Is Sex Before Marriage a Sin in the Bible?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Is sex before marriage a sin in the Bible? It’s one of the most common moral and religious questions people ask, and one that continues to generate strong opinions across churches, families, and cultures. 

A recent survey found that nearly half of the U.S. Christians say that casual sex between consenting adults is sometimes or always acceptable. It’s a striking reminder that Christian attitudes toward sexuality are far from uniform.

That diversity of opinion reflects not only changing social norms, but also centuries of interpretation, theological reflection, and debate within traditions that all claim the Bible as their foundation. It also brings us back to a more basic question: what does the Bible say about sex before marriage?

At first glance, many readers assume the Bible must offer a simple yes-or-no answer. But the issue is more complicated than that.

The modern category of “premarital sex” doesn’t map neatly onto the social world of the Bible. In ancient Israel and the Greco-Roman world, marriage wasn’t primarily understood as a private romantic choice between two individuals. Instead, it was a legal, familial, and economic institution involving inheritance, household structure, and social honor. 

Questions of virginity, betrothal, adultery, and sexual conduct were therefore tied to family obligations and communal stability as much as to personal morality.

In this article, we’ll look at several of the most important biblical passages that are often brought into discussions of sex before marriage, beginning with laws in the Old Testament and then turning to New Testament texts, especially Paul’s discussions of sexual morality.

We will also briefly examine whether Jesus addressed the issue directly and how later religious traditions (including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, and Islam) have interpreted these texts. As we will see, the Bible doesn’t offer a simple modern answer, but it does provide the foundation for the debates that continue today.

Is Sex Before Marriage a Sin in the Bible? Old Testament Verses

In the Introduction à l'Ancien Testament (Introduction to the Old Testament), Martin Rose writes:

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This observation is especially important when approaching moral and legal questions in Deuteronomy. 

Because the book preserves legal traditions shaped through long processes of transmission and reinterpretation, its laws shouldn’t be read as isolated prooftexts detached from their ancient social setting. 

Given both the extraordinary importance of Deuteronomy and its character as a text containing legal provisions for ancient Israel, it’s not surprising that one of the passages often connected today with the question of whether sex before marriage is a sin in the Bible appears here.

But before drawing modern conclusions, we must first ask what the law was actually regulating within its original historical context. Where does it say what the legal framework was? 

Deuteronomy 22:13–21 addresses the case of a husband who, after consummating his marriage, turns against his wife and accuses her of not having been a virgin at the time of marriage. At first glance, the passage may appear to be a straightforward moral condemnation of premarital intercourse.

Yet, as Anthony Phillips explains in his Commentary on Deuteronomy, the legal issue isn’t primarily divorce, but the husband’s attempt to recover the bride-price he had paid to his father-in-law. 

His claim is that the father accepted payment for a daughter who was not, in legal and social terms, marriageable as a virgin. The case therefore concerns not only sexual conduct, but also property, contractual obligation, and family honor.

If the accusation proves false, the husband is punished severely. He must pay substantial damages (Phillips notes that this is technically compensation for slander rather than a criminal fine) to the girl’s father, and he permanently loses the right to divorce his wife. 

Moreover, Peter C. Craigie, in his Commentary on Deuteronomy, emphasizes that the legal responsibility for defending the woman rests with her parents because, by giving her in marriage, they had publicly represented her as qualified for it. The husband’s false accusation therefore damages not only the woman’s reputation, but also the honor of her entire household.

If, however, the accusation is true, the consequences are far more severe. Namely, the woman is executed for what the text calls “fornication in her father’s house.” Craigie notes that this phrase doesn’t necessarily mean the act occurred literally inside the house, but that the offense took place while she was still under her father’s authority, before marriage.

The issue isn’t simply that sexual intercourse occurred before the wedding, but that she entered marriage under false representation and brought disgrace upon her family and, in Deuteronomy’s language, upon Israel itself.

Phillips goes even further, arguing that the later Deuteronomic formulation treats such a woman as an adulteress, extending the category beyond intercourse with a married woman to include loss of virginity discovered at marriage.

In this framework, virginity is inseparable from patriarchal authority, inheritance, and the stability of the covenant community.

This means that Deuteronomy doesn’t ask the modern question in modern terms. It’s not offering an abstract theological statement about consensual premarital relationships between autonomous individuals.

Rather, it legislates within a patriarchal world where marriage was a legal and economic institution involving bride-price, paternal authority, legitimacy of heirs, and communal honor.

In other words, the text clearly treats sexual relations before marriage as a serious matter, but its rationale is rooted less in modern notions of personal sexual morality and more in covenantal order and household integrity.

To see how similar concerns appear elsewhere in the Pentateuch, we should also turn to another important Old Testament text which comes from the Book of Exodus.

What Does the Bible Say About Sex Before Marriage? Book of Exodus

For most readers, the Book of Exodus is best known through the dramatic story of Moses, Pharaoh, and the parting of the Red Sea. A narrative so influential that it has inspired generations of historians and archaeologists to ask whether some historical memory lies behind it. 

Yet Exodus is far more than a story of liberation. It’s also a foundational legal and theological text, preserving what scholars often call the “Book of the Covenant,” a collection of laws that shaped Israel’s understanding of daily life under covenant with God.

It’s therefore not surprising that one of the passages most often connected to the question of whether the sex before marriage is a sin in the Bible appears not in a sermon or prophetic oracle, but in a legal provision. Where does it say what the details were? 

“When a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. But if her father refuses to give her to him, he shall pay an amount equal to the bride-price for virgins.” (Exodus 22:16–17)

At first glance, modern readers may expect the text to function as a straightforward moral prohibition. But, as with Deuteronomy, the historical-critical task requires us to ask what social problem the law is actually trying to regulate.

In her Commentary on Exodus, Carol Meyers notes:

This broader social framework is essential. Marriage in ancient Israel was primarily a familial, economic, and communal arrangement.

Within that framework, Exodus 22:16–17 doesn’t focus first on the morality of sexual desire itself, but on the consequences of sexual intercourse for marriageability and household relations.

Meyers also points out that the Hebrew term often translated “virgin” (betulah) can be misleading, since it often refers more generally to a young woman of marriageable age and does not always function as a precise biological term. 

The law concerns an unbetrothed woman, meaning she is not already legally promised to another man, which would raise the issue of adultery. Instead, the concern is that sexual intercourse outside marriage alters the social and economic conditions under which her father could arrange a proper marriage.

As John I. Durham explains in his Commentary on Exodus, the man who seduces such a woman has “compromised her father’s opportunity to arrange a marriage for her,” and, for that reason, he must pay the bride-price and marry her. 

Durham stresses that the primary focus of the law is financial, both with regard to the father and to the woman herself. 

The bride-price wasn’t simply the “purchase” of a wife, but compensation acknowledging her transfer from one household to another and the social obligations that accompanied that move. If the father judged the proposed marriage unsuitable, he retained the right to refuse it. And even then, the man was still required to pay compensation equal to the marriage price.

This makes the legal logic of the passage much clearer. Exodus isn’t presenting a timeless abstract doctrine about premarital sex in modern terms, nor is it simply asking whether sexual intercourse before a wedding ceremony is sinful in itself. 

Rather, it regulates a concrete social situation within a patriarchal covenant community where marriage, inheritance, paternal authority, and family alliances were deeply intertwined. In that context, sexual relations before marriage were serious because they affected the honor, stability, and economic integrity of the household.

With that Old Testament background in view, we can now move beyond Israelite law and turn to the New Testament, where the question is framed less in terms of household regulation and more in terms of holiness, the body, and the moral life of early Christians.

Is Sex Before Marriage a Sin in the Bible: The Evidence from the New Testament

Is sex before marriage a sin in the Bible from the perspective of the New Testament, and if so, where does it say that? We first have to look closely at one of the most frequently cited passages in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. 

Unlike the legal materials of Deuteronomy and Exodus, the New Testament doesn’t usually approach sexual ethics through civil regulations about marriage arrangements, bride-price, or paternal authority. 

Instead, Paul frames the issue in theological terms. Namely, the holiness, the body, and the believer’s relationship to Christ. That shift in perspective makes 1 Corinthians especially important for understanding how early Christians thought about sexual conduct.

The letter of 1 Corinthians is a fairly representative example of the Pauline epistles. We know both from Paul’s own letters and from Acts that he spent a significant amount of time in Corinth, establishing a Christian community there. 

The city was located on the isthmus connecting northern and southern Greece and was one of the major urban centers of the eastern Mediterranean. 

Paul arrived there after earlier missionary work in places such as Thessalonica. According to Acts, he remained in Corinth for about eighteen months, teaching and building the church (Acts 18:1–11). 

Acts presents him as beginning his mission in the synagogue, but 1 Corinthians itself strongly suggests that many members of the community were former pagans rather than Jews, as Paul reminds them in 12:2: “You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak.”

The key passage appears in 1 Corinthians 6:12–20, where Paul addresses sexual conduct within the Corinthian community and culminates with the imperative: “Flee from fornication” (6:18).

The Greek term here is porneia, a word whose meaning is broader and more debated than the English word “fornication” might suggest.

Some modern readers would definitely assume that Paul is speaking generically about all sexual activity outside marriage.

However, Joseph Fitzmyer, in his Commentary on First Corinthians, argues that Paul’s immediate concern in this passage is more specific: he is addressing sexual relations with prostitutes and what he calls “harlotry,” rather than presenting a general abstract theory of premarital sex. 

Paul rejects the libertine slogan apparently circulating in Corinth (“All things are lawful for me”) and insists that Christian freedom doesn’t mean moral license. Sexual conduct cannot be treated like eating food or satisfying any ordinary bodily appetite.

So, Paul’s argument is theological rather than merely legal. The body, he says, is “not meant for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (6:13). 

Fitzmyer emphasizes that Paul is speaking about the physical body (sōma), not simply the “self” in an abstract sense. Because believers’ bodies are members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, sexual union has spiritual significance. 

Paul even cites Genesis 2:24 (“the two shall become one flesh”) to argue that intercourse with a prostitute creates a real bodily union that is incompatible with union with Christ. This is why sexual sin is treated differently. It’s not merely an external act, but something done “against one’s own body.” 

The final exhortation, “glorify God in your body” (6:20), places sexual ethics within the larger framework of Christian identity and holiness.

What does this mean for our central question? Strictly speaking, 1 Corinthians 6 doesn’t directly answer the modern question of consensual premarital sex between two unmarried people in a committed relationship. 

Paul’s immediate concern is prostitution and illicit sexual union more broadly. 

Nevertheless, the passage became foundational for later Christian teaching because it establishes a principle: sexual relations are not morally neutral acts of private choice, but actions bound up with the believer’s union with Christ and the sanctity of the body.

For that reason, most later Christian traditions extended Paul’s argument beyond prostitution to include sexual activity outside marriage more generally.

What Does the Bible Say About Sex Before Marriage? The Case of 1 Thessalonians

The next example that can help us see how the New Testament approaches the question of whether or not sex before marriage is a sin comes from what is probably the earliest New Testament document we possess: Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. 

If 1 Corinthians shows Paul addressing concrete problems in a well-established urban church, 1 Thessalonians gives us an even earlier glimpse into how Paul instructed new Gentile converts about holiness, sexual conduct, and life within the Christian community.

Paul had founded the Christian community in Thessalonica during one of his missionary journeys and, once he felt that the church had been established, he moved on to continue his work elsewhere.

In the letter, he explains that he had wanted to return to visit them, but circumstances prevented it, or, as Paul puts it in striking language, “Satan blocked our way” (2:18).

Instead, he sent his co-worker Timothy to strengthen and encourage the believers and to make sure they were not being “shaken by these persecutions” (3:3). After Timothy returned with good news that the Thessalonians continued in faith and love and still longed to see Paul again, Paul wrote this letter. 

Yet not everything was ideal within the community. Like many newly converted Gentile Christians, they still needed instruction about how Christian faith should shape daily moral life.

Where does it say how they can do that? 1 Thessalonians 4:3–8, where Paul writes: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from porneia.”

The entire passage is framed first and foremost as a statement about holiness. Kenneth Grayston, in his Commentary, summarizes the passage well:

The debated center of the passage is, of course, the word porneia. So, in that sense, how should we understand it? 

Gordon Fee notes that, unlike 1 Corinthians 6 (where Paul’s immediate concern is more specifically prostitution and harlotry), here the term functions much more broadly. In biblical usage, porneia covers every form of sexual immorality, and Paul places it directly under the heading of sanctification: “This is the will of God, your holiness.”

Fee also stresses the historical context: many converts in Thessalonica came from a pagan environment in which sexual activity outside marriage was often socially normal and not considered morally problematic.

What Jews and Christians viewed as sexual sin was frequently accepted as ordinary life in Greco-Roman society. That is why Paul contrasts believers with “the Gentiles who do not know God,” who live in “passionate lust.”

The phrase often translated “control your own body” (or literally, “possess your own vessel”) adds another layer of complexity. Both Fee and Grayston note that the Greek term skeuos (“vessel”) is difficult and has generated long scholarly debate. 

It may refer metaphorically to the body, and Grayston judges that the practical meaning “gain mastery over one’s own body” is probably the best sense, even if the Greek remains somewhat uncertain.

He rejects the alternative interpretation that Paul means “acquire a wife,” since there is little evidence that Paul uses such language elsewhere. 

Fee likewise argues that Paul’s larger point is sexual self-control in contrast to pagan indulgence. Sexual conduct is therefore not morally indifferent. Instead, it’s one of the clearest ways believers demonstrate that they “know God” and live differently from the surrounding culture.

Verse 6 pushes the matter further by warning that “no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister in this matter.” 

Grayston rejects the idea that Paul suddenly shifts to business ethics or lawsuits here; the context remains sexual conduct throughout. The likely concern is adultery or another form of sexual wrongdoing that harms another member of the Christian community.

For our main question, this passage is especially significant because it moves beyond the narrower issue of prostitution and presents sexual morality as part of Christian holiness more generally. 

Paul still doesn’t use the modern phrase “premarital sex,” nor does he define every possible boundary with precision.

But by treating porneia as incompatible with sanctification and by placing sexual conduct within the framework of holiness, self-control, and covenantal responsibility, 1 Thessalonians became one of the strongest biblical foundations for the later Christian conviction that sexual relations properly belong within marriage.

Is Sex Before Marriage a Sin in the Bible? Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Mainline Protestant Views

Today, there are many Christian denominations and branches of Christianity, each with its own particular emphases, beliefs, and practices. It would be impossible to survey all of them here, so we will take a brief look at three of the most widely known traditions: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Mainline Protestant Christianity.

Although these traditions differ significantly in theology and church structure, they have historically shared the conviction that sexual relations properly belong within marriage.

In Roman Catholic teaching, sex is understood as morally ordered toward both the unity of the spouses and openness to procreation within the sacramental bond of marriage.

For that reason, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explicitly identifies fornication (sexual intercourse between unmarried persons) as contrary to Christian moral teaching. It’s explicitly stated:

Eastern Orthodox Christianity reaches a very similar conclusion, though it often frames the issue less in terms of codified moral theology and more through the language of ascetic discipline, spiritual formation, and the sanctity of marriage as a sacred union blessed by the Church. 

In both traditions, premarital sex is generally understood as sinful because it separates sexual union from the covenantal and sacramental reality of marriage.

Mainline Protestant traditions are somewhat more diverse. Historically, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Methodist traditions largely maintained the same basic view that sexual intimacy belongs within marriage. 

In many contemporary Protestant communities, however, the discussion has become more varied. 

