Bible and Incest

[Peter_Dawson]

typology is a beautiful thing. but there is also too much of a good thing sometimes.Sometimes things are what they say they are.Typology falls under theology- that’s not where I’m coming from. I come from a scripture exegete perspective. One must be afraid of extracting or reading into something that is not there at least bible scholars are.
Frankly I don’t see the analogy- at least from my bookish perspective.

My experience so far is that a particlar type is ALWAYS used typologically, in Scripture.

 

[juliamajor]

My experience so far is that a particlar type is ALWAYS used typologically, in Scripture.

you’re talking of the donkey typology?I actually think you could make a typology out of the fact that donkey = meekness and mildness…But I don’t see the donkey as Christological typology.-to me it does not fit.But that’s fine-if it helps you connect OT to NT that that’s just peachy by me.

 

[Shin]

We are required as Catholics to believe in the literal existence of Adam and Eve.

And if I recall correctly there was scientific evidence showing we all come from the same ancestral mother.

But that is besides the point, God has said it, it is true.

In regards to incest. Times change. In the beginning, the human race was quite different than it was now. People could live for near a thousand years, they were much healthier than they are today, it can easily be assumed many other things were different.

In the beginning, incest would not be a genetic issue for health reasons. While incest would technically occur, it would be brief, because while everyone would initially be close relatives this would end swiftly as the human race spread out.

So, a brief tolerance of it because there was no other option for the propagation of the human race could be seen as a simple, necessary exception to the standard. Obviously familial relations between the immediate ancestors of Adam and Eve and the first parents would be different than any others, so it is an exception in numerous ways.

Noah and his family can be seen as the same sort of necessary extraordinary exception.

 

[tobinatorstark]

you’re talking of the donkey typology?I actually think you could make a typology out of the fact that donkey = meekness and mildness…But I don’t see the donkey as Christological typology.-to me it does not fit.But that’s fine-if it helps you connect OT to NT that that’s just peachy by me.

agreed

 

[Peter_Dawson]

agreed

It’s not a question of my choice – I didn’t invent these types. They are built into Scripture.

 

[tobinatorstark]

It’s not a question of my choice – I didn’t invent these types. They are built into Scripture.

show me some commentary proof from scripture of what you said about the Donkey.

 

[davidv]

It’s not a question of my choice – I didn’t invent these types. They are built into Scripture.

It is most certainly your choice. The words in the bible do not self define its types. These are discovered and defined by its readers.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

For the whole human race to be unified incest between Adam and Eve’s offspring was necessary. Adam and Eve were genetically pure and early on there was no issue with mutations.

A God who allows incest is disgusting & wicked. That sort of thing makes utter nonsense of the Church’s “unchanging” moral doctrine. Solution: the episode is not concerned with tying up all the loose ends, such as where to find a killer for Cain from. Or a wife.​

If the price of harmoning texts to make them look inerrant is, that God has to behave like a pervert or a pimp, that is a cost not worth paying. Far better to have an error-filled Bible, than a God with the morals of a procurer

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

There are several clear cases of incest in the Old Testament. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, begat two sons by his own daughters while in a drunken stupor (Genesis 19:30-35). Moses recorded the sordid act as a matter of history, but there is no sanction of the sin in the sacred text. In fact it is placed in a decidedly negative light. Ruben was intimate with Bilhah, his father’s concubine (Genesis 35:22) — a shameful act that was condemned and penalized (Genesis 49:4). Amnon, one of David’s sons, committed incest/rape against his half-sister, Tamar (2 Samuel 13:7-14), and, as a consequence, was murdered later by the order of Absalom, Tamar’s full brother (2 Samuel 13).

from: christiancourier.com/articles/950-does-the-bible-conflict-with-itself-in-the-matter-of-incest

Yet this is the book that is put in the hands of mere children. It is hideously violent - it contains everything the Moral Majority get in a lather about:​

• homosexuality
• incest
• adultery
• witchcraft
• murder
• genocide
• rebellion
• lying
• arson
• war
• massacre
• slavery
• and other delights

Alright, it doesn’t contain fetishism, S&M or bondage - but it contains everything else. It really ought to be censored - if children must be exposed to it, they should not on any account be given the Bible complete.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

The robe used to cover Noah = the Clothing Type = “religion,” “faith,” and such.

