Celivia,

The possibility of the siblings inbreeding exists. However certainly in Queensland there is a limitation on the number of families that can get impregnated with a particular donor's sperm. This limitation is based on keeping the probability of that situation arising low. In other words the number crunchers believe that the present limitations should safely avoid that situation.

David,

Interesting that you should emphasise intolerance of intolerance as being intolerant. I haven't been following your interactions and this comment is not meant to apply to any particular person. However, in my humble opinion based on my observations, people who accuse others of being intolerant are apparently usually the most intolerant just like people who accuse others of being narrow minded tend to be the most narrow minded. Both are usually euphemisms for "I don't respect your right to comment if you don't agree with me" cloaked in rhetorical garb. Again I'm not noting that because I have the information to offer an opinion that it applies in here. I'm saying it simply because I have observed it and thought you might also share my interest and perhaps have observed it also. Your opponent would probably not own up if they had observed it just in case it reflects on them so I'm asking you.

What a thoughtful, challenging question, Celivia. I have never applied myself to thinking on the present-day aspects of sperm donation, and must admit I have, as of now, no insights to offer into it, but your question will now run around my brain, too, I assure you. Thank you.

Some years ago I was searching the web using the term "halitzah", which is a Jewish term for levirate marriage obligation, or more correctly, the act of its formal repudiation by the man having the right/obligation under the Law, the traditional "spitting in the shoe", which spitting, oddly enough, is, I note, not mentioned in the account given in the fourth chapter of Ruth. That may be of some help if you are seaching the topic yourself.

Curiously, in the present day, the apparent "right of first refusal", as it now appears to be viewed by some Jewish men, has even been used as a basis of monetary extortion by the male relative of the deceased with the levirate right/obligation in consideration of his repudiating it to allow a childless Jewish widow to remarry (someone else) with the full sanction of the law, believe it or not. It seems to be as much now, as it was then in Biblical times, to be about inheritance and property, as reproductive biology, sexual gratification, or surrogacy.

It is interesting to see Boaz' kinsman (brother or half-brother?) in Ruth 4:6 beg off from the levirate obligation with the excuse, whether real or one of convenience, with the words "lest I mar my own inheritance". I have never had it explained to me exactly in what circumstances such marring of an inheritance could have been effected, and I am most interested should anyone be able to shed any light on this aspect of levirate marriage.

In Biblical times, I don't think women sought to avoid levirate marriage anywhere near as much as men, for reasons of sheer survival. As it worked out for Ruth, Boaz (the original one) was the best sugar-daddy she could ever have had.

Thanks, BD, I like discussing the issues as well and find this an interesting topic.

mjpb
“words the number crunchers believe that the present limitations should safely avoid that situation”
That’s a relief; I wasn’t sure what the risks were but if, as you say, risks of this happening are minimal, I’m happy to withdraw my objections about this aspect.

Forrest Gumpp, thanks.
Like you, I haven’t given the matter much thought previously and I’m still making up my mind about this. That’s why I like other people’s input. I’m leaning towards the idea that the truth is always best and that all children should, in principle, have equal rights. As adopted children are being given the right to find out who their biological parents are, it feels wrong to me to deny the same right to children who were conceived differently.
Thank you for that idea of googling “halizah”, I will take some time over the weekend to look into it.
I can imagine that the levirate would have had benefits in the past when marriage often had not much to do with love.

Even though I think that IVF should be available, it does sadden me that there are so many orphans who’d be delighted to find an adoptive family.
Although I don’t think it’s the sole responsibility of infertile couples to adopt, I wish more would be interested.
Personally, if my husband had been infertile I’d have preferred adoption rather than IVF.
Adoption can be a long and frustrating process and perhaps more people would opt for abortion rather than IVF if the adoption process was a smoother and quicker one, especially since IVF isn’t without risk, frustrations and disappointments also.

Perhaps the answer lies not in making IVF less easily accessible but in improving and speeding up the adoption process. Orphans are not helped by long waiting lists and neither are loving (infertile) couples.

