Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I disagree, the motivation for excluding gays is based on scripture and the premise that's its immoral and unnatural and anti-scriptural, not on some ludicrous psychological fears.
But, you see, Robbie, I don’t think you are really upholding Biblical standards—I think you are
honestly upholding what you
believe are Biblical standards, no question there. But I think that you’re wrong. Now, I’m going to speak strictly within the framework of the Hebrew Bible, realizing that you also rely on the NT; I have seen similar scholarly work done on the NT texts as well (digging into both the Greek, and historical understandings)—but I’ll let other people work there [I have some citations that I can give, but they are easily findable by anyone interested].
One does not have to be either dishonest or pernicious to be biased: one only has to have been taught certain biases and the arguments for why they are not biases. Even a questioning mind may honestly—innocently, one might say—retain certain biases whose arguments seem to continue to hold.
Admittedly, aside from any issues of translation—both from the Hebrew language and its idioms—I think that the Hebrew texts have been subject to biased interpretations that have been handed down (within Judaism as well); the saving grace of rabbinical teaching (the Oral Torah) is not that the rabbis were unbiased (this way or that way), but that methodology of the Oral Torah (which really
is the Oral Torah) requires continuing questioning and argument—whatever one rabbi is recorded as saying, there is another recorded, countervailing (at least potentially, in principle) saying by another rabbi. And “a place has been left for me to labor in it” (BT, tractate Hullin, 7).
It is possible, of course, that I am wrong. I, too, have inherited biases (though, with regard to homosexuals, they were extremely negative ones)—and there may be some that I do not recognize. That realization is part of what, hopefully, keeps me from dismissing/attacking the Other, simply because he/she has another view. But I at least owe that view the regard of argument. (“I could be wrong—but I don’t think so”, Monk.)
The following represents some considered Jewish argument from one site, based on close readings of the Hebrew text, and with some historical analysis. Several rabbis are quoted with somewhat different views (naturally!). From my own studies (which I may pull together for presentation later), it seems absolutely unequivocal to me that that the “sin of Sodom” had nothing to do with homosexuality—either as it is understood now, or might have been understood then.
For now, this will do. It represents no “watering down” at all.
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http://home.earthlink.net/~ecorebbe/id18.html
DOES THE BIBLE PROHIBIT HOMOSEXUALITY, by Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the University of California, Berkeley*
Of course it does (Leviticus) 18: 22; 20: 13), but the prohibition is severely limited.
First, it is addressed only to Israel, not to other nations.
Second, compliance with this law is a condition for residing in the Holy Land, but is irrelevant outside it (see the closing exhortation, 18: 24-30).
Third, it is limited to men; lesbianism is not prohibited. Thus it is incorrect to apply this prohibition on a universal scale.
Moreover, as pointed out by my erstwhile student, Dr. David Stewart, both occurrences of the prohibition (18: 22; 20: 13) contain the phrase "as one lies with a woman" (lit. "lyings a woman"😉,
an idiom used only for illicit heterosexual unions [in the usage of the Torah]. Thus one could argue that carnal relations are forbidden only if their correlated heterosexual unions would be in these lists. For example, the Bible lists the following prohibited relations: nephew-aunt, grandfather-granddaughter, and stepmother-stepson. Thus, according to this theory, nephew-uncle, grandfather-grandson, and stepfather-stepson are also forbidden. This implies that the homosexual prohibition does not cover all male-male liaisons, but only those within the limited circle of family. However, homosexual relations with unrelated males are neither prohibited nor penalized. Admittedly, more than two occurrences of the phrase "as one lies with a woman" (Gen. 49: 4; Lev. 20: 13) [
mishkevey eeshah] are needed before accepting this argument as definitive.
—This is a weal argument, though: Gen 49:4 uses the word
mishkevey, but not paired with
eeshah. [EDIT: this is my note.]
As I mentioned above, in the entire list of forbidden sexual unions, there is no prohibition against lesbianism. Can it be that lesbianism did not exist in ancient times or that Scripture was unaware of its existence? Lesbianism existed and flourished, as attested in an old (pre-Israelite) Babylonian omen text (Texts from Cuneiform Sources 4, 194: XXIV 33'😉 and in the work of the lesbian poet Sappho (born c. 612 BCE, during the time of the First Temple), who came from the island of Lesbos (hence "lesbian" ). But, in the eyes of the Bible, there is a fundamental difference between the homosexual acts of men and women: in lesbianism there is no spilling of seed. Thus life is not symbolically lost, and it is for that reason, in my opinion, that lesbianism is not prohibited in the Bible.
