I think it was a way to justify an idea that certain lineages were blessed, giving rise to the idea of royal families. It also belies the early crafters' beliefs towards women.

Incest isn't for the lowly people.

I just read a biography of Cleopatra. Incest was a common practice among the ancient Egyptians. I think the biggest problem with incest biologically speaking as I understand it, is that the bloodlines become too close together and create problems such as hemophilia. Genetically, I think it's healthier for the offspring if you do not intermarry. It seems that mixed race kids are healthier and better looking. My observation anyway. Not scientific.

I question 'You will hear a far different story", IMO it is simply, again,willful blindness to the facts as presented...who Did Abel marry, exactly?........but so much of biblical belief requires blindness/deafness /oblivion, what else is new. I doubt you will find many believers who will actually argue in favor of incest!

It's not until after you leave the church/religion that you realize the hypocrisy of it all.

There are so many stories in the bible that are just weird that way. Lot and his daughters, David sleeping with really young girls when he was old. For that matter David's daughter Tamar being raped by her brother. There is just a huge ewwww factor. However, we have established the bible is very patriarchal, women/girls don't matter.

I ran away from home because I didn't like the way my father was rearing me but went back because I couldn't leave my brothers behind...That's a joke.

I still assert these stories are about the Jews, and don't necessarily exclude the existence of other peoples.

I saw a documentary on the discovery channel once about a small group of Germans in the early 1900's that moved to South America and wanted to keep their race pure. They did not mingle with the local population because they considered them inferior beings. They intermarried within that small group, and as a result the few children that have been borne for the last two generations are mentally retarded and suffer from hemophilia. So within a few generations the gene pool is insufficient to propagate the species. There is no way mankind descended from a mythical Adam and Eve or Noah's family.

Incest doesn't allow for genetic recombination that helps fuel evolution. Even the first mutants of any species would mate with the non-mutant that was unrelated, giving rise to the half-mutant mutant that breeds with either another unrelated non-mutant or if they had siblings then the cousins would mate.

Somehow, instincts as seen in Tigers, even the most 'simple' creature knows incest is not the way to go. But then this raises the question, how closely related do you have to be to still be committing incest. I think with higher order creatures starting with, maybe, Australopithecus on our ancestral tree started to gather that mates as unrelated as possible were better for the survival of all.

TBH, Genisis never even happened. It's just a theory that can't be backed up with empirical evidence. Evolution is just a theory also, but there is more evidence backing that theory up. I just finished a 3 hour YouTube video titled, " The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism." It goes in depth into Evolution, as well as Creationism.

It's just more hypocrisy.

Somehow there must be some kind of genetic or cultural memory that guides us here because people seem to be hardwired to be repulsed by incest. Kind of like standing at the edge of a big drop off. It just makes a person queasy to think about it. It was probably something that humanity learned the hard way very early on in human evolution.

I'm not so sure there is hypocrisy in believing bible stories, just an ability to suspend disbelief and satisfy the human need to be a part of Something Bigger.(Why else did we form/join this group?)

Reveals ethics of the day