Homosexuality, the Bible and the Lesbian Question
In every Bible we find only three verses that mention homosexual acts, all of them among men (Lev. 18:22, Lev. 20:13 and Rom. 1:27). There is no mention of the sexual act between women.
Two of these 3 verses are in the Jewish Holiness code, the book of Leviticus, written by Moses after the departure of Egypt, which is part of the Torah, the so-called Mosaic Law, which was organized into 613 laws in all! The Bible is nicknamed Law only (Deut. 27: 8).
Leviticus began to be written around the end of the 7th century BC, and as the book we know today was not completed until 538 BC 332 The references to the homosexual acts of Leviticus are in chapters 18 and 20, and are basically the same text, with the difference that in chapter 20 the penalty is added to the ban.
The third mention of a homosexual act in the Bible is in an introduction to one of Paul's many letters, the letter to the Romans, addressed to the early Church of the city of Rome, and was written around AD 50. Nearly 1,000 years separate the book from Leviticus of the letter to the Romans !!! In this letter Paul will make a profound theological analysis of justification by faith. It is one of the most formal letters Paul wrote and its content is purely theological. Not to be seen in this letter Paul dealing with the subject of marriage, customs and much less human sexuality.
In addition to these 3 mentions of homosexual acts, there is also in the Bible the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 and of the sons of Belial in Judges 19, who report men in attempts of collective rapes against other men; but it is not possible to conclude the subject by these texts, as it is not about homosexuality that these stories address, but about violence, cruelty, inhospitality abroad and any homosexual will agree that any kind of sexual abuse is wrong.
Throughout the Bible, there is not a single mention of lesbian sex and that is the point we will discuss.
While the mention of the homosexual act found in Paul's letter is part of his account in chapter 1 about God's supremacy and Roman idolatry, Leviticus is in fact the only law on the subject. Paul in the letter to the Romans is not legislating on the subject of homosexuality, whether or not it is a sin, since he does not even have such authority, but is only lecturing on the Roman society in which he lived, according to his point of view. within the context of these people. Thus, in every Bible, Leviticus is in fact the only text that legislates on the subject, forbidding the act and specifying the penalty for its disobedience, in this case, death.
There are many, many other texts in the Bible that have been or have not been said to refer to homosexual people, such as David, Ruth, and the Centurion of Carfanaum, the "arsenokoitals" that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, and the “eunuchs by birth” that Jesus mentions in Matthew 19 and other eunuchs in the Bible. But they are all objects of deep debate.
So, about a law, a commandment, a rule about the subject, we have only one in every Bible, the prohibition contained in the text of Leviticus, which reads like this:
Thou shalt not lie with man, as with woman; abomination is - Leviticus 18:22
When a man also lies with another man, as with a woman, they both abominate; surely they will die; your blood will be upon them. - Leviticus 20:13
Literally, the text is clear, only "abominable intercourse between men" is prohibited. Or is coitus between men always abominable or is it only abominable coitus that is forbidden?
There are arguments for both. So let us go to the most common presumption: Coitus between men is always abominable.
But something catches the eye in the Law of Moses: only sexual intercourse between men is forbidden and no sexual intercourse between women is prohibited! Why?
Something very strange about this fact is that it checks the truth of the assumption that human homosexuality is immoral, wrong and abhorrent, and that God would approve only male-female relationships! Why, how can it be wrong to be homosexual but to exempt lesbians in the law?
Why does Leviticus have no analogous mention of coitus between women, whether to forbid or not?
Why are lesbians totally ignored in the law?
Why Leviticus Does Not Prohibit Lesbianity is the key to understanding the issue of homosexuality in the Bible.
This is strange because the Mosaic law differentiates between genders, always making a point of specifying whether the commandment is for both sexes, only for men or only for women. Examples of this are Leviticus 27: 4, Leviticus 20:10, Leviticus 13:38, Leviticus 20: 15-16, Leviticus 27: 7, Leviticus 15:18 and Leviticus 20:27.
In Leviticus 18:23 is concerned to remember the woman together with the man in the prohibition of bestiality and this verse occurs only one verse after Lv. 18:22
Therefore, it is certain that Leviticus 18:22 is a prohibition directed only at men, something further reinforced by the use of the expression '' as if it were a woman ''.
This will be a simple, quick, and efficient explanation of the basic rule of hermeneutics '' Scripture by Scripture explains itself '' to conclude that the Bible does not condemn homoaffectivity on the basis of this simple fact: the lesbian omission in Leviticus.Let's see:
The 12 logical arguments:
It is a fact that ...
1 - The Old Testament does not condemn lesbians at any time; therefore, if there was literally no prohibition on lesbians in the Law of Moses, there was no condemnation of homosexuality. The law was written clearly, with no room for doubt (Deuteronomy 27: 8). If homosexuality were a de facto concern in the law, lesbians would be mentioned as well.
2 - In the Gospel of John it says that "the law was given by Moses, but the truth came by Jesus" (John 1:17); Jesus' truth overlaps with the Law of Moses (Heb. 7:19). But Jesus, like the Law, never condemned homosexuality in his teachings!
