What is and is not Adultery in the Bible? You may be surprise.

Part of: http://www.thefamily.org/dossier/books/book5/main.htm

The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior, published in the US in 1993, was described as "the first broad-scale scientific national survey since Kinsey." That report revealed that forty-four percent of "very religious" people and fifty percent of "religious" people, and fifty-nine percent of "slightly religious" people admitted they had sex before marriage. "Very religious" people slightly outscored "religious" people fifty-seven percent to fifty-six percent in their personal agreement with the statement, "Sensually, I feel that sex is deliciously sensuous" (Janus, 1993: 252, 255). Another surprising discovery made by these scientists was in response to the question "I've had extramarital affairs." Thirty-one percent of people in the "very religious" category indicated they had at least one affair, whereas only twenty-six percent of those people who thought of themselves as simply "religious" said they had been involved in extra-marital sex. Forty-four percent of the "non-religious" responders admitted to extramarital sex (op. cit., 249).
It is said that the French reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564), was particularly preoccupied with adultery, and made references to it in almost every matter he discussed. G. Rattray Taylor, commenting on this characteristic in Sex in History, generalizes that "Since repression always stimulates what it sets out to repress, one is not surprised to learn that his (Calvin's) sister-in-law was taken in adultery in 1557 and that his daughter suffered a like fate five years later" (Taylor, 1970: 164).
It seems that Episcopalian Rev. Leo Booth could not agree more. In his book, When God Becomes a Drug: Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction and Abuse 1991), Booth points to Eric Fromm's theory that sexual taboos create sexual obsessiveness and perversions. He also notes:

Jimmy Swaggart preached some of his most scathing sermons against sex immediately following his liaisons with prostitutes (Booth, 1991: 72).

Although I do not agree with Rev. Leo Booth when he labels most Bible-quoting, Jesus-preaching Christians as being "God addicts," I can still agree with some of his views on sex and sexuality.

I believe that God created sex and made it pleasurable to us for a reason; not just to procreate, but as a means of physically expressing spiritual unity. To insist that it is dirty is an abuse of God's gift, and from that abuse springs more abuse: guilt, shame, humiliation, fear (op. cit., 75).

Booth is of course not alone among the outspoken clergy within the Episcopal church. Bishop John Shelby Spong is another very notable player in the unfolding sex-and-spirituality Christian conundrum. Bishop Spong receives praise even in the respected National Catholic Reporter, a respected Roman Catholic publication. In reviewing Bishop Spong's book Living in Sin?, they conceded that "John Shelby Spong is a brave churchman. He has the guts to tell it like it is!"--And what is it that the Episcopal Bishop Spong is telling the world that is so significant and takes so much courage?
Bishop Spong suggests that there is much ambiguity in the Bible concerning sex. To take just one example, adultery in the Bible was defined as sex with a married woman. The marital status of the man was irrelevant. If the woman was not married, then having sexual relations with her was not adulterous. Women, Spong points out, were considered the possessions of the primary male in their lives and he quotes the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis chapter 38 and the story of the Levite's concubine in Judges chapter 19.

Traditional "Morality" -- A Myth?

Bishop Spong notes that in the Bible the prevailing marital pattern of the times was not monogamy but polygamy. In fact, moral patterns ascribed to Bible times actually were never the way those who call us to reaffirm "traditional morality" think they were. In his book Living in Sin?, also favorably reviewed in Time magazine, Spong brings this fact out clearly. Marriage, for example, was not ever universally required to legitimize sexual activity even in western Christian society. It was not until the Council of Trent in 1565, that the Church declared that a Christian ceremony was necessary in order to have a valid marriage. He adds:

Marriage does not make sex Holy, the quality of the relationship does (Spong, 1989: 65).

The Bible's view on relationships and sex is further demonstrated in the passages which mention how the patriarch Abraham on two occasions in order to save his own life offered his wife Sarah, first to the Pharaoh (Genesis chapter 12) and later to King Abemelech (Genesis chapter 20). His son Isaac, following in his footsteps, later offered his wife Rebecca to the same or similarly named Philistine king (Genesis chapter 26)! Spong mentions that in some nations of the western world, older and sexually experienced women were expected to initiate young post-pubescent boys into the mysteries of love-making. This would prepare a young man to be a gentle and effective lover with his virgin bride.

