These days, so the statisticians inform us, one in thirty births (or 3.3 percent) results in twins. It is likely that in Biblical times the birth of twins (to say nothing of triplets, etc.) was a rarer event. Therefore, we should probably not be surprised by the relative paucity of references to twins (identical or fraternal) in the Bible. As I recall, only two sets of twins are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25ff) and Peretz and Zerah (Genesis 38:27–30). Both sets—since they involve brothers—can be called fraternal, although that’s not the way the term […]
