Leviticus

Leviticus 18:22

This first verse lies in with numerous other laws of that time that were considered important. Another, Leviticus 18:19, states: "Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period." Do we ignore some of these regulations and pick out others?? What was the reason behind these verses?

The condemnation of homogenital acts occurs in a section of Leviticus called "The Holiness Code". This list of laws and punishments spells out requirements for Isreal to remain "holy" in God's sight. What does this mean? According to Jewish belief, Israel was God's "chosen people" and was bound to God by a covenant, a pact. That covenant required that the Israelites not take part in the religious practices of the Canaanites, the people the Israelites had conquered. To remain separate from the Gentiles was to be "holy", set apart, different. So, a main concern of The Holiness Code was to keep Israel different from the Gentiles.

The Canaanite religion included fertility rites according to the Hebrew testament. These ceremonies allegedly involved sexual rituals that were thought to bring blessing on the cycle of the seasons, the production of crops, the birth of livestock. Supposedly, during there was much sexual variation in these rituals. The Holiness Code prohibits all those acts and calls them all "abominations". This same section of The Holiness Code includes the prohibition of male homogenital acts.

The point is that The Holiness Code of Leviticus prohibits male same-sex acts because of religious considerations, not because of sexual or moral ones. The concern was to keep Israel from taking part in Gentile practices. The argument in Leviticus is religious, not ethical or moral. That is to say, no thought is given to whether the sex in itself is right or wrong. All concern is for keeping Jewish identity strong. The reasons used to forbid it then have no bearing on today's discussion of homosexuality.

To make a comparison, there used to be a church law that forbade Roman Catholics to eat meat on Fridays, and that is still observed less strictly by many Catholics during Lent. That church law was considered so serious that violation was a mortal sin, supposedly punishable by hell. Yet no one believed that eating meat was something wrong in itself. The offense was against a religious responsibility, to act like a Catholic.

An Abomination

Many things were believed to make one unclean... eating the wrong animals, sowing mixed fields, menstration, attending to a burial, giving birth; all made a person unclean for a certain period of time. Specifically, look at other statements in the same passage as the one concerning homogenitality:
Leviticus 11 speaks of regulations regarding clean and unclean food; that we must not eat of anything that does not have a split hoof, or anything without fins or scales in the water, or specific kinds of birds, or any flying insects that walk on all fours; Leviticus 12 speaks of women being ceremonially unclean for seven days following childbirth, and must wait 33 days, unless she has a daughter, then must wait 66 days to be purified from her bleeding and then must bring a sin offering and be cleansed before being allowed to worship.
Leviticus 13 speaks very specifically about people with any skin diseases being unclean... (45 verses worth...)
vs. 47-59 cover regulations about mildew...
Leviticus 14:1-32 cover cleansing from infectious skin diseases...
vs. 33-57 again discuss regulations concerning mildew...
vs 15:1-33 again talks about discharges causing uncleanliness...
Leviticus 19:19: "do not plant your field with two kinds of seed, do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."
Leviticus 19:27: "do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard"
Leviticus 20:27: "a man or woman who is a medium or spiritualist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them"

All these things were obviously important for the Israelites in their day, or else so much time wouldn't have been spent detailing all of this. Does God mean for us to do these things today? They are obviously given much more time than any mention of homogenitality. These items had more to do with customs and culture at that time, not of moral judgment.

In these texts, the Hebrew word used to describe these behaviors or "abominations" is TOEVAH. This word literally means "culturally forbidden". These behaviors were forbidden because of their cultural and religious implications, not because of morality concerns. The word that was not intentionally not used was ZIMAH, which would have meant it was wrong in itself. When translated into Greek, the word BDELYGMA was used.. which means ritual impurity, and not the word ANOMIA, which would have meant a violation of the law or a wrong or a sin. The author was obviously meaning something different than what many Christians try to make them mean today.

Leviticus 20:13

This verse in Leviticus prescribed the death penalty for this behavior. It really is severe. But Leviticus also prescribes the same penalty for cursing one's parents. Other sexual sins also merited the death penalty: adultery, incest and bestiality. The law in Leviticus considered all these crimes to be very serious -- but for different reasons. Cursing one's parents, for example, was a major crime against society. Israelite society of the time was built around the extended family and the operation of the whole family depended on obedience within the family hierarchy. So, to oppose one's parents was to threaten social disorder. As far as adultery, in that society the woman was the man's property, and sex outside of the marriage was also a financial loss for the man... theft. The wives were bought with a "brides price". It was important that any children born were legitimate heirs.

As far as the reference to homogenital acts, it had a much different meaning then than it is today. Among the early Israelites, to engage in homogenital sex meant to b e like the Gentiles, to identify with the non-Jews. That is to say, to engage in homogenital acts was to betray the Jewish religion. Leviticus condemned homogenital sex as a religious crime of idolatry, not as a sexual offense, and that religious treason was thought serious enough to merit death. Leviticus condemned homogenital acts as a religious crime of idolatry, not as a sexual offense.

We must still appreciate and respect "taboos" in our society, even though they are constantly changing according to the beliefs and customs of society. We avoid some behaviors not because they are particularly wrong in themselves, but simply because they offend people, and these things vary culture to culture.

All the evidence point to the same conclusion. An analysis of The Holiness Code and its cultural context and a study of the Hebrew and Greek terms used in the Leviticus text both show that Leviticus forbids male homogenital acts because of their cultural and religious implications. But Levitucus makes no statement about the morality of homogenital acts as such. This was obviously not a concern in the Hebrew testament.

Therefore, it is a misuse of the Bible to quote Leviticus as an answer to today's ethical question, whether gay sex is right or wrong. Leviticus was not addressing this question. The concern in Leviticus, the cultural context of that text, and the meaning of male-male sex in ancient Israel are all very foreign to the present situation. Today's question and that in Leviticus are simply two different things. We must recognize the difference between real wrong and mere societal taboo or to treat something as an ethical issue when it is simply social convention at the time.