5 CRAZY Things the Bible Says About SEX that Your Church NEVER Taught You
For any of us that were raised some variety of Christian, whether church was an annual event or a twice-a-week thing, we were all taught some version of the following list of sexual sins and taboos:
Adultery, Fornication, Pornography, Masturbation, Homosexuality, Incest, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Rape, Abortion, Bestiality, Promiscuity, Transexuality, etc.
According to how we were raised, most or all of these are wrong/sinful on some level, some of them are criminal, perhaps with implied punishments or consequences relating thereto, and all are condemned in the Bible, the moral foundation of Western society.
But what if I told you that things in the Bible are not nearly so cut-and-dry as you may have been led to believe?
Non-denominational Christianity has boomed in the past few decades with more and more people choosing to cut out the middle-man, throw off their denominational dogmas, and just focus on their personal relationship with God.
As such, many Christians now reading the Bible to understand it for themselves, with the vast resources of the internet at their fingertips, are realizing that many things didn’t actually mean what they were taught in church growing up.
For instance, when Jesus famously says that he who looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his heart, many a Christian teenage boy has wrestled with their God-given sexual desire, finding women and their bodies attractive, as somehow innately wrong/sinful, as though they themselves were adulterers, like David and Bathsheba.
What most people don’t realize is that the word translated “lust” here is the Greek word epithymesai, which means “to long for/covet property”, in the same way you might lust after gold.
This is, in fact, the same word in the Greek Septuagint for the tenth commandment of the ten commandments, Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife, etc.
So what you actually have here, that everybody listening to Jesus speak at the Sermon on the Mount would have clearly understood, is Jesus comparing the tenth and seventh commandments as equivalent in the eyes of God, as a familiar example of his broader message: that following the spirit of the law is greater than following the letter of the law.
Or in other words, that we will not only be judged by our actions but by the thoughts and intents of our heart; that the intentions of someone looking upon another man’s wife and longing to sleep with her, are as though he might as well have done so in the eyes of God; there is no moral superiority in inaction.
When I learned this one simple fact, it altered my entire life and walk with God.
It allowed me to let go of burdens of guilt and shame that I had taken up thinking it was part of the cross that I was called to bear to follow Jesus, not realizing that he wanted me free from all that.
And this is the beauty of cutting out the middle-man and discovering God’s word for yourself. I guarantee that all of us are operating under some false premises in our Christian walk that Jesus is just waiting to free us from.
So, here are my top 5 crazy things about sex as taught in the Bible that I was never taught in church growing up.
5. You CAN Have “Sex Before Marriage”
If you had told me growing up that the Bible said anything other than “Abstinence Only” before your wedding night, I would have said you were crazy and obviously didn’t understand the scriptures.
I confess: I was wrong.
Obviously, there is no place the Bible says, thou shalt not have sexual relations before marriage, but it does seem talk a bit about virginity as preferable, and there are several references to fornication/whoredoms and fornicators/whoremongers, which many modern Bible translations simplify generally to sexual immorality and the sexually immoral.
More specifically, I was taught growing up that masturbation was one of the whoredoms mentioned and that fornication obviously meant sex before marriage. That’s what the dictionary says.
1 Cor. 7:1–2 KVJ- It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
Seems pretty cut and dry, you say. No wiggle room here to excuse your hedonistic desires. Paul clearly says to get married to avoid fornication.
Not so fast. (I am happily married, thanks.)
When we look into the Greek, the word translated “fornication/sexual immorality” is porneia, from the root words pornos (male prostitute) and porne (female prostitute), which means, literally, prostitution/harlotry, and figuratively, idolatry.
It is also the same Greek word for the Hebrew zenut, which is translated into English: whoredom. A whoremonger is obviously a user of whores/prostitutes, whether a patron or a pimp. And instead of using the word “whore” for a female prostitute, it was generally translated “harlot”.
What this means, in clear modern English, is that all these words I was told clearly forbade premarital sex and masturbation in the Bible are ALL actually talking about one thing: prostitution.
In fact, if I were to re-translate the above scripture from 1 Corinthians 7 more correctly into modern English, it would read like this:
1 Corinthians 7:1–2 (my translation)- It is a beautiful thing for a man not to be attached to a woman.
However, because of all the prostitutes/prostitution, let every man have himself the wife/woman, and let every woman have (or situate) herself within the family/household of the man.
Yes, that is what this scripture means in plain terms — we’ll get to the polygamy connotations later.
Paul is NOT telling us here that marriage is the solution to avoid sex outside of marriage or masturbation. It is porneia/prostitution (and by modern extension, the pornography industry) that we are avoiding, and we do that through committed sexual relationships.
So what, you say, this still sets up marriage as the inevitable solution.
Not exactly, no. You see, the word Greek word gynaika/gyne makes no clear distinction between the words wives and women. It is translated into English both ways. All women are basically assumed to be within the family of a strong protective man, whether she be a wife, daughter, handmaid or a concubine (a foreign or conquered wife/handmaid from outside Israel/the covenant).
There is NO requirement here for a legal marriage certificate from “the state” in order to be committed, to be joined before God, to be one flesh, or to have a family.
If this sounds ridiculous to you, let me be more clear.
With the legalization of same-sex marriage all across the world in the past decade or so, secular governments everywhere have played their hands that marriage, according to their definition, is nothing more than a legal contract between consenting adults for the purpose of joint ownership.
(NOTE: There are several other forms of business partnership and private contracts that can fulfill all the same legal requirements for joint ownership that are not a state-sponsored secular marriage contract.)
Biblical marriage, on the other hand, is a living representation in our lives of the relationship between God/Christ and his people/churches.
Under the Old Covenant, a man was circumcised to show his separation from the world, that he belonged to God. It was a physical ritual to show his commitment.
Under the New Covenant, we are baptized in water as a symbol of our old self dying and our new self, born again in Christ Jesus, rising up out of the water, a new creature in Christ, having promised God that we will live our lives not according to our own will, but according to his will for our lives. And if our inner commitment is sincere, the Holy Ghost will come upon us in the baptism of fire, the evidence of which is shown through the speaking of prophecy or tongues.
The marriage covenant between Christians is meant to be symbolic of this higher covenant we’ve all made with God, and the symbolic ritual of the marriage covenant is the coming together in sexual union, to be one flesh together.
So to be clear, what I am saying is that, biblically, there is no difference between sex and marriage. They are the same thing in God’s eyes. This is the spirit of the law.
The purpose of having a big engagement/wedding party with friends, family and your church congregation is solely about social accountability. It is a tradition (mostly to protect women) to help ensure that you don’t have someone taking advantage of another. It is also a community support system for the new marriage/family.
