3 Responses to “Prohibited Degrees of Kinship”

1. cruft says:

   December 28, 2009 at 12:28 pm

   so how does adam & eve or later abram & sari fit?
2. jay c says:

   December 28, 2009 at 1:42 pm

   Excellent question! The best questions are always the hardest to answer.

   Here’s what I wrote in A Commentary on Marriage in the Bible regarding the incest of the patriarchs:

   Genesis 4:17 …Yeshua said that all of the Mosaic Law is based on the love of God and neighbor. It is easy to see how the law against sibling marriage demonstrates a love for neighbor because of the increased risk of birth defects in the offspring from such marriages. The question to answer is how sibling marriage might not have been contrary to neighborly love at the time of Creation. Before the Fall there was no sickness and therefore there were no inheritable genetic disorders. Until the discoveries of modern genetics concerning the nature of mutation and inheritance, this question was impossible to answer; we could only trust God that he had his reasons (which trust is not at all a bad thing). After the Fall there was death, but the extremely long life-spans testify to the rarity of disease and some mechanism which postponed or prevented aging altogether.<1> After the Flood, however, the genes of all living things endured an extended period of deterioration. Our life-spans decreased, our diseases increased, and we developed diabetes, anemia, and other inheritable genetic disorders.<2> Until that time, there was no reason to prohibit sibling marriage because there was nothing about it that demonstrated non-love for God or neighbor.

   <1> Carl Weiland, ―”Living for 900 Years?” Creation Ex Nihilo 20(4):10–13.
   <2> Carl Weiland, ―”Decreased Lifespans: Have We Been Looking in the Right Place?”. TJ 8 (2, 1994):138–141. (Answers in Genesis, http://answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v8n2_decreased_life.asp. 7 February 2004.)

   Genesis 12:13 …Although Scripture never actually says that God approved of Abraham and Sarah‘s marriage, he chose the house of Abraham, and specifically Sarah, to bear the promised line that would eventually produce the Messiah. It does not seem reasonable to me to suppose that God seriously disapproved of their incest, although he later gave Moses a law against this very relationship. I believe the reason that Abraham‘s and Sarah‘s marriage was acceptable while later such marriages were not, is the same reason that Cain was able to marry his full sister. The human gene pool had not deteriorated to the point at which close consanguinogamy is dangerous. Several generations later, when Israel left Egypt, congenital defects were more common, and the risk was higher. As Yeshua would state centuries later, all of the Torah rests on the principles of love for God and others. A marriage between half siblings today would be hateful to the next generation. Apparently, the purpose of the law is not to prevent consanguinogamy so much as to prevent its results.
3. jay c says:

   December 28, 2009 at 8:29 pm

   I should add that it is dangerous to imagine God’s justification for giving specific commands. I could be wrong. There could be any number of other reasons for God allowing sibling marriages in one century and not in another. Believing that we know God’s reasons opens the door to setting aside his commands. If sibling marriages were forbidden to prevent birth defects, does that mean a man can marry his sister if a genetic analysis shows them to be perfectly clear of harmful mutations? I think it’s better to keep the command than to presume too much and be wrong.