HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE

An analysis of a bias against homosexuality in the Bible, presented in two sessions at the church's summer adult forum in the summer of 1997 by The Rev. Earl William Greene, Jr., one of the pastors of the church.

We begin with the most famous of the passages often quoted - the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Please read the passage in its entirety found in Genesis chapter 18:16 through 19:38.

The cities Sodom and Gomorrah appear to have been located on a geological rift which extends from Turkey in the north to east Africa in the south. The Dead Sea at 1,305 feet is the lowest point on the rift. The area has extensive sulfur and bitumen deposits and petrochemical springs.

Archaeologists assert that the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed about 1900 B.C.E. An earthquake, with associated fires (brimstone is sulfurous fire) may have ignited at that time, destroying the two cities.

People in Bible times, and some people today believe that those cities were destroyed by God for their sinfulness. This way of looking at natural disasters is consistent with the point of view in the ancient world that earthquakes, fires, floods, famines, accidents, illness, and war - all are sent by God to punish people for something Let's "set the stage" for the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as it is found in Genesis 18:16-19:38. Abraham was the "father" of the Hebrew people. He had a nephew whose name was Lot. They both raised live-stock and in time they became wealthy.

Some friction developed between Lot and Abraham, and in time Abraham told his nephew Lot that it seemed best that they each go their own way. Abraham, in a generous gesture let Lot decide which land he would like for himself. For the sake of peace in the family Abraham assured Lot that he would be happy to take what was left.

So, Lot shrewdly examined the landscape in all directions. He saw the broad fertile plains on the one hand, including two rather sophisticated cities not too far off. In the opposite direction Lot saw a rocky, drier area which turned mountainous and appeared quite forbidding for any practical use.

The fertile plain would be great for farming, and was certainly an easier place to herd sheep than the rocky mountainside. And Lot may have thought that the two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, could be good centers for trade, and perhaps provide a diversion from the monotony of rural life. Lot had first choice. He chose the fertile plain, with the cities in the distance. Uncle Abraham could have the less desirable land.

Abraham is to be admired for his graciousness in giving his nephew first choice. But Abraham understood some things that Lot didn't understood fully at all. Abraham knew that there may be a "down side" to living among the people of the plains who had a very different history, religious practices and ethical values.

Abraham was intent on developing God's faithful people, a new nation, based on what he felt was God's call. He knew that if his nephew Lot struck out on his own, and lived out there among strangers he might well end up abandoning the ways of his own people over time, and Lot's part of the family could be lost forever from God's dream of a new nation.

Even though the rocky, mountainous terrain Abraham drew in the bargain with Lot wasn't nearly as desirable for farming and raising sheep, Abraham was convinced that he probably got the better deal in the long run. Abraham could build a nation in his own way, without the influence of outsiders.

As the story unfolds Lot became very successful in his new locale, and he even became one of the leading citizens in the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah.

But, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, in time God began to hear "bad things" about those two cities, and God decided to check out the scene in further detail. Abraham, off in the hilly area somehow learned that God had decided to destroy the cities for these "bad things." "Surely," said Abraham to God, "you wouldn't destroy the good people there along with the bad, would you?" In effect, Abraham was reminding God of divine, gracious, compassionate love, and God reluctantly agreed to save the cities if 50 worthy people could be found living there. Abraham then pushes God further on this point. "Suppose there turn out to be only 45 worthy ones? Or, what about just 30? Would you save the cities if there were only 20 good people there? How about 10?" Each time God promised to save the cities if even a very few who lived there were found worthy.

After this "bargaining" had taken place, two of God's messengers (we are told that they were angels disguised as men) went to visit Sodom and Gomorrah to see how bad the situation really was. God provided them with the "ways and means" to destroy the cities if there was compelling evidence of gross sinfulness, and that there was a serious dearth of worthy people who lived there.

Lot happened to be sitting at the city gates as the two strangers (angels) approach. He was fully aware of one the Hebrew people's highest values: strangers are to be welcomed and shown hospitality, for God long ago took the Hebrews in when they had no home, and cared for them, giving them a home. Remembering his manners (probably via Uncle Abraham) he approached the strangers with a welcoming bow.

"Gentlemen, welcome to our city! It's toward evening. Come and stay at my home." The two men had been prepared to sleep in the town square as a "test" of Sodom's hospitality, but Lot insisted that they join him at his home. Once there, he and his family prepare a feast for the strangers and make comfortable sleeping arrangements for the night.

As the guests are settling down for the night they all hear a ruckus outside. According to the story every man in the city is outside the house, having formed a mob. They shout and pound on Lot's door, and yell through the door, demanding that Lot send the two strangers outside so that they might "know" them.

Lot saw their outrageous behavior as being openly hostile to these strangers, to guests within the safety of his own house. He opens the door, and pleads with the crowd to be decent neighbors, and to show respect for the hospitality he has extended to his visitors.