Thus, from the Bible, we can infer the following: the female half of the world's homosexual population, lesbians, are not mentioned. Over ninety-nine percent of the remaining gays, namely non-Jews, are not addressed. This leaves the small number of Jewish gay men subject to this prohibition.
To those who argue that the Bible enjoins homosexuality, a careful reading of the source text offers a fundamentally different view. While the Bible never applauds homosexuality, neither does it prohibit most people from engaging in it.
(LEVITICUS, pgs. 196-197, by Jacob Milgrom, 2004)
* Jacob Milgrom is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The author of five scholarly books, including "Studies in Levitical Terminology" (1970), "Cult and Conscience: The Asham and the Priestly Doctrine of Repentence" (1976), "Numbers" (JPS Torah Commentary- 1990), and "Leviticus (Anchor Bible, 3 vols.,-1991-2001), and more than two hundred articles. He was named a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, and a senior fellow of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. Now retired, he and his wife, Jo, live in Jerusalem (as of August 2001).
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From the same site:
Again, according to the rabbi and Bible scholar, Professor Jacob Milgrom, the prestigious translator and commentator of the scholarly Anchor Bible Series Translation of the Book of Leviticus, and the Jewish Publication Society Commentary on the Book of Numbers; the ORIGINAL Hebrew Bible Leviticus texts are referring to NON-ISRAELITE, RELIGIOUS cultic ritual sexual and sexual abuse practices that Israelites were not to imitate when they entered into the Land of Israel. It has nothing at all to do with what we today term as being homosexuality per se, but with cultic religious fertility rituals.
The ORIGINAL LEVITICUS documents of the biblical texts that are today used by the uninformed to deny a spiritual connection to God for homosexuals were not written to address either homosexuals or homosexuality. These documents are actually referring to a prohibition against imitating non-Israelite, foreign CULTIC sexual substitution fertility rituals, and do not condemn anyone who does not use substitutional and/or incestuous sex as a method of gaining Divine favor.
In fact, the text of the Book of Leviticus was originally written as an instruction manual for the priestly tribe, and referred to PRIESTLY prohibitions only. The original name of the Book of Leviticus (which name comes from the Greek Septuagint) was in Hebrew “SEFER TORAT HAKOHANIM" (The Instructions of the Priestly Officiants).
Among the Israelites the Priestly class was required to be "Kadosh" (Holy; see Lev. 22: 8; Ezek. 44: 31), "set apart" from the rest of the people, just as the Sabbath and Festivals are set apart as "Holy" from the rest of weekly time.
During Ezra's time period (5th century BCE) this same text of Leviticus was then edited, added to, and made to apply to all the returning Jews, who were now to be a "nation of kings and priests." "You shall be Holy (set apart), for I, ADONAI, your God, am Holy" (Lev. 19: 2).
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On “Abomination”
The Hebrew word
toevah, generally translated as “abomination”, basically means (like the English abomination) “distasteful” or “disgusting” or “loathsome”. It is
not a synonym for wickedness (
resha) or moral evil.* It is, as the article cited above notes, most often used for what is distasteful in terms of religious behavior—which, for Leviticus, means most behavior—it often refers to idols. The article notes the restrictions for the “abominableness” of homosexual acts. Something may be both wicked and
toevah, but could be either one without the other.
In English, however, “abomination” just sounds so—well, “abominable”! But I have never seen anyone derive the conclusion that the abominable snowman was also morally wicked . . .
* NOTE: The Hebrew word
ra, often translated as “evil”, does not mean moral wickedness either, though it can be extended to cover that.
Ra simply means “bad”, in any way that you can use that word—just as
tov means “good” in the same general way: e.g., the phrase
mazel ra hu says, “He [has] bad luck”. The English word “evil” had the same generality when the Bible was originally translated in the 16th-17th centuries.
Lewes bonfire, and gays in the church
03 Feb '13 20:541 edit
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