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Originally Posted by Gilda
You have to differentiate between homosexuality as a state of being, and homosexual acts.
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No, I don't. As most theologins will tell you, this is a relatively new, man-made concept which has no bearing on the Bible.
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There are plenty of gender specific admonitions. For example, differntiating between prostitution and male prostitution. Something like "you shall not lay lyings as with a woman" cannot be anything but specific to male behavior, and still condemns only the specific act, not homosexuality in general.
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1.) There are not plenty of gender specific admonitions. As I stated earlier, there are a handful of such laws (Even fewer). Off the top of my head I can name two. There might be one or two more, but that is it. The majority of laws are male specific but also referred to females as well.
2.) I'm slightly curious. It seems to me that you are saying that homosexuality in males is unacceptable but homosexuality in females is acceptable, as it's not explicity condemned. Am I right in my assumptions?
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Sure. The NRSV. Keep in mind the distinction between homosexuality--the state of being homosexual--and homosexual acts. In every instance it is the act that is being condemned, not the state of being, even where the word "homosexuality" is used, the context always makes it clear that it is the specific act, not the state of being.
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The state of being homosexual is a relatively new concept which people have come up with to try to describe homosexuality. Unfortunately, it has no bearing on the Bible, primarily due to the fact that there is no Hebrew or Greek word (At the time) dealing with the state of being homosexual.
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Such as rape. The problem with what the men of Sodom wanted to do was that it was to be the male-male equivilent of rape, not that it was homosexual.
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And you are still assuming that God's reason for destroying Sodom was not because of homosexuality. It would be quite presumptuous to claim that Sodom was destroyed simply because of homosexuality, but it would also be presumptuous to claim that Sodom wasn't destroyed in part due to homosexuality.
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Nope. But it can mean many things.
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Yes, it can. And one of those terms is regarding homosexuality.
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First, you are distorting what I said, which is bad form. Please don't do that. I referred to homosexuality as a state of being, not as "feelings".
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The state of being homosexual is directly intertwined with feelings. How is that distorting what you said?
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However, it does endorse feelings and manifestaions of it. One of those feelings, one of the manifestations of homosexuality is love. I love my wife. That is a part of my homosexual feelings for her. It is in fact so fully intertwined with my sexual attraction to her that I am incapable of separating the two. I'm told that there are heterosexuals who do the same thing. The bible is pretty cool with the concept of love, and endorses it pretty regularly, all over the place, with no restrictions as to who is allowed to love whom. There are all kinds of restrictions on who gets to have sex with whom, on both homosexuals and hetersexuals (and more on y'all than on us), but no restrictions on who gets to love whom.
Are you familiar with the concept of lesbian bed death? It refers to the phenomenon of lesbian couples ceasing to having sex after becoming monogamous. It's not rare in middle aged couples. There are good sociological and even better biological reasons for it, but there are such couples. Now, since the sex act isn't involved, what form might homosexuality take in the case of a celibate homosexual couple? I'm thinking it's about love. Which is endorsed quite frequently in the bible.
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As I stated earlier, there are four main types of love reffered to in the Bible; The love between a man and a woman, the love of God for his children, the love of Christ for the church and the love of man for his neighbors.
Now, because I'm curious, under what category would the love between two homosexuals fall under?
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Now, as to an endorsement, Paul does say that it's a sin for people to give up what is natural for what is unnatural, so the logical conclusion from that would be that it would be that I shouldn't have sex with a man (which would be unnatural for me) but that I should be free to act on my attraction to women.
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Natural to you may or may not be natural to God. If anything you do would be considered a perversion unto God then it is deemed unnatural. Whether or not you realize it (Or choose to accept it), Paul deams homosexual activities as a perversion and, therefore, unnatural.
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You assume incorrectly on both counts. First, the fact that I'm a Christian and The Bible is my holy book does not require a belief in bilibcal inerrancy. Second, I don't believe I'm qualified to make any judgements about the nature of God.
