Were any of the disciples gay?

D_Tim McGnaw

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JustAsking

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hilaire,
That is an interesting angle on Jesus and tax collectors. But I think there are too many examples where sinners of all kinds were welcomed to Jesus table (which is the same thing as being offered God's grace).

"The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" (Matthew 21:31).

Yes, he was addressing the Pharisees at that point, but I don't see where tax collectors have any special significance except that they are reviled and marginalized by the society.

More important, I think, is Paul's lament about the incorrigible nature of man in the beginning of Romans. Paul is developing his thesis that man is incompetent to be judged under the law, so man therefore receives grace. Instead of death, we sinners get Jesus.

He puts it on the same level as other major transgressions. So I am not saying that the NT condones homosexuality. What I am saying is that the NT is saying that homosexuals are no less deserving of God's grace than any one else.

If you are a sinner or you are marginalized for any reason, Jesus is inviting you to his table, especially. That was my point.

So I am equating tax collectors with homosexuals. Jesus' disciple Mathew was a tax collector. I think by analogy, if Jesus were to spin us a modern day parable, or come back and form another posse of apostles, it would surely include one or more homosexuals.
 
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D_Tim McGnaw

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hilaire,
That is an interesting angle on Jesus and tax collectors. But I think there are too many examples where sinners of all kinds were welcomed to Jesus table (which is the same thing as being offered God's grace).

"The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" (Matthew 21:31).

Yes, he was addressing the Pharisees at that point, but I don't see where tax collectors have any special significance except that they are reviled and marginalized by the society.

That quote in itself is extremely interesting, it is thought that at various points in its history the Temple had both a male sacrificial priesthood, and a separate female clergy which enjoyed various levels of power and influence and which would have practiced the endemic Near Eastern phenomenon of sacred temple "prostitution" which of course is nothing like real prostitution at all, but is a kind of female sexual fertility cult which later male historians called prostitution in an attempt to besmirch its reputation. We know that the Jews did worship and honour the Asherah (the female aspect of God) to varying degrees, and at times held both the Asherah and other Canaanitic female deities in the highest esteem. After all Solomon himself built alters to Astarte in the precinct of the first Temple and had sacrifices to her made on his behalf.

By the 1st century and over the couple of centuries leading up to it a kind of reform of Temple practice had occurred which relegated any worship of the Asherah to the sphere of private "heretical" folk religion and the male sacrificial clergy had effectively banished their female rivals from the Temple and blackened their names completely by association with common prostitution (a confusion which remains to this very day) and introduced a far stricter monotheism which the Christian and Muslim traditions later inherited.

So what exactly is Jesus saying when he tells the Pharisees that the Tax collectors who undermine their sacerdotal monopoly on taxes, and the "prostitutes" by which he could in fact mean the ancient female clergy of the Temple (the exact meaning of the original Aramaic saying of Jesus in question is after all opaque to us after all these translations and intervening millenia) will enter heaven before them?

Well much of the evidence; Jesus's fondness for Tax collectors who undermined the Temple priesthood by taking the taxes that priesthood claimed as its holy right, the prominence of women in his retinue (and "fallen" women too, by which we could read members of the suppressed female clergy), indeed many admit that these females were in fact his disciples, equals to the male disciples who have come down to us as the apostles etc. We have the fact that Jesus was a Nazarene, and therefore ethnically Galilean, the Galileans had only been converted to this reformed kind of Judean Judaism fairly recently and felt little or no strong attachments to the priesthood which had taken control of it which was generally speaking a Judean (as opposed to Galilean) tribal hegemony. Jesus's openness to gentiles, Romans, Samaritans and others and to hellenised Jews and Jews not of the priestly caste also adds to the evidence of his possible true mission.

All of this evidence tends to suggest that Jesus's real mission was to return Judaism to its pre-Pharisaical state, Jesus in this reading is a Jewish revivalist. Many believe that he recognised that the older form of Judaism which recognised other deities, specifically female ones, and which was less stridently exclusive of gentiles and gentile ideas, would allow the Jews to live more harmoniously within the Roman Empire, and indeed the fact that the leaders of the Jewish revolt which caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the chastisement of the Jews by the Romans which happened after Jesus's death were members of the priestly caste who took the reforms Jesus seems to have preached against very seriously, rather suggests Jesus was right.

