Incest - when did it become a bad thing??

by pandora 33 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  lauralisa

  incest: the interpretation

  Pandora's question is valid in that it points out how the practice of incest is condoned (scripturally even!) in some situations, but taboo in others.

  There are of course different responses to the word "incest", dependent of course on what the word means to the individual.

  It can indicate a means of reproduction, usually a result of a desperate attempt to maintain a "bloodline" or family name. The bible has more than several situations that fall into this seemingly - innocuous category.

  Or it can signify a horrifying abuse of power where an adult who is a sick fuck forces someone over whom they have immense influence and power to do something that results in hideous psychological damage to the abused.

  It is not surprising that a reasoning person will question the context of the term. Having endured enough talks glorifying Lot and his escapades and how they furthered "kingdom interests" and having to accommodate the fact that incest was integral to the interaction, and having that whole incest concept be dismissed as "whatever", as my guts filled up with balloons of fear and confusion and I exerted myself strenuously to remain seated in the little rows of cramped chairs among people who consciously extended respect and gratitude to this historic man who not only got "drunk" and seemingly allowed himself to get seduced by his daughters (EXCUSE ME, BUT I HAVE NOTED IN MY NOT SO SHORT LIFE THAN DRUNK MEN ARE NOT REALLY CAPABLE OF HAVING "SUCCESSFUL" SEXUAL RELATIONS, and going into the sordid possibilities of someone being so pathetically drunk that they don't even notice the fact that the person trying to seduce them is their own daughter(s) is something I'd rather not go into right now, if ever...) so that finally, Jesus could get born; and yes, this is a little fragment of history captured for our benefit so as to illustrate how Jehovah's divine plan was carried out.....

  Again, the end result for the unthinking masses: Don't think about this. Take our spin on it. Nothing bad ever happens, and if it does, just pray more and attend all of your meetings and enmesh yourself with our lifestyle, pretend that it is not devoid of meaning, and YOU TOO CAN BE DRUNK LIKE LOT, and maybe you will be the mother of Jesus, someday.

  It's only water from a stranger's tear (Peter Gabriel)
• 

  Eyebrow2

  Well...I think the major difference is that 1)it was consenting adults and 2)they didn't know about genetics. If it was not consensual, it was rape...just like when Tamar was raped by her half brother.

  But
• 

  ballistic

  I found some excellent links regarding the Adam and Eve of evolution:

  http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/adameve.html

  there is also a link on that page to the statistical evidence of a common ancestor.

  p.s. I'm getting carried away these ideas on common ancestors, I realise it is only loosly connected to the incest question, but it remains a fact that if we all come from one set of parents, there was incest there somewhere. It also means we're all related, so shall we start calling people bro and sis? lol.

  I was too far out... and not waving but drowning - Stevie Smith
• 

  JanH

  ballistics,

  There have been some serious misunderstanding on this topic, and you seem to base your opinion here on most of them.
  

  Geneticists can prove scientifically that we all came from one pair of humans, in the same kind of genetic studies which trace families of virus.

  No, no, no, no. Scientists talk about the "mitochondial Eve" and also has a "Adam" figure (I can't remember exactly which genetic component he is named after), but they were not even our most recent common ancestors, neither were they the only humans in the world at the time (she could have had millions of contemporaries!), the first humans, nor did they live at the same time and place.

  I sometimes wished scientists weren't so fond of allegory.

  This would point to the fact that there was not either evolution en-mass occurring across the primates, or that the survival of the fittest concept gradually spread succsesively stronger genes throughout the population.

  I can't see that this sentence even makes sense.

  The theory of "punctuated equalibrium" would seem to be compatible with this.

  This does not make sense.

  Scientists actually nick name our original pre-decessors "Adam & Eve".

  Yikes! This is what I said about misunderstandings. The "mitochondrial Eve" has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the Biblical Eve myth, except the name. She was not the first human (far from it!), she was not the only woman on Earth, she was simply the last living woman who happened to become ancestor to all presently living humans in the purely maternal line. As such, she was certainly not our most recent common female ancestor.
  

  Therefore, I think it stands to reason that whether you believe in creation, or evolution, there was a time when incest was not only "allowed" but the only option available.