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A bit of circular logic here, but one of the underlying principals of Christianity is that God commanded people to write the Bible. Since God is infallible, the Bible is true and without error. To claim that the Bible is erroneous in some area would be to claim that God is prone to human error.
Oh, and if you would have read the Bible the nature of God is clearly defined.
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I don't accept your givens, and I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you still pointing out a lack of endorsement of homosexuality? Do you really not understand that that does not equal condemnation? The Bible prohibits certain male-male sex acts, but is silent on consensual homosexual sex between loving partners in a monogamous relationship.
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This is the last time I'm going to address this. There are very, very, very few laws which specifically mentioned women, as women were considered subordinates of their husbands/fathers. The majority of laws were given to the men who later conveyed them to those in their households.
If the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, then it can be inferred that all homosexual practices are a sin. Why would the Bible need to elaborate on a concept which it has already condemned?
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God, in the form of Jesus, does not address homosexuality. His prophets, human men, address certain homosexual acts, but not all homosexuality in the current meaning of that word (the state of being homosexual). Indeed, it would be strange if that were addressed as it's a modern concept that first became widely understood only in the last century.
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Jesus commanded all to obey the "Laws of Moses", and one of those such laws were that homosexual acts were strictly forbidden. Is there something that you're not understanding?
If I tell you to follow the "Ten Commandments", then that would mean that I expect you to abide by the rules listed there. Why is it any different in this case? It shouldn't be.
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"You shall not lay with a man as with a woman", that applies to women, too? Woo hoo! Leviticus says women are not allowed to have sex with men.
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As the saying goes, sarcasm is usually the lowest form of wit
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I'm being facetious of course. It's a an admonition against a man taking the female role in the sex act. There's no way this is gender neutral.
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You ignored my previous point regarding how the majority of Biblical laws were male-specific, yet still applied to females. Being a patriarchal society, men were considered the head of the household and women their subordinates. Men were the ones given the laws and all in their households were expected to abide by them.
A classic example of this is the story of Adam and Eve. Eve was not told by God to not partake of the tree of wisdom (He told Adam), yet she was expelled from the Garden of Eden just like Adam.
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In addition, sex is inheretly different for men and woman and the roles as understood at the time were much different. Extrapolating from rules specified for male-male sexual behavior to females does not work logically.
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Inherencies and roles involved are irrelevant to the discussion. The idea of sex being different for males and females is a relatively new concept and therefore can not be applied to laws written over 2,500 years ago.
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I assume you're referring to Leviticus 18:22:
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
First, notice no condemnation of homosexality, just a specific sex act, and taken in context, this refers specifically to a temple prostitute.
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So, what you're essentially saying is that the unilateral condemnation of homosexuality isn't unilateral at all? Well, I suppose that you're the leading theologin on Christianity-- Even moreso than the majority of theologins who agree that the Bible takes a hard defined stand on homosexuality.
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Now, let's look at "abomination". It's a translation of to'ebah, which usually refers to things that are ritually unclean, not violations of moral laws, it can be either, but even if we assume that it it's referring to moral law rather than procedural, it's still addressing specific acts, not homosexuality itself.
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To'ebah is given the popular definition of "To cause to stray from". I've already gone over this.
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That isnt' clear at all. It clearly prohibits some homosexual act as performed by temple prostitutes, by the exact meaning is vague. The literal translation is "lay lyings of a woman". Does this mean being the bottom, having sex on a woman's bed (which was considered unclean due to menstruation)? Why is it it an "abomination"? Spilling sperm, then believed to be the sole carrier of life, was considered akin to murder at the time. Is it that the act is homosexual that is the problem, or possibly that one man is taking the role of a woman, and thus lowering himself?
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It's the act of a man lying with another man or a woman lying with another woman. The translation really isn't that hard.
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There are numerous possible transalations of this passage, especially given the original context, which does not apply to most modern homosexual couples of either sex. It addresse one specific act in one specific context, not all homosexuality.
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You're assuming again. Nevertheless, if you continue to read through my responses, I provide an excerpt from an article which I believe you'll find highly enlightening.
