Teach the Controversy: Question Belief!
The Christian Attitude to Homosexuality: Old Testament Hypocrisy
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Friday, July 30, 1999
September 2004
Homosexuality in Leviticus
The Jews interpret the purpose of sexuality as procreation within marriage:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth…Genesis 1:27
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.Genesis 9:1
Men are however forbidden to lie together, according to the so-called Holiness Code of Leviticus:
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.Leviticus 18:22
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.Leviticus 20:13
The central reasons why the Jewish scriptures were opposed to homosexuality were:
- The priests wanted the population to grow as quickly as possible because they depended on people to make sacrifices to keep them rich. The more people, the richer they got.
- When the Priestly codes were written, the priesthood wanted to distinguish their own practices from those of the Greek where homosexuality was part of the culture. The Jewish Maccabees in particular hated the Greeks whom they rebelled against.
- The religious practices of the “nations” included sacred prostitution of both sexes, the male ones being called “dog priests”, and again the Jewish priesthood wanted to distinguish their own practices from those of others. Since the Canaanites, including the Israelites, had such sacred practices in their original religions, this might be the basic reason for the incompatibility of homosexuality and holiness from the Persian period onwards.
The word translated as “sodomite” in the Authorized Version is a mischievous Christian mistranslation. The word is “qadeshim” and actually means Holy Ones. Philologists know a lot about these words now from studies of Akkadian and Sumerian, and the knowledge that there once was a goddess, Qadesh, who was “mistress of all the gods”. The Holy Ones in this context were sacred prostitutes, some of whom were male, some perhaps dog priests. However much Christians might dislike practices like these, they are a historical reality, and were widespread, even among the Chosen People. They ought to consider, since they were cult figures taking part in cult practices, whether it was the act or the cultish meaning that mattered to the biblical authors. Bigotry pre-empts all reason, so there is no hope of it.
The Holiness Code is a set of laws laid down by the Jewish priesthood to ensure that the whole of the Jewish people were a “nation of priests” as God’s Chosen People and must therefore be holy as god is holy. It is, of course, part of the law of Moses, and on the face of it cannot be obligatory to Christians for whom the law has been abrogated by Christ himself, especially in his deeds, and by Paul, his main missionary to the non-Jewish world, in words and deeds, notwithstanding that in places he praises the law. Jesus himself said that not a jot or tittle of the law was expendable, yet apparently ignored lots of it, and Paul could denigrate the law in the most offensive terms and manifestly ignore it, when it suited him, while using it to support his arguments, when it suited him. He considered faith in Jesus to fulfil the law, as Jesus had said, and so the law was obsolete. So Christians generally think.
Why Particularly the Homosexuality Law?
Why then has this particular law on homosexuality to be upheld and not others related laws? Thus, if a homosexual must be put to death for indulging in his homosexuality, shouldn’t death be the penalty for other sexual crimes like adultery:
And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.Leviticus 20:10
Or, if we have moved on, even under Christianity from killing people for their private business, perhaps we should just accept the parallel passage of Leviticus 18:22:
Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her.Leviticus 18:20
If Christians want to work themselves into a frenzy over homosexual relationships, then why are they not doing the same over adultery, which is equally condemned in these holiness codes of the Jewish scriptures?
