How do you reconcile being a Gay Christian.

[jason_els]

Homosexual behavior is also condemned in Deuteronomy, Judges, Kings, Matthew, Romans, Corinthians, John, and Jude. Are we to presume that all of these instances are mistranslations or misinterpretations as well? So much for the inerrancy of The Bible.

It is likely at least in the Old Testament instances. To be an of-age male who allowed himself to be penetrated made a man to be a woman. I cannot emphasize just how demeaning this was regarded because it was an insult to one's father and to the masculinity of all men. The double-standard deeply, deeply, applied in these days. A man who could convince another man who was of-age to be penetrated was lauded as a great sexual conqueror while the man who allowed it to happen would lose his friends and position in society. It was humiliating beyond words. Again, in the upper classes, as with David and Jonathan, Achilles and Ajax, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Hadrian and Antinous, or Camilla Parker Bowles and the Prince of Wales where Mr. Bowles was noted to be quite pleased at the prestige of being the husband of the future king's lover, there was tolerance, even high regard for the favored male lovers of the person with higher status and that usually lasted until either the lover became too powerful (just ask Pier Gaveston) or the higher status person died or fell from power.

It was seen as perfectly natural for a man to find youths and women beautiful and to sexually desire them and have them when possible. What mattered is what was done and how and to whom.

Deuteronomy refers to temple prostitutes. It is an admonition against Jews becoming or allowing prostitution in their temples; again, something that was done in Egypt and the rest of the Hellenic world.

Time and again, the original sources refer to the Hebrew word, [FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]קדש ,[/FONT][/FONT], transliterated as, "qadesh," which was translated by KJV and other translators to mean, "sodomite," and that's not what the word means. "Qadesh" means, "temple prostitute," and the term fits completely with the context and the culture in which these books were written.

I see no condemnation of homosexuality in Matthew or in John. I find the tale of the centurion and his younger lover to actually be a positive affirmation of the love of Jesus for all people. The relationship between the centurion and his pais was quite normal for the time. If ever there was an opportunity for Jesus to condemn male-male sex, this was it. And he didn't. John, in fact, makes more than a few eyebrow-raising references for the affection of Jesus for John.

I can't argue with Romans or Corinthians. They appear to say what they do and I'm not convinced by the counter-arguments that Paul, who wrote both books, wasn't sure what he was saying when he spells out what the rest of the Bible doesn't. My opinions of Paul are, however, fantastically low. The man never met Jesus, wasn't a disciple, and seems to have all the misguided fervor of a newly evangelized convert. All of his missives seem designed to tell various congregations precisely what it is they want to hear so as to keep them in the fold and enhance his own authority.

I hope that someday you will sit and read James and Paul together. There is a rather large consensus among biblical scholars that James really was the blood brother of Jesus or, at least, the very earliest writer of a New Testament book and was likely associated with Jesus himself. The contrasts between Paul and James are not small. I think that James was in far better position to intimately know the mind of Jesus than Paul ever was and his writings reflect intimate knowledge of the teachings of Jesus more in line with the later gospels of the four evangelists, who all wrote after James, than those of Paul.

Those Christians are religious hypocrites.

Only if you accept the Bible as an all-or-nothing proposition, inerrant, and wholly commanding in every aspect; which of course, it can't because it is in itself contradictory.

 

[nineinchnail4u2c]

Do not confuse our modern understanding of interpersonal relationships and culture with our understanding of life in those days. In the thread that does not exist, in the discussion we never had, you would have learned that this does indeed make a great deal of sense to someone living in those times.

"Unions," were always male and female. No matter how much any person desired members of their own sex, they were married. The only exceptions to this were members of the highest upper classes (and then only gentiles) who were younger sons and prostitutes. Everyone but everyone married. It was a necessity. Adultery was limited to having a male (married or unmarried) having intercourse with a married or virgin female. It did not apply to widows beyond the age of child bearing. It did not apply to men (married or unmarried) having sex with prostitutes of either sex. Adultery laws protected a man's property and that property included his virgin daughters and wives. A defiled daughter would be difficult to marry-off successfully. A defiled wife could give birth to a child which did not belong to her husband.

Let's think of how conception was perceived in those times. A man's semen was thought to be the essence of a child. The woman only provided a womb in which that essence, what they called a, "homunculus," could grow and be born. Women were not known to have eggs or to contribute 50% of her genetic material to the child. It was thought women determined what sex the child would be. A woman was as a field. She was to be plowed, seeded, and a good woman would have a fertile womb capable of bearing many healthy sons and when enough sons were born, a girl child or two would be good to marry off to create alliances or to stay home and care for the parents in their old age.

Without the fertility of the womb, the homunculus was no more a person than a clod of dirt. It had no purpose, no anything. It was incomplete and without life as an unfertilized bird egg.

Men were believed to have an amorous ardor not entirely within their control. Women too were seen to be very sexual and willing and also uncontrollable in their lusts. This is because of the extreme misogyny that you rightfully note existed in those days. Greek and Roman women lived fairly cloistered lives, not unlike those in more conservative Islamic countries today. Women had to be chaperoned, kept locked-up, and then follow a rigid code of what men they might or might not associate with. This was done for two reasons. The first is that if they were raped they would be blamed for the rape, possibly divorced for it, and even killed. The second is that it was believed that no woman could deny the amorous advances of a man. They were so weak as to be incapable of containing their desire and so might willingly submit to adultery. They might then have sex with their husbands, a child appears, and it may never be known that the child is not his.