If neither the Old Testament nor Jesus Christ himself condemned homosexuality, where would Paul draw his conclusion that homosexuality is wrong in his letters? Why, he himself said that it is the law that reveals sin (Rom. 7: 7-7; 5:13; 3:20), but the Law does not prohibit lesbianity, therefore does not prohibit homosexuality, and Jesus Christ did not condemn homoaffectivity, and Paul is founded on the teachings of Jesus (1 Cor. 3:11); if it was the Holy Spirit who revealed this to Paul, the question remains: why did the Holy Spirit take so long to reveal that gays will go to hell, as some say this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:10? But Paul himself says that God has already revealed his will through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1: 9)! If it is God's will for people not to be gay or lesbian, God would have revealed it to Jesus, not Paul.
In the Bible we find that ...
4 - David loved a man much more than women (2 Sam. 1:26). There is male homosexuality in the Bible;
5 - One woman clung to another just as Adam clung to Eve in Genesis (Rt. 1:14 and Gen. 2:24). There is female homofectivity in the Bible;
6 - Jesus said that the "eunuchs by birth" do not want to marry a woman (Matt. 19: 10-12); Heterosexual marriage is not for everyone;
Paul said that Jesus makes no distinction between male and female (Gal. 3:28); Jesus does not analyze people's genitals to judge them, but their hearts (Matt. 15:19);
8. The only commandment of the New Covenant is LOVE (John 13:34; John 15:12; Mark 12: 30-31; Rom. 13: 8-10; Gal. 5:14; Jas. 2: 8; 2 John 1: 5; 1 John 4:21; 1 John 3:23; 1 Tim. 1: 5; Heb. 12:24; Heb. 8:13; 2 Co. 3:14; 3:13, 24-25); any other law present in the Bible comes from this supreme commandment, for love overcomes any sin (Prov. 10:12).
Soon..
9. The omission of a prohibition on lesbian sex in Leviticus is clear proof that there is an interpretive error in Scripture; any attempt to include lesbians in the Lv ban. 18:22 It will come out of the LITERALITY of the TEXT and one will try to use the CONTEXT to try to include them, whether biblical, historical-critical or etymological of the words used in the verse, but that same CONTEXT may reveal that in reality Leviticus does not even condemn homosexual men. Let's look at such a biblical, historical, and etymological context: the only homosexuals condemned in the entire Bible are the cultured prostitutes (Deut. 23:18; 1 Re. 14:24); women and the pagan ritual described in the previous verse of Lev. 18: 22 are linked to prostitution (Lev. 20: 4-5); hence the context of Lv. 18: 20-23 condemns CULTURAL PROSTITUTION, CHILDREN'S SACRIFICE, AND SEX WITH ANIMALS IN THE PAYMENT TEMPLATE, common multisex practices in Old Testament times (Eze. 16: 20-22); In 2 Kings 23: 7-10 he will mention again in the same text both the cultured prostitutes and the sacrifice of children to the god Molech, as well as Leviticus 18: 21-22.
Historically, semen has been known to be worshiped in Mesopotamian societies as a bearer of the fertility of the earth, having the power to generate life, and so women are remembered in verse 23 in the ban on bestiality, for the animal can penetrate and ejaculate in woman, but lesbians are not remembered in verse 22, as they do not produce the "seed" needed in pagan fertility services.
Therefore, in the absence of a condemnation of lesbians, this is what Leviticus 18:22 forbids, that Jews relate sexually to cultured prostitutes, for this is TOEBAH, that is, a "ritual offense," the original Hebrew word used in the verse. erroneously translated as "abomination," such prostitution being a common practice in the Canaanite STATUTES, which were prohibited in the text (Lev. 18: 3). Thus, by the CONTEXT, Leviticus 18:22 does not condemn homosexuality, but sacred prostitution.
If you read the verse literally, you don't condemn lesbians; reading the verse in a contextualized way does not condemn homosexuality. There is no escape.
10 - For not prohibiting lesbians, either the Law is incomplete or the Law does not condemn homosexuality. But there was no error in the Law (Ps. 19: 7-9), so homoaffectivity is not condemned. If the law does not prohibit lesbian sex, then Paul cannot be condemning in Rom. 1:26 lesbian, so he doesn't mention homosexuals in Rom either. 1:27, but HETEROSEXUAL men ACTING AS HOMOSEXUAL, where such leave the "natural use of women" because of IDOLATRY (Rom. 1:23). Rome was formerly famous for its bacchanals and orgiastic rituals offered to other gods, and in Paul's time the Roman emperor Caligula was famous for the utter debauchery and promiscuity in his palaces.
11 - We conclude that the Church may be wrong, just as the Church has erred greatly in her past; It was by using biblical texts that the church has already funded the Inquisition and the Crusades, supporting slavery, claiming that blacks were cursed, that Indians had no soul, that interracial marriage was anti-biblical, and even organizations such as Nazism, Ku Klux Klan and Apartheid. used isolated Bible texts to support their atrocities; To be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, one had to be a Protestant Christian. The church is already wrong and the church is wrong, and the church will be wrong. Heresies are necessary for the sincere to manifest (1 Cor. 11:19).
12 - In conclusion, the commandment of Jesus' love is sufficient to legitimize a loving, reciprocal, and altruistic relationship between same-sex persons (Matt. 7:12)!
When in doubt, if anyone claims that homosexuality is a sin, ask: '' Did Moses forget to ban lesbians in Leviticus? If so, how to rely on incomplete text? But doesn't Psalm say the law is perfect? ''
With all this, a simple question destroys all the heresy invented by medieval Catholics that condemns homoaffectivity using the Word of God. Just simply ask:
WHERE ARE LESBIANS IN LEVITICS?
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