Tag: Abraham

This question seems to come up fairly regularly for some reason – I assume most people believe that Abraham was committing incest by marrying his half sister. With something so disgusting and revolting as incest, it’s important to study the scripture to see what the Bible actually tells us what the relationship was between Abram (Abraham) and Sarai (Sarah.)

“27 Now these are the family records of Terah: Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot.

28 Haran died during his father’s lifetime in the land of his birth, that is, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

29 Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of Milcah and Iscah.” –Genesis 11:27-29

Haran most likely had 4 kids: Lot, Sarai, Milcah and Iscah. The Bible does not tell us their mom’s name.

Terah was the father of both Sarai and Abram in that he was the patriarch of the family. He was Abram’s father and Sarai’s grandfather.

It’s important to note that “In Ancient times, the word for ‘sister’ also means ‘cousin’ in Semitic languages. Aramaic word ‘Khtha’ can mean sister or cousin. I believe the intended meaning here was Cousin.” – Was the marriage between Abraham and Sarah incestuous?

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This content was originally posted to Quora April 2018.