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9 comments

1
team_fukit  Jul 17, 2015 • 10:43:40am

Great share. Most people don’t recognize that homosexuality as a constructed identity (a sexual orientation) didn’t really start existing until the post-World War II era. What the passages in Leviticus seem to be condemning is a “super impurity” (dicks possibly touching feces) for Levites rather than a sexual orientation, and in Paul’s letters the issue seems more to be about avoiding temple prostitution in places like Corinth.

2
S'latch  Jul 17, 2015 • 12:35:38pm

When Leviticus says “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is detestable.” It is pretty clear. The Bible says homosexuality is some kind of sin.

However, it also condemns eating pork and shellfish, working on the Sabbath, shaving your beard off with a razor, etc.

So, I think that any person who is doing anything the Bible condemns really should shut up about homosexuality.

Furthermore, even if the person is living Biblical perfection, they should shut up about homosexuality because it doesn’t concern them. Like eating shellfish and pork, or working on the Sabbath, homosexuality is not a “sin” against any other person. These types of “sins” are no one’s business but the person doing them, and God, if they believe in God.

On the other hand, you could just argue that the Bible needs to be thrown out. Either way, someone’s homosexuality is no one else’s business.

3
team_fukit  Jul 17, 2015 • 12:58:10pm

re: #2 S’latch

It’s important to note the intended audience of Leviticus: “Levi” is the priestly family. The book was a handbook on ritual purity within the First Temple, not a primer for general morality.

4
S'latch  Jul 17, 2015 • 1:24:29pm

I agree that it is a handbook on ritual purity, not a primer for general morality. There are some of the rules that were just for the priests, but, most of those rules were intended for all the Israelite. Almost none of them were ever rules for non-Israelite, and most certainly don’t have much to do with general morality.

It’s good do be able to make these arguments because there are still millions upon millions of people who think they are arguing from a Biblical authority. It’s good to know this stuff to communicate with these people and make them actually do some thinking.

5
S'latch  Jul 17, 2015 • 2:10:55pm

As to “ritual purity,” to the orthodox, daily life is “ritual.” So, “ritual” is not just what’s done in the temple. Everything that is done, work, play, sleep, and even sex, is a religious “ritual” that has a Biblical basis.

6
team_fukit  Jul 17, 2015 • 5:24:58pm

re: #5 S’latch

If you’re talking about Jews, most of Leviticus isn’t practiced in daily life because it presupposes the existence of a Temple.

My friends who study Hebrew Bible tell me that the terms “abomination” and “detestable” have a specific ritual taboo connotation.

Archaeology shows us that ritual “homosexual” acts were often practiced in that region by Canaanites etc., which is probably why the Levites deemed the practice detestable.

The journey to monotheism also complicates gender and sexuality when the god is constructed as exclusively male, in a time when most religion groups imagined priestly figures sexually consorting with divine entities through ritual.

7
First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Jul 17, 2015 • 7:10:36pm

I’m still equally amused and dismayed by the willingness of people to insist that various holy books don’t really mean what they explicitly say when they explicitly say revolting and barbaric things, and that people who credit their atrocities to their adherence to one holy book or another aren’t really adherents, despite the concurrence of any number of like-minded theological scholars in their particular mythos.

8
team_fukit  Jul 17, 2015 • 7:57:37pm

re: #7 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

I wouldn’t consider myself a Bible believer or defender, but often what people believe the Bible explicitly says only says what some hack translator rendered.

9
aagcobb  Jul 19, 2015 • 9:01:37am

re: #8 team_fukit

I wouldn’t consider myself a Bible believer or defender, but often what people believe the Bible explicitly says only says what some hack translator rendered.

On top of that, you have only a handful of verses which can be interpreted as dealing with homosexuality at all. But you have thousands of verses concerning caring for the poor and outcast and denouncing greed, and yet the Religious Right has aligned itself with the Ayn Rand worshippers.


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