What the Bible Says About Gender, Marriage, Fornication, Adultery, Rape, Incest, Homosexuality, Bestiality, and Prostitution

Sex in the Rest of the Old Testament

After the creation account, the rest of the Old Testament provides examples of broken sexuality, laws that governed broken sexuality, as well as beautiful pictures of sexuality as God intended. Examples of broken sexuality would include the men of Sodom, Samson’s womanizing, Solomon’s many wives, and Amnon’s rape of Tamar, among others. Below are also a few examples of sexuality that was also considered sinful among God’s people in the Old Testament:

Fornication
Having sex prior to marriage was seen as sinful in the Old Testament as God’s established pattern for sex was that it was only to occur after entering into a marriage covenant (Genesis 2:24-25). Elsewhere, the Old Testament speaks condemns those who “play the harlot” (Numbers 25:1), such as Tamar (Genesis 38:12-3). Such activity was in the Old Covenant was considered to be a very serious breach of God’s intent (Gen. 38:24; cp. Lev. 21:9; Deut. 22:21).

Adultery
Adultery is clearly forbidden in the Ten Commandments (Exo. 20:14; Deut. 5:18). One scholar says, “Israel viewed extra-marital sexuality in the severest light, prescribing death for adultery.”[22]

Rape
There are a few different cases of rape (or intent to rape) mentioned in the stories of the Old Testament, such as Dinah and Shechem (Gen 34:1-31), the Levite’s concubine (Jdgs 19:1-30), and David’s son Amnon and his half-sister Tamar (2 Sam 13:11-14), and the result of all of these was some form of judgment and bloodshed.

Incest
Incest was punishable by death in Israel (Lev. 20:11-12, 14, 17, 19-21). “The Bible defines the parameters of sexual behavior by forbidding intolerable relationships. Sexual relationships may not infringe on another family; they may also not blur the lines in one’s own family through incest. Leviticus 18 and 20 and Deuteronomy 27 detail strong incest prohibitions.”[23]

Homosexuality
Like other sexual practices mentioned, homosexual behavior was considered contrary to God’s design for human sexuality. An explicit prohibition against men having sex with men “as with a woman” is found in Leviticus 18:22 (and 20:13), which comes within sanctions in Leviticus that “give a general veto on all non-permissible and especially unnatural sex relationships.”[24]

Bestiality
Bestiality (sex with animals), practiced “to some extent in every ancient rural society and known from Egyptian, Canaanite, and Hittite sources, is condemned in Scripture (Exod. 22:19; Lev. 20:15-16; Deut. 27:21)…in the Edenic narrative the possibility of a sexually bonded liaison with an animal is expressly ruled out (Gen. 2:20). Bestiality rejects the human sexual partner God has ordained in favor of an animal that the Edenic narrative has expressly rejected.”[25]

Prostitution
Paying for sex is forbidden throughout the Old Testament. The pagan religions had male and female prostitutes as part of their worship (Gn 38:21–22; Dt 23:17; Hos 4:14; 1 Kings 15:12; 2 Kings 23:7) which was forbidden for God’s people to participate in (Lv 19:29; 21:9).

Polygamy
Some of the most famous believers in the Old Testament practiced polygamy which caused misery. The first such instance occurs when Abraham married Hagar in addition to Sarah.[26] The results of this polygamy are truly tragic, as is the case with other instances of adultery and polygamy in Scripture. God’s intention is that each man would have one wife.[27] The first man to take more than one wife was the godless man Lamech.[28] The Bible describes polygamous relationships, but this honest account does not mean that God approves of such arrangements. Rather, Scripture shows how polygamy is wrought with favoritism, fighting, jealousy, and mistreatment.[29] Once we reach the New Testament, church leaders who serve as the pattern for Christian families are to be “one-woman men.”[30] God never commands polygamy, and it never results in a happy joyful home.