Sunday, July 13, 2008

What does the Bible REALLY say about homosexuality?

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/14211/

[Stand Firm] 13 Jul 2008-- A fascinating article in the Guardian on this topic by Ed Marriott.

The simple answer, of course, is nothing at all since the Bible never speaks of homosexuality. It knows only homosexual acts. Given that Marriott is obviously a Bible scholar of tremendous weight he probably assumed that all his readers knew that. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

The rest of the detailed and sustained argument goes like this:
On 'abomination'
According to Leviticus 18:22: 'You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.' But Daniel Karslake, director of For the Bible Tells Me So, says the word 'abomination' comes from the Hebrew word 'to'evah', meaning contrary to ritual. 'Leviticus was the holiness code, designed to further the tribe of the Jewish nation. Which is why it didn't look very kindly on men having sex with men, since sex was needed for procreation.' Nothing, in short, about divine judgement.

Hmmmm, interesting. It is certainly true that the notion of "abomination" in the Torah carries with it a concept of cultic purity. But that does not mean that every instance of the word is simply about cultic purity. That much is totally clear from the context of the passage that Karslake quotes....

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