Are Homosexuals and eating Pigs allowed in the Bible?
The sections of this article are:
- Are Homosexuals and eating Pigs allowed in the Bible?
- What about those Christians that religiously prohibit Homosexuality?
- What the Bible Says About Homosexuality? An article
about homosexuality
in both OT and NT in the Bible from www.godlovesfags.com
- Homosexuality and the Bible, An
Interpretation. Another article from
www.godlovesfags.com
This is a topic that I just thought about. I am not in anyway trying to insult Homosexuals, even though Islam highly prohibits Homosexuality. Below, you will see how both the Homosexuals and Pigs' cases are linked together in the Bible.
I was surprised to learn that most of the Christians that I encountered on the internet have no problem with homosexuality and don't think that there is anything wrong with it in the Bible. Their main point is that homosexuality was never addressed in the New Testament, thus practicing it is a matter of a choice.
Some even go into extremes by saying that Jesus never got married and Paul discouraged men to marry women; "Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. (From the NIV Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:1)" To them, since this is the case, then men marrying men should not be prohibited in the New Testament and Christianity.
What about those Christians that religiously prohibit Homosexuality?
Even though the Old Testament never addressed Lesbianism, but several Christians that I met in person oppose to Homosexuality because to them it is prohibited in the OT; "'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (From the NIV Bible, Leviticus 20:13)"
As I said, the OT never addressed Lesbianism, and the Pro-Homosexuality Christians of www.godlovesfags.com elaborated on this point. We even see many Verses in the OT where men and women are separated in laws and punishments. Take this example:
"IF A MAN has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal. (From the NIV Bible, Leviticus 20:15)"
"IF A WOMAN approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (From the NIV Bible, Leviticus 20:16)"
Notice in the above two verses that the man has to get caught having sex with an animal in order for him to be put to death, while the woman does not necessarily have to get caught having sex with an animal. If she only looks suspicious then she would still be put to death, while the man has to be caught doing it. Anyway, to many Christians, Lesbianism is ok since it was never addressed anywhere in the Bible.
But as to those folks who do oppose to Homosexuality in the Bible and rely on Leviticus 20:13 as the Anti-Homosexuality Christians of www.godhatesfags.com to support their argument, I have this question for them:
Since you use the Old Testament to prohibit Homosexuality which was never addressed in the New Testament, then how about prohibiting the eating of Pig's meat products such as ham, bacon, pork chops, etc...?
The Old Testament clearly says "And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you. (From the NIV Bible, Leviticus 11:7-8)".
So, if you're going to prohibit Homosexuality from your Christian perspective, then there goes also your Easter and Christmas Ham and Bacon, and Barbecue Pork Chops. Otherwise, you're a selective hypocrite!
Please visit Homosexual Marriage in Islam?
What is the punishment for Gays and Lesbians in Islam?
Is anal sex really allowed in Islam? It is prohibited between the Husband and the Wife.
What is the punishment for fornication and adultery in Islam?
What is the punishment for rape in Christianity and Islam? See how the Bible tolerates it and even indirectly promotes it to happen to single women.
Does Paradise in Islam really have Lesbianism in it?
X-Rated Pornography in the Bible.
X-Rated Pornography in the Noble Quran? Bunch of nonsense put together by anti-Islamics.
What the Bible Says About Homosexuality:
The following article was taken from www.godlovesfags.com
Note: I am not desperately trying to find any resource to prove homosexuality in the Bible. The reason why I chose this homosexual site is because I learned about it from CNN.COM before, and I once saw more than 10,000 posts on their message board, for which most of the ones I read were supportive of the site. So homosexuality is a controversial topic that most Western Christians seem (from my personal experience only) to support.
What the Bible Says About Homosexuality.
In biblical times, same-gender sexual interactions could take many forms. Some were:
1. kings of conquered tribes were sometimes raped by the invading army as the ultimate symbol of defeat and humiliation.
2. some non-Jewish tribes in the area had male prostitutes in their temples that may have engaged in same-sex activities; this horrified the ancient Israelites.
3. it is reasonable to assume that many loving gay and lesbian relationships existed, but these would normally have been conducted in secret.
Only the third type would have any similarity to today's gay and lesbian consentual, committed, loving relationships.