Leviticus is the law book of the second temple priesthood, nowadays called God by ignorant Christians and their trainers. Yet, even if it still is a book of God’s laws, in the Christian view, how many of these laws do they obey today? Hardly any! Do devout Christians make burnt offerings to God (Lev 1:1-17), cereal offerings (Lev 2:1-16), sin offerings (Lev 3:1-6:30), guilt offerings (Lev 7:1-27), peace offerings (Lev 7:28-38), or instruct priests how to make these offerings (Lev 8:1-9:24)? Are women Christians unclean after childbirth or during menstruation (Lev 12:1-8), or men after a nocturnal emission (Lev 15:16-18). Christian doctors do not have to be priests (Lev 13:1-14:57). Do Christians put to death children who curse their father or mother (Lev 20:9)? Do Christians still practice the code of an eye for an eye (Lev 24:17-21), stone people to death for blaspheming God’s name (Lev 24:10-16, 24:23), or keep slaves (Lev 25:39-55)? Christians essentially do not follow the laws written in the Jewish scriptures, and do not stay awake at night praying for forgiveness for ignoring them. Rightly, they think most of them are irrelevant in this day and age. Yet, the few that they do still obey, they feel convinced that God holds particularly dear—for some reason, those concerning homosexuality. How do they know that these laws are particularly important for God, especially since His son and his best man abrogated them all?
Paul and Homosexuality
Perhaps it is because the Christian founder, S Paul, had something to add to the Jewish law, and anything spoken by the first Christian missionary now counts as a law of God:
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature, And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.Romans 1:26-27
Lutterworth’s Dictionary of the Bible (sub voce, “Homosexuality in the Bible”) says this is the only unquestionable reference to homosexual acts in the New Testament. If this is the central Christian argument, then they ought to be honest and admit that Paul’s argument is against idolatry and the various sexual practices that went with some of the idolatrous rituals. This is plain enough:
And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves, Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.Romans 1:23-25
Paul is much stricter when he writes:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.1 Corinthians 6:9-10
But Christians are put in the same hypocritical bind as the Mosaic law puts them. Here Paul seems to say that homosexuals cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but he also says that nor can fornicators, adulterers, the covetous, and extortioners and revilers. That must rule out large swaths of the Christian community, and, indeed, the last condition would rule out those who revile others, including those reviling homosexuality and even Paul himself. In any case, the two terms used in the Greek are translated as they are to suit modern prejudices about homosexuality and effeminate men. Their real meaning is unknown or unclear, and Peter Cantor in the twelfth century did not list this passage or the one from 1 Timothy below as condemning homosexuality. He plainly did not consider that they did from his understanding of them.
The very next line in 1 Corinthians shows that there is nothing absolute about any of these crimes that permanently exclude people from God’s kingdom:
And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.1 Corinthians 6:11
So, Christians who abuse homosexuals and condemn them are simply not acting in the way of forgiveness that even Paul was advocating here. The author of 1 Timothy repeats the list, in each case following essentially the lists of the Jewish scriptures, which he is defending. Adultery is not specifically mentioned but it clearly comes under whoremongery and manstealing:
But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.1 Timothy 1:8-11
If Judaism could exclude homosexuals in its scheme of things, how can Christianity, with its supposed compassion? Paul also wrote:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28
It seems to mean that Christianity excludes no one. This suits the tenor of a religion of love, but what do modern American evangelical Christians think of it. For them, AIDS is God’s way of punishing homosexuals! This is loving? The primitive way these people think of a supposedly all mighty God illustrates their lack of brain power. God has the notional power to a believer to create the universe in six days. He could prevent any homosexual even from being born, if He wanted to. If His aim is to allow them to be born for some other obscure reason, and He wanted to punish them, then He could punish only them without all the peripheral damage to innocent people, including heterosexuals in normal heterosexual relationships. That both sexes get AIDS, and that it is transmitted by normal sexual intercourse as well as homosexual intercourse and other ways ought to prove that it is not a punishment of homosexuals by a just and loving God.
Moreover, we get back to the hypocritical bind that Christians end up in but cannot even see, themselves. Is syphilis a punishment? Is He therefore outraged that a cure for syphilis was found, or was it His will? If a cure for AIDS is found, is that His will too, and will Christians therefore accept that God is then sanguine about homosexuality, or will they just try to find some other absurd claim to back up their prejudices? Is TB God’s punishment for poverty, and gout His punishment for excess eating? What is cancer His punishment for? Excessive sunbathing, vanity? In the Middle Ages, homosexuals were among those who were tied to a pole and set on fire with burning faggots. Christians did this. Is that the way to get to the kingdom of God? The New Testament, inspired by the Holy Ghost of the loving God says:
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.Matthew 7:1
Christians are urged not to judge others at the risk of their immortal souls when they come to be judged themselves. Does it worry them that they take the role of judgement of others from God and undertake it themselves? Not a bit, and it never has. The whole of the history of Christianity has been one of Christians judging others, and then punishing them in ways that even Satan would find sickening.
