1: When does marriage begin? - Sex

[steve]

I believe that only A. is Biblicaly wrong.

B. C. and D. are inadvisable, but none of my business. Unless he wants to marry my daughter.

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

No doubt it was a no no, @Joleneakamama. The necessity to scheme to get their father drunk is evidence of that, but all they did was get him high on a drug (alcohol) that would lower his inhibitions, so your implication that Lot wouldn't mind agreeing to more wine on Night Two could probably safely be said to accurately represent what he as a man would desire if put in that position. After all, it isn't that God creates us as men not to recognize that our daughters are desirable -- instead He instills within our consciences a revulsion related to encouraging us to recognize that having that kind of relationship with our daughters would be counterproductive in a variety of ways.

However, especially in the context of this particular discussion thread in its recent posts, it's interesting to note how either Lot's daughters or their resulting descendants were punished for the father-seducers' indiscretions. Like Balthasar Hubmaier, I always stand ready to be corrected about Scripture, but the only big punishments for either the Moabites or the Ammonites (the two lines resulting from the two daddy-sperm pregnancies) of which I'm aware were the restrictions later placed on (male-only) Moabites and Ammonites from converting to Judaism (Deuteronomy 23:3) -- but this punishment wasn't a result of their being descended from incestuous ancestors; instead it resulted from the two tribes' lack of hospitality to the nation of Israel as it relocated from Egypt to Palestine.

I agree on both points as to why they were and weren't judged. One has to ponder the mindsets that would have been passed down to the children being reared in a setting where grandpapa is daddy and the children knowing they had the same daddy. A child's mind is so easily bent, and theirs would definitely have been bent away from YHWH! The fact that the girls thought there "was no other man to come in unto us" so they lay with their father is a direct indictment against Lot's view towards the seed of Abraham (eventually Israel). He, of all people, KNEW where Uncle Abraham lived, that Abraham had a thriving family with plenty of eligible young men to whom he could have sought covenant for his daughters. Scripture says "(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing anf hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;" 2 Peter 2:8
The fact that the Ammonites and the Moabites both refused hopitality to the nation of Israel to pass through their land as they left Egypt is no surprise. Lot sowed that bent in his daughters who in turn sowed that bent in their children with grandpapa/daddy Lot continuing to reinforce what he'd sown in his daughters.

I'm convinced there were NO children under the age of accountability in Sodom and Gamorah when God judged those cities. Even though Lot's daughters had husbands, they were still virgins when they left that morning. There were 5 cities in that area. If the girls thought there was no man to come in unto them, then the sins of Sodom had permeated the entire population of the well-watered plains. They wanted children and apparently Lot had enough righteousness about him that he wasn't offering to give them what they wanted.

I've often wondered at how deeply men slept in Bible days that such things could happen and they didn't wake up or know what was happening instantly--ie: Noah, Lot, Samson, Saul, Sisera. With Lot and Noah it was wine. With Sisera it was warm milk. It wouldn't have been wine for Samson because he was a Nazarite. Who knows what Saul drank the night David cut off the skirt of his robe and he didn't even wake. Boaz knew when Ruth came and lay at his feet. Anyway, this is getting off topic.

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

For what it's worth, Institute for scripture research (the scriptures) does say marry in Lev. 20:14 ‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.'

@Keith Martin The trouble I see with your view is if it is bad enough to require the death penalty (sandwiched between mucho bad transgressions) but is speaking of something done in private that only the participants would know about, who among the guilty (all three are suposed to die) would ever reveal the sin? Is this just written to keep the hubby from boasting, or one of the women from blabbing about personal stuff?

I see the spirit of Leviticus 18 more as encouraging men to have a protective view of mother in laws, step daughters, and of course their own daughters rather then looking at them with lustful intentions. It's about boundaries, and the natural modesty and discretion that, unless damaged, exists in familial relationships.

Too many men rationalize using and abusing step daughters because they aren't related, and too many men father children with their own daughters too. Would it really be any better for the girl to be taken as a wife by her step father, (or natural father) putting her into a perpetual familial relationship with her mother who is also a wife, if dad (or is that hubby?) just avoided bedding them at the same time?

I think YHWH put that law there to prohibit "cohabitating sexual relations" between people who should already have a non-sexual familial relationship. We call it marriage now, but back then the terms for wife and husband were not as clear and commonly understood.

@Joleneakamama, you've touched on a key aspect here . Scripture says God has written His laws upon every human being's heart. He doesn't write that law on the heart of any other Kind in Creation because we are the only created beings made in His image--tricotomy. IMO the man who actually thinks it's okay for him to have his daughter or step-daughter or adopted daughter (not blood line either) as something to satisfy his sex drive and lack of ability for self-control is SICK! in more ways than one!!! It doesn't make any difference how far the oveture is carried--whether he makes a one-time pass at her, or multiple times, or begins softening her up for the real deal, or penetration occurs, he just trampled on his God-given responsiblity as her covering, and he'll NEVER get the correct father-daughter relationship back--even if he repents, blubbers, and says all the right words--IT'S GONE FOREVER, and so is her ability to even want to think about trusting another man who says he loves her and wants to be her covering. So much damage happens in the pschye of that girl that only God Himself through many sources all confirming truth will ever be able to restore her ability to trust.

