Introduction
Phrased in this way—‘Doesn’t
the Bible have very little to say about homosexuality?'—the question is meant to
downplay the importance of Biblical texts addressing homosexuality. David Lamb, for example, says:
However,
despite some Christians’ preoccupation with the topic, homosexuality is not a
major biblical issue. The Ten
Commandments are focused on the big sins (idolatry, murder, adultery, and
coveting), and homosexuality isn’t one of them.
Leviticus doesn’t even mention lesbian behavior or sexual
orientation. Only a few verses in the
Old Testament and New Testament mention homosexual behavior…. The Old Testament is much more concerned
about adultery, rape, incest, and even more concerned about goat-boiling [Exod.
23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14:21], than homosexuality.[1]
The following offers a critical response
to Lamb and others who attempt to downplay Biblical teaching on homosexuality
in such ways. First, I will outline what
would need to be argued successfully if one were to accept Lamb’s
argument. Second, I will expand the discussion
by countering the errors in Lamb’s statement.
The purpose of this response to Lamb (and others) is to show the inadequacy of his
reasoning and interpretation of Scripture.
Readers are referred to my expansion of a number of these points, with
ample reference to primary source literature, for more developed arguments.[2]
What
Needs to be Argued if One is to Argue This View
The suggestion that the
Bible has only a little to say about homosexuality, if anything at all, is
often stated rather than argued in any depth.
In the book cited, Lamb has very little to say on the topic apart from
referring readers to other sources and arguing (incorrectly) that Genesis 19 is
not about homosexuality. If one were to
explore a thesis such as that in the quotation from Lamb, above, one would need
to argue the following:
- That Christian theology and practice depend on the frequency that a topic is mentioned in Scripture.
- That
only specific references to homosexuality count, not general proscriptions
of sexual immorality. For example,
Scripture is not to be read in terms of a sexual ethic but only in terms
of specific sexual sins.
- That
we in our day know more than they did in antiquity or throughout Church
history, whether about sexuality or about the interpretation of specific
texts.
- That
the Ten Commandments are limited to the specific proscriptions mentioned
and are not to be understood as topical (such as ‘adultery’ and ‘coveting’
not being used with reference to sexual immorality in general and homosexuality
in particular).
- That
Scripture does not see homosexuality as a serious sin, compared to other
sins.
- That
the New Testament does not reaffirm Old Testament sexual regulations:
there is no intertextual ‘force’ or interpretation that heightens certain
Old Testament texts, such as homosexuality.
Expanded
Comments
Of the arguments that
need to be presented, Lamb only pursues the sixth argument noted above and
fails to do so adequately. The most
generous way to put this is to say that he rushes over a few points rather than
tackles issues with scholarly interest.
Alternatively, one might suspect that the lack of in-depth study is
required for his thesis, which would not survive more in-depth study.
Point
1: The ‘Frequency’ Error
We might compare Biblical
texts on homosexuality to texts on bestiality.
The Old Testament proscribes bestiality on four occasions: Exodus 22:19;
Leviticus 18:23; 20:15-16; Deuteronomy 27:21.
In fact, we could reduce this to three times since Leviticus 20 repeats
Leviticus 18. Perhaps we could even
reduce this further to two times, since Deuteronomy entails a covenant renewal
of the laws given at Sinai. Maybe we
should even reduce this to 1 proscription in the Old Testament if we are to
understand the Pentateuch as a unified work.
Even so, bestiality is only mentioned four times at most, and this is
either once more than homosexuality (if the story of Sodom is taken to entail
homosexual sin, which Lamb does not) or twice more than homosexuality.
Moreover, the New
Testament reaffirms Old Testament teaching on sexuality and homosexuality in
particular, but it does not once mention bestiality. Just how far will the hermeneutic of Lamb
take him in new directions for sexual ethics?