Jesus and Homosexuality
Nor do Christians consider a quite elementary fact. Homosexuality cannot generally get spread by being passed from father to son. Homosexual relations cannot be fertile ones. Homosexuality ought therefore to have died out naturally but it has not. The Christian answer must be that homosexuals just do it to be obtuse. They are really normal men and women who must prefer to have sexual relationships with the opposite sex, but they chose to love people of the same sex for some perverse reason of their own, quite contrary to their natural inclinations. It is manifestly stupid to hold such a view. The Catholic Church now does not hold it, regarding homosexuality as a natural inclination, ailment or dysfunction, but think that homosexuals should deal with it by abstinence.
In the time and place of the bible setting, marriages were arranged at a young age, and could legally be consummated after the age of twelve. Children were often betrothed as infants. In this situation, homosexual men in an arranged marriage had to put up with their own and their wife’s discomfort or leave her destitute. By the time of Christ, there were single sex monasteries where homosexuals might have found some comfort and support. Jesus never married, so far as we know, and was condemned by his own family, so the bible says. Christians can read in their own bibles, on the occasion of Jesus’s arrest:
And they all forsook him, and fled. And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, and the young men laid hold on him, And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.Mark 14:50-52
Michael J Haren calls this a “mysterious passage”. The word translated “followed” is not the usual uncommitted Greek word for simply following. It is only used in two other places, where, although “followed” is the standard translation, it means “accompanied”! Why was Jesus accompanied by a young man naked all bar a linen cloth? The night was cool enough for Peter, fully dressed, to need to warm himself at a fire (Mark 14:66; John 18:18)! What is the general reader to make of this description of Jesus and a disciple at the Last Supper, only hours before the young man ran off naked?
Now there was leaning on Jesus’s bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus’s breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?John 13:23-25
Morton Smith found a fragment of a gospel (Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, 1973) that suggested that Jesus was a homosexual. The suggestion might outrage Christians, but it is a symptom of their intolerance. They do not know it is not true!
Christians refuse to acknowledge that we are learning things that were not known in biblical times. They could not therefore appear in the bible, whether inspired by the Holy Ghost or not. Researchers have found that one in twenty infant boys become homosexuals, and that where homosexual men have children by a heterosexual alliance, their children are more likely to be homosexual. Similarly, identical twins are highly likely to have the same sexual inclinations either way. The homosexual trait is therefore in the genes, and ought indeed to die out over time if homosexuals are not forced to pretend to be heterosexuals and have children. If it did not thus die out, then the homosexual gene must be being formed by mutation at a regular rate keeping the proportion of homosexuals constant in the population. For Christians, this can mean nothing other than that God is providing for homosexuality to exist in the population, and the attempts of dolts and bigots to suppress it is like all eugenic cruelties—futile. It is the opposite of the teachings of the Christian God:
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.Mark 12:31
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.Matthew 19:19; 22:39
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.Luke 10:27; cf Mark 12:33
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8; Leviticus 19:18
The placing in conjunction of the two commandments equates them. It means that no man who claims to love God can not love his neighbour as himself, and those who love their neighbour as themselves are proving that they love God. The Christian Testament is clear enough about it:
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.1 John 4:18
It is hard to understand how Christians, supposedly devout ones, can disengage these two commandments and go about hating their neighbours while claiming to love God. They obviously think God does not notice. They create God in their own image—as an idiot!