Maybe I'm getting this part of this thread discussion wrong, but it really distresses me that some on this forum seem to be trying to justify with Scripture this sort of agregious sin.

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

Stepchildren is a Western culture problem.

Other than widows, Naomi/Ruth, do we have any situations where the possible marriage of a mother/child relationship exists in the OT?

This wasn't a mother/child relationship. It was a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. No where in the book of Ruth do we see Boaz taking both Ruth and Naomi to wife.

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

But what about this alternative scenario: what if you're the same man, you marry a woman with an 18-year-old daughter who has herself just recently married. She married into a remote, separate clan and lives more than a day's journey away. 10 years later, her husband is killed in an accident, and no one in that remote clan is prepared to take on the stepdaughter and her now 4 children. You have never even met her -- just heard about her -- or maybe you've encountered each other briefly a couple times over the decade at family gatherings. Would it be a boundary violation in that case, or potentially damaging, for you to offer to marry her? Remember, this is still your wife's daughter, but without your offer she may go uncovered, unprotected and her children will lack the continual presence of a caring father figure.

I'm not asserting that such a scenario would be common, but I am asserting that it's questionable to lump all wife/mother - stepdaughter/daughter frameworks into one compartment that comes up looking creepy.

May I ask in reference to your last example WHY in being willing to provide that covering for the widowed stepdaughter and 4 orphaned children does that willingness to take responsibility and provide covering automatically mean there would need to be a covenant consumating in marriage? I know I'm speaking at a woman and really don't know how men feel towards having the responsibility without the privileges of sex. I'm thinking this guy already has his own wife, the step-daughter's mother. If he takes that mother and 4 children in to provide the covering, why does he have to have bedroom rights also?

 

[steve]

This wasn't a mother/child relationship. It was a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. No where in the book of Ruth do we see Boaz taking both Ruth and Naomi to wife.

That is my point, sorry if I wasn’t clear. This marriage is the closest possibility we have to a man marrying a daughter and a mother.
He didn’t, and we have no other examples that I know of.

 

[Keith Martin]

That is my point, sorry if I wasn’t clear. This marriage is the closest possibility we have to a man marrying a daughter and a mother.
He didn’t, and we have no other examples that I know of.

And the exceptions-that-prove-the-rule examples we have even in our supposedly-depraved times are still rare enough and don't apply to the kind of men who are legitimately seeking more than one wife to drag them out to paint those looking to clarify the nuances of Scripture with the "egregious sin" association.

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

And the exceptions-that-prove-the-rule examples we have even in our supposedly-depraved times are still rare enough and don't apply to the kind of men who are legitimately seeking more than one wife to drag them out to paint those looking to clarify the nuances of Scripture with the "egregious sin" association.

Totally agree!

 

[Keith Martin]

One has to ponder the mindsets that would have been passed down to the children being reared in a setting where grandpapa is daddy and the children knowing they had the same daddy.

Hi, my friend @rejoicinghandmaid!

One can ponder those mindsets all one wants, but that mindset-pondering is a 20th-Century invention that not only doesn't apply to Old Testament culture but couldn't, because it's a concern that just wouldn't have existed back then. We have become far more squeamish about such things in the meantime, especially in the last 60 years, during which time people stopped having the type of extended large families that regularly blurred the line between cousin and aunt/uncle. It just would have been a "that's the way it is" experience. They wouldn't have been wondering if the young unmarried typically-lesbian female Child and Family Services worker was going to condemn them for having a father who was also their mother's father, and a great deal of the supposed 'damage and dysfunction' 'traumas' we've now come to assume are real wouldn't have even been imagined back then (most of which aren't even real right now). It's too easy to forget that the majority of the supposed suffering those of us who live in luxurious times experience is a matter of having talked ourselves into believing we've been put upon and that it justifies being stuck in our lives instead of moving forward.

A child's mind is so easily bent, and theirs would definitely have been bent away from YHWH! The fact that the girls thought there "was no other man to come in unto us" so they lay with their father is a direct indictment against Lot's view towards the seed of Abraham (eventually Israel). He, of all people, KNEW where Uncle Abraham lived, that Abraham had a thriving family with plenty of eligible young men to whom he could have sought covenant for his daughters. Scripture says "(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing anf hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;" 2 Peter 2:8
The fact that the Ammonites and the Moabites both refused hopitality to the nation of Israel to pass through their land as they left Egypt is no surprise. Lot sowed that bent in his daughters who in turn sowed that bent in their children with grandpapa/daddy Lot continuing to reinforce what he'd sown in his daughters.

