This is going to sound strange but bear with me. Many times throughout the Bible we see relationships that are considered strange in 2019 and rightly so. In Genesis we see Noahs son Ham apperently have sexual relations with his mother.
“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.”
Genesis 9:22 KJV
Many commentators believe that it is a son and mother interaction here because as Noahs wife, she is Noah’s nakedness.(Research into it if you’d like)
The nakedness of his father means that the son peaked while the father was sleeping.
That is evident because the other sons took a blanket to cover the father, doing so by not looking.
Any other chapter/verse that mentions "a man's or a woman's nakedness" has to be interpreted separately according to the immediate text.
Also we see Lot’s children chose to have sex with their father in order to continue his lineage.
“And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.”
Genesis 19:31-32 KJV
In both of these passages it is clear that this was not acceptable to Noah nor Lot. If it were acceptable, Noah would not have said
“Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”
Genesis 9:25 kjv
Amazing that even though there was no written law, there was still laws passed down from generation to generation concerning behaviors of decency.
And Lot would not have been made drunk in order to be raped essentially by his daughters.
Interesting that Lot managed to have something to get drunk with.
The daughters decided to "continue the lineage" because all males had just been wiped out.. and their mother was gone.. the father had offered his daughters to the sex obsessed men in the town, so it had be that he counted them old enough.. and their father was right there. Drunk.
Custom was that when a spouse dies then the relative of the living spouse would have sex to ensure the lineage.
So, the daughters interpreted that to apply to them having sex with their father.
BUT
What we do see in MANY places throughout the Bible, especially the Torah, the husbands and wives usually tend to be cousins. See abraham and sarah. Jacob and rachel. Issac and rebekah and many more, too many to list!
Being relatives would by distance in the family line not make it incest.
So I guess my question for you guys is this:
Was it part of Gods design to keep marriage within the family? 1st, 2nd or 3rd cousins?
Or
Was this just because of the low amount of Jews in the early years of life on Earth and since Jews only married Jews that’s just how it happened?
Or
Do you think it was just because the population as a whole was just very small?
And more than that, as Christians in 2019 how should we stand on inter-family marriage?
In the days of less ability (the 1800's) to travel very far, my family tree had of two unconnected families created a connection twice when two from each family group married into the other one.
Nowdays that's less likely to happen as long as the community, the nation is big enough and abundantly populated, and modern technology means of travel... then families need not marry any of their relatives.