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This time on The Bible Rules, a journey into sex in the ancient world. Sex is

something that's highly encouraged.

From rules about the genitals.

An erect peanut at a crossroads. To commands about incest.

Full brother -sister marriage was permitted.

The Bible shines a light on taboos and fetishes as old as time.

Most animals would be embarrassed by the amount of sex that human beings have.

What was the ancient world really like?

The answer may be hidden in thousands of rules and commandments in the Bible.

Some are shocking.

Some mysterious.

All reveal lost details about the world that was.

The past is now.

The Bible is the best -selling book of all time. A holy book for billions.

In it are nearly 2 ,000 laws, rules, or commands.

These were not just rules of God. They were often rules mankind invented and

lived by, especially when it comes to sex.

Around the 7th century BC, in the holy city of Jerusalem, we find one of the

most surprising rules of the Bible.

If two men are struggling and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband

from the hand of the one who is striking him and seizes his genitals, then you

shall cut off her hand. You shall not show pity.

So we have in Deuteronomy chapter 25, 11 through 12, this strange passage.

A man gets in a fight with another one.

The wife decides to intercede by grabbing the genitals of the other man.

She's to have her hand cut off for doing that.

It's a bizarre story.

It's such a specific rule. Those key details.

Two men fighting. The wife steps in.

Genitals are grabbed.

All in a street fight that happened 3 ,000 years ago.

But what's it doing in the Holy Bible?

Who would think of such a thing unless it happened once?

So let's say it did happen then.

Isn't it only natural for a woman to defend her husband from an attack?

Or does this kind of encounter look dramatically different to people in the

ancient world?

Even the experts have a hard time understanding what it means.

Well, even the enemy of your husband's genitals is more important than the

woman's hand.

And because this law is so strange, so without parallel to my knowledge, it's

not entirely easy to interpret.

This is not one of those passages that a boy growing up in Sunday school

normally memorizes.

To deconstruct this rule, let's begin with the most explicit detail.

One man's genitals.

Why is it such a big deal in the ancient world for a woman to get hostile there?

A clue might lie in a peculiar practice that has existed since the prehistoric

Stone Age.

Penis worship.

All over the ancient world, From Egypt to India, men and women both worshipped

the physical shape of the penis, known to the Greeks as a phallus. What I guess

the word is shocking to a modern audience is the evidence for phalluses

everywhere in the ancient Greek world.

That's because the Greeks thought the penis had a sort of holy power to

people from evil.

And no penis was more holy than a god's penis.

There were statues of Hermes with just the head of the god and then a pillar

an erect penis in the middle of the pillar at a crossroads. This is

For further proof, you don't have to go all the way to the ancient world. Just

take a trip to modern Greece, where even today the city of Ternovos holds an

annual celebration of the erect phallus.

So could all of this ancient reverence for the power of the penis explain the

severity of this Bible rule?

Male genitals are divine, in other words. So they're off limits, even in a

and death struggle.

There's just one hitch.

The rule doesn't forbid the husband in the fight from assaulting the genitals

his enemy.

Suggesting this rule could have more to do with who is doing the grabbing than

what is being grabbed.

They don't say that about, what if the son of one of the men...

does that. No, women are not allowed to do that, that's all. Why? Because

they're women.

If that's true, do clues elsewhere in the ancient world provide evidence?

A big one might be found inscribed into a seven -foot -tall piece of black

diorite stone, now standing in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

It's one of the ancient world's great wonders, the Babylonian Table of Laws,

known as the Code of Hammurabi.

Its 282 laws are believed by historians to be a critical influence on the Bible

rules. So could the laws about women inscribed in the Code of Hammurabi

the harshness of this rule?

According to that code, women are property of their fathers or husbands,

especially when it comes to matters of sex.

They're less than men. They can be stoned to death.

There was a time where a woman had no rights at all. And if a man decided he

wanted to kill her, he could kill her. And because he was a man, he wouldn't be

held responsible at all.

So given the enormous influence of this ancient Near Eastern code, which shaped

law and society from Egypt to Persia, it may not be so surprising to discover

that if a woman actually tried to hurt a man, especially between his legs, the

penalty would be drastic.