I'm one who thinks men are predominantly responsible for everything that happens in their families -- and that they should be held accountable in that way. However, that doesn't let anyone else entirely off the hook. Because at the moment I don't want to review all the details of the story of fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm just going to assume them to be exactly as you've described them. What I find missing in your description, though, is the daughters' responsibility, not to mention the responsibility on the part of Mrs. Lot (who couldn't even be bothered in the midst of major societal meltdown to follow the directions of the only person in her orbit who was actually paying attention and had a clue what needed to be done, which was get out of Dodge). What might have been different about the scripts of the girls had Mrs. Lot been unsalty enough to still be present to prevent her daughters from (what we would now call) raping (or at the very least taking advantage of) their drunk father? And why put all the weight on Lot for the girls' failure to recognize that there were lots of eligible dudes in their uncles clan? Not to mention why they couldn't delay gratification a bit and get themselves knocked up by their own husbands?

I'm convinced there were NO children under the age of accountability in Sodom and Gamorah when God judged those cities.

I'm curious: what inspired this conclusion? Surely everyone hadn't over a decade earlier abandoned all vaginal sexual intercourse. We know they didn't have access to foolproof birth control.

Even though Lot's daughters had husbands, they were still virgins when they left that morning.

And, if their choice to seduce their own father was primarily made in order to ensure the continuation of his bloodline, then we need no further evidence that their culture was different from ours to the extent that that difference is nearly incomprehensible to us.

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

Hi, my friend @rejoicinghandmaid!

One can ponder those mindsets all one wants, but that mindset-pondering is a 20th-Century invention that not only doesn't apply to Old Testament culture but couldn't, because it's a concern that just wouldn't have existed back then. We have become far more squeamish about such things in the meantime, especially in the last 60 years, during which time people stopped having the type of extended large families that regularly blurred the line between cousin and aunt/uncle. It just would have been a "that's the way it is" experience. They wouldn't have been wondering if the young unmarried typically-lesbian female Child and Family Services worker was going to condemn them for having a father who was also their mother's father, and a great deal of the supposed 'damage and dysfunction' 'traumas' we've now come to assume are real wouldn't have even been imagined back then (most of which aren't even real right now). It's too easy to forget that the majority of the supposed suffering those of us who live in luxurious times experience is a matter of having talked ourselves into believing we've been put upon and that it justifies being stuck in our lives instead of moving forward.

I'm one who thinks men are predominantly responsible for everything that happens in their families -- and that they should be held accountable in that way. However, that doesn't let anyone else entirely off the hook. Because at the moment I don't want to review all the details of the story of fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm just going to assume them to be exactly as you've described them. What I find missing in your description, though, is the daughters' responsibility, not to mention the responsibility on the part of Mrs. Lot (who couldn't even be bothered in the midst of major societal meltdown to follow the directions of the only person in her orbit who was actually paying attention and had a clue what needed to be done, which was get out of Dodge). What might have been different about the scripts of the girls had Mrs. Lot been unsalty enough to still be present to prevent her daughters from (what we would now call) raping (or at the very least taking advantage of) their drunk father? And why put all the weight on Lot for the girls' failure to recognize that there were lots of eligible dudes in their uncles clan? Not to mention why they couldn't delay gratification a bit and get themselves knocked up by their own husbands?

I'm curious: what inspired this conclusion? Surely everyone hadn't over a decade earlier abandoned all vaginal sexual intercourse. We know they didn't have access to foolproof birth control.


And, if their choice to seduce their own father was primarily made in order to ensure the continuation of his bloodline, then we need no further evidence that their culture was different from ours to the extent that that difference is nearly incomprehensible to us.

I'm curious: what inspired this conclusion? Surely everyone hadn't over a decade earlier abandoned all vaginal sexual intercourse. We know they didn't have access to foolproof birth control.
Not to mention why they couldn't delay gratification a bit and get themselves knocked up by their own husbands?

Those girls were virgins when they left Sodom. They married homosexual men! There wasn't any man having sex with his woman. When the men of the town clamoring at the door were offered by Lot both of his virgin daughters for the entire night (I still can't wrap my pea brain around that one) to a man, they'd have none of it! They wanted the "new flesh"--males--that had just arrived in town! Their husbands burned with Sodom. They mocked Lot when he carried the message of the angles to them. When the girls lay incestuously, yes, I agree--raping their own father--they were now widows. What they did was just wrong IMO. Desperation and fear doesn't ever justify wrong doing. I think those 2 factors definitely cloud our ability to think clearly, which is why waiting in those types of situations would always be a safe guard to some extent.

It's too easy to forget that the majority of the supposed suffering those of us who live in luxurious times experience is a matter of having talked ourselves into believing we've been put upon and that it justifies being stuck in our lives instead of moving forward.

Not sure I follow this line of thought. I know of adult women who were molested for years by a step-father in one case and an uncle in another who'd taken the girl into his home under the guise of providing for her. Both of these women have become well-adjusted ladies as mothers, leaders of women's Bible studies, and faithful wives. Both of their testimonies is this: "I didn't let it identify who I was." They both had to walk through years of healing and dealing with what happened to them--something over which they had no control as children. There's a reason the LORD God put the guidelines in the Book.

And, if their choice to seduce their own father was primarily made in order to ensure the continuation of his bloodline, then we need no further evidence that their culture was different from ours to the extent that that difference is nearly incomprehensible to us.

