You came back? Wow.
(If you have not read part 1, then you probably should before reading this one)
The Old Testament (Leviticus 18 & 20)
When Israel entered into the Promised Land they found themselves exposed to the cultic religion practiced by the Canaanite people, and “although there were some similarities in the sacrifices offered in the Canaanite system…to that of the Israelites, the former was highly polytheistic, extremely sensuous and not infrequently violent.”[1] From the outset, YHWH commanded his people to be different from them and not to enter into their religious and sacrificial practices, as they were meant to be a Holy Nation devoted to YHWH and known for their righteousness and justice (Exod 19:6, Deut 12:29-31, 4:8). As Christopher Wright argues, “If Israel absorbed these features of her surrounding cultures… Israel would cease to be distinctive.”[2]
The Israelites were specifically commanded not to engage in, or sell their children into, the pervasive religious prostitution of the people around them (Deuteronomy 23:17,18). Thompson notes that, “in the Temples of the Canaanites there were male and female prostitutes… and all sorts of sexual excesses were practiced. It was believed that in some way these rites caused the crops and the herds to prosper.”[3] Interestingly Craigie argues that many of the male cultic prostitutes were in fact married and there was, “no conflict between the marital status and professional activities of the [male prostitutes].” He even goes on to suggest that, “both partners had a role to play in the fertility cult.”[4]
It is in this context that we should read Leviticus 18 and 20: “you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices… Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable” (Lev 18:3, 22). “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads” (Leviticus 20:13).
Vines asserts that this commandment is specifically related to cultic religious practices as the word translated as abomination in the KJV (and detestable in the NIV) is toevah and, “in the vast majority of cases, toevah refers to the idolatrous practices of the Gentiles.”[5] He goes on to cite Old Testament scholar Phyllis Bird; “it is not an ethical term, but a term of boundary marking,”[6] and so, given that the modern idea of homosexuality did not exist in the ancient world and that the context is the avoidance of ritual, cultic practices of the nations around them, and given that these practices involve the systematic use of male prostitutes, it would seem clear that these passages are not about what we understand as homosexuality. This assertion is strengthened by Craigie’s claim that the male prostitutes were married and so it makes it unlikely that sexual orientation played any part.
These two passages are the only references in the entire Old Testament to this behaviour[7] and for us to try to make this passage about homosexuality is, I fear, to ignore the main point. YHWH is not like the gods of Canaan. They seek to enslave humanity and in response, the Canaanite people tried “to manipulate and control the gods… [through] sexual acts by male and female temple prostitutes… to arouse Baal, who then brought rain to make mother earth fertile.”[8] YHWH loves his people and wants only the best for them. He does not need to be manipulated or coerced. For Israel to attempt to do so, is to worship an entirely different god, and to enslave themselves.
Next time, a look at the New Testament…
[1] Wayne Jackson, The Ras Shamra Discovery (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, n.d.).
[2] Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Nottingham: IVP, 2004), 329.
[3] J. A. Thompson, The Bible and Archeology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 1975), 84.
[4] P. C. Craigie, “Deuteronomy and Ugaritic Studies,” Tyndlae Bulletin 28 (1977), 161, 162.
[5] Vines, Gay Christian, 85.
[6] Phyllis Bird, “The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation Concerning Homosexuality: Old Testament Contributions,” in Homosexuality, Science and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture (ed. David L. Balch; Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 2000), 152.
[7] Having said that I would not deal with Sodom, I will make a point here that relates to it. The only other common form of “homosexuality” within the ANE, was for the purposes of domination and humiliation of a victim in a battlefield or prison setting, by treating a man, “like a defenceless woman [because] in sexist social systems, the most outrageous thing you can do to a man is treat him like a woman.” ( David P. Gushee, Changing Our Minds (Canton: Read the Spirit Books, 2017), 63.)
[8] Peter Mungo Jupp, “Baalbeck Temple Prostitutes and Holy Prostitution for Baal,” Ancient Destructions, 19 July 2012, <http://www.ancientdestructions.com/baalbek-temple-prostitutes-holy-prostitution-baal/> (4 June 2018).
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