It's difficult to understand to us, but property and blood line was the highest point of honor to a man as was protecting his progeny in the form of legitimate children and the virtue of his maiden daughters for whom he would demand dowries. Since marriage was a social contract, not an act of love, couples would not necessarily feel any sort of loving devotion to each other and so men might reasonably expect that a wife would not necessarily feel any compunction to sleep with other men based upon anything than the fear of what would happen if discovered.

It is indeed. It was expected in those days that a man would desire beautiful women and youthful men or boys. It was not expected that women would necessarily desire each other because a) women could not give birth without a male (and isn't that, as they believed, what women really want??) and b) women were of such arduous capacity that they would seek physical affection with each other. Sex throughout the entire Bible is about men save for that one passage in Romans which you raise. Women are not mentioned sexually in the Old Testament at all save for one completely shocking incident with Noah and his daughters. That women might find sexual comfort with each other was a given all throughout the Hellenic world yet it was of so little consequence to the world of men that it wasn't even worthy of comment or rabbinical law. Virginal girls had to be careful, they couldn't rupture their hymen, but otherwise, they were free to experiment with each other just as, and I know this sounds horribly sexist, people would see same sex dogs hump each other and laugh or tolerate without comment.

The true sexual object in any home were the boys. Even in cultures today, mothers and daughters will stroke the genitals of young boys to encourage them to urinate or gain an erection to please and quiet them. This was, and in some middle eastern cultures today, still is nothing unusual. They focus upon the boys to become amorous, potent, strong, and acknowledge that a child's sexuality is not confined to masturbation, father-son talks, and females outside the home.

When women and virgin girls are so completely off-limits except at the time of formal parent-arranged and chaperoned marriage courtship, there is a vacuum of sexual outlet for boys. Prostitutes fulfill this position and did in ancient times as well. Recall the scene in Rome where the young Augustus is praised by his mother for seducing Julius Caesar. In the odd dichotomy of Hellenic culture, a male was seen as requiring sexual outlet and experience before his marriage. He should be taught how to have sex, that ejaculation in the womb is necessary, that a wise man wants to help keep his wife's eye from wandering by pleasing her, that a very young bride may not be ready for sexual intercourse and, that should he engage her too young, may ruin her fertility and so needs to seek sexual outlets elsewhere.

Throughout the middle eastern world and despite modern laws to that effect, this is still quite the norm. Unmarried males, those below the age of marriage, engaging in sexual play with each other is quite normal and expected. This is also reflected in the Hellenic ideal that only males can love each other with the most noble of loves. Love for women was paternalistic and base. A man can love his daughter, may even love his wife and mother, but then so do some of the animals and love between men and women was not of the highest order of love as love between two men could be. English itself is a large constraint in understanding this. The Greeks had numerous words for various sorts of love. We have but one.

While this provides a fairly interesting context, it does not negate the argument presented in my post.

 

[nineinchnail4u2c]

Again, you're placing the statement in a social context which no longer exists in western society. A married man could not be penetrated. An unmarried man could be penetrated. The only unmarried men were of a certain age which includes people we are not allowed to discuss on this board. This is a very heavily Hellenic concept and you must realize how thoroughly Hellenized the world of the Biblical Jews was at the time of Jesus. They spoke Greek, they were surrounded by Greek temples, they learned Greek philosophy, they read Greek poetry, attended Greek plays and what wasn't Greek was Roman and the Romans adored Greek culture so much that they pretty much copied the Greeks in their own. Jews today represent this fairly well. A Jew from Russia is still a Jew but also a Russian. Chinese Jews are Jewish as well but also Chinese.

I'm going to use the term "youth" here because of certain restrictions. It always should be read as, "male youth."

Prostitutes in the world of Greece and Rome had privileges unrivaled by anything we imagine. They were always unmarried, usually former slaves or captives bought at auction but also sometimes freelancers. They were employed in brothels and temples. As today, there were high-class brothels and your ordinary back street brothels. Boys, girls, men, and women were employed in these places depending upon the preference of the customer. Female prostitutes had something no other women did. They had the right of property and the right to be considered as men in court. They did not require escorts in public and they were free to educate themselves. They could consort with men in male-only domains. Some female prostitutes could even hold minor office.

The Hellenes had another "out" for women as well. From time to time we come across women who are referred to, "as having the minds of men." The five most famous are Aspasia, Sappho, Mary Magdelene, Olympias, and Celopatra. They came, almost exclusively to our knowledge, from the ranks of the upper classes. These women were educated and able to engage in male society without holding the rank of women. Just as the Hellenes made fun of effeminate males, they held some women in high regard for overcoming their sex and behaving and thinking like males. Because of their privilege and wealth, they were able to behave like upper-class women, much freer of restrictions than females of the lower classes. They accumulated power in their own right while also being the powers behind the throne (so to speak). To the classes who held power, such women were not so unusual as to invite disdain as they might be in the lower classes where such a woman might be seen as exceeding her place in society. Maintaining power required savvy ability on the parts of all family members and as we've seen throughout western history since this time, having the wealth to educate a daughter in something other than household management made her a valuable asset to the powerful who would need an intelligent (conniving, scheming, socially skillful, cultured) wife to help keep his family in power. A dowry for such a woman could equal a very nice country estate. Such a daughter would be in high demand, cement aristocratic families, know how to manage estates, armies of servants, and advance the careers of her husband and sons. Not all such women were accorded the status of, "having the minds of men," but some were and of those who were, when the other aristocratic ladies were ushered into the women's apartments while the men talked philosophy or politics, these ladies were invited to stay and that enhanced their power immensely.