Some churches continue to uphold a traditional prohibition of premarital sex, while others place greater emphasis on mutual commitment, fidelity, consent, and ethical responsibility rather than on legal marital status alone.

As a result, some mainline Protestants may distinguish between casual sexual relationships and long-term committed partnerships before marriage.

Even so, the dominant historical Christian tradition (across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant lines) has generally interpreted biblical teaching as placing sexual relations within the framework of marriage rather than outside it.

Is Sex Before Marriage a Sin in Other Religions? (Islam, Hinduism, Judaism)

What about other religions in the contemporary world? Do they proclaim that sex before marriage is a sin? A brief look at Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam shows that the answer depends partly on what we mean by “sin,” since not all traditions use Christian categories. 

Still, all three have historically tended to place sexual relations within the framework of marriage, family order, and religious discipline.

In Hinduism, the issue is complicated because Hindu traditions are diverse and do not have a single centralized authority equivalent to a church magisterium. 

Classical Hindu ethics generally treats sexuality as a legitimate human aim (kāma), but one that should be governed by dharma, or moral and social order. In that framework, sexual relations are traditionally expected to occur within marriage, especially because marriage is tied to family lineage, ritual duty, and social stability.

As Dileepkumar Thankappan explains:

At the same time, Hindu traditions have not always spoken about sexuality with the same categories of “sin” found in Christianity; the more precise point is that premarital sex has usually been viewed as contrary to proper dharmic conduct rather than simply as an isolated private offense.

Judaism also has a long and complex sexual ethic. Classical rabbinic Judaism generally regards sex positively within marriage, not as something shameful in itself.

However, most Jewish authorities have traditionally disapproved of premarital sex because it occurs outside kiddushin, the sanctified marital framework. 

Orthodox Judaism remains strongly opposed to premarital sexual relations, while Conservative and Reform Jewish views are more varied in practice and pastoral emphasis. 

Even when modern Jewish communities speak more flexibly about sexuality, the traditional ideal remains that sexual intimacy is most fully appropriate within a committed Jewish marriage.

Islam is the most explicit of the three on this question. Classical and mainstream Islamic teaching prohibits zina, a category that includes unlawful sexual intercourse outside a valid marriage. This includes both adultery and premarital sex.

The Qur’an warns believers not even to approach zina (Q 17:32), and later Islamic legal and ethical traditions developed this into a strong consensus that sexual intercourse belongs only within marriage.

Conclusion

So, is sex before marriage a sin in the Bible? As we have seen, the answer depends largely on how the question is framed.

The Bible doesn’t contain a single verse that simply states, in modern language, “premarital sex is a sin.” 

Instead, the Old Testament addresses sexual relations primarily through laws concerning marriage arrangements, family honor, inheritance, and covenantal order, while the New Testament (especially in Paul) approaches the issue through holiness, self-control, and the believer’s relationship to God. 

We have to remember that the biblical authors weren’t responding to modern questions about dating, romantic partnerships, or individual sexual autonomy. Rather, they were writing within social worlds where marriage was fundamentally a legal, communal, and religious institution.

At the same time, both Jewish and Christian interpretation, as well as the later teachings of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestant traditions, Islam, and much of Hindu ethical thought, have generally drawn a similar conclusion: sexual relations properly belong within marriage. 

The route to that conclusion, however, differs from tradition to tradition. Some emphasize covenant and sacrament, others ritual order, holiness, dharma, or divine law. 

Historically speaking, then, the better question may not be simply whether the Bible gives a yes-or-no answer, but how generations of believers used biblical texts to shape their understanding of sexuality.

To put it bluntly, the Bible provides the foundation, but interpretation (and the societies doing the interpreting) have always shaped the final answer!

Abortion in the Bible: Does the Bible Say It's a Sin?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

To talk about abortion in the Bible is to step into one of the most complex and emotionally charged debates of our time. 

Questions about abortion raise not only ethical and political disagreements, but also deeply personal convictions, and, at times, regrettably, even social hostility and violence. Precisely because of this, the topic cannot simply be avoided or dismissed. It requires careful, informed, and respectful discussion. 

As a historian writing for a broad audience through our blog, my aim here isn’t to advocate for a particular position, but to examine what the biblical texts themselves do (and do not) say. The guiding questions for this inquiry are straightforward but significant: Is abortion in the Bible? And does the Bible say abortion is a sin? 

These aren’t easy questions, but they can be approached with clarity when we attend closely to the evidence.

A key challenge, however, lies in the fact that modern debates about abortion often assume categories, definitions, and moral frameworks that didn’t necessarily exist in the ancient world. 

The biblical writings emerged in historical contexts very different from our own, shaped by distinct social structures, legal systems, and understandings of the human body.

As a result, we shouldn’t expect the Bible to address abortion in the direct and systematic way that contemporary discussions might demand. Instead, what we find are a range of passages (legal, narrative, and poetic) that touch on related issues such as pregnancy, fetal development, and the value of human life. 

Interpreting these texts requires attention to their original context, language, and purpose.

In this article, we’ll first situate the Bible within its ancient cultural and literary setting, highlighting why people cannot straightforwardly map its texts onto modern ethical debates. 

We’ll then examine several key passages from the Old Testament that are frequently cited in discussions about abortion, followed by a New Testament example that is sometimes brought into these conversations.

Throughout, the goal will be to present the material in a historically grounded and balanced way, allowing readers to see how different interpretations arise and why different people today come to a completely different conclusion while reading the same passages.

The Bible in Context: Ancient Documents, Not a Modern Rulebook

In their book The Abingdon Introduction to the Bible: Understanding Jewish and Christian Scriptures, Joel S. Kaminsky, Mark Reasoner, and Joel N. Lohr note:

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This brief overview underscores a foundational point: the Bible isn’t a single, unified work composed at one moment in time, but a diverse collection of writings that emerged across many centuries and in a wide range of historical settings.

Recognizing this diversity is essential for any historically responsible interpretation. The texts that make up the Bible were written by different authors, addressing different audiences, and shaped by distinct literary, theological, and social concerns.

Just as importantly, they belong to worlds that are profoundly different from our own: namely, the ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman contexts. These were societies with their own assumptions about family structure, law, the body, and reproduction. 

Concepts that dominate modern ethical debates, including those surrounding abortion in the Bible, weren’t framed in the same way in antiquity. As a result, it’s methodologically problematic to expect biblical texts to speak directly and unambiguously to contemporary categories without first considering their original historical horizons.

This tension between ancient context and modern application has been perceptively captured by Paula Fredriksen, who writes:

Her observation highlights a crucial methodological distinction: while theology often seeks to make ancient texts speak to present concerns, historical inquiry aims first to understand those texts within their original settings.

In this article, that historical orientation will be decisive. Rather than beginning with modern assumptions about what the Bible must say, we’ll examine how specific passages functioned within their own literary and cultural contexts. 

At the same time, we will acknowledge that these texts have been read in different ways! Not surprisingly, some interpreters argue that they implicitly condemn abortion, others maintain that they do not address it in any direct or systematic sense.

A careful analysis requires that both perspectives be presented with precision and without caricature.

With these contextual considerations in place, we are now in a better position to turn to the biblical texts themselves. By situating each passage within its historical and literary framework, we can more clearly assess what they contribute (and what they do not) to the broader question of abortion.

Abortion in the Bible: Key Old Testament Passages

This article will follow the conventional division of the Bible between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Obviously, this division is a Christian one, but we can follow it structurally without necessarily accepting a particular Christian (traditional) interpretation.

We’ll begin, therefore, with several key passages from the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible), which contains most of the material relevant to this discussion. These texts provide the primary foundation for examining how issues related to abortion in the Bible have been interpreted.

Does the Bible Mention Abortion? Exodus 21:22–23

Abortion wasn’t unknown in the ancient world. Medical texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia attest to practices intended to terminate pregnancy. For example, the Ebers Papyrus (16th century B.C.E.) includes a prescription “to cause a woman to stop pregnancy,” indicating that such procedures were part of the broader medical and social landscape of antiquity. 

Against this background, it’s interesting that the Hebrew Bible doesn’t contain a direct legal prohibition or systematic discussion of abortion. 

The passage most frequently cited in modern debates comes from Exodus 21:22–23, which reads: “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined… If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life.”

This raises an immediate and pressing question: does this mean that abortion in the Bible is a sin?

Many Christian apologists would answer this question in the affirmative, though often by reinterpreting the passage in ways that challenge the standard reading. 

For instance, Calum Miller, in his article, argues that the text doesn’t clearly describe a miscarriage at all. He notes that the Hebrew verb commonly translated as “miscarriage” more often refers to live birth, and that this passage doesn’t use a separate, more precise term for miscarriage.

On this reading, the scenario may involve a premature birth rather than fetal death. If so, the law would imply that if the child is harmed, the principle of “life for life” applies, suggesting that the unborn child is afforded legal protection comparable to that of any other person. 

Miller further cautions that differences in legal penalties do not necessarily reflect differences in intrinsic value since factors such as intent and circumstance can affect sentencing.

However, many Hebrew Bible scholars would disagree with such a reading and instead emphasize both the linguistic and contextual limits of the passage. 

John J. Collins, in his book What Are Biblical Values?, presents what is widely regarded as the more straightforward interpretation: that the text refers to an accidental miscarriage resulting from injury.

In this case, the imposition of a fine (rather than the more severe “life for life” penalty) may suggest a legal distinction between the fetus and a fully born person.

At the same time, Collins is careful to stress that this law addresses an unintended injury, not a deliberate termination of pregnancy. As he puts it, “an accidental miscarriage is not the same thing as intentional abortion.”

The passage, in this reading, doesn’t directly legislate abortion, but rather reflects how ancient Israelite law handled cases of bodily harm involving pregnant women.

Collins also draws attention to the history of interpretation, particularly the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint.

This version introduces a distinction between a “formed” and “unformed” fetus, assigning greater legal weight to the former.

Later interpreters, such as Philo of Alexandria, developed this idea further, suggesting that the moral status of the fetus might depend on its stage of development. 

Such interpretations demonstrate that even in antiquity, readers didn’t agree on how to understand the text, and that questions about fetal status were already subject to philosophical and cultural influence.

In the end, Exodus 21:22–23 doesn’t yield a single, uncontested answer. Some interpreters see in it an implicit affirmation of the value of unborn life, while others view it as evidence of a legal distinction between the fetus and the mother.

What can be said with confidence is that the passage addresses a specific case of accidental injury rather than offering a general moral teaching about abortion. As with many issues related to abortion in the Bible, the interpretation depends largely on how one reads the text, leaving modern readers to weigh the evidence and draw their own conclusions.

Does the Bible Say Abortion Is a Sin? Numbers 5:11–31

The second example frequently used in discussions about the issue of abortion in the Bible comes from the Book of Numbers (5:11–31).

This passage describes a ritual ordeal administered to a woman suspected of adultery. If a husband becomes jealous but lacks evidence, the woman is brought before a priest, made to drink a concoction of water mixed with dust from the sanctuary floor, and subjected to a divine test.

If she is guilty, the text states that her body will undergo physical affliction (often described as a swelling abdomen and failing “thigh”) whereas if she is innocent, she will remain unharmed and retain her fertility. 

While the text doesn’t explicitly mention pregnancy at every point, many scholars understand the ritual to be closely connected to reproductive outcomes.

This passage is sometimes cited in modern debates as evidence that the Bible explicitly condemns abortion.

The reasoning is relatively straightforward: if the ritual results in the loss of a fetus, and this outcome is portrayed negatively (as a curse or punishment) then it might be taken to imply that abortion itself is morally wrong.

In this reading, the text reinforces a broader biblical ethic that values unborn life and treats its destruction as a serious matter. As with the Exodus passage, however, the interpretation is far from straightforward and depends heavily on how one understands both the language and the broader cultural context.

A more nuanced perspective is offered by Baruch A. Levine in his Commentary on Numbers. Levine argues that, in many cases, pregnancy likely formed the background of the ordeal, since suspicion of adultery could arise precisely from a woman’s apparent conception.

He further suggests that the physical effects described in the text may indeed point to “the loss of her embryo” and that, in certain circumstances, the ritual could “terminate… pregnancy by what amounted to an induced miscarriage or abortion.”

Importantly, however, Levine doesn’t interpret this as a moral teaching about abortion. Instead, the termination of pregnancy appears as a byproduct of a ritual designed to resolve questions of marital fidelity and social order, not as an ethical judgment on abortion itself.

Levine’s analysis goes even further in clarifying the text’s underlying logic. While he acknowledges that the fetus is treated as having value (something also reflected in laws such as those in Exodus 21) he emphasizes that this value isn’t absolute.

The ritual is carried out “notwithstanding the potential loss of the value-bearing fetus,” indicating that other concerns (such as lineage, purity, and divine judgment) take precedence.

In fact, Levine concludes that what many modern readers would call a “right to life” isn’t articulated in these legal materials in an absolute sense. To put it more bluntly, the passage, according to his interpretation, doesn’t function as a prohibition of abortion, but rather reflects a world in which fetal life could be subordinated to broader social and religious priorities.

Similarly, in his course The Bible and Abortion, Bart D. Ehrman argues that this passage is best understood as describing a divinely sanctioned induced abortion, a ritual procedure required under specific legal conditions and not presented as morally problematic within its own framework.

This interpretation reinforces the broader observation that biblical texts do not approach abortion as a standalone ethical issue, but rather address it indirectly, if at all, within other legal and ritualistic contexts.

Is Abortion in the Bible? The Case of Genesis 2

Another verse that is sometimes brought into the debate about the issue of abortion in the Bible comes from Genesis. 

In the second creation account, we read how the first human is formed: “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

The context here isn’t a legal or ethical discussion, but a theological narrative describing the origins of humanity. Unlike other passages that deal with laws or rituals, this text belongs to a broader reflection on what it means to be human in relation to God.

A key element of this verse is the idea that life begins with the divine breath. The human being, though formed from material substance (dust), doesn’t become a “living being” (nephesh) until God breathes life into him.

Most scholars understand this as a statement of theological anthropology. To put it more bluntly, it’s a reflection on the nature of human life as dependent on God. As Bill T. Arnold notes in his Commentary on Genesis, the phrase “living being” doesn’t refer to a separable “soul” within the body, but rather to the totality of the human person.

In other words, the text isn’t attempting to define when biological life begins, but what it means for a human to be fully alive.

Even so, if one were to read the passage more literally, it would still suggest that life is associated with breath rather than conception.

As Dr. Ehrman explains in his course, the Hebrew Bible consistently portrays a living human being as a material body animated by breath. In that sense, life begins when a being is capable of breathing. Prior to that, it’s not yet a “living being” in the full sense.

Abortion in the Bible: Psalm 139:13–16

Another passage frequently brought into discussions of abortion in the Bible comes from Psalm 139, a poetic reflection on God’s intimate knowledge of the human person. 

In verses 13–16, the psalmist declares: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret… Your eyes beheld my unformed substance”.

These lines are often cited as evidence that the Bible affirms the full value of human life already in the womb. But does this passage really condemn abortion? Some interpreters would argue that it does, seeing here a powerful affirmation of divine involvement in prenatal life.

A closer look, however, suggests that the passage operates in a very different register. As Mitchell Dahood explains in his Commentary, Psalm 139 is best understood as “a psalm of innocence composed by a religious leader… who was accused of idol worship,” structured as an appeal to God’s all-encompassing knowledge to vindicate the speaker.

In other words, the psalm isn’t a legal or ethical treatise, but a personal prayer rooted in a specific situation of accusation and self-defense.

