Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Pt. 2

[Sodom, Leviticus, and the Old Testament]

In part 1, I suggested that it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that marriage should be limited to being only between a man and a woman. I stated that the burden of proof resides in those defending the traditional Christian view as marriage between one man and one woman because there is more at stake in being wrong by maintaining the binary model than being wrong in the case for inclusion. We touched on the importance of not blocking one’s path to God and to a potentially sanctifying union. Now that I have established where the burden of proof should lie, let me introduce the reasonable doubt that will unravel the argument that marriage is strictly an institution only between a man and a woman.

Let us first look at what scripture is. Our scriptures are not a single text that transcended from God’s very being. Islam believes that the Qu’ran is a verbatim message from God to humanity through the Prophet Muhammad. That is why, in Islam, the Qu’ran isn’t true unless it is read aloud in Arabic. Translations are study tools, but there is no true translation of the Qu’ran. Muslims that do not speak Arabic, still read and listen to it in Arabic and believe there is power in it. They believe the Qu’ran, read aloud in Arabic, is the true word of God.

Our story with scripture is different. Scripture comes from many authors in two languages; Ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek. It can be argued that Aramaic is in there as there are some Aramaic phrases of Jesus recorded. While the Hebrew scriptures were initially handed down orally in Hebrew, there eventually became a Greek writing of it. The New Testament was a collection of many writings from many authors that by many leaders in the church over the first 400 years after Jesus lived on earth, were compiled into what today we call the New Testament. Paul’s second letter to Timothy states that scripture is God-breathed and is useful to us. I do wonder if Paul ever felt his own letters were expected to be scripture outside of their context for all to use broadly, meaning if he felt hist letters to Timothy were meant to be used as is by everyone, everywhere. Through the guidance of the Spirit, church leaders dug into a wide array of writings and kept some as authoritative and discarded others they felt were not authentic. There is a lot I can go into here, so much so that it would derail this topic, but what is important is that this was not a willy nilly process of men just ditching what they don’t like.

Our bible, scripture, is a collection of writings from various authors, known and unknown, spanning over many centuries. What has authority over what? You may have heard “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” The problem here is what do we do with contradictions? The gospels have slightly different recollections of Jesus’ phrases and miracles. The Gospel of John and Paul’s epistles suggest that we are saved by faith alone, whereas the Epistle of James and the Gospel of Matthew suggest that we are justified by faith and works of mercy. Matthew 25 says that people that are not merciful to the poor and imprisoned do not know Jesus, thus are eternally separated. He did not give a faith caveat. He did not say they are separated from him do tho a lack of faith, but because they were not merciful.

We have to realize that every text has a social and geographical context. The original writings were not in English, but rather the Old Testament was in ancient Hebrew and the New Testament was in Ancient Greek. The ancient forms of these languages are different from the modern forms today. The point of this is that there can even be reasonable doubt in the way we interpret the text itself. So, our bible is not the Christian equivalent of the Muslim Qu’ran. The closest thing we have to what Muslims believe is the Qu’ran is Christ himself, God’s word. And the works and sayings of Jesus are through the eyes of others, like Paul, Peter, James, and the writers of the Gospels.

Our scripture is authoritative, but it does not make the claim within itself that it is our only source from God. That is why church history is important. That is why learning as much as we can about the cultural context of the time in which they were written is so important. Scripture does not claim that every single thing in it is meant to be understood literally, as is.

So, that being said, let’s go first to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah makes for an unusual story, especially for our culture. There were traveling angels, that apparently looked like men. When they arrived in town, the men of the town demanded to have sex with these travelers.

Let’s examine what is going on here. There is nothing to indicate whether or not the men of this town were of the homosexual orientation. This was an act of aggression that happened in this setting, in this time, and still happens in certain cultures and throughout the animal kingdom. When one male dog humps another male dog, you don’t hear people accuse the dogs of homosexuality. It is a move of dominance. There was no consent in this story. The story did not say that God destroyed the city because one of the men in the town fell in love with one of the travelers, the angels, and they mutually got together enraging God. Rather, it said an angry mob of men demanded these men to be handed over against their will to be raped.