  Sorry, this is total and utter rubbish.

  - Jan
  --
  "People are apprehensive when they meet me. They think I'm going to eat
  them. But underneath it all, I'm quite shy." - Freddie Mercury
• 

  ballistic

  quote:
  It has been postulated that all humans share a single common ancestoral mother. This is called the Eve Hypothesis. The evidence is based upon the genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA); a form of DNA which follows only the maternal line. Scientists have found that all humans presently alive share identical mtDNA. This leads to the conclusion that all humans presently alive have descended from one, common to all, female ancestor. Estimates are that she lived approximately 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.
  I'm coming up with more and more stuff like this. I'm not an expert, but it seems compelling (particularly the statistical evidence).
  Some of the articles admit there to be controversy in differing viewpoints. I'm glad for your feed-back, what is your belief based on?

  I was too far out... and not waving but drowning - Stevie Smith
• 

  JanH

  ballistic,

  Some of the articles admit there to be controversy in differing viewpoints. I'm glad for your feed-back, what is your belief based on?

  That we all have some single ancestor in the purely maternal line is as controversial as saying we have (or had) a grandmother in the maternal line (our mother's mother). I don't see what you're getting at. The reason the "mitochondrial eve" is important is that mitochondria goes from mother to child only. The genes are not "confused" by the messy sexual "blending" of genes, so a lot of statistical analysis is based on this.

  Whoever you quote, it's someone who really doesn't know the topic very well, or know it well, but cannot communicate it very well.

  What I am telling you are just pretty obvious facts, deducted from the idea that all humans have one father and one mother. Think it over, and you will understand it, too. I don't have time to look up sources for you since I am at work now. Maybe later.

  - Jan
  --
  "People are apprehensive when they meet me. They think I'm going to eat them. But underneath it all, I'm quite shy." - Freddie Mercury
• 

  Abaddon

  Sparticus; read the first post, idiot. The poster wasn't saying anything in favour of incest.

  ballistic; you say "Geneticists can prove scientifically that we all came from one pair of humans". This is an overstatement. Some geneticists believe that, but many do not. Those that do believe in the human genome being tracable to a single pair are a small sub-group of the adherants of the 'Out of Africa' theory.

  There is still not enough data to move human origins from theory to verifiable fact, other than in generally supporting an evolutionary mechanism.

  http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/sap.htm
  

  The origin of modern Homo sapiens is not yet resolved. Two extreme scenarios have been proposed. According to the first, the distribution of anatomical traits in modern human populations in different regions was inherited from local populations of Homo erectus and intermediate "archaic" forms. This "Multiregional Hypothesis" states that all modern humans evolved in parallel from earlier populations in Africa, Europe and Asia, with some genetic intermixing among these regions. Support for this comes from the similarity of certain minor anatomical structures in modern human populations and preceding populations of Homo erectus in the same regions.

  A different model proposes that a small, relatively isolated population of early humans evolved into modern Homo sapiens, and that this population succeeded in spreading across Africa, Europe, and Asia -- displacing and eventually replacing all other early human populations as they spread. In this scenario the variation among modern populations is a recent phenomenon. Part of the evidence to support this theory comes from molecular biology, especially studies of the diversity and mutation rate of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA in living human cells. From these studies an approximate time of divergence from the common ancestor of all modern human populations can be calculated. This research has typically yielded dates around 200,000 years ago, too young for the "Multiregional Hypothesis." Molecular methods have also tended to point to an African origin for all modern humans, implying that the ancestral population of all living people migrated from Africa to other parts of the world -- thus the name of this interpretation: the "Out of Africa Hypothesis."

  My understanding of the incest taboo is that any children growing up the same household for an extended period prior to puberty will not normally view each other sexually, other than possible 'doctors & nurses' experimentation prior to puberty.

  Parents normally do not view their children sexually. It's hard to say if that's cultural or instinctive, but it would be quite unusual for it to be a purely cultural behaviour; many 'higher' animals have forms of instictive behaviour that minimise inbreeding.

  Wild horses, for example; the dominant male of a herd will not only drive out colts when they become sexually mature, but filly's too.

