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ב''ה
Subscribe to ourQuestion: I was just reading up on sexual morality laws in the Torah. However, I saw a statement which surprised me. It said: “In the Hebrew Bible, sexual relationships between siblings are forbidden to Jews but permissible to Gentiles (non-Jews)”. Is that correct?
Answer: As a blanket, unqualified statement, it is not correct. Let’s examine this in more detail.
First, we must address a general point about the concept of morality versus the subject of Torah Law. Torah Law is based on G-d’s commandments that He gave through Moses at Mount Sinai, and extensions that have followed from those commandments. G-d did not take opinion polls from any groups of people or angels about what He should or should not command for people to follow, nor about which commandments apply to which people, nor about the conditions under which a specific commandment applies.
On the other hand, G-d provided considerable leeway for individuals, groups and societies to develop their own approaches within the context of those commandments. This can include being minimalistic in observance in some areas, and more strict than what’s commanded in other areas. Not to mention allowance for individual and cultural customs, and the development of man-made laws and legal systems by different societies.
What this means is that the term “morality laws in the Torah” is somewhat of an oxymoron. If we were to look at this strictly from the point of view of G-d’s commandments that He gave in the Torah, people should objectively all agree to make those the baseline and the basis for what they will consider to be “moral”. Then, one would accept something as “moral” if it is consistent with G-d’s commandments, and “immoral” if it is contrary to them.
However, G-d didn’t end His instructions to mankind after the Jews left Mount Sinai. He subsequently sent many prophets to relay His messages to the people. Mostly, they were spiritual / moral messages, not legal messages. Much of morality in G-d’s eyes is taught in Books of the Prophets and Holy Writings that make up the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Therefore, those teachings need to be included in a Divinely-based approach to morality.
A person could act within the letter of the Torah Law, but still be acting immorally in G-d’s eyes. If that happens, he should have chosen to follow a higher standard of behavior. This especially applies to the specific Seven Commandments for Gentiles, because those define the minimum standards of their allowed behavior. Therefore, the liability for transgressing any of the specific Seven Commandments is the same, and it is the maximum liability. That is liability to capital punishment from an empowered Noahide court (which doesn’t exist nowadays), or death by the hand of G-d.
In practice, there are many precepts that branch off from the Seven Commandments. Nations must also make their own laws, with lesser punishments, to establish safe and civilized societies in which everyone has the opportunity to thrive and put their G’d-given abilities to good use.
However, some societies still reject G’d-centered consciousness and adopt attitudes that contradict Torah. By doing so, they develop a cultural morality that calls what is bad “good” (or acceptable), and what is good “bad” (or unacceptable). For example, governments in a number of nations teach that homosexual relations, euthanasia and elective abortion are “morally” alright (although they are forbidden by G-d), and that circumcision of male infants and kosher slaughter are “immoral” (although G-d commands these for Jews and permits them for Gentiles).
All of that being said, I’ll now respond to your question. The statement you quoted is both inaccurate and incomplete.
Quoting from our web page of sources for the Seven Noahide Commandments:
Five of the six types of intercourse relations that are forbidden by G-d to Gentiles are covered in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” This verse explicitly forbids relations of a man with his mother, with a woman who has ever been his father’s domestic partner or certified wife, with a woman who is currently a domestic partner or certified wife of another man, with another male – and relations of a person with an animal.
A Gentile is also forbidden to have relations with his maternal sister, which is learned from Gen. 20:12: “Moreover, she is indeed my sister, my father’s daughter, though not my mother’s daughter; and she became my wife.” (Note that Abraham said this to appease Abimelech. It was actually only figuratively true in his case, since Sarah was the daughter of Abraham’s brother. So they had the same paternal grandfather, and the children of one’s children are like one’s own children.)
It also was universally accepted that father-daughter relations would be included. This is seen from the disgrace of Lot after having relations with his two daughters, following G-d’s destruction of Sodom. (See Gen. 19:29-36, and Rashi’s explanation of Gen. 20:1).
Besides relations between males, lesbian relations are also an abomination to G-d. They are both included in the subjects of the verse Lev. 18:3, which speaks against the immoral practices of the ancient Egyptians and Canaanites, and which Lev. 18:30 refers to as “abominable traditions”. The Midrash (Sifra) specifically names these abominations. “Men would marry men, women would marry women, and a woman would be married to two men”. (The first one and the third one are covered by the Noahide Commandment, but not the second one.)
That being said, another one of the Noahide Commandments is the command to establish laws and courts for the society. Within this context, Torah grants the right for societies to legislate that types of sexual relations that are not forbidden for Gentiles within the Noahide Commandment will be forbidden by the societal law. But societal laws should not be arbitrary. The law makers should have logical and useful (including medical) reasons for imposing additional restrictions. Therefore, nations are expected to make father-daughter relations illegal.
The Noahide Commandments say that this should not be declared to be a capital (i.e. death-penalty) crime. Beyond that, if a nation wants to make it illegal within the societal law to have sexual relations between a man and his paternal half-sister, or an uncle and his niece, or an aunt and her nephew, or between first cousins, or for a man to have more than one wife, they may do so. But none of those should be declared to be a capital crime.
We encourage everyone to read our on-line booklet that gives an introduction to the Noahide Code.
For more information, read about the two types of obligations in the Noahide Code.
– By Dr. Michael Schulman, Director of Ask Noah International
Noahide
