The
Law of Moses accepts polygamy (Deuteronomy 21:15-17) and the
Old Testament records plural marriages among the patriarchs
(Genesis 25:1, and chapters 29 to 30), and notable
Israelites. (1 Samuel 1:1-2, 25:42-43, 2 Samuel 12:7-8, 1
Kings 11:3, 20:5, 1 Chronicles 4:5, 8:8, 2 Chronicles
11:18-21, 24:1-3). One of them was Jehoiada, a priest and
King's counsellor who was held in high regard. (2 Kings 12:2,
2 Chronicles 24:4-16).
In
the New Testament, Paul says that elders or bishops, and
deacons in the church, should be the husband of one wife (1
Timothy 3:2, 12, Titus 1:5-7), a requirement which could mean
"married only once" (See footnotes in the New
English Bible and the Good News Bible), but there is no
evidence that this rule also applies to lay people. Therefore
it is not surprising that there have been conflicts over
polygamy in Africa, and also with the Mormons.
The
Bible says nothing directly on masturbation or birth control.
It used to be thought that the case of Onan covered both, but
Onan's action was to avoid raising children to his dead
brother by impregnating his dead brother's wife. (Genesis
38:7-10). This is about the levirate rule, not masturbation
or birth control.
And
the levirate is quite a different can of worms. The Law of
Moses forbids a man to have sex with his brother's wife
(Leviticus 18:16) or his son's wife (Leviticus 18:15), and
adds that if a man takes his brother's wife, they shall be
childless. (Leviticus 20:21). However, the levirate, also
prescribed by the Law of Moses, imposed a duty on a man to
raise up seed to a brother who died childless. (Deuteronomy
25:5-10, see also Ruth). The levirate rule is also the point
of the story of Tamar. (Genesis 38:6-26). When Judah, her
father-in-law was slow in giving her in marriage to her young
brother-in-law, Tamar went and tricked Judah into
impregnating her.
Three
of the gospels allude to the levirate rule (Matthew 22:24,
Mark 12:19, Luke 20:28) but the churches have shown no
inclination to adopt this practice for Christians.
Of
all forms of incest, the most common is the molestation of a
woman or girl by her own father. It is therefore notable that
while Leviticus specifically forbids a man to have sex with
his mother, father's wife, sister, half-sister,
granddaughter, aunt, uncle's wife, daughter-in-law and
sister-in-law (Leviticus 18:6-16), there is no specific
reference to a father and his own daughter. Leviticus 18:17
forbids a man to have sex with a woman and her daughter
and/or granddaughter, but grandfather-granddaughter incest is
covered in the specific prohibitions (Leviticus 18:10), and
father-in-daughter incest is not.
Elsewhere
in the Old Testament, the incest taboos appeared to be open
to negotiation (see 2 Samuel 13, especially verse 13).