Since bestiality is listed as a sin so infrequently in the Bible, and
since no New Testament text reaffirms the Old Testament on this sexual
practice, are we to follow Lamb’s logic and allow not only homosexuality but
also bestiality in Christian sexual ethics? Hopefully, this example reduces
Lamb’s hermeneutic of counting texts to absurdity rather than leads someone to
affirm bestiality as well! Of course,
the hermeneutic of counting texts is seriously flawed. The Christian world has
long affirmed that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”
(2 Timothy 3:16). In Romans 1.32, Paul
simply states that people know both the sin and the punishment from God’s
decree—a statement that not only follows after a list of sins but also his
specific elaborations on the sins of idolatry and homosexual practice and
orientation.
Point
2: The ‘Specificity’ Error
Scripture needs to be
read not simply exegetically (interpreting specific verses) but also Biblically
(as a canonical text). Thus, we need to
look for the wider understanding within Scripture. So, for example, Scripture does have a sexual
ethic: the only appropriate place for sex is within marriage between a man and
a woman. Therefore, any sex outside this
union is sinful—including homosexuality.
Marital practices, laws dealing with pre-marital sex, unique cultural
practices in antiquity (concubinage, levirate marriage, polygamy), and laws
against prostitution, cross-gender, or same-sex practices can all be explained
with regard to this simple ethical conviction that is offered in Genesis
2.24. The New Testament affirms the Old
Testament’s sexual ethic.
Also, the fact that
Scripture has a consistent sexual ethic is clear from the New Testament’s reaffirmation
of the Old Testament’s ethic. This
explains why New Testament authors can use general terms for sexual immorality
without explaining what is in view in particular. New Testament words such as porneia (sexual immorality), aselgeia (licentiousness or debauchery),
koitai (sexual excesses), akatharsia (uncleanness), and so forth
are only understood with reference to teaching in the Old Testament.
Point
3: The ‘Ignorant Ancestors’ Error
Protestants, in
particular, are susceptible to this error, although they should not be. The error is often seen in theological
argument, however. Most Protestants seem
happy with an argument that makes no mention of Church history. They either forget that 2,000 years of the
Church’s teaching is relevant to Biblical study and Church teaching, or they
are so in the habit of being critical of Church history that they do not listen
carefully enough to it. Instead of being
guided by what the Church has taught, they either ignore its teaching or are
critical of it (and often without giving it adequate study in the first place).
The same sort of error
occurs fairly regularly when reading Scripture in context. Modern scholarship has rightly emphasized the
need to read Scripture in its original context, and most people are willing to
see what light this sheds on the meaning of ancient texts, including
Scripture. However, this work is scholarly
work: average people do not know the original languages, history, and customs
of the Bible. Thus, people are dependent
on scholars. If scholars do not do
adequate work, or if they hide their uncertainties, people can easily be
misled. What has happened regularly in
recent years is that a handful of rather loud scholars have misrepresented the
primary source data in order to affirm a conclusion people wanted to hold in
any case. In a word, well-known scholars
have pulled the wool over people’s eyes.
Such scholars claim that the text was really referring to something
else, that the word means something else, or that the text no longer applies to
a new context. While scholarship should
be valued, the problem with this issue in particular is that poor scholarship
abounds. As an example, consider all the
contradictory interpretations suggested for the reinterpretation of a
particular verse. For example, while the
Church has always held that Paul was speaking against homosexual practice in Romans
1.26-27, now one scholar suggests he was speaking about idolatry, another about
temple prostitution, another about unclean sex, another about the exploitation
of slaves for sexual gratification, another about being lustful or oversexed,
and so forth. So, which is it to
be? The revisionist scholars are happy
with any argument, as long as it is not the one that the Church has always
taught: it simply does not fit their agenda.
Another version of this
error is that antiquity was not as sophisticated as we are today. We now know about homosexual orientation, the
argument goes, whereas they did not know about this in antiquity. This ‘orientation’ argument is deeply flawed,
as some such scholars have had to acknowledge once they started to read ancient
sources more seriously (as, e.g., Plato’s Symposium). In fact, the Graeco-Roman world explored a
variety of theories about homosexual orientation. The ancients may have held some unpopular
ideas about orientation, such as that it was due to astrological matters, but
it also entertained the same sort of issues we do today about nurture and
nature. Our culture, including our
academic culture, assumes evolutionary development and is ready to believe that
ancients lacked our sophistication. Of
course, we do know some things better than they did in antiquity, but not on
the issue of sexual immorality, including homosexuality, transgenderism,
bisexuality, intersex, bestiality, and the like.