Its central concern is the fact that God knows the speaker completely (his actions, intentions, and very existence), so thoroughly that no accusation can ultimately stand. This interpretation is reinforced by broader scholarly analysis of the psalm’s genre and theology. 

As Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger argue, Psalm 139 is best classified as a wisdom meditation on the relationship between the human being and God. Its language of formation in the womb is part of a larger reflection on divine knowledge, presence, and creative power.

As Christian Frevel and Oda Wischmeyer put it in their study Menschsein: Perspektiven des Alten und Neuen Testaments (Being Human: Perspectives From the Old and New Testaments):

The crucial point, however, is that the focus isn’t the embryo itself, but its place within God’s comprehensive knowledge and plan. The psalmist is affirming that God knows even the earliest, hidden stages of existence, not defining when personhood begins or making a moral claim about abortion.

Moreover, much of the imagery in this passage is highly poetic and symbolic rather than literal. The reference to being formed “in the depths of the earth,” for example, isn’t a straightforward description of the womb, but part of a broader set of metaphors emphasizing hiddenness and divine creative activity beyond human perception.

As Hossfeld and Zenger note, such language reflects ancient cosmological imagination and underscores the mystery of human origins, not anatomical processes.

Taken together, these features suggest that Psalm 139 is concerned with theological anthropology (what it means to be a human known and sustained by God) rather than with biological development or ethical legislation.

In light of this, while Psalm 139 offers a profound reflection on divine knowledge and care extending even to prenatal existence, it doesn’t directly address the moral question of abortion. 

Like the other passages we have examined, its meaning depends heavily on how one interprets its genre, language, and purpose.

With this in mind, we can now turn briefly to a New Testament example, where the discussion takes yet another distinctive turn.

Abortion in the Bible: New Testament

To talk about abortion in the Bible from the perspective of the New Testament, one question immediately arises: What did Jesus say about abortion? The simple answer is: nothing.

The historical Jesus never spoke on abortion as far as we can tell. In this respect, a well-known observation by Bart D. Ehrman captures the situation with particular clarity:

This perspective serves as an important reminder that modern attempts to reconstruct “Jesus on abortion” must proceed with considerable historical caution.

That being said, some interpreters have argued that traces of a biblical perspective on abortion might still be found indirectly within the New Testament. 

One passage that is sometimes brought into the discussion appears in the Gospel of Luke (1:41–44), in the account of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. 

The text describes how “when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb… For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.” At first glance, this scene (depicting an unborn child reacting within the womb) has been taken by some as evidence that the New Testament attributes a kind of personal or even spiritual awareness to the fetus.

A closer reading, however, suggests a more nuanced conclusion. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, Michael Wolter emphasizes that such interpretations misunderstand the literary and theological intention of the passage.

As he puts it:

Rather than presenting a statement about fetal consciousness or moral status, Luke uses this episode as a narrative device: the movement of the unborn John functions as a sign of eschatological joy, signaling the unfolding of God’s salvific plan. 

The focus isn’t on the fetus as such, but on the theological meaning assigned to the event within the broader story.

Moreover, the scene is carefully constructed to convey interpretation rather than biological observation. Elizabeth’s response is explicitly attributed to the Holy Spirit, indicating that the significance of the event is revealed through divine inspiration rather than empirical description.

The “leaping” of the child, therefore, should be understood symbolically, as part of Luke’s narrative strategy to highlight the significance of the moment.

Conclusion

Paula Fredriksen’s already mentioned observation provides a fitting lens through which to draw all these threads together. Theology, as she notes, often functions as a kind of “time machine,” retrieving ancient texts and making them speak to present concerns. 

And that is precisely what we see in debates about abortion in the Bible. Readers who approach the text with a particular ethical framework will often find passages that appear to support their conclusions: whether by emphasizing the value of life in the womb or by pointing to texts that treat fetal life differently from that of a fully born person. 

In that sense, the Bible has repeatedly been enlisted on multiple sides of the same debate, not because it speaks with one clear voice on the issue, but because its diverse materials can be interpreted in different ways depending on the questions we bring to it.

A historical-critical approach, however, pushes us in a different direction. Rather than asking what the Bible should say about modern ethical issues, it asks what these texts meant within their original cultural and social contexts.

And when we do that, a more restrained conclusion emerges: the biblical writings do not address abortion as a clearly defined moral problem in the way contemporary discussions do. 

They speak instead to a range of related concerns (law, ritual, theology, and narrative) shaped by a world fundamentally different from our own. Recognizing this gap doesn’t resolve the modern debate, but it does clarify what is at stake.

In the end, how one understands abortion in the Bible depends largely on how one approaches the text itself: as a source to be harmonized with present-day convictions, or as a collection of ancient documents whose primary meaning lies in the past before it’s brought into conversation with the present.

Fornication in the Bible: Meaning & Verses

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

The word “fornication” appears frequently in English translations of the Bible, yet its meaning is far less straightforward than it might seem at first glance. While modern readers often assume it refers simply to sex between unmarried people, this definition reflects a relatively narrow and later understanding of the term. In the biblical texts themselves, the words translated as “fornication” carry a much broader and more complex range of meanings shaped by ancient cultural, social, and religious contexts.

In this article, I’ll explain how these terms function across both the Old and New Testaments, tracing how their meanings shift depending on context. By looking closely at the linguistic roots and the historical settings in which these words were used, we can better understand not only what biblical authors may have intended, but also why translating and interpreting “fornication” in the Bible remains such a challenging and often debated task today.

Translations and Definitions of Fornication in the Bible

In most English dictionaries, fornication is defined simply as sexual intercourse between people not married to each other. However, as we’ll soon see, the Hebrew and Greek words frequently translated as fornication often contain much broader connotations.

Let’s begin with Hebrew. The Hebrew verb usually translated as “to commit fornication, prostitution, or unfaithfulness” is zanah, while the related noun zonah generally means a prostitute or harlot. Forms of these words are found many times in the Hebrew Bible, although not always in the same contexts. In my discussion of the use of these words in Old Testament books, I’ll go into more detail about the ways various forms of this word are used.

Meanwhile, the Greek word often translated as fornication in the New Testament is porneia, from which we derive English words like pornography. However, translating this word is a tricky business and requires some background.

In his book The Corinthian Body, Dale Martin notes that "the precise meaning of porneia is simply uncertain given the lack of evidence we have." It’s not that we don’t know the general gist of the word: porneia always refers in some sense to sexual immorality. The problem is that different cultures and times in history have defined sexual immorality differently. As Carolyn Osiek has noted in Early Christian Families in Context, "To say that πορνεία [porneia] means fornication is circular, and the concept of illicit sex only begs the question of what is considered illicit." For an example of this, let’s discuss the difference between adultery (Greek: moicheia) and fornication (porneia) in the ancient Greek-speaking world.

In his article, “Porneia: The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm,” Kyle Harper notes that the line dividing these two concepts was entirely determined by the status of the woman involved.

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For modern people, adultery and fornication can overlap. If a person is married and has sex with someone to whom he is not married, he is an adulterer. But since the two having sex are also not married to each other, they are also committing fornication according to the dictionary definition above.

Harper notes that the word porneia, “derived from the Greek pornē ("prostitute")… passed into Latin as fornicatio and thence into English as "fornication." But "fornication" is effectively limited to ecclesiastical usage.”

He goes on to remark that while the definition of the English word fornication has narrowed over time, the definition of porneia gradually broadened in Greek. Since it was originally derived from the word pórnē as noted above, Harper writes that porneia first meant simply "the practice of selling access to one's body. Porneia in classical Greek, refers [only] to the activity of the seller.” However, he reports that this meaning would eventually expand:

These sexual standards were only applicable when “free women,” those who were not slaves, had a respectable marriage, and were not prostitutes, were involved. However, Harper notes that long before the advent of Christianity, “Athenian law held that a man was not a μοιχός [adulterer] if he had sex with a woman who sits in a brothel or sells herself openly… The μοιχός violates a [free] woman, not his own marriage bond; there is no female equivalent.”

In other words, the classification of sexual violations had more to do with the status of the woman involved than with any objective moral standard. Men with respectable marriages could have sex with slaves or prostitutes without technically violating their marriages. On the other hand women, even free women, were not given the same liberty.

Having established some of the nuances of the translation issues involved in this topic, let’s move on to how the Bible uses the word fornicate (or its equivalents) in the Old Testament.

Fornication in the Old Testament

We begin with the earliest iteration of zanah, the Hebrew word often translated as fornication in the Hebrew Bible canon. It’s found in the story of Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38. Tamar is widowed twice after the deaths of Judah’s sons Er and Onan. However, Judah fails to fulfill his obligation to provide his third son, Shelah, as her husband, leaving Tamar in a vulnerable and dishonorable position. Realizing she has been wronged, Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and sleeps with Judah, who does not recognize her. When she becomes pregnant and is accused of prostitution, she reveals items Judah gave her as payment, proving he is the father. Judah admits his wrongdoing and declares Tamar more righteous than himself.

The word zanah in this story comes in verse 24 when it is discovered that Tamar is pregnant:

Notice that zanah here refers only to prostitution or paid sexual favors. However, in another book in the Pentateuch, we soon see the metaphorical use of the word, a use which becomes far more common than the literal use of the term in the Old Testament.

In Numbers 14:33, we see this sentence using a form of zanah in a figurative way:

The context of this passage is the 40 years the Israelites have wandered in the wilderness looking for the Promised Land. In this sentence, the Hebrew word zanūṯêḵem, which can mean extramarital sex, is used for unfaithfulness to God, otherwise known as idolatry. In fact, this word is used frequently to mean worship of idols in further passages.

Another example of this use can be found in 2 Kings 9, which describes an Israelite warrior named Jehu overthrowing the wicked king Ahab and killing his wife Jezebel. However, before Jezebel is killed, we see this short dialogue in verse 22:

Although calling a woman a “Jezebel’ once meant an accusation of sexual promiscuity in English, this is not what Jehu accuses Jezebel of. Instead, he charges her with serving idols rather than the God of Israel. In other words, her “prostitutions” are simply unfaithfulness to God.

A final example comes from the prophets who use this metaphor of fornication-as-idolatry more than any other Old Testament books. In Jeremiah 2:20, God speaks through the prophet, telling the Israelites

In this entire chapter, God begs his people to repent for worshipping other gods, specifically the Canaanite gods of the people around them. This is depicted as a form of “prostituting” themselves, selling their allegiance to other gods to get what they want or establish bonds with other peoples rather than serving their own God. As Harper notes,

But what about the New Testament? Is there any continuity with the Hebrew Bible’s figurative reading of fornication or prostitution as idolatry?

Fornication in the New Testament

In most Greek lexicons, the word porneia is defined as sexual immorality, fornication, marital unfaithfulness, prostitution, adultery, or simply as a generic term for sexual sin of any kind. In other words, it can be used to mean something very specific or something general and vague, making it a hard word to translate accurately. To do so, we need to look at specific verses in the New Testament and analyze their use of the word according to the specific contexts.

Let’s start with the Gospels. In telling the Pharisees what defiles a person in Matthew 15:19, Jesus refers to porneia as one item in a long list of sins:

The King James Version (and several other versions) translates porneia as “fornication.” But since Jesus doesn’t specify, and since the word in Jesus’ time could mean so many different types of sexual immorality, it’s difficult to know his intention. We find the same problem in Mark 7:21, of which Matthew is essentially a copy. Does it indicate prostitution? Sex with someone outside marriage? Pederasty? All of the above? It’s impossible to know for sure.

In fact, the same broad term is used in Acts 15:19–20, in a letter sent from the Jerusalem Church to Gentile converts:

While it may be significant, given the metaphorical use of fornication/prostitution as idol worship in the OT, that the letter specifies both idol worship and sexual immorality as prohibited, their equivalence is not stated explicitly.

However, the author of Acts—who also wrote the book of Luke—seems to assume that his readers will know what porneias means, and therefore avoids mentioning specific sexual prohibitions. However, one thing is clear from this passage: as Jennifer Wright Knust writes in her book Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity, the word porneia is used rhetorically to define a moral failing associated with depraved outsiders. In this and many other cases in the NT, Christians are defined as those who do not engage in porneia.

Paul epitomizes this exclusionary meaning of the word in 1 Corinthians 5:1–5:

Questions about this passage remain. For instance, is the man who is living with his father’s wife committing porneia simply in the sense that they aren’t married to each other? Or because it is legally defined as incest? Or because it is adultery? Note that all of these seem to be the case, indicating that for Paul, writing in the 1st century CE, porneia can be broadly applied to all of them.

In addition, the fact that Paul wants this man thrown out of the group makes Knust’s point that the word was primarily used in writing for the purpose of defining who was in (members of the church who are not committing porneia) and who was out (those who commit some form of porneia).

Finally, we find several verses in the NT which clearly harken back to the OT use of the word zanah to indicate the sin of idolatry. These occur principally in the book of Revelation, which uses many OT themes to communicate its message about the eschaton or end of the world. In Revelation 2:21, for instance, in a letter to the church at Thyatira, John of Patmos writes this:

Note that first of all, John calls this female false prophet Jezebel, a name he almost certainly gives her for rhetorical purposes. Second, sexual immorality here is intertwined with idol worship, just as it is figuratively in the Hebrew Bible. We see a similar conflation in Revelation 14:8:

In the book of Revelation, Babylon is the code word for Rome. Calling Rome a prostitute is the same as calling her an idol-worshipper, especially since Rome was polytheistic and persecuted Christians for refusing to worship Roman gods. Revelation 17:5 makes this even more explicit. John sees a woman clothed in the royal color of purple and wearing extravagant jewelry, representing the Roman emperors,

This is not a characterization of Rome as sexually immoral, but rather as idolatrous. Rome is again compared to Babylon, the earlier empire which also destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and forced Jews to worship idols. By this last book of the Bible, we have, in a sense, come full circle: porneia is explicitly associated with idolatry, just as it was in so many places in the OT.

Conclusion

Translation is always a tricky business, especially with texts as old as those in the Bible. Languages, even those like Greek and Hebrew which have survived, change drastically over time. This is why so many different English translations of the Bible have been made: there remain many different opinions on how best to translate important words like “fornication.”

The Hebrew word zanah is one of these. Literally meaning prostitution, promiscuity, or unfaithfulness, we find that, while some early OT texts use this literal meaning, many of the later books use this word figuratively to signify idol worship as infidelity to God.

With the Greek word porneias, the problem of translation is intensified. This word was used in the social and linguistic world of the NT to mean just about every kind of sexual immorality one can imagine: sex between unmarried people, sex between those not married to each other but married to other people, prostitution, incest; the list goes on and on. While we can surmise that readers and hearers of those texts in their time must have understood what the authors meant, 2,000 years later we can only speculate.

Adultery in the Bible: Meaning, Types, & Verses

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Adultery is one of the best-known prohibitions in the Bible, yet its meaning is often misunderstood when read through modern assumptions about love, marriage, and personal relationships. In order to grasp what the biblical authors meant by adultery, we have to step into a very different cultural world.

In this article, I’ll answer questions about adultery in the Bible, from its definitions to the laws of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus and Paul in the New Testament. I’ll also examine how ancient marriage customs shaped these definitions, why adultery in the Bible was treated as such a serious offense, and how its meaning expanded from a physical act to a matter of intention and moral character.

Marriage in the Ancient World: No Bed of Roses

Since adultery is broadly conceived of as a violation of the marriage bond, it’s important to understand ancient marriage, an institution defined quite differently, in both purpose and practice, from modern marriages. That is, we need to understand what prohibitions on adultery in the Bible were meant to protect.

