Is It Time to Rethink Polygamy? | Part 1

Genesis 2:24 as the Foundation for Marriage

You're supposed to do when you read these narratives is you're supposed to look at the foundational principles you see in Genesis 2 24 and then what you see when they vary from those foundational principles the damage that happens from it.

Right. So right. So this practice came from the ungodly line and then became normalized and every i mean every time the patriarchs are doing this it's just train wreck. Morning. The following message may be offensive.

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The Bible Bash Introduction and the Episode Topic

And welcome to bible bash where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your host harrison kerrigan pastor tim mullett and today we'll answer the age-old question is it time to rethink polygamy.

Polygamy and Polyandry Defined

Now tim as we kick this episode off what bible verse do you have to read for us that's related to the topic of polygamy.

Yeah sure. So. Genesis 2 24 therefore for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So there you go. Okay. Yeah so so i guess.

That's that's essentially the foundational verse for our understanding of marriage in the bible. Right. I mean it's it's pretty much right at the beginning almost you know of the entire bible god gives us a definition for marriage.

Is that right. Sure. Yeah. So i mean this is basically.

The verse that is brought up by paul and jesus at a variety of points when they're discussing the topic of marriage and basically i mean this this verse gives you everything you need in order to understand marriage and sexual ethics in the bible.

So when you when you think about the way that the bible addresses this topic this is the verse that's frequently brought up and when it's brought up it's brought up in such a way that like certain features of the verse are pointed out to reflect the nature of what marriage is the nature of what sexual sin is.

And i mean really you can go through the law and you can think about everything that the law says related to this topic and it's all built on this foundation. So this is the foundation for marriage that you find in the bible.

And you know this is where everyone gets everything. And so a lot of the inferences you draw i mean particularly related to you know old covenant laws about sexual immorality in general they're all built upon this foundation.

So you know when you think about what's actually happening there it says therefore man shall leave father and mother hold fast to his wife. So you have a man leaving his father and mother. Right. A lot of like jesus's symbolism like where he presents himself as like the bridegroom who is going to prepare a place for us.

You see how it's all built on this foundation. He's like he's going to prepare a place for us. Well therefore man will leave father and mother in order to prepare a place for a wife. And he's gonna get married right.

Hold fast to his wife. They will become one flesh. Uh verse 25 after that says the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. So a lot of like this is this is basically the foundation. So you have that formula there man leaving father and mother hold fast to his wife.

It says they will become one flesh. You know. But then when jesus talks about this verse in a variety of places he's gonna say and the two will become one flesh. If that makes sense so he's interpreting he's he's basically he's basically giving you the meaning of this this is he's and he's not just saying they will become one.

She's saying the two will become one flesh. So you know the logic of marriage is essentially one plus one equals two. I mean you can you can refute the idea of child marriages from this passage. Like in the sense that you have the words man and woman you can refute the idea of sodomite marriages lesbian marriages in this uh with this verse because it's a man leaving father mother holding fast to wife.

Um you know this tells you something about the nature of like the the importance of like the actual what's what marriage is is a sexual relationship. Two will become one flesh. Uh and then a lot of your sexual ethics are are going to be built upon this foundation too.

So i mean it's not a man like there was no helper found for man among the animals. So that refutes the idea no dogs no dogs. It's man. Yeah it's man like leaving father mother holding past your wife uh his corresponding helper that god has provided for him.

So this is basically just your foundational marriage verse in the bible. And and a lot of it seems a lot of the thought. Basically a lot of the thought i mean all of christian thought on marriage should be built on this foundation in one way or another.

And and uh so when we're discussing it you know this is this is the foundation for sure. Yeah definitely.

It's it's certainly a very robust verse right up. Um in terms of defining marriage for us because like you said there's so many things that are inherently condemned. Uh as uh you know not a marriage by this definition we're given.

Right. And so so it's certainly a very helpful verse. And obviously it's not the only thing the bible has to say on marriage. But then uh but then whatever whatever we think of marriage has to fall in line with this verse.

Essentially is that what you're.