The mob begins to turn on Lot. They remind him that he is a relative newcomer to the area himself, and they threaten to attack him right on the spot.

Lot attempts to make a bargain with the mob - utterly bizarre by our standards, but perhaps rational for the culture of his time. He offers to send out his two daughters, virgins, though betrothed (in fact the men they are to marry are already called Lot's "sons-in-law"). Lot suggests that the mob "do with my daughters as you please, only do not hurt these strangers who have come to the shelter of his house!"

At that point, Lot's two visitors manage to pull him inside to safety. They shut and bolt the door. The two strangers then perform some act of magic (or, they call upon powers from God), and all the men outside are blinded - groping about, unable even to find Lot's door again. The crowd disperses, and all is quiet for the rest of the night.

But very early in the morning the two strangers explain their mission to Lot - that they have been sent by God to destroy the cities, and that Lot and his family must immediately flee to safety. Lot is reluctant to leave, but the two men are firm in their resolve, and in the end Lot and his family run for their lives, escaping the catastrophe which came to the two cities.

What was really going on in Sodom and Gomorrah? What was "the" sin specifically? The text itself isn't clear. There are certainly a number of possibilities. Perhaps the men of the towns were just hopelessly uncivilized brutes, with "no redeeming value."

Perhaps, word had gotten out around town that these two angel-strangers had been sent by the Hebrew God to destroy the cities, and the men in the cities decided to take matters into their own hands - to order these men out of Lot's house for a "hearing," or to just get rid of them altogether.

Or, did the two angel-strangers appear effeminate to the men of the town, seeming to mock the "masculinity of men" so that they decided to teach these strangers a "lesson?" Or, is it possible that all the men in the town - "from the oldest to the youngest" were themselves homosexuals "out of control" and intent on raping the visitors in Lot's house?

Pivotal to the interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is an examination of the words "to know." We sometimes use the phrase "to know in the biblical sense," meaning "to have carnal knowledge of another."

The Hebrew word "to know" (yadha) appears 943 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Only 10 of the 943 references in Hebrew Scriptures suggest carnal or sexual activity. Is it clear that the use of the word "know" in this particular story is one of the ten?

And, while we're exploring the "morals" in the story, what should we think of Lot's idea to rescue the two angel visitors from the mob by "giving" his two virgin daughters to the crowd to "do with as they pleased?" This would amount to the gang rape of his daughters, justified under the circumstances, so that the two male visitors would be safe. And, why the outcry over the possibility that homosexuality had any part in this incident, but there is no real concern about the "purity," not to mention the safety of Lot's own daughters?

And what about the tag ending? (19: 30-38) What do we make of the two daughters who later got their father drunk twice, each one having sex with him, reasoning that it was for a good cause - to get them pregnant so that in time their own sons from this escapade could sire children for them, and that way keep the ancestral line of their father Lot intact?

One way of understanding the whole story better is to examine all the passages in the Bible that refer back to Sodom and Gomorrah. Some passages in the Hebrew Scriptures refer to the "inordinate pride" of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah - pride being the "the sin" of the cities. Other passages refer to the "lack of hospitality" to strangers as being the "sin."

Hospitality to strangers was considered a high obligation in Semitic culture. Even into Jesus' day travelers would enter a village or town near dusk and go right to the town square. It was incredibly rude for the residents of a town to leave strangers there overnight. Feeding and housing travelers was considered an obligation in that culture.

When Isaiah wrote about the "sins" of Sodom and Gomorrah he referred to the gross way they did animal sacrifices, and how they neglected the poor, about acts of bribery, larceny and murder there.

In the book of Ezekiel God warns the city of Jerusalem that it is beginning to act like Sodom, and God says, "this is the sin of Sodom: pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, yet Sodom never helped the poor."

Jeremiah referred to adultery and hypocrisy as being the "sin" of Sodom. Altogether, there are 16 references to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hebrew Scriptures - not one of them mention homosexuality among the sins.

In the Christian Gospels - Matthew and Luke - Jesus sends his disciples out to villages and towns, and tells them that if any refuse them hospitality the fate of those villages and towns will be worse than the fate of Sodom!

In the Christian Epistles, in II Peter, Sodom is described as a lawless society, where the people were headstrong and reckless, "flouting authority, being arrogant and greedy, spending time carousing, and having eyes for nothing but women." (!) The only passage in the Christian Scriptures which claims that homosexuality was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is Jude, v.7, which quite clearly condemns homosexual behavior, and compares the burning of Sodom to eternal fire and punishment.

It appears that the Genesis story does indeed speak of immoral behavior, but the popular premise, perpetuated in the Church and in versions of the Bible that the chief sin is homosexuality is a pitiful stretch of the imagination. The Bible does indeed foster a bias against homosexual behavior in other places, but the story of Sodom and Gomorrah just isn't the right one!

