Let’s be honest, Christian morality has never been all that popular. The idea that God wants us to live our lives in a certain way, in a way that may not necessarily be our way, is a bit irksome. And that irksomeness, while present at virtually every point and in virtually every arena of human action, is most clearly felt and thus most vehemently expressed on those points to which God says “no” to which our minds, our acquaintances, and, most important of all, our broader culture say “yes”. Given this, it isn’t surprising that the bit of Christian morality most burdensome and thus most hateful to modern Westerners regards sex.
Our nation and those like it are awash in sexuality. And thus the Bible’s attempted regulation of sex seems to be a scandalous and monstrous imposition on our own pursuit of happiness. Biblical injunctions pertaining to adultery, fornication, marriage, re-marriage, homosexuality, and so on can seem quaintly outdated at best and bigoted and repressive at worst. But as in all things, the Lord’s guidance is good and despite our short-sighted and largely acculturated hostility to it, it nevertheless deserves our obedience.
Still, conscientious obedience is often easier than blind obedience. With this in mind let’s look at just one of the ways that the Bible attempts to regulate human sexuality: the prohibition of fornication, of premarital sex.
The Bible’s view of premarital sex is fairly obvious. Both Testaments, in Deuteronomy 22 and 1 Corinthians 7, make it very clear that sexuality can only lawfully be expressed within a marriage. Deuteronomy, in its hard-line fashion, makes this apparent by demanding either death or forced marriage for those found to have fornicated in one fashion or another. 1 Corinthians 7 contains Paul’s widely dismissed advice to remain altogether celibate and his much more widely received permission to marry. But Paul allows marriage precisely so as to prevent fornication within the early Christian community. The implication is that Paul felt that it was better for a Christian to lose his laser-like focus on the things of God in the hustle and bustle of married life than to sleep around; that’s quite a statement coming from a religious leader.
But why? Why is premarital sex so maligned in the Bible? After all, it’s one thing to forbid something and quite another to justifiably forbid it. The answer to this question, as is so often the case with spiritual things, is multifaceted.
First there are practical considerations. Unmarried sex can (and often does) lead to single motherhood which puts an incredible burden on the young lady involved both physically and emotionally. Additionally, with the heightened sense of significance sexuality brings to a relationship, the potential for heartbreak is all the more serious. And, of course, there is the matter of disease. Considering that even in the U.S. today, with all our ingenious methods for rendering promiscuous sex safer than it might otherwise be, a recent CDC study found that roughly 25% of teenage girls are currently infected with a sexually transmitted disease that could potentially seriously impact their reproductive health. God’s laws related to sex, as with those related to other, more mundane pursuits, have a protective quality to them; they protect us from the world and, in some cases, from ourselves.
But in addition to the practical concerns, there is a more symbolic issue as well. 1 Corinthians 6 speaks of the distasteful chain of associations that can result from premarital sex. By becoming a Christian a person is uniting himself in a somewhat mystical fashion with Jesus. Likewise, when a person has sex with someone else he is also, though is a far crasser way, uniting himself with his partner. To paraphrase Paul: if Jesus is connected to you and you are connected to a bunch of sluts, then Jesus… You get the idea. As a result, Paul encourages his readers to treat their bodies with respect and dignity knowing that they, in a sense, are a temple of God, which is to say, that they are associated with the name of the Lord.
Finally, there is the whole matter of what God intended sex to be. When Jesus was approached and asked about sexual ethics He referred his petitioners to the origin of human sex—that is, the origin of humanity. In Mark 10, Jesus quoted from Genesis 2, reminding his listeners that sexuality was intended, from the very beginning, to be expressed in a lifelong committed relationship that ultimately produced children, an act by which the couple’s “becoming one” is powerfully and literally represented. Given that this was God’s intention all along, to seek to separate these components (sexuality, marriage, childbirth) from one another in an absolute fashion (as premarital sex necessarily does) is to act contrary to the will of God.