Many versions of the Bible exist in the English language. Each reflects the world view, beliefs and mind sets of its translators. Their personal biases distort their work. There is an additional complexity facing translators: today's society is very different from that of Biblical times. It is sometimes difficult to find a current English word that matches a Hebrew or Greek term.
Many words have been translated from the original Hebrew and Greek texts as "homosexual", "sodomite", "homosexuality". However, most (perhaps all) of the references bear no similarity to today's lesbian and gay partnerships.
By carefully reading the original texts and considering the societies in which they were written, one comes to surprising conclusions:
* The Bible has a lot to say about temple prostitution.
* It talks about being kind to strangers in a way that has been incorrectly interpreted as referring to homosexual acts
* It says almost nothing about homosexual feelings;
* It says nothing about sexual orientation. The writers of the Bible assumed that everyone was heterosexual (or "straight"); the concept of sexual orientation was not developed until the late 19th century.
The Bible does make occasional references to activities which have been translated as homosexuality:
* Genesis 19 describes how two angels visited Sodom and were welcomed into Lot's house. The men of the city gathered around the house and demanded that Lot send the visitors to the mob so that they might know the angels. [The Hebrew verb yada (to know) is ambiguous. It appears 943 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). In only about a dozen of these cases does it refers to sexual activity; it is not clear whether the mob wanted to rape the angels or to meet with them, and perhaps attack them physically. From the context, it is obvious that their mood was not friendly]. Lot refused, but offered his two virgin daughters to be heterosexually raped if that would appease the mob. The offer was declined. God decided to destroy the city because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. The angels urged Lot and his family to flee and to not look back. Unfortunately, Lot's wife looked the wrong way, so God killed her because of her curiosity.
God was apparently not critical of Lot for offering his two daughters to be raped. However, God was angry at the other inhabitants of the town. He destroyed Sodom with fire and brimstone (sulfur). He presumably killed all of the men in the mob, their wives and other adults, as well as children, infants, newborns, etc. It is unclear from these few verses whether God demolished the city because the citizens:
The Church has traditionally accepted the third explanation, and believed that the sexual activity was habitual. In fact, the term sodomy which means anal intercourse was derived from the name of the city, Sodom. But the first explanation is clearly the correct one. As recorded in Matthew 10:14-15 and Luke 10:7-16, Jesus implied that the sin of the people of Sodom was to be inhospitable to strangers. In Ezekeiel 16:48-50, God states clearly that he destroyed Sodom's sins because of their pride, their excess of food while the poor and needy suffered, and their worship of many idols; sexual activity is not even mentioned. Jude disagreed with God; he wrote that Sodom's sins were sexual in nature. Various biblical translations describe the sin as fornication, going after strange flesh, sexual immorality, perverted sensuality, homosexuality, lust of every kind, immoral acts and unnatural lust; you can take your pick.
We are faced with the inescapable and rather amusing conclusion that the condemned activities in Sodom had nothing to do with sodomy.
These passages are part of the Jewish Holiness Code which also:
Churches have abandoned the Holiness Code; it is no longer binding on modern-day Christians. They can wear tattoos, eat shrimp, wear polyester-cotton blends and engage in temple prostitution without violating this particular section of the Bible. Although this code is obsolete for Christians, many clergy still focus on those passages which deal with homosexuality.
In summary:
One can argue that the ancient Israelites were surrounded by warlike tribes. Their fertility was very important if the group was to survive. The early Christian church was also surrounded by enemies. Homosexuals tend to have few children; thus their presence would be met with opposition. At the end of the 20th Century, conditions are the exact opposite; we are threatened by our excessive fertility. Perhaps Paul's criticism of homosexuality is no longer valid, like his various prohibitions against women's behaviour.
Please visit Homosexual Marriage in Islam?
What is the punishment for Gays and Lesbians in Islam?
Is anal sex really allowed in Islam? It is prohibited between the Husband and the Wife.
What is the punishment for fornication and adultery in Islam?
What is the punishment for rape in Christianity and Islam? See how the Bible tolerates it and even indirectly promotes it to happen to single women.
Does Paradise in Islam really have Lesbianism in it?
X-Rated Pornography in the Bible.
