The Bible Does Not Condemn Premarital Sex

An essay by Keith502

Simply put, my argument is twofold: that the Bible does not stipulate premarital sex as a
sin and that the Bible does not convey the idea of chastity before marriage as having any
kind of specific spiritual benefit. There is no specific verse in the Bible which explicitly
declares "Premarital sex is OK," but my argument is based purely upon the absence of
verses condemning premarital sex. I will begin by referring to several verses which are
commonly used by Christians to justify the chastity-before-marriage doctrine, and I will
debunk each of those verses with regards to actually meaning what Christians interpret
them to mean.

Part 1: Old Testament passages

Some have used Proverbs 5 and Proverbs 7 as passages defending the chastity-before-
marriage doctrine. However, upon reading, both of these chapters are very clearly about
a young man struggling with temptation at the hands of a promiscuous, adulterous
woman. The passages even punctuate their message by discussing how the adulterous
woman leads to death, which is likely to be a reference to verses such as Leviticus 20:10
and Deuteronomy 22:22, where the Torah stipulates that the punishment for the crime of
adultery is death, whereas there is no such penalty of death for the man who sleeps with
the unbetrothed virgin.
----
Deuteronomy 22 has a wealth of statutes concerning sexual intercourse. Verses 13-21 are
about a situation where a man has recently married a woman to whom he was betrothed,
but upon consummating his marriage with her he disapproves of her because he finds out
that she was not a virgin and formally presses charges against her for this. The situation
can go either of two ways: either the woman's parents are able to find evidence
(presumably the blood stain from the woman's torn hymen) proving their daughter's
virginity, then the groom is taken by the city elders and whipped for his slander against
the bride; or if no evidence of the bride's virginity is found, then the groom's accusation is
considered true and the bride is to be executed for her lack of virginity. On the surface,
this seems to be clear evidence that it is a sin to have sex before marriage, but upon closer
inspection this is not the case.

First of all, the Bible never stipulates that people in general are required to be chaste
before marriage, or that people in general can only marry someone who has remained
chaste; the only exception to this is in Leviticus 21:13-14 which stipulates that a priest
must marry a virgin.

Secondly, the idea of a bride in Deuteronomy 22:13-21 being a virgin is not so much a
general requirement as it is an expectation. And that expectation is only applied to
women, as there are no laws in the Torah stipulating that a man who is found to not be
chaste upon marriage can have charges pressed against him by his bride. Women in
ancient Jewish culture were generally expected and assumed to be virgins before
marriage, but no such expectation was made of men. (The reason for this is likely for the
reason that producing a legitimate heir was a very important function of marriage in this
culture, and so the woman being a virgin at the moment of the consummation of the
marriage is the only way to be confident that the resulting offspring truly belongs to the
groom.) And hence we may conclude that the Bible does not convey that the chastity of
women has any kind of religious or spiritual significance: instead it is little more than a
cultural convention meant for the benefit of men and the protection of their bloodlines.

Furthermore, technically speaking, the situation in Deuteronomy 22:13-21 really only

applies in the event that the groom complains and presses charges against his bride for
not being a virgin. Presumably, if the groom does not press charges or doesn't care
whether his bride is a virgin or not, then there is no crime.

And lastly, verse 21 states that the actual reason for the unchaste bride being executed is
because "she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house."
So what this suggests is that the bride having lost her virginity before marriage is not so
much a general evil or sin as it is a particular transgression against the cultural
conventions of honor in the context of the Israelite people.

Hence, it becomes clear that Deuteronomy 22:13-21 does not necessarily assert
premarital sex to be a sin, and to whatever extent it is a sin is only a sin within very
specific conditions which are not common today. Also, this passage does not imply or
indicate that the practice of a woman (or a man, for that matter) remaining chaste before
marriage has any spiritual significance or benefit.
----
Exodus 22:16 states that if a man seduces an unbetrothed virgin, the man must pay the
bride-price for her and marry her. Some Christians may use this verse to extrapolate two
things: that a man having premarital sex with a woman is a sin, and that the act of sexual
intercourse implies a marriage union. But both of these assertions are false. First of all,
one thing that must be understood about the Torah is that not all the laws therein
necessarily involve the concepts of sin and punishment. For example, some laws are
written concerning the concept of ritual uncleanness. Some examples of uncleanness are
the touching of a corpse, a woman going on her monthly period, or the eating of pork or
shellfish. It is not a sin to touch a corpse or go on your period or eat shellfish; ritual
uncleanness is not rectified by punishment, as in the case of sin, but rather by ritual
purification. Other laws in the Torah are about making reparations or restitution to some
specific injury inflicted upon another person, whether physical or financial. For example,
Exodus 21:33-36 contains laws concerning when one man has dug a hole into which his
neighbor's animal has fallen into and died, and when the ox of one man attacks and kills
another man's ox; in such cases, the offending party must compensate the other man for
the loss of his animal. No sin is committed in these kinds of cases, and thus there is no
punishment rendered; it is only about making reparations to the wronged party.

Going back to the subject of Exodus 22:16, the man who seduced and slept with the
unbetrothed virgin has not necessarily committed a sin. The verse does not identify the
act as a sin or call it an abomination or demand the man to be whipped or executed. It
appears to merely be a matter of the man making restitution: to the woman for taking her
virginity and thus devastating her marriageability within Jewish culture, and to the
woman's family for depriving them of the chance to obtain a bride-price from a groom in
a proper betrothal.

