# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 33 —

Scheer of Basar . . occurs between me and the wife's sister, between me and the aunt.

To this belongs, therefore, the rule which is given in the preface to the laws on forbidden marriages, Lev. 18:6: One shall not approach to any Scheer of Basar, etc.; the last degree is mentioned, which includes the earlier and nearer ones.

More remote relationships than the degrees stated are not forbidden, for example the marriages of cousins, because they are only Basar of Scheer of Basar." (Unſchuldige Nachrr. [Unschuldige Nachrichten] Year 1710. p. 193 f.)

It is quite true: there are theologians, among the older ones for example Brochmand, who believe that no decision is to be founded on the general rule alone. But they arrive at this result not on the basis of the text. The text is indeed, rightly understood, so clear and simple that one can instruct every simple Christian, every young man and every young woman, in a short time with its help how to decide in the most various cases whether a degree is forbidden or not. For that father and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister are my flesh, everyone knows; that man and wife become one flesh through marriage, every Christian also knows from God's own mouth. From this it follows quite simply and unforced that my wife's father, mother, son, daughter, brother and sister, who are my wife's flesh, are my flesh's flesh. And to take in marriage such a person, who is my wife's flesh, or my father's flesh, or my son's flesh, in short my flesh's flesh, is forbidden me by this very simple rule: None shall approach, in marriage that is, to the flesh of his flesh.

Against this it has now been said: "One agrees that Lev. 18:6 forbids marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. But one could assent to the proof of it only if it is conducted as, for example, Gerhard conducts it, when he says (Loc. de conjugio. ed. Preuss pag. 203): 'That marriage with the sister of a deceased wife is forbidden by divine law we show . . . . 4.) from the general rule Lev. 18:6: No one shall approach to the nearest of his flesh (ad proximam carnis suae). Now man and wife become one flesh through marriage (Gen. 2:24; Matth. 19:5). Therefore the wife's sister becomes the nearest of the flesh: consequently one must refrain from marrying her.' One could not, however, assent to that proof from Lev. 18:6 if one assumes, after the manner of Crusius and Löscher, that the expression 'flesh of flesh' (שְׁאֵר בְּשָׂרוֹ) designates properly and definitely the second degree of kinship. Dannhauer too and the Leipzig theologians in the passages cited above take the expression so that even brother and sister, thus blood relations in the first degree, could be understood under 'flesh of flesh,' whereas according to the above-