There are boundaries that are not to be transgressed. When she seizes the

manhood, the genitalia of the man is an attack on his masculinity.

She cannot dishonor any member of the club of men.

It's impossible to know for certain if that's the real reason for this Bible

rule about an ordinary street fight.

There's nothing else like it in the Old or New Testament, and there's no woman

in any of the Bible stories who loses her hand for attacking a man's private

parts.

Yet the penis and testicles do make an appearance in another Bible rule with a

very different message.

If a man's testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted

to the assembly of the Lord.

In other words, a man with damaged privates can't enter the holy temple of

So does that explain why a woman would be harshly punished for attacking a

privates in the earlier rule, because he can't enter the holy temple?

Or is there something else going on here?

A hidden clue to the real face of the ancient world.

Over 3 ,000 years ago in India,

Ancient scribes write in a sacred text known as the Rig Veda, describing the

worst curse that could ever befall a man. There's clearly recognition in the

text that penis is a sign of male virility. A man may be cursed to have a

vagina, which is seen to represent a complete loss of virility.

In ancient India, over 4 ,000 years ago, men without virility had a name. They

were known as eunuchs.

But who or what exactly were the eunuchs?

Non -heterosexual sexuality in India tends to get thrown into a kind of a

bag. And that grab bag ends up in this so -called eunuch community.

Among the eunuchs, some are castrated males. Few are non -castrated males who

may have strong homosexual feelings.

Some children are given up. They just end up with this community. Others are

drawn to it. It's a catch -all phrase.

Some eunuchs could be warriors.

Malik Kafur, for instance, a castrated slave, began to serve the Sultan of

northern India around 1300 AD.

Kafur rose in the ranks to become a famed military commander, ultimately

defeating the Mongols and conquering large parts of southern India.

And there is also evidence of a powerful eunuch class in the Bible, in the Book

of Kings, in the story of Ahab and Jezebel.

One of the...

Kings of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 9th century BC was named Ahab,

and his wife was Jezebel.

They had a summer house, and Ahab got literally sick with longing for his

neighbor's property, but he wouldn't do anything.

So Jezebel took matters into her own hands and trumped up a charge of

and treason against the owner of the vineyard.

and the citizens of the town went along with the false witness and stoned the

owner of the vineyard to death.

Immediately thereafter, the prophet Elijah told Jezebel that she would be

punished by having her body thrown to the dogs. Her blood would be trampled in

the streets.

Eunuchs are the ones who fulfill that prophecy, hurling Jezebel out of a

window.

Yet the truth about this Bible rule may have nothing at all to do with eunuchs

and everything to do with Israelite ideas about holiness.

That part of the male anatomy was a way of understanding who is in and who is

out. This Bible rule is about to open up a new portal to the ancient world where

sex is about a whole lot more than just a good time.

The Bible rules open up a panorama of sex in the ancient world, shining a

on taboos and fetishes long gone.

Sex shows up so often in the Holy Book that a common slang phrase, get

was coined.

Get biblical, just another way to say, have sex.

And among the Bible's numerous rules about sex are a few choice ones about

male sex organs, like this one.

If a man's testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted

into the assembly of the Lord.

But why do the writers of the Bible care whether a man's testicles are crushed

or not?

It may sound primitive to a modern ear, but in the ancient world, tribes were

often defined by their physical attributes.

That part of the male anatomy and its preservation was a way of understanding

who is in and who is out.

A brutal reality.

People with intact testicles made the cut.

People with crushed ones didn't. This was part of what it meant to be God's

people. And if you are missing any element, you're out.

You're simply out.

In using their bodies to define themselves, the ancient Hebrews were far

alone. In biblical times, tribal societies found distinct ways to look

sometimes with piercings.

Persian soldiers wore small hoops, the Aztecs sported lip rings, and Roman

warriors even pierced their nipples.

These are all typically markers of ethnicity in any society.

And you can even think today of people who wear their hair in a particular way

or dress in a particular way.

A culture defines itself by how it differs from another culture.

So if you understand the importance of ancient man's physical appearance, this

Bible rule starts to make more sense.

