Leviticus

Hey y'all.  I was naive to think that tackling the two clobber passages from Leviticus would be as simple as translating a couple of words and explaining the context of the passages.  Leviticus has turned out to be anything but simple.  Not least of all because I fought against reading the Anchor Bible Commentary series’ handling of Leviticus.  It was written by a scholar named Jacob Milgrom, a Conservative Rabbi.  His tome on Leviticus spans three books and several thousand pages.  I don’t know that it was the size of the study so much as his “conservative” status that frightened me.  But, I finally broke down and read it.  I agreed on some points, disagreed on others and learned a great deal.  It is a must read for anyone hoping to do a serious scholarly study of any part of Leviticus.  In addition, I used several other resources (New Interpreters Bible, Martin Noth’s Leviticus: A Commentary, various translations of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Old Testament Parallels, a couple of versions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.). I will try to keep this as short as possible and still cover the important parts.

When we read Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, we need to understand that the translation that we are reading is an interpretation by the translators.  What I mean is that, more often than not, the translator is putting his or her own preconceived notions into how they translate the words.  For example, the NIV translates 18:22 “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”  JPS “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination.”  NRSV “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”  The NRSV is closest to the way I would translate it.  The NIV translates “zachar” as “man,” the JPS makes it plural with “mankind,” and the NRSV translates it correctly as “male.”  “Zachar” is singular/masculine and means “male.”  There is a Hebrew word for “man;” it is “ish.”  There is also a word meaning “humankind” – “adam” (different than h’adam or Adam).  So, translators are putting their spin on the text as they translate it.  The words translated as “sexual relations” by the NIV actually mean “a place of lying, a couch, or the act of lying.”  The connotation may be sex, but the Hebrew does not spell it out that way.  20:13 is translated by the NIV “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads” while the JPS has “And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them,” and the NRSV has “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”  Again, here, there are translational problems.  “Has sexual relations” is the same phrase as in 18:22, “lies with” except that in 20:13 it is plural.  Two words are used in 20:13 that the NIV translates “man.”  One is “ish” which means “man” while the other is “zachar” meaning “male.”  JPS makes it plural which is also a mistake.  The verse reads in Hebrew, “And a man (“ish”) which lies down with a male (“zachar”) as with (or in/on the couch of) a woman (“ishah”)…” The author clearly knew the difference between “ish”/man and “zachar”/male.  He chose to use the different words for a reason.  I explain all of this in order to show how bias can creep into a translation and to give a little bit of background about our verses.

To understand our verses we need to understand the cultural context in which they were written.  So I tried to look at the law codes of Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, etc.  While there are many law codes, I came across the same problem with translators that I have with biblical translators.  Milgrom states that there are no other condemnations of adult same sex sex other than in Leviticus in the Ancient Near East.  (pg 1566)  Which is interesting and I only wish I could ask him which law codes he looked at.  (He passed in 2010.)   For example, in Old Testament Parallels, Matthews and Benjamin claim that the Middle Assyrian Code does have a prohibition against homosexuality.  Article 20 “If one citizen has homosexual relations with another, then the sentence, following due process, is castration.” (pg 73)  I find this translation suspect as the word “homosexual” is a modern word with no apparent parallels in the ancient world.  I would love to know how exactly the phase is worded in the original cuneiform.  Also, various translations of the Egyptian Book of the Dead leave me scratching my head.  Spell 125 has a negative confession that talks about some sort of sexual encounter.  The confessor says (translated variously as) “I have not committed acts of impurity, neither have I lain with men” or “I have not masturbated; I have not copulated with a catamite” or “I have neither misconducted myself, nor copulated with a boy” or I have not committed acts of impurity, neither have I lain with men” etc.  Milgrom says the translation should read, “I have not copulated with a boy,” but he does not note which translation he is using or if he translated the verse himself.  (pg 1566)  None of the translations I read were parallel (not that I could read hieroglyphics anyway), so I could not see if their original versions were different (there are MANY versions of the Book of the Dead).   I am not an Egyptologist, so I have to rely on other scholars which frustrates me to no end when there are this many opinions as to what is actually being said.  And, okay, I know… I’m a control freak.  Lol

We also need to look at the immediate context in Leviticus.  Chapters 18-20 are a single unit where YHWH is having the Israelites set themselves apart from Egyptians and Canaanites.  The laws in 18 and 20 are similar though in different orders for different reasons.  18 appears to be the oldest list, according to Milgrom.  The author of chapter 20 appears to have had 18 in front of him when writing.  That 18:22 is a later addition seems obvious to me because the language changes from “uncover the nakedness” to “lie with.”  Why the author didn’t keep the same language when adding the verse is beyond my ability to prove, but maybe the phrase was common during his time and he did not want to confuse the people. 