How do we know this mob was angry? The text:

But they replied, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down.

This is about rape. This is about consent, or the lack thereof. This is about some form of lust, whether strictly sexual or whether lust for power, we do not know. If one makes the argument that it was due to the fact that they wanted only other men, this is still unbridled lust and non-consensual. If it was strictly about a homosexual orientation, why did these men demand the outsiders join? Why not Lot? Why not each other. It seems clear this was a power display. This is also about a lack of hospitality to outsiders. How do we know this? Scripture. This story is mentioned throughout scripture. Some of the texts like Isaiah 1, 3, and 13, Jeremiah 23, 49, and 50, Amos 4, Zephaniah 2, Deuteronomy 32, Matthew 10 and 11, Luke 10 and 17, Romans 9, 2 Peter, and Revelation are all texts where God uses Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of punishment.

But, there are three of these mentioned texts and two other texts that show why God was angry with these people. Isaiah 1 mentioned that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were religious in devotion but devoid of justice and compassion. Isaiah 3 says the people of these cities wore their sin proudly without even trying to hide it. Jeremiah 23 states that their sins are adultery, lying, empowering evil people, and not repenting, like our president proudly claimed. Then there’s the two other texts. The first is Ezekiel. The prophet Ezekiel in chapter 16 said this:

This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy. They became haughty and did detestable things in front of me, and I turned away from them as soon as I saw it.

What was their sin here? They were overfed, prosperous, overlooked those in need, proud. All of this sounds a lot like our country. The last thing listed, did detestable things before me. This is the same word translated into abomination. This references Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Proverbs. Ezekiel does not mention which abominations as there are many ranging from “a man lying with another man” to “marrying people of another nation,” to idolatry, to eating pork and shellfish. Proverbs 16 says this:

The other text that speaks of the sins of Sodom is Jude. Now Martin Luther, the famous church reformer, didn’t believe Jude even belonged in the bible, but that does not mean we should disregard it. Jude says the following:

Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Of the 5 texts that mention the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, aside from adultery, Jude is the only text that clearly mentions sexual sins. The word for sexual immorality he uses we mentioned last week, and that is porneia. Porneia is a word that doesn’t have an exactly clear meaning. This word is often translated to fornication. We know this word includes “sexual imrality” (a broad, unclear term), cult practices, which we will get into, adultery, and any sexual exploitation. Many believe it involves any and all sex outside of marriage. The unusual part of Jude’s statement is the statement pursued unnatural lust. Directly translated from Greek it reads “gone after strange flesh.” Now, Paul coined a term that has often been translated into homosexual offenders, or sodomites, that we will get into in part 3, but Jude did not use this term. What is meant by unnatural lust is unclear. Maybe because the men in Sodom and Gomorrah that the town wanted to gang rape were actually angels, thus not of this world? Lust, is problematic regardless. We are supposed to control our lusts, not let it control us.

So, what we do know for sure about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is this: These people were driven by lust, they wanted to engage in group sex with men that were outsiders, they were sexually immoral, they were proud, uncaring for those in need, gluttonous, unwelcoming, and unrepentant. What we don’t know about the sins of these towns is whether consensual, monogamous, same-sex marriage would fit into this or not. That is unclear. We do not know for a fact.

So we have talked about abominations. There are two other texts in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, that are often translated and understood to prohibit same-sex marriage. These come from Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20.

Leviticus 18:22: You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13: If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

So, if this were in the Qu’ran, this would be a clear cut, cut and dry case. The Qur’an is not contextual. It is believed to be direct oration from God, through Muhammad to the people. This is not the case with our tradition. We need to understand the backstory to fully get what this is all about.

There are two main background pieces to understand about much of the laws in the Torah, in Leviticus specifically, and that is that Israel is to create a visible identity separate from the surrounding nations, Egypt and Canaan, and the other being that they need to grow. Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, grows by reproducing, having kids, whereas Christianity and Islam grows by mission, by witnessing, confessing, and converting. Of course, in the time of the Torah, there was no Christianity or Islam, but it’s something we here, now, can relate to. These Jews needed to reproduce as much as they could and they needed to look and act differently than the Egyptians and Canaanites.