So not only do we have no reason to assume that the man who deflowered the unmarried
woman has committed a sin, but as we see in the following verse (verse 17), it is
stipulated that if the woman's father refuses to give the man to his daughter in marriage,
that the man must still pay the bride-price without marrying the woman. So this refutes
the second assumption that Christians make about sexual intercourse implying the
marriage union. If having sex really did imply marriage, then verse 17 would not exist,
or – perhaps – the man would be forced to marry the woman regardless of the father's
objections, or the man would go without marrying the woman but he would be
considered married to her "in spirit" and would not be permitted to marry any other
woman until he acquires a divorce from this "symbolic marriage." But no such
stipulations are made. The man who is refused by the woman's father simply pays the
bride-price and then moves on with his life, implying that the bride-price exchange is
purely about money rather than the sanctity of sex or marriage.
----
As a side note to the above topic, it is interesting to point out that the hypothetical man
posited in Exodus 22:16 is not identified as being married or unmarried, nor is the
hypothetical man who deflowers an unbetrothed virgin in Deuteronomy 22:28-29. This
is strange in contrast to the adultery laws stipulated in Deuteronomy 22:22-27 which
make it clear that a married woman who willfully sleeps with another man is to be
executed. Another important point that needs to be made is that sexual laws in the Torah
generally favored men and were more stringent towards women. It has already been
established that only women were expected to be virgins before marriage, not men; and
then, it was only the man's prerogative to challenge the chastity of his bride, not the
reverse. But furthermore, it would appear the laws concerning adultery only applied in
the event of a betrothed or married woman cheating on her husband with another man, or
in the event of a married or unmarried man cheating with another man's wife. But there
doesn't seem to be any laws prohibiting a married man from cheating on his wife with an
unbetrothed maiden. This particular scenario curiously seems to be outside the
boundaries of the biblical definition of adultery.
----
Genesis 2:24 is often used by Christians to assert that sexual intercourse is only meant to
be between a husband and wife. The verse goes: "Therefore a man shall leave his father
and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." However,
interpreting this verse, it is unclear if the "shall" in the statement is a statement of what
"must" occur or what "tends to" occur. In other words, is cleaving together and becoming
one flesh a thing that must occur only within the marriage union, or is cleaving and
becoming one flesh something that is statistically or axiomatically bound to happen
between man and wife? Is the assertion prescriptive or descriptive? It is unclear.

Furthermore, the phrase "they shall become one flesh" is itself a vague statement that
doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex. The way I see it, this verse is a kind of
rhetorical reversal of the act of God which brought Eve into being. Eve (and by extension
all women) originated from Adam's (i.e. man's) flesh (via his rib), and then in marriage
Adam and Eve (i.e. man and woman), in a metaphorical sense, return once again to their
original state to become one flesh. It appears to be a parallel with Genesis 3:19, where
God says that Adam will ultimately die and become dust, which is a reversal of his origin
of being made from the dust. Hence, the line about "becoming one flesh" appears to be
poetic or metaphorical language, and I think it's a stretch to interpret that line as
exclusively talking about husband and wife having sex with each other. Even Jesus
seemed to interpret this verse beyond mere sexual significance in Matthew 19:4-6 – “He
answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them
male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and
hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but
one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’"
Obviously, the last sentence isn’t talking about other people confronting a married couple
while they are having sex and then physically pulling them apart from each other; Jesus is
speaking metaphorically about the relational bond of marriage.
----
There are at least five verses in the Bible which involve an anecdote that appears to imply
the acceptance of premarital sex.

Genesis 16:1-4 involves the story where Sarah had failed to bear children for Abraham,
and thus she gave her slave Hagar to Abraham for him to have sex with her and thus
produce an heir. Subsequently, Hagar conceives and gives birth to Ishmael, and then
subsequently Sarah banishes Hagar and Ishmael and forces them to wander in the
wilderness. Some people have claimed that Hagar's banishment implies that Abraham's
premarital intercourse with Hagar was against God's will. However, this claim is not
supported by verses such as Genesis 16:10, Genesis 17:20, and Genesis 21:18, which say
that because Ishmael was from the seed of Abraham that therefore God would make a
great nation of Ishmael. So although it was God's plan for Abraham to produce an heir
through Isaac rather than through Ishmael, the begetting of Ishmael through premarital
sex appeared to not be actively against God's will, since he still blessed Ishmael by virtue
of being of the seed of Abraham.

In Genesis 30:1-13, we see that Jacob's two wives, Rachel and Leah, have both ceased to
bear children. Rachel gives her slave Bilhah to Jacob to produce children, and then
Bilhah gives birth to Dan and Naphtali. Then Leah gives her slave Zilpah to Jacob, and
Zilpah then begets Gad and Asher. God never shows disapproval of Jacob producing
heirs in this fashion, and in fact these four sons grow up to become among the
progenitors of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel.

