![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerI thought I'd post something about random poetry generators, but that's not therapeutic enough. I'm cranky and fevered and sore-throated, and I wanna write about the Biblical prohibitions against homosexuality, not Markov chains. Yeah, I know — me the preacher. But back in July, Her Nibs of Second Thought insisted on preaching this at her friends. Frankly, I'd just as soon cut the subplot it's a part of, both because it's making the story arc lumpy and I really want to get the final draft under 60k words, but she's still moved to speak. I'm hoping that by saying it to all of you, she'll let it go already. Writer's therapy, IOW.
ObDisclaimer: Much of the following information can be found in an article by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, but it's mixed with unsourced tidbits picked up in my erratic career as a liberal Quaker. None of it is invented, but the scholarly work of others. Translations are from New English Bible and King James, depending.
Aside from chance references, the Bible discusses homosexuality only three times:
As an aside, how can anyone read the prologue to the Parable of the Good Samaritan and not conclude that Jesus really intended to say all theology and ritual aside from those two commandments are superfluous? And read the parable and not conclude that by neighbor he meant everyone?
---L.
ObDisclaimer: Much of the following information can be found in an article by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, but it's mixed with unsourced tidbits picked up in my erratic career as a liberal Quaker. None of it is invented, but the scholarly work of others. Translations are from New English Bible and King James, depending.
Aside from chance references, the Bible discusses homosexuality only three times:
- Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination" — First thing to note is, as often pointed out, this addresses only men, not women. So not a ban on homosexuality in general. Second, everywhere else the Hebrew word translated as abomination is used, it means ritually unclean — a stain you must purge before entering the Temple. It says nothing about whether it's wrong in daily life, just in a sacred setting. Compare the next verse, where bestiality is banned outright as perversion. But most importantly, the original Hebrew is ambiguous: a just-as-unforced translation is "Don't lie with a man in a woman's place" — in her bed, in other words. Regulating not the act itself, but where it's performed.
- I Corinthians 6:9-10, in which Paul says that "neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners" will inherit the Kingdom of God — Two key words here. First, that effeminate, which some translate directly as sodomites or homosexuals. At the time Paul wrote, the Greek word didn't yet mean that; it did a few centuries later, but in the first century AD, it was more generally profligate, without homosexual connotations. Second, the abusers of themselves with mankind (gotta love that Jacobean primness) means male prostitutes, specifically temple prostitutes. Which, I note, is fornication, adultery, and idolatry all rolled into one. No general ban on homosexuality here, either. Also note, again no lesbianism is mentioned.
- Romans 1:26-27: "In consequence, I say God has given them up to shameful passions. Their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and their men in turn, giving up their natural relations with women, burn with lust for one another." — This is part of a long passage where Paul explains what God does to those who turn away from him and worship idols. This is usually read is one of a long series of punishments inflicted. However, the language specifically makes it part of a pagan rite, where "they have bartered away the true God for a false one." In verse 28, we're told, "Thus, because they have not seen fit to acknowledge God, he has given them up" to a paragraph of general wickedness. The punishment is not for the homosexual acts, but for the pagan rituals they are part of.
As an aside, how can anyone read the prologue to the Parable of the Good Samaritan and not conclude that Jesus really intended to say all theology and ritual aside from those two commandments are superfluous? And read the parable and not conclude that by neighbor he meant everyone?
---L.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 17 October 2004 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 October 2004 07:24 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 17 October 2004 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 October 2004 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 October 2004 07:27 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 18 October 2004 07:33 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 18 October 2004 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 October 2004 07:46 am (UTC)<rimshot>