But if you’re both true born-again Christians with the anointing of the Holy Spirit on you, and you both make a sincere decision to be committed to one another, then sex is the natural consummation of that commitment, the physical act of Godly marriage, and the Holy Spirit will then seal you as married before God.
And the Hebrew culture of the Old Testament backs up this understanding.
Exodus 22:16 (KJV)- And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.
For fun, let’s show the Amplified translation as well.
Exodus 22:16 (AMP) If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry (marriage price) for her to be his wife.
It can’t get much more clear than that. When a woman loses her virginity, it is intended to be accompanied by a lifelong commitment. She is only meant to be with the one man.
So if you as a man have sex with a woman, you have made a commitment of marriage with your body. In the Lord’s eyes, you are considered engaged/betrothed and he expects you to wed her.
As I already said, sex was rightly seen to be the physical act of marriage whether it occurred before the wedding or after. It was representative of the internal commitment.
And while virginity was obviously preferable, as the dowry for a virgin was higher, it didn’t matter whether she lost it before or after her wedding ceremony/feast so long as the correct ceremonies were observed at some point thereafter (usually before a child was born).
According to the Jewish Virtual Library:
So there we have two witnesses, one from the Old Testament and one from the New. But I’m still going to give you a third witness from my own life that the Lord gave unto me and my wife.
My wife and I were friends and then best friends for almost a year before we began seriously dating. Roughly 4 months later we made our engagement official and threw a big party. And about 3 months after that we were wed, which was essentially making contracts with our church and the state, and throwing a small lunch party for our family before we left on our honeymoon. And we waited to have sex until we were married by those standards.
By virtually all accounts, we, as Christians, did everything right on paper.
However, we know now, as God has led us to shake off many of the denominational dogmas of our old church culture and align ourselves with his Word, his Spirit, and the spirit of the law, that it was when we made our courtship exclusive and official as boyfriend and girlfriend (as we called it), that we had both internally already committed to marry. That conversation about our commitment and intentions to each other was when my wife and I became “espoused” or “betrothed” to be married.
(Biblical betrothal for most people would either be a formal engagement or some honest conversation about intentions to be with each other the rest of your lives).
The Lord has told both my wife and I clearly in recent years that this would have been the correct time to consummate our commitment with sex and that then we would have been married in God’s eyes from that time onward.
Our engagement was a social formality about a ring and a big party.
Our “wedding” was a clerical formality.
And we put ourselves through months and months of internal conflict and guilt and shame before our wedding because we kept denying ourselves something that was spiritually, morally and biblically right but “religiously” wrong.
And the ramifications of that choice to wait are still affecting aspects of our relationship almost a decade later.
So, when I say that the Bible permits “sex before marriage”, it’s a little bit of a misnomer, because sex IS the physical token/act of marriage. That is the spirit of the law. You are marrying your bodies together into one-flesh/one-family.
So in order to be more accurate about the topic of marriage, we need to separate the concept of biblical marriage from the concept of being legally and lawfully wedded.
God doesn’t require a piece of paper or permission from the government. He requires honest intentions, commitment and action.
For us, our inaction meant that we, in a sense, were living a lie for those seven months before our wedding. We weren’t actually being true to the commitment that we’d made in our hearts, and that internal emotional dissonance if unresolved, creates bigger problems later on.
Instead of asking the Lord His will for our relationship, we vainly assumed we knew it already, and that it was righteousness before Him to deny ourselves.
But Jesus’ entire message was about throwing off the hypocritical strictures of the pharisees (who spent their lives looking for loopholes in the Mosaic Law) and seeking what was the actual moral virtue in the intention of the Law.
And the intention of this biblical marital law is that when you’re genuinely committed to a woman, and she to you, and you’re both on the same page about it, you can express that commitment through your actions, both physically (through sex, aka marriage/the joining of two into one flesh) and formally (through engagement/betrothal and then wedding).
And it really doesn’t matter in God’s eyes which comes first.
4. Marrying Your Cousin is ACTUALLY a Good Thing
This is another obviously controversial topic (as first cousin marriage is currently illegal in approximately half of all US states) and many of us are familiar with “redneck” cliches in television and movies about first cousin marriages producing low-IQ children.
The programming/propaganda has been so effective, in fact, that while I would love to just lay out the scriptures, I think I need to briefly discuss the actual science of nature/God’s creation.
The generally accepted position on incest has been that the more DNA you share, whether the genes are dominant or recessive, the more the likelihood for existing genetic defects (assuming any are there at all), to be passed to your offspring.
The children of a brother and sister to the same parents, who share roughly 50% of their DNA, have 2x the normal chance of genetic defects being passed on.
This is called an inverse square relationship.
So if they shared 75% of their DNA, there would be 4x the normal chance of genetic defect in their children. If they only shared 25%, as first cousins do on average, it would be roughly 1.4x the normal rate.
But what is the normal rate anyway?
Well, according to the CDC, birth defects affect roughly 3% of all births in the US (which sounds like a high number, but this has increased over the past century due to environmental toxicity and the much older median age of pregnant mothers. Healthy women on organic, unprocessed diets under the age of 35 who avoid the majority of Western pharmaceuticals can have 100x lower rates of birth defects than the statistical average).
But even assuming we took that average number of 3%, this means that a brother and sister who shared 50% of their DNA could have 17 children together and only 1 would have a birth defect.
And “birth defect” itself is an overly broad term. Yes, it can describe things like spina bifida and down syndrome and problematic heart defects, but it also includes things like a cleft lip, which is arguably less detrimental to one’s way of life than myopia/shortsightedness.
Ethnic predispositions towards certain diseases are far more indicative of lifelong chronic health conditions than the increased risk of birth defects through “incest”, and yet we obviously don’t outlaw specific ethnic groups from reproducing.
Furthermore, according to birthdefects.org, a growing body of research suggests, however, that many birth defects are not caused by “bad” genes, but by susceptible genes that are triggered by one or more “bad” things from the world around us. Chemicals, X-rays, smoking, poor nutrition, lead and mercury are just some of the exposures that can adversely affect genes.
Toxic exposure now appears far more likely to cause mutation and abnormalities in progeny than the increased percentage of passing on genetic problems, whether dominant or recessive.
And this is exactly what we see in nature. Organic, pasture-raised animals with plentiful access to clean water and good living conditions can be interbred again and again over generations without problems.
And this is partly due to the nature of animal husbandry, in which the strongest, healthiest males are selected to father many young with many females.
Laws prohibiting first-cousin marriage, therefore, are generally an attempt to minimize an already small risk of genetic defects in otherwise healthy people, because our laws and systems of government no longer castrate defective males (as various past cultures have) or legally permit strong healthy men who are capable providers to wed multiple women and have dozens of children.
So, now that we’ve dispelled some of the modern myths associated with “inbreeding”, let’s look at what the Bible says about it.