In Genesis 38:6-10, we see that Judah has had three sons: Er, Onan, and his young son
Shelah. Er had a wife named Tamar, but Er died before producing an heir. Judah then
commanded Er's brother Onan to have sex with Tamar in order to produce an heir in Er's
name. Here Judah is actively telling his son to have sex with someone he's not married
to. So Onan has sex with Tamar, but the text states that instead of ejaculating into Tamar,
Onan instead ejaculated onto the floor, so as not to produce a child that was not his heir.
This angers God to the point that God strikes Onan dead. Now it was Judah, not God,
who commanded that Onan impregnate Tamar, but the fact that God killed Onan for his
disobedience indicates that God approved of this act of fornication.

The remainder of this chapter, Genesis 38:11-30, presents a story where after the death of
Onan, Judah commands Tamar to remain celibate until his young son Shelah grows up
and is old enough to marry Tamar and produce an heir. Subsequently, Judah's wife Shua
dies and then Judah decides to go to the town of Timnah. Tamar still not having married
Shelah yet, responds by covering herself with a veil and positioning herself at a place on
the road to Timnah. Abraham sees her along his journey and, not recognizing her and
assuming her to be a prostitute, asks to have sex with her. Judah then makes a monetary
exchange with Tamar and then has sex with her. Ultimately in the story, Tamar ends up
begetting two sons, Perez and Zerah, with her father-in-law Judah instead of Judah's son
Shelah.

Here we have a situation where Judah has sex with and produces children by, one, a
woman he was not married to, two, a prostitute, and three, his own daughter-in-law.
Most Christians would consider the first two a sin, and later in history when the law of
Moses is written, the third would be deemed a sin according to Leviticus 20:12.
However, despite the apparent sinfulness of this fornication, God does not ever state or
even suggest his disapproval. The sons of this fornication go on to become the patriarchs
of the lineage of Judah. And here is another interesting thing to consider. When we read
the genealogies of Jesus found in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, we find that the lineage of
Judah, through his son Perez -- whom he fathered through fornication with his daughter-
in-law Tamar -- produced King David as well as Jesus. So if Judah's and Tamar's act of
fornication was so sinful, then why would God allow both King David and God's only-
begotten son Jesus himself to be borne of out of this act? (Another interesting thing to
note is that in Matthew 1:5, it is shown that, in addition to the fake prostitute that Tamar
was, an actual prostitute, Rahab, is also a part of the Davidic lineage.)

Finally, in Judges 16:1-3 we have a brief story where Samson visits Gaza and there
procures the company of a prostitute. He has sex with her and then spends the night with
her. Now keep in mind that Samson was a mighty warrior blessed with superhuman
strength from God. If Samson was guilty of some great sin from having fornicated with
the prostitute, then it's possible that the spirit of God could have left Samson and
deprived him of his superhuman strength, as does eventually happen when Delilah cuts
his hair. But as we see in verses 2-3, Samson was still at full power and strength after his
fornication, enough to pull the gate of the city down with his bare hands in order to
thwart the scheme of the Gazites to kill him as they lay in ambush in the gate. God does
not punish or admonish Samson for his fornication, any more than he does Judah for
hiring a woman he assumed to be a prostitute. As a matter of fact, the Torah does not
appear to have any law against a man sleeping with a prostitute; only in verses such as
Leviticus 19:29 and Deuteronomy 23:17 are there laws that condemn the Israelites
themselves from being prostitutes, but there is no law condemning Israelites from
soliciting prostitutes among foreigners.

Christians believe that God intended sexual intercourse to only be valid and blessed when
it occurs in the context of the marriage bond, but the five preceding examples indicates
that this is not the case. The fact is, if God actively disapproved of a sexual union
between a man and a woman, he could punish this union; he did this very thing when
David had Uriah killed in order to have Uriah's wife Bathsheba, and then as a result God
punished him (2 Samuel 12:1-23). But in none of these cases does God punish the
fornicators, nor directly or indirectly express disapproval.
----
Some Christians may point to 1 Kings 11:1-8 as indication of the sinfulness of polygamy
and the idea that God only approves of marriage being between one man and one
woman. The passage says that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and God
subsequently punishes Solomon as a result of his relationship with these women. The
assumption by Christians may be that God punished Solomon for his practice of
polygamy and for the invalid relationships with his concubines, which were not true
wives but little more than sex slaves. However, it is made clear in the passage that the
reason for Solomon's punishment was not based on his polygamist practices or his
involvement with concubinage, but rather it was because his romantic feelings for these
foreign women pulled Solomon away from God and led him into idolatry with foreign
gods. Thus, it was not really sexual fornication that angered God but spiritual
fornication.

Part 2: New Testament passages

Now, I will turn my attention to what the New Testament section of the Bible has to say
concerning this topic of chastity-before-marriage doctrine.

John 4:1-45 involves the account of a Samaritan woman that Jesus meets at Jacob's well.
In this story, Jesus had been on a long journey and eventually came to rest at the well
which was in the Samarian town of Sychar. A woman arrives with a bucket to draw
water from the well, and Jesus asks her for a drink. Subsequently, Jesus and the woman
go on to have a long conversation. Jesus eventually says, “Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never
be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.” The woman then asks Jesus to give her some of this kind of
water. In response, Jesus asks the woman to go summon her husband, to which she
responds that she has no husband. Jesus then intuits that the woman has had five
previous husbands, and that she currently is living with (or somehow associated with) a
man who is not her husband. The woman then confirms Jesus's prediction.