I agree the principle of securing the bloodline is foreign to us.

And why put all the weight on Lot for the girls' failure to recognize that there were lots of eligible dudes in their uncles clan?

I've never understood WHY Lot didn't run with all his might back to Uncle Abraham where he knew there was shelter and safety. When the angels encouraged Lot to head to the hills there was fear in his heart. He wanted to settle in one of the small towns close to Sodom and then ended up in a cave--which amounts to going into hiding--from what? Why didn't he take those girls and head back to family? Was it pride? Uncle Abraham had already rescued Lot's entire family once. He knew Abraham's heart. Uncle Abraham had been the peacemaker at the outset.

Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate it.

 

[Joleneakamama]

Many interruptions let this get longer then I intended. Here is my "two bits" worth rather then 2 cents.

If we had a limited supply of stones with which to execute people, which would we believe we should punish more severely?

The stones are reusable...TOTALLY!
The people should see to it that the judgment YHWH specified is carried out, no more, no less.

a. Man A married his own biological daughter and was known to have already consummated that marriage;

Given that sex often results in children there is a potential problem with example A here that goes beyond the relationship dynamic. Then further problems genetically speaking are very likely if other people....or especially the children produced from such unions do the same.
In other words it isn't an example your children can follow, or a behavior that can be copied without PROBLEMS.

But asserting that something was clear enough to be a death-penalty offense when translation problems exist and we're not even the people with whom Father had that particular set of covenants is problematic.

I don't really see translation problems. If a man wanting more then one wife avoids marrying a woman AND her mother, or a woman AND her daughter he will clearly avoid the deadly judgment without having to know for sure if he could have had that foxy senior lady, or that youthful babe in addition to the wife he already had if he just drew the line in the right place in his house, and slept with the women in different rooms.
The Caananites were not in that particular covenant either but YHWH still judged them and their actions according to His unchanging moral standard.

My vote is that the worst is Man D, followed closely by Man A. Both are clear violations of Scripture, but Man D's transgression is worse, because he is responsible for not only his part in the matter but for encouraging the two other people to have sex with their own near kin -- which in the Levitical context deserved the death penalty.

The moral instructions in Leviticus were given to men, and no prohibition exists for women having "sexual relations" with women....because to put it bluntly they don't have the equipment to do that anyway.
This means the instruction given was probably not about preventing a mother daughter pair from seeing each other naked (why would this matter) and I doubt it all boiled down to wether or not they were witnessing or participating in sex at the same time with the same man. It appears to be identifying relationships between certain people that should exist without a sexual element, not about isolating the sex.

Being married to the same man puts the women on equal footing to each other in many ways. This is part of why Sarah had issues with Hagar. She thought she could just use her hand maid as a baby maker....but the interpersonal relationships between them all changed. Because of this shift I suspect marriage to the same man would be problematic for many if not all mother and daughter pairs.

The word "Take" is used so often relating to marriage in general that it seems a chancy thing to limit it to consummation activities in this one instance.

Laws, rules, policies, guidelines, etc. are not just for the purposes of meting out judgment or preventing gossiping or boasting -- but perhaps are primarily intended to engage consciences. Their primary function is to prevent, through inspiring the average person to recognizing that something tempting should not be pursued.

Agreed for sure! Even if the mom in law is HOT!

Too much incest has historically been done for varying reasons.
I think that the prohibitions against mother daughter wives are there to shut down men rationalizing themselves into relationships that would be complicated and confusing or damaging (how ever you wish to define it) for the women, but I guess if the boundary is not seen as insurmountable, some men will still try to find a hole in the fence.

There is a saying "Fences must be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong." Or of course one can just eliminate problem critters like I did when I canned all the chickens that wouldn't go back to roost in the coop.
Here in this scriptural example the deterrent might be sufficient that even if a man started talking about what he thought was a hole in the fence, some in the community gatherin' some "farwood" might just make him look again at that hole n decide it just wasn't as big as he first thought, and he might end up in a bad way if'n he tried it!

I'd say the judgment prescribed for that kind of wickedness (and I dont believe it was burning people alive, but rather after stoning) should be a deterrent to any thinking man who wants to enjoy life, with or without wives!

I'm not asserting that such a scenario would be common, but I am asserting that it's questionable to lump all wife/mother - stepdaughter/daughter frameworks into one compartment that comes up looking creepy.

I didn't see any qualifying verses in the good book that said it was ok if it wasn't "creepy." No matter how common the scenario you described was, I doubt very many people would choose to "bet their lives" on it.

 

[FollowingHim]

Those girls were virgins when they left Sodom. They married homosexual men! There wasn't any man having sex with his woman. When the men of the town clamoring at the door were offered by Lot both of his virgin daughters for the entire night (I still can't wrap my pea brain around that one) to a man, they'd have none of it! They wanted the "new flesh"--males--that had just arrived in town!