Despite all this, however, these women were not sexually free in the sense we imagine them to be. Eunuchs are not necessarily impotent but nor were they considered men in the ancient world. A woman might seek pleasure from her eunuch as she might from a dildo. That's about the only sexual freedom these women had outside of taking illicit lovers though, it must be pointed out, that were any of these lovers discovered, a man could not only divorce his wife, but have her legally executed. Naturally, the higher the class of woman, the more difficult execution would be as it would bring great shame to her father's family and usually the desire to preserve the family alliances resulted in tolerance so long as pregnancy did not result or, if it happened, the pregnancy was terminated. As in upper class life today, infidelity was not the marriage-ender it tended to be among the lower classes.

When a Roman or Greek male youth reached puberty, and if he were beautiful and/or well-bred, he might find an older male suitor. I'll leave it at that. But what also happened was that the father of the house would be doing, for lack of a better word, pube checks on his son. As soon as his son began to physically mature, and this was not difficult as household males would go to the baths together, the father would have a party for his son including all the elder males in the family and they would either take him to a brothel or perhaps spring for a particularly beautiful female prostitute, get him drunk, explain what he should be doing in bed, and then wait in the brothel or outside a bedroom while the youth loses his virginity. Shouts and jokes and attempts to make the youth nervous would all go on. The prostitutes knew this ritual and even if the youth was shy or unable to complete the act, they would invariably return to the room and announce that the youth was now indeed a man and he would surely conquer any woman upon whom he set his sights and blah blah blah. This would fill the youth and father with pride and from then on, the youth would be expected to take on the sexual (if not social) role of an adult male which meant, essentially, that he was free to fuck anything on two legs so long as he or she was unmarried (or if she was, he didn't get caught). Yes that's a double standard and it's still one that exists to this day.

This particular age was not necessarily the age of marriage though he might be betrothed. There might be a period of years between the onset of puberty and the age of marriage (when he can hold a job and create a household of his own). During that time, a youth was free to be the passive partner in a male sexual relationship. Much depended upon his physical maturity and like today, male youths of the same age may be at very different stages of sexual maturity. Do not equate age with sexual maturity in the ancient world and also realize that puberty in those days generally happened at later ages and took longer.

This is the context in which Jews and the people they lived among, existed. A man was all man so long as he penetrated. A male youth was not a man yet and so could be penetrated with no loss of face. In fact it was encouraged. Much better to have your not-yet-of-age son fooling around with other males than possibly getting caught boinking a married woman or another man's underage daughter because, if he did get caught, the husband of your son's lover or father of the virgin could demand immediate marriage (thus breaking the betrothal of the son to whomever his father has promised him in marriage AND return of any dowry) or right to the son's father's property or even the death of the son himself. By defiling an unmarried daughter or another man's wife, the son has committed a crime not against these women, but against the male to whom these women belong.

Again, this provides a fairly interesting context, but it does not negate the argument presented in my post.

 

[nineinchnail4u2c]

Women did not go to prostitutes. Simple as that. Women could go outside of the home in groups of other older women, with eunuch slaves, or with male relatives who were of age. In some cases, women had particular times where men cleared themselves from the agora and women were permitted out to shop or to go to temple -- in groups. An unchaperoned woman risked being labeled a prostitute. The Greeks themselves even permitted women to have one time a year where they would celebrate the mysteries of Demeter. During this time women left their towns to gather from all over at various places and spend a fortnight worshiping Demeter and engaging in rituals. No man was permitted to attend and, miraculously, to this day, we still don't know what went on at these rituals. It is probably one of the best kept secrets of all time.

In yet another turn on sexism, it wasn't the responsibility of women to conduct rites of worship in the home. They were assigned various tasks which we see to this day in various Jewish rituals, but it was the husband and of-age males in the home who took on priestly functions. Women could pray to God, but they could not worship. "Where three or more of you gather together," only applied to three males. If a Hebrew woman broke a commandment, a pharisee would immediately look to her husband or father or son and ask, "How could you allow this?" Remember that women were permitted next to no property. They owned their jewelry, their bed, and had right to expect their husband or father or of-age son to provide for everything else. They could not inherit without specific gift and, even then, required male representation in court and social interaction. A widow with no sons or gracious sons-in-law was well and truly fucked if she had no other family to live with. In such cases she could well sell herself into servitude and then only if the lady of the house found her old and unattractive enough not to distract her husband or other family members. In later years, among the Roman patrician classes, women did hold a number of rights (such as owning property in their own right), that earlier women did not. Roman rights depended upon being a citizen of Rome and what class you belonged to. Not all laws applied to all people subject to Rome.

Men had sex with both male and female prostitutes, and ritual sex often included women having sex with other women. Again, it the verses in question are a prohibition of ritual sex and temple prostitution, then sex between men would not be singled out, and heterosexual and lesbian sex would also be mentioned.

 

[wolf1bear2]

I am human, brought up Baptist, but am bisexual. Done/did, am okay with it. Friends are good now, any out there?

 

[wolf1bear2]

Would like to be straight, but some gene made me otherwise. Bisexuality, like Woody Allen said...

 

[nineinchnail4u2c]

It is likely at least in the Old Testament instances. To be an of-age male who allowed himself to be penetrated made a man to be a woman. I cannot emphasize just how demeaning this was regarded because it was an insult to one's father and to the masculinity of all men. The double-standard deeply, deeply, applied in these days. A man who could convince another man who was of-age to be penetrated was lauded as a great sexual conqueror while the man who allowed it to happen would lose his friends and position in society. It was humiliating beyond words. Again, in the upper classes, as with David and Jonathan, Achilles and Ajax, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Hadrian and Antinous, or Camilla Parker Bowles and the Prince of Wales where Mr. Bowles was noted to be quite pleased at the prestige of being the husband of the future king's lover, there was tolerance, even high regard for the favored male lovers of the person with higher status and that usually lasted until either the lover became too powerful (just ask Pier Gaveston) or the higher status person died or fell from power.