The condition of a man's genital said everything about who he was and what

community he belonged to.

The Bible rules are a portal to the ancient world, plunging us back

years into civilizations long vanished.

And now that portal is about to open again, taking us to a completely

place with this Bible rule about marriage.

When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall

be charged with any business. But he shall be free at home one year, and

cheer up his wife, which he hath taken.

In other words, if a man is newly married, he should stay home and keep

happy. This might sound like an ancient form of a honeymoon, but over 2 ,000

years ago, when this rule was written, people got married in a world where

nothing was guaranteed.

We're looking at a society with rampant infectious diseases, with pretty bad

nutrition. People die often, they die young, they die violently, and they die

childbirth. Infant mortality was very high.

Up to half of infants didn't make it through their first two years.

Maternal mortality was also very high. So women died at relatively young ages.

High rates of infectious disease and lack of modern medicine made for

epidemics, like the 2nd century AD Antonine Plague, a plague of smallpox

knocked out a mind -blowing 5 million people in the Roman Empire.

And then there was the problem of constant warfare.

War took a major toll.

It could reduce the population of a city drastically. Even a city like Athens

lost unbelievable percentages of their population.

Ten percent in a serious loss.

Can you imagine?

The likelihood that you will make it past 30, 35 was pretty low.

In a world where people were dropping like flies from illness and violence,

every moment with your wife counts.

But maybe this rule isn't just about spending quality time with the wife.

Maybe it's about how exactly you spend that time.

Sex is something that's highly encouraged in ancient Israelite society.

Procreation and perpetuating man's lineage are of the utmost importance.

The Israelites were a small people, always in danger of going to war with

neighbors or their rulers.

The Romans, for instance, who waged several wars against the Jewish people

200 years, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

It was a community that was constantly at risk from neighbors.

And it was a community that really had to close in upon itself for its own

survival.

There was only one way to keep that community growing.

More babies.

A lot of pressure on men to have biological children. A lot of pressure

to carry those children. You need to produce a lot of boys to go fight the

so that you'll have at least one or two who will survive the wars to keep the

population going.

And the Israelites weren't the only community to see the value in more

Their enemies, like the Romans, did too.

The Roman Empire had a shockingly high mortality rate.

Some historians believe the average Roman male of the upper classes only

to the age of 25.

Women lived even shorter lives.

Those who made it to 40 were lucky.

That may explain why the Roman Emperor Augustus took practical steps to make

sure Roman families grew.

It was a matter of sheer survival.

Families that had three children or more were exempt from a certain kind of tax.

So you do have a stress on marriage and the production of legitimate children

who will be your heirs simply from the point of view of a social necessity.

So in a sense, the empire demands that a woman becomes a baby factory.

At the height of its power, the Roman Empire ruled over 65 million people.

Every one of them prayed a disease and war.

The only way to beat or cheat death, children.

So maybe it's no surprise now that our Bible rule encourages a man to stay home

and cheer up his wife by making babies.

But is it possible this rule contains a final warning to men, too, about the

serious dangers of leaving home?

Leaving home always opens new temptations.

And leaving home always creates new problems. So a man goes off to war, he

not come back.

Temptation can come in many forms, including another woman.

And according to one rule, that other woman must be avoided at all costs.

But I say to you that anyone who has looked at a woman with lust has already

committed adultery with her in his heart.

Translation. Even thinking about a woman other than your wife is cheating.

That's a tough one. You know, I worry for the souls of the 28 million people

that read the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. You know, are they going

burn in hell?

Before we can understand what this rule is really about, it's necessary to take

a closer look at a commonplace occurrence, adultery.

What do we really know about a habit that never seems to go out of fashion?

Adultery is universal.

Every society that has been studied revealed common adultery. It seems to be

very, very difficult for our species to resist.

Not only does adultery seem to be innate to our species, but scientists have

found that there are few animals having as much sex as humans.

Humans don't have sex just for procreation, but also for pleasure and

socializing, which sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.

We are among a very few species that has sex when the female is not

ovulating. We have sex when she's already pregnant. We have sex when she's

lactating. We have sex when women are postmenopausal, when they're

The only other mammals that have sex for social reasons are chimpanzees,

bonobos, monkeys, and dolphins.

