Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Kenneth Greifer:
 
Here is Leviticus 18: 7:
 
“The nakedness of thy father, and the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not 
uncover:  she is thy mother;  thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.”
 
That means that a man may not have relations with his father or with his 
mother.  It does not mean that a man may not have relations with his daughter.
 
The only universal incest taboo is that a man may not have relations with his 
own mother.  That makes sense, because by definition, that woman has a son 
already.
 
Several of the Mosaic laws of incest are violated in the Patriarchal 
narratives, as I mentioned in my prior post.  Tamar has an incestuous 
relationship 
with her father-in-law Judah, and Jacob incestuously marries two sisters.  At 
least in the latter case, that situation almost certainly was not taboo in 
the 
Patriarchal Age.  The Mosaic laws of incest post-date the Patriarchal Age.
 
But Lot’s relations with his own daughters do not violate the original incest 
laws laid down in Leviticus.  Leviticus was later reinterpreted to prohibit 
father-daughter unions, which is fine by me, but that was not what the 
Leviticus incest laws originally said.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes 
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)