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- King David was called a man after Godâ€™s own heart and he had 8 wives

First of all, let's deal with the suggested premise here by way of analogy: Moses was used of God & encountered Him face-to-face. But Moses was also a manslaughterer. (You wouldn't stoop to citing Moses' relationship with God as some means to justify manslaughter, would you?)

Secondly, let's review David's woman/concubine/wife track record, shall we?

Besides infamous Bathsheba, who were the women David slept with?

(1) David's first wife was Michal, daughter of Saul. Saul took Michal, however, and gave her to another man (1 Sam. 25:44) at a point when no other women were part of David's life.

(2) Concubines who David inherited when he took over Saul's kingdom. (They came with the "palace," so to speak.) How do we know they were concubines? 2 Sam. 16:21-22 convincingly shows us that those referenced in 2 Sam. 12:8 were concubines. 2 Sam. 16:21-22 shows us they weren't sexually loyal to David (and David made no personal fuss to his son, whom these concubines slept with in broad daylight on roof for all of the community to see). Were concubines usually considered as "wives"? (No -- concubines is another word for servant girls or slaves).

So you don't think sleeping with slave girls or servant girls is transferrable to modern times, do you TaxControl?

(3) During that era --David & the next two generations -- who you slept with wasn't simply a "changing mores" issue as much as a royal alliance issue...tribal heads would give a daughter or another member of that tribe to another king or even future king as an issue of being part of a peace pact.

Is there such an example we know of with David? Yes. Absalom was his son born of Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur.

So you don't think sleeping with daughters being traded for political peace purposes is transferrable to modern times, do you TaxControl?

(4) Bathsheba. We know that circumstance. What we don't know with Bathsheba is how many of David's previous wives were still alive when he married her. In fact, Nathan, when he confronts David about that, doesn't mention his four or five earlier wives, one of whom was given to another man by the father of that woman. Nathan only mentions concubines David inherited as part of the kingdom. Certainly, we know how he slept with her when she was another man's wife. You don't think sleeping with another woman whose the wife of another man is transferrable to what we should do in modern times, do you, TaxControl?

(5) OK, of all the women that David slept with in 2 Sam. 3 that resulted in sons, and believe me, he slept with several, who's conspicously not "identified" as his "wife?" Answer? Haggith and Abital who are listed before Eglah (Eglah is identified as his wife).

IOW, we don't know if Haggith and Abital were his wives, or concubines. (That passage in 2 Sam. 3 immediately goes on to talk about Saul's concubines)

So, not knowing these two women's status (or Maacah above) that leaves only two WIVES whom we know of for certain that were simultaneously married to David (Ahinoam and Abigail) -- 1 Sam. 25.

So, we know David had a lot of wives; and we know he had some concubines. But we don't know the timing for each of them (especially Eglah in comparison to Ahinoam and Abigail). How many of them were wives simultaneously (vs. serially). Except for Ahinoam and Abigail, we don't know.

Bottom line: So you're going to defend an entire instititution (polygamy) based upon David taking a second wife and a series of what may have been serial wives?