Now, many readers of this verse might immediately assume that in pointing out the large
number of the woman's former husbands and that she is now involved with someone who
is not her husband, that the woman is involved in some kind of sexual immorality or
fornication. But, on the contrary, this does not appear to be the case. Nowhere in this
passage does Jesus mention sin or accuse the woman of sin, nor does the woman herself
admit to any sin. Also, Jesus does not at any point declare to her that her sins are
forgiven, nor does he tell her to "go and sin no more," as he did to the adulterous woman
in John 8:11. We have no indication that either sin or forgiveness of sin is the theme of
this particular story, so we can conclude that the woman's history of previous husbands or
her vaguely defined current premarital relationship are not being described or assumed as
sinful.

We don't have much clear information about the nature of this woman's history.
However, there are some things that we can surmise. With the laws of this time and
culture, it would have been extremely difficult for a woman to initiate a divorce from her
husband. So with this woman having five previous husbands, the more likely scenario
was that either her previous husbands had all died or that they had all divorced her. Also,
in this culture it was very important for a woman to be married to a man, as women
traditionally had little means of financially sustaining themselves on their own. So
there's a good possibility that whatever kind of premarital (or non-marital) relationship
the woman currently had, it was presumably insufficient for her needs. Therefore, one
could reasonably extrapolate that the theme of this story, rather than being about sin, is
about the "living water" that Jesus provides, and that despite the woman's chronic
relationship problems with men, leading to her financial troubles, Jesus's "living water"
was able to sustain her in a way that men could not. Therefore, this story cannot be used
to justify the chastity-before-marriage doctrine.
----
Some might point to Revelation 14:4-5 to assert the idea that it is spiritually beneficial
that a man should remain a virgin. The passage goes: "It is these who have not defiled
themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever
he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb,
and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless." However, one has to
understand that this group of men were a special group consisting of 12,000 people from
each of the twelve tribes of Israel who had received God's seal on their foreheads. This
group of 144,000 was understood to be a unique group specially set apart for dedication
to God. Their sexual virginity is not understood to be a virtue universally applicable to
all men, but merely the symbol of their special dedication. Also, notice that this group
does not include men who remained chaste until marriage after which they had sex with
their wives; it specifically establishes that they had no sexual contact with women
whatsoever. This story cannot be used to justify the chastity-before-marriage doctrine.
----
In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul says, "For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed
you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." Some people may
consider this verse to assert the idea of Christians being virgins before marriage.
However, an honest interpretation of this verse shows that Paul here is speaking
metaphorically. Speaking to the Corinthian church, Paul is alluding to the betrothal
conventions of his day, framing himself as the father of a “virgin daughter” -- the
Corinthian church -- whom he has arranged to be married to a “groom” -- Christ.
Obviously, we can assume there are no real sexual implications here; it is merely a
metaphor talking about the spiritual relationship between the church and Christ.
----
The New Testament does not appear to make any expressed reference to fornication as a
sin. Generally, a sin is referred to either by an "expressed" reference or by a "named"
reference. For example, Leviticus 18:23 says, "And you shall not lie with any animal and
so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie
with it: it is perversion." Now the act described in this verse is called "bestiality." The
word "bestiality" does not actually appear anywhere in the Bible; thus there is no named
reference to bestiality but there is an expressed reference to the act in the Bible.

Now when it comes to the concept of fornication as a sin, you could say it works the
opposite of bestiality: there are no expressed references to it in the New Testament but
there are named references to it. However, the named references that exist are highly
debatable. The King James Version of the Bible, as well as some other old translations,
contain multiple instances of the word “fornication” in the New Testament. The majority
of these references are translated from the Greek word (or some variation or conjugation
thereof) porneia. The problem with this word is that it is a word rarely employed in
ancient Greek texts, and there are few surviving Greek texts outside the New Testament
that even use the word. It appears to be a sort of catch-all term for sexual immorality or
sexual sin. Thus, many modern Bible translations will simply translate porneia as
“sexual immorality.”

Many of the translations in the KJV of porneia into the word “fornication” are
erroneously specific. For example, 1 Corinthians 5:1 says, “It is reported commonly that
there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among
the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.” Obviously, this usage of
“fornication” doesn’t make sense because this particular act would instead be described
as adultery and possibly incest, but not fornication. Another example is Matthew 5:32 –
“But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of
fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is
divorced committeth adultery.” This also doesn’t make sense, as a married woman by
definition cannot commit fornication by virtue of being a married woman; she can only
commit adultery. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6 urges Christians to abstain from fornication, but
in verse 6 it mentions abstaining from fornication so as to not “transgress and wrong his
brother in this matter” (English Standard Bible). However, a man probably would not be
wronging his brother by committing fornication with some unmarried woman; the
implication here appears to instead be adultery.

