The Bible Condemnation of Homosexuality is Not Clear
The link explains in careful detail why we should treat the "abomination" passage in Leviticus with great caution. There is good reason to argue it was inserted into material which was about something else entirely.
Then there is the Southern Baptist Convention theory. It is that the Bible has several isolated remarks condemning homosexuality so that is that.
The passage in Leviticus where the abomination appears is all about incest. It defines what is incest. It is sex with your uncle's wife, with your daughter in law and so forth.
The link author points out the principle of "the exception contains a rule." For example, if the sign in a store window says, "CLOSED SUNDAYS" it implies the store is open all the other days.
In Leviticus, the passage contains a phrase that a male must not have sex with his uncle. The "exception contains a rule" would interpret that to mean it is OK for a male to have sex with unrelated males.
Bible believers themselves often say we need to take any part of the Bible in context. In this case the most often referred to condemnation of homosexual relations is about incest. Further, the link author believes that the flow of the narrative was interrupted to insert the uncle passage implying it was inserted by a later scribe.
And when you redefine the family other than what the Creator intended when he established it, then you look at the devolution of civilization.
ReplyDelete"Devolution of civilization".
DeleteI hope we can know that when we see it. Certainly when massive numbers are killed for no good reason, the Noah story, that would fit the bill. Now, throughout history humans have adjusted to circumstances and ignored your God. When there were too many women dying in childbirth, women had more than one husband. When too many men died in warfare men had more than one wife.
When people are attracted to the same sex and are killed or banished for that trait, it moves us toward "devolution of civilization". The same for putting women under house arrest until the complete their pregnancy.
The same book in the Bible also tells me that it is an abomination to eat pork or shrimp. I like them both and assume a loving God won't send me to hell for it. I'll defer to our Biblical scholar Matt to set me straight.
ReplyDeleteRetired Major----"It is an abomination to eat pork or shrimp. I like them both and assume a loving God wouldn't send me to hell for it."
DeleteYou and I both live on the wild side. :)
To sustain the believe there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWhy must atheists prove infinite knowledge? shouldn't the religion that claims to know what happens after death prove they're not full of b.s.? Good article Jon
DeleteI agree with that. Most atheists refrain from saying there absolutely is no god. They say there is no evidence of a god or any other super natural being. Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) spends nine pages discussing the meaning of atheism and agnosticism. So far, he says, we cannot say with absolute certainty the is nor there is not a god. Without evidence of a god, the probability of no god is higher. While there remain questions about the origin of the universe there is no reason the notion it was created by a god is higher than various other theories being studied. He is of the opinion we will ultimately know the non god origin of the universe. If there is a god, certainly we do not know it was the Christian god that created the universe--one of the other thousands of gods may have done it.
ReplyDeleteThus, Dawkins and most atheists are about 99% certain there is no god but not 100%. The remaining 1% does not involve the Christian God but agnosticism, an unknown generic god.
The use or abuse of Christianity in contradiction to the very message of the gospel reveals not the gospel for what it is, but the heart of man. That is why atheism is so bankrupt as a view of life, for it miserably fails to deal with the human condition as it really is.
Delete"That is why atheism is so bankrupt as a view of life, for it fails miserably to deal with that human condition as it really is."
DeletePlease tell us about the "human condition as it really is." No, don't bother. I already know what you will say. The "human condition is one of sin. That's right, sin, sin and more sin. This thingy about sin came up late in the human experience. For about 200,000 years humans existed without knowing about sin. The just at the end of that 200,000 years along came a new religion that claims babies are born sinners. Sin seems to be losing its power over people so maybe the end of a 2,000 year sin experiment is in sight.
Homosexuality is a sin just like all others but can be forgiven by repentance. The bible is very clear on this. The Bible consistently tells us that homosexual activity is a sin (Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9). Romans 1:26-27 teaches specifically that homosexuality is a result of denying and disobeying God. When people continue in sin and unbelief, God “gives them over” to even more wicked and depraved sin in order to show them the futility and hopelessness of life apart from God. 1 Corinthians 6:9 proclaims that homosexual “offenders” will not inherit the kingdom of God.
ReplyDeleteGod does not create a person with homosexual desires. The Bible tells us that people become homosexuals because of sin (Romans 1:24-27) and ultimately because of their own choice. A person may be born with a greater susceptibility to homosexuality, just as some people are born with a tendency to violence and other sins. That does not excuse the person’s choosing to sin by giving in to sinful desires. If a person is born with a greater susceptibility to anger/rage, does that make it right for him to give into those desires? Of course not! The same is true with homosexuality.
Ticking off the scriptures that are claimed to condemn homosexuality does not prove a thing. All of them are hoaxes.
DeleteI will not deal with all of them here, I pointed out that the Leviticus one is B.S. I'll randomly pick another, 1 Corinthians 6:9. Modern Bibles use the words sexual relations of men with men. The Bible does not say this. The early King James used the word "effeminate". Even this, however, was not the more accurate translation of Paul's Greek. The word "soft" is said to be more accurate. So now we can speculate on what trait Paul was referring to when he supposedly wrote "effeminate" or "soft". Was it a character flaw. Was it being fat and soft? No one knows what he meant.
The big picture is this. Those who wrote the Bible put their important ideas in the mouth of Jesus. If they wanted to drive home a point, they had Jesus saying it, even though they were not alive when Jesus was supposed to have been alive. They did not have Jesus saying one word about homosexuality. He only said about Sodom and Gomorrah that the people there were not hospitable.
I'd suggest you start actually studying the Bible instead of tossing out incorrect restatements of what is in it.