What foes the bible say about gay

Leviticus 18:22

The dominant view of western Christianity forbids same-sex relations. This verse is one of the clobber passages that people cite from the Bible to condemn homosexuality. This essay first looks at the various ways the verse is translated into the English Bible and then explores some of the strategies used to create an affirming interpretation of what this passage means for the LGBTQ community.

More specifically, it presents the interpretation of K. Renato Lings in which Lev. While Lev. So did this term exist in ancient Israel? Charles D. Myers, Jr. The ancient Near East tradition included pederasty and relations between an older man and a boy, which was the primary form of homosexual sex at the time.

Bringing no answers from the history of ancient Israel, we must turn to the text itself. No matter how we read the Hebrew Bible, we must remember that we are not reading it in the original Hebrew language. Every Bible we read is translated from the original.

Translations of Lev. As it is apparent, there is something happening in the various translations of Lev. In order to understand this verse we must confer with scholars and their commentaries. Milgron finds that the word used for male and female words in the verse features a singular version for the male and a plural word for female.

Lings discovers that the text is not self-explanatoryin contrast to the version of most commentators. The Hebrew text is far more complex than English translators disclose. He builds on the work of David Stewart and the idea that this passage is really about male on male incest.

The singular version of the Hebrew word is used frequently. Furthermore, Lings considers the context in which Lev. Notably, the list of laws from Leviticus 18 is reordered in Leviticus In Leviticus 18 the order of the topics is ambiguous, but in chapter 20 the so-called homosexual law appears within a list referring to incest.

Renato Lings. Leviticus May 11,