Getting a bit closer to the point I want to have illuminated, according to Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 10, Chapter 7, 2. , Mattaniah (who was given the throne-name Zedekiah upon 'accession') and Jehoiachin had the same mother. Jehoiachin's mother was Nehushta, already spoken of above. II Kings 24:18 and Jeremiah 52:1both state that Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, was Mattaniah-Zedekiah's mother.

Could it have been that Hamutal was considered Mattaniah-Zedekiah's mother in the same way as Naomi was considered mother of Obed (who was actually borne by Ruth)? Could it have been that in each case (childless) daughter-in-law was effectively acting as a surrogate for mother-in-law? If this was so, the apparent conflict between II Kings 24:18 and Josephus would be resolved. Also, II Chronicles 36:10 expressly states that Mattaniah-Zedekiah was Jehoiachin's brother, as does, effectively, I Chronicles 3:16 but from a different perspective.

If Nehushta was a childless daughter-in-law to Hamutal prior to her surrogacy in bearing Mattaniah-Zedekiah is correct, of whom was Nehushta already the childless widow? Not by any chance Johanan, the first son of Josiah, of whom we hear next to nothing? Johanan would have been in his 13th year at the time of the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, when that famous Passover was celebrated. Johanan could have been married already: perhaps he also died at that very time, leaving a childless widow, Nehushta.

If Hamutal had been the mother of Johanan, that would have made Nehushta her daughter-in-law. If Hamutal's other son, Shallum (who was later given the throne-name Jehoahaz) refused a levirate obligation to his deceased brother, that would have left Hamutal as good as childless herself: one son dead, and the other living but under like condemnation to Onan in Genesis.

Perhaps Nehushta, like Ruth, loved her mother-in-law, and preferred a surrogacy for Hamutal over a levirate marriage to her late husband's half-brother Eliakim.

So Josiah fathered Mattaniah-Zedekiah with Nehushta, the son to which she had been married now being dead, acting as surrogate for Hamutal. (There had been a 13 year gap between his birth and that of the next youngest, Hamutal's second son, Shallum-Jehoahaz.) In these circumstances, the order of precedence of Hamutal's sons may well have been altered, resulting in Mattaniah-Zedekiah moving into third place ahead of Shallum-Jehoahaz, who was 13 years his senior.

Question: Upon the death of Hamutal, what would have been the status of Nehushta, now that any obligation of surrogacy to her mother-in-law, self-imposed or otherwise, was at an end?

Could Nehushta, even though she had in actuality borne a child on behalf of Hamutal, have been in law regarded as a still childless widow of Johanan? If so, a levirate marriage obligation, perhaps even a right, would have rested with Johanan's half-brother Eliakim (subsequently to be given the throne-name Jehoiakim) of ill repute. I suspect Eliakim-Jehoiakim moved quickly upon Hamutal's death to discharge his levirate obligation, the mandatory waiting time for determination of a posthumous pregnancy to JOHANAN having obviously long expired.

Another Question: Was Nehushta perhaps already unbeknown pregnant to Josiah a second time when Eliakim-Jehoiakim moved to exercise his levirate right or obligation? Was Jehoiachin, the acknowledged heir to Johanan (and thus direct successor to the throne of Josiah) by operation of the levirate law, also in truth the biological son of Josiah as well?

If so, when the prophetic injunction of Jeremiah 22:30, laid against Jehoiakim's line (for it is Jehoiakim that is omitted from the genealogy, at Matthew 1:11) is considered, Jehoiachin and his line was not subject to it. It had worked for Hezekiah, why not for Jehoiachin? Good would have been the word of the Lord.

And so, he who is held to have been accursed all these 2,600 years was never due to law, and possible also due to actual biological paternity, ever really subject to it. Quite a smokescreen!

Mr Gumpp, I salute you.

That has to be the neatest, subtlest and most comprehensive piece of satire I have seen on OLO...

>>Question: Upon the death of Hamutal, what would have been the status of Nehushta...?<<

Priceless!