Without quoting ten or twelve verses verbatim, Leviticus 18 is where we find the general prohibition against “uncovering the nakedness of (having sexual relations with) your near-kinsmen”.
It then specifies what types of near-relations are constituted in this ban. A man is not to have sexual relations (the physical act of marriage) with his mother, stepmother, father’s other wives, sister, half-sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, aunt, grandmother, granddaughter, and to not marry his wife’s sister, wife’s daughter, or wife’s granddaughter while his wife is still living.
So we see that there is no mention of cousins or step-siblings in this ban. Both are clearly permissible under Torah law.
(And there are also later provisions for Levirate marriage, in which a man has an obligation to take in his brother’s widow as a wife upon his brother’s death, particularly if she did not yet have any children. We see in the story of Ruth that this extended generally to the nearest kinsmen.)
Strangely, the Tanakh says that sibling marriage is actually permissible to Gentiles but forbidden to Hebrews, possibly because it is assumed that Gentiles will marry anyone without reference to tribe, and are therefore already genetically more diverse than the Israelites.
Okay, sure, you say, no prohibition against marrying your cousin. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing. You claimed the Bible says it was good.
Yes, that’s exactly right.
So, besides the obvious pre-Mosaic Law instances of cousin marriage (ie. Jacob marrying his first cousins once removed, Rachel and Leah, Esau marrying his cousin, Isaac marrying his cousin, Abraham marrying his niece, Moses, Aaron and Miriam’s parents, Amram and Jochebed, being first cousins, etc.), we see in Numbers 36, Moses being asked directly about cousin marriage and giving the word of the Lord on the subject.
Numbers 36:6,8,10-12 (AMP)- This is what the Lord commands regarding the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them marry whom they wish; only they must marry within the family of the tribe of their father.’
Every daughter who possesses an inheritance [of land] in any one of the tribes of the Israelites shall marry [only] a man whose family is of her father’s tribe, so that the Israelites may each possess the inheritance of his fathers (tribal ancestors).
The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses.
For Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father’s brothers.
They married into the families of the descendants of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father.
So, here we have an instance in which these 5 sisters were commanded to marry within their tribe to help consolidate wealth/property within their family line. Thus, they all marry first cousins, and it is counted unto them as righteousness before God.
In contrast, we have several other commandments against marrying outside of your tribe.
Moses forbids Israel from intermarrying with the neighboring nations in Deuteronomy 7.
Nehemiah scolds a number of Jewish men for intermarrying with the children of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab, calling it faithless and treacherous to God. He even says that Solomon (whom he names the greatest Israelite king in the eyes of God) was turned away into sin because of his foreign wives.
According to rabbinical commentary, it appears that many Israelites considered greater kinship, family tradition and the building of generational wealth to be the primary goals of marriage.
As such, it was seen as preferable in the Israelite culture to marry as close to your own bloodline as you could without crossing the incest boundary outlined in Leviticus.
First and second cousins were considered preferable, although one reference in the Talmud describes the “niece” as being the closest relative possible according to the Mosaic Law, and therefore, the ideal.
Despite claims of genetic issues in European royalty due to the frequent intermarrying and inbreeding of first and second cousins, the only real claimed genetic problem as a result has been hemophilia (or the inability of the blood to clot), which some skeptics have alleged was an historic excuse to exempt the royals from leading actual wars and battles, as used to be the tradition.
The fact that all 45 US presidents (with the possible exception of Martin Van Buren) are all related to the same French/British king, or that all wealthiest families in the world trace back to the same 13 Roman bloodlines, have led a number of conspiracy theorists to question why these elite families are all so inter-related, when this narrative of genetic defect has been so heavily propagandized on the rest of us, the so-called slave class.
It seems that the richest families in the world still adhere to this Biblical precedent to “marry within your tribe”, while they push a multiculturalism narrative on the rest of us.
So, am I saying that everyone should start marrying their first cousins?
No.
We, in the West, live in the later stages of a European diaspora. My ancestry is mixed all over Western Europe. British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, French, German, Spanish, Finnish, etc.
The word of the Lord in Deuteronomy told the daughters of Zelophehad to marry as they wished within their tribe.
Well, I’m the product of many ethnic European tribes.
But more than that, I belong to the tribe of Jesus.
Galatians 26:29–32 (KJV)- For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I think that Christianity is the tribe that we are now expected to marry within.
Within that broader tribe, and following the example set forth in Deuteronomy, the Lord wants us to find people that we have the most in common with, so we can build a strong foundation and generational wealth.
If that, to you, means marrying your cousin, well, the Bible completely supports your right to do so.
Whether the state permits you to legally wed, that’s another question.
3. Biblical Marriage is NOT Monogamy-Only
Polygamy.
Specifically polygyny (one man with multiple wives/women).
This is a fascinating topic, because it’s really obviously biblical, as we’ll get into.
Virtually every animal naturally forms into polygynous family groups around a strong central male with good genetics.
However, there’s a ridiculous amount of illogical push-back from a majority of Christians on this one, probably because of all the one-true-love/soulmate propaganda in music, movies, books and television programming.
So, it is important for everyone, in order to be open to the truth of God’s word, to shed what you’ve been told to think by men claiming authority over you, or by what makes you feel good and special in entertainment media, and to think for yourself.
Remember, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9 KJV); how we “feel” about something has no bearing on its truthfulness.
The Lord’s ways and thoughts are higher than our ways and thoughts (Isa. 55:9).
Also, we are to test/prove all things, and hold fast to truth/goodness (1 Thes. 5:21)
So, I’m not telling you to believe my word alone on this.
I’m saying, this is the personal understanding of truth that I have come to from my own deep-diving into the Word of God and comparing it with what I see in the natural/created world. Here is some of the evidence.
You can verify these things for yourself.
And I speak from personal experience, the only thing that will stop you from being open to the truthfulness of God’s word is pride, ego or idolatry.
We’ve been taught by all pop music and every romantic subplot in any book, movie, or television show to have this false idol of “the special one”, whether that’s our prince/princess, or that we’ve found that perfect someone who makes us feel like “the special one”.
So we need to clear that up right away.
You are special, but you are NOT the special one. Your spouse is not the special one. Your child/children are not the special one. No celebrity or politician or billionaire or pastor is the special one.
Harry Potter is not the special one.
As far as we’re concerned, as Christians, only Jesus is “the special one”. He’s the one on the pedestal. Satan is in the pit. And we are all on level-ground in the middle.
Not only does this mental picture form the image of the cross, but it also sums up the two greatest commandments as spoken by Jesus.
Matthew 22:37,39 (KJV)- Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Jesus is “the special one”.)
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (You’re all on level ground.)
This mindset is so important, in fact, that Jesus then said, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (v40).
So the entire Hebrew Old Testament relies upon this foundational viewpoint. There is God, first and above all, and everybody else on earth is on level ground under God.