It was seen as perfectly natural for a man to find youths and women beautiful and to sexually desire them and have them when possible. What mattered is what was done and how and to whom.

This supports my argument:

Clearly, the verse is a prohibition of receptive anal intercourse, because to be penetrated is to be in the sexual role of a woman. So not only is the verse in question homophobic, it is misogynistic as well.

Deuteronomy refers to temple prostitutes. It is an admonition against Jews becoming or allowing prostitution in their temples; again, something that was done in Egypt and the rest of the Hellenic world.

Time and again, the original sources refer to the Hebrew word, [FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]קדש ,[/FONT][/FONT], transliterated as, "qadesh," which was translated by KJV and other translators to mean, "sodomite," and that's not what the word means. "Qadesh" means, "temple prostitute," and the term fits completely with the context and the culture in which these books were written.

Yet there is no prohibition of ritual sex between women or heterosexual temple prostitution.

I can't argue with Romans or Corinthians. They appear to say what they do and I'm not convinced by the counter-arguments that Paul, who wrote both books, wasn't sure what he was saying when he spells out what the rest of the Bible doesn't. My opinions of Paul are, however, fantastically low. The man never met Jesus, wasn't a disciple, and seems to have all the misguided fervor of a newly evangelized convert. All of his missives seem designed to tell various congregations precisely what it is they want to hear so as to keep them in the fold and enhance his own authority.

I hope that someday you will sit and read James and Paul together. There is a rather large consensus among biblical scholars that James really was the blood brother of Jesus or, at least, the very earliest writer of a New Testament book and was likely associated with Jesus himself. The contrasts between Paul and James are not small. I think that James was in far better position to intimately know the mind of Jesus than Paul ever was and his writings reflect intimate knowledge of the teachings of Jesus more in line with the later gospels of the four evangelists, who all wrote after James, than those of Paul.

The condemnation of homosexual behavior in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Kings, and Jude which you contest is consistent with the condemnation of homosexual behavior in Romans and Corinthians which you acknowledge, effectively rendering the aforementioned contest moot.

Only if you accept the Bible as an all-or-nothing proposition, inerrant, and wholly commanding in every aspect; which of course, it can't because it is in itself contradictory.

If The Bible is not inerrant, then it is not authoritative. Hence:

If you don't believe in PARTS of the Bible, then you might as well abandon it all, because if some of it is hogwash than, probably, all of it is hogwash and trying to cling to Jesus and rehabilitate some shred of the book while discounting the rest as no longer applicable is like deciding to stop believing in Santa, but to hold onto Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as still being the real shit.

 

[jason_els]

Men had sex with both male and female prostitutes, and ritual sex often included women having sex with other women. Again, it the verses in question are a prohibition of ritual sex and temple prostitution, then sex between men would not be singled out, and heterosexual and lesbian sex would also be mentioned.

No they would not because, as I explained, sex (not as the Hebrews then regarded it) between women wasn't even on the compass. Penetration with a penis constituted a sexual act and that's what mattered. What you must also note is that there is no mention of men being prevented from having sex with female temple prostitutes. The reason for this is, again, because women were a non-entity. A man can have all the sex he wanted with a female prostitute, temple or otherwise, because a woman could not be a conduit for worship. A man could be and it was, perhaps, even more important that a man not let himself be penetrated by a male temple prostitute because a male temple prostitute CAN be a conduit for worship of what the Hebrews would deem a pagan god. What the temple priests and priestesses thought on the the subject didn't matter one whit because they were all worshiping false gods anyway. What was of ultimate importance was that commandment, "thou shalt have no other gods before me," and since men were the only conduit to God and since Hebrew men fucking male temple prostitutes could be construed as worshiping another god other than Yahweh, such practice was forbidden.

 

[jason_els]

Yet there is no prohibition of ritual sex between women or heterosexual temple prostitution.

Precisely!

The condemnation of homosexual behavior in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Kings, and Jude which you contest is consistent with the condemnation of homosexual behavior in Romans and Corinthians which you acknowledge, effectively rendering the aforementioned contest moot.

No it is not. Different words are used as they are two different languages (Hebrew and Greek). You are taking two different languages, in two different cultures (Paul was a gentile), separated by nearly 2000 years and saying they're the same. They are not.

If The Bible is not inerrant, then it is not authoritative. Hence:

I agree. I never said it was authoritative on anything. I have previously posted that some things the Bible cites have corroborating historical and archaeological evidence, other things have none. Being authoritative, however, is not the same thing as being inerrant. A thing can be authoritative and be crammed full of errors. If you see the Bible as errant on history and science, you'd probably be correct in various ways. If you see it as being authoritative on matters of faith, then you would see it as inerrant in that context despite the scientific and historical errors.

 

[wolf1bear2]

Do you have relationships, and with whom? Am I bad, what?

 

[wolf1bear2]

You are on this site, what do you want or need?

 

[FuzzyKen]

The teachings regarding homosexuality vary a great deal by virtue of who within a given religion is doing the teaching. If you cannot place the two seemingly opposing factions together then explain the MCC or Metropolitan Community Church. The MCC welcomes and loves all people. For a time I was an associate organist at a Congregational Church. That church had many openly gay members. The Pastor of that church welcomed and never during my tenure there ever spoke negatively of gay people or homosexuality.