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I'd expect that if it was important to him, he'd have said something about it, and Mosaic law hardly provides a blanket condemnation of homosexuality.
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Mosaic law hardly provides a blanket condemnation of homosexuality?!?!?! This is a highly incorrect statement.
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Really? I did? Let me check. I don't see it, so either you're making stuff up and attributing it to me, or I'm missing where I did that. If you're referring to 1 Corinthians 6: 9 - 11, it was you who provided that and I gave a translation of it that does not mention homosexuals as a group. So please, show me where I did that.
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Yes, really.
Here's an excerpt from an article describin the underlying meaning behind the term "Arsenokoita" which, when translated into Hebrew means "To lie with men".
http://www.catalystresources.org/issues/222dodd.html
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The main issue highlighted in recent debate over 1 Cor 6:9-11 concerns the correct way to render the Greek term arsenokoitai which occurs here. The NRSV reads, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites (arsenokoita), thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers— none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.’
In this recent critical translation arsenokoitai is taken as a reference to those who practice homosexuality. Arsenokoitai poses a problem to the translator because this is its earliest known occurrence in Greek literature. Robin Scroggs has plausibly suggested that Paul created this new word by combining the two terms found in the Greek version of Lev 18:23 (LXX 18:22) and 20:13: arsen = “male,” and koite = “bed,” which translate the Hebrew for “lying with a male” (mishkav zakur; The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate [Fortress, 1983] 106-8). With the likelihood that these Levitical prohibitions are echoed in 1 Cor 6:9, the NRSV is justified in translating the term as a reference to homoerotic intercourse, even if the English “sodomites” is somewhat archaic.
The most vociferous critic of taking arsenokoitai as a reference to homoerotic practice is the late, gay scholar J. Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality [University of Chicago, 1980] 335-53). He concludes that arsenokoitai refers to male prostitutes without specifying the gender of their partners. Boswell’s theory has been popularized by the widely known work of gay Catholic J.J. McNeil, who confesses his dependence on Boswell even though his work appeared earlier (The Church and the Homosexual [Sheed, Andrews & McMeel, 1976] 200). Boswell’s broader thesis, the Bible does not justify the later homophobia that appealed to it, has not been challenged, but his lexicography has come under unfavorable review.
David F. Wright has devoted an article to demonstrating the inaccuracies of Boswell’s presentation of the data (“Homosexuals or Prostitutes? The Meaning of ARSENOKOITAI (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10),” Vigiliae Christianae 38 [1984] 125-53). Wright and Boswell engage in highly sophisticated and detailed lexicographical argumentation, which space prohibits re-presenting in this brief article. Wright’s most telling argument is that Boswell seriously underestimates the use of arsenokoitai in early Christian writers, and he is especially negligent in his highly selective and inaccurate use of the early, Greek-speaking bishop John Chrysostom. Wright points out how the very texts from Chrysostom cited by Boswell, when viewed in light of their surrounding texts, both undermine Boswell ‘s interpretation and support the traditional view that arsenokoitai refers to homosexuality.
W.L. Petersen agrees with Wright’s dissection of Boswell’s lexicography but draws attention to an anachronism evident in the alternative that Wright offers (“Can ARSENOKOITAI Be Translated by ‘Homosexuals’ (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10)?”, Vigiliae Christianae 40 [19861187-91). Petersen criticizes Wright for using “homosexuals” and “homosexuality” as appropriate English terms for arsenokoitai when this is clearly anachronistic. The Oxford classicist K.J. Dover has demonstrated that there was no Greek term for homosexual identity, and the concept of sexual identity itself is a recent phenomenon (Greek Homosexuality [Duckworth, 1979]). The terms in Greek refer to homoerotic practice, not sexual identity. With this in mind the NRSV is not far off the mark, though “sodomites” wrongly draws attention to an intertextual echo suggested by the English term (to Sodom and Gomorrah), when instead arsenokoitai echoes the prohibitions of Leviticus. The NRSV translation is problematic and needs to be revised, but it is more accurate than some critics have allowed.
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Does that answer your question?