Examples like these show the erroneous, inconsistent, and arbitrary nature of the
translation of porneia into “fornication” in older Bible translations. With good reason,
most decent, modern Bible translations – such as the NIV, ESV, NLT, CSB, and NET --
do not translate porneia in this way, nor do they even contain the word “fornication” at
all. And the Bible versions that do contain the word “fornication” in the text differ in
how many times the word appears in the text, which only indicates the lack of consensus
concerning when to include this word.
----
Hebrews 13:4 is another verse often used to defend the chastity-before-marriage
doctrine. It says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be
undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous." It should be noted
that this verse contains a form of the often-mistranslated word porneia, translated here in
the ESV as "sexually immoral"; and older translations such as the KJV generally translate
this as "fornicators." So first of all, we know that this term is not specifically referring to
fornication, since it is using the general term that refers to sexual immorality. However,
we can also deduce that the term probably isn't implying fornication either. Premarital
sex does not, directly speaking, dishonor marriage or defile the marriage bed. Two
unmarried lovers cannot really dishonor an institution that they have not entered into yet,
nor can they defile the marriage bed when there is as yet no marriage bed. Thus, while
there is no conclusive proof that Paul isn't talking about fornication in using this term
here, it seems much more likely that the term is referring to some other sin that
individuals are capable of committing within the context of marriage.
----
Next, we turn to 1 Corinthians 6. Verse 13 says, “’Food is meant for the stomach and the
stomach for food’--and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant
for sexual immorality [porneia], but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” This verse
sets the stage for interpreting the rest of the chapter. Verse 15 says, “Do you not know
that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and
make them members of a prostitute? Never!” Here one might assume that Paul is
condemning the act of sex with a prostitute; one might also infer that this is condemning
not just fornication with a prostitute but all fornication. But the meaning of this verse is
modified by what follows, verses 16 and 17 – “Or do you not know that he who is joined
to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one
flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” What Paul
appears to be saying here is that sexual intercourse is not merely a meaningless physical
transaction or the rote satiation of a physical appetite, but it has deep, spiritual
implications and forges a meaningful bond, much as with a man and wife joined in
marriage. Thus, illicit sexual encounters that an individual engages in do not merely
concern the body, but also can negatively affect the spiritual bond that one shares with
Jesus himself. So the point here is not specifically to condemn sex with a prostitute, or
fornication in general, but to simply explain the spiritual ramifications of sexual
immorality. The passage does not explicitly identify sex with a prostitute as a sin, per se,
although this very well could be Paul’s personal belief. However, even if he had
specifically identified it as a sin, that condemnation of the particular act of sex with a
prostitute is not necessarily an allegation against all premarital sex in general, as Paul
does not here delineate his reasons for why sex with a prostitute is sinful, and thus we
cannot extrapolate how those reasons pertain to general fornication. Nor can we simply
presume his stance on prostitution since the Torah does not specifically condemn
patronage of a prostitute.

Verse 18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside
the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” What is
noteworthy about this verse is that it twice uses forms of the word porneia, which is
traditionally translated as “fornication.” However, to use such a specific term in this
context is actually self-defeating, as the interpretation would be that fornication is a
special sin that is in a league of its own, defiling one’s own body whereas every other sin
defiles outside the body. However, this would imply that other sexual sins such as
adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and so on would then not be such sins that sin
against one’s own body. That would not make any sense, thus the more general
translation of porneia in this verse is more valid.

The chapter ends with this conclusion in verses 19 and 20: “Or do you not know that your
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not
your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” I’ve heard
some Christians point to this passage to discourage premarital sex. But it is really only
vaguely presumed in the mind of the Christian that premarital sex is in fact something
that defiles the “temple” of the body and fails to “glorify God.” Nowhere in the Bible
does it clearly establish premarital sex as something Jesus would consider to be a
defilement of his “temple.” In Matthew 5:32, Jesus says that if a man divorces his wife
for any reason except for sexual immorality, then when his wife remarries she will thus
be committing adultery and her new husband will also thus be committing adultery.
Also, in Matthew 19:9, Jesus says that if a man divorces his wife, except in the event she
had committed sexual immorality, and then marries another woman, then the man himself
will have committed adultery. Here are two moral laws given by Jesus himself which
virtually no one, whether Christian or otherwise, even considers let alone follows today.
Why should premarital sex between loving, consenting, unmarried men and women be
presumed to be sinful according to Jesus when acts that have been explicitly stipulated by
Jesus himself as sinful are completely ignored?
----
1 Corinthians 7 is possibly the most detailed discourse on marriage in the New
Testament. Many Christians have pointed to this as the primary example of the sin of
premarital sex and the expectation of Christians to remain virgins until marriage. But a
closer reading of this chapter proves this to be an incorrect interpretation.

