Homosexuality in the old testament
What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?
What Does The Bible Utter About Homosexuality?
Introduction
For the last two decades, Pew Research Center has reported that one of the most enduring ethical issues across Christian traditions is sexual diversity. For many Christians, one of the most frequently first-asked questions on this topic is, “What does the Bible say about attraction to someone of the identical sex?”
Although its unlikely that the biblical authors had any notion of sexual orientation (for example, the term homosexual wasn't even coined until the tardy 19th century) for many people of faith, the Bible is looked to for timeless guidance on what it means to honor God with our lives; and this most certainly includes our sexuality.
Before we can skip into how it is that Christians can maintain the authority of the Bible and also affirm sexual diversity, it might be helpful if we started with a terse but clear overview of some of the assumptions informing many Christian approaches to understanding the Bible.
What is the Bible?
For Christians to whom the Bible is God’s very written word, it is widely understood that God produced its contents through inspired
The Bible on Homosexual Behavior
One way to argue against these passages is to make what I phone the “shellfish objection.” Keith Sharpe puts it this way: “Until Christian fundamentalists boycott shellfish restaurants, cease wearing poly-cotton T-shirts, and stone to death their wayward offspring, there is no obligation to heed to their diatribes about homosexuality being a sin” (The Gay Gospels, 21).
In other words, if we can disregard rules appreciate the ban on eating shellfish in Leviticus , then we should be allowed to disobey other prohibitions from the Aged Testament. But this argument confuses the Old Testament’s temporary ceremonial laws with its permanent moral laws.
Here’s an analogy to assist understand this distinction.
I retain two rules my mom gave me when I was young: hold her hand when I cross the street and don’t drink what’s under the sink. Today, I acquire to follow only the latter rule, since the former is no longer needed to protect me. In fact, it would now do me more harm than good.
Old Testament ritual/ceremonial laws were fond mom’s handholding rule. The reason they forbade the Israelites from using certain fabrics or foods, or interacting with bodily flui
Transcript:
Alright, I’d just like to start by saying appreciate you to everybody for coming tonight – I really appreciate it – and for being interested in learning more about this subject. I also want to thank College Hill United Methodist for graciously agreeing to host the event. My specify is Matthew Vines, I’m 21 years old, and I’m currently a pupil in college, although I’ve been on leave for most of the last two years in instruct to study the material that I’ll be presenting tonight. I was born and raised here in Wichita, in a loving Christian home and in a church community that holds to the traditional interpretation of Scripture on this subject.
Just to give a brief outline for this presentation: I’ll launch by considering some of the broader issues and divisions that are behind this debate; and then I’ll move to a closer examination of the main biblical texts that are involved in it; and then I’ll present some concluding remarks. The issue of homosexuality, of the ordination of homosexual clergy and of the blessing of same-sex unions, has caused tremendous divisions in the church in recent decades, and the church remains substantially divided over the issue today. On the one hand, the
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Toward the end of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh King Gilgamesh laments the untimely death of his comrade Enkidu, "my friend whom I loved dearly." Similarly in the Bible, David mourns his companion, Jonathan, whose "love to me was superb, greater than the adore of women." These passages, along with other ambiguous erotic and sexual language found in the Gilgamesh epic and the biblical David story, have change into the object of numerous and competing scholarly inquiries into the sexual character of the heroes' relationships. Susan Ackerman's innovative function carefully examines the stories' sexual and homoerotic language and suggests that its ambiguity provides new ways of understanding ideas of gender and sexuality in the ancient Near East and its literature. In exploring the stories of Gilgamesh and Enkidu and David and Jonathan, Ackerman cautions against applying latest conceptions of homosexuality to these relationships. Drawing on historical and literary criticism, Ackerman's close readings inspect the stories of David and Gilgamesh in bright of contemporary definitions of sexual relationships and gender
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