Tamar & Amnon

[JohnR7]

Tamar & Amnon were brother and sister. At least they shared the same father. I do not know if they had the same mother. We are told in the NIV that he raped her and then "he hated her more than he had loved her." (2Samuel2:14) This is beginning to sound like a Dr Phil show. Tamar had pleaded with him to: "Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you." I am pretty sure a marriage like this would be banned in most states today. Although I am told there are some countries that anyone can marry anyone as long as they are of age. 

We are also told: In Genesis 19:30-38 Lot's daughters got their father drunk, and over two consecutive nights had sex with him without his knowledge. They both got pregnant. (wiki) So we have brother and sister, father and daughters. Sounds like thing were pretty wild back the the BC before Christ days. 

I am sure there are more stories like this. What about Rachel & Leah that shared the same husband with Leah having most of the kids even though Jacob's love was for Rachel. He agreed to stay married to Leah if he could be married to Rachel also. 

This is why they talk about the scarlet thread as being symbolic of the Blood of Jesus. As we follow the blood line of Jesus from Eve to Mary. 

[JohnDB]

2 hours ago, DDisconnect said:

Um... I'm sorry if I've missed it, but what is the point here?

Yeah...

Don't feel alone in your questions.

[Jayne]

5 hours ago, JohnR7 said:

This is why they talk about the scarlet thread as being symbolic of the Blood of Jesus. As we follow the blood line of Jesus from Eve to Mary. 

Actually, the "scarlet thread" of the Bible is not rape, incest, and polygamy.

The scarlet thread of the Bible is the idea of sacrifice, specifically Christ's, the redeeming blood of Christ, and all of the events and people foreshadowing that in the Old Testament.

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Tamar & Amnon were brother and sister. At least they shared the same father. I do not know if they had the same mother. We are told in the NIV that he raped her and then "he hated her more than he had loved her." (2Samuel2:14) 

Tamar and Amnon did not have the same mother.  Amnon was the oldest son of David by Ahinoam.  Tamar's mother was Makaah.  The sick thing about this is that Amnon lusted and lusted after her until he made himself physically ill.  Even sicker, his cousin found out about his condition and formulated the plan for rape and coached Amnon on how to get Tamar in his room and close to his bed by pretending to be very ill.

Incest had been defined by the law and Amnon and Tamar both knew it was against God's law - that's one of the reasons she cried out and begged him not to rape her.

The only reason, in my mind, that she would marry him is that no one would have anything to do with her after a rape.  She would be considered filth and unclean.  And that's what happened to her -she lived the rest of her days in her whole brother's house - Absolom.  And she was a desolate woman the Bible says.  A life empty, lonely, bleak, and pitiful.  No friends, no children, no husband, no nothing.  She was abandoned.

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We are also told: In Genesis 19:30-38 Lot's daughters got their father drunk, and over two consecutive nights had sex with him without his knowledge. They both got pregnant. (wiki) So we have brother and sister, father and daughters. Sounds like thing were pretty wild back the the BC before Christ days. 

Things have been and still are pretty wild.  The Bible says that there is nothing new under the sun.

What terrible about this story is that this didn't have to happen had Lot not "pitched his tent towards Sodom".  By the time the story comes to an end, Lot is not just living facing Sodom, but smack in the middle of town on the wall - a very prestigious place.  His daughters and wife had not one speck of spiritual marrow in their bones.  All they knew was the filth they lived in sexual sins, oppression of poor, greed, and more.  Sodom's sins are listed in more places than just Genesis.

The said thing is that the two sons they bore - Ammon and Moab - they came to be great nations.  Great UNGODLY nations.  Nations against Israel and against God.  The Moabites burnt their babies in the fire to appease their false gods.  The Ammonites were very violent the Bible says - plucking out one eye of every enemy they captured and ripping open pregnant women of their enemies.

Sin didn't just belong to Lot.  It flowed to his wife, his daughters, his grandsons, and their people.

This is NOT the scarlet thread of the Bible.

[JohnR7]

4 hours ago, Jayne said:

This is NOT the scarlet thread of the Bible.

The blood of Jesus was given to wash and cleanse them of sin. Also Jesus descended from David so all of these sinners are related to Jesus through his genealogy.  We did not even mention Rahab who actually tied a scarlet thread to the window of her house to keep her home safe from the attack on the city. (Joshua 2:17)"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. " (Isaiah 1:18)

[Jayne]

1 hour ago, JohnR7 said:

The blood of Jesus was given to wash and cleanse them of sin. Also Jesus descended from David so all of these sinners are related to Jesus through his genealogy.  We did not even mention Rahab who actually tied a scarlet thread to the window of her house to keep her home safe from the attack on the city. (Joshua 2:17)"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. " (Isaiah 1:18)

Rahab the harlot was not practicing prostitution when the spies came to her.  She had heard of God and what he was doing for his people and she asked to go with them.  She had turned to God by the time the spies found her.  The scarlet thread hanging out her window was a literal scarlet thread symbolizing the forgiveness of God.