Understand that many individuals who claim religion in fact preach a gospel of hatred and intolerance of belief systems other than their own. They do this because it is good for the collection plate. Controversy can be profitable and guilt trips work very well at this too. The down side is that by doing this they prove that they are in fact not Christians. Is it not true that hatred, intolerance and greed are not good things.

God does not preach intolerance......God, Inc. Preaches intolerance and that is not religion that is a profit making corporation.

This is an issue that will be debated long after I am gone and a pile of astral dust..

 

[nineinchnail4u2c]

No they would not because, as I explained, sex (not as the Hebrews then regarded it) between women wasn't even on the compass. Penetration with a penis constituted a sexual act and that's what mattered. What you must also note is that there is no mention of men being prevented from having sex with female temple prostitutes. The reason for this is, again, because women were a non-entity. A man can have all the sex he wanted with a female prostitute, temple or otherwise, because a woman could not be a conduit for worship. A man could be and it was, perhaps, even more important that a man not let himself be penetrated by a male temple prostitute because a male temple prostitute CAN be a conduit for worship of what the Hebrews would deem a pagan god. What the temple priests and priestesses thought on the the subject didn't matter one whit because they were all worshiping false gods anyway. What was of ultimate importance was that commandment, "thou shalt have no other gods before me," and since men were the only conduit to God and since Hebrew men fucking male temple prostitutes could be construed as worshiping another god other than Yahweh, such practice was forbidden.

Ritual sex and temple prostitution are prohibited, not specifically because they are forms of idolatry, but because they are the practices of the Egyptians and the Canaanites:

Leviticus 18: 3

You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes.

Ergo, all ritual sex and temple prostitution would be prohibited, not just those between men.

Precisely!

Which supports that verse in question is a prohibition of sex between men, not a specific instance of sex between men.

No it is not. Different words are used as they are two different languages (Hebrew and Greek). You are taking two different languages, in two different cultures (Paul was a gentile), separated by nearly 2000 years and saying they're the same. They are not.

Yet despite the cultural, historical, and linguistic differences, the prohibitions are similar.

I agree. I never said it was authoritative on anything. I have previously posted that some things the Bible cites have corroborating historical and archaeological evidence, other things have none. Being authoritative, however, is not the same thing as being inerrant. A thing can be authoritative and be crammed full of errors. If you see the Bible as errant on history and science, you'd probably be correct in various ways. If you see it as being authoritative on matters of faith, then you would see it as inerrant in that context despite the scientific and historical errors.

While it is true that one error in scripture would not justify the conclusion that everything in it is false, it would call everything in scripture into question. With no direct means for verification, one could not be sure that anything in it is true. Thus, it would lose its authoritative value.

 

[D_Portelay Porquesword]

Ritual sex sounds like fun

 

[jason_els]

Ritual sex and temple prostitution are prohibited, not specifically because they are forms of idolatry, but because they are the practices of the Egyptians and the Canaanites:

Ergo, all ritual sex and temple prostitution would be prohibited, not just those between men.

Which supports that verse in question is a prohibition of sex between men, not a specific instance of sex between men.

I do not agree. What Leviticus does is to lay down Hebrew law as the law of the Israelites. In Egypt the Israelite law may have been lax as there was no way to enforce it and, perhaps, the Israelites were compelled to do things against their own laws such as worship at the temples of other gods. What supports this is the fact that Leviticus essentially says, "OK, you could get away with this in Egypt, but not now. Now we follow OUR law and there's no excuse for saying, 'But back in Egypt...'" However it also goes on to say that they can't do these things in Canaan either. That's the crux. If they were to say you can't have sex between men then they would say that. They didn't say that. They set down the limits of where and when it could occur and male sex didn't even make it into the Ten Commandments. What did was worship of other gods and we even have the story of the golden bull to emphasize that the single commandment was pretty damn important. Apparently the recently released Israelites were a fickle bunch, very used to Egyptian ways and the law givers didn't want their flock keeping Egyptian traditions as much as they didn't want them adopting Canaanite ones.

On top of that, it makes no sense to raise the issue of woman's bed in the law unless it pertained to a specific situation that would otherwise be permitted. It would be far easier to simply say, "No man shall have sex with another man," and given the directness of the other laws included in Leviticus, it's not a stretch to say that this particular law only pertains to a certain circumstance.

Yet despite the cultural, historical, and linguistic differences, the prohibitions are similar.

Yes and no. Paul took it upon himself to expand upon the law in the absence of any authority to do so. He was still dealing with an Israel immersed in Hellenic culture and living under Roman rule where temple sex was just as widely practiced as it was in Egypt. We know that the Hebrews prohibited their people from becoming temple prostitutes or their temples having temple prostitutes. What I think Paul was doing was saying that the practices of temple prostitution were abhorrent in general and Christians shouldn't engage in it at all and then added women to the mix. He wanted Christians having sex with Christians to make more Christians. This is quite different from the Hebrews where religion and ethnicity were so deeply intertwined that one was a Jew as much as one was a Hebrew no matter what.

They may be similar, but they are far from the same.

While it is true that one error in scripture would not justify the conclusion that everything in it is false, it would call everything in scripture into question. With no direct means for verification, one could not be sure that anything in it is true. Thus, it would lose its authoritative value.

You're reiterating the same argument.

A single error does not mean something is entirely in error but it does (somehow) raise suspicion that everything else may be in error too.

If there is no direct means for verification, then how do we know there are errors in the first place? Your argument is illogical. In order to identify error we have to have some means of verification that an error exists, ergo there are direct means of verification for at least some claims in the Bible.

