Oct 12, 2012
Scriptural Literalism; Cherry-picking the "Fundamentals"
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
-Leviticus 18:22, King James Version
The world today, however, has changed beyond what anyone back then would have imagined. Leviticus 25:44, part of the Holiness Code, permitted slavery; and even though Paul said nothing about carrying it on in his New Testament Epistles, it existed until the 19th century (in the States, of course). But we realized that slavery was wrong and that African Americans were just as human as Whites. So we stopped using the Bible to justify slavery; yet continued using it to justify oppression toward women.
Today, "love the sinner, hate the sin" is now primarily directed at "the gays". All I see is the same technique the Church has used against blacks, women, and other groups being used again to oppress LGBTQ people. And the "justification" for it starts with the first of the seven clobber passages that appear to speak on homosexuality; Genesis 19, or the story of Lot and God's planned destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This story in Genesis 19 is generally thought of in terms of the fate of one or two cities: Sodom, or Sodom & Gomorrah. But according to Deuteronomy 29:22-29, God's anger caused four Canaanite cities to be destroyed. It involved:
"...the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath."
Unfortunately, the real names of Sodom and Gomorrah were not preserved. Sodom was derived from the Hebrew word "S'dom," which means "burnt." Gomorrah is derived from the Hebrew word "'Amorah," which means "a ruined heap." These appear to be place names which were assigned after their destruction and were not their original names.
The previous chapter, Genesis 18, describes a meeting between God, two angels, Abraham and Sarah. God had apparently decided to kill all of the men, women, youths, children, infants, and newborns in the four cities of ancient Canaan. Abraham bartered with God, as a Middle-East resident would debate the purchase price of goods in a market place. He persuaded God to cancel the mass murder if ten or more righteous people can be found in all of Sodom.
Genesis 19 describes how the two angels who accompanied God went on to visit the Sodom. These were not the typical angels that one might think of today: female human-like beings dressed in white with massive wings. Rather they would be angles such as the Bible refers to: males of a different species, and yet indistinguishable from humans. The city had just experienced warfare (Genesis 14:1-2) and was probably on high alert to detect enemy activity and forestall future conflict. Lot welcomed the angels into his house. They had been sent to warn him that God was displeased with the wickedness of the city's residents and might exterminate all human life over a large geographical area, including the city of Sodom.
All of the people from the city gathered around the house and demanded that Lot send the strangers out to the mob so that they might "know" the angels. Sensing evil intent by the citizens of Sodom, Lot refused. He implied that what the mob intended to do was "wicked." As an alternative, he offered his two virgin daughters to be gang-raped by the mob, if that would appease them. Since young women were generally married by the age of 15 in that culture, his daughters would probably have been 14 years old or younger! The offer was declined. The angels blinded some of the mob so that they could not force their way into Lot's house. Later, the angels urged Lot and his family to flee the city and to not look back. Unfortunately, the angels' instruction to not look back was apparently to be interpreted literally. Lot's wife seems to have had an inquisitive mind. She looked the wrong way, so God killed her on the spot and turned her into a pillar of salt.
Most conservative Christians will look at the story of Lot and say that the reason for the destruction of the cities was entirely due to the homosexuals running amok in the streets. The proof? The simple fact that they wanted to have sex with the male angels and not the daughters. But let's back up here.
First off; by Hebrew tradition, if a guest arrives at your home, you are expected to welcome them inside. Lot observed this rule of thumb and honored his guests, the angels. A progressive interpretation of the Genesis 19 story was that Sodom and Gomorrah were blamed for their inhospitality, among other wicked deeds. When the townsfolk learned of Lot's guests, they rushed to his home and demanded to "know" them. Now the word "know" comes up several times in the Bible and it most often refers to sexual relations, but in this story it can be a little confusing. "Know" is typically found with consenting sexual relations, not rape; but it's also highly possible that the Sodomites wanted to rape the angels. Gee, that sounds a little inhospitable to me; don't you think so?
Second; we read that Lot offered his daughters first, but the townsfolk refused them and demanded for the angels. Lot lived in Sodom, and would have most likely known that many in the city were homosexual (if that was the city's primary "wicked" crime); so why in the world would he offer his daughters to men in the angels' stead, knowing fully well that they would only be interested in men in the first place? 1+1=2.
When it comes to Lot's particular story, the use of the people's homosexuality was the means of the sin, not the sin itself.
