CONTENTS
|
THE BIBLICAL CASE AGAINST HOMOSEXUALITY
(part one)
Let's get right to the point on this one. If you want to make a case against homosexuality, using the Bible, there are three passages which lend themselves perfectly to this cause. We will consider two of them in this essay. They are:
- Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. (Leviticus 18:22, KJV), and
- If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20:13, KJV).
The way these passages read in other versions is very close to the KJV. While I am told that the syntax in the Hebrew is enough to cause a Junior High School grammar teacher to pull her hair out, the meaning in that language is the same as we see above.
The first thing that should be obvious is that the ancient Hebrews did not have a word for homosexual behavior. They had to describe the act. In the process of describing the act, the law giver was as discreet as he could be while not leaving any room for misinterpretation. Basically, the law giver was forbidding any and all sexual activity between two men, that is masculine Homo-genital contact.
This brings us to the second point; the law giver was forbidding sexual activity between men, but was silent concerning sexual activity between women, or lesbianism. (We will return to this point later.)
Several attempts have been made to undo the damage caused by these two passages. The problem with all of these attempts is that the scholars either assume that the Bible is right, or are afraid to say that it is wrong. Consequently, none of these attempts hold water for very long. Our approach shall be to join with both Isaiah and Jesus and assume that Moses, or whoever wrote in the name of Moses, could be wrong. The question is, was that person, already and hereafter referred to as the law giver, actually wrong in this case?
In the previous essay we looked at fertility cults. You will remember that the most primitive fertility cults believed that they had to instruct the spirit of the land what to do. They did this by imitating the results they wanted. This, in anthropology today, is called sympathetic magic. If you honestly believe that the land must be instructed, there are implications which are far reaching. Suppose the land got confused? What might confuse it? How about sexual congress where the seed gets planted but does not grow? What kind of sexual congress would this be?
Remember, in our examination of these two passages above, that we noted the prohibition of homosexuality was gender specific, that is that it condemned Homo-genital contact between men but had nothing to say about women. There is a very good reason for this. When two women participate in Homo-genital contact, no "seed" is planted. Since no "seed" is planted, it does not imitate the planting process and therefor will not confuse the spirit of the land.
Of course we have a much different understanding of this today. We realize that no seed is planted in regular sexual congress. Instead, the sperm, like the pollen, fertilizes the egg cell and this becomes like the seed. This process is more like pollination than like planting. However, the ancients didn't realize that the woman contributed half of the genetic material to the embryo. They didn't realize that the sex act was more like something that occurred long after planting, after the plants came to maturity. In their limited basis of understanding, the sex act was like planting in that the "seed" was put in the place where it would grow and mature.
As time went on, the religious perspective of the primitive fertility cult evolved. The spirit of the land became a god, or more likely, a goddess. Then, the fertility ritual became a tribute to, or a means of worshipping this goddess. Along with this goddess came a consort, a male god, who not only acted as protector, but also provided children resulting in a pantheon of gods and goddesses. In time, that male consort would dominate the goddess and become the chief god.
It appears that the Hebrews skipped this process of religious evolution and progressed right into the chief god stage without developing a pantheon. Because of this, they kept their fertility cult views of reality longer than normal. They still believed that the land could become confused, or defiled, with Homo-genital activity. The evidence of this can be seen in the conclusion to Leviticus, chapter eighteen:
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you. (Leviticus 18:26-28 KJV)
You should note, in the above passage, the law giver did not say that God causes the land to become defiled because of the "sin" committed. Instead, the "sin" itself defiles the land. The only recourse God had was to replace those who defiled the land with another people who would not commit the same "sins." This establishes that the law giver was afraid that homosexual behavior, specifically male homosexual behavior, would defile, or pollute, the land so that it would not produce.
Through the use of a little religious anthropology and a careful examination of the text, we have established that the reason for the Biblical prohibition against homosexuality was that the law giver and the people he wrote his laws for still had not abandoned all the ideas of a fertility cult. Male homosexual behavior was prohibited because the assumed similarities between the sex act and the planting process made it "confusing to the land." Female homosexual behavior was not included because there was no "seed planted" in this form of homosexuality. If the land were allowed to become "confused," it might do with the seed just what it "saw" in male homosexual behavior. That would be to allow the seed to die without producing a crop or a harvest. In other words, the law giver and the people he wrote for were afraid that male homosexual behavior would result in famine!
The reason for the law is invalid. Does the law still stand?
In these two chapters, Leviticus eighteen and twenty, you will find several other laws that have the same reasons for existence. There are laws against adultery, bestiality (or having sexual intercourse with animals) and incest, (however the law-givers definition of incest was more extensive than ours, and included sister-in-laws along with several other similarly removed relatives.) Our society still agrees on bestiality. Our definition of adultery is much more limited than this passage. (In some groups, it is not adultery if your legal spouse agrees that it is okay.) Many of the prohibitions that we would see as falling under the general category of incest are no longer considered valid today. What about the laws against homosexuality? We will look at this in greater detail later on in this booklet.
|
