What's is the case for premarital sex being an instance of πορνεία (porneia)?

*This question is pretty much a spinoff of https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/694/what-does-the-bible-say-about-sex-before-marriage-premarital-sex because its current answer depends on the assumption that premarital sex is πορνεία (commonly translated "fornication"). Not all agree, so I think this assumption is better explicitly questioned.* I've heard some liberal Christians dispute the definition of the Greek word *πορνεία* (porneia), **claiming it doesn't mean premarital sex at all**. (An example of such an argument ) ### **What's is the case for premarital sex being an instance of πορνεία (porneia)?** --- One of the major difficulties here is that just a dictionary definition doesn't cut it, because it's difficult to really know what the Greek word really meant 2000 years ago. The answer probably needs to either be a broad look at the Bible passages using the word, or an academic study on the word's meaning. **Additional information 2011-09-21:** The following articles seem interesting, but I can't access the fulltexts. It seems from the publicly-available bits that Dr. Malina might actually have been the first to dispute the meaning of *porneia*. - Malina, B. *Does porneia mean fornication?* Novum Testamentum, 1972. - Jensen, J. *Does porneia Mean Fornication? A Critique of Bruce Malina.* Novum Testamentum, 1978.