Premarital Sex in the Bible

Jeremy, while I am not trying to argue that premarital sex is OK, it doesn't require "complex hermeneutical gymnastics" to get around the arguments that you have put forward against it, but only the commonly held theological position that the Old Testament law is not binding on Christians today. So I would challenge you to come up with some New Testament arguments against premarital sex.

Actually I think that one of the reasons why premarital sex was not very clearly condemned in the Bible is that it was considered an oxymoron. If an unmarried person had sex with someone who was already married or betrothed, it was adultery, which is clearly condemned. But if two unmarried people had sex, they were not considered guilty, but to have thereby become married; the social obligations of marriage then had to be sorted out immediately. This is the meaning of your Exodus 22:16-17 example. (Your Leviticus reference is wrong.) It is also implied by 1 Corinthians 6:16: even a relationship with a prostitute is tantamount to the "one flesh" of marriage.

And this was true in the English speaking world right up to the 18th century, as only since then has a formal wedding ceremony been considered obligatory by church or by state. Still, in English "common law", a couple are legally considered to be married if they are living together in a sexual relationship, even if there has been no official wedding ceremony.

Peter, my argument is that the terms for sexual immorality in the NT assume a Hebrew conception of what counts as sexual immorality. How do we discover that? We see what kind of sexual behavior is prohibited in the Hebrew Torah, which is very clear on what is prohibited and what isn't. I do think you need a fairly complex hermeneutic to get around that, and I don't think the argument assumes that the old covenant commands simply apply straight out (or otherwise I'd be advocating that every teenage couple who sleeps together owes the girl's father a bride price).

The Leviticus reference error was actually because I was going to refer to that passage in making a side point, and I guess when I got up to do something with the kids and came back I just assumed it was the right reference for that point. I've fixed it now.

I don't think it's true that they were considered married, or otherwise there wouldn't be a stipulation that the father could refuse to allow them to marry. He'd get the bride price either way, but if he didn't want his daughter to marry the guy this law gives him that right. So maybe it's true that they're spiritually speaking as if they're married, but it's not actual marriage.

I do think I Cor 6 implies something like this, and I've long thought that, so I've never thought that there wasn't some argument from the NT for premarital sex being wrong. It's just that thinking through this Exodus passage as I've been reading through Douglas Stuart's Exodus commentary clued me in to one of its implications that I hadn't thought of before, the implication that what sexual immorality would be to a first-century Jew must include premarital sex because of laws like this.

I had been looking up scriptures on this subject and used the strong's concordance to look up the words in Heb 13:4

Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

According to the strongs concordance, whoremongers is translated fornicators (premariatal sex which is also refered to as prostitution in some cases) and adulterers is used to describe people who commit adultery (marital infidelity)

I don't know what translation you're using that renders pornos as "whoremongers", but I think most scholars nowadays take it to be a general term for sexual immorality. That is in fact the exact term I was referring to in this post, although I was thinking of other passages. To figure out what it would have meant to the first-century Jew, we need to figure out what they would have considered sexually immoral, which ultimately won't exclude anything the Torah disallowed (although it might include more things).

My girlfriend and I are in love and want to marry we have made love and she feels guilty of sin. We are both divorced and she will loose alimony from her x that she needs. Marriage is a legal thing that lawyers end not God........God gives us the Love this strong between a man and a woman.

So is the alimony she is receiving more important than being in accordance with God's law?

Samantha, where does God's law says that you have to have a marriage recognised by the state? I remember a fictional legal case in which (I think it was to save tax) a couple get married in church but deliberately fail to sign the register, so that they are married in the eyes of God and the public but not in the eyes of the law. I'm not sure if Bruce's girlfriend would lose her alimony if they did that, and maybe US law is different from English law here, but would such a marriage be proper or sinful?

Isn't it an attempt to deceive the government and get around the spirit of the law by taking advantage of the letter of the law? Doesn't it then sound like what Jesus condemns in Matthew 23? The difference is that it's a human law and not the Torah, but Jesus did say to observe human laws.