X-Rated Pornography in the Noble Quran? Bunch of nonsense put together by anti-Islamics.
Homosexuality and the Bible, An Interpretation:
The following article was taken from www.godlovesfags.com
Note: This is the same note as the one in the previous section. I am not desperately trying to find any resource to prove homosexuality in the Bible. The reason why I chose this homosexual site is because I learned about it from CNN.COM before, and I once saw more than 10,000 posts on their message board, for which most of the ones I read were supportive of the site. So homosexuality is a controversial topic that most Western Christians seem (from my personal experience only) to support.
by Walter Barnett
About the author:
A native of Texas Walter barnett graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, where he
was president of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. He earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence
at the University of Texas and his Master of Laws at Columbia University. He was also a
Fullbright Scholar at the College of Europe in Belgium. After a brief period of law
practive in Texas he served for four years on the staff of the Legal Adviser of the U.S
department of State in Washington, and then taught for ten years in the law schools of the
Universities of Miami, New Mexico and Texas and at Hastings College of Law at the
University of California. He also worked for nearly two years as Program Interpreter for
the Friends Committee on Legislation of California and is a member of the San Francisco
Monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Since the beginning of 1979 he has
been living with the Catholic Workers, first in Los Angeles and now in Redwood City,
California.
His interest in the subject of this pamphlet goes back to 1969 when he became involved in
the struggle for civil rights of Gay people. This culminated in his first book, Sexual
Freedom and the Constitution - An Inquiry into the Constitutionality of Repressive Sex
Laws (University of new Mexico Press, 1973). He is also the author of Jesus - the Story of
His Life (Nelson-Hall, Inc., 1976). He was moved to write this pamphlet as a result of the
recent efforts of Anita Bryant in Florida and John Briggs in California to marshall
Christian support for their campaigns against the rights of homosexuals.
Request for permission to quote or to translate should be addressed to Pendle Hill
Publications, Wallingford, PA 19086. USA.
ISBN 0-87574-226-2
Most Christians are still uneasy about homosexuality. Even Gay Christians themselves often
share this uneasiness, because we have all been brought up in the same Christian
tradition. There are many causes for the uneasiness; but the one cause which seems most
important in the minds of all is the conviction that the Bible condemns homosexuality, in
itself and in all its manifestations.
In recent years a slow change has begun to occur in Christian attitudes towards
homosexuality and homosexual persons. Some Christians while maintaining the traditional
attitude for themselves, have become prepared to admit that it is not necessary in secular
society to punish homosexuals for behaviour which is permissible to heterosexuals. On this
basis, most which is Christian churches have now made formal statements supporting the
right of homosexual people ot protection against discrimination.
Some Christians have gone further and acknowledge that the particular virulence with which
some people have attached and condemned homosexual acts and homosexual persons is totally
unjustified, if a caring person weighs the relative importance given to homosexual
behavior in the Bible, and especially if he or she respects the attitudes appropriate for
a Christian when dealing with fellow human beings. Some theologians and a number of Gay
Christians, working from a growing understanding of the biblical texts, have come to the
conclusion that the Bible does not exclude homosexual people form the Christian
Fellowship, within bounds analogous to those applied to heterosexuals.
The Bible does mention homosexual behavior in extremely negative terms in a handful of
widely scattered verses, but modern research has turned up considerable evidence casting
doubt on the traditional interpretation of these passages - an interpretation that has
borne tragic consqeuences for homosexuals throughout almost the whole of Christian
history. The purpose here is to examine this evidence, together with some of the light
science has shed on the subject of psychosexual development, in the hope that it will lead
to a more informed appraisal.
The critical fact generally unknown to or overlooked by heterosexuals is that
homosexuality is something quite distinct from homosexual behaviour and even from
homosexual desires or lust. Homosexuality is an emotional and affectional orientation
towards people of the same sex. It may or may not involve sexual acts, though of course it
usually does. On the other hand, homosexual acts can be and are performed by both
homosexuals AND heterosexuals, and homosexual desire or lust is probably experienced by
most heterosexuals. (The most common instances of extensive homosexual behaviour by
hetersexuals ofccur in those situations such as prisons where heterosexual partners are
unavailable.) This is why those who possess this same-sex emotional orientation abjure the
term homosexual and call themselves by their own slang word, Gay. The word homosexual for
them overemphasizes the specifically sexual element in their feelings. Because it was
coined by the scientific community to label them, it also carries overtones of clinical
pathology which they reject. Since 1974 the American Psychiatric Association and the
American Psychological Association have both officially disavowed this implication of the
label, but the Gay community continues to reject the word. So even in general usages
"gay" is replacing "homosexual" just as "black" or
"Afro-American" has replaced "Negro".
