Part 1 - Responding to @ReformationRedPill "Does Scripture TRULY forbid polygamy"

Reformation Red Pill and Paul Liberati declare polygyny a sin before opening a single text, then rest the case on Genesis 2 as a “creation norm” that forbids plural marriage. This first part shows that Genesis 2:24 describes one man and one woman becoming one flesh — it never forbids a second such union — and that every test they apply to polygyny collapses the moment you apply it consistently to celibacy, monogamy, and Genesis itself.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part response — continue with Part 2 and Part 3.

The argument answered

• The “poisoning the well” opening — pronouncing it sin and forbidden at minute four, before any Scripture, and mocking the precise term polygyny while titling the video with the looser “polygamy.”
• The prescriptive-vs-descriptive move: no one argues “the patriarchs did it, so it’s permitted.” The real point is that God watched them do it across decades and never commanded them to stop.
• The claim that polygyny “always ends in disaster.” Of 40-plus polygynous men, most record no such strife; where strife appears (Sarah/Hagar, Leah/Rachel) Scripture pins it on personal sin, not on the marriage form — and monogamous houses (Adam, Cain) bring death too.
• The “lack of faith” reading of Abraham and Hagar, answered from the two distinct promises of Genesis 15 and 17 (Sarah is not named until thirteen years later) and the warning against disparaging Abraham.
• Deuteronomy 17:17 on kings: “multiply” (rabah) governs horses, silver, and gold in the same breath — it limits excess, it does not cap a king at one wife, one horse, one coin.
• The Matthew 19 argument: Jesus is answering a divorce trap about the permanence of marriage, not legislating the number of wives — and Genesis 2:24 read as a prohibition would condemn celibacy more directly than plural marriage.

Scriptures examined

• Genesis 2:24 — leave, cleave, one flesh
• Genesis 15 and 17 — the separate promises to Abraham; Sarah named in chapter 17
• Genesis 16 — Sarah gives Hagar; God opens and closes wombs
• Genesis 20 / 29–30 — Abimelech; Leah, Rachel and the maids
• Ruth 4:11 — Rachel and Leah “built the house of Israel”
• Deuteronomy 17:16–17 — kings not to multiply horses, wives, silver, gold
• Matthew 19:3–8 — the divorce question, “from the beginning it was not so”
• Ezekiel 23; Jeremiah 3; Jeremiah 31 — God as husband of two wives, Israel and Judah

Why it matters

If forbidding what God permitted is, as Paul warns, a doctrine of demons, then the question is not whether plural marriage is comfortable but whether Scripture actually condemns it. Read it on its own terms and be a Berean.