Point
4: The ‘Literalist’ Interpretation of the Ten Commandments Error
The Ten Commandments are not
limited to the specific proscriptions mentioned and are to be understood as
topical. Paul himself applies the
commandment not to commit adultery to sexual immorality in general and
homosexuality in particular 1 Timothy 1:10.
(Paul intentionally expands several of the Ten Commandments in 1 Timothy
1.8-10.) The Jewish author, Philo,
writing nearly at the same time as Paul, applies the commandment not to commit
adultery to various sexual sins, including homosexuality.
Point
5: The ‘Interpreter’s Weighing of Sins’ Error
One often hears people
say something like ‘Sin is sin.’ By
this, they mean to argue against the notion that one sin is worse than
another. The intention behind this
argument is to deflate any argument in regard to a particular sin. Sometimes people will say, ‘Why are you so
hung up about that sin when there are other sins too?’ Such a person may have an agenda to press his
or her own concern, such as the concern for social justice, over against a
focus on a sexual sin, such as homosexuality.
There are several issues to unpack in this sort of argument.
First, Scripture does
differentiate between various sins. Some
acts are not sinful in themselves but become sinful because of their
implications, such as eating food offered to idols (1 Corinthians 8-10). Some sins in the Old Testament require a
sacrifice as a sin offering or a purification offering, whereas other sins
require ostracism from the community or the death penalty. Some sins are against other people, whereas
some sins are against God himself. Some
acts are described ritually, others legally, and others as sins in the Old
Testament. While we might affirm that
all sin misses the mark of God’s intention for us, the Bible is full of
examples of some sins being more serious than others. In the case of homosexual practice, the sin
is very serious, indeed. It is a sin
against creation, a sin against God’s revealed Law, a sin calling for the death
penalty in Leviticus, and a sin that Paul says will keep one from the Kingdom
of God.
Second, the weighing of
sin is a matter of interpreting what Scripture says about such matters; it is not
some agenda that the interpreter brings to the text. In fact, this was one of Jesus’ concerns in regard
to the Pharisees. The issue was not that
they were trying to live Biblically according to the regulations of God in the
Old Testament, the issue was rather that they constantly misread Scripture
because of the agendas that they brought to the text. They obscured the meaning of a text, weighted
a minor matter more than a weightier matter, and, in general, came up with ways
to protect their sins while pointing out the sins of others. In other words, they rather than Scripture
played the role of the scales by which various sins were weighed.
In the case of sexual
immorality, including homosexuality, the New Testament regularly reaffirms Old
Testament sexual regulations. There is
no ‘re-weighing’ of Old Testament sexual ethics, such as saying that one should
pay more attention to an ethic of care for the poor and outcast than for sexual
rules and regulations. Instead, the
seriousness of sexual ethics is reaffirmed by the Jewish New Testament authors
as the Church encountered the Gentile world, with its different and very loose
sexual ethic. Scripture’s teaching on
sexual ethics had to be taught to the Gentile converts (e.g., 1 Thessalonians
4.1-8) rather than Christian missionaries re-weighing Scripture’s teaching on
sexuality to make the faith more palatable to Gentile culture.
Point
6: The ‘Each Text on Its Own’ Error
This issue has already
been brought up: Biblical texts do not stand on their own but are
interrelated. This is so not only
because we speak of a ‘canonical text’ of Scripture but also because various
authors also make reference to other Biblical texts. That is, there is an intertextual relationship
to consider in Scripture.