As we said earlier, Biblical marriage is a living representation in our lives of the relationship between God/Christ and his people/churches.
And in both the Old and New Testaments, God describes himself figuratively as a polygynous husband to multiple brides.
In the Old Testament (Jeremiah 3, Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 23), God likens Israel and Judah, the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, to two separate covenant brides.
In the New Testament (Matthew 25, 2 Corinthians 11, Revelation 2, 3, 19, etc), we have the repetitive imagery of we, as both individual Christians and different faithful Christian churches, being presented to Jesus at the marriage supper of the Lamb as chaste virgins/faithful brides.
So this should provide some necessary perspective, because the Biblical marriage/family dynamic is meant to reflect this covenant between God and his people.
And before anyone shouts equality!, this is fundamental to the differences between men and women.
In Biblical marriage, men and women, while all equal under God, are fundamentally not the same; a man marries and women are given in marriage.
(Inversely, a woman commits adultery if she has sexual intercourse with any other man that isn’t her husband, whereas, biblically, a man has only committed adultery if he has had sexual intercourse with another man’s wife.)
The man, as the “husband” and “father” in the family, is a microcosm for how God has identified himself unto us, as our Father and Husband.
Thus, the man bearing that title of “husband/father” has the responsibility to be the representative of God in his own home/household/family. All other descriptors; head, leader, protector, provider, patriarch, etc, are all secondary to this fact.
Let’s look at the scriptures.
1 Corinthians 11:3 (KJV)- But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Now, some people have enraged and offended feminists by attempting to show this in some version of what has become infamously known as the umbrella diagram.
The reason perhaps so many have been offended by this is because they assume by the vertical graphic that it places men above women generally. (Also because many are offended by the word “submit/submission”.)
Likewise, I don’t think it lines up particularly well with the foundation we’ve already established, and especially when we consider Ephesians 5:
Ephesians 5:25 (KJV)- Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
The role of a husband to his wives is not equal to that of a king and his servants. Remember, Jesus himself told us, whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Matthew 20:27 KJV).
Likewise, a man is head over his family in that he is willing to give his life, his time, his energy, in both labor and in fighting (if necessary) to protect them.
As such, I believe our umbrella metaphor makes a lot more sense when we instead think of concentric fences/perimeters.
When you’re protecting things that are precious and valuable, you create layers of protection.
Likewise, in the family, you have your progeny, your young children, which are your future and legacy, around which you have your wives/mothers like the walls of your home, a perimeter of protection. Around them you have the husband/father, represented by the outer perimeter of your property, your fence-line.
This is your private realm (within the family) under God.
Outside of that, you have the public realm, and you can create additional perimeters of protection there within your extended family, tribe, congregation, community, nation, etc., all of which are still under God. (However, as values/morals in a population begin to differ, levels of trust likewise decrease exponentially.)
So, as we can see, the roles of men and of women, both in the family and in broader society, are fundamentally different in the eyes of God. We are made differently to fit different purposes.
It is within this context that we can begin to understand why a man is Biblically permitted to marry multiple women. Because while sex is the physical token of marriage, Biblical marriage is about so much more than sex.
From the very beginning, God gave man dominion over the earth and all the creatures therein to caretake/manage it, but then God himself said that it is not good for man to be alone, so God created woman from man, and commanded them to be together and to multiply and fill the whole earth, and by extension caretake/manage the whole earth.
(For the record, even if you believe the population numbers they claim, we’re not even close to filling the whole earth. Based on 7.5 billion people, every family in the entire world could have a couple of acres of land in the United States alone. Or, in other words, the United States alone could easily manage/sustain a population of 15–20 billion people if land/resources were managed productively and regeneratively. )
So we see that biblical marriage is primarily about preventing men and women from being alone, establishing a family/legacy, raising up children in the knowledge of God, and building generational wealth through the wise management of resources.
And one of the ways God provides for this in the Bible is through polygyny.
Exodus 21:10 (KJV)- If he take him another wife; her (the first wife’s) food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage (frequency of sexual intercourse), shall he not diminish.
So straightaway, one of the first commandments (after the original ten are given to Moses) is about ensuring that the taking of an additional wife does not diminish the first wife’s resources and opportunities. In other words, that it was only to be done to further build and benefit the family, not to the detriment of existing family members.
(According to the testimony of many actual currently practicing Christian polygynists, who don’t split their man between multiple houses/families, contrary to what you see on television, having multiple sister-wives in the home/family dramatically lightens each mother’s individual load and allows them both more personal time and time with each child.)
As a second witness to this, we see that each of the 12 tribes originally received equal portions of inheritance, regardless of whom their mother was.
We have a few extra mentions of the normality of taking additional wives throughout the 5 books of Moses, and then in Deuteronomy 25, the laws regarding Levirate marriage are set forth.
Deuteronomy 25:5–6 (KJV)- If brethren dwell together (live nearby/or in the same community), and one of them die, and have no child (specifically, son), the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.
And it shall be, that the firstborn (son) which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
So, the passing on the father’s name in lineages was so important to the culture and history that if there was no son born to carry on his father’s name, then the nearest kinsmen (as we see in the book of Ruth) was meant to take in the widow and any daughters, and the firstborn son would belong to the dead husband’s line, but any additional children would then be the brother’s, whether or not he already had other wives and children.
We also see precedent here that even women, whom in polygyny just have the one husband, are still expected generally to not remain alone after their husband dies but (and especially if they are capable of bearing more children) to remarry, often as an additional wife to a man that is already married.
(Although, in instances of older age, beyond childbearing years, sister wives may together be sufficient to keep each other from being alone, provided they have younger family to assist them where necessary in their senior years.)
Next, we’ll jump straight to King David, who, while he is being reprimanded of the Lord through the prophet Nathan over the Bathsheba/Uriah incident, is told that his 7 wives and 10+ concubines/handmaids were given to him by God himself, and that if he had simply wanted more, God would have been happy to give him more.
2 Samuel 12:8 (AMP)- I also gave you your master’s house, and put your master’s wives into your care and under your protection, and I gave you the house (dynasty) of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have given you much more!
In short, there are over 40 recorded instances of polygynous marriage in the Old Testament alone, including notable prophets/patriarchs Abraham, Jacob/Israel, David, Solomon, Caleb, Ezra, Hosea, Zedekiah and Gideon.
But what of the New Testament?
Well, besides the scriptures we’ve already mentioned earlier, one of the big NT scriptures that Christians will attempt to use to argue that God prefers one-man-one-woman marriage is 1 Timothy 3, in which Paul outlines the desired attributes of men necessary to be Bishops, Deacons and Elders.
1 Timothy 3:1,2,4,5,10–12 (KJV)- If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless.
Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
So, allegedly, Paul tells Timothy to select as Bishops and Deacons in the church, men with only one wife.