Most people grow up to want and seek an intimate and loving relationship with a person of
the opposite sex. Gay people on the other hand are those who have discovered that they
want and seek such a relationship with a person of the same sex. Why and how this variant
occurs is not now and probably never will be the subject of any pat explanation because it
is the consequence of a wide range of factors, some of which are environmental and some
possibly hereditary or physical. What is imporant, though, from the point of view of sin
is that most Gay people have no conscious recollection of ever having chosen this
orientation any more than the ordinary hetersexual ever consciously chose to want the
opposite sex. It is simply a given in their emotional make-up, an integral part of the
personality. And they sense that nothing on earth will ever change this, just as the
ordinary heterosexual cannot imagine changing into a homosexual.
Some people are truely bisexual; they find both sexes equally interesting and attractive.
These however are few and far between. The orientation of the great majority is fixed and
definite, towards either the opposite sex or their own. This is not to deny that many
people engage in some experimentation on both sides of the fence before they know for sure
which side is home, but it is a mistake to conclude from this fact that all people are
basically bisexual. It is equally a mistake to conclude that all people are basically
heterosexual and a few are lured away into homosexuality by seduction. The truth rather
seems to be that human sexuality is initially free-floating and unattached, that an
emotional interest develops very early in life, and that this interest then comes
increasingly to the fore as puberty and adolescence bring on explicitly sexual fantasies
and behaviour.
The reason therefore why Gay people seek out others of their own sex and engage in sexual
behaviour with them is not that they are incapable of bridling their lusts or are
perversely determined to disobey God but simply because the option open to the rest of
humankind - a hetersoexual relationship and specifically marriage to a prtner of the
opposite sex - is not open to them. Legally of course it is open, but emotionally it is
not. It would for them be living a lie - a sin against their partner as well as
themselves. Such a relationship does not perform for them the function it is meant to
perform - to satisfy, to recreate, to replenish. Unlike the heterosexual they feel
completed only by a person of the same sex.
This is not to say that Gay people are incapable of heterosexual behaviour. Many can
perform heterosexual coitus just as many heterosexual people are capable of engaging in
homosexual acts. But if given the choice they will prefer a partner of the same sex, not
out of mere perversity but because it is only a partner of the same sex who satisfies them
emotionally.
Now in order for anything to be a sin there must be a possibility of moral choice. Where
there is no choice there can be no sin. So if one's sexual orientation is not a matter of
choice, it cannot be a sin to be a homosexual. True, it may be admitted, but one does have
the choice of committing or not homosexual acts. This boils down to saying that whether or
not homosexuality - the orientation - is a sin, homosexual behaviour invariably is.
The cruelty of this position is that it leaves only one option open to Gay people who take
their relationship to God seriously - the option of total and complete life long celibacy.
Because as already noted the option open to the rest of the world - heterosexual marriage
- is immoral and unethical, yes sinful, for a Gay person. But the church would never dream
of imposing such a burden on heterosexuals. Even the Roman Catholic Church which requires
celibacy of its priests has always admitted this to be a special calling for those select
few to whom God has given the ability to accept it; it is not for everyone. Heterosexual
Christians should beware of doing like the Pharisees of old, laying down on the backs of
other people a yoke they themselves would find impossible to bear.
Actually the Bible appears unequivocally to condemn only three things:
(1) homosexual rape; (2) the ritual homosexual prostitution that was part of the Canaanite
fertility cult and at one time apprently taken over into Jewish practive as well; and (3)
homosexual lust and behaviour of the part of heterosexuals.
