufficed. The reason He could use such symbolism is because polygamy is not evil. Indeed, were symbolism all we had to go on, we could prove the validity of sister bigamy from this Divine example alone.
"So, God is a polygamist in the Old Testament. But the New Testament is the purer revelation. Christ is a monogamist there." Oh, really? If we follow the notion that the Church is the Bride, we must qualify it and say there are seven Brides; for there are seven churches (Revelation 1-3). Christ is also a polygamist!
My point is this: it is not appropriate to use symbolic theology to settle this issue, or any other moral issue, for that matter.
Finally, polygamy is not inconsistent with symbolic theology. The Trinitarian imagery of the Bible has precedence over the Son/Bride imagery anyway. The ontological Trinity is the very foundation of reality. Man, and collective man (the family), reflects that image first. A man belongs to a family before he takes a bride to form a new one. Trinitarian symbolism comes first in the Scriptures.
Polygamy does not violate Trinitarian
symbolism. The offices of father (ruler), son (successor), and Holy Spirit
(helper) are still reflected in the polygamous household. While there can be
only one father/husband, there can be many sons (heirs) and many helpers
(tutors/mothers). The Bible teaches one Spirit, yet also a seven-fold Spirit
(Ephesians
#7 - Polygamy is Evidence of Wicked Lust
This objection to polygamy results from a Gnostic view of lust which pervades Classical Christianity. The following reply is an adaptation from an article I published in The Family Spokesman, December, 1988. It answers the question adequately. I should add one supporting statement: Marriage is God's remedy for lust (1 Corinthians 7:2, 5, 9) and polygamy is God's remedy for great lust (2 Samuel 12:8). Celibacy and abstinence are never presented as long term remedies for lust. Such practices feed it to the point of uncleanness.
THE LUST OF THE FLESH
"But I say unto you, That
whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."
- Matthew 5:28
Just about every commentator I have ever read has misinterpreted and misapplied the above Scripture. And again, part of the confusion is based upon the translation. In the Creek and Hebrew languages, there are no separate words to distinguish a married woman from an unmarried woman (unless it is the word virgin, or the word widow). In all cases the Creek word is gune' which is translated "woman" or "wife". There is no way for the translator to know which way to translate it except by looking at the context. Sometimes, the context is not clear, so the translation is arbitrary. But in the above instance, the context is quite clear:
Jesus is talking about lusting after married women, because according to Hebrew ethics, a man cannot commit adultery except with a married woman.
Sexual relations with an unmarried woman is the sin of fornication, not the sin of adultery. It is entirely proper and necessary for a man to lust after his wife. It is entirely proper for a young man to lust for the woman he intends to marry. That may sound crude, but it is an obvious fact that the desire for sexual relations is the normal motive for men to marry. Were it not for sex, most men would not marry. And this is the reason why it is difficult to get men to marry today: the availability of sex outside of marriage is abundant. Why bother with marriage?