Sex in the Bible

What does the bible say about sex? In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were both naked and where not ashamed. They were as innocent as newborn babies. A baby does not know he is naked until someone tells him he is. To understand what naked means, he must have a certain amount of maturity. It was not wrong for these first humans to run about nude. Their job was to dress or trim the garden. However, as soon as the serpent gave them the knowledge tree, they knew they were naked. The first thing they did after they realized that to be naked out in the open was not right, they sewed fig leaves together and make themselves aprons. When God called out to them, he asked Adam, "Where are you?" Adam said that they had hid because they knew they were naked. (GEN 3:10) Notice that God called out to Adam instead of to Eve and asked him what he had done? (GEN 7:9) In the rest of the chapter we see that God punished the three of them in the order that they had sinned: the serpent first; Eve second; and Adam third. After this, God killed an animal and made them coats of skins to wear, meaning that merely wearing aprons was not enough. God put Adam and Eve from the garden.

Adam knew his wife and they had Cain. So, God considered them married, although it does not say they ever had a ceremony. Lamech took two wives. After this time, other men began taking a multiple of wives. Perhaps, God wanted them to do this in order to speedily populate the earth with humans. Men taking more than one wife could do this faster than women could, if they took more than one husband. Each woman could have only so many children no matter how many men she had, but the men could father many children by taking many women.

Noah was five hundred years old when he begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (GEN 5:32) After Noah was over five hundred years old, some believe that the fallen angels mated with human women. (GEN 6: 2) If they did, they must have had some way of mating.

Abram traveled into Egypt with his beautiful wife, Sarah, and he feared the Egyptians would kill him and take her as their own. This must have been a custom of theirs. Abraham and Sarah tried to have children, and when they failed, Sarah demanded Abraham to mate with her handmaid and take the child as their own when he was born. Abraham did this and had a son, Ishmael. Soon after this, he and Sarah had Isaac. Later on, Sarah died and Abraham married Keturah. (GEN25:1) They had several children. Lot had daughters who got him drunk and slept with him, so they could have children. Isaac worked for his wife for seven years, but had to marry her sister first. Marrying within the family seemed fine with them.

Judah's first born, wicked son Er died, so Judah wanted his other son, Onan, to take Er's wife as his own. Onan refused to do as he requested, and spilled his seed upon the ground. For this reason, God slew him. Taking one's brother's wife after the brother died became a custom. Judah demanded Er's wife, Tamar, to wait for his next son, Shelah, to get grown and then marry him. Instead, Tamar disguised herself as a harlot and waited for Judah to take the bait. He did. She became with child by him, but when he heard she had played the harlot, not realizing he was the one she had seduced, he demanded she be burnt. Tamar, a slick lady, had demanded he give her his staff and bracelets to hold until he came with the animal he had pledged to her. When it got out about his folly, he said she was more righteous than he. (GEN.38) It seemed they had an unfair law for women. Joseph, while in Egypt, was desired by his master's wife. He refused to mate with her. (GEN. 39: 7-8) Despite their faults, all of these men seemed to draw the line against mating with married women.

Moses married, Zipporah, the daughter of a Midian priest. They seemed to have lived happily together. She did not want to have their son circumcised. (GEN. 4: 25) Moses did marry an Egyptian lady, too. God gave Moses Ten Commandments to give to his followers. One was prohibition against adultery. (Sleeping around) Other prohibitions were: kin folks; in-laws, nieces, nephews, step siblings, grandchildren, aunts or uncles, a woman and her daughter; mankind as with womankind or vice-versa; animals, or a neighbor's spouse. (GEN. 18) They could not go unto a woman having her menstrual flow. (GEN: 20:18) There could not be any whores or sodomites in Israel.(GEN. 23: 17)

King David saw Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite, and lusted for her. He knew her and tried to cover it up by having her husband sent to the front lines of the war, hoping he would be killed in battle. He was killed and David took Bathsheba for himself. God saw what he had done and sent Nathan, the prophet to condemn David. At first Nathan did not tell David who the man was that had done the evil deed. He asked David what should be done unto such a man. David said the man should die. Nathan told him that he was that man. David was not killed by God, but Nathan told him the sword would never part from his own house for what he had done. (2 Samuel chapters 12 and 13) I guess David received a worse punishment than dying. He had to watch his home torn asunder and his children kill one another. One of them sought David's own life. His beloved son was killed. David also lost the baby that Bathsheba conceived. God knew how to hurt David the most. ( Most parents love their children more than themselves.) David's son, Amnon raped David's daughter. His other son, Absalom hated his brother for it. He hated David for not doing anything to Amnon. (GEN. 14) Then, along came Solomon, David's son. He had many strange women, even those that went after other gods.

All throughout the OLD TESTAMENT, there was plenty of sex going on, despite the commandment against any sex except with a spouse or concubine. There seemed to be two laws; one for the men and another for the women, unless both were caught in the act of adultery; then both of them were stoned.
In the NEW TESTAMENT, things got better for the women. Men could only have one wife; women could have only one husband. (Read Mathew 19.) Jesus said it was not so in the beginning of time, but God allowed Moses to give them a writ of divorcement because of the hardness of their hearts. Jesus said that whosoever puts away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery: and whosoever marries her which is put away commits adultery. (MATHEW 19: 6-9) At least, he does not blame the woman as much as he does the man. Jesus also praised eunuchs. He said not everyone could be a eunuch, but if he could, let him. (MATHEW 19: 12)

Saint Paul said all things were lawful for him, but not all things were good for him. He went on to say the body was not for fornication, but was for the Lord. He said those who are joined to a harlot are one body. He warned to flee fornication, because it is a sin against one's own body. He said that to avoid this, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. He said to render unto both husband and wife what is due them, and do not defraud them without consent, except for a while, in order to fast and pray. He suggested that if one cannot contain them to marry, but they would be better off, in his opinion, not to marry. If the wife departed, she should remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband: and the husband should not put her away. He went on to suggest that an unbelieving husband is gained by a believing wife, if they stay together, but if they do depart, they are not under bondage. He thought time was running out and the Lord was soon returning, so he said if one was not married, it would be better to stay single. However, if you are married, remain married. A virgin may marry, but would be happier to stay single. He said a married woman cares for the world and to please her husband, but an unmarried one cares more for the Lord. She has no one to distract her. (1 Corinthians. 7)

After the NEW TESTAMENT doctrine, some church fathers and believers gave up all thoughts of marriage and wanted others to do the same. Priest was forbidden to marry, in many churches. I say that whatever was good enough for Saint Peter, ought to be good enough for some of us. After all, Peter had a wife. THE END

Source: All Bibical information was taken from HOLY BIBLE, King James Version, A REGENCY BIBLE, Thomas Nelson Publishers;1990.