Jewish Views Of Incest
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Jewish views on incest deal with the
sexual relationship An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves Physical intimacy, physical or emotional intimacy. Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship involving ...
s which are prohibited by
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
and rabbinic authorities on account of a close family relationship that exists between persons. Such prohibited relationships are commonly referred to as
incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...
or incestuous, though that term does not appear in the biblical and rabbinic sources. The term mostly used by rabbinic sources is "
forbidden relationships in Judaism Forbidden relationships in Judaism ( ') are intimate relationships which are forbidden by prohibitions in the Torah or Rabbinic Judaism, rabbinical injunctions. Some of these prohibitions—those listed in Leviticus 18, known as ' ( he, עריו ...
."


Relationships forbidden in the Hebrew Bible

The
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
Hebrew: ''Tān ...
sets out several lists of relationships sexual relations between which are forbidden. Two lists appear in the
Book of Leviticus The book of Leviticus (, from grc, Λευιτικόν, ; he, וַיִּקְרָא, , "And He called") is the third book of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and of the Old Testament, also known as the Third Book of Moses. Scholars generally agree ...
and one list appears in the
Book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_th ...
. The lists only mention relationships with female relatives; excluding
lesbianism A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fema ...
, this implies that the list is addressed to men. In the Hebrew Bible, sexual relationships between siblings are forbidden to Jews but permissible to
Gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym for ...
s (non-Jews). Since the lists would then describe women with whom it is forbidden for a man to have a relationship, they also indirectly imply a list of men with whom it is forbidden for a woman to have a relationship. The lists are as follows: One of the most notable features of each list is that sexual relations between a man and his own daughter are not explicitly forbidden, although the first relation mentioned after the Levitical prohibition of sex with "near kin" is that of "thy father." (This assumes that the Torah is only speaking to men. If it is speaking to everyone, then a woman is not allowed to have sex with her father. It also explicitly prohibits having sex with a woman and her daughter. A man's daughter is obviously also the daughter of a woman with whom he had sexual relations.) The Talmud argues that this absence is because the prohibition was ''obvious'', especially given the proscription against a relationship with a granddaughter. As with the case of a man's own daughter, the shortness of the list in Leviticus 20, and especially of that in Deuteronomy, are explained by classical Jewish scholarship as being due to the ''obviousness'' of the missing prohibitions. Apart from the case of a man marrying his daughter, the list in
Leviticus 18 Leviticus 18 (the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Leviticus) deals with a number of sexual activities considered abominable, including incest, bestiality, and homosexuality (or sodomy). The chapter also condemns Moloch worship. It is part of ...
roughly produces the same rules as were followed in early (pre-Islamic) Arabic culture. However, most tribal nations also disliked exogamous marriage – marriage to completely unrelated people. Judaism's view is that prior to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, some of the prohibitions only applied voluntarily. Thus in several prominent cases in the Torah, the incest rules are ignored in favour of marriage to a close relative;
Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...
is described as having married his first wife's sister.


Secular views

Some secular
Biblical scholars Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 For ...
have instead proposed that forbidding incest with a daughter ''was'' originally in the list, but was then accidentally left out from the copy on which modern versions of the text ultimately depend, due to a mistake by the scribe.