The US made a mistake when the government got involved in the marriage business. It's only for taxation purposes that marriage, which is a religious sacrament, is connected to the government.

Even so, Jesus said to follow the law on matters related to taxation.

God is more concerned with the Heart than the flesh. He is only concerned with the flesh when it affects the heart. I think this is what Paul was saying in 1 Corin 10: 23 - 33. When you start to dig deeper into the history of the church you will see that there are some dark shady doings. Sin was a way to make money and you will see that it only took a few hundred years for the church to become corrupt and sway from what God had intended.

Fornication loosely used by the church as unmarried people having sex. Fornication: Intercourse between a married man and an unmarried woman was fornication (Today’s Dictionary of the Bible) Marriage was never performed by any pastor or priest in the old or new testament but it was a celebration that the brides family would host and it was the brides family that joined the two. Corruption and control changed that and is what we have today.

God’s perfect plan is marriage and God looks at the heart of man and mans intentions. The churches problem is it judges a man and then tries to justify it with scripture. We close the doors of heaven on the people of the world and hold what we think is more important. If we would just teach what Christ taught and focused on building our relationship with the Father we would all be better off and the world would have seen love instead of condemnation.

I am becoming more skeptical of things taught by the church and I have found that if people would read Colossians and seek God, they would be far better off. If we truly seek God he will direct our lives to what is right and what is wrong.

Look at the history of tithing and you will see that we are not bound by it and that the church has manipulated it to what they want. 2 Corin 8 and 9-6:15, we are not bound by the law or obligation, but read and see what the word says.

The church needs to clean its own house instead of telling the world how dirty it is. So is premarital sex bad or a sin? I think the church has condemned enough and we need to quit speculating what we think is wrong. The Bible is very clear on many issues and then there are times we need to go to 1 Corin 10: 23 - 33 and seek God.

A few hundred years? Have you read I Corinthians? That's more like 20 years!

The word in the NT translations as "fornication" is not restricted to a married man with an unmarried woman.

The church has always recognized whatever legal and cultural means a society has had for recognizing marriage.

if premarital straight sex is ok then homosexual sex is ok.......the only right thing is to get married in the name of God.......and sex is made for procreation too and not for sexual satisfaction

While I don't think the Bible allows either premarital sex or homosexual sex, it is much clearer that homosexual sex is not allowed in the Torah and the NT. There are specific statements against that. You need a more indirect argument like the ones discussed here for the former. Philosophically speaking, someone could easily hold a position that homosexual sex is wrong while thinking premarital sex is ok. I'm not sure why there must be a conceptual connection between allowing one and allowing the other. So I think your first statement is just false.

As for your third claim, that just seems to contradict the Bible pretty obviously. Have you ever read the Song of Songs? It's also a false dilemma to assume that because sex includes the purpose of procreation it must also not be for sexual satisfaction. I think a biblical case can be made with very little effort that sexual union has at least a few purposes: unity in marriage, expression of love, pure pleasure and enjoyment, and procreation. To reduce it to any of them and ignore the others is to deny God's intent for sex.

Jeremy, I am a 38 year old single female. I met a guy who is divorced from his wife. We are dating. He asked me to marry him and for the first time in my life I actually felt like saying yes. After that we had sex. I found out that the state not God has a one year grace period on his marriage even though the divorce papers have been signed by both parties. He was stupid to involve the State in his marriage. I agree that if too unmarried people have sex scripture teaches that they should marry with the fathers permission. This situation is more complicated becuse of his previous relationsip. I am wondering if I am in sin? I told myself that if I had sex with a guy ever again after waiting 10 years I would marry him. Should I wait until the grace period is over with or send him to vegas? I do not want licence from the state to marry but I do want to be married in the eyes of God.

Kate, I think this is a legitimate case where two morally important things might be pulling in different directions. If I had to go with my first thought on which is best, I'd say wait until the grace period is up but be committed now to do it then.

