Follow up polygamy

I was not satisfied with my earlier post  on this subject.  I wanted a clear Bible passage that said "you shall have only one wife".  I couldn't find it.  According to this Martin Luther (yes that Martin Luther) couldn't find something clear on it either.  This made me feel much better about not finding it.  I did find that some Christians believe that the people recorded in the old testament were sinning.  I also found a news group where someone asked what to do about new Christians who already had multiple wives.

Also I was surprised to find out that there are modern Christians living this way.  I don't know why this surprised me since you can find anything on the internet, but it did.  This made me want to find it even more because frankly I don't want to be associated with what I saw on some of those web sites.

Before we move forward let's clear up the good names of those people in the old testament.  The only thing that I can find that suggests that polygamy is a sin is in the new testament.  In the old testament polygamy was required sometimes because of Deuteronomy 25:5-6.  There are other verses in the old testament that deal with polygamous marriages, and I have seen reasonable arguments that say that God was regulating a practice that was already bad.  This is a different story.  The person required to engage in polygamy was required to do so because of circumstances beyond his control.  To say that God's law requires someone to sin seems blasphemous to me.

In the new testament he closest I can find on this subject is :
Matthew 19:9 (New American Standard Bible)

 9"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Some people say that this is saying that if you divorce your faithful wife it's not a valid divorce.  The reasoning here is that the second marriage would be fine if polygamy was legit.  Then it would follow that Jesus is saying that both divorce and polygamy are wrong.  He would also be removing the obligations of Deuteronomy 25:5-6 if the man is already married.  Jesus can certainly do this, but I would like to point out that His purpose here seems to be to limit divorce.  Using this to trigger a divorce for a new Christian seems to go against that purpose.  Still, when I found this I thought I had at least found something that I could use.  Then I asked a question.

My question then was "Why didn't Martin Luther see this?"   I saw a post where someone said that he was under political pressure to do so, but this doesn't make sense.  He pretty much lived under political pressure. I figured that maybe there was something that I didn't see.  Since he translated the Bible into German before the King James translation I figured maybe the original text was not so clear.  I don't speak Greek, but I am conversant in browser so see for yourself.  As far as I can tell the words "and marries" above might also be translated "so to marry" which might imply that Jesus is saying that you can't trade your wife in on a new model unless she is being unfaithful.  The difference being that if you can't support a new wife you can't get rid of an old one to make room.  This seems to be more in line with the context of the passage.

So there you have it.  As I stated before I couldn't find a clear biblical statement that outlaws polygamy, but before anyone goes off and tries this here is what I think.  The Bible does say that the two become one flesh.  I think that the one flesh idea goes beyond the physical.  I think it speaks to an emotional oneness.  That said you can't have two becoming one flesh followed by one and a half becoming one flesh.  Husband and wife would have to agree on this totally.  In biblical times adding someone to the family lightened the load on the wife. and thus might have been welcomed.  In modern times I don't know how a man would bring it up without hurting his wifes feelings, and that's just bringing it up not the actual living it out.  I think that this would rule out most if not all of this.

In short it might be theoretically "OK", but in practice not so much.







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