The premise that Genesis 18 and 19 are about homosexuality seems to have taken root centuries later when restrictive codes about sexual behavior were developed shortly after the Babylonian exile. Between five and six hundred years before Jesus was born Babylonia conquered little Palestine, burned its cities, destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, and took hordes of people back to Babylonia as slaves.

This was a time of great tragedy for the Jews. It meant that everything dear to them had been left behind. But for a hundred years there in Babylon the Hebrews tried to keep their "Jewishness" distinct so that when they were permitted to go home again their faith and culture would be in tact.

The Hebrew population had dwindled during this time; when the Hebrews finally did return to Palestine there wasn't one of them who was alive when the exile began. The strength of Israel and its whole future was dependent upon "getting back to basics" and to a very strict regulation of daily life so that "God's chosen people" were still clearly identified, and different from everyone else. They understood that to be their mission as a people.

In order to preserve Israel's faith and to impede any further breakdown of Jewish culture, rules were needed to ensure that the people would remain pure genetically.

Condemned, of course was marriage outside of the "blood line." Some had dropped by the wayside and had married Babylonian women. This was described in the Jewish codes as an abomination to God. Condemned also was any sexual activity that thwarted reproduction - any form of birth control, abortion, any "waste" of precious male seed - coitus interruptus, masturbation, or same sex activity - targeted exclusively to males.

Marriage was compulsory after the age of twenty. Plural marriages to encourage prolific reproduction were common. The man, they thought, had the whole of nascent life in his seed, so he could be encouraged to take more wives, concubines, and slavewomen to his bed. Encouragement for starting a family was expressed in law.

So, in this context homosexuality was seen as a threat to the survival of Israel, and it was forbidden as another one of the "abominations," as something that could thwart God and Israel's plan to keep the nation strong.

The priests at the time of leaving Babylon for home resurrected and amplified what we now call "The Holiness Code" - some of it had been "on the shelf" for many years. The Code spoke to every aspect of daily life. At the same time the code was re-introduced the priests edited the entire Hebrew Torah, bringing the bias of the "Holiness Code" into the whole text. There were abominations about scores of things. One of them was about homosexuality. Other "abominations" have been relaxed or completely abandoned through the years, but the ones about homosexuality are still quoted today as the "word of God" for this time. Here is a sampling of some of the others: it was an abomination to eat camels, rabbits, and rock badgers because they chew the cud; it was an abomination to eat pigs because of their split hoof; it was an abomination to eat eagles, vultures, buzzards, ravens, seagulls, nighthawks, owls, storks, heron, any meat with blood, lobster, shrimp, oysters; it was an abomination to utilize the services of a sorcerer, or to traffic with ghosts; it was an abomination for men to wear clothes made with two kinds of yarn.

Circumcision for men was the most important requirement of the holiness code, that men have on their bodies from birth - all their lives long - the physical mark of being Jewish. The fact that the mark was made on the penis, the male organ identified with fertility is significant! Anyone uncircumcised was banished from the community of Israel.

Masturbation was punishable by death because it was a wasteful spilling of semen. Sexual intercourse with a woman at the middle of her menstrual cycle was forbidden, for it was non-procreative. Her husband was to wait patiently, storing up his semen, until it could do some good.

Lesbian sex is not even mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, because sex between women was considered innocuous. That culture didn't consider women to be "sexual" as men are sexual, so lesbian activity was treated as an innocent variant.

When homosexuality is first mentioned (Leviticus 18:1-4) it is in the context of proclaiming Judaism as inherently different from other cultures and religions "Don't do as the Egyptians do. Don't do what the pagans do back in Caanan. Don't be influenced by any other nation's rules. Israel is different. Israel is special. Israel is God's people."

There were serious consequences for anyone who "performed" an abomination. These codes were meant to establish ecclesiastical control over a weakened and vulnerable people - now on their way back to their homeland after years of exile. It amounted to an unrelenting drive to keep Israel and its faith separate from every other culture in order to survive. Read some examples of the consequences of disobedience in Deuteronomy 28: 20ff. One main intent of these codes was to reinforce the idea that sex is specifically for procreation; that any other use of sex is a perversion of God's intent.

People then, without the benefit of modern science believed that the male semen contained the whole of nascent life - that women contributed nothing to her child other than a safe place for her baby to grow.

Encouragement for starting a family was expressed in law which stated "when a man is newly married, he shall not be liable for military service or any other public duty; he shall remain at home, exempt from service for one year in order to enjoy the wife he has taken." (Deuteronomy 24:5)

And what about the Christian Scriptures? Jesus apparently said nothing about homosexuality - nothing at all. What about St. Paul? Yes, Paul condemned homosexuality along with sex in general!