Bull, the fact is there are two Greek words translated as ‘fornication’. The fact that two Greek words are translated in to the same English word indicates these words are both being exaggerated until they have the same meaning. Those who wanted to give at least a remotely accurate message against premarital sex would put it under ‘chambering’ in Rom 13:13. This is where Augustine put it in his personal confession. There is still the fact that the lovers in the Song of Solomon make love in chapter 2 and get married in chapter 3, and the literal order of words of 1 Cor 7:36 put sex before marriage and it is declared to not be a sin in the Greek and the KJV. Jesus was not asked about “sexual ethics”, he was asked about divorce. Go read the scriptures for yourself. Matthew 19:3-6 and Mark 10:2-9.
Hi Scott,
Wow, when I wrote this post I never thought that I’d have to defend the very notion that Bible prohibits fornication. I just assumed that the “man on the street” would at least be willing to grant that. I suppose your opposition is somehow or other a sign of the times we live in: Christian sexual ethics are now so unpopular that scoffers aren’t even content to just ignore them any longer, now those ethics must be revised so as to not even exist in any recognizable form.
Where to begin? I suppose that I should start off by saying that the word most modern English Bibles translate as “fornication” is transliterated as “porneia” and the word translated “fornicator” is “pornos”. Checking my copy of the Danker lexicon (3rd edition, Univ. of Chicago Press) I find this under the definition of porneia: 1. unlawful sexual intercourse, prostitution, unchastity, fornication. Similarly, this is what I find for pornos: 1. One who practices sexual immorality, fornicator. Pornia is found in, among other places, Mark 7:21, and pornos is found, among other places, in 1 Cor. 6:9; in both places the Scripture is decidedly negative in its evaluations.
So what’s fornication then? Well, according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed… that’s the current one), fornication is “consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other”; in other words, extramarital sex. QED.
Now I perused your web page and I can see that you’re fond of drawing attention to the etymology of the English word fornication, noting as you do that if one were to go far enough back in time, to the Latin roots even, “fornication” is based on the word “fornix” which has more specific implications, namely prostitution.
But it’s clear that you’re engaged in a bit of etymological sleight of hand here. Remember, *modern* English translations translate the Bible into *modern* English, not into Elizabethan English, let alone ancient Latin. So the latin roots of “fornication” are totally irrelevant here. Otherwise you could just as well work up a whole new web page in which you derive a smug sense of satisfaction from having “exposed” the fact that whereas the NASB translates the Hebrew “tobe” of Jeremiah 12:6 into English as “nice”, in a shocking revelation “nice” is actually based on the Latin “nescius” which means “ignorant”–and thus the modern church is leading its people astray… or something.
As for the Song of Solomon, it’s not at all clear that the book contains a unifying narrative framework and so your supposition that material contained in chapter 2 is temporally prior to material contained in chapter 3 is gratuitous. Further, it’s not at all obvious that chapter 3 describes the protagonists’ wedding, rendering your assumption that chapter 2 must entail fornication even less justified.
As for 1 Cor. 7:36–a passage granting fathers permission to marry off their *virgin* daughters–I simply have no idea how you think this supports the moral acceptability of pre-marital sex.
Thanks for your detailed response Pastor.
For clarity the website you refer to as “My website” currently redirects to a website which is not mine. I shut down my website sometime ago, due to lack of interest in the topic. Christians who believe in “sexual purity” doctrines have much bigger issues than contrarian bloggers such as myself. Christians who wish to promote dogmas of “sexual purity” should probably start by making the case to the current crop of pew-sitting bench-warmers who currently don’t care one way or the other. They should probably do that that with their personal example and in that regard I wish those people an abundance of sexual abstinence.
Pastor, for the record, I agree the Latin etymology is irrelevant. Furthermore, English etymologies of fornication are equally irrelevant. Any specific word choice in the Bible boils down to debatable academic theories that reasonable people may disagree on, just as you have expressed disagreement in your reasonable response. Further, pointing at a specific word in the Bible is not a wise method to promote a doctrine because the “modern” word choices depend on the theories of the translators. For example: the KJV uses the word Unicorn 9 times in the Old Testament. I doubt you believe in unicorns Pastor; but if you do please enlighten us.
So to be fair the pertinent academic debate IMO is the meaning of the Greek word porneia. I agree 1 Cor 5:1 uses the porneia in association with an incestuous relationship. 1 Cor 6:13-16 condemns porneia in association with prostitution. But any additional meanings theologians wish to assign to that word come from academic theories and resources outside of the scriptures. I’m not against people looking at academic theories and resources outside the scriptures but I think those theories should be disclosed.
