Prohibited Sexual Relations

(Leviticus 18:1 - 18:30)

Jehovah told Moses to instruct the people of Israel: "Thus says Jehovah, who is your god.  You should not behave like the people of Egypt, where you formerly resided, nor like the people of Canaan, into whose land I am bringing you.  Do not adopt their customs!  Obey my laws and follow my decrees, for I am Jehovah, your god.  By keeping my laws and decrees you will preserve your life.  Thus says Jehovah!

"No one should engage in sexual intercourse with any close relation.  Thus says Jehovah.

"Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother.  She is your mother, you must not have sex with her!  Nor should you have sexual relations with any of his wives. for that, too, would dishonor your father.

"Do not have sexual relations with a sister -- nor with a half sister, your father's or mother's daughter, regardless of whether she grew up with you in your household or not.

"Do not have sexual relations with your granddaughter, whether she be your son's child or that of your daughter, for that would dishonor you.

"Do not have sexual relations with a stepsister, a daughter of any of your father's wives, for she is still a sister to you.

"Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister: she is your aunt.  Nor should you have sexual relations with your mother's sister: she is an aunt.  Do not disgrace your father's brother by having sexual relations with his wife, for she is also an aunt.

"Do have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter, nor should you marry or have sexual relations with her granddaughter, whether the child of a son or daughter.  They are of her family and to have sexual relations with them would be an act of violation.

"Do not marry your wife's sister or engage in sexual relations with her while your wife is still living, for that would make them rivals.

"Do not seek to have sexual intercourse with a woman during the ritually impure part of her menstrual period.

"Do not dishonor yourself by having sexual relations with a wife who belongs to a member of your tribe.

"Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a human sacrifice upon the fiery altars of the god Moloch, for that would bring discredit upon the name of your god -- who is I, Jehovah.

"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one would with a woman, for homosexuality is an abomination.

"You must not defile yourself by having sexual intercourse with an animal, nor should a woman seek to have sex with an animal -- it is a perversion!

"Do not defile yourself by any of these acts -- which are practiced by the peoples I am going to drive out of the land before your arrival.  Even the land has become so completely defiled that I will punish it for its sins and make it eject its inhabitants as if they were vomit.  You must obey all my laws and decrees!  You must not commit any of these detestable acts: that applies to foreigners residing among you as well as native-born Israelites.  All of these acts are practiced by the inhabitants of the land where I am taking you, so much so that they have defiled the land.  And if you similarly defile the land, it will eject you as if you were vomit, just like the peoples who lived there before you.

"Anyone who commits these detestable acts can no longer belong to the community of Israel.  Therefore, observe my prohibitions against engaging in any of these practices that were done by the people who preceded you.  Do not defile yourselves with them!  Thus says Jehovah, your god."

Notes
1.  The people of Egypt, the land that the Israelites have left, and the people of Canaan, where they are to settled, are more or less demonized by Jehovah.  By painting your enemy as morally degraded or perverse, you lend greater justification for killing him.  It has always been done to justify war or invasion.  Even in America the Germans were portrayed as blood-thirsty, barbaric Huns during World War I, and in World War II the Japanese were dismissed as puny, subhuman Orientals with buck teeth and glasses.  Here, the Canaanites are depicted as indulging in immoral and unnatural sexual practices.  This furnishes a moral rationale for Jehovah's plan to drive them out of their country and give their land to the "virtuous" Israelites.

2.  It is well known that the Egyptians, the royal family at any rate, engaged in incestuous practices; marriages between close family members were preferred in order to preserve the purity of the royal line.  (The Pharaohs believed themselves to be descended from the gods.  Perhaps they were, perhaps they were the descendants of extraterrestrial hybrids and claimed kingship and divine devotion on that account.)

3.  The continuing theme of Jehovah's pronouncements is that his people, the Israelites, should zealously preserve their customs and the resist any pressure to alter them.  Assimilation, adaptation, these are an anathema.  The upside of this attitude is that a people is able to survive as a unique ethnic identity; the downside is that it tends to regard other peoples as alien, inferior, or evil.