On the subject of homosexuality as an orientation, and on consensual behaviour by people
who possess that orientation, it is wholly silent. The orientation as such was apprently
unknown to or at least unrecognised by the Biblical authors. If we may assume that the
Biblical authors were themselves all heterosexual this would not be at all suprising. For
that matter it has only been since about 1890 that the science of psychology began to
recognise homosexuality as a distinct entity.
In the first place homoexuality and homosexual behaviour are never anywhere in the Bible
mentioned either by Jesus Christ himself or any of the Old Testament prophets. If it
really were a sin in God's sight surely he or they or both would have inveighed against
it. This fact should be of cardinal important to the thinking of any person who purports
to follow Jesus.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 and 19 has traditionally in Christianity
been thought to demonstrate God's condemnation of homosexual behaviour. All this because
the Hewbrew word meaning "to know" in Gensis 19:5 has been interpreted to mean
"have sexual intercourse with." "They [the townsmen of Sodom] called to
Lot, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to use, that we may know
them.' "
In the story God informs Abraham that these two cities will be destroyed because of their
great wickedness, but the wickedness is never specified. Abraham persuades God to spare
the cities if even ten righteous men can be found in them. Two angels them come to Sodom
to investigate and are given hospitality by Abraham's nephew Lot. All the townsmen both
young and old surround the house and demand to "know" the two strangers, but Lot
refuses to surrended them up and offers instead his two virgin daughters. When this offer
is rejected, the angels pull Lot inside and shut the door, striking the townsmen blind so
that they grope about in darkness. The angels then urge Lot and his household to flee the
city to escape its destruction.
Actually in the Bible this Hebrew word "to know" rarely means sexual
intercourse. Apart from this story and the counterpart tale in Judges 19, it has that
meaning in only about fifteen instances out of more than 900, and in all those few
instances it denotes hetersoexual coitus as, for instance, in Genesis 19:8). Some scholars
believe that here, because of the circumstances, it has only its usual meaning of
"become aquainted with."
Lot himself was a resident alien in Sodom, and for such a person to harbor two other
foreigners within the city's gates could well rouse suspicion that they were spies looking
for weaknesses in its defenses that a potential enemy could exploit. The townsmen
therefore had a perfectly justifiable excuse for demanding that the two strangers show
themselves so that their indentities and the purpose of their visit could be ascertained.
Lot's reaction however indicates that there was some serious mischief afoot, and his
offering the townsmen intercourse with his two virgin daughters to kepe them from doing
anything to his guests does seem to support the notion that the mischief was specifically
sexual.
Even if the sexual interpretation is corect, the sin of Sodom does not necessarily lie in
homosexuality or homosexual behaviour. Rather, this wicked thing that Lot enjoins the
townsmen not to do is rape pure and simple, and gang rape at that. Rape is not a sin
peculiar to homosexuality; it occurs far more often in a heterosexual ontext. Its
sinfulness lies not in the context, whether heterosexual or homosexual, but in the
victimisation of the nonconsenting partner.
In our reading today of this story we overlook a little known fact - that the entire
ancient Near East hospitality to sojourners and travellers was not seen to be, as with us,
a merely a voluntary option but rather was a sacred religious duty. See Leviticus
19:33-34; Matthew 25:35, 38, and 43. Thus whatever the townsmen intended, any kind of
mistreatment or indignity inflicted on Lot's guests would be a sin. It would violate the
sacred obligation of hospitality. And indeed this latter is the sin or wrong Lot's own
words indicate in verse 8 - "Don't do anything to these men, for you know they have
come under the shelter of my roof." This interpretation is further buttressed by the
fact that the story presents in such marked contrast to the behaviour of the Sodomites the
elaborate hospitality shown the angelic visitors by Abraham and Lot.
Finally it is worth noting for future reference that sexual intercourse between humans and
angels - two different orders of creation - would in itself have been wrong in the eyes of
the Jews, who would remember that in Genesis 6:1-8 the disaster of the Great Flood comes
hard on the heels of a charge that the "sons of God" (presumably angels) took to
wife the daughters of men.
The idea that the Sodom story is not an indictment of homosexuality is no new-fangled
interpretation. Most later Jewish commentary on it both inside and outside of the Bible
does not make out the sin of these cities to be homosexuality or homosexual behaviour.