Naked Noah drunk with wine on the ground (very perceptive of you to bring up a parallel case) is dead Christ. The son who peered on his father’s nakedness is mankind wrongly viewing Christ without the “eyes of faith.” The sons who covered their father’s nakedness before looking are mankind correctly viewing Christ with eyes of faith, through the religion, Christianity.

So Christ curses those without faith and condemns them to slavery ? I hope not. ​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Well, here’s another: Jonah!!! Jonah sleeping on his ship, Jonah 1:5. When Jonah is afterwards cast into the Sea, that’s Christ “descending into Hell,” at the time of his death, as the Apostle’s Creed puts it. When the fish pits him out on the beach, that’s the Resurrection.

Just as long as that proto-Nazi Joshua isn’t one of these OT Christs Genocide & massacre are not Christian values - notwithstanding Joshua, Samuel, & other such horrible people. Joshua was the Adolf Hitler of the OT piously exterminating such untermenschen as Canaanites. Zip forward a few centuries - and the doer of such deeds becomes a hate-figure, damned & demonised by everyone but Neo-Nazis. Yet Joshua is in the Roman Martyrology. The utter destruction of Jericho = godly & saintly deed, well-pleasing to God; the utter destruction of Lidice in 1942 to avenge the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich = abominable war-crime. There’s no justice. ​

David’s another repellent OT character - rebel, traitor, man of blood, adulterer, murderer. And “good king Josiah” - religious fanatic & persecutor… Why is the OT so full of utterly revolting people ? And why on earth are Christians supposed to admire them ? If it’s not that fanatic & murderer Elijah, it’s that liar Abraham. It seems that anyone with a spark of human feeling - such as Saul - is on the list of those whom God takes against. It’s all very well to say, as one defence of the horrors of the Bible goes, that the sins of the saints are recorded to show that sin is wrong even in saints; but these people do not seem very saintly - they seem very unsavoury indeed.

Sorry to go off the topic like that

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

That is correct. And furthermore, not only is it not sanctioned, but its condemned, although its not so obvious to those of us in the 21st century. The tribes that resulted from this incestuous incident are the Amonites and the Moabites - two bitter enemies to Israel. The lesson to the children of Israel is that incest is wrong.

How is it fair to blame people for having failed to ensure they were not conceived in morally objectionable ciecumstances ? The Ammonites & Canaanites could not help their origin - even if that story were historically true, rather than being a vile fiction dreamed up by people who very obviously had their minds in the gutter. It’s on a par with the filthiest fantasies of some anti-Catholics ​

Apart from that, agreed.

“[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.” – Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

I think he had a point

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

donkeys were impure animals so couldn’t be used for sacrifice. hence their necks had to be broken(firstlings are God’s) . Neck breaking is a non- sacrificial mode of dispatching an animal.The owner had to offer a sheep in place of the impure donkey or else break it’s neck.
Jesus was no impure sacrifice.
Donkeys, foals, colts asses - have one thing in common- they are not full grown horses. The horse were a frequent symbol of violence and destruction(4 horseman of the Apocalypse comes to mind). Donkeys ,etc.were a symbol of peace and meekness…
Kings of Israel and Judah rode in procession not on horses but on these meeker animals.
If you saw a horse in a procession you’d take to the hills- something bad was coming.!
Conquerors and occupiers used horses but a good ruler depends and works for peace-so no horse.

But - see 1 Kings 1.34 (or 3 Kings, in some Bibles - it’s about Solomon…) ​

 

[NotWorthy]

A God who allows incest is disgusting & wicked. That sort of thing makes utter nonsense of the Church’s “unchanging” moral doctrine. Solution: the episode is not concerned with tying up all the loose ends, such as where to find a killer for Cain from. Or a wife.​

If the price of harmoning texts to make them look inerrant is, that God has to behave like a pervert or a pimp, that is a cost not worth paying. Far better to have an error-filled Bible, than a God with the morals of a procurer

Would you like to clarify this statement? Wouldn’t it be obvious that Cain and Seth would have had to take a sister for a wife?