  There is some evidence I have read (can't recall where and my first search for a ref got me a paper on Hupa and Hualapai, and I should do some work today... ) that smell and taste are possibly used to 'sample' someones' genetic compatability. If this is so, a close relative will tend not to 'smell' good (in terms of sexual attraction).

  So, looking at the inbuilt attitudes of the writers of the Bible, all they were doing was putting this on paper.

  Obviously a creation myth with one pair does inevitably result with incest in the story line, but this and a few other examples aside, the Bible merely mirrors a near world-wide cultural taboo against incest rooted in instinct. It wasn't the Bible, or the Gilgamesg epic that made incest bad, it was already viewed that way.

  As to why incest is a bad thing, well, it concentrates genes, so defects arise more frequently, especially in boys as they only have one 'X' chromosone, so if there is 'bad' coding on their 'X' it cannot be compensated for by another 'X' as it can with girls (which is why boys suffer from more inherited genetic defects than girls).

  OBVIOUSLY there are other societal and psychological reasons it is a bad thing, but those scarsely need stating.
• 

  bijou

  Pandora,

  If you want the JW explanation for why these things were allowed and then disallowed, I believe it's in the book Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. I can't say that for certain, because I no longer have a copy. Anyhow, they say that when man was closer to his "perfect" state, he lived longer and his genetic make up was closer to perfection. According to what I read from the JWs, as time went on, it was necessary for J-god to prohibit sexual relationships between close family members in order to prevent transmission of diseases.

  I am going from memory here, maybe someone with access to the CD-rom can give you a more accurate explanation.
• 

  blondie

  Current explanation of why close relatives could no longer marry by the time the Law was given:

  "Reasoning from the Scriptures" page 253 Heading: Marriage

  Why was brother-and-sister marriage not inappropriate at the beginning of mankind’s history? God created Adam and Eve perfect and purposed that all humankind descend from them. (Gen. 1:28; 3:20) Obviously some marrying of close relatives, especially within the first few generations, would occur. Even after sin made its appearance, there was relatively little danger of marked deformities in the children during early generations, because the human race was much closer to the perfection that had been enjoyed by Adam and Eve. This is attested to by the longevity of people then. (See Genesis 5:3-8; 25:7.) But about 2,500 years after Adam became a sinner, God prohibited incestuous marriage. This served to safeguard the offspring and it elevated the sexual morality of Jehovah’s servants above that of people around them who were then engaging in all manner of depraved practices.—See Leviticus 18:2-18.
• 

  MrMoe 2

  The Eve Hypothesis seems to be just that - a hypothesis or theory. If this is correct and (and I believe it is correct) - I will try to play the argumentative party here. Where did the various races come from, was there a gene mutation. The races don't just vary in skin color and facial and body shapes, they doffer within themselves. Some tribes in Africa that are dark in skin can be unusually tall where others are a little over 4 feet tall. Also, too, what about the theory of Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal man? Where do these come into play? To be honest, I do not think science is far enough advanced yet to truly trace the origin of human DNA after thousand of years of breeding, be it 6,000 years or 200,000 years.

  I have not yet had the chance to look at these theories forth, but I will make it a point to visit the link you all have provided as well as obtain a copy of the book you mention Ballistic.

  And Eyebrow : Quote (EXCUSE ME, BUT I HAVE NOTED IN MY NOT SO SHORT LIFE THAN DRUNK MEN ARE NOT REALLY CAPABLE OF HAVING "SUCCESSFUL" SEXUAL RELATIONS

  Yes, a drunk man can have sex - my husband is a prime example. As far as forgetting, I have no idea because I have always been aware of what I am doing when I am drunk - but - I have a very hard time controlling my actions. If it was thousands of years ago and Lot did not have to education to know incest was wrong or forbidden and his daughters came to him in a drunken state, it is possible for him to have sex in the dark and not see who it was, maybe even thinking he was hallucinating or "out of it" and went along with it willingly. I must say, my mother in law and father in law are both alcoholics as well as the fact some of my friends are heavy drinkers. I have heard of blackout drinking where a person is so wasted they are truly unaware of what goes on around them. This is a medical debate for some since some physiologists believe it is a cop-out and some medical doctors feel it can be proven.