In the ESV Bible, the first two verses say: “Now concerning the matters about which you
wrote: ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.’ But because of
the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each
woman her own husband.” Now this passage is where the incorrect translation of
porneia is particularly devastating to a proper understanding of what is being said.
Instead of “sexual immorality,” the KJV uses the word “fornication,” and unfortunately
this one word completely changes the meaning of the entire statement. With the incorrect
translation, it appears Paul is saying that each Christian should get married in order to
avoid the sin of premarital sex. Taken out of context, verse 2 of this chapter indisputably
proves that Paul considered premarital sex a sin. However, in context this interpretation
doesn’t make sense. Throughout this chapter, Paul makes it clear that he is not so much
discouraging Christians from certain expressions of premarital romance as much as he is
discouraging Christians from all romance, period. After all, the chapter literally begins
with him saying he recommends a man not to have sex with a woman. He doesn’t
qualify this statement by saying he recommends a man not to have sex with a woman
before marriage, but discourages sex in general. Also, keep in mind that Paul states in
verse 6, and then reiterates in verse 25, that this view regarding relationships is merely
his own personal opinion and not a “commandment from the Lord.”
It is my understanding and interpretation that this chapter is best understood as operating
within the context of a precedent statement, namely 1 Corinthians 5:1, which refers to an
act of adultery and incest that had been committed by a man in the church. I believe that
everything written about sexual immorality in chapters 6 and 7 is operating under the
theme established by this specific act. This is one reason why the correct interpretation
here is likely that 1 Corinthians 7 is largely a warning against adultery. 1 Corinthians 7:5
says, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that
you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not
tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” Here Paul is speaking about the context
of a married couple and he is saying that the two should not deprive each other of sexual
intimacy except for a brief period for devotion to prayer. Then he says that after this
hiatus, the partners should resume their intimacy in order to prevent temptation to sin.
Here, it makes no sense for this “sin” to refer to fornication, since a married couple is
technically incapable of fornication. It is likely that Paul is referring to the sin of
adultery, in the vein of the theme set in 1 Corinthians 5:1.

In verses 6-8, Paul once again asserts that it is preferable for a Christian to be single, as
Paul admittedly himself is single. It is in this context that we can best understand verse 9,
which says, “But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to
marry than to burn with passion.” Once again, out of context it seems like this is talking
about how unmarried Christians should get married in order to prevent temptation
towards the sin of fornication. But in context, it’s clear that it’s not talking about
preventing fornication but is saying to the unmarried and the widowed who yearn for
romance that they should not feel pressured to remain single, but to prevent being
overcome by their unfulfilled passions they should get married. An alternative
interpretation could also be that Paul is encouraging such romantically-driven Christian
singles to marry if only to prevent adultery, such as the one mentioned in 1 Corinthians
5:1.

In 1 Corinthians 7:28, Paul once again mentions how he generally discourages Christians
from marrying, hoping to spare them the “worldly troubles” that marriage brings. 1
Corinthians 7:32-35 gives a more detailed explanation for Paul’s anxiety regarding
Christian marriage: “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious
about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious
about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the
unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in
body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please
her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to
promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.” There is clearly
no indication here that preventing fornication is the theme of Paul’s discourse on
marriage in this chapter. Instead the theme is that worldly romance is a distraction to the
Christian and his pursuit of a relationship with the Lord; however, at the same time, the
Christian must acknowledge his or her own fleshly needs and passions, for in ignoring
them the Christian may end up straying even further from the Lord.

Part 3: Dating
There is another point that needs to be addressed that is very important to understanding
the biblical view of premarital sex. 1 Corinthians 7:2 says that each man should have his
own wife, and each woman her own husband. And throughout chapter 7, Paul points to
the dichotomy of being single versus being married. But it’s notable that nowhere does
Paul refer to dating or to a man having his own girlfriend and a woman having her own
boyfriend. The reason for this is very likely a result of the customs of courtship in
biblical times and how those customs differ from today’s customs.

First of all, marriage in biblical times was often an arranged affair. Instead of marriage
being initiated and overseen by the lovers themselves, it was often instead initiated and
overseen by parents or other authority figures. For example, according to Genesis 24:50-
51, Rebekah was given in marriage to Isaac by her father and brother. Rachel and Leah
were given to Jacob by their father Laban (Genesis 29:15-30). Judah promised to give
his daughter-in-law Tamar, widow of his son Er, in marriage to his youngest son Shelah.
Joseph was given a wife named Asenath by Pharoah of Egypt (Genesis 41:45). Samson
went to his parents to acquire a particular wife for him in the city of Timnah (Judges
14:1-3). King Saul offered a difficult military challenge to David as a bride-price in
order to marry Saul's daughter, Michal (1 Samuel 18:20-27). Deuteronomy 25:5 gives a
law that stipulates that when a married man dies before producing an heir, the man's
brother is expected to marry his brother's widow and produce an heir for his brother’s
sake. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 gives a law which established the right of marriage by way
of military conquest, allowing soldiers to make wives of the women of their captives in
war.

As we can see, in biblical times women were often seen more-or-less as commodities,
property to be essentially sold and bought, or given away, by men. Clearly, both the
social attitudes towards women and the nature of the marriage process are very different
in the modern culture in which most Christians live. Today, men and women generally
find their own wives and husbands. There is no bride-price paid by the groom, save for an
engagement ring to the bride herself. The bride's father does not give her daughter away,
except in a symbolic form as he escorts her down the aisle at her wedding. Thus, it is
somewhat difficult to reconcile the biblical view of marriage with the modern view.