And again, you equate authority with truth when they are not one in the same. The Bible is used for two things. By scientists it is used as a tool of science, and by Christians it is used as a basis of faith. Faith, by its nature, is belief in something of which one supposes to be true without evidence. Whether the Bible is historically accurate or not does not matter to those who use it as a basis of authority for faith. Every mainstream Christian denomination recognizes that at least some parts of the Bible are allegorical or mythological and that has not diminished their use of the Bible as an authority of faith because faith is not dependent upon truth.

 

[JustAsking]

...If The Bible is not inerrant, then it is not authoritative. Hence:

Yet some 1.8 billion Christians belong to denominations that see the Bible as inspired, authoritative but not inerrant. And this tradition is thousands of years old.

 

[invisibleman]

Eve was created for Adam, Noah took the animals two by two,
Just pure logic really, if you have two boys or girls where do the offspring come from?

If Man was created by God from the Earth...He could've made more. :biggrin1:

 

[Phil Ayesho]

The problem is that Phil's reasoning isn't logical. The Bible is no more all-or-nothing than anything else. Saying that the moon is made of green cheese doesn't mean there is no moon simply because we know it is not made of green cheese.

It's reasonable to say that there is no evidence that God created the world in six days but there is evidence to say that Pilate was prelate of Judea at the time of Jesus.

The Bible, in particular, is a book written by many authors over thousands of years. It's an anthology, not a monolith. Some things may be true, others not.

So what?

Nobody is basing a RELIGION on Pilate being a prelate. Nobody is out their forcing the Roman SPQR onto the money.
What little factual information may be in the bible is not the issue.
People are forming religions around the HOGWASH that is in the bible.

The magical stories of magical people and miracles.
The magical stories promising everyone that that whole death thing we all can see coming is not really an end.

If, as has been suggested, it is okay to discard the magical stories from the OLD testament as being invalid.... as describing a false image of God as vindictive, cruel and capricious... then that is not ME attacking the validity of the hogwash, that is a purported BELIEVER telling me that they discriminate between one brand of Hogwash and another purely on the grounds that they think the New Testament hogwash is sweeter tasting.

They are stipulating to the fact that stories describing the magical sky daddy CAN be hogwash... and their ONLY criteria for determining which ones they personally choose to accept is whether they "Like" the magical sky daddy being described.

It is not reasonable to make such a selection on zero factual information.
Given that, ever since we have had the ability to record and accurately investigate events, there have been NO unequivocal miracles observed, Given that the people who wrote the bible clearly made shit up about the magical sky daddy that Just Asking does not think is true... the reasonable assumption is that stories of magical sky daddys are, as a class, made up.
And, since Just Asling is, in fact, discarding the OLDER portion of the bible as invalid, he has no basis on which to believe that any portion of the bible is valid because of its priority or it age. i.e. that it has been around so long is not contributory to its validity, else the Old Testament would be MORE valid than the new.

That being established, that Just Asking is taking it upon himself to choose which narratives he will believe in and which he will not... then it makes no sense to believe in ANY narrative from a book wherein ALL the authors take pains to castigate his particular sexual orientation as a crime against magical sky daddys.

If he is going to cobble together his own belief system.. which, allow me to point out I fully believe he has every right to do, if he has the personal authority to choose what to believe in, then he has no reason for believing ANY of the bible, and certainly no ground on which to stand and suggest that other people's interpretation of the bible is less correct than his own cherry picked assemblage.

It is a plain fact that Judeo-Christian religions demonize sexuality in general.

Why not pick the magical sky daddy's of Greece, who would endorse his lifestyle?

Why not make up his own entirely?

What is the reasoned purpose behind embracing a figurehead from one particular tradition, and ignoring that figureheads own endorsement of Leviticus?

The only reasons I can i fnd to explain such a position are the indoctrinated prejudices of youth, or the need to believe in something popular enough that you can feel that you belong to a given group.
Neither of which have the slightest thing to do with faith.

I think if you are Gay and clinging to jesus... you are doing so unreasoningly.

I don't think Jesus hated fags, I think he had compassion for them... but, just as with the adultress, he would tell you to go and sin no more.

 

[biguy2738]

As a Christian and as someone who studied the Bible through Catholic, Christian interdenominational, Jewish and Secular institutes along with then not only being a Scripture scholar but someone who spent a couple of years training people so that they have the skills to read and interpret the Bible responsibly, I am able to reconcile being Christian and bisexual...along with the fact that I have enjoyed sexual intimacy with men over the past two and a half years or so and this is done through me relying on the Bible as my religious compass.

It's easy for anyone to slap out a couple of the quotes from the Bible in order to reinforce what they're trying to say. The big question is, are they using it in context and do they understand the true meaning behind the text? I mean, let's face it, in the synoptics (Mt 4: 1-11; Mk 1: 12-13; Lk 4: 1-13) even the devil quoted from the Bible (and at this point, let me interject that in the Old Testament the devil/satan is not an evil force but a force that works with God and functions as a "tester" (see also the book of Job).

The Bible can be described as a library because it doesn't only contain various books, but it also contains a variety of genres. We find narrative, poetry, prayers, songs, midrash, parables and yes, even myths and legends. So ultimately, it cannot be approached in the same way as one would approach a history text book. There are two elements, however, that run right throughout the Bible:

1) It's a book about human nature and how more times than not, we tend to make a botch out of things.
2) It's set against a backdrop of a loving and merciful God who stretches out His hand towards humanity and invites us to have a relationship with Him.