According to Isaiah 1:9 and 3:9, it was a lack of social justice; according to Ezekiel
16:46-52 it was disregard for the poor; and according to Jeremiah 23:14 it was general
immorality. Though ancient Rabbinical literature - the Talmud and Midrashim - often refers
to Sodom in connections with sins of pride, arrogance and inhospitality, it contains only
one mention of anything homosexual, namely a midrash emphasising rape and robbery of
strangers. ("The Sodomites made an agreement among themselves whenever a stranger
visited them they should force him to sodomy and rob him of his money.") It is
primarily among Philo of Alexandria and Joesphus, that we find the homosexual
interpretation, and it is probably from Josephus that the interpretation eventually found
its way into the Christian Church.
In the New Testament two passages - II Peter 2:4-9 and Jude 6-7 - refer to Sodom and
Gomorrah as examples of God's judgement on the wicked in such terms as apparently to adopt
a sexual interpretation . The former refers to the townsmen of Sodom as licentious or
"unprincipled in their lusts," and the latter says that ehy gave themselves to
fornication and went after different flesh. Neither passage contributes anything more on
the subject. But it is important to bear in mind that both authors may have been thinking
not of homosexual intercourse but of intercourse between different orders of creation
(humans and angels). Both authors refer to God having likewise judged the angels who
sinned, and Peter refers to the story of the Flood. Consequently both were probably only
reiterating the view found in some Jewish writings from the same general period, namely
the Testament of Naphtali 2:4-5, and the Book of Jubilees 7:20-22, 16:5-6, and 20:5-6. The
view found in these other writings is that the Sodomites were cursed for having changed
the order of nature by runnin after angels just as the angels have been cursed at the
flood for having gone a-whoring after the daughters of men.
Jesus himself mentions Sodom and Gomorrah but only to say that they will be judged less
severely than the towns that rejected his disciples or refused to repent even after
witnessing the works he performed (Matthew 10:14-15, and 11:20-24, Luke 10:10-12, and
17:28-29). None of these passages tells us his interpretation of the Sodom story, though
the fact that he linked the name of Sodom with refusal to welcome his disciples may give
us a hint. And the parallel to the Sodom story reported in Luke 9:51-56 in which James and
John the sons of Zebedee beseech Jesus to call down from heaven destruction by fire on an
inhospitable Samaritan town provides at least some confirmation that Jesus and his
disciples held to the more prevalent view within Jewish tradition that the sin depicted in
the Sodom story was inhospitable treatment of travellers rather than homosexuality or
homosexual behaviour.
The story in Judges 19 of the outrage at Gibeah is very similar to that of Sodom and Gomorrah, and some scholars consider the one derived from the other. Here again the Hebrew word "to know" is used (Judges 19:22) and the host's offer of two females as diversion implies that it is to be taken in a sexual sense. In this story, however, the male guest pushes is concubine out the door, and the townsmen of Gibeah "know" and abuse her all night long, as a result of which she dies. yet this story goes on to say explicitly (Judges 20:4-5) that the townsmen's intention was to kill the male guest. So the mischief that was afoot here was not merely sexual, even homosexual rape; it was murder. And it ended in a heterosexual gang rape that took the womans life.
Even if the original intent of both the townsmen of Sodom and those of Gibeah was homosexual rape, obviously both stories are about heterosexual males who indulge in it as a sport. Otherwise the offer in both stories of females as a diversionary sexual object makes no sense. To extend such an offer to homosexual males would be pointless because it would hold no interest for them.
In Deuteronomy 23:17-18, in I Kings 14:24, 15:12, and 22:46, in II Kings 23:7, and in Job 36:14, there are references to a kadesh (singular) or to kedeshim (plural), which literally mean "holy man" and "holy men". Some translations of the Bible render these terms by the English word sodomite(s). The passage in Deuteronomy forbids Israelite men to become such, and likewise forbids an Israelite woman to become a kedeshah - the same word for the femenine gender. Modern Bible Scholars believe these terms refer to priests and priestesses of the Canaanite fertility cult, and evidence outside the Bible supports the inference that both types of functionaries engage in sexual intercourse with male worshippers as part of the ritual. Indeed the Deuteronomy passage by poetic parallelism appears to equate kedeshah with the hebrew word for a female prostitute (zonah). The 38th chapter of Genesis and Hosea 4:12-14 also support this equation. Thus the better translation of kadeshikedeshim would be "male cult prostitute(s)."