Most animals would be embarrassed by the amount of sex that human beings have.

But as we'll see, in the ancient world, Sex with the wrong person has deadly

consequences. You don't want to be the next person's stone.

The Bible rules are a gripping portal into the ancient world, especially when

comes to sex.

A central theme of the writers of the Bible who laid down this rule about

adultery ascribed to Jesus in the first century A .D.

But I say to you that anyone who has looked at a woman with lust has already

committed adultery with her in his heart.

In this rule, even the thought of desire is considered adultery.

This rule seems to be asking people to go against their very nature.

In fact, some of the most famous men in the world have admitted to breaking it.

In a 1976 interview with Playboy magazine, President Jimmy Carter said,

looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many

God knows I will do this and forgives me.

Jimmy Carter might have been confident in God's power to forgive, but the

writers of the book of Matthew weren't so sure.

To investigate this rule's meaning, we have to answer a crucial question.

Did adultery 2 ,000 years ago mean what it does today?

It's important to recognize that adultery in the ancient world consists

sleeping with a woman who is married to someone else.

So a man in a polygamous society like the ancient Near East could sleep with

woman he wanted as long as she wasn't married to someone else.

So the rules are different for men and women.

And weirdly, in ancient Israel, the punishment varied according to where

the affair took place.

If a man sleeps with another man's wife and it happens in the city,

both are executed.

because both are presumed to have committed consensual adultery. If a man

with another man's wife, but it happens outside the city, then the woman is

presumed to have not consented, because if she had cried out, no one would have

heard her.

And so the woman is not executed, but the man is.

Capital punishment might sound drastic for breaking the marriage vow, but the

tribal societies of the ancient world revolved around blood.

Family was everything.

And if a woman slept with a man other than her husband, she could get

More than just a scandal in the ancient world, the child of an illicit affair

could spell doom for a man and his descendants.

The woman might even pass along a child born by the seducer as

though it were her husband's, therefore violating the male line in the family.

Breaking these rules would have been a tremendous threat to knowing one's

lineage.

The Romans, too, saw adultery as a threat.

In the first century, the Emperor Augustus wrote a series of laws he

Lex Julia, meant to rein in extramarital affairs.

Under this law, the guilty parties would be executed in the public amphitheater,

stoned to death in front of thousands of onlookers.

It's a way of making an execution, a public event, that the whole community

shares in.

And in so doing, the whole community is given a dose of fear. You don't want to

be the next person stoned.

Clearly, committing adultery is a very bad thing for the ancients.

But this New Testament rule kicks it up a notch.

A man who even thinks about another woman is already committing the act

It might sound cruel to judge someone for just their thoughts, but in the

ancient world people believed that a person's thoughts held a mystical and

dangerous power.

In many religious traditions, we have groups of individuals who try to

withdraw themselves from the world in which they live and to free themselves,

a sense, of their uncontrollable desires and urges.

But how do you kill a thought? Around 200 AD, a Christian leader named Origen

gave it a try in a particularly gruesome fashion.

Origen apparently committed self -castration in

his attempt to be faithful to his commitment to be celibate.

Origen was ahead of his time in his attempt to control his desires.

100 years later, whole communities of Christians banded together to escape

thoughts of the flesh.

The most famous of these were known as the Desert Fathers.

These Desert Fathers would, as an act of free will, withdraw from the world

the everyday hustle and bustle of commerce and exchange and marital

Not only did the Desert Fathers leave their lives behind and renounce sex,

But they also shunned other earthly pleasures, such as food.

For them, fasting was the ultimate discipline, a way to focus their

away from sex and onto God.

You really could say that the ascetics were kind of spiritual athletes.

They disciplined their bodies with the goal of disciplining their

desire.

It's impossible to know what exactly fasting did to the bodies and minds of

Desert Fathers 2 ,000 years ago.

But modern science provides a clue to just how extreme this behavior could be.

In 1944, American scientists conducted the Minnesota Starvation Study to test

the effects of fasting on the body and the mind.

