ContradictionsReading order 189Bible context 6 min read
Is polygamy OK?
Biblical texts recognize and regulate plural marriages, while other passages favor a marital pair or require one wife for religious office.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
Regulated plural marriages conflict with restrictive marital ideals, but office-specific requirements do not establish a universal ban.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Multiple wives are recorded regulated and attributed to divine gifts
And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.
Genesis 4:19
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Genesis 4
Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.