I agree there is no ‘fornication’ in the Song of Solomon, because premarital sex does not qualify under ‘fornication’. Of course I’ve heard the objections to my views regarding the Song of Solomon. Some say it is not a literal narrative others say it not chronological. If others choose to believe those things I certainly cannot prove them wrong. But I have to ask those people if they believe Genesis 1 is literal and chronological? Their answer is usually yes. There is much more reason to take the Song of Solomon as a literal narrative than Genesis 1.
I choose to believe the Word of God gives us the chapters of the Song of Solomon in the correct order. If others believe they derive a better understanding using academic theories outside the scriptures that is their choice…I don’t buy it, but to each their own.
1 Cor 7:36 mentions nothing of “daughters”. That word was added by later translators. If you choose to believe that God forgot to add that word to that verse go ahead, that’s between you and God…but once again I don’t buy it. The fact you cannot change is that verse, on its own merits, puts sexual activity prior to marriage and it is declared to not be a sin. People can debate the “meaning” of this, but the fact remains.
Lastly you failed to answer one of my basic questions. Why don’t you put the topics of premarital and illicit sex under ‘chambering’ in Romans 13:13 rather than under the words translated as fornication? That’s where Augustine seemed to put those matters in regard to his personal confession on the issue.
Again, my opinions are my own; I don’t speak for any segment of organized religion. I for one am 100% confident of my views on this issue and I wish others the peace of knowing the truth for themselves.
-Scott
Hi Scott,
Thank you for the correction about the link; I’ll drop that issue then.
When you say that one shouldn’t base theology on the words used in the Bible I’m left a bit flummoxed. Certainly you understand that the Bible is, in a sense, nothing but words. So if words can’t be relied upon, even tentatively, then it would seem that Biblical theology is entirely impossible; if you would be consistent, whatever skepticism you feel towards the reliability of modern academics’ definition of “porneia” should also characterize your feelings towards their definitions of other words like “anastasis”. Rather than hurl ourselves into a skeptical and anti-intellectual bog, it’s surely a more reasonable approach to defer to the academic consensus in lexical matters. And, as I’ve mentioned previously, modern lexicons include “fornication” among the legitimate translations of “porneia”, a possible translation which is prioritized when one considers “porneia”’s cognates.
As for Genesis 1, I think it’s something of a red herring; there are other documents in the Bible which are closer in both content and genre to the Song of Solomon and which thus recommend themselves as more fit for meaningful comparison. Given that the Song of Solomon is poetry, are you inclined to see an over-arching chronological structure in the Bible’s other poetic books? What about Ecclesiastes? What about Psalms? It’s far more natural to see these books as collections of largely disconnected pericopes united more by thematic concerns than some chronological sequence. As such, it’s pointless to allude to the fact that the contents of Song of Solomon 2 precede the contents of chapter 3 in the layout of the book… even granted the assumptions that chapter 2 describes sex and that chapter 3 describes the protagonists’ wedding—both disputable points.
I grant that the word “daughter” is supplied in many modern translations of 1 Cor. 7:36-38 through conjecture and does not appear in the original Greek. I think that’s a reasonable conjecture given the context, but I’ll leave it aside. In any event I don’t see anything in this passage that implies that sex may honorably take place prior to marriage. To invoke “word order” here in an attempt to imply the permissibility of premarital sex seems wholly tendentious given the wider thrust of Paul’s argument in the chapter is that sex, if it’s to be had at all, may only be pursued within the context of a marriage (1 Cor 7:1-2, 8-9).
Finally, why don’t I deal with premarital sex with reference primarily to co-habitation and Romans 13:13 as you say Augustine did? Probably because, unlike Augustine, I’ve no long history of shacking up with a concubine and so those verses haven’t been etched into my mind from years of being harangued by a guilty (and in Augustine’s case a rather over-sensitive) conscience. Since the modern academic lexical consensus is clearly on “my side” it’s just more expedient to point to verses in which fornication broadly is condemned. Further, were I to argue against co-habitation specifically, I’m sure some other interesting person, motivated by a heart desperate to justify itself, would just respond that since he’s not living with the women he has sex with he’s obviously in the clear.
-Eugene
Wow I can’t understand the hardcore vocabulary like flummoxed.