These 36 guys were starved for 24 weeks. And what was most interesting about the

results were the psychological ones. People got very depressed. They got very

anxious. One of the subjects cut off three of his fingers with an ax and was

subsequently unable to say why he had done that.

In our own time and thousands of years ago, starving yourself for any reason

remains an extreme statement.

But is that what this Bible rule is really asking people to do?

Or is the wisdom of the Bible a little more forgiving of our nature?

The gospel writers and certainly the Old Testament writers are very realistic

about the fact that we have human emotions and we're going to have

thoughts. But if you give yourself over to those thoughts time and time again,

then probably eventually you're going to act on them. If you put yourself in the

pattern of constantly allowing it to take you over, then indeed it will take

over. In the ancient world, evil comes in many forms. It can be who you sleep

with. But as we'll see, it can also be the food you put in your mouth.

The rules of the Bible open a portal on the ancient world. And now that portal

is opening again.

Taking us back to one more hidden corner of our deep past, where it's just about

dinner time.

And all that have not fins and scales in the seas and in the rivers, of all that

move in the waters, they shall be an abomination.

In other words, fish that doesn't have fins or scales shouldn't be eaten.

So say goodbye to that shrimp cocktail.

No one knows exactly when this rule was written down, but it was probably over 2

,500 years ago, millennia before the advent of modern medicine.

And yet the biblical writers might have been on to something.

Shellfish is a filter feeder, meaning that if there's a lot of typhoid fever,

for instance, coming out in the sewage of a population, you could get typhoid

from eating the shellfish. It's also the case that shellfish have a lot of

iodine in them. And it probably doesn't take a lot of seeing somebody go into

anaphylactic shock for eating a shellfish, but they tried to remember

time that that's something they may want to avoid.

Shellfish wasn't just considered dangerous 3 ,000 years ago.

Today, an estimated 2 .3 % of Americans are allergic to shellfish. That's 7

million people at risk of dying from a shrimp or oyster.

So, health might have had something to do with this rule, even though ancient

peoples had no knowledge of disease or allergy as we understand it.

But it is possible that basic geography played a part as well.

In the arid deserts of ancient Israel, there were no shellfish.

And so the writers of this rule might have considered it a foreign food.

The Israelites didn't control much of the seapost. We know that people who

along the coast ate shellfish because we find huge piles of shells in

archaeological excavation.

But the Israelites didn't have easy access to this free source of protein

prohibited it, differentiating themselves once again from their

Food is one way to keep order.

Sex is another.

And here is a rule that transports us back to the inner sanctum of ancient

religion. to those places so sacred only the truly pure of heart can set foot

there.

Priests shall not marry a prostitute.

At first, this might sound obvious.

Sacred priests shouldn't marry sex workers.

But this rule is probably pointing to a very real piece of lost history.

So I think it's safe to say that whether it's the Bible or any other code of

law, if we're making rules about it, it's happening.

No one legislates that which is unimaginable.

In other words, in biblical times, more than one priest probably married a

hooker.

The Old Testament has 613 rules.

247 of them alone show up in the book of Leviticus.

The rules are portals to a life we can scarcely imagine.

400 years before Jesus Christ, when this one was probably written down.

A whiff of scandal from a lost world.

To begin to crack this rules code, we have to understand what's been called

world's most ancient occupation, prostitution.

Unlike today, 3 ,000 years ago, a prostitute couldn't be jailed for just

her job.

Prostitution is perfectly legal throughout the ancient world.

That is, male and female prostitution are known and practiced throughout the

ancient Near East.

The Bible never expressly outlaws prostitution, but in Israelite society,

prostitutes were usually at the bottom of the social barrel.

And like today, becoming a prostitute was a woman's last resort.

It only became necessary for women to barter with this resource when it was

last resource they had, when there was no way to get food and protection and

status and these things that were necessary to survival other than through

And the only thing that women still had left to barter with was their sexuality.

Around the ancient world, most prostitutes worked out of brothels that

rooms with stone slabs that served as beds.

In Rome, these brothels were called lupinare, meaning wolf den.