It's a legitimate reading of the sayings of Jesus that he was preaching that the Temple priesthood's reforms were unholy and not supported by the best traditions, that he viewed the ancient faith of Solomon and the Kings of Israel as the true faith which had been hijacked by a mercenary tribal priestly patriarchy who's beliefs put the Jews at odds with their neighbours and the beliefs of their ancestors and (more importantly in some ways) with the Roman empire.

Jesus's opposition to pharisaical beliefs permeates the Gospels, and his entire life seems to show evidence of this mission to return the Jewish faith to its ancient roots. The youthful disputes with the priests in Jerusalem, his supposed descent (symbolic or otherwise) from David & Solomon, his explicit support for members of society the Temple priesthood had marginalised and anathematised, his ultimate direct conflict with the Temple priesthood during his last ministry in Jerusalem which precipitated the Sanhedrin's final decision to move against him. The evidence that the Roman authorities were reluctant perhaps even completely unwilling to act on the Sanhedrin's wishes when they questioned Jesus as to the nature of his teachings, which would have seemed to the Romans to be more amenable than the more extreme views of the pharisees.

So I don't think that Jesus' explicit support for Tax collectors and "Prostitutes" can be read in quite the way we have come to read it over the centuries as a simple attempt to reach out to the outcasts since it's the specific outcasts he reaches out to which says so much about the nature of his beliefs.

Beliefs, it must be pointed out, which while being certainly much more permissive than those of the Temple priesthood need not be interpreted as explicitly having anymore sympathy for homosexuals since he does not explicitly mention such a sympathy.

Though I admit that Jesus's fondness for hellenised Jews might well suggest he personally did not have a specific problem with homosexuality which in one form or another was a part of the hellenistic cultural package. But there is no suggestion that those hellenised Jews among Jesus's disciples and followers were not expected to give up the lifestyle they had lead prior to having converted to Jesus's teaching. Indeed the opposite seems to be true.

More important, I think, is Paul's lament about the incorrigible nature of man in the beginning of Romans. Paul is developing his thesis that man is incompetent to be judged under the law, so man therefore receives grace. Instead of death, we sinners get Jesus.

He puts it on the same level as other major transgressions. So I am not saying that the NT condones homosexuality. What I am saying is that the NT is saying that homosexuals are no less deserving of God's grace than any one else.

If you are a sinner or you are marginalized for any reason, Jesus is inviting you to his table, especially. That was my point.

So I am equating tax collectors with homosexuals. Jesus' disciple Mathew was a tax collector. I think by analogy, if Jesus were to spin us a modern day parable, or come back and form another posse of apostles, it would surely include one or more homosexuals.


This I can buy, Jesus does seem to say that no matter what your transgressions are if you repent God will forgive you your sins and that no sin is so great it cannot be forgiven. Even if he does not mention homosexuals by name its fair to presume that if Jesus were true to his own teaching that he would indeed have included them in his forgiveness.

What is implicit however in what you are saying, and indeed it is implicit in a number of mainstream Christian teachings on this, is that Homosexuality or at least homosexual sex acts are in and of themselves sinful.

Yes all mankind is innately sinful, according to Christian teaching, and yes you could regard any and all implicit sin as being at its root Original Sin, but specific acts do still carry a special sinly load. Lets not forget that Tax collecting and prostitution (of any kind) were regarded as unholy (sinful) in Jesus's time, and that was the source of the marginalisation those people suffered, and the reason Jesus reached out to them. And Jesus does not say that these marginalised people were sinless (nor even that the reasons for the marginalisation were not sinful), merely that they were less sinful than those who had marginalised them.

My problem with the notion that if Jesus were alive today that among his closest associates, his most beloved, the redeemed, would be homosexuals is that homosexuality as far as I am concerned is not in need of forgiveness as a sin since I do not regard homosexuality as sinful.

If Jesus were alive today and clearly was the Redeemer, the son of god, I would have plenty of sins to seek his forgiveness for, but my homosexuality is not a sin and is therefore not something I would seek Jesus's forgiveness for.
 
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midlifebear

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^ Lol...Judas biggin himself up?

