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Homosexuality and Scripture

(The following quotation is provided for the sake of stimulating discussion only; it is not to be construed as in anyway representing the current magisterial teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.)  

Why address the issue of Homosexuality and Scripture?

The following quote points out the way that the interpretation of scriptures can be based on scholarly, rational principles; in a well balanced approach, the author exposes a possible biblical misconception often used in order to affirm that the Bible somehow broadly condemns all forms of homosexuality as it is practiced today; and, it gives a positive example of biblical contextual analysis.

After an example covering the topic of the Bible and slavery, the following piece from Marcus Borg's  Jesus: A New Vision. Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship raises questions about the way that certain terms used in the Bible have been translated to denote the term "homosexual".

"When the Bible condemns some activities

that were being done in ancient Israel,

should we assume

that it also condemns these

differently contextualized activities today?"

“Another source of confusion in interpreting the Bible, or any text that originated in a culture different from our own, lies in the different social conditions of that different time and the ways those conditions give terms different meanings. For instance, slave owners in the American South regularly cited the positive biblical references to slavery to support the ownership of slaves. But slavery in ancient Israel was a very different sort of institution. It was not based on race. Many slaves were supposed to be freed at the end of seven years, and there was a good bit of movement back and forth between slavery and freedom. Israelite slavery may have been a bad institution, but it was a very different institution from that of American slavery. It was more like the hiring of indentured servants, if one wants an American analogy. So one can’t simply transfer what the Bible says about "slavery" to an American context where the institution and the circumstances are very different and the word therefore has a different meaning. 

“Similar issues arise with the much-debated issue of homosexuality. We don’t know much about what forms homosexuality may have taken place in ancient Israel. In some surrounding cultures, homosexual prostitution was practiced in conjunction with the worship of Baal, and Hebrew law might have condemned such activities because they were homosexual or because they involved prostitution or because they were connected with Baal worship. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 focus on the issue of male homosexual intercourse: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination." However, the word used to condemn these actions, toevah (abomination), usually refers to acts that make you ritually unclean, like eating pork or engaging in intercourse during a woman’s menstruation—in contrast, say, to actions such as theft or murder—and these condemnations occur in the midst of others that have mostly to do with ritual purity. It’s hard to be sure what the practices were or what about them was judged objectionable.

     Continued >