4. The prohibition against sexual relations within the family seem very natural and are consistent with modern norms and with modern law.  (These were probably needed since their early history, recounted in Genesis, shows a marked tendency on the part of Hebrews to be severely inbred.)  There are a few prohibitions, however, that we today would find unnecessary.  While few might chose to have sexual relations with both a mother and a daughter, I'm not sure many would find that morally offensive in itself.  One is reminded that the actor Rod Cameron, a man who rode tall in the saddle, divorced his wife to marry his mother-in-law.  When he did so (in 1960), eyebrows were probably raised, but not moral indignation.  And as far as Americans today are concerned, the prohibition against sexual relations with in-laws, those related by affinity rather than by consanguinity, probably fits into the category of "nice people don't do it," but is not a matter for legal proscription.  England, though, has always been stricter on such matters, in accordance with levitical tradition.  For instance, rules of the Anglican Church long prevented a man from marrying his deceased wife’s sister.  (Although a few courageous souls, such as Jane Austen’s brother Charles, managed to get away with it.)   An English law of 1835 expressly forbade such unions until it was repealed in the early 20th Century.  Legal prohibitions against marrying an in-law of a living ex-spouse remained in effect there until 1960!  --- Moderns can be still be strict regarding sexual unions between those of close consanguinity -- in America cousin marriages are still illegal in about half of the states of the union.  Surprisingly, Leviticus makes no mention of cousins.

5.  Jehovah takes for granted the existence of polygamy, from which there arises some unique moral problems.  One is prohibited, for instance, from marrying the sister of a current wife (and disturbing the harem with sibling rivalry).  Such problems and the legality of marrying sisters, would again arise among polygamist Mormons of the late 19th Century. 

6.  Several Hebrew patriarchs seemed to have violated the sexual prohibitions stated here, for instance, Abraham was married to his half-sister Sarah.  Are these laws meant to apply to Israelites from this point onward, or are past offenders, who would have been unaware of the laws, subject to moral sanction?  Also, there is no suggestion by Jehovah that these laws are meant to apply to any people other than Israelites, his people.  He expressly states that other peoples live by their own laws, which, of course, are inferior to his.

7.  Nearly all the prohibitions here are directed towards men, and one gets the impression that woman are not considered morally conscious beings.  The sole law directed toward the female of the species is that she should refrain from seducing any animals and engaging in bestiality -- most flattering!  The honor and reputation of the woman does not seem to be a consideration in sexual relations, for instance, if you have sex with your dishy auntie, she is not the one who is disgraced, but the uncle.  Everything is from the male perspective.  Even though there is presented throughout the Old Testament a large number of influential and powerful women, it must be remembered that women were at that time the property of males.  And improper sexual relations with them often seem to be merely a violation of property rights.

8.  A provision that one would think would be easy to follow is not allowing your child to be sacrificed to Moloch, a Canaanite god who demanded human sacrifices.  At this point, the Israelites are still camped out in the desert of Sinai.  They hadn't seen Canaan yet and wouldn't for a very long time.  Why this prohibition should be inserted here is not obvious, since it has nothing to do with sexual conduct.   At any rate, the cult of Moloch was pervasive in the region.  Moloch was represented by a human figure with a bull’s head.  Statues would feature a hole in the belly and a ramp leading to it. Inside the hole a fire would consume sacrifices of babies and children, offered to ensure good fortune for the family.

9.  The condemnation of homosexuality is not surprising; only recently has it found any level of acceptance in Judeo-Christian culture.  It should be noted that while homosexuality has been disparaged as a perversion and a moral degradation, the disapproval of it also arises from the belief that it undermines procreation; societies in the past have usually had a strong interest in increasing their populations -- the Israelites certainly did.  (The author of Exodus brags about the tremendous growth in the Israelite slave population and inflates exponentially the number of people who could have participated in the Exodus.)  Homosexuality, however, was probably accepted, if not honored by many, if not most ancient peoples, although our knowledge on the subject is limited.  We do know the Greeks were famous advocates of the practice. (Plato, who apparently disapproved, was a rare outlier in his views.)  These opposing attitudes toward homosexuality highlight clearly the disparity between Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian mores.