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Incest in the bible

I have only just started reading the bible and am about 20 pages, so keep that in mind.

I just read in Genesis 19 : Lot and His Daughters, that his daughter get him drunk and have sex with him to get pregnant and so far there has been no comment by god against that act.

So is incest ok?
 
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Just_me_Mike

Well-Known Member
I have only just started reading the bible and am about 20 pages, so keep that in mind.

I just read in Genesis 19 : Lot and His Daughters, that his daughter get him drunk and have sex with him to get pregnant and so far there has been no comment by god against that act.

So is incest ok?
Would we know it was bad unless told it was bad? A question for the ages...
 

Charity

Let's go racing boys !
I have only just started reading the bible and am about 20 pages, so keep that in mind.

I just read in Genesis 19 : Lot and His Daughters, that his daughter get him drunk and have sex with him to get pregnant and so far there has been no comment by god against that act.

So is incest ok?


Incest is never ok, just ask the victims of such a vial act......
 

Just_me_Mike

Well-Known Member
I think as humans we are either creatures that need to be told what is right or wrong, or it needs to be observed in nature for us to understand. I think that is one of the difference between humans and animals...
 
Well several pages after that the situation isn't addressed by god and the lord does not speak with Lot or his daughters. So is incest not a sin might be a better question?
 

Just_me_Mike

Well-Known Member
Well several pages after that the situation isn't addressed by god and the lord does not speak with Lot or his daughters. So is incest not a sin might be a better question?
At best we could say we just don't know. Certainly to populate the planet they would have to have incest, and God commanded them to multiply, so I would have to say the bible sides on the side of incest was OK back then.
 

Baydwin

Well-Known Member
I have only just started reading the bible and am about 20 pages, so keep that in mind.

I just read in Genesis 19 : Lot and His Daughters, that his daughter get him drunk and have sex with him to get pregnant and so far there has been no comment by god against that act.

So is incest ok?
No, it's not ok. If you read the later verses you'll see that the children begotten of these encounters give rise to two great enemies of the nation of Israel, the Ammonites and the Moabites. The story could simply be the Israelites way of demonising their enemies, making them abnormal by having them become the products of an unnatural union.
 

Just_me_Mike

Well-Known Member
No, it's not ok. If you read the later verses you'll see that the children begotten of these encounters give rise to two great enemies of the nation of Israel, the Ammonites and the Moabites. The story could simply be the Israelites way of demonising their enemies, making them abnormal by having them become the products of an unnatural union.
This answer could only apply to this scenario, but the OP is really concerned about incest and not just this incident with Lot. Incest would have to be part of life at some point.
 

Aquitaine

Well-Known Member
The night Lot's daughters had sex with him was the same night that God turned Lot's Wife into a pillar of Salt for looking at Sodom and Gomorrah (sp?) whilst it was being bombarded, right?
 

no-body

Well-Known Member
Lot was before Moses and God's laws so technically there was no problem with it (plus his daughters where totally asking for it and raped him, apparently) One assumes there was a whole lot of incest going on anyway if the world started with two people and then only 8 after the flood. After Moses brought down the laws it was no longer kosher.
 

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
The moral of (this particular) story is not that incest is okay. Actually it 's quite the opposite. It's interesting to see how Lot and Abraham are contrasted in Genesis. Abraham, although quite old, waits patiently for his promised son. Lot's daughters, on the other hand, have just seen the entire Valley of Sodom destroyed by burning sulphur. They were afraid that they were the last surviving people on earth. And so they plied their father with liquor and had sex with him. The daughters (not to mention Lot) had no faith in God. Hadn't the angels told Lot, and through him his family, that they were going to destroy the cities of the plain, not the whole world? So why this rush to incest? So Abraham's patient faithfulness contrasts with Lot's impatient faithlessness. Abraham and Sarah will have a son in their old age; Lot fathers two sons (who would become enemies of Abraham's descendants) through incest.

So no, the passage does not advocate incest. Rather, it uses the moral shock of incest to demonstrate just how bad Lot's faith was, in particular in comparison with Abraham's.
 

Buttons*

Glass half Panda'd
So no, the passage does not advocate incest. Rather, it uses the moral shock of incest to demonstrate just how bad Lot's faith was, in particular in comparison with Abraham's.

I could be wrong... but didn't Abraham have another son at Sarah's request because she had lost faith that a son was coming? And after she finally DID conceive, did she not send Ishmael and his mother into the desert to fend for themselves? Abraham's sin in this case is the cause of (from a Christian standpoint) Islam. I remember being taught this at my high school.
 

challupa

Well-Known Member
Oh, that really makes sense. You do know that Sarah was Abraham's half sister, right? Or is brother/sister incest ok?
Exactly and Abraham wasn't exactly patient because he had a son with one of his slaves.

Incest was common for centuries, especially amongst royalty. Keep it in the bloodline was the mindset. Whether god agreed with it or not, he certainly made it a must when he only set 2 people on the earth and then told them to go forth and multiply.

My opinion, no it not right, but I'm not god so what do I know...
 

sonofskeptish

It is what it is
Certainly to populate the planet they would have to have incest.

That's assuming you take the bible's creation story literally. Many Christians have reconciled their religious beliefs to include evolution as the mechanism by which the planet was populated, and do not take the creation story literally. Fossils are okay to them. Not sure how this "cherry picking" of beliefs is done (I'm not a Christian) so I need to defer to them to explain the rationale. To me it's all irrational. :rolleyes:
 
I wouldn't say lot was impatient and faithless, his daughters got him so drunk he didnt know what was happening, it isn't his fault. Plus he did what the angels said and ran without looking back.

To add what made the daughters think the world ended anyway? Cause Lot said to spare the village over yonder, so there was other people there (unless it was a village of only women... doubt it).
 

challupa

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't say lot was impatient and faithless, his daughters got him so drunk he didnt know what was happening, it isn't his fault. Plus he did what the angels said and ran without looking back.

To add what made the daughters think the world ended anyway? Cause Lot said to spare the village over yonder, so there was other people there (unless it was a village of only women... doubt it).
Yes Lot's a victim alright.:sarcastic We certainly can't blame him for getting so drunk he didn't know what was happening. No can't do that!:facepalm:
 

Buttons*

Glass half Panda'd
You trust that bunch of crazies? :p

No.... but I don't trust this batch of crazies either :p

I think they sometimes had something.... but usually found a way to say that God was glorious (and his followers) no matter what they did. God loves the sinners etc. *rolls eyes* Funny that they hated gays though :D

by the way, you should be careful.... someone could Frubal you *bwahahaha*
 
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