Milgrom and others conclude that the lists are condemning incest.  (pg 1569) The phrase “As one lies with” is used to refer to illicit heterosexual unions everywhere but in these two verses.  Therefore, some scholars conclude that what is being condemned are the homosexual liaisons that are parallel to the heterosexual liaisons in the lists.  In other words what is being condemned is incest.  Milgrom goes on to also say that the only relationships that are under the scrutiny of these laws in 18 and 20 are the Jews and non-Jews living in Israel.  (pg 1790)  Milgrom suggests that the homosexual Jews residing in Israel could abide by the spirit of the law by adopting children as a way of making amends for the loss of seed, since their loss does not lead to procreation which he also suggests as a reason for the laws.  (pg 1787)

I personally found Milgrom a little confusing because he was inconsistent in his conclusions about why these lists were included.  It made his conclusions about what was being condemned in 18:22 and 20:13 a little muddled.  I think the incest argument is the strongest for various reasons, not the least of which is the “ish”/”zachar” wording.  I hope this helps some.  If you have any questions, please ask.  It is hard to compress hundreds and hundreds of pages of reading and dozens of pages of research into a single blog post.  Remember: God loves you!

Sodom and Gomorrah

Okay, here is my first "homosexuality and the Bible" post.  It is a Bible study of sorts.  Please, let me know what you think.

I have spent many years thinking about the Bible and homosexuality.  In my studies, I have researched Sodom and Gomorrah several times.  My attitude about what led to the destruction of the two cities has changed and evolved over time.  My earliest Bible study concludes that the cities were destroyed for intended gang rape.  When one looks at Genesis 19 by itself, as if it is a separate story in and of itself, one makes a mistake.  Genesis 19 is the end of a story which starts in Genesis 18.  (I find that my Bible studies have been really long in the past because I would go through and type out what each verse says.  This time round, I think I will allow you, the reader, to pull out your own Bible or chose an online Bible and read the verses.)  So in Genesis 18, YHWH (out of respect for those who find it offensive to spell God’s name out, I will follow the convention of leaving out the vowels) comes to earth to see if the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is really as bad as what he hears.  The decision had already been made to destroy the cities.  Be that as it may, when one looks at the literary structure of Genesis 18 and Genesis 19 as a single unit, one begins to see the beauty behind the J source’s writing.  (Scholars believe [and I agree] that there are multiple authors for the Pentateuch [the first five books of the Bible].  They break them down into different sources, designated by different letters.)  Here the J source is comparing and contrasting two extremes of hospitality and one minimum.  In the first half of the tale Abraham was honorable and goes out of his way to show respect to the strangers that come by.  He does not realize at first that he is welcoming YHWH and angels.  He prepares an elaborate feast and acts as if it has taken nothing to prepare.  He is rewarded for his exceptional hospitality, with the promise of offspring at a very late age.  Then in chapter 19, we have the exact opposite happening.  First, we have Lot who pretends like he's going out of his way to really doesn't do that much for the strangers.  He provides them with a place to sleep, but his meal is not elaborate. It is just passable.  He is rewarded with salvation, but not the promise of progeny.  (However, he also fathers nations in a bizarre twist where he has sons/grandsons with two of his daughters, perhaps indicating that not offering extreme hospitality can lead to tainted offspring.)  And then we have the image of the men (and boys?) from the city of Sodom surrounding the house demanding that the strangers come out so that they can gang rape them.  That shows a complete lack of hospitality in the extreme.  They are rewarded with annihilation.  So, just looking at the J source alone, Sodom was destroyed for extreme inhospitality.  Gomorrah and the other “cities of the plain” must have been guilty by association.  The text really doesn't explain why Gomorrah was destroyed except that YHWH had already said that it was going to happen because of general wickedness.

Take the time to read Judges chapter 19 as well.  In it you have a very similar story except the Levite’s concubine is thrown out to the streets and the men of the city raped her to death.  One can only conclude that Genesis 19 is a condemnation of homosexuality if one concludes that Judges 19 is a condemnation of heterosexuality.  Neither is true.  The authors are trying to make different points.

