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Difference Is Not A Sin

Chapter 3: TEXTS REFERRING TO HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE BIBLE

We now come to the central part of this study, the consideration of those biblical texts which may refer to homosexual behaviour. Of these the verses from Leviticus, 18:22 and 20:13, together with the Pauline quotes from Romans 1:26 and 1 Corinthians 6:9, are probably the most well known. The first three of these are the only clear condemnations of homosexual behaviour as such in the Bible.

I think the verses concerning prostitutes are extremely important in helping us to understand why homosexual behaviour was so disapproved of in Israelite religious and social thought.

I have included here all the texts which refer to homosexual behaviour whether they condemn the practice or not. I have listed them here in the order they appear in the Bible; in the next section, where I shall look at the texts in detail, I have grouped them under subject matter: in the Old Testament section, Homosexual rape, Law, Prostitution, a homosexual love story. In the New Testament I have simply dealt with them in the order they appear.

I have examined eighteen texts which may refer to homosexual activity of one kind or another. There is at least one other verse in the Old Testament which some commentators have said may have homosexual overtones. Daniel 1:9 reads "Now God allowed Daniel to receive favour and compassion from the palace master." The palace master would have been a eunuch, and another possible translation is that Daniel received "devoted love". If it really were a text referring to a homosexual liaison sanctioned by God to further his purposes it would obviously be a significant text. However the connection is extremely vague. Also, the idea that at the time of the writing of Daniel, in the second century BC, a positive interpretation of such an affair could have been written is so remote, that I have discounted it as a reference to homosexual behaviour.

It is interesting and significant that there are so few references to homosexual behaviour in the bible, whereas such references are common in other classical literature. It has been suggested that the incidence of homosexual behaviour may have been rare in Israelite society or that in this rather primitive and semi nomadic culture the opportunity for a homosexual subculture to develop was absent. It certainly means that it was consistently disapproved of and never became accepted behaviour.

To avoid confusion I have described the writers of the Bible as Jews . Strictly speaking this is inaccurate. The band of ex slaves who left Egypt with Moses and joined up with similar people in Canaan were known at the time as Habiru from which we get the word Hebrew. As the tribes drew together to form one coherent nation they described themselves as the people or children of Israel. It was only after the return from the exile in Babylon that the name Jew was applied coming from the name of the small country around Jerusalem called Judah.

I have used various translations as and when I think they most closely approximate to the original texts, or where I think they most clearly illustrate the presumptions and prejudices of the translator or commentator. I have used the following abbreviations to denote each translation: GNB - Good News Bible; AV - Authorised Version; RSV - Revised Standard Version; Phillips - J.B. Phillips New Testament in Modern English; NEB - New English Bible; Kelly - J.N.D.Kelly in his commentary on Jude.

OLD TESTAMENT REFERENCES

GENESIS 19:4-5

Before the guests went to bed, the men of Sodom surrounded the house. All the men of the city, both young and old, were there. They called out to Lot and asked, "Where are the men who came to stay with you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have sex with them." (GNB) (that we may know them - AV).

LEVITICUS 18:22

No man is to have sexual relations with another man. God hates that. (GNB) (it is an abomination AV).

LEVITICUS 20:13

If a man has sexual relations with another man, they have done a disgusting thing and both shall be put to death. (GNB)

DEUTERONOMY 23:17

No Israelite, man or woman, is to become a temple prostitute. (GNB)

JUDGES 19:22

They were enjoying themselves when some men from the town surrounded the house and started beating on the door. "Bring out the man who is staying with you, we want to have sex with him." (GNB)

1 SAMUEL 20:17

And Jonathan caused David to swear again because he loved him: for he loved him as he loved his own soul. (AV)

1 SAMUEL 20:30

Saul was furious with Jonathan and said to him. "How rebellious and faithless your Mother was! Do I not know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thy confusion and to the confusion of thy mother's nakedness. (AV)

1 SAMUEL 20:41

They kissed one another and wept with one another until David's grief was even greater than Jonathan's (NEB) until David recovered himself (RSV).

11 SAMUEL 1:26

I grieve for you my brother Jonathan;
How dear you were to me!
How wonderful was your love for me,
better even than the love of women. (GNB)

1 KINGS 14:24

Worst of all there were men and women who served as prostitutes at those places of worship. (GNB)

1 KINGS 15:12

He removed from the land all the male and female prostitutes serving in the pagan places of worship. (GNB)

1 KINGS 22:46

He (Jehoshephat) got rid of all the male and female prostitutes who were left in the land from the time of his father Asa. (GNB)

2 KINGS 23:7

He destroyed the living quarters in the Temple occupied by the Temple prostitutes.(GNB)

NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES.

ROMANS 1:26

Because they do this (worshipping false gods) God has given them over to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrong doing. (GNB)

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9

Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers neither the effeminate, the perverted or the thief; neither the swindler, the drunkard, the foul mouthed or the rapacious shall have any share in the kingdom of God. (GNB)

1 TIMOTHY 1:9-10

Yes the law is directed against the sort of people who attack their parents, who kill their fellows who are sexually uncontrolled or perverted or who traffic in the bodies of others.

(Phillips)

11 PETER 2:6-8

God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorra, destroying them with fire, and made them an example of what will happen to the godless. (GNB)

JUDE 1:7

Remember Sodom and Gomorra, and the nearby towns whose people acted as those angels did and indulged in sexual immorality and perversion: (and going after strange flesh -AV) they suffer the punishment of eternal fire as the plain warning for all. In the same way also, these people have visions which make them sin against their own bodies (GNB) (stand out as an example, undergoing as they do a punishment of everlasting fire. Not withstanding, these men in similar fashion in their dreamings, pollute their bodies -Kelly)