Nope. I’ve written about this at length, as it’s one of many things in scripture that requires a significant amount ignorance and/or bad faith to mistranslate as “gay is bad”.
In Leviticus there is a part of a laundry list of household incest laws that reads “A man shall not lay with a male as with a woman.” The phrasing is extremely specific and particular. Why “male” and not just “man”? Why is “as with a woman” added when the command would be perfectly clear without it? What does that addition mean? Why is there no mention of women and women?
This is easy: this command was never intended for us (gentiles living thousands of years later in dramatically cultures), so we can easily miss a massive amount of important context. In the middle east thousands of years ago, if you - a man - wanted a bride or a concubine, you BOUGHT one. You owned her. If you already owned a female slave, you could freely rape her or force her into marriage or concubinage. The prohibition is not a blanket statement on consensual equal gay relationships, it was about not being allowed to rape your male chattel slaves, who had more inherent rights than the female ones.
It’s also important to point out that these laws were handed only to the Israelites who had left Egypt and wandered the desert, ostensibly (according to YHWY, per the same scripture) to guarantee the tribes survival until they could establish a new homeland.
Paul also writes about this once, using a greek colloquial term that translates literally to “male-bedders”, making it parallel to Leviticus in terms of meaning. This appears to be condemnation of pederasty as well, not a condemnation of consensual equal gay relationships.
And yes, the historical circumstances surrounding all that is no heinous to any modern audience… but for different reasons than modern Xtians paint.
P.S. This is not a defense of many awful, gut-churning stories in scripture - merely an explanation of this one specific topic within it’s own social, cultural, and historic context and scope.
If a man has intercourse with a man as with a woman, both commit an abomination. They must be put to death.
How in the fuck does it take a significant amount of mistranslation or ignorance to read that as “gay is bad”? You can speculate all you want about temporal context, but there is not a scholar alive that actually knows what the actual context was. Sure, we can assume contextual clues, but that is about it.
I hate to say this, but your analysis about “male” vs “man” and the silly confusion about “as with a woman” is just odd. I understand breaking down the meaning of a sentence into ultra-fine components, but damn…
“If someone with a dick tries to fuck another person with a dick like a woman (put it in the butt), it bad. You die.” – Today, in our context, that is what it means.
Books like the bible are written like an extended Nostradamus prophecy so they can be interpreted in any way that “scholars” see fit. Especially in this day and age, some things have to be taken literally.
Nope. I’ve written about this at length, as it’s one of many things in scripture that requires a significant amount ignorance and/or bad faith to mistranslate as “gay is bad”.
In Leviticus there is a part of a laundry list of household incest laws that reads “A man shall not lay with a male as with a woman.” The phrasing is extremely specific and particular. Why “male” and not just “man”? Why is “as with a woman” added when the command would be perfectly clear without it? What does that addition mean? Why is there no mention of women and women?
This is easy: this command was never intended for us (gentiles living thousands of years later in dramatically cultures), so we can easily miss a massive amount of important context. In the middle east thousands of years ago, if you - a man - wanted a bride or a concubine, you BOUGHT one. You owned her. If you already owned a female slave, you could freely rape her or force her into marriage or concubinage. The prohibition is not a blanket statement on consensual equal gay relationships, it was about not being allowed to rape your male chattel slaves, who had more inherent rights than the female ones.
It’s also important to point out that these laws were handed only to the Israelites who had left Egypt and wandered the desert, ostensibly (according to YHWY, per the same scripture) to guarantee the tribes survival until they could establish a new homeland.
Paul also writes about this once, using a greek colloquial term that translates literally to “male-bedders”, making it parallel to Leviticus in terms of meaning. This appears to be condemnation of pederasty as well, not a condemnation of consensual equal gay relationships.
And yes, the historical circumstances surrounding all that is no heinous to any modern audience… but for different reasons than modern Xtians paint.
P.S. This is not a defense of many awful, gut-churning stories in scripture - merely an explanation of this one specific topic within it’s own social, cultural, and historic context and scope.
How in the fuck does it take a significant amount of mistranslation or ignorance to read that as “gay is bad”? You can speculate all you want about temporal context, but there is not a scholar alive that actually knows what the actual context was. Sure, we can assume contextual clues, but that is about it.
I hate to say this, but your analysis about “male” vs “man” and the silly confusion about “as with a woman” is just odd. I understand breaking down the meaning of a sentence into ultra-fine components, but damn…
“If someone with a dick tries to fuck another person with a dick like a woman (put it in the butt), it bad. You die.” – Today, in our context, that is what it means.
Books like the bible are written like an extended Nostradamus prophecy so they can be interpreted in any way that “scholars” see fit. Especially in this day and age, some things have to be taken literally.
Not only do we clearly know the context, I explained it.
If you want to talk about how morally and ethically repugnant that context is by our modern standards, be my guest. I agree with you.
But Jewish and Christian scripture is not nearly as ambiguous as it’s portrayed to be by those who want to twist it for their own ends.