The easiest way of summing it up would be to say:

There's history behind the text: - (Communities looked back on events that had taken place and were able to identify God's hand at work in the midst of these events ie it's a religious interpretation of events. In the instance of the gospels, this would be called, "post resurrectional faith affirmation" )

There's theology inside the text: - (the writings display a gradual understanding of God)

We draw our spirituality from the text: - (this is what the religious beliefs of Christianity ought to be based upon)

Understanding how the Bible came to be would help put this into perspective:


The Israelites were led out of bondage in Egypt (and let me add that the ten plagues were more than likely natural phenomena), they looked back and were able to identify what they believed to be God's hand at work in that event. We find the use of the phrase "signs and wonders" being used (Ex 7: 3; Deut 4:34; Deut 6: 22; Deut 7: 19 etc) quite a bit but there needs to be an understanding of what it means in context of the approach of the Israelites at that time. For them and based on their religious interpretation of events, they were able to see God's hand in things like rain, child birth and even illness and famine.



So they were led out of slavery, they were later able to identify God's hand at work in that event, they sat around the camp fire and recounted that experience to their children and so an oral tradition was formed and eventually they felt it necessary to write it down so that a permanent record of their religious experience and gradual understanding of God could be kept. With this being said and contrary to popular belief, the Book of Exodus was the first book to be written. Let me also add that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) consists for four traditions: They are known as the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomic and Priestly traditions. The gospel of Mark was the first book that was written in the New Testament. However, scholars hypothesize that there is a lost document that predates the Gospel of Mark. It is believed to be written by Jesus' community (note that ALL of the books in the Bible were written by communities and not an individual ie the letters of Paul were written by the Pauline community) and doesn't contain anything about the history of Jesus but only his sayings. It is believed that the basis of the sayings contained in the gospels of Matthew and Mark originate from what scholars call "The Book of Q")

When it comes to the Christian teaching that man was inspired to write the Bible, one tends to get the image of someone almost getting spaced out and writing frantically. Nothing can be further from the truth. Inspiration lies with how these communities were able to identify God's hand at work; they looked at their experiences with eyes of faith. The thing of importance to them was to record their theology of God to the reader and write a history text book. Don't take my word for it, let me prove it to you:


I'm going to start off with the concept of there being a gradual understanding/theology of God and I will use two examples. Let's look at the topic of revenge and forgiveness:

"If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold." (Gen 4:24)

However, later on in the Old Testament, we read:

"Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered." (Lev 24:20)

(Hey! That's good news. Things have progressed from revenge being seventy seven fold to 1:1.) However, later on in the New Testament, we read:

"Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another person sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times."​

And now, let's look at the theology of bad things happening to people:

I am not going to use any quotations because the Old Testament is littered with examples of illness and the loss of war (to name but two examples of many) and how they were experienced due to sin and God punishing them.



So we are left to conclude that bad things happen to bad people; that it's a form of punishment.



Then we find the book of Job where we read about a devout and upright man who loses everything because "the tester" wants to see if he will continue to remain faithful to God



In other words, we find the concept of bad things happening to good people taking place; that bad experiences needn't be because of punishment.



And then we look at the gospels and find the epitome of goodness (This is my Son, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased") being murdered.

​

Which takes the concept presented in the book of Job even further.​

Let me take things ever further than this:

Let's look at the two creation stories found in the book of Genesis (yes, there are two creation stories and they once again display a growth in understanding and theology).

The first creation story (Gen 1: 1 - 2: 4a) is the youngest of the two stories and was written around the time of King Solomon. The second story (Gen 2: 4b-25) is the older of the stories and was written around the time of King David. In the older story, we are introduced to a God who needs to use matter in order to create people, whereas in the younger story God is presented as simply having to speak and creation takes place ie God is presented as having more power in the first story than in the second. At this point, let me remind you that the Bible is a book of theology. It's necessary to do so in order to prepare you for what I'm about to say. Apart from there being two creation stories, there also needs to be the awareness that they are myths. In Biblical terms, a myth is an imaginative story using symbols to explain a reality, but a reality that is beyond our comprehension. The Israelites reached a place where they had started to develop their theology and were now faced with the question, "How do we explain where we come from in light of our experience of "That Which Is Greater Than Us?" Their response was to turn to the Babylonian creation myth "The Enuma Elish" where they used symbols and metaphors drawn from this myth but inserted their own theology into it. Much as many may try to argue this fact, the similarities in the story cannot be denied and one cannot ignore that The Enuma Elish was written long before the Israelite creation myths were written. Bear in mind that 7 clay tablets bearing this myth and dating to 12th century BCE were discovered in the middle of the 19th century.

The book of Leviticus creates a similar situation. The Israelites later felt it necessary to put together a code as a means of setting them apart from other nations ie they identified a need to put together laws that they felt they needed to obey in order to not only have a sense of belonging to YHWH but that demonstrated their belonging to Him, to other nations. Once again, they more than likely turned to the Babylonians for help. Three fragments of black diorite were discovered in Shushan in 1901. When they were put together, they revealed what is known as "The Law Code of King Hammurabi". However, it must be noted that the Mosaic Law in the Bible moves beyond the Code of Hammurabi; Hammurabi's Code deals exclusively with civil and criminal law, whereas the Mosaic Code begins with spiritual principles involving love for God and fellow people...from which the civil and criminal laws are derived.

 

[biguy2738]

Moving on to the errancy/inerrancy of the Bible debate:

It's all relative, but the conclusion that will be drawn is dependent on the approach used by the individual; is the person approaching the texts from the perspective of it being a history text book or of seeing it as a book reflecting theology? Ultimately, it is a book that speaks to the heart and not to the mind...which is why so many Christians trip themselves (along with others) up; there's the approach of, "if I can recite the Bible parrot fashion and throw all sorts of quotes from the Bible, then it makes me an expert". And nothing could be further from the truth, than that. With all of my education, I can never claim to be an expert or to fully understand all of the texts contained in the Bible.