Archaeologists uncovered one that dates back to the 1st century AD in the

destroyed city of Pompeii, identifying it by the pornographic art still visible

on the walls.

We have numerous wall paintings, such as at Pompeii, depicting erotic scenes.

It can be difficult to tell if a building is a brothel unless you've got

or paintings. And in that case, it can be pretty obvious sometimes.

Of course, you always have the problem, is this a brothel with erotic paintings,

or do you just have a house where the guy liked erotic paintings?

Explicit art was one way to tell if a building was a brothel.

But if you were a man in the ancient world, you might have to depend on word

mouth, too.

There is a building at Ephesus in Turkey that's thought to be a brothel, and if

that is a correct identification, it's rather funny that one of the entrances

was a secret one from the library across the street.

So, honey, what are you doing tonight? Oh, I'm going to the library.

And sometimes temples doubled as brothels, too. The ancient fertility

involved ritual prostitution.

As the Bible rules make clear, the ancient world is a place teeming with

sex, including secret brothels.

But does the secretive nature of these brothels reveal a surprise meaning

inside this Bible rule?

Priest shall not marry a prostitute.

By definition, prostitutes worked in the shadows.

Priests were public figures, the most celebrated members of the Israelite

community.

The high priest in ancient Israel was a connector between heaven and earth. And

as a result, almost everything about that high priest's life was meant to

reflect an ideal state.

But if priests were public figures and spiritually pure leaders, why would they

ever consider marrying a prostitute?

And if they did, why would there need to be a written rule against it?

Call it occupational hazard.

In the ancient world, turns out prostitutes and freaks sometimes did the

job.

In the 5th century BC, in the ancient Greek city of Corinth, sacred

offered their services at the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and

pleasure.

And in 464 B .C., a man named Xenophon dedicated 100 young girls to the temple

as a sign of thanksgiving. These girls probably had a very specific purpose.

There would be a specific category of prostitutes who would be paid for sexual

services, but in a context that was religious and as a kind of offering or

any rate taking part in the power of a divinity.

So does this Bible rule point to the possibility that high -ranking Israelite

priests were cavorting with sacred prostitutes?

We can't know for sure, but we know their Canaanite neighbors were.

Some historians believe the sex act itself was central to the worship of the

storm god, Baal.

Baal worship seems to be bound up with an ancient fertility cult. And

the way that the thinking went is that if you could get Baal...

frankly, sexually aroused, he would then fertilize the clouds with his seed and

everything would be nice and green and lush and the animals would be fat and

happy because the land was well watered and the people were causing this through

their actions at the cults where they were engaging in this ritual

The Israelites shun the cult of Baal as idol worship, so maybe this rule is a

warning to preach.

Don't even go there.

When it comes to the rules of the Bible, there is often no final answer to the

mystery. But in this case, there may be one last hidden reason why priests were

forbidden to marry prostitutes.

Priesthood, going back to Aaron, the first high priest, and his sons, the

priests who served alongside him, was biological.

It was passed from fathers to sons.

prostitution is that men want to be sure that that little boy is really his.

2 ,000 years ago, there were no paternity tests.

So maybe priests had to avoid prostitutes simply to make sure their

line remained genetically pure.

On the other hand, this other rule makes clear that keeping things in the family

isn't always a good thing.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife.

It is your father's nakedness.

What exactly did the biblical writers mean by the term uncovered nakedness?

The sex act is described in several unexpected ways in the Bible.

To know someone can mean to have sex with them, and to lie at someone's feet

mean the same thing.

Uncovering the nakedness of someone is one of those ways that the biblical

writers spoke about the sex act.

So this rule is actually about sleeping with your stepmother, which was

considered back then incest, a near universal taboo 3 ,000 years ago or

There are clear biological reasons why most humans shun sleeping with their

relatives. There are natural built -in prohibitions against incest in our

species and in others.

The entire enterprise of sexual reproduction is about reshuffling genes

to create greater vigor, hybrid vigor.

In other words, reproduce with a relative and there's a high risk of a

defect.

But what exactly is the problem with sleeping with someone who isn't

related at all, like your stepmother? That can't be biological.