What scriptural basis do you have to think that no man was having sex with women, and Sodom was full of homosexuals?
Scripture clearly tells us the sins of Sodom in Exekiel 16:49-59 and Jude 1:7. Note in Jude that the word "strange" is "heteros". Can you see anywhere in those verses, or anywhere else, where Sodom is condemned for homosexuality?
Look at it carefully, and you'll see that nowhere in scripture are we ever told that the men of Sodom committed a SINGLE homosexual act, let alone so many that they hadn't had sex with a single woman for a decade. This is church tradition, NOT scripture. Scripture never mentions human to human homosexuality in relation to Sodom, ever.
Yes, the men were so attracted to the ANGELS ("strange", "heteros", "different" flesh) that they weren't interested in taking women as an exchange for them. And they were condemned for going after this strange, angelic flesh (among many other sins listed in the above verses).

The girls had not married anybody yet. They were only betrothed. That's why they were still virgins.

 

[FollowingHim]

I think that it is a different way of saying that a man cannot marry his own daughter.

While I would definitely disparage marrying your stepdaughter, I don’t see that it crosses the same lines.

This verse does not forbid you from marrying your daughter, rather from taking a WOMAN and HER daughter. This is defined based on the mother, not the father.
If the euphemisms "uncover the nakedness" and "take" mean "marry", then you are forbidden from marrying your daughter, and equally forbidden from marrying your stepdaughter.
If they only mean "have simultaneous sexual contact with", then this particular verse does not forbid you from marrying either your daughter or your stepdaughter.
@steve, the distinction you are drawing does not come from scripture. It is something you are reading into the text based on your own emotional reaction to the different situations. We need to derive the meaning from scripture.

I agree with @Joleneakamama's reasoning on why this is unlikely to refer to simply simultaneous sexual contact, and makes a lot more sense if it is taken to mean marriage. And even if this is in doubt, it's a whole lot safer to take the conservative view and assume it means marriage.

The moral instructions in Leviticus were given to men, and no prohibition exists for women having "sexual relations" with women....because to put it bluntly they don't have the equipment to do that anyway.
This means the instruction given was probably not about preventing a mother daughter pair from seeing each other naked (why would this matter) and I doubt it all boiled down to wether or not they were witnessing or participating in sex at the same time with the same man. It appears to be identifying relationships between certain people that should exist without a sexual element, not about isolating the sex.

Being married to the same man puts the women on equal footing to each other in many ways. This is part of why Sarah had issues with Hagar. She thought she could just use her hand maid as a baby maker....but the interpersonal relationships between them all changed. Because of this shift I suspect marriage to the same man would be problematic for many if not all mother and daughter pairs.

The word "Take" is used so often relating to marriage in general that it seems a chancy thing to limit it to consummation activities in this one instance.

 

[Keith Martin]

It's too easy to forget that the majority of the supposed suffering those of us who live in luxurious times experience is a matter of having talked ourselves into believing we've been put upon and that it justifies being stuck in our lives instead of moving forward.

Not sure I follow this line of thought. I know of adult women who were molested for years by a step-father in one case and an uncle in another who'd taken the girl into his home under the guise of providing for her. Both of these women have become well-adjusted ladies as mothers, leaders of women's Bible studies, and faithful wives. Both of their testimonies is this: "I didn't let it identify who I was." They both had to walk through years of healing and dealing with what happened to them--something over which they had no control as children.

My point is that, over human history and in recent decades especially, we have collectively invented 'traumas' and 'symptoms' that had hitherto not existed. Remember, I say this as a former psychotherapist (and one who left the field because it became obvious to me that the easy majority of what goes on in psychotherapy amounts to the therapeutic field drumming up business for itself -- job security -- by brainwashing clients into seeing themselves as victims who cannot handle life without psychotherapy for their victimhood). We have also, in the past century or so, invented concepts like adolescence and the supposed necessity for an idyllic childhood such that, if we didn't have one, we have somehow been cheated. Life has always been hard, but I can promise you that, back in Old Testament times, no one received a hero's badge for successfully navigating childhood to survive into adulthood. Here's what I watched play out over and over and over again with clients of my fellow childhood-sexual-abuse psychotherapists: the most common reaction children have to being the recipient of forced sexual behavior on the part of an adult is to be bothered by it. What do they want, when it comes down to it?: for a responsible adult in their orbit to put a stop to it. That's all. That's why they inform someone of what is going on. When the child is abused, the child informs an adult, and the adult dispassionately pulls the levers that put a stop to the abuse, the child is not only happy but will go on with life as if nothing any more traumatic than falling out of a swing had occurred. But, in modern times, that's not what usually happens. Instead, the child informs an adult, the adult -- in the presence of the child -- becomes mildly-to-more-likely-significantly hysterical, declaring -- again, in the presence of the child -- that the child has been forever traumatized by the event or events, that the perpetrator deserves to be put to death (or worse) for his or her transgression, and -- more often than not -- that having been touched or penetrated in whatever way s/he was has somehow 'spoiled' the child's sexuality in general forever or stolen the child's virginity specifically. The child is then dragged to a mental health center, which sets several things into motion, including the involvement of a social services worker (again, more often than not a young, unmarried, often lesbian, female with one of the easier undergraduate degrees to obtain), who proceeds to ramp up processes that can include everything from court proceedings at which the child must testify, supervised visits with offending family members, and even temporary removal from the home into the foster care system (where, statistically, those who enter it average 3 placements before returning home, and, again statistically, 1 in 4 placements end because the child has been physically or sexually abused by a foster parent -- which, for those of us who passed Algebra I, translates into a 3/4 chance when entering foster care due to having been abused to be further abused while in foster care). Fortunately, in most cases the child avoids foster care. However, the easy majority of sexual abuse therapists are convinced that every sexually-abused child has been traumatized for life -- and proceed accordingly, which includes in perhaps even most cases browbeating the child into taking on an interpretation of the situation that aligns with the therapist's. I came to the sane conclusion that, on average, considering the long-term consequences of taking on a victimhood mentality, the 'therapeutic' damage was, on average, worse for most of these children than the original abuse.