Kate, one thing occurred to me after I wrote my response to you, and that's the issue of his divorce. I don't know the circumstances of his divorce. I'm not one of those people who thinks divorce is always wrong. Jesus and Paul both give circumstances when it's ok. If those circumstances are the ones involved in this guy's divorce, then everything I said above stands. If not, then it's not so clear to me that I'd have the same view. If his remarrying would be sin because in God's eyes he's still married to his first wife, then I don't recommend that. You say that the state has a one-year grace period on his marriage. Again depending on the circumstances, some divorces have a life-long grace period in God's eyes. I'd consider that carefully and think through the issues of when you think remarriage is biblically ok to see if you think this is one of those instances.

You know what is lacking in all these responses? Scripture to back a persons opinion. I have been reading and studying and have been looking at church history and I will say that if you confess to be a Christian, then it is your responsibility to seek out answers.

Math: 6-33. Seek first the kingdom of God….. It doesn’t just apply for food, shelter and clothing but so much more. I put little to no faith in the teachings that come from church as it is man being taught by other men what the bible says. There is this brain washing that if you do not have some bible college degree you do not understand the bible. IF that is the case then you can throw out all that Paul wrote.

All answers are there for those that seek, and we will not all get the same answers as we are individuals. For one to have a drink of alcohol may be okay, but for another it may not so who is wrong? Neither for God knows what is best and some alcohol will cause problems and for others it will not. I was once told that bacon and any meat of a pig was bad, Romans clears that up.

So premarital sex, if you truly seek God you will get the answer, the biggest question will be this, will you truly seek God? There are things that the bible is very clear on and there are things that man has made up to suit themselves. You do not need a degree to get the answers, if that was so then the new testament would be null and void.

Jeremy Pierce you misunderstood the corruption that I was talking about in the church, but that is for you to seek out to understand.

I see plenty of scripture in this discussion. Not everyone gives scripture, and you supported nothing you said with scripture except the point that the kingdom should be our first priority (which has little to do with most of what you said). But there's plenty of scripture being discussed.

It's true that on some matters there's nothing inherently wrong with an action. So Paul says we should be interested in two things with those issues. If we can't overcome our sense that something is sin, we shouldn't do it. If someone else can't do so, we should refrain from doing it around them. But none of that means that we should say this about the things clearly stated to be sin. You speak as if Paul were a moral relativist, and that's simply not so. The issues he says are like this are precisely the ones where the act itself is not immoral, and so it would apply to thinks like drinking alcohol, which isn't in itself immoral but can be wrong for many people depending on lots of factors in their situation.

Of course it's right that seeking God first is more important than the issue of premarital sex, but my argument (from scripture) was that those who pay heed to what scripture says would conclude that scripture teaches enough to conclude premarital sex is outside God's plan for sexuality.

I'm not going to bother to try to understand something you're not going to bother to make clear. This is my blog. I made my argument. If you want to challenge it, it's your responsibility to make your argument clear enough for me to understand what you're talking about.

i have never commented here before but i thought it would be helpful to you if i gave you an honest opinion of your dialouges.
im not sure what the purpose of your discussions are. is it to help others who read them to gain new insight on our Lord's law or is it a "thinktank". I dont want to get anything started because I honestly do enjoy your smart discussions but frown on what occasionally comes across as an old married couple's bickering. im all for challenging a believer's faith to see why they believe what they belive so i think that a missions statement of sorts would be very helpful. honestly, i ran into you guys looking for devotions for my girlfriend and i to do on dates. we are both proud to be virgins are have promised to eachother and to God to remain abstinate. it sounds pround , but my girlfriend is by no means undesirable and i'd like to think i'm not totally repulsive either. remaining sexually pure is difficult no doubt but i believe that by founding our love for eachother under God's will keeps the constant temptation i feel at bay and allows me to see a much deeper beauty in her. i continue to search for tools to help lead us righteously through this difficult time in our lives but i have still found nothing and i leave here WANTING

just after reading my comment i noticed that i said "but i have still found nothing " in reference to things that will aid me and my girlfriend in loving purely. just wanted to point out that the Bible is my #1 man when it comes to anything but i would appreciate some thoughts on how to purely love.