However, in both these instances (and in Titus 1:6), the word translated “one” here is the Greek word mia, meaning first, a, one, a certain/particular, superior, etc.
Meaning that Paul could be saying to make sure that these men are married to a particular quality of woman, which is a very possible interpretation in context, because the weight of such a calling/office will be time-consuming.
Likewise, Paul could be saying to make sure that these men are only on their first wife, because a man with multiple wives will be needed more frequently at home.
And thirdly, Paul could very well be saying to make sure that these men are not single celibate men, but that they at least have a wife (and children), so that you can ascertain how good they are as fathers and husbands before putting them in a place of stewardship over a congregation.
It is especially important in understanding this counsel and its context, that it is immediately followed by a warning for the latter-days:
1 Timothy 4:1,3 (KJV)- Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
This prophetic warning given to Timothy is that people in the future would depart from the faith and be seduced by false doctrines such as prohibitions regarding biblical marriage and the eating of meat.
Given this obvious context, you could argue that Paul is prophesying against a particular celibate priest-class that would attempt to usurp Christendom in the future, and reinforcing the need for married Bishops, Deacons and Elders in your churches.
That is a perfectly reasonable interpretation, and if that’s how you understand it, then my work here is still done, because it’s clearly not implying a sin in having multiple wives.
For the record, I’m not arguing that every Christian should be polygynous. Or that monogamous marriages are inferior. Or that you need multiple wives to get to heaven.
I’m simply saying that Christian/Biblical marriage must include at least the option of polygyny, if for no other reason than allowing every woman to have a husband, and every child a father.
Polygyny is the proscribed Biblical solution to the problem of caring for widows and orphans in your community. It is not simply financial help they need.
It is not good for man or woman to be alone.
2. The Bible Does NOT Condemn ALL Homosexuality
This has grown to be a very polarizing issue in recent years.
While the general trend over decades has been broader acceptance of the LGBT+ community, more recent polling indicates a peak of acceptance in 2019, with a growing lack of “tolerance” in the face of widespread economic hardship the past two or so years.
It appears that a decent percentage of the population having supported the still growing LGBT+ community previously while their lives were affluent and easy, are understandably more insular and “protective of their own family/community” when life is no longer easy.
Many of you might take what I’m going to say as uncomfortably progressive, and others will certainly take it as far too conservative and/or bigoted.
I remind you, this is all about what the Bible ACTUALLY says and doesn’t say.
My allegiance is to the revealed will of God. Our two main sources are therefore scripture and God’s creation/nature.
Because this is a touchy subject, I’m going to be upfront about this.
It is my contention that the Bible forbids male homosexuality/sodomy (and by extension anal sex) and actually permits female homosexuality (privately, not publicly).
And I allege that most of us, on some level, understand this. There is a huge difference between the way two gay man have sexual relations, and the way that two women do.
Conflating male sodomy and lesbianism into the umbrella-term homosexuality gives the false impression that they are same thing, when they are obviously not, because men and women are fundamentally different.
And this is precisely why the L comes first in LGBT.
When attempting to normalize the LGBT community into Western society, those who began promoting it in the media several decades ago understood that while most people were distrustful of and uncomfortable around homosexual men, they were actually open to and encouraging of lesbians.
And there’s actually a logical reason why.
This is because when male homosexual behavior does occur in the animal kingdom, as anyone who grew up on a farm knows, it is one male dominating another through anal rape, usually after a fight.
And it is not pleasant for the one who loses. It is forced submission. The anus was not made by God to be an additional sex organ.
It is therefore natural (meaning of nature/creation) for masculine, heterosexual men to be distrusting of a man who wants to have anal intercourse with other men, even to the extent of the unconscious desire to fight them.
(I’m not saying they should. I’m not promoting violence. I’m just saying it is a natural instinct for high-testosterone males.)
So what does the Bible say?
First, the Old Testament.
Leviticus 18:22 (KJV)- Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abomination.
Leviticus 18:22 (My translation from the Hebrew)- Do not lay sexually/intimately with men as you do in bed with women. That would be contrary to nature.
There are also additional verses in the Old Testament that reiterate this same message. All are specific to men, and no specification is made against woman laying sexually with woman.
In fact, just four verses earlier, we have something that implies precisely the opposite.
Leviticus 18:18 (KJV)- Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness beside the other in her life time.
It is important to note that ALL uses of uncover someone’s nakedness in the Hebrew Old Testament are talking about sexual intercourse. It was a common Hebrew idiom for sex that was intended to be more polite.
Leviticus 18:18 (my translation from the Hebrew)- Do not take your wife’s sister as an additional wife/in bound matrimony, confining them to sexual relations together/beside one another, while your original wife is still living.
While other more modern Bible translations attempt to make this passage about not marrying two sisters because they will naturally compete with each other (thereby avoiding the uncomfortable, obvious threesome connotations), the broader context of this passage/chapter, as we covered already, is about avoiding specific incestuous situations.
What is clearly being said here is that it is too incestuous to be legally permissible for a man to marry two sisters. The obvious implication of which is that, normally, sister wives are having some form of sexual relations together within the home.
So, what does the Rabbinic commentary say?
Well, while the Midrash does cite “same-sex marriage” as one of the heathen customs/practices of Egypt that Israel was commanded not to follow, a man taking additional wives is one of the first things allowed for in the Mosaic Law after the ten commandments are delivered in Exodus 20.
While the prophet Samuel forbade his own daughters from hamesolelot (“playing together” sexually), women “playing together” before marriage was not considered to render them a harlot/prostitute, or render them unfit to marry a High Priest, in the way that cohabiting with a man with no intention of wedding them would.
According to orthodox Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, “it is not punishable by lashing as there is no specific prohibition against it and in any case no sexual intercourse takes place at all. Consequently, such women are not forbidden to (marry) the priesthood on account of unchastity, nor is a woman prohibited to her husband because of it, since this does not constitute unchastity.”
He later specifies that a woman could legally be “flogged” (spanked or slapped in chastisement) and publicly “forbidden” from such practices by her husband if she embarrassed him publicly by being involved with other women from outside the family home.
However, she was not allowed to be lashed or stoned or divorced or criminally punished in any way by him for such behavior.
It wasn’t considered criminal in the way that male homosexuality clearly was.
So, we can see here that, just as committed, consensual heterosexual sex before a formal wedding took place was considered a mere social faux pas in ancient Hebrew culture, two or more women, whether married or not, playing together sexually was only seen as a social impropriety/obscenity, or in other words, something discretionary; for behind closed doors; publicly taboo but privately tolerable.
Now, on to the New Testament.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (KJV)- Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
Many modern Bible translations will collate the terms effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind into the collective term homosexuals. But this is a false over-simplification.