But that's just one example of how our culture persuades people to think that life shouldn't be difficult and that it excuses future lack of success. I think, collectively, we are beginning to recognize this in our identification of a 'snowflake' generation that now demands that they be shielded even from ideas they experience as discomforting. The message is that having a Leave It To Beaver life is an entitlement and that we not only shouldn't expect full adult functioning from anyone who didn't experience that entitlement but we should laud those who refuse to use having had a rough life as an excuse to stand on the sidelines as some kind of super heroes.

We have to remember the context of what we read in The Bible. Don't forget that, until less than 200 years ago in this world, children had no higher status than that of chattel. No one was worrying about whether they might be having nightmares. They were expected to start contributing as soon as possible and be strictly obedient about it. Adults were all people who had lived through that status. Many punishments we are now squeamish about were known back then to be the only safeguard against sloth and disobedience.

Personally, I'm proud of people who live through difficult circumstances (I had some of my own), but I also know that putting the emphasis on those difficulties generally enfeebles people instead of inspiring them. We absolutely do live in luxurious times, in a country where we are relatively free from the daily struggle for survival that typified the entire world until recent centuries -- and still typifies many areas of the world today. I'm of the opinion that we should be very careful when we speak in a way that invents interpretations that define people as damaged-goods victims, because that itself is an insidious form of abuse.

 

[Keith Martin]

What scriptural basis do you have to think that no man was having sex with women, and Sodom was full of homosexuals?
Scripture clearly tells us the sins of Sodom in Exekiel 16:49-59 and Jude 1:7. Note in Jude that the word "strange" is "heteros". Can you see anywhere in those verses, or anywhere else, where Sodom is condemned for homosexuality?
Look at it carefully, and you'll see that nowhere in scripture are we ever told that the men of Sodom committed a SINGLE homosexual act, let alone so many that they hadn't had sex with a single woman for a decade. This is church tradition, NOT scripture. Scripture never mentions human to human homosexuality in relation to Sodom, ever.
Yes, the men were so attracted to the ANGELS ("strange", "heteros", "different" flesh) that they weren't interested in taking women as an exchange for them. And they were condemned for going after this strange, angelic flesh (among many other sins listed in the above verses).

The Sodom and Gomorrah story has been consistently and inaccurately used as a way for people to justify further condemning homosexuality, but @FollowingHim is correct: they received God's wrath not for homosexuality but for insistently attempting to rape angels.

 

[Keith Martin]

This verse does not forbid you from marrying your daughter, rather from taking a WOMAN and HER daughter. This is defined based on the mother, not the father.
If the euphemisms "uncover the nakedness" and "take" mean "marry", then you are forbidden from marrying your daughter, and equally forbidden from marrying your stepdaughter.
If they only mean "have simultaneous sexual contact with", then this particular verse does not forbid you from marrying either your daughter or your stepdaughter.
@steve, the distinction you are drawing does not come from scripture. It is something you are reading into the text based on your own emotional reaction to the different situations. We need to derive the meaning from scripture.

I should probably take responsibility for some of this confusion, which is created by my injecting the multiple-choice question that brought Lev. 18 in with Lev. 20. I'm sure @steve knows that Lev. 20:14 is not referring to the man's own daughter. I just made up four scenarios to have us compare them.

Assuming that, even though (non-step) daughters are not specifically mentioned in Leviticus or Deuteronomy (or anywhere else) as prohibited sexual partners, the near-kin prohibition clearly covers daughters, I believe it is useful to study the distinctions inherent in Lev. 18 and 20. Both sex and/or marriage with one's daughter or the daughter of one's wife are therefore prohibited. However, when we look at the Hebrew from which these separate prohibitions are translated, we can't just slough off the distinction between what is written in Lev. 18 and what is written in Lev. 20. In Lev. 18, "uncovering the nakedness" is properly translated from "erˑwat lō təˑgâlâh", a well-known idiomatic expression for engaging in sexual intercourse that consistently implied the beginning of a marriage -- whereas, in Lev. 20:14, "yiqˑqah" is only chosen to be translated as 'marry' in this particular context by some versions, whereas it is, by an 803:4 ratio in the KJV translated by verbs like 'take,' 'take away,' 'take out' or 'carry away' (all examples of actions that wouldn't point to the formation of a voluntary partnership. God doesn't make mistakes, which means He doesn't cavalierly choose to use two different verbs to describe the same thing. Therefore, in my opinion, it behooves us to study for the purpose of uncovering the function of such distinctions. And, in this case, it would appear obvious, just based on the distinction between the punishments, that something specific about the transgressions in Lev. 20:13-15 set them apart from those in Lev. 18:6-18. We are exhorted not to usurp God's judgment, so it is important that we not incorrectly conflate two separate sets of transgressions and punishments, properly discerning the purpose behind the Divine use of different terms -- at least before we categorically condemn something. That's why I appreciate @steve's distinction between the forbidden and the inadvisable.