I'll take two examples:

In the story of Noah we read: "The flood continued 40 days on the earth"

(Gen 7: 17; NRSV) but we later read, "And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days" (Gen 7: 24; NRSV). Why the discrepancy? In South Africa, we have a couple of very popular provincial rugby teams, among them are the Natal Sharks and the Free State Cheeters. Consider them competing in a rugby match and the Natal sharks win. The next day, there's a headline in the newspaper that reads, "Sharks slay Cheeters". If archeologists were to excavate the headline centuries down the line, what image do you think would pop into their heads?


There needs to be the awareness that much as the Bible was written to keep a record for generations to come, the communities certainly didn't foresee it being transmitted right up till this day and age eg. much as we find a lot of eschatological theology (theology about the end times) in the Pauline writings, they were written with the conviction that the Christ's second coming was about to take place; that the end times would be experienced before they had died; the Pauline writings were sent as letters to various communities but they weren't done with the intention of being saved for centuries to come.

Names and numbers are among some of things that often times are symbols more than anything else, when looking at the Bible eg. Noah means "rest" and he is given that name as a means of expressing his approach: God told him to build an ark because He was going to flood the earth and unlike Abraham who bartered with God, Noah simply obeyed. His name alone raises a debate amongst theologians and scholars, "Is his name being used as means of telling us that he was lazy or is it intended to reinforce our awareness of his obedience to God?" Notice how Abram's name changes into Abraham and Sarai's becomes Sarah. Why is this so? Note that God was known as YHWH (yud hay vuv hay), so there's the belief that their name changes serve to make us aware of their intimacy with God. Abram is given one of the "hay's" from the Divine Name and it becomes AbraHam whilst Sarai is given the other "hay" and her name becomes SaraH. In the instance of numbers: The number 3 represents "God will act/a miracle is going to take place" and if 2 is used, it normally means, "Keep reading because God is going to act (bit further on from here). 40 (days and 40 nights) represents a long time. 7 (days) represents perfection and/or order(note the first creation myth and how it's constantly reiiterated that "God saw that it was good". The use of the image of animals entering the ark 2 by 2 bears many messages. On a practical level, there'd be the need for male and female pairs in order for them to procreate. However, it also creates an awareness of our need for each other and the need to coexist (how on earth did Noah deal with lions and deer being on the same ark?)

It's easy to get dragged into Biblical debate whilst trying to use quotes from the Bible to prove one's point of view. However, there are many things to consider:

- One needs to have a twofold approach that entails performing exegesis (understanding the text - objective) on the text and to then perform eisegesis (applying it to one's own life - subjective).
- There's the need to read the text in the correct manner. Some try to read the Bible from cover to cover while others read a specific story etc. on it's own. EagleCowboy raised an important point and that is one of looking at the text before and after the passage in order to read it in context. However, to build onto it, there's also the need to read the text carefully...as in paying close attention to what one is reading phrase by phrase and sentence by sentence...and to pause and ask oneself questions like, "What is the writer trying to say? What is taking place? Why is "this" being said?"
- One needs to read the passage in light of what the situation was at the time of the text being written as well as in light of the background to the text
- It's wise to use more than one version of the Bible when studying the passage so that one can open oneself up to other interpretations.
- The use of a concordance and various commentaries from reputable sources are also helpful in being able to identify what the true meaning of the text is.
- There needs to be knowledge and understanding about how the passage was written eg. chiasmus structures

I'll give two demonstrations of what I'm talking about, and I'll start off by performing a very simple exegesis on Exodus 3: 4-5 (NRSV)

"When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush 'Moses, Moses!' And he said, 'Here I am.' Then he said, 'come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.'

EXEGESIS:

"When": From the text, we're able to see that God waited until He had identified that Moses had stopped to see what was taking place, before He called out to him. From this we are able to conclude that we are not forced to see God; that he gives us the choice to not only notice him but to also stop and pay attention to His manifestation in our lives.

"Here I am": This is a play on words. It bears a twofold meaning. For a start, through saying, "Here I am", Moses is making his presence known. However, by taking God's revelation of self to Moses, "I am who I am" (Ex 3: 14 NRSV) into consideration, we can also interpret it as, "Here, I am" and thus say that at the same time, Moses made himself present to the Presence.

"Remove the sandals from your feet": On a religious level, we are able to see that Moses is called to display reverence and humility in God's presence. However, a rather beautiful invitation that takes place is missed; an invitation that runs right throughout the Bible. Let's look at things from an everyday/practical level because this is oftentimes omitted when approaching the Bible. Let's consider the environment of the desert rather quickly: Scorching sand, poisonous snakes etc. jagged rocks and stones because of erosion caused by the extreme elements experienced in a desert. All in all, the environment isn't very favorable for walking barefoot. So Moses isn't only being told to display reverence and humility in the presence of God, but God is also saying, "Moses, stay a while with me. I'd like for you to get to know me better."

Moving on to EISEGESIS:

"When": Have there been times where I've been able to identify God's presence in other people, situations and events in my life? How did I respond? Did I stop and take notice?

"Here I am": Do I make myself available to God's call? Have I made myself present to His presence in my life? Do I identify the presence of God in others and do I make myself present to this awareness?

"Remove the sandals from your feet": Do I remove the sandals from my feet when approaching God? How about others, do I remove the sandals from my feet when I approach their lives and truths? Am I willing to spend time with God so that I can get to know Him better?