Gospel of Judas has been accepted as spurious tho, I think??

That's amusing, because there are many of us in the world who regard the entire New Testament as completely spurious. :smile:


EDIT: I wasn't trolling. Just wanted to expand a larger perspective on the subject.
 
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nicenycdick

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While I think that this thread is a lot of fun and that some serious thought has been given to the topic (especially by Hilaire!), I think a point is being missed here. I understand that it would make some people feel in some way empowered to discover that some of the disciples were gay. But it is more important, I think, to recognize that their sexual orientation is irrelevant. I think that is the goal. I get that all movements and groups need heroes (Blacks with MLK, Feminists with Susan B. Anthony, Italians with Columbus...the list goes on!) But it can be argued that the earmark of the successful intergration of a sub-group is the abandonment of the need to create such speculative heroes.

Maybe it's because I live in NYC...but I don't know that the gay movement needs to create such heroes from thin air, especially ones with such dubious provenance.

But I'm just thinking out loud here.
 
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JustAsking

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...My problem with the notion that if Jesus were alive today that among his closest associates, his most beloved, the redeemed, would be homosexuals is that homosexuality as far as I am concerned is not in need of forgiveness as a sin since I do not regard homosexuality as sinful.

If Jesus were alive today and clearly was the Redeemer, the son of god, I would have plenty of sins to seek his forgiveness for, but my homosexuality is not a sin and is therefore not something I would seek Jesus's forgiveness for.

I agree with you on this. My notion that Jesus would seek out homosexuals would have more to do with how much they have been marginalized rather than it being sinful. Jesus seemed to be uninterested in peoples' sexual transgressions unless it involved an imbalance of power or brought on misery and suffering.

He defends the adultress from her persecuters and he takes water from the promiscuous Samaritan woman. In each case he advises them to clean up their act, but that seems to be more for their own well being than any kind of concern about religious purity and adherence to law. He cares more for the Samaritan woman than he does for the proscriptions that forbid him from touching her drinking cup.

So a better Biblical analogy for tax collectors in the first century might be women in the first century. Jesus would have homosexuals in his modern day retinue for the same reason he had women and tax collectors in his group.

This is not difficult for me, since I have taken Paul seriously in his suggestion that sin is an obsolete notion. If one replaces the concern about sin with a concern for misery and suffering instead, suddenly the NT makes a lot more sense.

By the way, your historical perspective on scripture is excellent and very interesting. Thanks for taking the time.
 
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All of this evidence tends to suggest that Jesus's real mission was to return Judaism to its pre-Pharisaical state, Jesus in this reading is a Jewish revivalist.
Yes, that's how I see it (and what the NT tends to suggest?).

Altho they'd hung onto their traditions and not compromised with other beliefs (as they had done before the Babylonian captivity), it seems he was reminding them that what Judaism was actually about was how to behave personally, in terms of decent treatment of other ppl - rather than the petty-minded attitude they'd since adopted.

Not sure how he'd treat homosexuality - altho I imagine he'd have a great deal of sympathy and understanding, as with other mistreated and misunderstood groups of ppl. I think (judging from how he addressed things generally) he'd have reminded ppl that even if they thought homosexuality sinful (which I still think the Bible generally assumes it to be), that they shouldn't be pointing the finger since most of them would be guilty of sins themselves equally as 'bad'.

I don't think he'd have condoned it, per se - but would've extended compassion, highlighted ppl's good points (as in the good samaritan), and also taught against the all-too-common habit of making oneself feel more righteous by h8ing on other ppl's 'sins' (which is often at the root of religious attitudes toward homosexuality, imo).
 

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Not a question relating to the disciple thing but to the "sinfulness" of homosexuality.

Is it specified anywhere exactly why it's a sin?

I'm wondering if it's not so much to do with same sex frolicking as it is that the frolic isn't sanctioned by marriage the same way that premarital or extra marital sex were also considered sinful.

My knowledge of this isn't at all deep so I'd welcome the education.
 

JustAsking

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Not a question relating to the disciple thing but to the "sinfulness" of homosexuality.

Is it specified anywhere exactly why it's a sin?