Let's be clear, I'm of the belief that any of the four scenarios I posited are inadvisable. It's also clear to me that Scenarios A and B are forbidden. I'm just suggesting that it may be incorrect to interpret 'yiqˑqah' as referring solely to marriage. By Old Testament definition, if a man is having sexual relations with a woman and is having sexual relations with that woman's biological daughter who is not his biological daughter, he is married to both of them. Once married, though, each time the man 'takes' either of his wives, we would not refer to this as 'remarrying' her, so this passage very well is pointing to an individual sexual encounter. We then, also, though, have to remember that even the 'and' has Divine purpose, and in combination with 'taking' I assert is very likely asserting a simultaneous sexual encounter -- something not normally prohibited but prohibited in this particular case; it didn't have to be mentioned in regard to having sex with one's wife and the daughter one fathered with that wife, because marrying that fully-biological daughter was already prohibited in Lev. 18:6.

I thank everyone who has been challenging me in this discussion for inspiring me to do some more of the required research necessary to write the book that will eventually come out of this!

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

My point is that, over human history and in recent decades especially, we have collectively invented 'traumas' and 'symptoms' that had hitherto not existed. Remember, I say this as a former psychotherapist (and one who left the field because it became obvious to me that the easy majority of what goes on in psychotherapy amounts to the therapeutic field drumming up business for itself -- job security -- by brainwashing clients into seeing themselves as victims who cannot handle life without psychotherapy for their victimhood). We have also, in the past century or so, invented concepts like adolescence and the supposed necessity for an idyllic childhood such that, if we didn't have one, we have somehow been cheated. Life has always been hard, but I can promise you that, back in Old Testament times, no one received a hero's badge for successfully navigating childhood to survive into adulthood. Here's what I watched play out over and over and over again with clients of my fellow childhood-sexual-abuse psychotherapists: the most common reaction children have to being the recipient of forced sexual behavior on the part of an adult is to be bothered by it. What do they want, when it comes down to it?: for a responsible adult in their orbit to put a stop to it. That's all. That's why they inform someone of what is going on. When the child is abused, the child informs an adult, and the adult dispassionately pulls the levers that put a stop to the abuse, the child is not only happy but will go on with life as if nothing any more traumatic than falling out of a swing had occurred. But, in modern times, that's not what usually happens. Instead, the child informs an adult, the adult -- in the presence of the child -- becomes mildly-to-more-likely-significantly hysterical, declaring -- again, in the presence of the child -- that the child has been forever traumatized by the event or events, that the perpetrator deserves to be put to death (or worse) for his or her transgression, and -- more often than not -- that having been touched or penetrated in whatever way s/he was has somehow 'spoiled' the child's sexuality in general forever or stolen the child's virginity specifically. The child is then dragged to a mental health center, which sets several things into motion, including the involvement of a social services worker (again, more often than not a young, unmarried, often lesbian, female with one of the easier undergraduate degrees to obtain), who proceeds to ramp up processes that can include everything from court proceedings at which the child must testify, supervised visits with offending family members, and even temporary removal from the home into the foster care system (where, statistically, those who enter it average 3 placements before returning home, and, again statistically, 1 in 4 placements end because the child has been physically or sexually abused by a foster parent -- which, for those of us who passed Algebra I, translates into a 3/4 chance when entering foster care due to having been abused to be further abused while in foster care). Fortunately, in most cases the child avoids foster care. However, the easy majority of sexual abuse therapists are convinced that every sexually-abused child has been traumatized for life -- and proceed accordingly, which includes in perhaps even most cases browbeating the child into taking on an interpretation of the situation that aligns with the therapist's. I came to the sane conclusion that, on average, considering the long-term consequences of taking on a victimhood mentality, the 'therapeutic' damage was, on average, worse for most of these children than the original abuse.

But that's just one example of how our culture persuades people to think that life shouldn't be difficult and that it excuses future lack of success. I think, collectively, we are beginning to recognize this in our identification of a 'snowflake' generation that now demands that they be shielded even from ideas they experience as discomforting. The message is that having a Leave It To Beaver life is an entitlement and that we not only shouldn't expect full adult functioning from anyone who didn't experience that entitlement but we should laud those who refuse to use having had a rough life as an excuse to stand on the sidelines as some kind of super heroes.