In his book The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, Bruce Malina notes that, unlike the initiation of most marriages in the modern world, romance was not involved in ancient marriage customs:

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In other words, marriage was not an agreement between two people in love, but an economic contract between two families. It was, therefore, meant to be mutually beneficial for both families, especially in the economic realm. Most biblical marriages were arranged by the families of the bride and groom according to certain criteria. Malina writes that

The wife would normally move in with the husband’s family, and be subject to the authority not only of her husband, but also of the rest of the family. The woman’s status improved slightly after she had her first child, but she nevertheless remained the low person on the totem pole. However, in order to secure the marriage contract, the groom’s family had to pay something to the bride’s family. It’s all but impossible, therefore, to avoid the perception that the prospective wife was treated as a type of commodity. Malina notes that

It follows, then, that the ancient biblical ban on adultery was not there to protect the husband and wife as individuals but to safeguard the honor and economic position of the families involved. Adultery was a serious matter which, especially in small communities, could affect the whole fabric of a society.

Adultery in the Bible: Verses From the Old Testament

Given the difference between marriage in the ancient world and marriage today, what actually constituted adultery? Were there different types of adultery? The commandment in Exodus 20:14, “You shall not commit adultery,” doesn’t explain any further. However, three verses down from that commandment, Exodus 20:17 makes it clear what the status of the wife was:

Note that the commandment against coveting lists a wife among things a man can possess, including a house, a slave, and livestock. By this definition, adultery is actually a kind of theft. However, since marriage was, as Malina wrote, “the fusion of the honor of two extended families,” adultery was also an offense against the honor of the husband’s family. For both these reasons, it was a serious offense.

The book of Leviticus also makes clear what constitutes adultery generally: sex between a man, married or unmarried, and a married woman who is not his wife. As such, what was the punishment for adultery in the Bible? Leviticus 20:10 gives us an example:

Notice that although we can find plenty of unfair treatment of women in the Bible, the law from Leviticus states that both man and woman involved in consensual adultery must be punished. Scholars are uncertain how consistently such punishments were inflicted on adulterers but, as we’ll see below, the prohibition on adultery remained an important commandment throughout the history of Judaism.

A further clarification of adultery comes from Deuteronomy 22:26, which says that if a married woman is raped by a man who is not her husband, only the rapist is put to death, not the victim, who has done nothing wrong.

On the other hand, if a man suspected that his wife had committed adultery but had no witnesses, the wife could be tested by the ordeal of the bitter water, outlined in Numbers 5. This was a “test” administered by a priest in which the suspected woman is forced to drink a potion consisting of holy water and dust. If she suffers any ill effects from the potion, she is considered guilty and punished accordingly. If she suffers no ill effects, she is considered innocent. By the way, there is no similar test administered to a husband whom the wife suspects of committing adultery.

In later Hebrew Bible writings, women are characterized as aggressors, while young men, portrayed as potential victims, are warned against seductresses and/or adulteresses. See for example, Proverbs 7:4–5 in which the young man is encouraged to

And what are the consequences of an encounter with this adulteress? Verses 25–27 make it clear that they are far worse than mere earthly punishments:

Note that, in these verses, the man seems to bear less responsibility. The woman engages in unseemly behavior and thus tricks the naïve young man into perdition.

By contrast, Hosea 4:13–14 makes use of the common biblical metaphor of adultery and/or fornication as idolatry:

James Luther Mays, writing in the HarperCollins Study Bible, says that in the context of idolatry, “Daughters of Israelites seem to have been involved… in promiscuous sex and debauchery, which were thought to ‘jump start’ agricultural fecundity.” In other words, the prophetic warning is not just against literal adulterous behavior but against sexual rituals asking for favors from other gods.

Adultery in the Bible: New Testament Verses

The 1st-century authors of most of the New Testament texts certainly inherited the scriptural ideas of the Old Testament. However, we know that, as with many religious ideas, things had changed by the Second Temple Period. In particular, punishments for adultery had changed.

Rabbinic texts, looking back on the Second Temple period, stated that the Jewish legal system had given up inflicting executions on anyone for any crime, including adultery. Instead, according to the Mishnah, adulterers were publicly whipped, and the husband of an adulteress was forced to divorce her. A woman caught in adultery lost any property granted through her marriage agreement and was not allowed to marry the adulterer with whom she had violated her marriage.

This may seem harsh, by modern standards, but in the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 5:27–28, Jesus takes an even sterner position:

Does this mean that Jesus believes that any man who looks at a woman lustfully should receive the punishments normally granted to adulterers in his time? Perhaps, but Jesus doesn’t say. L. Michael White writes in Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite, the Jesus of Matthew “focuses on Torah observance and piety as the proper path to righteousness,” which is why the Sermon on the Mount “stands as a call to discipleship under the guideline of Torah.” Therefore, since Matthew’s Gospel focuses on Jesus as a teacher and re-interpreter of the Jewish Law, it’s indeed possible that he would have viewed any form of lust as punishable (although this would have been highly difficult to enforce).

Meanwhile, in John 8:3–11 we have the famous story of the woman taken in adultery. While most scholars agree that this passage is a later interpolation to John, it has long been seen as an emblem of the mercy of Christ.

In the story, a woman is caught in the act of adultery and is dragged by scribes and Pharisees to Jesus, who is teaching near the Temple. They plan to stone her to death and ask Jesus whether they should, since the Torah says so. Jesus says "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Since none of them are sinless, they drop their rocks and leave. Jesus then tells the woman that he won’t condemn her either and not to sin anymore.

This is a beautiful story about love and forgiveness, but it brings up some odd historical problems. First, according to Michael Satlow writing in the Jewish Annotated New Testament, by the 1st century CE, only Romans were allowed to put criminals to death. Second, where is the male adulterer in this story? If the woman was indeed “caught in the act,” the man should have been caught as well and put to death, according to Leviticus.

The most likely explanation for the first fact is that this was not meant to report a historical occurrence but was rather a teaching story, much like Jesus’ parables. The mere threat of being put to death is enough to show Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness. The male adulterer, meanwhile, may have simply run away and escaped, or perhaps he was treated more leniently, as men generally were in the ancient world.

Either way, note that while Matthew’s Jesus is quite severe, not only about adultery itself but also about lust, John’s Jesus is merciful and forgiving. Scholars have long noted the difference in theological emphasis between these two books.

Additionally, the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, includes divorce and remarriage among the definitions of adultery. Malina explains:

Above all, this verse in Luke seems to be a continuance of Jesus as Torah teacher, making Torah observance for his followers even stricter than that of the Pharisees (see Matt 5:20).

Finally, 1 Corinthians 6:9 shows Paul putting adulterers on a long list of sinners who will not be saved on the last day:

It’s interesting to note that Paul does not rank any of these sins as worse than the others. Adulterers are apparently equal to drunkards, swindlers, and those who worship idols. For Paul in this passage, all these sins, regardless of their severity, make a person ineligible for citizenship in the coming kingdom.

Is Adultery a Sin in Other Religions? (Islam, Hinduism, Judaism)

Now that we’ve explored adultery in the Bible, you might wonder how other major religions treat the matter. Let’s take a look.

Judaism

We started off by outlining what the Hebrew Bible says about adultery, so we know that for ancient Jews, adultery was strictly prohibited, if for different reasons than we modern people might assume. However, in his book Every Person's Guide to Jewish Sexuality, Rabbi Ronald Isaacs says that the command against adultery is strictly upheld by Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis to this day, albeit without the harsh physical punishments.

Islam

Islam’s ideas about adultery are similar to those found in the Pentateuch. However, the Quran uses the Arabic word zina to refer to any sexual intercourse outside of a valid marriage contract, regardless of whether the individuals involved are single or married (this is perhaps similar to the Greek word porneia which can also mean any sexual misconduct). Based on this, Quran 24:2 says

However, lest someone in the community try to use this punishment to hurt someone who is actually innocent, Quran 24:4 says

Hinduism

According to Hindu religious texts, Hinduism also sees adultery as a grave violation which has long-term consequences in this life and future lives. For example, in the Hindu scripture known as the Vishnu Purana 3.11, it says

Furthermore, another Hindu scripture known as the Manusmriti, written between 200 BCE and 200 CE, says in Chapter 8 that

The frequent parentheses in these verses indicate gaps in the manuscripts which scholars and translators have filled in with likely information. While ancient categories such as castes may be hard for us to go along with, it’s clear that, as in the monotheistic religions, Hinduism sees adultery as a serious violation of religious codes.

Conclusion

Most world religions prohibit adultery. However, since adultery is always defined as a violation of marriage vows, we need to understand marriage in the context in which these rules were written in order to understand what adultery originally meant.

Examinations of adultery in the Bible require the additional context that marriage was not the romantic involvement of two people who vowed loving fidelity only to each other. Instead, it was a political and economic contract between two families. Marriages were arranged by the families, not the individuals getting married, and the father of the groom had to pay a price to the father of the bride.

Although unfortunate, it’s easy to see, then, how in Exodus, a wife is listed along with commodities like a house and livestock, which others should not covet. In the Old Testament world, adultery was not a personal violation against an individual, but a violation of the honor and economic status of the family.

In the New Testament, Jesus says that anyone who lusts for a woman, even if he never interacts with her at all, is guilty of adultery. While there is no historical evidence of widespread acceptance of this notion (how could it be enforced, after all?), it was meant to show that Jesus took the Torah more seriously than the Jewish leaders of his day.

Finally, Paul noted that a long list of sinners, adulterers included, were in grave danger of losing their inheritance of the Kingdom of God. While adultery wasn’t listed as better or worse than any other sin, it was serious enough to have grave consequences in the hereafter.

What Does the Bible Say About Lust?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

What does the Bible say about lust? Does it treat it the same as other types of temptation? For many modern readers, the word immediately brings to mind sexual desire, often in a negative, or even shameful, sense. But the biblical picture is far more nuanced, ultimately prompting us to ask a question: when the Bible warns against lust, is it condemning a specific kind of desire, or something deeper within the human heart?

To answer that, we need to look beyond modern definitions and explore how the concept of lust is used throughout Scripture. By examining both the Hebrew and Greek terms behind the word, as well as key passages in the Old and New Testaments, we can better understand what is actually being prohibited—and why.

Definitions and Translations

In its oldest English form, the word lust simply meant “desire, appetite, or inclination.” This could include, but was not limited to, sex. We still see this meaning in modern phrases like “lust for life,” which simply means a strong desire to live life fully. However, over time, the meaning of lust became more limited in English, and now most of us associate the word only with sexual desire. Is that limited meaning common to the Bible as well?

Actually, if we’re going to look into what the Bible says about lust, we’ll need to dig further into what it means, both now, and in the ancient languages in which the Bible was written. Since the Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew (with a smidgen of Aramaic thrown in), let’s begin there.

In Hebrew, the main verb translated as lust is ṯaḥmōḏ, a word that generally means “desire,” and thus applies not only to sexual topics but to anything desirable. As we’ll see below, ṯaḥmōḏ is applied to many different objects in the Old Testament.

The same is true in the New Testament, where the Greek verb for lust is epithumeó, a word which simply means “to long for or desire.” Where does it say that this word solely applies to sex? It doesn't. Can it apply to sex? Of course. Does it have to apply to sex? No.

Keep these broader meanings in mind as we look at what the Bible says about lust and what is actually prohibited.

What Does the Bible Say About Lust in the Old Testament?

In the Old Testament, where does it say there are specific situations where someone may show lust? We first see this word used in the Ten Commandments, specifically in Exodus 20:17:

Here, we see the general meaning of ṯaḥmōḏ as covet or desire. While lusting for your neighbor’s wife probably does include a sexual element, lusting for your neighbor’s ox probably doesn’t.

In fact, most of the uses of ṯaḥmōḏ in the Hebrew Bible refer to a strong desire for material objects rather than sex. Most of the time, this is not translated as “lust” but rather as “covet.”

Given all the uses of ṯaḥmōḏ as coveting, we see that it usually refers not only to sex, but more generally to greed. One can certainly be greedy for sex as one can be greedy for money, but it seems that the Old Testament does not make a big distinction between these two inner inclinations. It does distinguish, however, between physical acts of greed (like theft) and physical acts of lust (like fornication or adultery), but the inner disposition that leads to those acts seems to be one and the same.

There is, however, an example of ṯaḥmōḏ used in a sexual context in Proverbs 6:23–25: 

Note that even though the context here is sexual, the verses are not talking about any woman but “the wife of another.” In the commandment not to covet someone else’s wife from Exodus, the wife is listed among possessions, just like a house and livestock. In other words, even in a sexual context, ṯaḥmōḏ can be associated more broadly with avarice than with sexual desire as such.

What Does the Bible Say About Lust in the New Testament?

Remember that the Greek word for lust is epithumeó, a word that, like ṯaḥmōḏ, simply means to desire. So where does it say that sexual lust is forbidden? It’s addressed directly by Jesus in Matthew 5:27-28

From the context, there is no doubt that Jesus is referring here to our modern usage of lust as sexual desire or lust of the flesh. Rather than simply condemn the physical acts of fornication or adultery, Jesus here actually condemns the inner inclination that precedes those acts. This is a radical statement, requiring men to somehow prevent lustful thoughts from even arising.

This verse explains, for example, how Catholicism views lust. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2351, it says that “Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” In other words, sexual activity is to be used for procreation and to bring a married couple closer to each other. Any other inner disposition which might lead to extramarital sexual activity of any kind is considered sinful.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, Paul refers to the lust of the flesh explicitly in 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5, where he is discussing God’s will in relation to sex:

Note that Paul is not condemning lust in general—he knows that all people experience it— but he is condemning “sexual immortality,” or porneias in Greek. This Greek word was applied to any act deemed sexually sinful but certainly applied to sex outside of marriage in Christian writings. David Fox Sandmel, writing in the Jewish Annotated New Testament, clarifies that the importance of maintaining sexual purity in Paul’s opinion is to “set themselves apart from non-believers.”

What does the Bible say about sex before marriage? In 1 Corinthians 7:1–3, Paul has a clear answer for this question:

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Interestingly, Paul acknowledges that because it’s almost impossible to suppress lust entirely, it’s better to channel it into marriage.

Meanwhile, an interesting use of a form of epithumeó, one in which the meaning is a general desire but certainly could be applied to sexual desire, is found in James 4:1–2:

In this case, the author is not concerned at all about the specific object of desire—it could be a mere thing, or it could be a person as in the modern notion of lust. Instead, he is concerned that a strong desire for anything causes conflicts and thus leads to other sins. Incidentally, the word translated as “covet” here— zēloute—means “to envy.” When it comes to the Ten Commandments in the Greek Old Testament (known as the Septuagint), however, the word for covet is epithymiseis, another form of epithumeó.

Most other NT verses about sexual immorality deal directly with sexual acts outside of marriage, not with the inclination that causes them (see 1 Cor 6:12–13 and 1 Cor 6:18–20). It’s abundantly clear in context, however, when epithumeó refers to sexual lust and when it refers to strong desire or greed more generally. Again, we’re left with the impression that while acts of sexual immorality, porneia, and acts of greed like theft, kleptō, are condemned separately, the inclinations that drive them—strong desire—are viewed as one and the same.

Adultery in the Bible: New Testament Verses

Judaism

Unsurprisingly, Jewish tradition after the Hebrew Bible has continued to prohibit extramarital sex. Lust outside of marriage was classified by the rabbis as yetzer hara, usually translated as “evil inclination.” It is the tendency to misuse what we need to survive. The yetzer hara can thus turn the natural need for food into gluttony or the natural inclination to procreate into promiscuity. This means that sexual lust is not classified as explicitly sinful unless it is followed by a forbidden sexual act.