Saying sure sure yeah and there's i mean there should be. Um there's a lot in there that later interpreters of the bible like particularly jesus and paul are bringing out that may not be necessarily intuitively obvious from the start.

Uh but then they're they're there and you should have seen them. So yeah this is. This is basically a foundation foundational verse for marriage related to this topic. We'll be referring to it a variety of times during this conversation.

I'm.

Sure right now uh you know the the topic of the episode is not necessarily marriage in and of itself but polygamy. So why don't we just start. I'm sure probably most people know um what polygamy is but just just so we can say that we've covered our bases.

Uh can you give us a definition um of.

Polygamy. And maybe mention to the the polygamy stuff. Yeah i mean so polygamy. Um polygamy is the so polygamy is the idea of having like multiple spouses. And then when you're thinking about that along the lines of polygamy polygamy is the idea of a man taking on more than one wife.

And then you have a term polyandry to describe a woman taking on more than one husband. So polygamy is you know in short it's just basically a concept of an individual having more than one person that they're married to.

Essentially so multiple marriages uh attached to the same person.

Right right yeah and you know this is just totally a side note but it kind of bothers me that two of the words sound really similar and then the third one sounds you know it uses the same poly but the it's polyandry instead of you know you have polygamy and polygamy.

I don't know something about that something about that. It's just like why didn't we all right. So what's.

Happening there is that these are those are kind of greek terms so polyandry andros means man and then uh okay and then like polygamy you know you have like the like the uh you know the word from basically yeah so basically you basically have like um like gune gune is woman wife and then andross is man.

So you know polygamy and polygamy so so all you're saying all you're saying right.

Now tim is i'm just not nearly as well versed in my greek as i need to be. Fail. Yeah next time just next time just say that for me. Just call me. Just call me stupid next time. Okay. It may seem irrational if you don't understand greek.

Why Christians Reject Polygamy

Yeah. Um but you know. Okay putting that aside. Um yeah. So so this idea of polygamy. Uh i think probably most christians they would pretty much like laugh or scoff at anyone who came along today and said that um you know polygamy is is something that we can do.

God you know god allows polygamy. Most christians would just laugh at that idea. They would they wouldn't really take it seriously. Um i think you know i i think maybe something that um they don't necessarily always consider is the fact that there is actually mentions of polygamy in the bible.

Like people practicing polygamy in the bible um and uh while you know while most christians i i think well pretty much all christians i think rightly so would condemn polygamy. It kind of seems like you know the more i've looked into it they might not actually know why.

Uh it should be condemned. Right. And and so that that's kind of what i'm interested in talking to you about and and asking some questions to try and give people a better understanding of um what the biblical view on you know polygamy should be.

Because you know i think i think probably most people may not even know the arguments that the you know pro-polygamy christian might give. So just as a summary can you know. What. What are some of the arguments that you've heard from the pro-polygamy christians in favor of polygamy.

Well yeah i mean we've had some.

Some uh political polygamists advocating christians um screaming at our account for the past few days some you know more in a good-natured way than others but a lot of them um yeah pretty um i don't know it's been strange to watch because it seems like a lot of them are struggling with basic reading comprehension skills as it relates to this this seems to be a pretty emotional topic for them.

But um yeah no i i i don't want to um i don't want to unfairly criticize like people across the board who might be sympathetic to this kind of concept and what i mean by that is just to say that there are different types of people who are sympathetic to these kind of arguments.

So i mean we're living in a society right now where we've basically successfully thrown out a christian sexual ethic at almost every single point and it's it's somewhat surprising that you're that we're still holding on to this concept of monogamy like i don't even understand how that's become sacred at this point particularly in a society where like open marriages are a thing right and you know quote-unquote bisexual people exist.

So like if you if you think about like a bisexual person and the logic of like the logic that's been used to advance same-sex you know mirage or whatever same-sex marriage like the idea that you must be able to express your sexuality in the context of marriage that's the thing that allowed for you know sodomite marriages but then when you think about it along those lines i don't understand why we're not at a point right now where a bisexual isn't allowed to express their sexuality in the context of a marriage and if they do that that's necessarily a plural marriage you understand.

