How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

Where did the practice of polygamy and concubines originate, and why is it included in the Bible’s timeline? When you look at the Bible story, you need to see what God’s original plan was from the beginning and then the fallout from human beings going against God’s original plan. So we start at the beginning. When Jesus was asked about marriage, this is exactly what he did. Jesus went back to the creation story in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, and affirmed that God’s plan for marriage was two people, not many. He spoke about Adam and Eve becoming “one flesh.”† In speaking about the reality of divorce, Jesus said that divorce began because of the hardening of human hearts, but then reminded everyone that this was not God’s original plan. Following the fallout, we immediately see the downward spiral of human beings rejecting God’s original design. In Genesis 4, Cain’s son Lamech takes two wives, not one. On and on it goes, with men taking not only multiple wives but having concubines, women treated as property for a man’s pleasure. Polygamy becomes the norm in the ancient world of the Near East. Even the Israelites stray from God’s original design and adopt these cultural norms. At times, we see God working within these fallen cultural practices (like polygamy and concubines), but we never see God endorsing them as good. The practices of polygamy and concubines became ingrained in the culture. Some have suggested that because these practices were so widespread, if God had ordere...