Incest in the bible
  • Genesis 9:20–27, Ham saw his father Noah's nakedness. The Talmud suggests that Ham may have sodomized Noah (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 70a). In more recent times, some scholars have suggested that Ham may have had intercourse with his father's wife.
  • Abraham's brother Nahor married his niece Milcah, the daughter of his other brother Haran.
  • Living in an isolated area after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two daughters of Lot conspired to inebriate and seduce their father due to the lack of available sexual partners. Because of intoxication, Lot "perceived not" when his first-born daughter, and the following night his younger daughter, lay with him. (Genesis 19:32–35) The two children born were directly Lot's sons and indirectly his grandsons, being his daughters' sons. Likewise, their sons were also half-brothers (between them and with their mothers), having the same father, as well as cousins, having mothers that were sisters.
  • In one of the tales of a wife confused for a sister, Abraham admitted that his wife Sarah is his half-sister—the daughter of his father, but not his mother. However, in rabbinic literature, Sarah is considered Abraham's niece (the daughter of his brother, Haran).
  • Marriage of cousins was common in the pre-Sinai period. Abraham's son Isaac married Rebekah, his first cousin once removed, the granddaughter of his father Abraham's brother Nahor with Milcah.
  • Isaac and Rebekah's firstborn son Esau resorted to marrying his cousin Mahalath, daughter of his father's brother Ishmael because his parents didn't approve of him having relationships with Canaanites.
  • Isaac and Rebekah's second son Jacob married his cousins Leah and Rachel, who were daughters of his mother's brother Laban. Leah and Rachel were sisters; a wife's sister is also forbidden.
  • Jacob's firstborn son Reuben had sex with his father's concubine Bilhah.
  • Judah, Jacob's fourth son, mistook his daughter-in-law Tamar for a prostitute while she was veiled, and had sex with her.
  • Amram married his paternal aunt Jochebed, the mother of Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. However, according to the Septuagint, she was his cousin.
  • Amnon, King David's eldest son and heir to the throne, raped his half-sister Tamar. Tamar's brother, Absalom, learned of the incident and, two years later, ordered his servants to have Amnon killed. In vain with Amnon, Tamar said, "Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee".
  • Absalom, son of King David, in the middle of a rebellion against his father, had sex with his father's concubines on the roof inside a tent.
  • Rehoboam, son of Solomon and Naamah, married Maacah daughter of Absalom. 2 Samuel 14:27 does not list Maacah as a daughter of Absalom, but Absalom seems to have had sex with the wives of David, his father, at the advice of Ahithophel.
  • Zelophehad's daughters, Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, married their cousins on their father's side to obey the Lord's command. The Lord said: "no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another".
  • Caleb said, "I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the one who attacks and captures Kiriath-sepher." Othniel, son of Caleb's brother Kenaz, was the one who conquered it, so Acsah became Othniel's wife.