How come it was ok for people in the old testament to marry their siblings?

Question

When did this change, If it ever happened??

Answer 1

Well, if you believe all that, we're all horribly inbred because in the beginning there was only Adam and Eve. There's only one way their children could have continued breeding...

Answer 2

The question you ask is a bit difficult to answer if we consider the full Old Testament (including Genesis), but it is a bit easier if we consider the later parts of the Old Testament.

Historically, the peoples described int the Old Testament were generally smaller communites that didn't have that many people living togehter. As such it wasn't uncommon for the community to be related to each other through their family trees, however, there were still rules in place on who could marry whom. Immediate family was out of the question for obvious reasons, and if my memory serves me correctly, the same applied to first cousins as well.

However, past the first cousin there really wasn't much of a resection due to the fact that if your village only has about 200 people living in it then odds are if you keep track of your family tree, they are all your cousins. Thus, it was acceptable due the size of the population, the larger the community, the less it was accepted as there were more people that you could marry.

Interestingly, most of the modern laws regarding whom you can marry traces back hundreds if not thousands of years and is based on principles that people of those times could recognize. Depending upon where you live, it is still legally acceptable to marry a second or third cousin if they are related to you by marriage and in some cases, you can marry a third cousin if they are related to you by blood in part because it can be extremely difficult to trace who your third cousins are.

The link below is a chart of how cousins relate to you, and as you can see, even second cousins can be quite distant from you genetically.

Answer 3

There is a passage in the Bible (sorry can't cite where) that forbids this and the person ask God to restore his half sister as his wife (and I believe they already had children).

Many people today say that it will cause birth defects and such but this is a position taken from a religious belief and ignorance. Other countries (not the Bible based US) have studied this and there is at most a 1 in 5 chance of a birth defect with sibling parents. This increases if inbreeding is repeated for generations. Genetic testing for recessive genes can determine if there is any danger for siblings (and anyone else) to have children.

This was allowed early on because it kept wealth and power concentrated within ruling families. Later on when the world expanded political alliances needed to be formed and people married those from other tribes and nations to avoid war or increase power and wealth.
This continues today in more acceptable forms. For instance Hollywood actors (despite terrible failure rates) usually marry one another. Most people from the Forbes 500 list marry into a family on the list. So, marriage of social class has replaced marriages of family siblings.

Just for the record I think 2 adults should have the right to marry one another if they choose regardless of family status (or sex) regardless of people's outrage or prejudice.

Answer 4

According to some bible site I was looking at, the gene pool was at that point uncorrupted and without defect, so siblings marrying wouldn't have produced mutant babies.

There's a long history of ancient royal lines marrying their half sister. It's not forbidden until quite late in the bible. I think at about the time of Moses.

Answer 5

It is still perfectly legal to marry your first cousins in the UK ... 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins. In Bradford it's estimated that 3 out of 4 marriages within the Pakistani community are between first cousins. Unfortunately one in ten children born to parents who are first cousins tend to die or develop a disability.

Answer 6

Probably because it was common practice at the time and the bible reflects humanity as the writers knew it at the time it was written. Due to limited scientific knowledge, they wouldn't have been aware that it would be directly responsible for birth defects and other medical problems too.

Answer 7

Because those were the only people on earth. Biblically speaking. I think the bible isn't very ummm, real.

God impregnated someone else's wife, and then massive inbreeding went on to make the rest of the human population. If this was true, the human population would be completely messed up by now.

I think it changed when the population grew big enough.

Answer 8

Unfortunately The Bible was written by man and is full of contradictions that all get explained away by people who need to believe in something. I have never read The Bible but I know a lot of people who do and they inform me that Gay people are a crime against God so what can we learn from this? Should we stone them? of course not as they have as much right to breath as anyone else so I say do not pay too much attention to The Bible as it will limit the quality of your life considerably. Sorry if that offends anyone but it is my point of view and it works for me [live and let live] .

Answer 9

It was still going on in the early 1900's also. In the south a wealthy family often betrothed their children to second and third cousins in order to keep their wealth in the family. I guess that's where kissing cousins come from.
Now, we have more laws and this type of marriage is actually illegal.

Answer 10

i think it only happened when adam and eve were trying to populate the planet and i suppose they had no choice as there were only siblings or mum and dad to have sex with in Genesis!

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from a bible site (link below)
GOD COMMANDED ADAM AND EVE TO BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY. THERFORE I BELIEVE THAT THEY HAD MORE CHILDREN AND AS THE CHILDREN GOT OLDER THEY MARRIED THEIR SIBLINGS.
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its kinda happening still in China, although the siblings are not blood related, there's such a shortage of females that parents with a boy child (they're only allowed one unless they pay huge fines) will buy a girl child, raise it as their own and marry her to their son when the children become adults. But as i say, they are not blood related.

its a funny old world!