 

[NotWorthy]

How is it fair to blame people for having failed to ensure they were not conceived in morally objectionable ciecumstances ? The Ammonites & Canaanites could not help their origin - even if that story were historically true, rather than being a vile fiction dreamed up by people who very obviously had their minds in the gutter. It’s on a par with the filthiest fantasies of some anti-Catholics ​

Where did I claim that they were cursed. The lesson to the Israelite, I believe I indicated was, “don’t commit incest or you’ll end up being as low as an Amonite”!

Apart from that, agreed.

“[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.” – Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

I think he had a point

GofG, what has gotten into you on this thread? Why do you look at the bad things that happened in the OT and ignore the lessons that they are conveying? I usually agree with your posts, but for some reason, you’ve gone off on a tangent that I’m not accustomed to from you.

 

[juliamajor]

The robe used to cover Noah = the Clothing Type = “religion,” “faith,” and such.

Naked Noah drunk with wine on the ground (very perceptive of you to bring up a parallel case) is dead Christ. The son who peered on his father’s nakedness is mankind wrongly viewing Christ without the “eyes of faith.” The sons who covered their father’s nakedness before looking are mankind correctly viewing Christ with eyes of faith, through the religion, Christianity.

Since this incident is not clearly understood in the OT how can it be used as a type in the NT? There is much speculation and not much clarity at all.

 

[tobinatorstark]

Since this incident is not clearly understood in the OT how can it be used as a type in the NT? There is much speculation and not much clarity at all.

Wait til this man’s book comes out!!! I have questioned just about everything he’s posted in this thread.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

How is it fair to blame people for having failed to ensure they were not conceived in morally objectionable ciecumstances ? The Ammonites & Canaanites could not help their origin - even if that story were historically true, rather than being a vile fiction dreamed up by people who very obviously had their minds in the gutter. It’s on a par with the filthiest fantasies of some anti-Catholics ​

Apart from that, agreed.

“[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.” – Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

I think he had a point

This is why Peter’s typology is so interesting. Because if you take the Bible, particularily the OT at face value, you are confronted by all these not very nice people, like you said, and told they were heroes doing God’s Will.

I truly believe the Bible is filled with allegory (or typology) - for example, Joshua and the sun standing still, the trumpets, etc. I don’t know what it means, but I bet Peter has some typology for Joshua.

 

[tobinatorstark]

This is why Peter’s typology is so interesting. Because if you take the Bible, particularily the OT at face value, you are confronted by all these not very nice people, like you said, and told they were heroes doing God’s Will.

I truly believe the Bible is filled with allegory (or typology) - for example, Joshua and the sun standing still, the trumpets, etc. I don’t know what it means, but I bet Peter has some typology for Joshua.

There is some allegory in the Bible, but not filled with allegory. Adam and Eve are not allegorical, neither is Moses, Noah, Abraham, Samuel, Jonah, Sampson, Isaias, Jeremias, Job, David, Jesus or the Apostles.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Again you are putting words in my mouth. It is quite clear you are taking Liber Genesis out of context. Think before you shoot off your mouth. Think what are you are saying. You have already said that Adam and Eve was fiction. That denies Church teaching. Why try and argue with the Magesterium? Then you insinuate that I thing that I found incest acceptable WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING DUDE??? Now you are questioning if I believe incest ever occurred. You have some nerve!!! I suggest you read some commentary from the Haydock Bible Commentary

haydock1859.tripod.com/

and I also suggest you reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

also the Code of Canon Law (1983)

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM

and the GIRM (General Instructions of the Roman Missal)

usccb.org/liturgy/current/revmissalisromanien.shtml

I doubt you have heard any of the above works. If you still want further information about the Bible, Church and its teachings, I suggest you read the documents of the Council of Trent

saints.sqpn.com/trent00.htm

the documents of Vatican II

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/

I would also read documents of the Nicea Council 1

fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nicea1.txt

and after all that I would say out loud the Nicene Creed and examine what you are to believe and do an examination of conscience

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

scborromeo.org/confess.htm

Hi, Toby. Instead of throwing mountains and mountains of citations at us, why not give us a staight answer?: Did Cain engage in sexual relations with his sister? “Yes,” or “no”? Pick one of those two words.