What is also different between biblical custom and modern custom is the nature of
romantic courtship. Traditionally, romantic partners of biblical times did not really
"date" in the sense that people of modern times do. In Paul's discourse on marriage in 1
Corinthians 7, he seems to imply in verse 34 that a betrothed woman -- a woman pledged
to marry a man -- is comparable to an unmarried woman as far as her sexual relations to
her husband. The betrothal between man and wife was a period, traditionally lasting up
to a year or so, which began with the initial pledge to marry, yet with the wife continuing
to live in her father's house and forbidden to cohabitate with her betrothed, and then
ended with the marriage ceremony itself. Betrothal appeared to be less about the partners
getting acquainted with each other or a process to be indulged in for its own sake, and
more of a ritual established with the express purpose and intention towards marriage. On
the other hand, dating is a process between romantic partners that is typically participated
in for its own sake, without the express intent of it necessarily culminating in a marriage.
Unlike betrothal, dating has no pre-defined time limit, and in many cases can become
serious enough to include cohabitation or even itself become a sort of de facto marriage.
The betrothal process is a very formalized and ritualized conception of the path to
marriage. On the other hand, the dating process often begins under informal and
spontaneous circumstances; it may start out as something relatively casual or even
frivolous, but then, as the partners' compatibility with each other allows, the relationship
either falters or it grows in seriousness, up until engagement and marriage. Biblical
romantic partnerships were often arranged, orchestrated, and planned out by an
extraneous party. Whereas dating is generally an entirely self-ordered, self-sustained
process between only the romantic partners themselves, with extraneous parties such as
parents or authority figures having little to no say in the matter.

The differences continue. In biblical times, the marriage ritual was often the initial focus
of the relationship, and romantic partners would often get to know each other well only
after they were married. But in modern dating, the partners getting to know each other
well is the whole point of the process, and an essential prerequisite to marriage. In the
Bible, procreation and producing an heir to carry on the husband's bloodline was an
extremely important element of the relationship. Whereas in modern dating, procreation
is usually secondary to romance, with many lovers having no desire or intention to have
children, and no particular concern regarding carrying on their bloodline. Particularly in
the early historical ages of the Bible, it was not uncommon for a man to simultaneously
be married to multiple wives and even to have one or more slave wives (concubines).
Whereas today, a man typically only has the intention of engaging with one woman in a
romantic relationship at a time, and polygamy is taboo at best. In biblical times, women
often would be given into marriage at a young age close to their time of puberty or
fertility, often between the ages of 12 and 14; whereas the men, generally at least as old
as their wives, tended to have a much higher upper limit to their age when married. On
the other hand, modern romantic partners are typically close together in age, and typically
don't marry or have children until after they are both adults. Once again, such
discrepancies between biblical romance and modern romance make it more difficult to
apply the biblical view on marriage to modern times.

With this information in mind, let's return to 1 Corinthians 7:2. It would appear that
when Paul says that each man should have his own wife and each woman her own
husband, it would be erroneous to infer that he means, "Get married if you want to have
sex." Instead, he is pointing to the essentially binary nature of romantic relationships in
his culture. In his mind, generally speaking, you were either single or you were married.
This dichotomy was not any kind of commandment of Christianity but was simply the
way things worked in his culture, and he could only speak from his own experience
which was nestled in that culture. And when offering instruction to the Corinthian
church, he could only advise them according to the norms of that culture.

However, we today do not live in Paul's culture. Romantic relationships today are not
made up of a simple binary structure. Instead we have a sort of three-phase structure to
romance: singleness, dating, and marriage. Singleness is participating in no romantic
relationship whatsoever. At the opposite end of the system, marriage is the close
romantic bond between two partners that have made a formal pledge to share their lives
together. In between these two extremes is the more vaguely-defined institution of
dating. What does Paul or Jesus or the Torah or any part of the Bible have to say about
dating? Nothing. The Bible cannot have an opinion on something that it knew nothing
about. The Bible knows nothing of the complex, free-form nature of modern dating.
When Paul instructed the church on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, he knew nothing of the
importance that modern dating places on men and women getting to know each other and
becoming friends as well as lovers. He knew nothing of how the success of modern
dating hinges upon romantic chemistry, or of the way physical affection influences that
romantic chemistry and interpersonal connection.

Paul came from a culture that was (by modern standards) misogynistic, where women
were considered inferior to men; as maidens they were the property of their fathers, and
when married were the property of their husbands. He didn't see women as being equals
to men, as modern society generally does today. He believed that wives should always
be submissive to their husbands, and were of a lower rank than their husbands with
respect to God (Colossians 3:18, Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Corinthians
11:7-9). He believed women in church ought to be submissive to the men and be silent (1
Corinthians 14:33-35). He believed a woman in the church should never be able to teach
or have authority over any man (1 Timothy 2:11-15).

Paul came from a culture which believed in men having control over the sexuality of
women. Women were expected to be virgins before marriage while men were not.
Women were expected to fawn exclusively on their husbands, while men could have
multiple wives and concubines, and sometimes consort with prostitutes. Women were
expected to unconditionally be faithful to their husbands, while husbands were
presumably allowed to commit adultery provided it was committed with an unmarried
woman.