Now, we can look at some of the fine details.  According to E. A. Speiser in Genesis of the Anchor Bible commentary series, the distance the angels traveled to get to Sodom after feasting with Abraham would have taken a human about 2 days, yet only took them half an afternoon (Speiser, pg 138).   (Not terribly important for my subject, but very interesting none the less!)  There is the question of how the “cities of the plain” were actually destroyed.  There is a great deal of seismic activity around the Dead Sea.  There is also a lot of tar, bitumen, natural gas, oil, etc.  It is possible that an earthquake sparked off a fire that engulfed several cities (Speiser, pg 142).  I have also read, but can’t put my finger on the research right now, that volcanic activity could be to blame.  Because the Biblical description includes fire raining down from Heaven, I’m even willing to entertain the idea that a comet exploded (yet another theory that I heard of but can’t find the research on) igniting gasses in the area.  (The difficulty that some scholars have with this theory is that there is no impact crater near the Dead Sea.)  And, there are other, more bizarre explanations out there.  On the other hand, there are several attempts by Biblical authors to explain the destruction of these cities.  “Isaiah stresses lack of justice” (1:10-17 and in a roundabout way 3:1-9), “Jeremiah cites moral and ethical laxity” (23:14), and Ezekiel speaks of Sodom’s disregard of the needy” (16:49-50) (Speiser, pg 142).

-From an old Bible Study that I did when my citation skills were lax, but I liked the information: 

It has been argued that the reason for the destruction is inhospitality.  Since back in those days there were very few inns and only major metropolitan areas had them, strangers were to be taken in and welcomed into your home as Lot and the Levite did. The New Oxford Annotated Bible states: “…the main issue here is hospitality to secretly divine visitors. Here, however, the sanctity of hospitality is threatened by the men of the city who wish to rape (know) the guests. Though disapproval of male homosexual rape is assumed here, the primary point of the text is how this threat by the townspeople violates the value of hospitality. Hospitality is valued so strongly in this context that this text positively portrays Lot’s offer of his virgin daughters in place of his guests.”  This argument seems to be supported by Jesus’ statement in Luke 10:1-16.  He is talking about hospitality of cities welcoming the 72, and says in verses 10-12, “But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you.  Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’  I tell you it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.”  There is another thing to keep in mind.  Tribal customs 3000 to 4000 years ago was quite different than what we know today.  Some tribal leaders would rape new men coming into the tribes to make them submissive and keep their power.  In “Good News for Modern Gays,” Rev Sylvia Pennington puts it this way, “It is historically known that it was not an uncommon thing for conquering nations or leaders to force the conquered male into same-sex anal intercourse with the conquering hero in the male role.  To a highly patriarchal people, there was no greater insult or degradation than for a man to have to submit, as a woman, to another man’s sexual advances.  It was a disgrace for a Jew, serving the one true God, to so humiliate and invalidate another person’s life as to steal his manhood (worth) from him.”  While this ties into her discussion on Leviticus, I offer it here as possible support for the inhospitality argument.

So, I guess my conclusion has not evolved much since my last Bible study.  The cities of the plain were destroyed for extreme inhospitality.  The prophets say as much.  Context matters.  If people take verses out of context, they can create scary scenarios.  Don’t fear the Bible.  Pray for the Bible to open up to you as you read it.  Then, read it.  The author refers to inhospitality/gang rape.  Not monogamous couples or even consenting adults. Ergo, the story of the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain is not a condemnation of gay people or homosexuality.  LGBTQi people need not be afraid of this story, at least not as far as their sexual orientation or gender identity goes.

Welcome!

Greetings y'all!  This is my first attempt at a blog, so please be patient.  I thought I'd set up what I hope to accomplish with this blog.  LGBTQi folks are frequently told that the Bible is very clear in its condemnation of homosexuality, that it always has been, and that the "catholic" (universal) church has always been consistent in its condemnation of homosexuals.  Personally, my studies have found these assertions to be false.  A) I am not at all convinced that the Bible - taken in its original language AND context - condemns homosexuality.  B) There are a few places that the Bible seems to celebrate - or at least tolerate - homosexuality.  This topic seems to be very emotional for some folks.  In order to avoid what can become an overwhelming mess, I plan to approach each clobber passage one at a time and give it my full attention.  Please don't bring up another clobber passage in your comments while I am approaching a specific one, because that can lead to general confusion and chaos.  I will also give my full attention to the possible pro-LGBTQi passages.  There may be other blogs about the arguments used in academia about when and where homosexuality started, the advantages of using multiple translations when doing a Bible study, the problem with an argument from silence, etc.  I ask that you be polite and respectful in your comments regardless of whether you agree or disagree.  Since my children may be reading this, I ask that you keep your language clean.  Thank you for joining me on this journey!  If you have any topics that you'd like for me to research after the clobber passages, just let me know!