For this reason, Rabbi Michael Gold writes that

In other words, by separating the sexes and maintaining modesty, the rabbis hoped to avoid the occurrence of extramarital relations when the yetzer hara attempted to turn lustful thoughts into unlawful actions. Gold writes that all forms of modern Judaism maintain the prohibition on sexual activity outside of marriage.

Islam

The Quran warns about controlling lust before it results in a harmful action, that is, sexual activity outside of marriage. For instance, Quran 24:30 says

Notice two factors here: Men are ordered not to allow the sight of an attractive woman to trick them into unchastity, but they are also warned that Allah is always watching. For women, as for most ancient religions, the instructions involve dressing with modesty so as not to excite the men, seen here in Quran 24:31:

For both men and women, the Quran recognizes that once lust has been stirred up within a person, an unlawful act may easily follow. For this reason, there is a hadith, one of a collection of traditions and sayings of the prophet Muhammad, in which Muhammad tells his cousin Ali

That is, a first look at an attractive woman is permissible but a second look, allowing lustful inclination to increase, is not.

Hinduism

In one of the best-known Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita, there are several warnings about the dangers of lust, both as sexual desire and desire in general. For example, in BG 3.37, we read

The Bhagavad Gita was written in an ancient Indian language called Sanskrit. In that language, the word kām can mean either sexual lust or merely a strong desire, much like the words for these concepts in Hebrew and Greek we discussed above. It is interesting, though, to see how this strong desire, sexual or otherwise, is also seen in the Bhagavad Gita as the beginning of anger, which is considered an even more serious probelm. There is a similarity here to the passage in James above which identified desire with conflict.

Another Bhagavad Gita passage (2.62) emphasizes this connection between lust and anger:

A commentary on this verse notes that “anger, greed, lust, etc. are considered in the Vedic scriptures as mānas rog, or diseases of the mind.” The list above then, from attachment to desire to anger, reads like an etiology of these “diseases.”

In a final passage from BG 3.39, we read that

While again, desire here means any strong desire, this passage specifically emphasizes how even wise people lose their wisdom when their minds/hearts are overtaken by strong desires.

Conclusion

As something most humans experience in their lives, lust is a complicated topic. L While most religions clearly state that sex is only permitted within the bonds of marriage, lust, as an inner inclination, is more difficult to legislate.

What does the Bible say about lust? Most of the ancient languages discussed in this article make no explicit distinction between sexual lust and other strong inner desires, using one word for both. In other words, as an inner tendency, lust for sex and a strong desire for money come from the same place. However, in the prohibited acts that such tendencies encourage, a distinction is definitely made.

In the Hebrew Bible, for instance, the word for lust is often used to mean coveting—that is, wanting what someone else has. In other places, such as the warnings against promiscuous women in Proverbs, the meaning is more explicitly sexual, although even there, many of the warnings are about taking the wife of another man.

Meanwhile, in one of Jesus’ best-known sayings from the Sermon on the Mount, he equates lust with adultery. While it’s hard to imagine that he thought the two entirely equal, it’s likely that he meant to encourage his followers to guard their thoughts as well as their actions.

Finally, it’s clear that in other world religions, such as Islam and Hinduism, the same prohibitions on extramarital sexual involvements apply, prohibitions which also encourage curbing inner desires. While in some cases the reasons for these differ from each other, in practice, requirements of fidelity and chastity look quite similar across traditions.

To Whom Was the Gospel of John Written?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Distinct in style, theology, and tone from the other three Gospels, the Gospel of John presents a portrait of Jesus that is at once intimate and cosmic, grounded in narrative yet soaring in philosophical depth. But behind its poetic language and bold claims lies a fundamental historical question: to whom was the Gospel of John written?

Exploring this question can shed light on the origins of the Gospel of John. It can also deepen our understanding of early Christianity itself—a movement far more complex, contested, and dynamic than it is often assumed to be.

Who Wrote the Gospel of John?

While the name John has been assigned to this Gospel since at least the 2nd century CE, our oldest manuscripts of it, like those of the other three Gospels, have no such title or authorial ascription. In fact, it was written anonymously, leaving us to decipher textual clues about who wrote the book and with what purpose. Because of this, biblical scholars over the last couple of centuries have formulated theories about who the anonymous author of the Gospel of John was and to whom it was written.

As Bart Ehrman points out, the first Christian author we see attributing this Gospel to the disciple known as John, the son of Zebedee, is Irenaeus, a bishop and heresy hunter who wrote around 185 CE. Unfortunately, that’s almost a century after the Gospel was written, so it’s hard to know the accuracy of such a designation. Ehrman goes on to mention how ancient readers arrived at the conclusion that John had written this book.

John 19:35 and 21:20–24 seem to say that the author was one of the 12 disciples, the unnamed “one whom Jesus loved.” Based on that assumption, Ehrman writes, ancient readers had to decide which of the disciples this author could be:

The only choice left, then, was John, the son of Zebedee. While there are many good reasons to doubt this conclusion from a historical perspective, it seems to have been the thought process by which ancient Christians came to believe in John as the book’s author. But whether John or someone else wrote this Gospel, what clues can we find in the text itself to identify its intended audience and purpose?

Modern Theories on the Intended Audience of the Gospel of John

It’s fairly certain that the Gospel of John was written with a specific audience in mind. Since John is so different from the other Gospels, most scholars believe that it is addressing a specific Christian group and their sociohistorical situation. In fact, there’s a clear statement of purpose near the end of the Gospel in 20:30–31:

The “you” in this passage is the second person plural in Greek, addressing a group. This group, whoever they were, apparently saw belief in Jesus as both transformative and life-giving. Or perhaps the author wanted the group to believe this and wrote in order to convince them.

In attempting to identify John’s audience, the first question modern scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries had to address was whether the Gospel of John was written in order to convert non-Christians or for the edification or education of an already-established group of Christians. Was it for insiders or outsiders? While early theorists believed it was written as a missionary text to convert non-Christians, by the second half of the 20th century, the scholarly consensus had determined that it was written for insiders. But who were these specific Christians?

One idea, represented well by the book History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel by J. Louis Martyn, said that they were a group of Jewish Christians who had been expelled from the synagogues for their belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Where did this notion come from? In John 16:2–3, Jesus warns his disciples of what will happen to them in the future:

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Many scholars thus concluded that the author was part of a community to which he was writing, a Johannine community, as scholars called it, which was rejected by Jewish leaders and was being persecuted by more mainstream forms of Judaism in the late 1st or early 2nd century. The purpose of the book, then, as well as the letters of 1, 2, and 3 John, was to encourage this community of believers not to despair and to maintain their Christian faith until the end despite persecution to attain eternal life.

Alternative Theories About the Gospel of John’s Audience

In 1979, scholar Raymond Brown wrote a book called The Community of the Beloved Disciple. In it, Brown argued that the story of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman in John 4 indicated that the Johannine community included Samaritan members. He furthermore claimed that the encounter with Greeks who wish to follow Jesus in John 12:20–26 and the reference Jesus makes to “other sheep” in John 10:16 (possibly referring to future Gentile followers) mean that the group contained Gentile members as well. In other words, this was not a Jewish-only group as had been assumed.

While agreeing with Brown’s thesis about the presence of Samaritans and Gentiles in the group, Adele Reinhartz, writing in Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology, believes that the occasion of the Gospel was less about external persecution and more about infighting. Thus, she argues that while all the members believed in Christ,

In other words, Reinhartz believes that the author of John wrote his Gospel to foster unity in a diverse group in which disagreements were frequent. Part of fostering this unity was distancing themselves from “the Jews,” who frequently play the villains in John’s Gospel. Reinhartz points out that while John refers to many binaries— light/dark, life/death, above/below— the positive term in each pair is associated with Jesus while the negative is associated with Jesus’ opponents, framed by the author as “the Jews.” This created a rhetorical situation in which one can either be on the side of Jesus or on the side of the Jews, but not both. Even Jewish members, whom Reinhartz believes were the majority of group members, had to make their allegiances clear.

Another Theory: No Group at All!

While the theories I’ve discussed so far have focused on the composition and social situation of a Johannine group, a more recent work argues that such a group may have been entirely fictional. In his article “Did the Johannine Community Exist?,” and in his book The Gospel of John: A New History, Hugo Méndez argues that the combination of the Gospel of John with the three Johannine letters in the New Testament created the idea of a group which was entirely imaginary.

His theory begins with the notion that the supposed eyewitness who is claimed as the source of the Gospel (John 21:24) is likely a useful fiction, which might explain why this “beloved disciple” is never named:

If this eyewitness were in fact one of the original 12 disciples, why not name him? In fact, Méndez points out that ancient pseudepigrapha, literature written in someone else’s name, usually increased credibility by claiming an ideal eyewitness as source or author. This lends credence to the idea that this Beloved Disciple and his group may not have actually existed. However, if there were no Johannine community, who was the intended audience of the Gospel of John?

Méndez believes that the book and its ideas were the work of a single author, putting out an extraordinary claim not found in the Synoptic Gospels:

Méndez goes on to theorize that the author, while he may have been attached to a local congregation somewhere, may not have written the book for them but rather in order to disseminate his own ideas more widely, perhaps depositing the book into a local library or a literary collection. Furthermore,

In other words, perhaps the Gospel of John was not written to an already existing community, but to create a community of people who agreed with the author’s unusual perspective on Jesus.

Conclusion

It has long been noted that the Gospel of John differs from the Synoptics in a number of ways. Rather than focusing almost entirely on the Kingdom of God, the Jesus of John’s Gospel focuses more on his own identity as a celestial man and Messiah. In addition, its miracle stories are designated explicitly as “signs” of Jesus’ identity, and its structure and timeline are distinct from the other three Gospels. Noting these differences, we must ask to whom the Gospel of John was written.

While the earliest modern theories argued that the book was a tool used for evangelizing to non-Christians, more recent scholars claim that it was written instead for a group of insiders, a Johannine community. Early ideas about this community said they were Jewish Christians who had been expelled from synagogues because of their belief in Jesus as the Messiah. However, some later scholars have speculated that the community was made up of Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles, and that internecine fighting between these groups inspired the author of John to write a unifying narrative.

The most radical notion of all, though, comes from recent work by Hugo Méndez, who argues that there was no such Johannine group. Instead, he theorizes that the shadowy nature of the unknown “beloved disciple” who is supposed to be the author and/or source of the book was an invented character used to propagate the radical spiritual views of a single author. This author was ultimately able to popularize his views, which resulted in widespread copying and use of the text. There was no Johannine community, in other words, until the Gospel of John created it.

Why do Catholics Pray to Mary?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Why do Catholics pray to Mary? Whenever this question comes around, I am reminded of the profound influence and importance of the Virgin Mary in my own country, Croatia. 

Her name is so deeply woven into the collective memory and identity of the nation that it appears not only in churches and devotional practices, but even in moments of everyday life. This is perhaps most strikingly evident in the songs sung at wedding ceremonies, where invocations of Mary often set the tone for the entire celebration.

For many, this is simply part of the cultural and religious landscape, something inherited rather than questioned. 

Yet for others (especially those outside the Catholic tradition) the prominence of Mary can raise a more pointed and sometimes puzzling question: why does she occupy such a central place in Catholic life and devotion?

From a historical perspective, this question opens up a much broader inquiry than it might initially appear.

It’s not simply a matter of identifying a single belief or practice, but of understanding a complex development that unfolds over time, shaped by theological reflection, liturgical practice, and evolving concepts of religious authority.

The practice of praying to Mary, in particular, often strikes observers as difficult to reconcile with the earliest Christian sources, especially the New Testament, where such forms of devotion aren’t explicitly attested.

How, then, did this practice emerge, and on what basis is it understood and justified within Catholicism?

This article approaches the question from a scholarly and historical angle. It begins by briefly outlining how authority is understood within the Catholic tradition, especially the relationship between Scripture and Tradition.

It then turns to the New Testament itself to examine what can be said about Mary in the earliest Christian texts. Finally, it traces the gradual rise of Marian devotion in the centuries after the New Testament, showing how theological developments and popular piety contributed to the prominent role Mary came to hold.

Only by situating the practice within this broader historical framework can we begin to understand why, for many Catholics, prayer to Mary isn’t an anomaly, but a meaningful and coherent expression of their faith.

However, before we begin exploring why Catholics pray to Mary, I think you could be interested in an engaging online course by Bart D. Ehrman titled In the Beginning: History, Legend, or Myth in Genesis?.

Across six accessible and thought-provoking lectures, Dr. Ehrman examines chapters of Genesis through a historical-critical lens, unpacking what we can (and cannot) know about creation, Adam and Eve, the flood, and the patriarchs. If you’re interested in how modern scholarship approaches some of the Bible’s most famous stories, this course offers a clear, compelling, and intellectually rigorous introduction.

Theological Background: The Catholic View on Scripture and Tradition

In our exploration of the reasons why Catholics pray to Mary, we have to begin with a broader theological context. Namely, while many Protestant traditions uphold the doctrine of sola scriptura (the idea that Scripture alone serves as the ultimate authority in matters of faith) the Catholic Church has, for centuries, promoted a different understanding of divine authority. 

For Catholics, authority rests on a threefold foundation: Scripture, Apostolic Tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium). 

Within this framework, Apostolic Tradition holds a particularly important place, not as a secondary or derivative source, but as a living and dynamic transmission of the faith.

As Mark Zia explains in his book The Faith Understood: An Introduction to Catholic Theology:

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This threefold structure of authority has significant implications for how doctrines and practices develop within Catholicism. Scripture remains foundational, but it’s not interpreted in isolation. Rather, it’s read within the living tradition of the Church and under the guidance of its teaching authority.

The Magisterium, for its part, serves to articulate and clarify this inherited faith in response to new historical circumstances, ensuring continuity while allowing for doctrinal development over time.

It’s precisely within this broader framework that the question of why Catholics pray to Mary must be situated. From a strictly Sola Scriptura perspective, the absence of explicit New Testament endorsement of Marian prayer poses a significant challenge, and for many Protestant traditions, this absence is decisive.

Catholic theology, however, approaches the issue differently. Because authority isn’t confined to the biblical text alone, but includes the accumulated theological reflection and devotional life of the Church, practices such as invoking Mary’s intercession can be understood as developments that emerge organically from the Church’s engagement with its foundational beliefs. 

Seen in this light, Marian devotion isn’t perceived by Catholics as a departure from early Christianity, but as a legitimate outgrowth of it, nurtured within the Church’s broader interpretive and theological tradition. 

This doesn’t mean that the practice can be directly traced in a straightforward way to the New Testament itself, but rather that it’s rooted in a way of reading and living the Christian message that extends beyond the text alone.

To understand how this process unfolded, however, we must first turn to the New Testament and examine what it actually says (and doesn’t say!) about Mary.

Mary in the New Testament: What Do We Know?

In his book Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion, Stephen J. Shoemaker notes:

This observation provides an important starting point: the earliest strata of the New Testament offer only minimal information about Mary. 

The situation doesn’t change dramatically in the Gospel of Mark, generally considered the earliest Gospel. There, Mary is named, but her role remains limited and somewhat ambiguous. In one passage, Jesus is identified simply as “the son of Mary,” while in another, his family (including his mother) appears to misunderstand his mission, even attempting to restrain him. 

Such traditions, as Shoemaker suggests, may reflect not straightforward historical memory but theological tensions within early Christianity, particularly in circles influenced by Pauline perspectives that sought to downplay the authority of Jesus’ family.

By contrast, later Gospels present a more developed and theologically significant portrait of Mary. 