First off; by Hebrew tradition, if a guest arrives at your home, you are expected to welcome them inside. Lot observed this rule of thumb and honored his guests, the angels. A progressive interpretation of the Genesis 19 story was that Sodom and Gomorrah were blamed for their inhospitality, among other wicked deeds. When the townsfolk learned of Lot's guests, they rushed to his home and demanded to "know" them. Now the word "know" comes up several times in the Bible and it most often refers to sexual relations, but in this story it can be a little confusing. "Know" is typically found with consenting sexual relations, not rape; but it's also highly possible that the Sodomites wanted to rape the angels. Gee, that sounds a little inhospitable to me; don't you think so?
Second; we read that Lot offered his daughters first, but the townsfolk refused them and demanded for the angels. Lot lived in Sodom, and would have most likely known that many in the city were homosexual (if that was the city's primary "wicked" crime); so why in the world would he offer his daughters to men in the angels' stead, knowing fully well that they would only be interested in men in the first place? 1+1=2.
When it comes to Lot's particular story, the use of the people's homosexuality was the means of the sin, not the sin itself.
"If you read it literally, in its English translation, without considering its context, one could say the Bible condemns homosexual activities. When we look at the Bible and try to draw moral rules for living, but we take it out of the context of the time when they were written, we do them a great injustice."-J.K. Nelson
Moving on, we come to the next, and most quoted clobber passages of the Bible: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. These two are the most often quoted and used against the gay culture because they're in a book full of laws. What's funny is that among the rest of the Mosaic laws, you're not supposed to eat shrimp, get tattoos, wear clothes made of both polyester and cotton, and pick up sticks on a Saturday. All of these (and many more) are punishable by some form of cruel death. But which law do we choose to stick too? Oh yeah; executing gays. Why? We'll get to that here in a moment, but first, let's look at these two passages under a microscope.
Starting out, Leviticus 18 includes many laws in regards to incest, from verse 6 all the way to verse 18. Verses 19 and 20 are not about incest, but forbid sexual relations with a woman during her menstrual cycle, and sexual relations with a neighbor's wife (adultery 101). At verse 21, we see an almost dramatic change in topic, and start reading how worshiping the false god Molech is forbidden, as well as taking Yahweh's name in vein.
Hit the breaks! Who is Molech? Molech (also Moloch and a few other similarly-pronounced spellings) was a pagan god worshiped by many Canaanites and Phoenician. To please him, parents were expected to sacrifice one of their children. Leviticus 21 says this is wrong and lawfully bans the worship of Molech by disallowing parents to "let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch". The deity's followers also believed that engaging in acts of temple prostitution (of mostly males) was another way to please Molech. So that's our link with Molech and the other laws that talk about sexual impurity.
So now we arrive at the 22nd verse and the one that's crammed most often down the throats of those dastardly gays. If we were to isolate the verse, take it completely out of context and read it as is, then - yes - it does seem to condemn homosexual sexual relations; but if we plug it back into its context, and take into account the culture that these laws were addressing at the time, we get a different warning entirely.
The subject changes from incest, to menstrual periods, to the adultery, and then to practices of Molech (or other idol) worship. From that point, we can logically see that the law regarding same-sex relations is more than likely referring to Canaanite/Phoenician pagan ritual practices.
Leviticus 20:13 repeats what was stated in 18:22 with nearly the same warning. Again, this passage may logically refer to pagan/idol worship that involves same-sex relations. It should also be important to note that both passages talk about a particular act of homosexuality, and not the sexual orientation.
"There are 6 admonishments in the Bible concerning homosexual activity and our enemies are always throwing them up to us usually in a vicious way and very much out of context. What they don't want us to remember is that there are 362 admonishments in the Bible concerning heterosexual activity. I don't mean to imply by this that God doesn't love straight people, only that they seem to require a great deal more supervision."Moving on, we come to the next clobber passage in the Bible: Romans 1:26-27. That's right, boys and girls; this one is from the New Testament, but it's just as misunderstood and misquoted as the other passages that seem to talk to homosexuality.-Lynn Lavner, from Butch Fatale
"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence [sic] of their error which was meet."-KJV
This passage is set apart from the others because it talks about lesbianism (woman-woman), instead of just male-male homosexuality. But, again, let's plug this verse back into its context and keep in mind the people and culture that Paul is writing to in his epistle.
