King David was gay?? And other Bible tea
A few years ago, in a clumsy and perhaps irresponsible moment, I slipped, fell, and hit my head on a rock. After a couple of stitches, I recovered quickly, but it was just scary enough of a moment that it caused me to reflect on my own mortality.
One of the things I realized I wanted to do in my life was to read the entire Bible. Cover to cover.
So my wife and I drove to Barnes & Noble, and I bought the New International Version of the Bible and a translation of the Qur’an.
Quietly, I began to read.
Let me tell you, at times it was a grind. I’d compare the experience to what I imagine it’s like to train for a marathon.
Reading the Bible and Qur’an were like taking a long walk through a forest. Instead of gathering specific wisdom from certain passages like noticing every tree in the forest, I got general impressions.
One general impression — I love both the Bible and the Qur’an. They are written documentations handed to us from people from long ago in civilizations I don’t recognize of the struggle with ideas of morality and God in ways that are still recognizable today. If you ever find yourself on a mission to read the Bible and Qur’an, I highly encourage it.
One of the major differences between the Bible and the Qur’an is that the Qur’an is far shorter than the Bible. That might be among the reasons why I think far more people have read the Qur’an than the Bible.
I’m going to venture a guess that this explains why so many times while reading the Bible, even though I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic high school, so much of the Bible seemed like new information. At times, I can’t help but feel that parts of it were deliberately hidden.
Now, I don’t want to pretend to be an expert. Over two years have passed since I finished reading the Bible and I keep discovering new things. It’s like that forest of the Bible keeps revealing itself.
If there are any main messages from that forest of the Bible, I think the most prominent theme is to worship God. It is the Holy Bible after all, so I don’t think that message should surprise anyone.
Another message I kept on reading was not to oppress. I lost count how many times I read a phrase similar to “do not oppress others, remember that the LORD (Yahweh) brought you out of Egypt.” Another line that sums it up is Proverbs 29:7 which says “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”
What hurts me then, is when the Bible is used to oppress others. Or when people claim they take the Bible literally, but then use it for hate. That’s not the Bible I read.
About taking the Bible “literally”…
The Bible gives detailed instructions on how to sacrifice rams to atone for sins
Leviticus 5:14 has specific instructions that if anyone sins unintentionally to the Lord’s holy things, they have to sacrifice a ram from the flock without defect to receive forgiveness.
I haven’t heard of anyone that still sacrifices rams, not in America at least. So maybe nobody actually takes the Bible literally.
Instead, maybe, what if we learned from the context of what’s in the Bible?
King David had a loving relationship with a man, Jonathon. (1 Samuel 18–2 Samuel 9)
It’s all there in the Book of Samuel. King David and Jonathon kiss each other, the two make a naked covenant, and after Jonathon’s death, King David raises Jonathon’s son. When Jonathon passed away, King David spoke at the funeral and said “your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”
Well, I think we all know what happens to King David. He becomes one of the most beloved, if not the most beloved, king of Israel.
Clearly God had no problems with King David’s sexuality. Neither should we humans.
The destruction of Sodom was about an actual crime. (Genesis 19)
The story of Sodom is one I think about often. It’s a story many people have cited to justify that the Bible and God hate homosexuality. Yet, I wonder how many actually know the story?
There are reports (for ex: Forbes) that there was some kind of massive explosion in ancient Sodom that leveled the city. The ancients, I imagine, would have passed down stories trying to explain “What was God so mad about that God leveled Sodom?”
As I believe it, their conclusion is what we find written in Genesis 19, which is where we read the story of the destruction of Sodom. Angels visited Sodom and a local (Lot) gives them shelter. After a group of men “demand to have sex” with the angels and Lot refuses to victimize his guests, a fight breaks out so bad that some people went blind.
This was the final straw that caused a rain of sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah.
You’d think this would be cause for concern for a Church that covers up horrible crimes perpetuated against children who the Church is supposed to protect.
Moses had a brother, Aaron, who had quite a prominent role.
Ok maybe this fact isn’t very groundbreaking. But I’d say it’s the equivalent of not learning about Benjamin Franklin when learning about the Founding Fathers. Just a fact to know.
This was just a fact that made me realize there was a lot in the Bible I never learned about. Felt suspicious.
God kind of has a pagan identity/past, I’m pretty sure..
There are a lot of names of God. One of them is translated from a Hebrew word “Elohim”, which (as I understand it) is a plural word describing a pantheon of gods. Even an Egyptian Pharaoh in Genesis uses “Elohim” to describe his gods. (Genesis 41:38)
More on this concept next week, but Elohim is constantly used throughout the Bible. Even the first line of the Bible is properly translated as “In the beginning, Elohim created heaven and earth.” Changes the meaning, doesn’t it?
The Bible encourages us to enjoy sex.
There’s a whole book in the Bible called the Song of Songs which describes King Solomon flirting with a beautiful woman. It gets steamy.
Jesus is descended from ancestors who did evil.
The opening to the New Testament is Jesus’s lineage as described by the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew imagines Jesus’s lineage, which includes 15 kings of Judah. The Book of Kings gives some details of these kings, and 9 of them did evil in the eyes of God.
To be clear, I’m NOT calling Jesus evil. The fact that Jesus is described as having ancestry that did evil gives me some hope.
Take the United States and its reckoning moment with history (this is related to reckoning its role in slavery, wars & genocide against native people, etc). We can recognize that Americans have done incredibly evil things.
That doesn’t mean we have to continue doing evil things. If Jesus can come from a lineage that includes evil, maybe the US can try to do right if it only recognizes its wrongs.
Forgiveness is allowed if we only want it people.
God’s name and identity have been hidden from us.
One of the Ten Commandments, as written in the New International Version, is “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”
The thing is, the original Hebrew text of the Bible gives us the name of the LORD (Exodus 6:3). The name is roughly translated as Yahweh, and that name is absolutely central to a lot of the Bible.
And the word for “God” used here is “Elohim”, which again, is a plural word describing what I’m pretty sure is a pantheon of gods.
So the commandment should really be “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your Elohim, for Yahweh will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”
I know that’s a bit confusing and might take a couple times to re-read. Take your time.
For me at least, the concept of Elohim is very powerful. It throws a lightning bolt at the concept that God, Yahweh, is an invisible human-like God in the sky, and instead makes God, (Elohim, Yahweh and other names), a visible tangible force around us. At least I’m pretty sure..
I rarely talk about my beliefs, so thank you for reading this. Stick with me, and next week for the final “Thought From Vilnius” I’d like to share with you some of my personal religious story in “Finding God’s Existence.”
This post is the ninth in a series called “10 Thoughts from Vilnius” by Vytautas Aukštuolis. Posts released Tuesday mornings. Please subscribe to my channels on Medium, Twitter, Facebook, and Baltivist.com.
Thought #1: A Journey Hosted by the Dead
Thought #2: “Hi, I’m your distant cousin. Do you want to see where your ancestors lived?”
Thought #3: A Poem Offering Peace
Thought #4: Front Lines of Belarusian Protests
Thought #5: The Difficult Question Facing the Belarusian Freedom Movement
Thought #6: Discovering Jewish Life of Vilnius
Thought #7: Reconciling Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust
Thought #8: First 100 Baltivist Members!
Thought #9: King David was gay?? And other Bible tea
