Homosexuality in the Hebrew Bible
[edit] Leviticus 18 and 20
Chapters 18 and 20 of
Leviticus, which form part of the
Holiness code, contain the following verses:
- Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.(Leviticus 18:22 KJV)
- If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.(Leviticus 20:13 KJV)
The two verses have traditionally been interpreted by Christians as blanket prohibitions against homosexual acts.
Traditional Jewish sources view these verses as prohibitions against
anal sex between males.
[edit] Possible references
The story of
Sodom and Gomorrah in
Genesis has traditionally been interpreted within Christianity as a punishment for homosexuality;
Romans 1
Romans 1:26–27 is the only apparent reference in the Bible to female homosexuality, though some
[who?] maintain that this prohibition applies only to male homosexuals:
| “ | (26) Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. (27) In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. | ” |
[edit] Other Epistles
In the context of the broader immorality of his audience,
Paul of Tarsus wrote in the
First Epistle to the Corinthians,
| “ | Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, arsenokoitēs, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) | ” |
The word
arsenokoitēs (
ἀρσενοκοίτης) has challenged scholars for centuries, and has been variously rendered as "abusers of themselves with mankind" (KJV), "sodomites" (YLT), or "men who practice homosexuality." Greek
ἄῤῥην / ἄρσην [
arrhēn /
arsēn means "male", and
κοίτην [
koitēn] "bed," with a sexual connotation": there is no evident reason for Paul to choose this word to signify homosexuality, as Greek has the word
androkoitēs for this meaning. It is likely that
arsenokoitēs is taken from the Septuagint (LXX) reading of Leviticus 20:13 where the root forms (Greek
ἄῤῥην / ἄρσην [
arrhēn /
arsēn] and
κοίτην [
koitēn] both appear. Paul's use of the word in 1 Corinthians is the earliest example of the term; its only other use is in a similar list of wrongdoers given (probably by the same author) in
1 Timothy 1:9–10:
| “ | Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, arsenokoitēs, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. (1 Timothy 1:8–10) | ” |
In 35 A.D., the secular
philosopher Philo wrote that
arsenokoitēs referred to "
temple prostitution". Later Christian literature used the word to mean variously prostitution, incest or rape without any single clear meaning –
Patriarch John IV of Constantinople, in a passage dealing with coercive and non-procreative sex, speaks of
...many men [who] commit the sin of homosexuality with their wives.
[citation needed]
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