The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?Newman, John Philip
Religion
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?
Newman, John Philip
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Polygamy -- Religious aspects
The geometrical progression of evil in this system of polygamy is seen
in the first three kings, Saul, David and Solomon. Saul had a wife and
a concubine--two women; David had ten women, Solomon had a thousand,
and it broke the kingdom asunder. God says it was for that very cause.
He had multiplied his wives to such an extent, that they had not only
led him astray from God into idolatry, but the very costliness of his
harem was a burden upon the people too heavy for them to bear. I said
the other day that polygamy might do for kings and priests and nabobs,
but could not do for poor men; it costs too much and the people are
taxed too much to support the harem.
Ah! you bring forward these few cases of polygamy! Name them if you
please. Lamech the murderer; Jacob, who deceived his blind old father,
and robbed his brother of his birthright; David, who seduced another
man's wife and murdered that man by putting him in front of the
battle, and old Solomon, who turned to be an idolater. These are some
polygamists! Now let me call the roll of honor: There were Adam, Enoch,
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Joseph and Samuel and
all the prophets and apostles. You are accustomed to hear, from this
sacred place, that all the patriarchs and all the kings and all the
prophets were polygamists. I assert to the contrary, and these great
and eminent men whom I have just mentioned, belonging to the roll of
honor, were monogamists.
Yesterday the gentleman gave me three challenges; he challenged me to
show that the New Testament condemned polygamy. I now proceed to do it.
I quote Paul's words, 1st Corinthians, 7th chap., 2nd and 4th verses:
Nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife,
and let every woman have her own husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise
also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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