So i don't understand so basically you're living in a society right now i don't know why we're still holding on to monogamy when we have no foundation for it anymore. But then yeah when you think about the topic of polygamy it is a topic that i would say for myself for many years i've i've i've had a like there's different postures on this meaning like you can have a i think most christians probably have a it's bad posture right.

And then they have no way of explaining anything that's happening in the old testament so it's just kind of a it's bad and part of that's good because it's like it's a posture that is basically just built on the genesis 224 kind of stuff right in the beginning god made them adam and eve he didn't make them adam and eve and um you know susan or something right whatever uh so i mean i think that that's kind of a good christian impulse to have but it may not go beyond that.

And then the you know then when you ask them to explain the arguments for defend their arguments they don't have anything you know at that point so i think that's one posture then there's kind of a posture that i've adopted for a long time which is just to say it seems like it seems very like overwhelmingly obvious that monogamy is the ideal but then like those passages in the law where god regulates polygamy and there's you know david had multiple wives solomon had you know ton right 700 wives are 300 wives 700 concubines whatever it was thousand wives total of different sorts so i it and it doesn't seem like it seems like god is regulating it if he's regulating it isn't that in some sense basically putting it in a neutral category so i don't want to go beyond what's written and therefore i'm not willing to just say it's wrong right.

So that would be my posture for a long time it would be kind of like a i'm not willing to say it's wrong but it's very unwise right. Um so like the one part one posture is just to say hey it's um it's absolutely wrong i don't really know why i mean you know that you could break that up into it's absolutely wrong.

I know why i've met almost and i can explain why and i don't i've met very few people who can give actually good answers to that. Uh then there's people then there's the it's absolutely wrong i don't know why then there's the i can't say it's wrong but it seems very unwise kind of position that i took for a long time and then i think there's a lot of people like that and i think a lot of people are in that i'm noticing the more that you interact on the internet there's a lot more people like that particularly of the they're the kind of person who can see all the sexual confusion out there can see all the different ways in which egalitarianism and feminism have taken over our thought in terms of marriage and everything else and they're basically saying like we've been wrong on so much like are we wrong on this too.

So i have a certain kind of sympathy for that kind of person. And then i think there's like there's the guys out there who um are not only is this like not not only is this uh permissible but this is like biblical marriage right like like that kind of idea like this not not just that i think it's permissible but unwise but it's like this is what god intended god intended for men to have multiple women and it's only like the um you know these like female worshippers out there who are uh ruled by the ruled by women essentially at this point living in the long house who are preventing us from taking you know the multiple wives that we deserved.

And i mean that kind of person i am legitimately a lot more concerned about than the middle category kind of person who basically doesn't have the arguments yet but maybe is thinking about it a lot more than the person who just rejects it without any thought.

You know like the kind of that kind of person is typically the kind of person who's looking at a lot of um looking at a lot of porn and like basically they've they've defined uh lust in such a way that they're never guilty of it and you know so they're basically kind of like the lust field kind of person who's just like hey yeah this is the way to go and we need to make it happen right.

Um and so they don't have any of the basic christian impulses towards guarding their mind and guarding their thoughts and and everything else at that point because they they really do believe that god would permit them to like to desire any unmarried woman they want right and then go make a wife out of her and so that that's the kind of person i'm more concerned about for sure but you're asking me what are their.

Arguments. Right. Yeah. What. Yeah just like a general overview over some of the more prominent arguments that they might make. Because because i think there's a lot of people out there who would.

Probably not even know what they are. Yeah so all right a lot of the primary foundational argument that they're going to make at that point is the argument that we've fundamentally redefined adultery.

So um like the idea is that like adultery under under this view. Right. And it's basically a jewish view that jesus came to rebuke. Okay so this was the jewish view that was alive at the time. But jesus came to basically give us a authoritative interpretation of exodus 20 which says you shall not commit adultery.