I'm wondering if it's not so much to do with same sex frolicking as it is that the frolic isn't sanctioned by marriage the same way that premarital or extra marital sex were also considered sinful.

My knowledge of this isn't at all deep so I'd welcome the education.

Pretty much all scripture in the OT that seems to refer to homosexuality is really talking about other things (or at least a really good case can be made for them).

The one clear one is in the NT in Romans, where Paul is working up his thesis that we are saved by God's Grace, not by anything we do or fail to do. Paul begins by making the case that we are so fucked up anyway, that we are incompetent to stand trial. He submits as evidence a list of stuff that demonstrates how depraved we are including this one...

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. " Rom 1:26,27

So you can certainly say that Paul thinks that same sex sexual activity is sinful, but if you stop there you miss the point that Paul is arguing for clemency. Paul is laying aside the notion of sin in Romans and raising up the notion of God's Grace. His goal is not to single out stuff to condemn.

The mainstream denominations that could be considered "Paulist" take what Paul says very seriously, but they are sophisticated enough to raise the principle up over the practice. In other words, the message they get from Paul in Romans is that God loves and forgives unconditionally.

So these same denominations are welcoming to gays in their congregations, and they are all somwhere along the process of approving the ordination of gay clergy. And their restrictions on it are along the line of what you are suggesting. They require gay clergy to be either celibate or in a committed relationship. As you suggest, what they disapprove of is promscuity outside of marriage whether it be hetero or homosexual.

As for fundamentalists, I don't think they even realize there is a sequel to the OT.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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Pretty much all scripture in the OT that seems to refer to homosexuality is really talking about other things (or at least a really good case can be made for them).

The one clear one is in the NT in Romans, where Paul is working up his thesis that we are saved by God's Grace, not by anything we do or fail to do. Paul begins by making the case that we are so fucked up anyway, that we are incompetent to stand trial. He submits as evidence a list of stuff that demonstrates how depraved we are including this one...

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. " Rom 1:26,27

So you can certainly say that Paul thinks that same sex sexual activity is sinful, but if you stop there you miss the point that Paul is arguing for clemency. Paul is laying aside the notion of sin in Romans and raising up the notion of God's Grace. His goal is not to single out stuff to condemn.

The mainstream denominations that could be considered "Paulist" take what Paul says very seriously, but they are sophisticated enough to raise the principle up over the practice. In other words, the message they get from Paul in Romans is that God loves and forgives unconditionally.

So these same denominations are welcoming to gays in their congregations, and they are all somwhere along the process of approving the ordination of gay clergy. And their restrictions on it are along the line of what you are suggesting. They require gay clergy to be either celibate or in a committed relationship. As you suggest, what they disapprove of is promscuity outside of marriage whether it be hetero or homosexual.

As for fundamentalists, I don't think they even realize there is a sequel to the OT.


The problem is that all too often the question of whether or not the Bible prohibits homosexuality is viewed from the perspective of a Christian reading of the Bible.


If we exclude the NT, the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, the Torah, was regarded and indeed probably is still regarded by most mainstream Rabbinical traditions to have prohibited male homosexuality as an abomination.

That was certainly how Jews interpreted the Torah for thousands of years. Undoubtedly that would have been the attitude common at the time of Jesus. So regardless of whether or not the Christian revisions and translations of the Pentateuch capture the full meaning of the original Hebrew law we know that the ancient Israelites and Judeans interpreted the Torah as having explicitly prohibited male homosexuality as an abomination for which it was possible to suffer the most extreme punishment up to and including death.

There is much modern Christian debate regarding the meaning of the Leviticus 18.22 and indeed there is considerable modern Jewish debate on the meaning of that injunction, but for thousands of years there is no attested questioning of what the meaning of the words "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." was.

These words were interpreted almost exclusively to mean that male homosexuality was an abomination and was expressly prohibited by God.

Indeed more than sinful, male homosexuality was regarded as so dreadful a transgression that its existence polluted those who permitted it to exist around them. That is why it is described as an abomination.

Christians undoubtedly took up their view of male homosexuality from the ancient Jewish one, and in like kind also interpreted Lev 18.22 to mean that male homosexuality was one of the gravest sins a man could commit.