Leviticus 18.22 is
reaffirmed in Leviticus 20.13. The
restatement within the same Biblical book (indeed, within the Holiness Code in
Leviticus) has to do with Leviticus 18 ordering sins according to their type and
Leviticus 20 according to the punishment to be meted out. The two texts together offer a strong,
intertextual affirmation that homosexuality is a grievous sin. Moreover, these texts rest on an earlier
Pentateuchal understanding of marriage in the creation text of Genesis 1.26-28
and Genesis 2.24: marriage has to do with the male and female forming a kinship
relation in accordance with God’s design so that children may come.
Leviticus 18.22 also has
Genesis 19 in view, since the former text is introduced at the beginning of the
chapter as a proscription against practices of the Canaanites. Genesis 19, together with its echo in Judges
19—another intertextual relationship—illustrate Canaanite sexual practice that
Israelites are told not to do—homosexual unions in particular.
While some scholars have
attempted to read Genesis 19 as anything but a reference to homosexuality, the
fact of the matter is the text is a story about how many and how extreme were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Various
texts pick out this or that sin of Sodom, but this should not lead one to think
that no mention of other sins means that there were no other sins in the
authors’ minds. More importantly, both
Jude 7 and 2 Peter 2.6-10 understand Sodom’s sin as sexual, not as a sin about showing hospitality (as some have argued
in reference to Genesis).
Romans 1.26-27 is in the
context of an argument about what is revealed in creation about God and his
purposes. This, together with the
language of man, birds, animals, and reptiles in Rom. 1.23, shows us that Paul
is thinking in terms of the creation texts in Genesis. Also, Paul’s conclusion in Rom. 1.32 that
people should know that those who practice ‘such things’ ‘deserve to die’
likely involves thinking about Leviticus 20.13, which says the same thing about
men who engage in sexual acts with one another.
Already mentioned, Paul’s
sin list in 1 Timothy 1.8-10 reflects and expands the Ten Commandments. Paul is ‘thinking Biblically,’ and in so
doing he expands the commandment not to commit adultery to include homosexual
practice. Not only so, but Paul’s use of
a term that he apparently coined—a compound of two words that appear side by
side in Leviticus 20.13—suggests that his reference to homosexuality derives
from his interpretation of the Mosaic Law.
The unique term is arsensenokoitai,
men who lie together, and it is also found in Paul’s sin list in 1 Corinthians
6.9.
Thus, the Biblical texts
on homosexuality engage one another and help to interpret one another
canonically. Together, they stand as a
consistent teaching against homosexuality, based on both an understanding of
God’s purposes for sexuality and marriage and God’s revealed Law to Moses. The New Testament reaffirms both.
Beyond this specific
reading of the texts on homosexuality, one should also note that Jesus, too,
interpreted the same Genesis texts on ‘male and female’ and ‘one flesh’ (Gen.
1.26-28; 2.24) with respect to a marriage ethic. In his case, the application of the text was
to the matter of marriage and divorce (Matthew 19.4-6). First, it should be noted that Gen. 1.26-28
is related to 2.24: one cannot, as some have recently attempted to do, separate
the ‘kinship’ of ‘one flesh’ unity from ‘male and female’. Genesis is speaking about gender, procreation,
and marriage in ways the Church has always understood until very recently some
have come along and tried to find new meaning in the text to suit their new
agendas. Homosexuality was not an issue
for Jews, who had a consistent and Biblical teaching on the subject. Thus, Jesus would not have been asked about
homosexuality by the Pharisees, as early Christians were asked once the faith
spread to non-Jewish, Gentile contexts.
Had Jesus been asked about homosexuality, however, he would have
developed his teaching in the same way that Paul did: from the relevant Old
Testament texts on God’s creation of male and female for marital procreation
and on God’s teaching in the commandments of God that he came to affirm.
Conclusion
Despite claims that Scripture has little to say on the subject of homosexuality, we see that, in fact, it addresses the topic significantly. Various authors writing in various cultures affirm the same perspective: homosexuality is a grievous sin. They do so as part of a larger sexual ethic that shows theological consistency, and they do so intertextually (one text referencing another), thus affirming a Biblical perspective on the subject. On inspection, the argument that Scripture has little to say on the subject fails miserably.
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