So jesus came along and gives us this authoritative definition. But what. What the the polygamy the pro-polygamy kind of view at this point is basically saying that it's basically taking that jewish view and sanctifying it and saying that's the right view.

Okay and so the right view would would involve a double standard like as it relates to the subject of adultery so meaning like like the jewish like the jewish view at that point and like the polygamous kind of view is that adultery means like adultery is when a man has sex with another man's wife.

So and then it's when a woman who is married has sex with anyone but her husband you see so there's an inbuilt kind of uh asymmetrical standard there right. So when the woman the woman can't have sex with anyone but the husband right now but then like the idea there is just to say adultery is when it's only like when it's with the man it's only when he's having sex with another man's wife essentially at that point.

So then like so under that because like the idea is that polygamy is okay so because polygamy is okay then that's your definition of marriage and i would say that like if you actually read through the old covenant laws there's nothing in the old covenant laws in particular like if you were just to start out with that assumption that there is that double standard that like the jewish like uh assumption there at that point you start out with that assumption and you read like a variety of verses within the law and what you'll find is there's nothing within like the laws themselves which seem to make you adopt the conventional view today.

Does that make sense like the conventional view today is adultery is when a married person has sex with someone besides their spouse whether man or woman. Right. So there's nothing within the pack. So when adultery is mentioned like that it's always mentioned in the context of a man sleeping with another man's wife.

Okay so that's yeah that's the big point that they're trying to make that's the big like that's the biggest point they're trying to make um and then you know then they're going to appeal to um just all the examples and i mean there's there's there's example after example of the patriarchs having multiple wives.

Old Testament Examples and the Pattern of Disaster

Right. Um right yeah so the and and you know like i i think i think the former argument is something to think about uh but then like this argument i consider this next argument like really bad like meaning they'll point to the arguments that they'll point to like the reality that the patriarchs had multiple wives and they'll say like we had a troll basically saying that on our account like well abraham had you know he he walked in god's statues and rules and everything else but then you know he had multiple wives uh hagar and sarah and you know therefore you're calling him evil or something it's like well he's not sinless.

This is a like this is the guy who um handed his wife over to the pagans because he was a coward you know yeah like the text says when he took hagar that he listened to the voice of and this was really interesting it says he listened to the voice of sarah and and just like adam listened you know because you listen to the voice of your wife it he listened to the voice of his wife.

It's the same phrase right. That happens you know um 12 chapters earlier or whatever. So i mean at this point like these are like the way you read narratives the way you're supposed to read narratives you're supposed to like like narratives will show you theology.

They don't necessarily tell you theology. There's not like an editorial note every time they do something bad says that was wrong. Right. So they'll do yeah and they shouldn't have done that you know as as like jacob swindles you know everyone and the whole point is through the story.

Uh you know that was the bad move that.

They just did right there you know. Like so you think moses literally kills a guy.

Yeah so and then i mean you could think about like that at every single point where moses is basically telling god like no i don't wanna i'm not a mouthpiece and god's like who made your mouth or whatever.

He's like i still can't do it. He's like okay we'll make erin do it then it's like well that was the man of faith right there you know so then you point it's like obviously they are but like this is not the way you read narratives.

You don't read narratives like that. But so the argument main argument is like adultery is being redefined and so like our definition of like adultery that everyone just assumes like you have sex with someone who's not your spouse.

They're saying that's like that's wrong. That's a redefinition argument. Two is like like famous people in the bible had multiple wives so therefore we can't throw them under the bus because god calls them at various points like um men of faith and you know walk righteous and walking in god's statutes and rules and everything else just like david you know so read through the law god god says that there was no king like him.

We walked in all the statutes and rules uh and everything else is like yeah but he also messed up a little bit and you see that in the narrative too. So i consider that a bad argument. Um the uh a lot of it relates to the fact that the law actually regulates polygamy in a way that is a bit surprising.

So i mean if polygamy is just like wrong if it's just wrong why is god regulating it. It would seem a lot simpler just to outright condemn it just to just to put a statement in the law that says you shall not do this period the end right.