Now it may well be that the original scribes who wrote down the first versions of Leviticus had intended that 18.22 should be interpreted in a different way, but there is no evidence that until the modern era this particular phrase was ever interpreted as having any other meaning.

There is strongly supported modern lexical research to suggest that 18.22 may have had some long since obscured alternative meaning but it was interpreted as a direct prohibition of the abomination of homosexuality for so many thousands of years that the original meaning if indeed it was different is for all intents and purposes irrelevant.




As to Gilette's question regarding biblical reasoning for why male homosexuality was regarded as sinful we have to look at the context in which that determination was made.


Sex in marriage, between a man and a woman in Judaism is regarded as a sacred and holy act, so long as the woman isn't menstruating.


Any sex act taking place outside of the context of marriage between a man and a woman, or indeed even between a husband and wife if the wife happens to be menstruating was regarded as unclean.

Ritually unclean, which it is to say an act which makes it impossible for a man to worship God until he has sought a spiritual cleansing making it possible for him to worship again.

It just so happens that ancient Hebrew concepts of bodily and spiritual cleanliness regarded male homosexual sex acts as being so unclean that they made it impossible for a man to atone for them and to achieve spiritual cleanliness ever again. Indeed so potent was the spiritual pollution of homosexuality regarded that it not only polluted the men who committed it but also those who allowed it to go unpunished, which is to say that a community was required to atone for the spiritual pollution of any among them who committed homosexual sex acts and since the men who committed them could not atone themselves they must therefore be put to death to allow their community to become spiritually clean again.

Therefore to commit an act which made it impossible for a man to ever again worship God in a righteous context (and which brought into question the righteousness of worship of his entire community) was regarded as one of the gravest sins a man could commit, since the Torah makes it one of the primary goals of human life to worship God according to his commandments and in compliance with his laws.
 
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D_Tim McGnaw

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Does it matter? Gay/straight/celibate/partnered - whatever - walk in God's light wherever, whenever - be the best you can be NOW!!!


That depends on what you mean. If you mean should academic debate regarding historical attitudes and religious views of homosexuality matter to us now regarding how we personally view homosexuality, then ultimately that is up to each individual's conscience.


If you mean does discussion and debate, and investigation of the history of this issue matter in the specfic context of the history of religion and the wider history of humanity then yes it is of considerable importance and matters quite a lot.
 

ryan25yo

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Had to throw this in here, from a conversation George Carlin said he had with a friend.

GC: Did you know I went to Catholic School for 12 years?
Friend: Then how come you're not Catholic?
GC: Because I went to Catholic School for 12 years!

Now, I went to public school (thank GAWD) but I can still relate.
May I suggest that you get over it?
 

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The problem is that all too often the question of whether or not the Bible prohibits homosexuality is viewed from the perspective of a Christian reading of the Bible.


If we exclude the NT, the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, the Torah, was regarded and indeed probably is still regarded by most mainstream Rabbinical traditions to have prohibited male homosexuality as an abomination.

That was certainly how Jews interpreted the Torah for thousands of years. Undoubtedly that would have been the attitude common at the time of Jesus. So regardless of whether or not the Christian revisions and translations of the Pentateuch capture the full meaning of the original Hebrew law we know that the ancient Israelites and Judeans interpreted the Torah as having explicitly prohibited male homosexuality as an abomination for which it was possible to suffer the most extreme punishment up to and including death.

There is much modern Christian debate regarding the meaning of the Leviticus 18.22 and indeed there is considerable modern Jewish debate on the meaning of that injunction, but for thousands of years there is no attested questioning of what the meaning of the words "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." was.

These words were interpreted almost exclusively to mean that male homosexuality was an abomination and was expressly prohibited by God.

Indeed more than sinful, male homosexuality was regarded as so dreadful a transgression that its existence polluted those who permitted it to exist around them. That is why it is described as an abomination.

Christians undoubtedly took up their view of male homosexuality from the ancient Jewish one, and in like kind also interpreted Lev 18.22 to mean that male homosexuality was one of the gravest sins a man could commit.


Now it may well be that the original scribes who wrote down the first versions of Leviticus had intended that 18.22 should be interpreted in a different way, but there is no evidence that until the modern era this particular phrase was ever interpreted as having any other meaning.