Religious Tolerance explains it best:
The complete passage describes how a group of Christians left the church, converted to Paganism, and engaged in orgiastic, presumably heterosexual sexual activities. This type of behavior was common among Pagan fertility religions in Rome during Paul's time. Paul writes that, later, God "gave them over" to something new: homosexual behavior. This implies that they had a heterosexual orientation and had engaged only in heterosexual sex throughout their lifetime. God influenced them in some way to engage in homosexual orgies. This was, for them, an unnatural, and thus sinful, activity.
Paul criticized them because they were engaged in sexual activity which was unnatural for them. For a person with a heterosexual orientation, homosexual behavior is "shameful," "unnatural," "indecent," and a "perversion." The passage in Romans is not a condemnation of homosexual behavior. Rather, it disapproves of sexual behavior that is against a person's basic nature (i.e. homosexual behaviors by people whose orientation is heterosexual).
For the vast majority of adults, those who are heterosexual, it is indecent for them to engage in homosexual activities. One can interpret Paul's writing as stating that, for the small minority of humans who are homosexual, it would be indecent for them to engage in heterosexual activities.
As C. Ann Shepherd writes: "When the scripture is understood correctly, it seems to imply that it would be unnatural for heterosexuals to live as homosexuals, and for homosexuals to live as heterosexuals."
Finally, this passage says absolutely nothing in regards to committed, loving same-sex relationships; especially by using such language as "perversion" (verse 27) and "such things" (verse 30), isolating certain acts of gay and lesbian behavior. These include group orgies, practices in a religious setting (common within temples dedicated to Aphrodite, the Roman/Greek goddess of love and beauty), sex outside of a loving relationship, or pedophilia (in most cases, the child was a slave).
The second passage written by Paul that appears to talk about homosexuality is 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."Okay, here we run into some trouble with translation, word-use, and Paul's own experience, moral fortitude, and limited understanding of human sexuality based on that time period. First, Paul used two words that English translators have found no words for in modern language: malakoi (malakoi) and arsenokoitai (arsenokoitai).-KJV
If Paul wanted to refer to homosexual acts or behavior, he would have instead used the word paiderasste. This word would have been just fine and was the standard word in the Greek language, during that time period, to describe same-sex behavior. Malakoi and arsenokoitai make no other appearance in any document from that time period, nor in any document before or after (save for in Timothy, which we'll discuss next); they're completely nonexistent, so their translations are also. It seems like Paul simply made up the words to describe something else. If we break apart arsenokoitai, we get "arsen" meaning Man in Greek. So one thing is for sure: Paul was not talking about both male and female by using this word. So when Bible translations use "homosexuality" as a blanketing substitute, they are dead wrong, and probably way off.
Paul could have actually been referring to male prostitutes, catamites (boy prostitutes), pederasts (abusive pedophiles, child molesters), or perverts.
Next, we arrive at 1 Timothy 1:9-10:
"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine."-KJV
In this passage, we find the second and only other use of the term arsenokoitai. We have no solid understanding of this term as it never appears in any other writings after this time; thus we are limited to breaking up the word as if it were a compound. Not only that, a convincing case can also be made that 1 Timothy was actually written by a forger sometime around the second century; not by Paul himself.
The King James Version translates this single word into nearly a whole sentence: Those/They that defile themselves with mankind. Modern versions blanket this with "homosexual", even though that term wasn't coined until the 19th century, and the people of Paul's time hadn't the slightest clue about sexual diversity and orientation.
Arsenokoitai is broken into two words: "arsen", meaning "man", and "koitai", meaning beds. But jumping to the conclusion that this compound word is talking about gay men sleeping with each other is absurd, illogical, and rash. Again, looking at the culture of that time, and why Paul was writing this letter, we can logically draw out that he was most likely referring to either pedophiles, prostitutes, or sex slaves, among others mentioned in the analysis of the previous passage in 1 Corinthians.
Finally, we arrive at the last of the seven clobber passages. Jude 1:7 reads:
Do we really need to go back and review that story again? Remember, the mob wanted to rape the angels; which was a perversion in and of itself. Couple that with "strange flesh", and you could very well accuse them of bestiality as well, since the angels weren't technically human. In the end, it wasn't the fact that they were homosexual (if they even were at all) that was the crime; it was their inhospitality toward strangers and the fact they wanted to rape them.
