What Does the Bible Say About Polygamy?

Debate Notice: Well-known Mormon polygamist Leland Freeborn debates Bob Enyart, the author of this article and pastor of Denver Bible Church.

What does the Bible say about polygamy? And while Christians should oppose polygamy, why did it occur so often in Scripture?

God officiated the first marriage by creating one woman for Adam, and in establishing marriage He stated that "a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Gen 2:24). And the nearly balanced birth ratio of boys and girls provides evidence that God designed human beings for monogamy. However, the Bible has many references, negative, neutral, and even positive, to polygamy. Why then do Christians stand almost unanimously against a man simultaneously having two or more wives?

New Testament: No known New Testament believer lived in polygamy and a careful look at Scripture indicates directly that, by New Testament times, polygamy was not considered acceptable moral behavior. How so? The standards of morality (like self-control and humility) for bishops, elders, and deacons in the epistles of Timothy and Titus apply not only to church leaders, but to all Christians. Atheists and other Bible critics claim that verses like those cited below imply that polygamy was allowed by the New Testament apostle Paul for ordinary Christians, because he prohibited it only for leaders. If that interpretation were valid, however, then Paul was also saying that generally it would be fine for Christians to be violent, greedy for money, quarrelsome, and have unruly children, which is nonsense. Paul's standards for elders can not conceivably support such a twisted claim. And likewise, the Bible's command against adultery with a neighbor's wife does not permit adultery with a neighbor's husband. That kind of error illustrates a false antithesis like the logical fallacy of the excluded middle, what KGOV.com calls the "false opposite." Just because the text speaks of wives, does not infer that the principle is inapplicable to husbands. Likewise, because Paul prohibits being violent for leaders does not mean that he supports it for followers. For Paul wrote that church leaders:

must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence... 1 Timothy 3:2-5

The primary difference between church members and church leaders is that, in order to be appointed a leader and maintain that office in good standing, a church leader must actually live the Christian life. The prohibition of polygamy in the New Testament for church leaders does not present a "higher" standard of holiness for bishops, for there is only one standard of holiness: being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. As presented in the epistles, holiness includes sober living and self-control. Are these behaviors only recommended for pastors, whereas other church members are permitted to drunken outbursts of anger? No. When the biblical standards for elders prohibit polygamy and require leading an orderly household (see also 1 Tim. 3:12; Titus 1:6), does that mean that God is happy with others having disorderly households and disrespectful children? The biblical requirement that a church leader be the husband of one wife translates literally from the Greek phrase as a one-woman man. That idiomatic expression for monogamy also serves as a general condemnation of promiscuity. This is important to realize, for otherwise the biblical qualifications for leaders would have been omitted reference to one of the most important matters, general sexual immorality. However, they do address such immorality by way of this dual-purpose expression. An elder must be a one-woman man, that is, not a polygamist, not an adulterer, not a womanizer. Similarly, in the Mosaic Law, there is not a higher standard of holiness for priests, although God does impose upon them various symbolic ordinances to point forward to the great high priest, Jesus Christ.

Just like the standards for bishops and deacons, the Levitical priesthood could not require a higher standard of holiness because the only valid standard of holiness, for all believers, is God Himself. There can be no standard higher than Him. Three times Luke refers to Him as the Highest. What then of the qualifications for the priesthood? The Bible student can easily identify the symbolism in the priestly regulations of Leviticus 21, and realizes that they do not infer something that does not and cannot exist, namely, a higher standard of righteousness:

The qualifications and regulations for priests do not imply a higher standard of righteousness, for there is no such thing. Therefore also, because there can be no higher standard of righteousness for church leaders, the New Testament's prohibition for polygamy among church leaders applies also to all believers: thus traditional Christian teaching opposes thievery, murder, polygamy, drunkenness, etc.

Old Testament: Polygamy was widespread among God's people, including the great patriarchs of the faith. While polygamy is not affirmed in the New Testament, it occurred in many cultures and polygamy was practiced by Old Testament beleivers and others including Lamech, Abraham, Esau, Jacob, Ashur, Gideon, Elkanah, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Jehoram, Joash (Jehoiada), Ahab, Jehoiachin, Belshazzar, and Ahasuerus. Further, the Mosaic Law specifically permitted polygamy at Exodus 21:10, Leviticus 19:20 and Deuteronomy 21:15-17.

After the Fall, the paradise faded and sin and its consequences pervaded all aspects of the human experience, from marriage and child raising to commerce, and so on. God responded, for example, by permitting child discipline including spanking, which would not have been so from the beginning. He instituted and regulated criminal justice including restitution, flogging and the death penalty. In family law God regulated divorce (Ezra 10:3; Deut. 24:1; Mat. 5:32; etc.). These consequences of the Fall were not so from the beginning (Mat. 19:8), that is, they do not reflect God's original design for innocent mankind.  As Jesus said, God permitted divorce, "for sexual immorality" (Mat. 5:32; 19:9; etc.) which includes abandonment (1 Cor. 7:4, 15, 9, 27-28; Ex. 21:10-11) for the marriage covenant is destroyed by sexual immorality which includes abandonment.

Thus God regulated behaviors that He had not originally designed: spanking, the death penalty, polygamy, slavery, etc. (See for example this author's article on Slavery in the Bible and God and the Death Penalty.) But why would God permit polygamy in Old Testament times? After the global Flood, the earth was such a hostile and lawless place that women simply could not survive on their own. A woman effectively had only four options:
   1. live in her father's house
   2. live in her husband's house
   3. live as a slave
   4. live as a harlot

Outside of living in one of these options, a woman faced only death. God permitted polygamy and concubinage, which is an expansion of option two above, out of mercy to women and because of the wonderful and intense desire He put within women to raise children. As in Scripture (and implied by scant secular archaeological extra-biblical references), in the centuries after the Flood life expectancies plummeted. (Incidentally, plummeting life expectancies explain why Egypt's Pharaohs spent their lives and their massive wealth building pyramid tombs while obsessing about their deaths, and they thereby set a precedent which other emperors later mimicked to show their grandeur.) Postdiluvian fathers died younger and younger, and the ruins of ancient walled cities still testify how commonplace was the mass killing of men from plundered villages. Yet a woman simply needed a man to survive. Thus Scripture never permitted polyandry, whereby a woman would have multiple husbands. However out of mercy toward women, God regulated polygamy.

By the time of the New Testament, mankind had progressed sufficiently that even though a woman would still have a hard time surviving on her own, she could be supported by the infrastructure around her, not governmental though, as with Nimrod and Marx, but by her extended family, fellow church members, friends and neighbors. Thus the standards of acceptable behavior for all men, as revealed by God through the writings of the Apostle Paul, standards that must be adhered to among church leaders, include self control, sobriety, and being at-most, "the husband of one wife."

By Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

See Also: See Pastor Enyart's article on Slavery in the Bible and his debate with a well-known Mormon polygamist Leland Freeborn. Also, hear Bob Enyart's interview with Newsweek's Lisa Miller, rebutting her cover story about homosexual marriage during which Bob caught her red-handed, having intentionally misrepresented the Bible when instead of quoting Scripture directly, Ms. Miller quoted a secondary source that she knew to be incorrect.