Matthew introduces the tradition of the virginal conception, emphasizing Jesus’ divine origin, while Luke offers the most extensive depiction: Mary is the recipient of the angelic announcement, the one who responds in faith, and the voice behind the Magnificat, a hymn that situates her within the broader story of Israel’s salvation.

In Luke, she is explicitly called “blessed among women” and is portrayed as a model disciple: one who hears and obeys the word of God. John’s Gospel, meanwhile, places Mary at key moments of Jesus’ ministry, from the wedding at Cana (where her request prompts his first sign) to the crucifixion, where she stands at the foot of the cross. 

These traditions collectively elevate Mary’s significance, yet even here there is no clear evidence of prayer directed to her or of the kind of devotional practices that would later characterize Christian piety.

What emerges, then, is a diverse and theologically shaped set of traditions rather than a single, unified portrait. 

The New Testament presents Mary as the mother of Jesus, at times as a figure of faith and obedience, and occasionally as one whose relationship to Jesus is marked by tension or misunderstanding. 

It doesn’t, however, present her as an object of prayer or intercession. This distinction is crucial for understanding the broader question of why Catholics pray to Mary. Namely, the roots of Marian devotion aren’t found in explicit New Testament practice, but in how these early traditions were later interpreted, expanded, and integrated into the developing life of the Church.

To see how this transformation occurred, we must now turn to the centuries following the New Testament and trace the gradual rise of Marian devotion within early Christianity.

Why Do Catholics Pray to Mary? The Rise of Devotion

Understanding why Catholics pray to Mary means, first and foremost, to look at the development of Mary’s figure in the centuries that followed after the New Testament documents were written. 

As we have seen, the earliest Christian sources offer only a limited and theologically varied portrait of Mary, without any clear evidence of prayer directed to her. 

Yet already in the 2nd century, important conceptual foundations began to emerge. Early Christian thinkers such as Irenaeus and Justin Martyr developed the influential parallel between Eve and Mary: just as Eve’s disobedience contributed to humanity’s fall, so Mary’s obedience played a role in salvation.

This typology didn’t yet involve prayer to Mary, but it significantly elevated her theological status and situated her within the broader drama of redemption. In this way, reflection on Christ (especially on his incarnation) naturally led to deeper reflection on his mother.

The 3rd century, however, presents a far more complex and uneven picture. As Stephen J. Shoemaker emphasizes, this period doesn’t show a steady or uniform rise in Marian devotion, but rather a diversity of perspectives. 

Some prominent figures, such as Tertullian, held relatively low views of Mary, questioning even her lifelong virginity and emphasizing passages in which Jesus appears to distance himself from his family. Others, such as Origen, offered more elevated but still cautious assessments, portraying Mary as faithful yet not without doubt.

At the same time, beyond the writings of elite theologians, other forms of evidence point in a different direction. 

Apocryphal texts and emerging devotional practices reveal a growing fascination with Mary, sometimes portraying her as a recipient of special revelation or as a figure with unique spiritual authority. 

Most significantly, the famous Sub tuum praesidium papyrus (likely dating to the late 3rd century) preserves one of the earliest known prayers addressed directly to Mary, asking for her protection and deliverance.

This indicates that, even if formal theology had not yet fully articulated Marian doctrine, the practice of invoking Mary’s intercession had already begun to take shape in certain Christian communities.

Devotion to Mary After Constantine’s Conversion

From the 4th century onward, these early developments expanded rapidly and took on more institutional and doctrinal clarity. As Christianity became more firmly established within the Roman Empire with Constantine's conversion, Marian devotion found expression in liturgy, art, and public worship. 

Churches were dedicated to Mary, feasts commemorating key events in her life were introduced, and prayers invoking her assistance became increasingly common.

At the same time, theological reflection intensified, particularly in connection with debates about the nature of Christ. 

The designation of Mary as Theotokos or the “God-bearer” (formally affirmed at the Council of Ephesus) was intended to safeguard the full divinity of Christ, but it also had the effect of elevating Mary’s status within Christian thought and devotion.

In this context, turning to Mary in prayer came to be understood not as a departure from Christ-centered faith, but as an extension of it, grounded in her unique relationship to the incarnate Son.

At this stage, it’s also important to recognize that Marian devotion didn’t develop in a single, uniform way across the Christian world. In his book What Every Catholic Should Know About Mary, Terrence J. McNally notes:

This distinction helps explain why Marian devotion could take on different emphases. 

Namely, in the East, it often developed through liturgical poetry, hymnography, and a deeply mystical sense of Mary’s role as intercessor and protector, while in the West it tended to be articulated through systematic theology and, eventually, formal doctrinal definitions.

In the centuries that followed (especially throughout the medieval period) these trajectories converged in the widespread and deeply rooted forms of Marian devotion that are familiar today.

Mary came to be invoked as a compassionate intercessor, a maternal figure who could advocate for believers before Christ. 

Devotional practices such as the rosary, pilgrimages to Marian shrines, and the proliferation of Marian feasts all contributed to embedding her presence in the daily religious life of the faithful. 

By this stage, the question of why Catholics pray to Mary was no longer a matter of innovation, but of continuity: the practice had become an integral part of the Church’s spiritual and liturgical tradition, supported by centuries of theological reflection and communal practice.

At its core, Marian devotion in the Catholic tradition rests on a specific theological logic: Mary isn’t worshiped as divine, but venerated as the foremost among the saints, uniquely close to Christ and therefore uniquely capable of interceding on behalf of believers.

In his book Catholic Beliefs and Traditions, John F. O’Grady explains:

Prayer to Mary is, therefore, understood from the perspective of the Catholic Church as a request for her intercession, analogous (though not identical) to asking a fellow believer to pray on one’s behalf.

What distinguishes Mary is her singular role in salvation history and her enduring presence within the communion of saints.

Seen in this light, Marian prayer isn’t an alternative to devotion to God, but a particular expression of it: one that has emerged gradually from the earliest centuries of Christianity and continues to shape Catholic faith and practice today.

Conclusion

Whenever I hear that familiar question (Why do Catholics pray to Mary?) I find myself returning, almost instinctively, to the image with which we began: a wedding in Croatia, where a song dedicated to the Virgin Mary quietly frames one of life’s most important moments.

For those who grow up within such a context, Mary’s presence rarely feels like a theological problem to be solved; it’s something lived, embodied, and woven into the rhythms of communal and religious life. 

And yet, as this article has shown, what appears self-evident in practice is, in fact, the result of a long and complex historical process: one that moves from the relatively modest portrayal of Mary in the New Testament, through centuries of theological reflection, devotional innovation, and cultural expression.

Seen from this broader perspective, Marian devotion is neither an abrupt departure from early Christianity nor a simple continuation of it, but rather a development shaped by how Christians have understood authority, tradition, and the unfolding meaning of their faith over time.

The songs sung at weddings, the prayers whispered in times of need, and the countless artistic and liturgical expressions of Marian devotion all stand at the end of this long trajectory.

They are the lived outcome of a tradition that has sought to articulate Mary’s significance in relation to Christ and the life of the Church. Understanding this history allows us to see more clearly how and why such a practice came to be, and why, for many Catholics, turning to Mary in prayer continues to feel both natural and meaningful.

What Does the Bible Say About Love? (VERSES)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

What does the Bible say about love? My first instinct is to recall those well-known and often-quoted words of the apostle Paul, the kind you have likely heard at a wedding ceremony: love is patient, love is kind… 

The passage is memorable, moving, and for many readers it seems to capture the Bible’s entire message about love in a single, elegant formulation. It’s no surprise, then, that when people think about “biblical love,” this is often where their minds immediately go.

But it would be a mistake to answer that question by looking only at Paul. The Bible isn’t a single book with a single voice. Rather, it’s a collection of diverse writings composed over many centuries, in different languages, and by authors shaped by distinct historical and cultural contexts.

As a result, what we often treat as a unified teaching on love is, in fact, a tapestry of perspectives: sometimes overlapping, sometimes complementary, and occasionally in tension with one another. 

The familiar Scriptures about love, when read more closely, turn out to be far more complex than they first appear.

This raises a broader and more historically grounded question: when ancient authors spoke about love, what did they actually mean? Were they describing an emotion, an ethical obligation, a social bond, or something else entirely?

To approach these questions responsibly, we need to move beyond modern assumptions and attend to the linguistic and conceptual world in which these texts were written. Only then can we begin to see how different forms of love were understood, expressed, and reimagined within the biblical tradition.

If the love language of the Bible has sparked your curiosity and you want to go deeper into the foundations of these ancient texts, consider Dr. Bart D. Ehrman’s eight-lecture online course In the Beginning: History, Legend, or Myth in Genesis?. It’s a clear, engaging, and scholarly exploration of how Genesis was written, interpreted, and understood in its historical context. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed!

Love in the Ancient World: A Conceptual Framework

Before we can answer what the Bible says about love, it’s important to step back into the broader historical and cultural context in which the books that became the Bible were originally written.

In the collection of essays titled Love and Friendship in the Western Tradition, James McGuirk notes:

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This observation underscores a crucial methodological point: when modern readers encounter the word “love” in translation, they are often collapsing a range of ancient meanings into a single, simplified category.

This complexity is already evident in the intellectual and social world of ancient Greece, where love wasn’t treated as a single, unified concept but as a spectrum of relationships, desires, and ethical commitments. 

As Christopher Miles notes in his study of love in antiquity, discussions of love frequently took place within highly structured social settings, most notably the symposium: elite, male gatherings that combined philosophical reflection with social bonding and, at times, erotic expression.

In such contexts, love was a practice embedded in relationships of status, education, and mutual obligation. The setting itself shaped how love was understood: it could be pedagogical, political, or erotic, often all at once.

Ancient philosophical reflections further reveal that distinctions between different kinds of love were already being articulated, though not in the rigid categories often assumed today.

In Plato’s Symposium, for example, speakers distinguish between forms of love associated with physical desire and those oriented toward intellectual or moral development. 

One influential account contrasts a more “common” love, directed toward bodily pleasure, with a “heavenly” love that seeks enduring bonds and the cultivation of virtue. Such distinctions show that ancient thinkers were deeply concerned with the qualitative differences between types of attachment, even if they didn’t formalize these into a fixed taxonomy of terms such as philia, eros, and agapē.

At the same time, these categories were fluid and overlapping rather than strictly defined. Terms such as eros could denote not only sexual desire but also a powerful longing that might be redirected toward beauty, truth, or intellectual fulfillment.

Similarly, what later Christian writers would emphasize as agapē didn’t originally function as a uniquely “divine” form of love. Rather, it was one term among several, capable of a range of meanings depending on context.

The ancient evidence thus resists any attempt to impose a neat, systematic classification. Instead, it points to a more dynamic conceptual field in which love could signify desire, friendship, loyalty, or moral aspiration, depending on the circumstances.

Recognizing this conceptual richness is essential as we turn to the biblical texts themselves. The authors of these writings were heirs to this broader Mediterranean world, even as they adapted and reshaped its vocabulary and ideas in distinctive ways.

To understand Bible verses on love, therefore, we must read them against this complex backdrop: one in which “love” was never a single, self-evident notion, but a term carrying a wide range of meanings that would be reinterpreted within new theological and literary frameworks.

Verses on Love: The Perspective of the Old Testament

In his book Testaments of Love, Leon Morris notes:

This observation provides an important point of departure. If we are to ask, in a historically responsible way, “What does the Bible say about love?”, we must begin with the recognition that the Old Testament doesn’t treat love as a single, easily defined concept, but as a rich and multifaceted reality embedded in language, narrative, and theology.

At the center of this linguistic landscape stands the Hebrew root ’ahav, the primary term used to express love in the Hebrew Bible.

Unlike modern usage, where “love” is often restricted to romantic or emotional attachment, ’ahav operates across a wide semantic range. It can describe affection between individuals, loyalty within families, political alliances, and (most significantly) the relationship between God and Israel.

This breadth already signals that love in the Old Testament is a relational category that takes on meaning within specific social and theological contexts.

When we examine how this term functions across the biblical texts, a consistent pattern emerges: love is frequently tied to covenantal commitment. God’s love for Israel is portrayed as a sustained, often costly commitment that persists despite human failure.

Prophetic writings, in particular, make this point with striking force, depicting the relationship between God and Israel through the metaphor of a troubled marriage, marked by betrayal, judgment, and yet an enduring possibility of restoration. 

In this framework, love isn’t opposed to justice. Rather, it coexists with it, giving shape to a relationship that is both demanding and resilient.

At the same time, love in the Old Testament is also expressed in human interactions, ranging from familial bonds to romantic desire. 

The Song of Songs, for example, celebrates mutual attraction and longing in language that is vivid, poetic, and unapologetically sensual. Elsewhere, love is closely associated with loyalty and obligation: to “love” God often entails obedience to divine commandments, while to love one’s neighbor involves concrete acts of care and responsibility. 

In this sense, love is enacted rather than merely experienced; it’s something one does as much as something one feels.

When viewed through the lens of later Greek terminology, these various expressions of love can be seen to overlap (though never perfectly!) with categories such as philia, agapē, and eros. 

The Hebrew Bible doesn’t, of course, employ these Greek terms, but it does preserve phenomena that resemble them. 

Bonds of friendship and loyalty reflect what would later be called philia; covenantal commitment and steadfast care parallel aspects of agapē; and the passionate, desirous language of texts like the Song of Songs clearly evokes dimensions of eros. 

Yet these correspondences shouldn’t be overstated. The Hebrew conceptual world operates with its own categories, and any mapping onto Greek terminology remains approximate and heuristic.

Recognizing these nuances is essential for avoiding anachronism. The Old Testament presents a dynamic and context-dependent understanding in which affection, loyalty, desire, and obligation are deeply intertwined. Its language of love is expansive, grounded in lived relationships, and often shaped by the realities of covenant, community, and divine initiative.

With this foundation in place, we can now turn to the New Testament, where these inherited traditions are taken up within a Greek-speaking environment and rearticulated by the earliest followers of Jesus in ways that both continue and transform earlier understandings of love.

What Does the Bible Say About Love in the New Testament?

It’s difficult to distill everything that the New Testament says about love within the constraints of a single article. Instead, it’s more historically responsible to focus on two central figures whose teachings have been especially influential: Jesus and Paul.

Verses on Love: Jesus’ Teachings in the New Testament

Even here, however, an important methodological clarification is necessary. We do not have direct access to the words of the historical Jesus in a raw, unfiltered form. Rather, we encounter them through texts that were written, transmitted, and shaped within early Christian communities.

This point is underscored by Victor Paul Furnish in his book The Love Command in the New Testament:

This observation is crucial because it cautions us against reading Jesus’ statements about love as abstract, timeless slogans and instead encourages us to see them as part of dynamic traditions that address real communities and real ethical challenges.

Within the Synoptic Gospels, one of the most important formulations of Jesus’ teaching is the so-called double commandment: to love God and to love one’s neighbor. 

Drawing on earlier Jewish traditions, these two commands are brought together as the heart of the law. Yet the Gospel writers do not present this teaching in identical ways.

In the Gospel of Mark, the emphasis falls on wholehearted devotion to the one God and the inseparability of love for God and neighbor as the core of true obedience. The Gospel of Matthew frames the same command as the interpretive key to “the law and the prophets,” suggesting that all scriptural obligations are to be understood through the lens of love. 

Meanwhile, Gospel of Luke situates the command within a narrative context, most notably the parable of the Good Samaritan, thereby shifting the focus from defining who qualifies as a neighbor to demonstrating what it means to act as one.