There is strongly supported modern lexical research to suggest that 18.22 may have had some long since obscured alternative meaning but it was interpreted as a direct prohibition of the abomination of homosexuality for so many thousands of years that the original meaning if indeed it was different is for all intents and purposes irrelevant.




As to Gilette's question regarding biblical reasoning for why male homosexuality was regarded as sinful we have to look at the context in which that determination was made.


Sex in marriage, between a man and a woman in Judaism is regarded as a sacred and holy act, so long as the woman isn't menstruating.


Any sex act taking place outside of the context of marriage between a man and a woman, or indeed even between a husband and wife if the wife happens to be menstruating was regarded as unclean.

Ritually unclean, which it is to say an act which makes it impossible for a man to worship God until he has sought a spiritual cleansing making it possible for him to worship again.

It just so happens that ancient Hebrew concepts of bodily and spiritual cleanliness regarded male homosexual sex acts as being so unclean that they made it impossible for a man to atone for them and to achieve spiritual cleanliness ever again. Indeed so potent was the spiritual pollution of homosexuality regarded that it not only polluted the men who committed it but also those who allowed it to go unpunished, which is to say that a community was required to atone for the spiritual pollution of any among them who committed homosexual sex acts and since the men who committed them could not atone themselves they must therefore be put to death to allow their community to become spiritually clean again.

Therefore to commit an act which made it impossible for a man to ever again worship God in a righteous context (and which brought into question the righteousness of worship of his entire community) was regarded as one of the gravest sins a man could commit, since the Torah makes it one of the primary goals of human life to worship God according to his commandments and in compliance with his laws.

Does it matter?

That depends on what you mean. If you mean should academic debate regarding historical attitudes and religious views of homosexuality matter to us now regarding how we personally view homosexuality, then ultimately that is up to each individual's conscience.


If you mean does discussion and debate, and investigation of the history of this issue matter in the specfic context of the history of religion and the wider history of humanity then yes it is of considerable importance and matters quite a lot.

what he said :grinning-smiley-003

With maybe the addition that I think
a different original meaning of Lev 18:22
is very highly unlikely.

And that I think one of the concerns
the Israelites must have had was that
"be fruitful and multiply" thing.
just one more reason they may choose
to prohibit same sex activities.
 

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That depends on what you mean. If you mean should academic debate regarding historical attitudes and religious views of homosexuality matter to us now regarding how we personally view homosexuality, then ultimately that is up to each individual's conscience.


If you mean does discussion and debate, and investigation of the history of this issue matter in the specfic context of the history of religion and the wider history of humanity then yes it is of considerable importance and matters quite a lot.

Of course it (a debate) matters but we must keep in mind that the Bible in all it's translations has been done by man and man is flawed. The Bible is clearly lopsided in presentation, even with several females that have strong roles in Biblical tales, we are given just 1 book with a female name (Esther). Wiith that in mind it can be seen that what we've been handed is a piece of history but not everything. We have an anthology, a collection of selected tales, selected by men. It's not much different in that sense from the Best Sellers List of current books or the top movies.

Books & movies rely in part at least on publicity. A good publiicist can get the worst stuff to sell, put in an easy on the eyes actor in a movie and it becomes a hit. The Bible began as an oral history, 2 things then happen. In Gob, a Gilbert Gottfried type tells the stories, his nasal delivery doesn't keep people returning and his tales are soon forgotten. In nearby Crabville a James Earl Jones type tells tales and captivates the crowd. They remember his stories and pass them along.


Now since the tales were 1st handed down orally, there are manyy whch weren't saved. Stories which weren't as captiivatiing. Even today certain stories dominate the news while others get brief attention. This can be seen in missing person stories as an example. Mr.A and his family are given the spotlight for days, even weeks when his wife goes missing but Mr.B. and his family get just a 2 line mention in the daily paper.


The Bible is an anthology and therefore only a small picture. In the case of the disciples, there's not much talk about their partners or children and sexuality wasn't as important in the Biblical context as was their mission. Jesus had said as much to Simon (Peter) & Andrew "I will make you fishers of men" (Mark1; vs.17, Matthew4; vs.19) their aim being to bring more people to God it really didn't matter if they were gay.