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By the way, even if homosexual acts are a sin, they don't separate one from God:
Romans 8: "No sin can separate us from God, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day
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That's right. No sin can seperate us from God's love, but it can cause us to stray away from God's purpose for our lives.
Ezekiel 14:11
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Not condoning does not equal condemning. There are three broad categories: Things that are required (duties) things that are forbiddent (sins) and things that are neither. The third group may be safely interpreted as permitted.
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Since this is going nowhere fast, let me ask you a fairly simple question.
Which statement appears in the Bible:
A.) Homosexuality is an abomination to me or
B.) Some forms of homosexuality are an abomination to me.
It's not rocket science nor is the choice hard. There is no clause in the Bible which states that some forms of homosexuality are acceptable to God; It is, in fact, quite the opposite. The statement is starkingly unambiguous.
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The biblical prohibitions are in regard to specific acts, usually committed by temple prostitutes, or in the case of Romans, during a temple orgy.
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And now you are assuming as to what the bans of homosexuality were in reference to. As I stated prior, there is no clause in the Bible which qualifies homosexuality. None.
Although, I have to say that I see where you're coming from.
The Bible states that killing (Murder) is unacceptable. Obviously what God really meant was that you shouldn't kill (Murder) unless you really feel the need to.
The Bible also states that stealing is an unacceptable behaviour. You see, though, what God really meant was that it's okay to steal just so long as you don't do it on the Sabbath.
You see? I can turn a concrete statement into a matter of assumptions, too!
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Really? I know that St. Augestine said a form of this, and Ghandi gave it its present phrasing, but where is the "hate the sin" passage in the bible? I see in Galatians the requirement to love:
For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
I see no call to hate there.
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Ezekiel 3:18
Isaiah 5:20
Psalms 45:6-7
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No. Here's the thing. I'm interpreting the Bible as a means of finding guidance in my own life. You obviously have a different interpretation of it, and I'm fine with that. If you see a blanket condemnation of homosexuality, the best solution is not to be homosexual.
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To put it as nicely as possible, you're taking a non-abiguous statement, claiming that it's ambigious and then interpreting it in a way which would conform to your lifestyle.
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Depends on the Translation used and how it's interpreted both in the context of the time and in a modern context.
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Time period and translation mean very little, as we can easily study the original (Well, what's left of them, anyway) Hebrew texts to determine the original meaning of any given passage of Scripture and, in this case, those texts condemn all homosexual behaviour.
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I neither said nor implied that you did.
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That's the way it sounded.
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You're quite wrong on this. That you do not tolerate does not invalidate the concept. I for one, tolerate your differing interpretation of homosexuality in the bible. My wife toerates my obsession with comic books.
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This is not what I was talking about.
As you were quick to point out, the Biblical definition of the word tolerance is different than the definition we use today. The Bible teaches us that we shouldn't condemn one another, but that we shouldn't accept sin as a daily part of our lives. Christians aren't supposed to condemn their brethern but, at the same time, they're not supposed to be accepting of sinful practices, either.
Ezekiel 3:18
Isaiah 5:20
Psalms 45:6-7
(Posted for the second time.)
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Where? Where does the Bible say this? This is not the core concept of Christianity.
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Proverbs 8:13
Romans 12:9-13
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This is:
John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
No exception for homosexuals. No exceptions period.
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No offense to you, but this is why I seldom get into argument with people concerning the Bible (Or any religious texts, for that matter). If you're going to argue using the Bible as basis, then at least know what you're talking about.
God loves everyone equally, hence him sending his only begotten son to die for the sins of humanity. However, not everyone is a child of God (1 John 3:10). Simply because you believe that Jesus' died for your sins doesn't mean that you are guaranteed eternal life; You must also adhere to God's word.
In every language translated, there is almost a unilateral concensus that God's stance towards homosexuality is not a favorable one, regarding it as an "Abomination". As I illustrated earlier, the Hebrew word for abomination is "To'evah" which literally means "To cause to stray from". Anything which causes you to stray from God is considered a sin and, as any Christian will know, sin causes a divide between humans and God.