We covered a lot of stuff today; but do you see how conservative Christians have derived "Love the sinner, hate the sin" from the Bible? There are many passages in that giant book that all seem to warrant some kind of hatred towards the actions of the "others". We say we love them, but we hate who they are: because they dress differently, act differently, look differently, speak differently, or love differently. Conservative Christians fall into this "us versus them" mentality, where they must always have an opponent to battle, or some kind of evil to rid the world of.
Life isn't as black and white as what they try to make it out to be. So, they cherry-pick the passages that seem to be the easiest to use as a weapon. Biblical literalists is an ironic title, because they aren't actually literalists; they're selectivists. They choose only the parts of scripture that seem to justify their hate and disguise it as righteousness. Even worse, hardly any of them will engage in an open dialogue with the dreaded "liberals".
"Love the sinner, hate the sin"... A convenient little saying, backed up by convenient translations.
In this second part of the study, we looked at what the Bible reads, but next time we'll look at what the Bible says. You see, many people, when they quote the Bible as if they were reading something witty from a Hallmark card, start by asserting "The Bible says...", but fail to understand the true meaning behind whatever verse they are quoting. Words may read one way at first glance, and offer only surface-level meaning if not properly studied. Only when you sit down and take apart the verse, read it within its context, and keep in mind what and whom the passage was referring to at the time it was written, will you be able to know what that verse actually says.
The King James Version translates this single word into nearly a whole sentence: Those/They that defile themselves with mankind. Modern versions blanket this with "homosexual", even though that term wasn't coined until the 19th century, and the people of Paul's time hadn't the slightest clue about sexual diversity and orientation.
Arsenokoitai is broken into two words: "arsen", meaning "man", and "koitai", meaning beds. But jumping to the conclusion that this compound word is talking about gay men sleeping with each other is absurd, illogical, and rash. Again, looking at the culture of that time, and why Paul was writing this letter, we can logically draw out that he was most likely referring to either pedophiles, prostitutes, or sex slaves, among others mentioned in the analysis of the previous passage in 1 Corinthians.
Finally, we arrive at the last of the seven clobber passages. Jude 1:7 reads:
"Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."The emphasized text reads in the original Greek: "sarkos heretas". Strange flesh has been translated as "perverted sensuality", "unnatural lust", "unnatural sex", "lust of men for other men", and simply as "perversion" across multiple versions of the Bible. The list goes on; but most conservatives agree that this passage in Jude somehow proves that the Sodomites (as in the people of the city of Sodom, not the modernized sense of the word) were punished and destroyed because they were homosexual.-KJV
Do we really need to go back and review that story again? Remember, the mob wanted to rape the angels; which was a perversion in and of itself. Couple that with "strange flesh", and you could very well accuse them of bestiality as well, since the angels weren't technically human. In the end, it wasn't the fact that they were homosexual (if they even were at all) that was the crime; it was their inhospitality toward strangers and the fact they wanted to rape them.
We covered a lot of stuff today; but do you see how conservative Christians have derived "Love the sinner, hate the sin" from the Bible? There are many passages in that giant book that all seem to warrant some kind of hatred towards the actions of the "others". We say we love them, but we hate who they are: because they dress differently, act differently, look differently, speak differently, or love differently. Conservative Christians fall into this "us versus them" mentality, where they must always have an opponent to battle, or some kind of evil to rid the world of.
Life isn't as black and white as what they try to make it out to be. So, they cherry-pick the passages that seem to be the easiest to use as a weapon. Biblical literalists is an ironic title, because they aren't actually literalists; they're selectivists. They choose only the parts of scripture that seem to justify their hate and disguise it as righteousness. Even worse, hardly any of them will engage in an open dialogue with the dreaded "liberals".
"To be conservative... is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss."-Michael Oakeshott; emphasis mine
"Love the sinner, hate the sin"... A convenient little saying, backed up by convenient translations.
In this second part of the study, we looked at what the Bible reads, but next time we'll look at what the Bible says. You see, many people, when they quote the Bible as if they were reading something witty from a Hallmark card, start by asserting "The Bible says...", but fail to understand the true meaning behind whatever verse they are quoting. Words may read one way at first glance, and offer only surface-level meaning if not properly studied. Only when you sit down and take apart the verse, read it within its context, and keep in mind what and whom the passage was referring to at the time it was written, will you be able to know what that verse actually says.
