“... Yet how bad were the Canaanites really? A comparison of the list of forbidden unions in Leviticus to those found in other Mesopotamian law codes demonstrates just how similar the holiness codes could be to these earlier laws. Strikingly, though, while other Mesopotamian codes explicitly forbid father-daughter incest, Leviticus leaves this particular provision out. The Laws of Hammurabi state: If a man should carnally know his daughter, they shall banish that man from the city. If a man selects a bride for his son and his son carnally knows her, after which he himself then lies with her and they seize him in the act, they shall bind that man and cast him into the water. . . . If a man, after his father’s death, should lie with his mother, they shall burn them both. If a man, after his father’s death, should be discovered in the lap of his (the father’s) principal wife who had borne children, that man shall be disinherited from the paternal estate. (Laws of Hammurabi 154–56, 158)86 According to old Babylonian law, the wives of sons, mothers, and foster mothers were off-limits, just as in Leviticus. Incest with a daughter is specifically listed, with such behavior leading to expulsion from the city. The Hittites also forbade sex with a mother, with a father’s wife during his lifetime, with a brother’s wife during his lifetime, with a sister of a current wife during her lifetime, and with a mother and a daughter at the same time, a list that is similar to that in the holiness code.87 Unlike Leviticus, however, Hittite laws, like the Laws of Hammurabi, explicitly outlawed father-daughter relationships, punishing these unions severely. The omission of a direct prohibition against father-daughter incest in Leviticus has troubled many commentators. Was father-daughter incest tolerated in ancient Israel? Or, worse, was it accepted as moral behavior? Rabbinic literature was careful to indicate that father-daughter incest was forbidden, whatever Leviticus may or may not say.88 Modern interpreters have also resisted the conclusion that such behavior was permitted by biblical writers. Jonathan Ziskind, for example, argues that the holiness code neglected to include daughters in their list out of respect for the father’s authority within the family. This does not mean, however, that they believed father-daughter incest was permissible, or so Ziskind argues.89 Judith Romney Wegner offers a similar solution: Since an unmarried Israelite girl’s sexuality belongs to her father, Leviticus did not need to include her in this list. After all, it was in the father’s self-interest to avoid sex with his daughter. If he did not, he would have failed to preserve his daughter’s virginity for her husband, “at which point his ownership of the daughter’s virginity accrues to the father in the form of a bride-price.”90 In other words, a daughter’s virginity was valuable to her father. If he broke her hymen himself, at the very least he would suffer a financial penalty. At worse, if she was found guilty of “playing the harlot” prior to marriage, he would be forced to witness her stoning. Still, perhaps the general command in Leviticus 18:6, “None of you shall approach anyone near of kin to uncover nakedness,” was meant to include daughters as well as sons, neither of whom are mentioned.91 ...”