So why why is that why why are why is it being regulated in that way and not condemned uh and so i consider that a better argument than the one i just mentioned um and then uh there's the like the idea i think they make a lot about like god uh saying to when god rebukes david for the bastiba incident he says that he gave him his master's wives right.

And if and he gave him you know lands and properties everything else. And if that was not you know if that wasn't enough i would have given you more. I mean the implied answer is it was enough. But um so the idea is then that god like is he's not condemning it like there's no condemnation then you're adopting the jewish definition of adultery.

And then what you're doing is you're basically um taking that like that kind of example god giving multiple wives to david as approval in that way of the whole idea. And then you basically do that in such a way as to ignore everything else you know so so yeah basically so like in like what i mean like when a person takes a modest more modest posture to say hey this always goes bad.

Like in the narratives it's always going bad. Um but i don't know that i can condemn it for some reason god's not condemning it that's but then to say that this is biblical marriage this is something that the bible is advocating it's like you know you have to read the rest of rest of it.

So so but that that would be those would be the main arguments that i've heard people making and considered myself um i mean there's more but i mean that's that's starting point for sure. Well yeah i i think.

I think one of the concerning aspects of everything you brought up for me is just the fact that you know i i mean where in the bible is polygamy mentioned in a positive manner. You know i mean every pretty much everything i can think of you know especially in the old testament obviously since that's where pretty much all of the mentions are going to be.

Um they are all negative. Like like there there's issues with all of them. Which makes sense because it just seems like you are. Because because i mean marriage is already hard. So anyone listening to this that thinks that you know maybe they're single right now and they're thinking just once i get married my life will be so much easier.

It's not you know i mean it's better it's for sure better but it's not easier. And so then you you think about adding in a third person even just one like a third person into that. That's really hard.

And then and then you've got to factor in like the you know think about um the rivalry that is tempting to be formed there and whatnot. It just seems like at best an incredibly unwise thing to enter into doesn't it.

Yeah i mean so i think this is where.

A lot of people who are flirting with this idea should actually spend more time reading through the narratives themselves like and just see how this goes you know so you think about what's happening like god creates man he puts him in a garden and you're supposed to get your fundamental theology of what marriage is on the basis of what you're finding there you know.

So that's going to tell you everything that marriage is. Like that's the foundation like and it's just it's the thing is it's so central to the story of the bible meaning like you have genesis this book of origins right.

At the beginning right. That tells you like who man is why he's here what god's purpose is for him and everything else. And so i mean i i think if you just let's let's refute these arguments but then one by one but let's take a step back and talk about what you're talking about like why it's bad like you know why it's presented as bad like in an obvious way well i mean like think about like the foundation of the bible foundation of the bible is god creates man he puts him in a garden so working to keep it right.

He's given dominion over the animals he said he god declares him be fruitful multiple i fill the earth and subdue it. So he's he's given dominion over the animals he's made a ruler of the planet right.

And then god says it's not good so i'm going to make what does it say make a helper fit for him. Right. Think about that i'm going to make helpers fit for him. I mean you just have to read like just read the story man you know like read the story what does it say.

I'm going to make a helper suitable for him. And who is the helper suitable for him. Well the helper suitable for him is a woman right. Yeah. And so part part of um and then so like god like before he makes woman like he parades the animals in front of him.

And because man is a ruler of the animals man names all these animals right. So man names the animals and then it says there is no helper found for him from among the animals. So god's going to make a helper suitable for him like singular helper suitable for him.

There's none to be found from the animals. So he puts him to sleep he takes a rib out of him right. He makes him he turns that into not two women to be two helpers for him right. But one woman. So he he he hands this one woman to him right.

He's going to be this helper fit for him. That's obviously the story that uh you and then adam like so notice how like adam names his wife right. And you think about like the new like the new testament theology of marriage and everything else that they're picking up on all these details that are in the text right there assuming that we should be doing so too like that it was just obvious from the beginning right.

So adam is create like adam is the head of the wife because he was created first and she was made for him right. So man was not made for woman. Woman was made for man. So you get the theology of who men and women are based on these small little details within the text like meaning like she was made for him that means she needs to be submissive to him and he names her right like and so he's the head of her just as he named the animals he names her right.