William, I am not doing a devotions site. As the header at the top of my blog says, this is a site to discuss philosophy, theology, Christian apologetics, and politics, among other things (but those are the main things). In this case, I was defending a Christian teaching from an objection that is often raised against it (i.e. that the Bible doesn't really teach it). Thus I was engaging in Christian apologetics.

Such discussions can ultimately have some value in helping people to be sure that what they believe is the truth, but it isn't to serve a pastoral role, and I think that's what you're looking for. I think my primary hope is that nonbelievers will see Christian thinking put in a way that's intellectually defensible and the believers will rethink some of their less defensible positions. I'll challenge what I see as false beliefs in the church, and I'll defend Christian thinking from what non-Christians say against it. I've expressed my purposes for blogging toward the end of this interview if you want a more detailed statement.

If that's not what you're looking for, then I don't know if you'll find a lot of what you're looking for here. There may be the occasional post that serves the purpose you want, but I'm not very good at that kind of thing, and I focus on this blog on things I'm much better at and have some training that can help with.

I have read a lot of these posts.. but I am still unclear on something. Is it ok (according to the Bible) to be married in the eyes of God but not legally? We have a situation that invloves residency. My fiance is a fire-fighter who has to maintain a residency in the city limits. While he does have a house there, he lives with me in the country. I will not move to the city and if he quits his job he loses a pension, steady income and if he were to quit; he would resent it for years to come because he loves his job. We have been thinking seriously about having a religious ceremony and not become legally married. But are we defeating the whole purpose in trying to do the right thing when it would be essentially lying to the fire department? Any comments welcome; this decision weighs heavily on me. Thanks.

I'd say that lying to the fire department would be wrong in itself, never mind the other issues (which obviously some of the people in this discussion have disagreed about).

Jeremy,
So, is my faith just not stong enough if I am too afraid to ask him to move out and risk losing the lifestyle I have? Am I with-holding my own abundance by living with and having sex with a man that I am not married to? I know these seem like such obvious questions... but I am afraid to make a decision. Help.

Daisy, I don't know if it's necessarily an issue of how strong anyone's faith is (although maybe it is in particular cases; I don't know yours). Sometimes when people do things that are wrong, it's because of not trusting God enough. That's certainly true in my own case sometimes.

But I don't know if it's always that. Sometimes it's just an issue of obedience, and I do think this is something God has commanded us not to do.

Not sure if this blog is still alive, but would like to submit the following:

1) In the NT the word fornication is an inaccurate translation of Porniea.

The correct translation should be "Sexual Immorality" or "Sexual Deviance"
True/False?

2) It is necessary to understand the context of the statements to know which of the possible meanings apply. True/False?

Comment A) Women were treated more as an object than as a person And marriages more like an acquisition than an union. Therefore it is understandable that virginity was of utmost importance. That was the factory "freshness" seal. (sorry for how that sounds).

Comment B) Based on the rarity of actual Fornication (two unmarried people), it seems unlikely that fornication would necessarily apply to some or all statements of the original greek. Why? Let just look at the consequences for the woman

- Social consequence: it would be nearly impossible for a woman to get married if she were not a virgin. This has been true universally, regardless of religion until recently (we can discuss why later)

- financial consequences: It would be nearly impossible for a woman to survive financially without the help of a man because until recently women had only limited legal rights( could not own, could enherit etc)

From the above statements you can derive all the ills that could ensue from such a situation (unless the woman intended to pursue a career in prostitution in which case, the financial prospects might not be as dire): Dependence on aging parents, lack of physical protection, banishment etc.



I believe that the above statements are true and my conclusions are self evident that is why I have not bothered providing quotes. That said, if you believe otherwise I would love to know about it. Once we can settle the above points I will pursue.

1. "Fornication" is not a good translation of 'porneia', in the same way that "cat" is not a good translation of the French word for "mammal". The issue of whether it is a good translation is irrelevant. Cats are mammals, and fornication is one particular kind of act that falls under the more general category that 'porneia' refers to.

