Image Details

Erich Lessing

Lot slouches in a drunken stupor while his incestuous daughters lounge beside him on the floor. With no men available to take as husbands, Lot’s daughters plotted to get their father drunk so that they could each sleep with him and bear his children, thus carrying on the family line. The sordid scene depicted in this 18th-century work by the once-popular French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze demonstrates one negative view of sex found in the Hebrew Bible. Although it was part of God’s good creation, sex was often misused and led to dysfunctional families with many problems. This episode from Genesis 19 results in the births of Moab and Ammon, the ancestors of Israel’s great enemies.