According to Deuteronomy 22:28-29, a man raping a woman was apparently met with the
same penalty as a man seducing a woman, and the rapist was required to make amends by
paying the bride-price and marrying his victim: the rape in and of itself was not really
penalized. We can see echoes of this mindset when Shechem raped Jacob’s daughter
Dinah and subsequently asked for her hand in marriage in Genesis 34, and also when
David’s daughter Tamar yearned to be reconciled with Amnon after he raped her and
then rejected her afterwards (2 Samuel 13:1-22). We can see the relative indifference
towards the violation of women when Lot offered his virgin daughters to an unruly rape
mob (Genesis 19:6-8), and when the Levite man offered up his concubine, while his host
offered up his own daughter, to a similar rape mob (Judges 19:23-28). In 2 Samuel
16:15-23, we can even see God’s own relative indifference towards the violation of
women when, according to God’s will (2 Samuel 12:7-12), Absalom violates all of his
father David’s concubines. We can see the sexual violation of women by military
conquest in Numbers 31:1-18, and codified in the Torah in Deuteronomy 21:10-14. We
can see men’s uneven control over their women’s body and sexuality when if a man so
much as suspects his wife of infidelity, he can force her to undergo a ritual which will
render her womb barren if she is guilty, while no such ritual exists in the event of the
husband’s infidelity (Numbers 5:11-31).

We can infer that Paul came from a background that simply did not see women as equals
with men, whether in society as a whole or in church or within romantic relationships. In
modern society, we generally consider men and women to be equals, both in society and
in relationships: one partner does not purchase or own the other, men and women can
pursue careers and make money independently of each other, it is considered improper
for the man to flaunt a sense of power or authority over his woman, each partner is free to
pursue their sexuality in the way they see fit, and a woman is understood to have an
inalienable and vigorously-defended right to choose her sexual partner of her own free
will.

With this in mind, what exactly does Paul, a man who knew nothing of the dynamics of
modern romance, have to teach us about the morality of sex in romantic relationships
today? What can a man who knew nothing of modern gender roles and the concept of
gender equality teach us about romantic relationships today? Why should we listen to a
man who knew nothing of the modern purpose and functions of romantic chemistry in
people’s lives? More broadly, why should we extract our moral principles regarding
sexuality from a culture which was misogynistic, practiced polygamy and concubinage,
imposed unfair and hypocritical sexual laws, and practiced child marriage? Is premarital
sex between consenting individuals morally any worse than these practices?

Dating as we know it today was terra incognita for the authors of the Bible, so how is it
reasonable to think that the principles of the Bible should have any authority over how
consenting men and women express themselves within this process?

Conclusion

The subject of Christian dating in particular is very relevant for this topic of chastity-
before-marriage doctrine. Obviously, the Bible’s rules of sexual morality will probably
not be heeded by non-believers, anyway. And naturally, most Christians are unlikely to
fornicate as a result of things like prostitution, orgies, “swinging,” or being porn stars. So
therefore, the most likely place in which Christian fornication will become an issue is in
the context of dating. This entire essay ultimately boils down to the question: Should
unmarried Christians who are dating permit themselves to have sexual intercourse with
each other? In truth, it is not the object of this essay to provide a clear and definitive yes
or no. Instead, the aim of this essay is to clarify what the Bible says and what it does not
say. This is a worthwhile aim in itself because of the large amount of Christian
theologians and pastors who will unequivocally claim that the Bible does condemn
premarital sex. In the interest of this aim, I will reiterate my assertion from the beginning
of this essay: which is that the Bible does not stipulate premarital sex as a sin, and the
Bible does not establish any specific spiritual benefit for remaining a virgin or remaining
celibate until marriage.

Even though there are no explicit verses of the Bible which condemn premarital sex,
some Christians have attempted to infer what the Bible may have been suggesting
implicitly concerning the chastity-before-marriage doctrine. But whatever small parts of
the Bible that could be framed to suggest this idea cannot reasonably be applied in today's
cultural context, at least in Western society. The chasm between biblical culture and
Western culture is just too wide for there to be a common frame of reference. And there
are too many aspects of biblical culture which we today would find reprehensible and
confounding – such as misogyny, apathy regarding rape, polygamy, and the ownership of
slave wives – for us to be able to construct a clear moral framework for the Bible in order
to extrapolate what it is the Bible would probably want us to do in regards to premarital
sex among dating Christians couples.

Despite the Bible's silence regarding the moral status of premarital sex, many Christian
commentators defend the chastity-before-marriage doctrine on the grounds of its practical
benefits, if not its spiritual ones. Some Christians will say that premarital sex, even
between loving partners, can cause emotional problems that can negatively affect the
relationship (or future relationships), because of the intense bond that is instinctively
formed during sexual intercourse. Some Christians will condemn premarital sex on the
grounds of avoiding undesirable effects like sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted
pregnancies, or single parenthood. There is nothing wrong with these arguments in and
of themselves. It is not the aim of this essay to try to necessarily encourage premarital sex
or to suggest that premarital sex is harmless, but simply to establish whether or not it is a
sin. The fact is, the issue of the practical problems that an action could cause is an issue
that is merely tangential to the subject of sin. This is evidenced by how, for example,
churches do not tout things like eating too much junk food or not exercising regularly or
driving while distracted as being examples of sin. Sin is less about practical problems
and more about spiritual problems. Thus, Christians arguing against premarital sex in a
religious context on the basis of it causing practical problems is disingenuous and besides
the point.

In conclusion, it is my argument that the chastity-before-marriage doctrine is purely a

creation of church tradition and church philosophy, and is not derived from the Bible.
And any Christians who choose to believe in this doctrine should acknowledge and
accept the truth, which is that in adhering to this doctrine they are adhering to church
tradition and church philosophy, and not scripture. If premarital sex is a sin, it is only a
sin insomuch as Church tradition possesses the authority to define sin.