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 enjoin the men of Israel not to "lie with a male as with a woman," for which the latter verse invokes the death penalty. It is state to be to'ebah. This Hebrew word, generally translated as abomination in English, is used in the Old Testament to refer to idolatry and to practices associated with idolatry. And in deed the whole context of these injunctions is a polemic against the Israelites imitating the defiling practices of the Canaanites whom they displaced in Palestine. Thus again, the prohibition is probably directed against the practice of ritual homosexual prostitution as found in the Canaanite fertility cult. In any event the intent cannot be to condemn all homosexuality and homosexual behaviour because there is no prohibition whatever in Leviticus against women having sexual relations with other women. This can hardly be explained as an oversight or on the basis that what women do is never of any consequence, because these chapters do contain explicit prohibitions against both male and female intercourse with an animal. So if homosexual behaviour is supposedly such an evil in God's sigh, why does Leviticus forbid it only to males and not to females ?
Apart from the association of male homosexual acts with Canaanite idolatry, the answer probably lies mainly in a concern for the "seed" of life rather than a concern about homosexuality per se. The Hebrews like other ancient peoples had no accurate knowledge of conception. They did not know that women produce eggs which the man's sperm fertilizes, but apparently thought that the seed came solely from the man; when "sowed" in a woman it would grow into a new being just as a seed from from plants will sprout and grow when sowed in the earth. They likewise did not know that matings between different species are sterile. Thus men must not expend their seed in other males where it would be unproductive, or in animals where it might result in a "confusion" such as a centaur. Women are forbidden to receive seed from an animal for the same reason, but because presumably they have no seed, what they do among themselves is inconsequential.
Also, in the patriarchal society of the ancient Hebrews the status and dignity of the male was held to be inviolable, so much so that even the women of the house must be sacrificed to preserve if need be, as in the Sodom and Gibeah stories. In the ancient Near East it was not uncommon for the victors in war to rape vanquished kings or warriors as a mark of utter subjection and contempt. The Hebrews unlike the Greeks may thus have associated male homosexuality with disrespect and debasement of the male sex and viewed it as intolerable for that reason. Moreover, any society that exalts the male sex over the female may tend to associate male homosexuality with effiminacy. It therefore becomes tabooed to keep the dominant sex from being assimiliated to the status of women.
Even if these Levitical injunctions are to be read as an absolute prohibition against males engaging in homosexual behaviour under any and all circumstances, it is worth asking why this should be deemed binding on Christians when so many other injunctions of the Pentateuch are not. For instance these same chapters of leviticus make punishable by banishment the sin of a man having intercourse with his wife during menstrual period (Leviticus 18:19 and 20:18). Leviticus also forbids the wearing of cloth made of two different kinds of fibers, say for instance cotton and polyester (Leviticus 19:19). And what about Exodus 22:18, requiring that witches be put to death?
The only three remaining Biblical passages that conceivably touch on homosexual behaviour are found in I Corinthians 6:9, I Timothy 1:10, and Romans 1:18-32.
In I Corinthians 6:9 Paul asks his readers, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God ?" He then proceeds to list certain catergories of people as examples of those who will not inherit the kingdom. In this list two of the Greek words, namely malakoi and arsenokoitai, have usually been rendered in English translation by a single term such as "homosexuals," "sodomites," "sexual perverts," pr "homosexual perverts."
Please visit Homosexual Marriage in Islam?
What is the punishment for Gays and Lesbians in Islam?
Is anal sex really allowed in Islam? It is prohibited between the Husband and the Wife.
What is the punishment for fornication and adultery in Islam?
What is the punishment for rape in Christianity and Islam? See how the Bible tolerates it and even indirectly promotes it to happen to single women.
Does Paradise in Islam really have Lesbianism in it?
X-Rated Pornography in the Bible.
X-Rated Pornography in the Noble Quran? Bunch of nonsense put together by anti-Islamics.
Back to Ask me any question section.
Women in Islam V.S. Christianity.
Allah, Islam, Quran, Muhammad questions and answers.
What is the place of Jews, Christians and non-Muslims in Islam.