It's helpful to know that Paul - educated not only in Judaism, but in Greek and Roman thought as well - bought into the Platonic-Stoic philosophy that there is a dualism between spirit and the body - an idea totally foreign to Judaism. Judaism taught that one's life is a wholistic integration of body, mind, heart and spirit.

Paul departed from classic Judaism at this point, and believed that the body was basically inferior to the spirit. Sex, for Paul was like a "necessary evil." According to Paul one should strive for things of the "spirit," and put down the things of the "flesh" - especially so, because Paul believed that the age was coming quickly to an end and that at any moment Christ would come again, and that the earth as people knew it would be completely transformed. "Be ready," Paul would say - keep yourselves spiritually focused. Forget about sex altogether - unless you just can't, then get respectfully married.

It's not that Paul was on a special crusade against homosexuality. He lumped all sexual things together and encouraged his followers to keep focused on spiritual things, for the "end time" was getting short.

So, what are we to do with what the Bible says about women, about slavery, about sex? What do we do with the creation stories? What do we do with "a theology of abuse" which makes sacrificial lambs - including Jesus - atone for any wrongdoing of our own - in order to appease an angry God? What are we to do with the strong patriarchal bias in the Bible?

Presbyterian theologian Byron Schafer has written helpfully about our modern dilemma over parts of the Bible. Schafer suggests that we have "five witnesses" to truth for our day: what the scriptures say, what the church offers in the way of interpretation of the scriptures, reason, experience, and science. In order to discern the whole truth we need to be instructed by all five witnesses.

1. WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY -
Liberal Protestants have moved away from biblical literalism where we see the Bible as the complete, inerrant word of God, to an approach that lifts up main themes and larger truths, appreciating the fact that the earliest parts of the Bible were written by a more primitive people, and that all parts of the Bible reflect the culture and bias of the times in which it was written. Such cultural bias is understandable, but it cannot apply equally to all human life everywhere, and forevermore, even though it made perfect sense when it was written.

But knowing what the Bible says gives us a sense of what faithful people at one time understood, and we are informed and inspired by the great truths they uncovered, and we have a better idea of the culture of the times. This congregation's core value expresses it this way: "For us, the Bible is a record of faith journeys to be taken seriously, but not always literally."

2. WHAT THE CHURCH OFFERS BY WAY OF INTERPRETATION
The church has always had to sift through the Bible and make the best applications for a new day. In the early years people looked both to the Church and to scripture, taking very seriously the teachings of the great "church fathers." Both had authority.

At the time of the Protestant reformation most of the "teachings" were tossed out. The idea that the Holy Spirit had led the church to interpret the Bible through the centuries was totally rejected. The Protestant motto was "Scripture Alone." In actuality what really happened was that the "old teachings" were thrown out, and the teachings of reformers like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli became the new authority.

The Protestants may have displaced the authority of the pope in interpreting the Bible, but it left the church without centuries of thoughtful teaching as well as any way for the church to have a voice of its own in sifting through the "qualities of truth" in the Bible. The Protestant church lost a "church voice." The Bible stood alone - contradictions, cultural bias and all.

The Protestant reformers were right in one respect. No one person in the church (the pope, in Roman Catholicism) should have the sole right of interpretation. It is for all the people of the church - clergy and lay together - to discern what God's Spirit is revealing to us in each new day, taking Pastor John Robinson seriously when he said "there is more light and truth to be revealed to us" (our own church's 18th core value).

3. THE WITNESS OF REASON comes when we step back from the heated, confusing, loaded issue of the moment and ask: "what is fair?" "what is reasonable?" "if we applied the Golden Rule to this issue what conclusion would we come to?" and "what should our truth and behavior be when fairness and the Golden Rule are applied?"

4. THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE. Assuming that we are willing to accept the idea that God has "new truth to break through" what is it that God is leading us to understand in our day? What personal experiences have we had? What have we learned that we never understood before? When personal experiences are shared in covenant community we learn from each other. Some things believed by former generations may not correspond to our own experience today.

5. THE WITNESS OF SCIENCE. The Bible was never written as a book of science. It is a book of religion. The Bible records a spiritual journey - going way back in time. The writers of the Bible knew nothing of the vast resources we have today to understand the universe, sexuality, psychology, sociology. Science is a witness to the truth about who we are, and how we're made, and what makes us tick.

So, says Byron Shafer, all of these five are "witnesses" to the truth. Our task is to draw on all five in order to arrive at truth for our day. It takes some work. Many prefer to be told what to believe. Using the five witnesses requires the kind of spirituality that is open to the "winds of God" which blow from many directions, and "new light and truth" which God is revealing to us..

So, perhaps it's a good idea to ask the five witnesses: what about homosexuals, what about the role of women, what about racism, what about how the universe was created, what about our way being the only way?

Let the five witnesses speak and inform us!

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