Rabbinic views

In the 4th century BCE, the
Soferim A sofer, sopher, sofer SeTaM, or sofer ST"M ( he, w:he:סופר סת"ם, סופר סת״ם, "scribe"; plural of is , ; female: ) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Sifrei Kodesh (holy scrolls), tefillin (phylacteries), Mezuzah, mezuzot (ST" ...
(''scribes'') declared that there were relationships within which marriage is prohibited, in addition to those forbidden by the Bible. These additional relationships were termed ''seconds'' (Hebrew: ''sheniyyot''), and included the wives of a man's:
Yebamot Yevamot ( he, יבמות, "Brother's Widow", also pronounced Yevamos, or Yavmus) is a tractate of the Talmud that deals with, among other concepts, the laws of Yibbum (, loosely translated in English as levirate marriage), and, briefly, with conv ...
(
Tosefta The Tosefta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: תוספתא "supplement, addition") is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the late 2nd century, the period of the Mishnah. Overview In many ways, the Tosefta acts as a supplement to the Mishnah ( ...
) 2:3
* father's half-brother on their mother's side * mother's half-brother on their father's side * grandfather * grandson. The classical rabbis prohibited marriage between a man and any of his ''seconds'', on the basis that doing so would act as a ''safeguard'' against infringing the Biblical prohibitions;Yebamot 21a one
Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
ic opinion even arguing that the inclusion of the grandfather's wife and of the grandson's wife, among the ''seconds'', is based onYebamot (
Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
only) 2:4
the Biblical rule against a wife's granddaughter. There was however some debate as to which relationships, other than the four listed above, counted as ''seconds''; the Talmudic scholars and Rabbinic scholars of the middle age, the ''
Rishonim ''Rishonim'' (; he, ; sing. he, , ''Rishon'', "the first ones") were the leading rabbis and ''poskim'' who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, , "Set Table", a ...
'', variously included or excluded the following relationships from the ''seconds'' of a man: * grandmother's sister
Israel Lipschitz Yisrael Lifschitz ( he, ישראל ליפשיץ ; 1782–1860) was a leading 19th-century Ashkenazi rabbi, first in Dessau and then in the Jewish Community of Danzig. He was the author of the commentary "Tiferes Yisrael" on the Mishnah. Biograp ...
, '' Tif'ret Yisrael'' on Yebamot 2:1
* paternal grandfather's sisterYebamot 21b * paternal grandfather's brother's wife * grandfather's mother * wife's great-grandmotherYebamot 22a * wife's great-granddaughter (including great-granddaughter) * an uncle's grandson's wife The extent to which the forbidden relationships extend beyond the ''seconds'' is a matter of dispute, but all the Talmudic scholars agree that marriage to the wife of any male descendant, in the direct male line, was forbidden; some classical rabbis also included the wife of any male ancestor, in the direct male line, in this prohibition, as did all of the Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages. In the
Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
, some of the opinions even include all blood descendants and ancestors of the ''seconds'' in the prohibition. In relation to ''seconds'' related only by marriage, some proposed the general principle that it would be acceptable to marry anyone only related to a "second" by a further marriage; for example, a wife of a father-in-law (apart from the mother-in-law), or the stepson's daughter-in-law. However,
Israel Lipschitz Yisrael Lifschitz ( he, ישראל ליפשיץ ; 1782–1860) was a leading 19th-century Ashkenazi rabbi, first in Dessau and then in the Jewish Community of Danzig. He was the author of the commentary "Tiferes Yisrael" on the Mishnah. Biograp ...
interpreted this as forbidding even marriage to a wife's former husband's wife. At least all Talmudic opinions agree that it was theoretically permitted to marry a stepfather's wife (excepting the mother), and to marry a stepsibling (a man marrying his stepsister, etc.). Nevertheless, some of the opinions expressed in the Jerusalem Talmud argue that to avoid observers jumping to the wrong conclusions, marriage between stepsiblings, or between a man and his wife's stepmother, should be forbidden, or at least carried out somewhere that observers would not already know that the participants are step-relations. What is clear, is that no opinion in the Talmud forbids marriage to a cousin or a sister's daughter (a class of niece), and it even commends marriage to the latter – the closer relation of the two. The implied support for marriage between cousins appears to have historically been taken to heart; in 19th century England, the proportion of Jewish marriages occurring between cousins was 3.5 times higher than for the marriages of other religions; in the 19th century
Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...
the proportion was twice as high as that for Roman Catholics, and 12 times higher than that for Protestants.