Taken together, these portrayals suggest that, at least as presented in the New Testament sources, Jesus’ teaching on love is deeply rooted in relational and ethical contexts. It’s not offered as a detached principle but as a lived imperative that reshapes how individuals relate to God and to others within their communities.

With this foundation in place, we can now turn to the writings of Paul, where the language of love is developed further within the theological and communal life of the earliest Christian movements.

Apostle Paul and Love Scriptures:

In our exploration of what the Bible says about love, we now come to perhaps the most influential figure in shaping later Christian understandings of the concept: the apostle Paul. 

His letters, written to early communities across the eastern Mediterranean, are among the earliest Christian texts we possess, and they reflect a distinctive and highly developed vision of love. 

Unlike the Gospel traditions, which present the teachings of Jesus in narrative form, Paul’s writings are occasional letters addressing concrete issues within specific communities. As a result, his reflections on love emerge within pastoral, ethical, and theological arguments directed to real situations.

One of the most striking features of Paul’s language is his consistent use of the Greek term agapē to describe love.

It appears throughout his undisputed letters and functions as a central category in his thought. Yet for Paul, agapē isn’t simply one type of love among others, nor is it primarily defined in contrast to terms like philia or eros. 

Instead, its meaning is shaped decisively by what he understands to be the central event of human history: the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In this sense, Paul’s conception of love is grounded in theological interpretation. As he famously writes, God demonstrates his love precisely in the act of Christ’s self-giving death. For Paul, it’s an event that reveals love as self-sacrificial, initiating, and directed toward those who are undeserving.

This theological grounding has far-reaching implications. For Paul, love is inseparable from faith and from the transformative experience of belonging to Christ. To believe is to participate in a new mode of existence: what he calls a “new creation.”

Within this framework, love becomes the visible expression of that transformed life. It’s not an optional virtue that can be added to faith, but its necessary manifestation in concrete practice. This is why Paul can summarize the Christian life so succinctly as “faith working through love”: love is the way in which faith becomes active, embodied, and socially meaningful.

At the same time, Paul’s concern isn’t limited to individual moral behavior. His primary focus lies in the life of the community or the collective body of believers. 

Love, in his letters, functions as the principle that sustains and orders communal existence. It governs relationships, resolves conflicts, and ensures that the community reflects the reality of God’s transformative work.

This is particularly evident in passages that are often included among the most famous love Scriptures, where Paul describes love through a series of concrete dispositions and actions: patience, kindness, humility, and the refusal to seek one’s own advantage. Such descriptions reinforce the point that, for Paul, love is something enacted within relationships rather than merely contemplated.

Finally, Paul brings his discussion of love into close connection with the ethical traditions of Israel. He explicitly cites the command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” but reinterprets it within his broader theological framework. 

Love isn’t simply the summary of the law in a formal sense. Instead, it's the law's actual fulfillment in practice. In other words, to love one’s neighbor is to do what the law requires, not by adhering to a set of external regulations, but by embodying the transformative power of God’s love at work in the believer.

In this way, Paul’s vision both continues and reshapes earlier traditions, presenting love as the defining mark of a life reoriented by the decisive “event” of Jesus’ resurrection.

Appendix: Do the “Three Types of Love” Appear in the New Testament?

It’s sometimes claimed in popular discussions that the New Testament presents three distinct “types” of love: agapē, philia, and eros. According to this interpretation, each has a clearly defined and separate meaning. 

From a scholarly perspective, however, this claim requires careful qualification. While it’s true that the New Testament is written in Greek and does employ different words related to love, it doesn’t present a systematic or philosophical taxonomy of love in the way later interpreters sometimes suggest.

The term agapē (and its verbal form agapaō) is by far the most prominent and becomes the dominant expression for love in early Christian texts, especially in Paul’s writings and the Gospel of John. 

The philia word group does appear, but less frequently, and often overlaps in meaning with agapē. In some passages (most famously in John 21) both terms are used in close proximity, though many scholars caution against reading too sharp a distinction into their alternation. 

As for eros, the term itself doesn’t appear in the New Testament at all, even though themes of desire, attraction, and intimate love are certainly present in broader biblical literature.

What this suggests is that the neat triadic division of love into agapē, philia, and eros isn’t native to the New Testament itself but reflects later interpretive frameworks, often influenced by Greek philosophical traditions and subsequent Christian theology.

The New Testament writers were less concerned with categorizing different “types” of love and more focused on articulating how love functions within the life of believers and their relationship to God and others. 

Consequently, rather than presenting a rigid classification, the New Testament offers a more fluid and context-dependent understanding of love, with agapē emerging as the central term precisely because it was capable of expressing the theological and communal dimensions that early Christians sought to emphasize.

Before we conclude our exploration of what the Bible says about love, it may be helpful to pause and look directly at some of the most powerful and representative passages themselves. Here are a few key Bible verses on love.

Conclusion

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” It’s a line most of us have heard countless times, often in moments meant to celebrate commitment, intimacy, and hope. 

I have to admit, it still has a certain power to move me. There’s something compelling about the simplicity of the language and the clarity of its vision. And yet, as we’ve seen, that famous passage from Paul isn’t the whole story. 

If we step back and ask more carefully, “What does the Bible say about love?”, the answer turns out to be far richer, more complex, and more historically layered than any single text can capture.

Across its many writings, the Bible offers a range of perspectives shaped by different contexts, languages, and theological concerns.

From the covenantal commitments of the Old Testament, to the ethical demands articulated in the teachings of Jesus, to Paul’s deeply theological understanding of love grounded in the Christ event, we encounter not a single voice but a dynamic conversation.

What emerges from this diversity is not confusion, but a more nuanced picture: love as relationship, as obligation, as transformation, and as practice. And that is much better than any single and unified perspective!

Is Being Gay a Sin in the Bible?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Is being gay a sin in the Bible? That’s one question that consistently generates debate among Christians today. At first glance, the answer can seem obvious: certain passages appear to speak directly and negatively about same-sex behavior. But a closer look reveals a far more complex picture—one shaped by language, culture, and ancient assumptions that are very different from our own.

In this article, I’ll take a closer look at the key biblical texts commonly associated with homosexuality, from the story of Sodom in Genesis to the writings of Paul in the New Testament. Along the way, we’ll explore how historical context, translation, and evolving interpretations complicate simple answers—and why understanding the ancient world is essential for making sense of what the Bible does, and does not, say about being gay.

What Does the Bible Say About Gay People? Sexual Identity in the Ancient World vs. Today

It may seem strange to us now, but ancient people did not think of sexuality as an identity issue. In fact, as psychologist and scholar Chris Cooper writes,

In contrast to viewing sexual desires and acts as defining one’s identity, sexual acts instead defined social status in the ancient world. As David Halperin writes in his article “Is There a History of Sexuality?”, sex in many ancient documents is portrayed “not as a mutual enterprise in which two or more persons jointly engage but as an action performed by a social superior upon a social inferior.” For example, it was acceptable for a man to have sex with another man as long as he was the penetrator. The one being penetrated, whether a woman or a man, was considered socially inferior, as this position was seen as degrading.

It’s important to understand this before we look at specific references to homosexual activity in the Bible because looking at it from our modern perspective—where sexuality is considered part of one’s essence—can easily obscure the intent of the passage. Is being gay a sin? The question actually makes little sense in the ancient world because while there were, of course, homosexual desires and acts, there was no identity category for “homosexual people.”

Having established that ancient viewpoint, I’ll now investigate passages commonly referred to from the Bible in reference to homosexuality. Let’s see what the above way of understanding ancient sexuality can tell us about those biblical passages.

Genesis 19:1–11: The Story of Sodom

This passage from Genesis is the longest of those I’ll be considering today, but I think it’s important to quote it here in full before we start our analysis. The pretext of this story concerns Abraham’s cousin Lot who, along with his family, has moved to the wicked city of Sodom. Since God has decided to destroy the city, two angels are sent to warn Lot to flee:

The demand of the citizens of Sodom that Lot send out the men “that we may know them” has an unusual meaning in the original Hebrew. The Hebrew word for “know” in this sentence can simply mean to have knowledge of something. However, in The Bible Now, Richard Friedman and Shawna Dolansky, note that in addition, “the word ‘know’ in biblical Hebrew can indeed mean to know someone with sexual intimacy.” In other words, the men of the city do not simply want to meet and greet the two angels. This is a threat of rape.

afBecause of this, many later interpreters of the passage have assumed that the wickedness for which God eventually destroys Sodom is homosexuality. But many scholars have seen a different side of the story. First, Ezekiel 16:49 does not agree with this interpretation. Instead, the author writes that

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This is completely different from the sexual sin interpreted by most later Christian commentators. In fact, in his article ”Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality”, Robert Gnuse notes that the “sin of Sodom” is more likely rape or attempted rape.

Furthermore, in A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Early Jewish and Early Christian Traditions, J.A. Loader writes that for the authors of the Talmud, the central text of rabbinic Judaism, God destroys Sodom for a lack of generosity, and says the attempted rape of the angels was an indication of the city's infringement of the near eastern social mandate of hospitality.

These different interpretations call into question the idea that Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality, despite the fact that the English word “sodomy” was coined from the name of that doomed city.

Let’s move on to another book from the Pentateuch and the Old Testament passage most often used to condemn homosexuality.

Leviticus 18:22, 20:13

For many who condemn homosexuality, these two verses are a clear indication of the divine prohibition of homosexual acts:

If this seems entirely cut and dried, let’s start by remembering that “homosexual” as a category of identity didn’t exist when Leviticus was written. Instead, these passages are condemning a certain type of activity rather than a certain type of person. Other than that, however, what else could this verse be referring to?

Over time, an interesting range of interpretations of these passages have emerged. In his article “Don’t Do What to Whom? A Survey of Historical-Critical Scholarship on Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13,” Mark Preston Stone notes no less than 21 different interpretations of this biblical law. Among these is the idea that it is not condemning all homosexual activity, but merely pederasty—sexual activity between a man and a boy. The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria interpreted the passage this way, as did Protestant reformer Martin Luther.

Meanwhile, later scholars, including James Brownson and Robert Gagnon, assert that this Levitical law refers to common cultic prostitution practices of other Near Eastern cultures at the time the law was written. In other words, male-male sexual activity was tied to the prohibited activities of idolatry.

Finally, other modern scholars such as Jacob Milgrom and Adrien Schenker that the reason for the prohibition on male-male sex acts is that it wastes procreative possibilities. In other words, God told human beings to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Thus, any sex act which cannot result in conception is a sin against God.

While no one can confirm with certainty that any of the 21 interpretations catalogued by Stone are infallibly correct, we can at least say that the interpretation of these passages is anything but straightforward and simple.

As we move into the New Testament, let’s begin with a look at Jesus’ perspective on homosexuality, according to the Gospels.

What Did Jesus Say About Homosexuality?

Let’s start with the most obvious answer: Jesus said nothing explicitly about homosexuality in the Bible. For all the moral injunctions we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, none of them say anything about homosexuality.

Having said that, it’s important to note that some scholars and theologians argue that if you read between the lines, Jesus did argue that homosexuality was forbidden. For example, take a look at this passage from Matthew 19:4–6:

Based on this passage, Robert Gagnon writes “It is obvious that Jesus presupposed a two-sex requirement for marriage…” Gagnon therefore argues that “there is no basis for assuming that Jesus took a different view of” gay marriage.

However, Bart Ehrman, writing on the same passage, says that this argument is dangerous in that it assumes facts not in evidence.

In addition to the lack of evidence, Gagnon’s argument leaves out the context which makes sense of Jesus’ words. Preceding this passage in Matthew 19:3, the Pharisees have asked Jesus if a man can divorce his wife for any and all reasons. In other words, the question is not “who should get married and who shouldn’t?”, a question that would probably not have occurred to someone in the ancient world.

As Ehrman notes, if we’re really going to look for Jesus’ position on homosexuality, we have to admit that it may not have concerned him, since “In our surviving records Jesus says nothing about same-sex acts or sexual orientation.  Nothing.  Nada.”

But what about Paul’s writings? Does Paul condemn homosexual behavior?

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 and 1 Timothy 1:10

Writing to the Christian community in Corinth, Paul certainly seems to be more explicit about homosexuality than Jesus:

At issue in this passage, as in many biblical passages, is the translation of two Greek words from the oldest manuscripts. The first is malakoi, a word which my lexicon translates with a variety of words, including soft, gentle, mild, and cowardly. However, near the end of the definitions, the word “effeminate” is included as well (in the NRSV translation above, they’ve translated it as “male prostitutes”).

The second word, translated above as “men who engage in illicit sex,” is arsenokoitai, a word comprised of two words: arsen meaning “man” and koitēn meaning “bed.” However, the word is first found in the writings of Paul and does not appear in the writings of his contemporaries. So while it might mean “homosexual,” scholars still debate the meaning of this apparently newly-coined Pauline word, which is also used by the author of 1 Timothy 1:10, a letter written in Paul’s name that was probably not written by Paul.

For instance, in his book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, John Boswell writes that arsenokoitai "did not connote homosexuality to Paul or his early readers." In addition, Boswell writes that, in the writings of other Christian authors, the word is used, not for homosexuality, but possibly for prostitution, while church historian Eusebius used it to refer to women.

So, in this passage, did Paul condemn homosexual behavior? Maybe, but it’s far from clear. He may have been referring instead to the common Greco-Roman practices of male prostitution and pederasty. To be sure, though, let’s look at one more passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Romans 1:26–27

In a passage in this letter in which Paul is discussing pagans, he writes

Scholars have written a variety of interpretations of this passage, although we must admit that many have simply interpreted it as a blanket condemnation of all homosexual activity. Nevertheless, in the The HarperCollins Study Bible, Leander Keck writes that Paul’s “repetition of the word ‘exchanged’ is deliberate: moral confusion follows idolatry.” In other words, because pagans were worshipping the wrong gods, they lost track of what God wanted them to do. In addition, Mark Nanos, writing in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, notes that

In other words, Paul may simply see same-sex acts as a refusal to procreate, which was the first commandment God gave humans in Genesis. In addition, it is clear, many Jews in Paul’s time stereotyped Gentiles as immoral and overindulgent. Perhaps Paul is simply reflecting this common prejudice in this passage.

In his book The New Testament and Homosexuality, Robin Scroggs argues that this passage “does not condemn homosexual relations as such, but rather the exploitation involved in the relations between master and slave, or between young adults (pederasty), or prostitution.” Meanwhile, in their book What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage – How Faith Communities Can Bridge the Divide with Love and the Bible, David Myers and Letha Scanzoni claim that Paul “is only considering the case of heterosexuals having homosexual relations. One cannot therefore use Romans 1 as an argument to condemn the stable union of two homosexuals.”

Again, what is most clear is how contested the interpretation of these passages is when you have all, or at least more of, the historical facts.

Conclusion

Whether the Bible condones or condemns being gay, the topic has long been a contentious issue in Christianity. There are biblical passages which may seem to prohibit it until you consider a few relevant facts.

First, the idea of “being gay” is extremely new in human history. Until the 19th century, people were not defined by their sexual activity; it was not considered a part of their identity but rather as a type of sexual activity. If we try to read our notions of homosexual identity back onto ancient writings, we are sure to misinterpret them. The Bible does not discuss sexual orientation as an identity, but it does include passages about same-sex acts.

Second, even in biblical passages which either connote or denote homosexual acts, the intended emphasis is rarely on those acts themselves. For instance, many scholars interpret the “sin of Sodom” from Genesis as attempted rape and/or a refusal to grant hospitality to strangers rather than homosexuality as such.

Third, despite the assumptions of many readers who want to imprint their own morality on Jesus, he said nothing about homosexuality. Either it didn’t concern him as a sin or it was low on the totem pole, far behind the refusal to give to those in need, for example.