So I think the commandment prohibiting incest with stepmothers is highlighted

precisely because it isn't simply biological, but is actually trying to

construct a notion of family in which relationships are respected.

Remember, in ancient Israelite society, a man's wife is understood to be his

property. So sleeping with your father's wife isn't just being impolite, it's

theft. The woman moves into the household.

at the request and acquisition of the patriarch of that household, and no one

else can sleep with her. That's not allowed.

As property, a woman was off limits to any man other than her husband, a harder

rule to keep than it sounds when people lived in cramped quarters.

Ancient farmers would live with their extended families in large tents, which

meant everyone slept side by side.

Ancient Israelite society is usually described in terms of extended family

household. So you have to picture a man and a wife,

maybe a second wife, some concubines, the sons and daughters of their

the sons' wives, and you might have two, three, or four generations along a male

lineage living within the same extended family household.

within that context.

But if you think things get complicated in ancient Israel, wait till you meet

the Greeks.

Full brother -sister marriage was permitted.

The Bible rules are a portal to the ancient world, revealing ways of life

vanished, including a Bible rule about incest, which makes clear that 3 ,000

years ago, when extended families slept side by side,

personal boundaries could get blurred.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's

nakedness.

So in other words, even your stepmother is off -limits.

But not all ancient societies played by these rules.

The Greek community living in Egypt allowed brothers and sisters to marry.

Full brother -sister marriage was permitted.

considered good thing.

First of all, it kept the wealth within the family instead of sending it out.

Secondly, they grew up together, they like each other.

It's a much more secure arrangement than making a deal with a strange family

where you can come up with all kinds of problems and the kids might not like

each other.

Proof of this shocking practice, ancient marriage contracts.

We have about a hundred Papyrus marriage contracts that say explicitly the same

mother and the same father. And people for years and years and years denied

that could mean all women, cousins.

No, no, no.

Whole brother, sister marriage.

The incest practices of the Greeks might have influenced the writers of the

Hebrew Bible who wished to set the Israelites apart from their neighbors

these rules to draw the line.

But even a community with such strict rules made some exceptions. We do have

interesting accounts that are at least, if not contradicting some of the incest

code, seem at cross purposes with it.

One is the law of leveret marriage.

That if a man dies with no children, his brother is expected

to marry the widow.

Leveret marriage, a marriage of a widow to her brother -in -law, was not just an

Israelite custom. It was widespread among ancient societies and was seen as

absolute necessity in times when disease and violence left many women widowed.

But it's not a practice that died out 2 ,000 years ago.

Traces of it can even be found on military bases during World War II.

Partner swapping parties were held on military bases, and they were organized

Air Force pilots and their wives and girlfriends.

These were the guys who were flying missions over Japan and Okinawa, and

fatality rate was about 25%. It was very important to create a sense of

community among their colleagues and their partners so that the men...

had intimacy with the women so that the men who died knew that their buddies

would take care of their wives.

And a version of Leverett marriage has even found its way into the 21st

After September 11th, I started to get calls from people who said, I don't know

how to work this out. It was in the case of two firefighters.

My husband died in the Toon Towers.

And I fell in love with his best friend, who really was like his brother.

And so really we're right back to the time of the Bible, right back to the

notion of leveret marriage, right back to the impulse by brothers wanting to

honor the memory of the departed, but also propagate the life and the values

which they stood.

And that is really what leveret marriage is all about. And so precisely the

thing which would otherwise be unacceptable when there is a tragedy may

become not only acceptable, but one of the holiest things you can do.

These biblical rules about sex and sexuality often seem to contradict each

other. Sometimes sex is good, other times taboo.

So where does the Bible really stand?

There's this tradition that's arisen out of a reading of certain biblical texts

that led to such neuroticism about sex.

People having this idea that sex is evil and dirty and all the rest.

Interestingly, there are other passages in the Bible that celebrate sex as a

gift. Then we realize in between those extremes is a healthy and sensible

attitude towards sex. That seems to me to be what we have to search for in the

Bible.

Especially when it comes to the Bible rules, which hurl us back through

centuries, transporting us to lost civilizations in a blink of an eye.

and leading to endless new investigations.