The Greek word arsenokoites (literally “male-only-coitus”) only applies to sodomites and pederasts (a homosexual male who prefers adolescent boys).
The word lesbian itself is from the Greek word lesbios (“of the Greek Island Lesbos”) renowned because of the female poette Sappho’s erotic poetry about the sensual love between women from around 600BC.
So, it is clear that the concept of sensual female-on-female loveplay was familiar to the ancient Greek, and associated with this island.
And yet Paul, obviously well-educated in both the Greek and Hebrew cultures and histories, who personally visited the Isle of Lesbos while traveling between Philippi and Ephesus on his third missionary journey (Acts 20:14) never once condemns or indicates any sin in female “homosexuality”.
As Paul’s letters to both the Philippians and Ephesians, whose churches were in the closest proximity to Lesbos, were written in the next 3 or 4 years after this missionary journey and neither epistle mentions the dangers, sin or negative influence of the nearby female homosexuality.
(In fact, the only mentions in either book of anything about sexual impropriety is of aselgeia in Eph 4:19, translated in Bible versions as lasciviousness/sensuality/promiscuity, but more correctly means indecency, impropriety or recklessness, and porneia in Eph 5:3, meaning of course prostitution, not fornication.)
Romans 1:26-27 (KJV)- For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
Many Christians will count this as the single clear scriptural reference to a unilateral prohibition on both male and female homosexuality, interpreting women going against what is natural as describing lesbianism.
However, just as before, we find something different when we actually dig into the Greek.
The word for “against” nature is the greek word para, which actually means next-to, beside, close-by, along-side, etc.
And the word translated “use” (chresin/chresis) is specifically referring to the sexual use of a woman’s body/vagina for procreation or pleasure.
This fundamentally changes what we might infer from these verses in context. Here’s my complete translation:
Romans 1:26–27 (my translation)- Because of this (serving themselves over God), God handed them over into dishonorable/shameful pathos; passions/burnings of carnal desire. Indeed, both specifically women (childbearing females) did exchange for their sexual use penetration into that which is beside/next to the natural place for penetration (in other words, using the anus instead of the vagina),
and similarly also, the men, and departing from the natural/created inclination to use the childbearing female (or vagina) for sex, and inflaming their desire for penetration, have joined/coupled man with man, committing lewd and indecent acts contrary to nature, and they receive as their due the necessary retribution that their straying, deviant behavior has brought upon themselves.
So, what we find in the Greek is clarity.
This scripture (and by extension the rest of the Bible) does not refer to female homosexuality as unnatural, it is referring quite specifically to anal intercourse (or sodomy), the place next to that which is natural, whether with men or women, as the act that is contrary to nature/creation.
So, if you believe in sola scriptura, that God through the Holy Spirit put everything for our day in the current 66 books of the protestant Bible, and you’re being honest with yourself, then you have to concede that female homosexuality is not a sin; it is just something that is meant to be private/within the home (especially between sister wives) and not public.
- Eve Slept With Someone Else BEFORE Adam
If you’ve made it this far without crying blasphemy! at anything I’ve said yet, well, this may be the one to push you over the line.
I hope it doesn’t, because this is equally authoritative and legitimate as scriptural doctrine as else everything I’ve shared thus far, but the majority of churches will not teach this doctrine. And when pressed as to why, it is usually because it disrupts some false preconception they have about the world we live in and the nature of evil within it.
And so I’m going to lead you into this the way I came into it, because I discovered this for myself just diving into scripture and putting pieces together from looking into the Hebrew.
(Later, after finding others who’d come to the same conclusion online, I learned that the Aramaic, which actually predates the Hebrew manuscripts, says it far more clearly.)
So, the first thing you need to understand about is the Watchers.
Who/What are the Watchers?
The Watchers (also translated Angels, Stars, and Sons of God) are a class of angel that watch over the earth.
However, when we refer to the Watchers, we are talking about the 200 Angels who came down, landed on Mount Hermon/Harmon, made a pact together to rebel against God, and then took all the beautiful women they wanted, impregnated them, and created the Nephilim/Giants which were human/angel hybrids.
Genesis 6:1,2,4 (KJV)- And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
There were giants (Nephilim) in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Now, this whole narrative is told in far more detail in the books of Enoch, Jasher and Jubilees, all of which are considered scriptural by the Hebrews and are mentioned/quoted in the Bible, but which, like the Apocrypha, are not included in the modern Holy Bible because parts of them sound too audacious and supernatural (or in the case of the book of Enoch, was lost except to the Ethiopian Jews, and re-discovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumram caves.)
Enoch 6:1,2,7,10–15 (Laurence)- It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born unto them, fair and beautiful.
And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored with them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.
Then they all swore together, and bound themselves by mutual execrations (cursings). Their whole number was two hundred, which descended upon Ardis, which is the top of Mount Armon.
Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.
And the women conceiving brought forth giants,
Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them;
When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them;
And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.
Then the earth reproved the unrighteous.
There’s a lot more to it. We’ll stop there. You’re welcome to read Enoch, Jasher and Jubilees for yourself in your own time. They reinforce and re-witness the correct interpretation of the Genesis account.
But there are two fundamental things we learn from this understanding.
Firstly, that embodied angels are capable of reproducing with human women.
This makes a lot of sense, because angels are often referred to as the sons of God, and Adam and Eve (and by extension the rest of us) were made in God’s image.
And secondly, we are given better context for what caused the Great Flood.
The verbal histories/mythologies of virtually every culture in the world, hundreds of different mythologies, share these same basic concepts: giants, dragons, a great flood, and some version of the Adam and Eve story.
And all of these are fundamentally biblical.
(Problem is, we have a lot of pastors now schooled at Bible colleges where they are trained to view things through a mainstream secular historical lens, and they are taught to have faith in the New Testament because of the 100,000 historical documents, but they end up viewing large chunks of the Old Testament as myth. They learn to discount all these other books/accounts that back up what the Bible actually says, and instead focus on apologetics, trying to harmonize the Bible with the secular narrative of history.)
God flooded the entire earth because these Nephilim, these giant angel/human hybrids were devouring up the whole earth; plants, animals and people.
The earth that God created to be filled was being ravaged and destroyed because these rogue fallen angels had come down and created something unnatural and insatiable.
And more importantly, the Messiah hadn’t come yet to redeem mankind from the Fall of Adam of Eve. So something had to be done about it.
So God decides to flood the whole earth, while preserving mankind and animalkind through Noah’s family and the Ark, to start over again afresh.
Noah is described in Genesis 6 as: a man just and perfect in his generations.
Well, that phrase perfect in his generations, is more correctly undefiled/pure in his genetics.