From 2a: Women were treated more as an object than as a person

I would dispute that. I would in fact argue exactly the opposite, at least if we're talking about the Mosaic law. This sort of statement commonly gets thrown around, but I've never seen a decent argument for it, and there's plenty of biblical evidence against it.

From 2b: it would be nearly impossible for a woman to get married if she were not a virgin

That may well have been true in ancient Israel. If so, it assumes they regarded fornication as wrong, which is what I was arguing. So that's merely an additional piece of evidence for the only real claim I was making in the post.

It would be nearly impossible for a woman to survive financially without the help of a man because until recently women had only limited legal rights( could not own, could enherit etc)

That's plainly contradicted by all the evidence we have. Read the treatment of Zelophehad's daughters in Numbers, for a clear example of women owning and inheriting property in the Mosaic law. Widows owned property as well. So your claim is simply false.

Now I'm actually not sure what your self-evident conclusions are or why what you've said is supposed to support them, so you might need to be a little more explicit about what they are, what your argument for them is, and why it has anything to do with what I've argued (and I'm suspicious that it might not). I can't evaluate an argument if I don't know what the argument even is or what it's supposed to be supporting. An argument involves premises, a conclusion, and reasoning that explains why the premises support the conclusion. All you've given are the premises.

You are right, there is no argument yet, I merely wanted to revisit the basic premises. If we can't agree on them, the construction of an argument seems a bit futile (that is my argument :-).

In any case, stepping back to my original statement 1 on "translation". Maybe this will be a clearer premise:

In the OT, there is no explicit prohibition of consensual premarital sex.

That notion is derived from our reading of the texts. Can we agree on that or not?

If we do, one question would be
"Whether consensual premarital sex is a sin or not, was that even a concern in OT times?"

The reason that is relevant is that if that was not on anybody's mind, then we can't use the OT to discuss it or determine whether it is a sin or not.

It seems to me that one of the possible reasons for a lack of direct prohibition is that it was not a concern. The bible has an abundance of explicit sexual prohibitions it seems at the very least odd that this most basic modern issue is not addressed directly.

It is my contention that consensual premarital sex was not a concern simply because of:
- the odds stacked against the female participant.
- improbability of running into an unmarried girl not already promised to a man.

Happy New Year.

I will continue my post later. In the mean time I would appreciate if you could agree or disagree with my first premise: "There is no explicit prohibition of consensual premarital sex in OT".

PS: About the following

"That may well have been true in ancient Israel. If so, it assumes they regarded fornication as wrong, which is what I was arguing. So that's merely an additional piece of evidence for the only real claim I was making in the post."

No. That does not necessarily mean it was wrong in the eyes of God.
a) Even the most sexually reprehensible men in history could insist that their brides be virgins. For no spiritual reasons I would guess.
b) Isralites had many customs that had nothing to do with spirituality. They even had laws that Jesus wanted no part of.

The list can go on. Hopefully we can agree on that.

In the OT, there is no explicit prohibition of consensual premarital sex.

Yes, that's true, if by "explicit prohibition" you mean something that singles it out rather than a prohibition that includes it without specifying the various sub-categories.

Lots of modern issues aren't addressed directly. Do you see any explicit prohibition of adults having sex with children? I don't. There certainly isn't anything addressing downloading of MP3s, speeding, or internet pornography. I don't find it at all strange that moral issues in one context don't appear explicitly in a revelation of God directed toward a different context that doesn't include those moral problems among its chief temptations.

So it seems that your point is an attempt to explain why the OT doesn't explicitly address the issue. I don't see any problem with that at all. I was under the impression that you thought you were disagreeing with me on something in my argument, but I don't think you have.

As to your second point, my post wasn't arguing that the Bible is correct. It was simply offering reasons to think the biblical authors would have included premarital sex as one of the things they would have seen as immoral sex and thus under the category of fornication. You can disagree with inerrantism and thus indicate disagreement with the biblical authors. But if the biblical authors saw it as part of fornication, then their condemnations of fornication mean that they would have condemned premarital sex as well. All I was arguing is that the Bible does condemn it, even if it doesn't do so explicitly.