In practice

Marriages forbidden in the Bible were regarded by the rabbis of the Middle Ages, the ''
Rishonim ''Rishonim'' (; he, ; sing. he, , ''Rishon'', "the first ones") were the leading rabbis and ''poskim'' who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, , "Set Table", a ...
'' as invalid – as if they had never occurred;''
Shulkhan Arukh The ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּך , literally: "Set Table"), sometimes dubbed in English as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Judaism. It was authored in Safed (today in Is ...
'', ''
Even Ha'ezer ( “The Stone of Help” or “The Rock of the ”) is a section of Rabbi Jacob ben Asher's compilation of halakha (Jewish law), ''Arba'ah Turim''. This section treats aspects of Jewish law related to marriage, divorce, and sexual conduct. Later, ...
'', 16, 1
any children born to such a couple were regarded as
mamzer In the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religious law, a ''mamzer'' ( he, ממזר, , "estranged person"; plural ''mamzerim'') is a person who is born as the result of certain forbidden relationships or incest (as it is defined by the Bible), or the de ...
rim "bastards", and the relatives of the spouse were not regarded as forbidden relations for a further marriage. On the other hand, those relationships which were prohibited due to qualifying as ''seconds'', and so forth, were regarded as wicked, but still valid; while they might have pressured such a couple to divorce, any children of the union were still seen as legitimate. In general, the Jerusalem Talmud is more restrictive in regard to incest than the
Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
;
Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
, following
Joseph Karo Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, also spelled Yosef Caro, or Qaro ( he, יוסף קארו; 1488 – March 24, 1575, 13 Nisan 5335 Anno mundi, A.M.), was the author of the last great codification of Jewish law, the ''Beit Yosef (book), Beit Yosef'', and it ...
, generally follow the incest regulations of the Jerusalem Talmud, while
Sephardi Jews Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
, exemplified by
Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
, tend to follow the Babylonian Talmud.
Joseph Caro Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, also spelled Yosef Caro, or Qaro ( he, יוסף קארו; 1488 – March 24, 1575, 13 Nisan 5335 A.M.), was the author of the last great codification of Jewish law, the '' Beit Yosef'', and its popular analogue, the ''Shu ...
, "
Beth Yosef Beth may refer to: Letter and number *Bet (letter), or beth, the second letter of the Semitic abjads (writing systems) *Hebrew word for "house", often used in the name of synagogues and schools (e.g. Beth Israel) Name * Beth (given name) lists ...
" on '' Eben ha-'Ezer'', 15:kl39a
Thus
Jacob ben Meir Jacob ben Meir (1100 – 9 June 1171 (4 Tammuz)), best known as Rabbeinu Tam ( he, רבינו תם), was one of the most renowned Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis and leading French Tosafists, a leading '' halakhic'' authority in his generation, and a g ...
deliberately wrecked a wedding, stopping the marriage and spoiling the banquet and celebrations, because the man would have married his father-in-law's wife. The classical rabbis regarded the incest regulations as being too important and too open to misinterpretation to be taught in public, instead requiring that, when it is taught, it must be taught to each student individually. They also argued that on occasions when the Bible was read in public, and the reading happened to involve some of the Biblical rules against incest, then the reading must be stopped, if the reader interprets the regulations in a different way to the Talmudic opinions.'' Megillah'' 6:9


Karaite views

The Karaites, who reject the authority of Talmudic opinions, interpret the biblical prohibitions differently. The early Karaites adopted the principle that marriage was a true and full union – each spouse was to be considered legally as the same person, and hence someone related to one spouse was seen as having exactly the same relation to the other. Applied to the Biblical regulations, this produced drastically simple rules, prohibiting marriage between almost all relations and spousal relations, except that a man could still marry his niece (or step-niece) and his grandmother (or grandfather's wife, or spouse's grandmother, or spouse's grandfather's wife). However, it also prohibited marriage to the relatives of every subsequent husband of a divorced wife; if just a few women here and there engaged in serial monogamy (repeated marriage then divorce, to different people), there would be no-one left on the planet able to marry absolutely anyone else. In the 11th century, two Karaite reformists rejected the principle that a marriage was a true and full union, instead arguing that the only relationships that should be forbidden were those analogous to those in the biblical prohibitions. Dividing the principle relatives into two groups: * First-degree relatives – parent, stepparent, sibling, sibling-in-law, child, and child-in-law * Second-degree relatives – aunt (including uncle's wife), uncle (including aunt's husband), grandchild, grandchild's wife They organised the forbidden relationships into five or six categories: * First-degree relatives, their direct ancestors, and their direct descendants * Second-degree relatives, their direct ancestors, and their direct descendants * First-degree relatives of the spouse (e.g. a man marrying two sisters, or a woman and her daughter), and their ''rivals'' (the wives of their husbands) * Second-degree relatives of the spouse (e.g. a man marrying a woman and her granddaughter) * The relative (by blood or marriage) of a relative's spouse, if such a marriage would create a ''parallel'' relation (e.g. a man marrying his brother's wife's sister, his grandfather's wife's granddaughter, or his uncle's niece); near-parallels are regarded as ''parallel'' relations (e.g. a man marrying his father's wife's sister, or his brother's wife's mother) for this purpose; stepsiblings are regarded as siblings for this purpose * Second-degree relative's spouse's first-degree relatives (e.g. a sister-in-law's aunt); stepsiblings are regarded as first-degree relatives for this purpose. This last category is included by only one of the two reformists. This reformed list of prohibited relations was subsequently adopted by almost all Karaites.


See also

*
Arayot Forbidden relationships in Judaism ( ') are intimate relationships which are forbidden by prohibitions in the Torah or rabbinical injunctions. Some of these prohibitions—those listed in Leviticus 18, known as ' ( he, עריות)—are considere ...
*
Incest in the Bible Incest in the Bible refers to sexual relations between certain close kinship relationships which are prohibited by the Hebrew Bible. These prohibitions are found predominantly in and , but also in Deuteronomy. Jewish views on incest are based ...


References

{{Incest Incest
Incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...
Incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...
Incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...
Point of view