Finally, even in passages like Romans 1:26–27 where Paul clearly does condemn same-sex acts, his intended meaning is far from clear. In fact, as with any biblical text, meanings have to be negotiated between reading individuals and communities with respect to what we know of the cultures and reasoning of ancient people.

What Does the Bible Say About Sex? (Verses)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

In the modern world, to talk about sex and sexuality is to enter a complex and often contested terrain that touches on identity, morality, law, and power. Few topics generate as much interest (or as much disagreement!), precisely because sexuality carries such profound personal and societal significance.

What does the Bible say about sex? Those interested in knowing the answer discover that the biblical world reflects a complex and multifaceted set of views on sex and sexuality. 

The French philosopher Michel Foucault recognized those topics’ intricacies in his multivolume work The History of Sexuality, famously observing that “sexuality must not be thought of as a kind of natural given… but rather as a dense transfer point for relations of power.” 

His insight captures something that is difficult to ignore: discussions of sex are never simply about biology or individual behavior. They are embedded in larger systems (social, cultural, and ideological) that shape how people think, regulate, and experience sexuality.

When people ask about coverage of sex in the Bible or the topics of God and sexuality they often expect to find straightforward answers or unified teachings that can be easily summarized. 

Yet the Bible isn’t a single book written at one time, but a collection of diverse texts produced over many centuries, in different historical and cultural contexts. 

As a result, its references to sex are varied in tone, purpose, and emphasis: ranging from legal regulations and moral warnings to poetic celebration and theological reflection.

This diversity means that the Bible doesn’t present a systematic or consistent “sexual ethic” in the way modern readers might expect.

Instead, it offers a wide array of perspectives shaped by the concerns of ancient Israelite and early Christian communities: issues of family structure, lineage, social order, purity, and, at times, human desire itself. 

To understand how sex is treated in these texts, then, requires more than simply collecting verses. It involves recognizing the different voices within the biblical tradition and the distinct contexts in which they speak: an exploration that reveals a far more nuanced picture than is often assumed.

However, before we begin our exploration of the Bible and sexuality, it’s worth stepping back to the very beginning. In the online course In the Beginning: History, Legend, or Myth in Genesis, Bart D. Ehrman examines famous stories like Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, and the Tower of Babel, asking whether they reflect history, legend, or myth.

If you’re curious how modern scholarship approaches these foundational narratives, this course offers a clear and engaging starting point.

What Does the Bible Say About Sex? A Wide Survey

“In his book What the Bible Says About Sex?, Jeremiah W. Cataldo observes:

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Cataldo’s point highlights a central difficulty: discussions of sex in the Bible are rarely just about the texts themselves, but about how those texts are read, generalized, and applied.

This makes the topic particularly complex, since modern expectations often press the Bible into offering clear, universal rules where the ancient sources themselves are more varied and context-bound.

For that reason, what follows isn’t a full-scale exegesis of every relevant passage nor a detailed theological analysis of Bible, God, and sexuality.

Instead, this section offers a broad, historically informed survey of the key places where sex and sexuality appear across the biblical corpus.

By moving through different kinds of texts (narrative, legal, poetic, and early Christian writings) we can begin to see how these materials approach the subject from distinct angles, shaped by their own literary aims and social contexts, starting with the texts of the Hebrew Bible.

What Does God Say About Sex? A Survey of Key Old Testament Verses

In the narrative portions of the Hebrew Bible, sex most often appears as an integral part of larger stories about family, survival, and social order. 

From the opening chapters of Book of Genesis, sexual relations are closely tied to reproduction and the continuation of human life (most famously in the divine command to “be fruitful and multiply”). Within these narratives, sex functions less as a topic in its own right and more as a necessary mechanism through which kinship structures are formed, maintained, and extended across generations.

At the same time, these texts reveal that sexuality is deeply embedded in concerns about lineage and inheritance. 

Stories such as that of Tamar in Genesis 38 illustrate how sexual relations could be mobilized (sometimes in unconventional or socially ambiguous ways) to secure offspring and preserve a family line.

In such contexts, the emphasis falls on ensuring the continuity of a household within a patriarchal framework where descendants, especially male heirs, were of central importance. Sexuality, in other words, is closely intertwined with questions of legitimacy, status, and the transmission of property and identity.

Yet these narratives also portray sex as a site of power, vulnerability, and moral tension. The account of David and Bathsheba in the Second Book of Samuel 11 is perhaps the most striking example, precisely because it exposes how sexual relations could be entangled with authority and social hierarchy. 

As Michael D. Coogan observes in his book God and Sex, “the understanding of adultery as expropriation of another man’s property is also found in biblical narrative.” In this case, the issue isn’t merely personal desire or moral failure in the abstract, but the abuse of royal power. 

David, as king, is able to summon Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, and then orchestrate her husband’s death to conceal the consequences of the encounter.

Coogan’s analysis sharpens the underlying logic of the story by noting that, in effect, David’s action is portrayed as a form of appropriation: “in committing adultery with Bathsheba, David was guilty of expropriating Uriah’s property.” 

Read in this light, the narrative reflects a broader ancient Near Eastern framework in which adultery is construed less as a mutual violation of marital fidelity and more as an infringement upon another man’s household.

At the same time, the story doesn’t simply normalize this perspective; it dramatizes its consequences. 

Through the prophet Nathan’s parable and David’s eventual recognition of guilt, the text exposes the moral and political ramifications of such an abuse of power. 

The episode thus illustrates how, within biblical narrative, sexuality can function as a flashpoint where desire, authority, and social order intersect, revealing tensions that resist any simple or uniform ethical formulation.

A somewhat different perspective emerges, however, when we turn from narrative to the poetic and wisdom traditions of the Hebrew Bible, where sex isn’t primarily embedded in stories of lineage or power but becomes the subject of reflection, exhortation, and even celebration.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Song of Solomon, a collection of lyrical poems that foreground erotic desire and mutual longing between lovers. Unlike many other biblical texts, the Song doesn’t frame sexuality in terms of law, prohibition, or even explicit marriage.

Instead, it offers an intimate and highly sensual portrayal of human attraction, expressed through vivid imagery and reciprocal dialogue.

The prominence of the female voice in particular (articulate, desiring, and active) has drawn significant scholarly attention. As Renita J. Weems notes in her essay published in the Women's Bible Commentary:

Read in this light, the Song not only celebrates desire but also subtly challenges certain social assumptions about gender, beauty, and the legitimacy of romantic attachment.

At the same time, the very openness of the text has historically made it difficult to situate within more restrictive moral frameworks, prompting generations of interpreters to read it allegorically (as a depiction of the love between God and Israel or Christ and the Church) rather than as a celebration of human sexuality. 

Yet when approached in its literary and historical context, the Song stands out within the biblical corpus as a rare and striking affirmation of erotic experience.

By contrast, the Book of Proverbs offers a more didactic and cautionary approach. Here, sexual behavior is framed within the pursuit of wisdom and the maintenance of social order, most notably through warnings against adultery and the figure of the “strange woman.” 

At the same time, Proverbs doesn’t reject sexuality outright. Passages such as Proverbs 5:18–19 affirm the value of sexual pleasure within marriage, encouraging delight in one’s spouse in language that is, at times, surprisingly evocative.

The juxtaposition of these elements (warning and affirmation) underscores a broader tension within the wisdom literature: sexuality is neither wholly condemned nor unconditionally embraced, but carefully situated within a moral framework that seeks to regulate desire while acknowledging its place in human life.

What Does the Bible Say About Sexuality? A Survey of Key Verses in the New Testament

In our survey of key verses that can help us understand what the Bible says about sex, we now turn to the New Testament, where the discussion takes on new dimensions shaped by early Christian concerns, theological developments, and changing views on the body, desire, and the ideal of sexual renunciation.

The Apostle Paul: Views on Sex and Sexuality

In our exploration of the key verses, the most methodologically sound approach is to begin with the earliest sources, namely the letters of Paul. What does the Bible say about sex in those writings? We’ll soon see that there isn’t a simple endorsement or prohibition, but a reframing of sexuality within a broader vision of disciplined life, where desire is acknowledged, managed, and directed rather than denied.

Among these letters, 1 Corinthians offers one of the most sustained reflections on sex, sexuality, and marriage in early Christianity. 

Here, sexuality is woven into broader concerns about community life, moral discipline, and the expectation that the present world is passing away.

Paul’s discussion reveals a careful balancing act between acknowledging human desire and regulating it. 

Drawing on the analysis of William Loader in his book The New Testament on Sexuality, we can see that Paul doesn’t simply condemn sexuality, nor does he celebrate it unreservedly.

Instead, he situates it within a framework of control and accommodation. As Loader explains:

Loader’s reading highlights an important nuance for understanding sexuality in the Bible: Paul distinguishes between desire itself and the failure to regulate it.

Sexual passion is portrayed as powerful (something that can “burn”) but not inherently sinful. Rather than condemning those who struggle with such desire, Paul offers a practical solution. As Loader continues,

Marriage, then, functions less as an ideal state and more as a structured and legitimate context within which desire can be expressed without transgressing communal norms.

At the same time, Paul’s preference for celibacy reflects a distinctive early Christian perspective shaped by eschatological expectation.

If the present form of the world is passing away, then even socially central institutions such as marriage become relativized. This doesn’t mean that sex is rejected outright, but that it’s subordinated to a higher ideal of undivided devotion.

The Gospel of Matthew: Views on Sex and Sexuality

A somewhat different but related approach emerges when we turn from Paul’s letters to the teachings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. 

Here, the focus shifts from regulating behavior within communal structures to intensifying the moral demands placed upon the individual, especially at the level of intention.

In Matthew’s Gospel, sexual ethics are articulated through a reinterpretation of earlier commandments, most notably in the teaching that moves from the prohibition of adultery to the internalization of desire (Matt 5:27–28).

Drawing again on Loader’s analysis, the key point is that this passage doesn’t simply condemn sexual attraction as such, but rather the deliberate cultivation of desire directed toward another man’s wife.

The emphasis lies on intentionality (on the purposeful orientation of one’s will) rather than on spontaneous or involuntary responses.

In this way, the Gospel reflects a broader ethical move: just as anger can lead to violence, so intentional desire can lead to adultery. Sexuality here isn’t denied per se but brought under a more rigorous form of moral scrutiny, one that relocates the locus of ethical responsibility from external action to internal disposition.

A further nuance becomes clear when we look more closely at the language and conceptual framework of this passage. The focus is on a deliberate orientation of the will. Namely, what the text describes as looking “with a view to” desiring. In this sense, the issue isn’t simply that desire exists, but how it’s cultivated and directed within a relational context. 

In other words, the passage presupposes that sexual response itself is a natural part of human experience. What is brought under scrutiny is the intentional development of that desire in a way that transgresses established boundaries, particularly those defined by marriage.

The emphasis, therefore, lies on responsibility rather than on the mere presence of those impulses. In this way, the Gospel’s teaching contributes to a broader pattern within early Christian thought, where sexuality in the Bible is neither simply affirmed nor rejected, but carefully situated within a framework of moral intention and relational accountability.

What Does the Bible Say About Sex? Key Verses (Table)

Before we move on, we’ve put together a handy (and dare we say, quite generous) table for our readers, bringing together some of the most frequently cited Bible verses about sex, so you don’t have to go hunting through multiple books and chapters yourself.

FAQ: What Does the Bible Say About Sexuality?

With this broader context in place, we can now turn to a set of frequently asked questions, briefly addressing some of the most common issues people raise when exploring sex and sexuality in the Bible.

What Does the Bible Say About Sex Before Marriage?

The Bible refers to sexual relations prior to marriage, but it doesn’t treat “premarital sex” as a clearly defined, abstract moral category in the way it’s often understood today. Instead, such situations are typically addressed within legal and social frameworks that prioritize family structure, property, and lineage. 

For example, in Book of Exodus 22:16–17 and Book of Deuteronomy 22:28–29, a man who has sexual relations with an unmarried woman is required to pay compensation (the bride-price) and, in many cases, marry her. 

This suggests that the primary concern isn’t the sexual act in isolation but its social and economic consequences for the woman and her family. 

As many scholars have noted, including those working within historical-critical frameworks, these texts reflect a patriarchal context in which a woman’s sexuality was closely tied to household honor and inheritance structures.

Thus, rather than articulating a universal prohibition of sex before marriage, the biblical material regulates such behavior in ways that preserve social order and familial integrity.

Does the Bible Mention Sex Outside of Marriage?

Yes, the Bible frequently refers to sexual activity outside of marriage, most often under the categories of adultery and prostitution, though these are framed within ancient social and legal assumptions rather than modern concepts of “consensual relationships.” 

Adultery, for example, is explicitly prohibited in Book of Exodus 20:14, but, in its original context, it refers specifically to an Israelite man having sexual relations with another man’s wife, thus violating household boundaries and property relations.

As Michael D. Coogan contextualizes:

Similarly, references to prostitution appear in various narrative and legal texts, sometimes condemned (as in prophetic literature) and sometimes simply described.

In the New Testament, terms such as porneia (often translated “sexual immorality”) are used broadly to denote illicit sexual behavior outside accepted norms.

Taken together, these references show that the Bible does address sex outside marriage, but typically through the lens of social order, honor, and communal boundaries rather than through a systematic moral category equivalent to modern usage.

Does the Bible Mention Sex Within Marriage?

Yes, the Bible does refer to sexual relations within marriage, and in several instances it presents them in a positive or at least accepted light.

In the Hebrew Bible, passages such as Book of Proverbs 5:18–19 explicitly affirm marital intimacy, encouraging mutual delight between spouses, while texts like Song of Solomon celebrate erotic desire more broadly, often understood (though not always explicitly stated) within a relational framework.

In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 7 presents marriage as a legitimate context for sexual relations, even emphasizing mutual obligations between partners, though it does so within a larger (eschatological) framework that prioritizes celibacy.

Does the Bible Mention Sex With Animals?

Yes, the Bible explicitly mentions and prohibits sexual relations between humans and animals, typically referred to in modern scholarship as bestiality.

Such prohibitions appear most clearly in legal texts such as Book of Leviticus 18:23 and 20:15–16, where these acts are described as violations of proper boundaries and are subject to severe penalties. 

Within their ancient Near Eastern context, these laws aren’t primarily concerned with individual morality in a modern sense, but with maintaining distinctions between categories of creation (human and animal) and preserving what is understood as social and cosmic order.

As John E. Hartley notes in his Commentary:

Conclusion

What does the Bible say about sex? As this survey has shown, the answer is neither simple nor singular. 

Rather than offering a unified or systematic sexual ethic, the Bible presents a range of perspectives shaped by diverse historical contexts, literary genres, and social concerns.

In some passages, sexuality is regulated in order to preserve lineage, property, and communal stability. In others, it’s celebrated as an expression of human desire and relational intimacy. And in still others, it’s reframed within broader theological visions that emphasize discipline, self-control, and eschatological urgency. 

To ask what the Bible says about sex, therefore, isn’t to retrieve a single voice, but to engage a conversation among many voices across time.

Needless to say, recognizing this diversity is essential for any historically informed reading. Sexuality in the Bible is consistently embedded in larger frameworks (family structures, purity systems, power relations, and theological commitments) rather than treated as an isolated domain of human behavior.

This means that modern attempts to extract clear, universal rules often overlook the complexity of the texts themselves. A more careful approach reveals an evolving set of reflections on human desire, social order, and moral responsibility. It’s precisely this complexity that makes the biblical material both challenging and enduringly significant for contemporary discussions about sex and sexuality.