So let’s look at some of the religious practices of the Canaanites. We know from the 10 commandments and throughout the Torah, the Prophets, and the New Testament, that God hates idolatry! The Canaanites had a religious practice for the purpose of fertility that involved what was called temple, cult, prostitution. Rooted in the scholarly publication (meaning peer-reviewed Doctoral level, research-based writing), The end of the male cult prostitute: A literary-historical and sociological analysis of Hebrew qades-qadesim, it is evident that in the Canaanite society, there were sex rituals involving all members of the family to bring good luck for crop and livestock production. This included homosexual sex with the temple priests. Based on research from the scholarly publication The Construction of Homosexuality, Life Journey Church states the following:

Historians tell us that many Canaanites and Egyptians worshipped a goddess of love and fertility called Astarte or Ishtar. Within her temples were special priests called Assinu, who were deemed to have special powers. Physical contact with the Assinu was believed to ward off evil and promote good luck. These priests were, in effect, living good luck charms, and worshipers would often ritually touch them as part of their worship practices. Sexual intercourse was considered especially effective for gaining the goddess’s favor, because the male worshiper was offering his greatest possession, semen (which was thought to be the essence of life), to the goddess through her priests. Depositing semen in the body of a priest of the goddess was believed to guarantee one’s immortality. Similar cultic sexual practices flourished in connection with many other ancient pagan deities.

Knowing this knowledge, let’s look at the greater text of Leviticus 18. I used the Message translation because it is much more straight forward regarding the language.

Looking at the text in light of the context of temple cult prostitution, we can see there is a major correlation. Now I did say correlation, not causation. It seems that the author of Leviticus was addressing something specific to the context of the surrounding culture. God clearly hates idolatry, and in this case, all of the sexual practices of such idol worship. Based on the information in The Construction of Homosexuality, we can see that it would be highly unlikely, if not downright impossible for a life-long, committed, homosexual relationship to even take place in such a tribal culture that is dependant on reproduction and offspring.

So, to sum up what was discussed today, as there was a lot!

What we know: Leviticus gives a lengthy list of sexual “don’ts.” Also, God hates idolatry, not just out of “jealousy,” but because bad things often happened, especially in this time, from worshipping idols. People sacrificed, aka, killed their kids, to worship these “gods.” The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were driven by lust, they wanted to engage in group sex with men that were outsiders, they were sexually immoral, they were proud, uncaring for those in need, gluttonous, and unwelcoming.

What we can assume: This list is based on separated Jewish practice from that of the Canaanites, the need to be distinct from their surroundings.

What we don’t know: Is this prohibition across the board for all ages and circumstances? Or, in the case of a loving, life-long committed, monogamous homosexual relationship, where sex is not used for idol worship and multiplication is not necessary for the passing on of the faith and the growth of the people, would it still be prohibited? Would God have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah still, if this was the sexual practice being addressed?

These are all compelling cases in the Old Testament regarding same-sex marriage. They are not home runs. They do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that marriage must be granted to same-sex couples, but they are compelling enough to show that there is enough of a reasonable doubt that should stop us from claiming emphatically that marriage is between only a man and a woman. As mentioned in part 1, the stakes are too high. We cannot be the barrier between persons and God, between persons and the church.

Also, and this is crucial, this is not simply an “issue.” We are talking about real human beings, made in the real image of God, with real feelings, real longings, and real hopes for relationships with God and with one another. These are people that need grace, people that have been beaten with the bible over and over again, without feeling love from such a community. And as I mentioned in part 1, this isn’t about not taking scripture seriously, but it is the opposite, it is about really wrestling with God, as Jacob did, and getting to the bottom of what is far less clear than many wish to believe.

If you want to know why I believe we should open the doors of marriage to same-sex couples, despite not having a bomb-proof case, read part 1.