Does the Sadducees' question in Mark 12 imply polygamy was considered sinful?

Question

The passage in question is Mark 12:18-23 (ESV):

And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”

Mark makes clear that the Sadducees are questioning Jesus about resurrection. Perhaps they are trying to trick him or maybe they want to test his orthodoxy (according to the Sadducee system, of course). The scenario seems unusual, but as they say, it was commanded by Moses in Deuteronomy 25:5 (ESV):

If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

So the Sadducees take the example from the Torah and push it to extremes (seven men instead of just two). Therefore, if the resurrection occurs, one woman will have seven possible husbands. If polyandry is no problem, I don't see how the question is an issue: she has seven husbands in the resurrection. But if polyandry (particularly the fraternal variety) is sinful, the question has bite.

Can we also say by extension that polygamy was considered sinful (either by the Sadducees or their opponents) or is that a bridge too far?

Answer 1

No, the problem they were asking isn't about polygamy. The problem they were struggling with is regarding adultery.

The problem with adultery is that the woman is married to multiple men:

Matthew 5:32 (NASB)
but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

This can be seen through a perspective of Old Testament

Leviticus 20:10 (NASB)
If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Adultery was, of course, having sex with another man's wife. The issue with a woman being married to multiple men wasn't a problem of polygamy, but of adultery.

Conclusion

The Sadducees were attempting to back Jesus into a corner regarding his preaching about the afterlife. A woman was not allowed to marry multiple men. This resulted in adultery. If heaven existed, their logic went, then the woman who married multiple men would have committed adultery in heaven (thereby disallowing her admittance into heaven--creating a paradox).

Answer 2

In response to Richard, In Luke 20:36 Jesus states one of the reasons for not marrying and being given in marriage is because the righteous resurrected can’t die anymore but will be like the angels in heaven. God creating sexual relationships before humans sinned and could die contradicts death being a condition for marriage and sex. Only legal customs of marriage were invented after humanity sinned, so thats all Jesus could be refering to, not the union of a man and woman in an intimate sexual relationship. The Greek words used for marrying and being given in marriage, gamousin and gamizontai, refer to two different acts of a legal institution of marriage. This was not needed with the first couple, Adam and Eve, so says nothing about the actual married state. At the beginning God said for us to be fruitful and multiply, with no indication it was to ever stop. He created marriage and sexual passion for spouses and being alone was the one thing God said during the creation account that is not good. God can't change his mind about the ideal state for males and females if he is the same forever. If simply being more aware of God's presence and love makes marriage unnecessary, than God would have had no reason to create gender and sex to fulfil a different kind of intimate desire to begin with, because God and Adam had exactly that kind of relationship we'll have with him in the renewed creation, before Eve was made. If simply being part of God's image is all the justification needed to have gender, then sperm, egg cells, breasts and wombs will be unused, and God doesn't make things for no use. The female figure is designed the way it is to fit babies during birth. keeping a libido is justified.

Angels did have sex and marry as written in genesis 6:1-2, but Jesus said the heirs of eternal life would be like the angels in heaven, where the angels who reproduced were not. But sons of God only ever refers to righteous angels, so if the sons of God were attracted to human women before they left heaven to marry them, and the heirs of eternal life will be like them, he's not teaching that sexual desire will be eliminated forever.

If people interpret Jesus answer to the sadducees as claiming no one will be married anymore, then we can't be married to Jesus after the last resurrection either. The description is given of God as a husband to his people in parts of the old testament, like Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. That wasn't meant to sever marriages of male and female couples anymore than being described as Jesus bride is in Revelation. Marriage of male and female couples and sexual passion is the most joyful and pleasurable of God's creation, yet so many Christians have claimed that that's the only thing he will not restore, but we get to keep food which is bland by comparison. The ideal of eternal paradise for Christians who are prudes is hell to most other people, including other Christians. Just because some people manage to not care if they can continue having a sinless sexually intimate relationship with someone for eternity, doesn't make it fair to teach that those who do much prefer to keep feelings of sexual attraction and being in love with someone, what many people love most about our existence, should somehow not care.