P.S. Please share with us if you discover exactly what the Bible teaches about anything...
Trying to make something diffinitive out of it is a lost cause if you ask me.
While I would agree with your assertion that the Bible says nothing about homosexuality, a challenge before you is to come up with anything it says exactly so.
While there may be some debate over my use of the word
exactly, I am using established procedures to attempt to determine the best understanding, based on the way the original languages and the various words, phrases and concepts and how the would have been understood in the original time and place.
Once you have the Bible all nice and interpreted in a way that you are comfortable with, let us know how you do with getting others to go along with you...
No matter how liberally the Bible is interpreted, at the core it persists in attracting extremists who would meld us to their own shape.
no matter what you come up with those who use the bible to justify their bigotry will simply point out the prohibition against lying with a man like a woman (forget the verse).
Case in point:
I thought Leviticus was pretty clear about the point:
Lv 20:13 - If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Doesn't leave a lot of room for negotiation or acceptance there...
I realize that there are those who will continue to believe as they will despite all evidence. And that many of them will "prove" their point by quoting isolated passages of english translations without regard for the message the original author intended.
But I am not doing this study to confront them. I am doing it for my own understanding. I'm posting here only because I thought some of you might become curious enough to investigate on your own and others might challenge me to dig even deeper. (Not in a pissing contest way, or "OK, I dare you to explain this..." but with your own insights.
To address the Levitcus verses: Lev 18-20 compares common religious practices (including fertility rites) of the surrounding nations (particularly mentioning Egypt and Canaan) to what is expected of the Israelites. In the other cultures, incest and adultery taboos were sometimes relaxed when the sex act was done in honor of the gods, or by their representatives (priests and kings). Leviticus says that to honor Adonai, it is, instead, necessary to adhere
all the more strictly to the various sexual taboos.
Originally posted by Gwyn ap Nudd
...For example the story of the attempted homogenital gang-rape in Sodom (Gen 19), and the actual cross-sex gang-rape in Gibeah from the remarkably similar story in Judges 19.
An alternative explanation of this story is that it is about the responsibility one has toward one's guests. Homosexuality aside, it is better to let the mob rape your daughters than to let your guests come to harm.
Reinforcement of this interpretation is found throughout the Bible and the Koran. (Lv 19:34, for example)
I don't consider it alternative to my interpretation, but supplemental. My mentioning Sodom and Gibeah in this context focussed on the question of whether they spoke to the question of homogenitality. It was enough to show that they do not. In oanother study where I would seek to determine what it is they
do teach, I would be looking at the hospitality laws and customs.
But this is the sort of thing I mean when I said I was hoping that someone would challenge me. Thank you.
Ah. The key word is "lieth".
You can have all the gay sex you want, provided you do it standing up. Or doggy style, I guess. As long as nobody's reclining, it's okay.
In studying some other exegses of this verse, I found one that claimed, apparently in all seriousness, that it referred to the woman's actual bed. That as long as you did not bring the other man home to your wife's bed, it doesn't matter where else you were.