So we see this “corruption of all flesh” occurring, and God needs to do something to preserve mankind, so the Messiah can be linked by blood to the whole human family, in order to be the vicarious sacrifice and atone for each of us.
Alright, that’s one puzzle piece.
Our second important puzzle piece is one we’ve already touched on briefly, but I want to give you some more detail.
In the Bible, we get a lot of idiomatic language, especially when describing things of a more sexual/intimate nature.
And Adam knew Eve his wife… (Gen 4:1)
Go in unto my maid… (Gen 16:2)
To come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. (Gen 19:31)
He took her, and lay with her… (Gen 34:2)
Whosoever lieth carnally with a woman… (Lev 19:20)
Thou hast humbled her… (Deut 21:14)
Then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her… (Job 31:10)
An adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness… (Prov 30:20)
I went unto the prophetess, and she conceived… (Isa 8:3)
It is good for a man not to touch a woman… (1 Cor 7:1)
Most of these are pretty obvious, yes. For those of us raised on the King James Bible, some of this idiomatic language goes right over your head, but eventually you tend to pick up the meanings by context.
In newer translations, many of these are modernized into explicit language, but then the more subtle Hebrew euphemisms are missed completely.
Well, one of these common idioms is to uncover so-and-so’s nakedness.
Growing up KJV-only, and hearing the Garden of Eden story, you have Adam and Eve trying to hide their nakedness from God with fig leaves as though their naked body is a shameful thing.
And then you have a bunch of other biblical references to covering and uncovering nakedness, such as the ones we covered earlier in Leviticus 18.
And so many of us rightly infer the context of Leviticus 18 as talking about uncovering someone’s nakedness as implying that sexual activities are taking place, but that context blurs along with sermons on dressing “modestly” and/or “not showing too much skin”.
So, our foundational understanding (especially as children and adolescents) is that nakedness (or even showing too much skin) inevitably leads to sexual transgressions. And the existence of pornography seems to confirm this.
So, it implants this false idea that nakedness itself is the root problem and that sexual transgression is just one of many bad fruits.
But what I discovered a few months ago in my Biblical research that completely jarred my understanding was the Hebrew metaphor of clothing as it regards sex/marriage.
In the Hebrew culture, being covered with a garment/skirt is a metaphor for wedded marriage.
A man’s wife/wives are metaphorically considered to be as his skirt, surrounding his loins.
Likewise, a married woman would wear a head covering; a scarf, hat, bandana, headpiece, wig, etc. in public to show that she had a husband.
(Nowadays, we have been taught to wear idols; expensive pieces of metal and stone on our fingers, as the public symbols of marriage.)
And Paul reinforced this understanding in 1 Corinthians 11 when he addresses the need for married women to have their “head covered” during church worship.
1 Corinthians 11:5 (KJV)- But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
1 Corinthians 11:5 (my translation)- And every married woman who offers prayer, worship or prophecy publicly (in church) with her head uncovered, dishonors her husband (by not acknowledging him before God and others), indeed she might as well be presenting herself in public with her head shaven (a sign of disgrace, potentially equating herself publicly as though she were a man).
Likewise, uncovering a woman’s skirt/garment/nakedness is a colloquialism meaning to have sexual intercourse with her, and uncovering a man’s skirt/garment/nakedness means sexual intercourse with one of his wives/concubines.
In other words, it doesn’t actually mean anything to do with nudity.
It was just a polite way of inferring sexual relations publicly so you’re not explaining the specifics of sex to young children.
What this means is that when God curses Ham for uncovering his father’s nakedness while he’s passed out drunk, it’s not because he accidentally saw his father naked. Noah was probably fully clothed.
Ham took advantage of the situation to sleep with his father’s wife, presumably (but not necessarily) his own mother. (Although, some Talmudists have suggested, due to the severity of the punishment from God, that Ham actually must have raped his own father in his sleep.)
Either way, it’s NOT a sin to happen upon your father naked, or even to happen upon your father having sex. The clear Hebraic understanding is that Ham violated his father’s marriage by involving himself sexually while his father was passed out drunk.
Likewise, in Ruth 3, we finally make sense of the strange situation in which she comes into Boaz sleeping in the barn and lays down at his feet.
(The foot/feet is colloquially used to represent the entire legs/lower body, and by extension, euphemistically, the man’s loins. ie. In 2 Samuel 11, when King David finds out that Bathsheba is pregnant, he calls for a battle report from her husband Uriah, and then commands him to return to his own house for the night and wash his feet, hoping to hide the pregnancy. And Uriah’s own words in verse 11 reveal that he understood this to mean to lie with his wife. But Uriah refused any home comforts while they were at war. This is why David then orchestrated to have him die in battle.)
Ruth 3:1,3–4,7–9 (KJV)- Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?
Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor: but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking.
And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do.
And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down.
And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.
And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.
With this greater understanding, we can see that Ruth actually comes to Boaz in the dark, uncovers his loins and either lays down between his legs, or possibly sits astride him, and begins arousing him for some form of sex, making a marriage commitment with her body.
He wakes up shocked to find a woman there, and she identifies herself as belonging to him as her near kinsmen, invoking Levirate marriage, and asks him to spread his skirt over her, in marriage, the promise of which being the sexual contract they are making with each other.
Now, some reading this will probably try and re-interpret what happens next as Boaz stopping anything sexual from happening between them until he’d dealt with the nearer kinsmen.
However, that reasoning really doesn’t bear out. Boaz asks her to tarry the night with him, she spends the night at his feet, and then he compensates her in barley in the morning for their night together, on the chance that he is unable by law to make good on his sexual promise of marriage.
So we can see that we, as children in our understanding of Hebrew, have been kept from the fuller adult context of what went on here in the scriptures.
And that’s puzzle piece number 2.
And it is with this understanding that we are now prepared to re-examine the story of Adam and Eve.
(Keep in mind, that words like seed, fruit, and tree are used frequently in Hebrew scripture as metaphors for the phallus, semen, children, progeny, the family tree, etc.)
Genesis 3 (KJV)- Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
(Note: Satan is a fallen angel. The “seraphim” are a particular class of dragon/serpent-like/reptilian angels. As we’ve already established angels are capable of copulating with human women.)
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
(She does not refer to the tree as “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”, it is the “tree”, or phallus, “in the middle” of the garden.)
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
(As we already learned “eating” was another Hebrew idiom for a woman taking the phallus inside herself.)
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and (then) gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
(This doesn’t imply that Adam was with her and watching while she was learning firsthand about sex. It’s a consecutive sequence of events. She tasted of the fruit from the serpent angel, found it enjoyable, and then she went and showed Adam how to do it afterwards. The English punctuation doesn’t necessarily convey the same Hebrew meaning.)