So the new testament authors are picking up on all these details that like some person who demands a certain kind of specificity um would ignore. Does that make sense. So you have you have like a person who like so like the idea of like what what the expectation of people advocating for polygamy is that you're going to have um you're going to have like a very specific kind of condemnations in order for you to draw certain principles.

But then all i'm trying to say is like look at the way the new testament writers interpret the old and at every single point they're picking up on all these details within the text that are right there that you should pick up on in order to draw certain conclusions that that were not even spelled out at the beginning.

Does that make sense. So i mean you like a lot of the conclusions that are drawn like a wife's submit to husband uh because like he is the head of the wife and she is um she's a helper fit for him because she was made for him.

He wasn't made for her. A lot of that wasn't even intentionally spelled out you know for the entirety of the old testament age but it was there and when jesus comes along he explains a lot of these things in paul and everything else and so like uh so but all right so you think about like what's happening there that's the foundation for what marriage is god creating a woman as a helper to man you know man being naming her and everything else so like he's gonna make this helper suitable for him he creates a helper suitable for him.

That's what he's designed the world to do and he says be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it. That's the story right. So then they fall under sin. And i mean you really don't have to i mean these are some things that you can as you're reading through the narrative it's really interesting because um so you read through these general genealogies and like a lot of there's a lot of things in the genealogies that people are generally uh tempted to miss basically so you know you think about genesis 5 -1 this is the book of the generations of adam when god created man he made him and it's like this male and female he created them and he blessed them he named them man when they were created.

So when adam lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and he named him seth. Right. So the day the days that adam fathered seth were 800 years and he had other sons and daughters.

Uh so like you have like these genealogies essentially so um and then they get down to you know verse 22 enoch walked with god. Uh enoch lived 65 years he fathered mezuzah. Enoch walked with god after he fathered mezuzah 300 years.

Um you know and you see all you see within like um adam's genealogy that you know at a certain point people began to call upon the name of the lord. And then when you read through the other you know the genealogy of cain what you're going to find is like this is the like this is the seed of the serpent right.

So the seed of the woman. This is one genealogy that's going to be borne out throughout the whole chapter of genesis. On the other hand like uh with a uh with cess genealogy you see the first instance of polygamy is going to be with lamek.

Right. So like the idea is like when lamek um like the idea is uh what's it called um lamek father's. Lamek's the first one who has polygamy like so this is coming from um from um cain's line so he has two wives atta and zilla.

And so like that's the first mention of polygamy. When you go through the narrative what you're going to find at every single point is that it goes bad. So you think about the story of abraham with sarah and hagar.

The Law, David's Wives, and Why Regulation Is Not Approval

Uh god gives certain promises to abraham that he's going to have like he's going to have a son. Right. He's going to have an heir through him. And they take matters into their own hands essentially. And you know sarah gives gives uh sarah like follows eve's example of you know giving him like the short you know the quick answer to this problem and all that.

So she gives his uh she gives her maid to abraham. And immediate i mean it's it's like i mean immediately what happens is now you have conflict that's introduced within the home right. So you think about that story all of a sudden she looked like hagar looks upon sarah with contempt because she was able to give abraham an offspring give him a child and she wasn't.

And sarah looks at that and says yeah made my wrong. You know my wrong be upon you because i gave my maid into your embrace. So you have you know you basically have a story of abraham like listening to the voice of his wife just as eve did taking on a second wife.

And instead of just letting god fulfill his promises as he said he was going to do right. They took matters into their own hands that brought conflict within their home. And we're still dealing with that conflict today.

Like i mean the reason why hamas exists today is because of this dumb decision that was made you know at the beginning of history. But i mean you know the same thing happens throughout you know um so you have like uh jacob and esau.

Esau's multiple wives make lives miserable for um isaac and rebecca. Uh jacob comes along. I mean you think about like jacob gets tricked into marrying leah. And then he doesn't love leah and he loved you know he loves rachel.