Your OP made it sound like the sins of incest, rape, and polygamy were the scarlet thread.

[JohnR7]

15 hours ago, Jayne said:

Your OP made it sound like the sins of incest, rape, and polygamy were the scarlet thread.

The Scarlet thread represents the Blood of Jesus AND the Genealogy of Jesus. For example in Matthew 1:7 we see Solomon. We know that David had 8 wives. Even we were told he could have more wives if he wanted. Only he wanted another man's wife and this is adultery. Even he had Bathsheba's husband killed. In the case of Abigail "God struck abal and he died". So it was lawful for David to marry her.  She gave birth to his second son Chileab (also called Daniel).  

In Matthew 1:5 "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse," we are told that Rahab was a prostitute.  This is where we get the scarlet thread from because of this thread her life was spared. So there is a big story that surrounds her. We have a motorcycle church here that welcomes women that are or were prostitutes to try to do what they can to help them.  They have a coffee house. I think they give away free coffee and food. That is all a part of their ministry and I actually have some very good friends that are or were involved with that church.  For me I would want to know if people were abused as a child so that we need to look at that to help them receive healing. As you suggest we have to deal with what was, what is and what can be. We only have this moment in time, but God can go back in time and bring about healing at the source or beginning. I saw something on Dr Phil so I wanted to look to see what the Bible has to say about this. There maybe something there in the Bible to help the people that have to deal with incest and these sorts of issues. I do not know what help there was for Tamar. Her brother did not want to do what was right and she seemed to pay the price for that and David was not doing anything about it. 

[Logostician]

You seem to be focused on incest as the biggest problem here.  It is a problem and is addressed in Lev 18:8-18.  It is worth noting however that Adam and Eve obviously had children who married each other.  Otherwise it would have been impossible for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, and we wouldn't have a human race.  However, as mankind became more numerous, there was no reason for this to continue, and God forbid it.

But there are far bigger problems in this story:

In Deu 22:28 it says that if a man forces a woman, he pays a fine and must marry the woman.  Tamar is within her rights to tell Amnon to seek David's approval for them to get married.  In today's society we couldn't imagine a woman wanting to marry a man who forced himself on her.  But Tamar knows she will never be able to get married to another man now that she has lost her virginity.  In today's society there is an organized holocaust against children in the form of abortion which has resulted in tens of millions of children being slaughtered.  But in Tamar's time, bearing children was rightly viewed as a gift from God, and essential to living a joyful life.  Tamar's life was destroyed by Amnon.

Amnon's rape of Tamar was obviously very wrong.  But when he turns his back on her after destroying her life by making marriage and family impossible for her, he commits a far greater sin.  Sometimes what you don't do is worse than than the evil you do.

When David finds out what happened he is angry but appears to do nothing to help Tamar or punish Amnon.  David's son Absalom, who shares the same mother, Maacah, with Tamar, waits for justice.  But none is forthcoming from David.  After two years of waiting, Absalom has Amnon killed.  This begins a series of events in which Absalom will ultimately challenge David's throne.  It is a terrible rift between a King and a son he loves that results in open civil war in which Absalom will be killed, despite David's orders not to kill the son he still loves.

May God forgive me if I'm wrong here, but I see this as a real failure by King David.  And I kind of sympathize with Absalom.  If somebody raped my sister, ruined her life forever, and no justice was forthcoming, I would want to kill him too, and would be hard pressed to stop myself from doing so.

There are lessons to be learned here.  Justice must be applied by those entrusted with it's exercise, not ignored, or others will step in and take the law into their own hands.  We need to remember this as anarchists continue to destroy our cities with little or no just punishment.  Do we want a civilized society with law and order, or do we want a new wild west, and possibly civil war?

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Logostician said:

It is worth noting however that Adam and Eve obviously had children who married each other. 

In Genesis 4:13 Cain said: "I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." Who was on the earth at the time that he was worried would kill him? 

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Logostician said:

Justice must be applied

God has impressed this upon me many times. It seems to be something like 15 times He wanted me to know that He is a God of absolute and perfect Justice. We can see this in the universe how fine tuned and precise everything is. Machinists have machines that work within a tolerance of millionth. 

[Logostician]

31 minutes ago, JohnR7 said:

In Genesis 4:13 Cain said: "I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." Who was on the earth at the time that he was worried would kill him? 

The same children of Adam and Eve that I mentioned above, along with their descendants.