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
(They didn’t actually cover themselves with fig leaves. This is a metaphor for the sake of Hebrew children, showing that they were covering themselves in a token garment in bound matrimony, and telling the adults in no uncertain terms that we’re obviously not talking about eating an actual piece of fruit here. This is idiomatic code for sex.)
And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
(The word beguiled here is more appropriately translated as seduced, in an explicitly sexual context. The Greek Septuagint and Aramaic versions back this up.)
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
(It’s important to realize that two different literal seed-lines are being talked about here. To deny this is to say that the serpent’s seed is metaphorical, but the woman’s seed is literal.)
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
(The Lord multiplies her sorrow and her conception by creating two conceptions in her womb, fraternal twins to two different fathers. This is called superfecundation. It occurs in roughly 1 in 40 sets of fraternal twins in which the paternity is challenged in court. This explanation shows that Eve’s consequences from the Lord here are specific to her own pregnancy, and not directly applied to all women because of Eve’s sin.)
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
(This more correct understanding of events better explains the patriarchal nature of the Hebrew family structure. Eve demonstrated her susceptibility to be swayed from the Lord’s command by the first other man that came along and seduced her.)
And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
(Eve/Chavah means life-giver. He names her this after she becomes pregnant with both seed lines. Notice that Adam is not referred to here as the “father of all living”.)
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
(Here the Lord formally weds them, giving them garments to represent their marital status. This would have included a head-covering for Eve.)
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
(Now, keep in mind that the modern chapter and verse structure and English punctuation are not the same in original Hebrew.)
Genesis 4:1–2 (KJV)- And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
People will attempt to use these last two verses to discount everything I am saying here. They claim that the Bible clearly says that Cain is Adam’s son.
But it you take each phrase sequentially without reference to the verse structure, you see that it doesn’t necessarily mean that.
But is “necessarily” good enough?
No.
So I’m going to show you the translation from the Aramaic, which actually predates the Hebrew copies (from which our English version is derived) by hundreds of years.
(The Aramaic Targum/translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was created after the Jews returned from Babylon around 500BC, finding that the younger generations raised in Babylon no longer knew Hebrew well enough to understand the scriptures. It may also be that they “dumbed down” some of their idiomatic Hebrew in order to better instruct the next generation in their traditions.)
Genesis 4:1–2 (Targum Jonathan, from Aramaic, Etheridge)- And Adam knew Havah his wife, who had desired the Angel; and she conceived, and bare Kain; and she said, I have acquired a man of the Angel of the Lord.
And she added to bear from her husband Adam, his twin, even Habel. And Habel was a shepherd of the flock, but Kain was a man working in the earth.
It should start to feel undeniable that we’ve unlocked the correct understanding of the Adam and Eve story.
The “tree of knowledge of good and evil” is the family tree created through carnal knowledge of both Good (Adam) and Evil (Satan), and whose fruits were both good (Abel) and evil (Cain).
This gives us a glimpse into the sorts of details that were clearly understood in the Jewish scripture during Jesus’ day, given that he likely studied and taught from the Aramaic scriptures himself.
And to add a second witness to this, we’re going to go directly to Jesus’ words in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares.
Matthew 13:24–30,36–43 (KJV)- Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Jesus is very clear here.
The Enemy, Satan, the Wicked One, came into the world that God created and planted his own seed in Eve, among those which God planted, in order to raise up his own children alongside the children of Man.
God sees that this has occurred, but says that he will not root them out until the time of harvest at the end of the world, when the righteous can be safely gathered together and the wicked burned.
So, just as the Watcher-class angels created their own race of Nephilim, Satan, first created his own bloodline, through his son Cain, a murderer from the beginning, through which he might eventually control the world.
This seed-line survived the flood through Ham’s wife, who was of Cain’s lineage. (This also means that the serpent seed-line which was already diluted through marriage, diluted further by marrying into Noah’s genetically pure lineage.)
(Note: all instances in the Old Testament in which God required the Israelites to take no prisoners/spare none alive, and not risk making treaties and intermarrying with them, was when they were warring with descendants of Cain’s line, ie. the Canaanites.)
It is also worth noting that in the parable, the wheat and tares are indistinguishable from each other in their infancy, implying that if there are indeed physical characteristics that identify those with the serpent seed line, they may no longer be physically apparent.
(Some have suggested the Rh- factor in blood typing, which makes up about 7% of the world population, as the primary feature identifying the serpent seed line. This is because according to certain mythologies, the Rh (rhesus monkey factor) comes because the majority of people are descended from monkeys, but the Rh- people are descended from goats. The goat commonly symbolizes the Baphomet, aka Satan. This further allegorically fits with Jesus separating the sheep from the goats.)
But the more important lesson to take from this parable is that, while there is a literal foundational meaning to the scripture, this doesn’t preclude those of the Serpent Seed bloodline from salvation through Jesus. They still have free will. They are still connected to Jesus through Eve, the mother of all living.
Some have attempted to deny this doctrine by claiming that it is racist.
Obviously, that isn’t true. If anything, it provides better understanding and context for seemingly racist ideas in the Old Testament. And provides additional scriptural basis for the current ruling elite class who seem to worship Satan.
(And if the Rh- factor is the indicator, well they are dispersed into all races, though least prevalent in Asians and Australian Aboriginals, and most prevalent in certain white European populations: Scots, Basque, Nords, Ashkenazi Jews, etc.)
But wait, there’s more!
1 John 3:11–12 (KJV)- For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
John tells us here both that Cain was “of the Wicked One”, and that he was accountable for his own evil works/choices.
Revelation 2:9 (KJV)- I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
Jesus in his revelation to John identifies false Jews whom profess to belong to Jewry but secretly serve Satan (possibly from intermarrying during the Babylonian diaspora).
Then in the Gospel of John, we have a recorded altercation between Jesus and some of the Pharisees on the Mount of Olives.
John 8:38–42,44 (KJV)- I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Now, whether Jesus is calling out a literal, serpent seed line embedded within the Jews, or is labeling these Pharisees as the figurative children of the devil by their choices, it is clear at least that John, beloved of Jesus (and whom knew Him better than all other New Testament authors except James and Jude), really wanted us to know this; mentioning this idea in his Gospel, in his first general epistle to the Church, and twice in the Revelation.
So it must be important for us to know, especially in the last days.
But most importantly, regardless of our heritage, Jesus invites all to come unto him and be born again in him.
Now, I know some people will still deny this truth, that Eve was seduced by Satan, and the other truths that I’ve laid out, even though I have shown you clearly how these scriptures were intended to be understood in their original context.
But the beauty of it all is that you don’t need to take my word for it.
Search the scriptures for yourself, the Greek, the Hebrew, the Aramaic. Seek out the context. Humble yourself before God and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into truth.
I’m not your middle-man.
And neither is your church or your pastor.
Don’t rely on the traditions and interpretations of men.
Study God’s word for yourself.