In his book Beyond Moralism, Spong protests: The original prohibition against adulterous relationships came from a people who continued to practice polygamy for many years after their covenant at Sinai. Monogamous marriage is not the original context of the injunction. This commandment was presumed to have been given in the wilderness around the year 1250 B.C.E. Yet 300 years later Solomon, with his 300 wives and 700 concubines, reigned as king in the land whose law proclaimed, "You shall not commit adultery." (In Living in Sin?, Spong adds: "What does adultery mean when one man (Solomon) can possess an unlimited number of women for his own amusement? How can an injunction based on these premises be used to define morality today?")

The patriarchal society in which this law was both interpreted and applied did not regard sexual intercourse between married men and unmarried women as an adulterous offense. A story in chapter 38 of Genesis told of Judah's affair with Hirah, an Adullamite who was described only as a friend, even after he had had three children by her. In chapter 21 of Judges, the men of Benjamin seduced first and married second. A man was found guilty of adultery only if he took another man's wife. Adultery was primarily an offense against another man's marriage, not against his own. . . . If a married man avoided married women, he could have as many sexual affairs as he wished and still not violate this commandment. . . . (Also) Sexual behavior with foreign women encountered while traveling or captured in war . . . was not governed by these laws (Spong, 1986: 89-90).

Eric Fuchs, is a Swiss Protestant pastor. He has been director of the Protestant Study Center in Geneva and is now head of the ethics department of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. In his book, Sexual Desire and Love: Origins and History of the Christian Ethic of Sexuality and Marriage, he devotes almost ninety pages to a chapter entitled, "Christianity and Sexuality: An Ambiguous History." One point he makes is that some sexual conduct can be very very harmful and hurtful. The Old Testament certainly does not hide these dangers. Improper sexual conduct can lead to murderous violence as told in the astonishing story of Judges chapters 19-21, where the inhabitants of Gibeah abused the concubine of the Levite from Ephraim. Since that incident transgressed the most sacred laws of hospitality, of heterosexuality and of respect for even the concubine of one's neighbor, it led to collective violence and destruction of almost the entire tribe of Benjamin.
Fortunately, the Old Testament also contains an abundance of beautiful examples of the creative use of human sexuality being wonderfully used for the good of God's people. As Eric Fuchs puts it:

The exemplary couples amongst the patriarchs demonstrate how sexuality, ordained as a benediction of God on life, becomes creative with regard to history and love (Fuchs, 1983).

There is the story of Esther who captured the heart of a heathen king and saved her people from destruction. Then there was Ruth, the Moabite widow who wooed the wealthy Boaz and became an ancestor of Jesus. And of course there was the stunning beauty of Abraham's half-sister and wife, Sarah, that more than once was used to save the life of that revered patriarch. Or the love of Joseph for Mary his young pregnant-by-another, wife to be, to cite a few examples.

Tough Questions for Christians -- Just Where do we Draw the Line?

In, Beyond Moralism, Bishop Spong poses numerous sexually challenging questions for Christians to answer: What is the basis for sexual morality for Christians in this age? Is there an area between the ideal and the immoral where sexual relations between consenting unmarried adults could be viewed in some way other than as destructive or wrong?

Is abstinence the only choice a Christian ethic can tolerate for widows, widowers, unmarried adults, or divorced people?
Half the population in our culture is engaged in serial polygamy--several marriages over the course of a lifetime with one partner at a time and numerous children related to one another by step-parents and half parents. More than forty percent of the households in America are now single-parent or single-person households. . . . How can the commandment "You shall not commit adultery" be approached within the actualities of the twentieth century?
If fullness of life is the goal of the Christian gospel, sexual abstinence may not always serve that goal. . . . Are some sexual relationships beautiful, life-giving, beneficial, even though they are not lived out inside the marital bond? Surely the answer . . . is yes (Spong 1986: 96, 99, Preface p. xi, 97, 104). (Emphasis added.)

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