We have to remember the context of what we read in The Bible. Don't forget that, until less than 200 years ago in this world, children had no higher status than that of chattel. No one was worrying about whether they might be having nightmares. They were expected to start contributing as soon as possible and be strictly obedient about it. Adults were all people who had lived through that status. Many punishments we are now squeamish about were known back then to be the only safeguard against sloth and disobedience.

Personally, I'm proud of people who live through difficult circumstances (I had some of my own), but I also know that putting the emphasis on those difficulties generally enfeebles people instead of inspiring them. We absolutely do live in luxurious times, in a country where we are relatively free from the daily struggle for survival that typified the entire world until recent centuries -- and still typifies many areas of the world today. I'm of the opinion that we should be very careful when we speak in a way that invents interpretations that define people as damaged-goods victims, because that itself is an insidious form of abuse.

@Keith Martin --I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment of what happens with the whole DHS involvement. Your stats are spot on--and they're sad! Repeatedly we see a bad situation turn into an even worse by many degrees worse when that goverment agency gets their foot in the door. Often families left to themselves will somehow get it figured out IF the Lord is in that home. All bets are off if He isn't. With the laxadazical approach modern Christianity now views our almighty and holy Creator, even "church" homes are dealing with unthinkable sexual boundary breakers seen only in the past in the pagan homes. However, in no way do I wish to diminish what happens in the mind of a child of any age, whether male or female, who is taken advantage of by those who are supposed to be their covering and a part of their trust system. No matter where trust is broken, in the settings of childhood, before marriage, after marriage, employment, business partnerships, friendships, etc. there will be problems later and its unavoidable until the trust issues are somehow resolved in one's heart. Those are all choices, requires maturing, forgiveness, and looking ahead instead of a constant rearview mentality.

The utopian life that exists nowhere and the entitlement mentality are all facades and marages--figments of an imagination. Those who choose to live there go nowhere. It's like one has the foot on the gas pedal to the floor--the wheels are spinning at top rpm, slinging mud everywhere, but the vehicle sits motionless, mired to the axle.

Thanks, @Keith Martin, my friend! It's not often one gets to hear it from your professional perspective. We need to hear it!

 

[rejoicinghandmaid]

What scriptural basis do you have to think that no man was having sex with women, and Sodom was full of homosexuals?
Scripture clearly tells us the sins of Sodom in Exekiel 16:49-59 and Jude 1:7. Note in Jude that the word "strange" is "heteros". Can you see anywhere in those verses, or anywhere else, where Sodom is condemned for homosexuality?
Look at it carefully, and you'll see that nowhere in scripture are we ever told that the men of Sodom committed a SINGLE homosexual act, let alone so many that they hadn't had sex with a single woman for a decade. This is church tradition, NOT scripture. Scripture never mentions human to human homosexuality in relation to Sodom, ever.
Yes, the men were so attracted to the ANGELS ("strange", "heteros", "different" flesh) that they weren't interested in taking women as an exchange for them. And they were condemned for going after this strange, angelic flesh (among many other sins listed in the above verses).

The girls had not married anybody yet. They were only betrothed. That's why they were still virgins.

Scripture for how you know the girls were only betrothed? Because they were still residing in their father's house?

Angels in Scripture often appeared simply as human beings. HOW did the men of the city know these strangers were angels? I don't think they knew they were angels. They appeared as men.

 

[FollowingHim]

Jude clearly says they went after "heteros" (strange) flesh. What do you think that means, if not that they specifically went after the angels? The intent of the heart is what matters most to God. If they did not know they were angels, and simply wanted them sexually as men, they would not be accused of going after strange flesh as that was not what they were attempting to do. If anything, they would be accused of going after "homos" flesh, the opposite of what Jude states.

I struggle to see how two male travellers would so excite an entire town they would riot to rape them, unless they recognised there was something unique about those visitors.

The moment Lot saw them he bowed with his face to the ground and called them 'my lords'. Clearly he recognised something unique about them.

We know the daughters were only betrothed as they were virgins in their father's house. That's the simplest explanation. The idea that both had married homosexual men who were so staunchly homosexual they had never had sex with them once, yet still for some inexplicable reason wanted to marry them, presumably to keep house, yet left them living with Lot anyway, is an incredibly convoluted idea that may be technically plausible but is so extremely improbable it's not worth serious consideration. Particularly when the very idea it is based on, that all the men of sodom were exclusively homosexual, is also improbable and not stated in scripture.

Ocham's razor certainly applies here: the simplest explanation is most likely correct.

 

[mystic]

The message is that […] we should laud those who refuse to use having had a rough life as an excuse to stand on the sidelines as some kind of super heroes.

@Keith Martin, I think you meant, "those who refuse to engage with life but instead use having had a rough life as an excuse to stand on the sidelines."

children had no higher status than that of chattel.

Yup, great word. I tire of hearing "chattel" invoked as if it's a bad thing.

Thanks, Keith Martin, my friend! It's not often one gets to hear it from your professional perspective.

Agreed!