A poor case for the Bible not condemning homosexuality

I have to state straight out that that I am a Muslim, not a Christian, and therefore have no vested interest in the Bible, or biblical hermeneutics. Despite this, I feel that this article is one of the worst cases of being biblically selective I have seen in some while. I feel that I have some authority to speak on these grounds, as I do have a degree in religious studies, and have studied the Bible at some length, both with a Rabbi and with Christian parishiners. This rant is going to assume you have knowledge of the article, and at least a basic understanding of the Bible. I am going to use Christian terminology when referring to the Tanakh, and thus Old Testament will be used instead.

The author begins by stating that the Bible does not require one to choose between faith and compassion. The author frames this as classically you are either compassionate and believe in full equality for homosexuals, or you are faithful to the biblical text and don't. The author, however, says that this is not the case, and argues that rather they fall hand-in-hand.

Next, the author proceeds to claim that we would need a clear and definitive condemnation of homosexuality to be able to justify excluding homosexuals from Christian churches. This is something that the author of the article claims does not exist within the Bible. This is also where the cherry picking begins.

The author first moves to say that Christianity favors compassion over legalism. Honestly, this is a clever move by the author. Instead of directly addressing pertinent biblical discussions of homosexuality, the author first states that we must first act with compassion, and that this is the prime directive of Christianity. OK, fair enough. This is something that we can deal with, and this could arguably be the mission of Christ, to inject compassion into the rigid legalism that was forming within the proto-Judaic peoples of the Levant, keep in mind that Judaism as we know it didn't exist at this time either. So, despite the fact that I feel the author is trying to make an emotional rather than rational appeal at this time, we will let it slide.

The author first brings forward John 8:7, which is part of a narrative about a woman caught committing adultry. Firstly, this narrative is suspect, and doesn't exist in the most authoritative of ancient sources for the Bible. Also, there is no attestation to its existence before the 4^th century. We will, again, let this slide. Let's assume that this report is authentic. First, this woman was not tried by any jury, which would be required under the Law at the time. This is indicated only a few passages back in John 7:51. This passage in in refers to the Pharisees trying to capture Jesus, but Nicodemus asks about giving him a hearing, which was necessitated by the Law. This episode of the adulteress immediately follows this, and no mention of a hearing or trial is brought as evidence. Thus, what Jesus is clearly condemning is vigilante justice. If no trial can be brought against this woman, then these vigilantes who are not without sin. This is less about compassion, and more about justice. Justice would not be served to this woman by stoning her without a trial, and the folks who brought her forth knew this to be the case and dispersed.

The next verses that are brought forth are Romans 13:8-10. These verses are the words of Paul, who himself was once a pharisee and enemy of early followers of Jesus, as they were not called Christians until sometime after Paul's conversion. Here Paul is making an exegetical statement about the statement of Jesus to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:39) This is a summation of the whole of the Law according to Paul. This, again, is fine. The author's interpretation is not, however. Loving each other doesn't absolve one of the crime of theft or murder, nor of any other crime. Rather, the proper interpretation here is that when you love one another, then these crimes won't occur, as their absence will be a manifestation of one's faith, and of the first commandment that Jesus gave in Matt 22:37, which is to love God with all your heart. This second commandment is lesser than the first, as Jesus states in Matt 22:38.

Colossians 3:11-13 are brought forth next. This verse talks about doing away with tribalism, and social statuses in the face of action. What we need to remember in these verses is that frequently in the ancient world groups of people would have special rules for dealing with those people who stood outside their specific group, and these special rules were typically much more harsh than for the ingroup. This is where the term gentile comes from, as well as heathen. These are terms for the outsider. What Paul is clearly addressing here is that these distinctions are washed away by Christ. So, when dealing with one's fellow Christians, one should deal with them equitably, and not by the rules used for those who are outsiders, as all are one in Christ. So, when Paul is talking about dealing with kindness and forgiveness, he is saying to not follow these rules for outsiders, but to treat them as one of your own.

The last in this section that the author uses are Matt 23:22-24. Here the author is being completely disingenuous to the text that he displays. Jesus here states that the Pharisees cling to the strict textual manifestation of the Law, but neglect the spirit of the Law. What the author neglects to pay heed to is the part where Jesus states, “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” This clearly indicates that the Law should still be adhered to, but that the legalism that was prominent with the Pharisees is not good. Rather, adherence to the Law should come from one's love and compassion, and not from a mere legalistic sense.

After these verses, the author begins to conflate issues. He states that Christians accept that people get drunk, lie and are lustful, and therefore Christians should accept that people are gay. This doesn't even follow, honestly. Essentially what the author is saying is that since we have become accustom to certain sins, then we need to become accustom to more. This is a pretty weak argument. Being comfortable with one sin doesn't mean that you should become comfortable with more, rather you should work on removing the other sins from your life. The author goes on to state that murder is considered based upon circumstances. This is an unfortunate usage of words, as he justifies the 'murder' that is done in warfare and self defense. First, we need to define terms. Killing can refer to a broad spectrum of acts, such as killing an animal for food, killing in self-defense, and killing in cold blood. Only the last of these can rightfully be called murder. It is murder that is condemned in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17, not killing. The author ignores this distinction, and lumps them altogether, which the biblical texts most certainly do not. Determining the circumstances, then, is not about deciding if we should try somebody as a murderer or not, but whether the case is one of murder or not to begin with.

So, the author then proceeds to say that we should do the same thing with homosexuality, and only judge vicious and aggressive homosexual acts in light of the Biblical injunctions against homosexual behaviors. This, to the author, is on the same scale. However, as we saw above, there is no biblical law against killing, but only murder. There isn't the sliding scale that the author chooses to artificially place into the text. We must, using the author's own criteria, determine that there is a clear and distinctive sliding scale before we can make these sorts of judgments. I have already demonstrated that this doesn't exist as the author would like to think. The scale is also not there in the case of homosexuality, which we will come to demonstrate.

After continuing to use this supposed sliding scale, and other emotional appeals, the author talks about judgment. The author brings again Matt 23:22-24, which I have discussed above. The others are Matt 7:1 and Luke 6:41-43. These two sets of verses are discussing person to person interactions, and not the actions of a court, or legal judgment. These are two very different things, but again the author has conflated the issues. These verses are telling people to not look at the faults of the person next to you, and criticize them when you have your own faults. This is very different from criminal cases where judgment obviously needs to be placed. The case of homosexuality in the Bible is treated as a criminal offense, as with murder and theft. Therefore, the above verses don't even apply.

The author then proceeds to say that the Bible is not a rule book or contract for Christians. The author, at this point, fails to understand what it means to call the two major sections the Old and New Testaments. A testament is a contract, and represents a contract made between God and the Hebrews and Judaic peoples represented in the Bible. This only further weakens the author's overall argument to fail to understand even basic principles of Biblical exegesis. This misinterpretation, however, leads the author to say that we cannot just take passages from the Bible as rules. This is further justified because the Bible contains poetry and such. This is manifest foolishness. If something is presented as a rule, then it should be treated as such. This is, as the author rightly points out, not something Christians have ever been good at, and the author also rightfully notes that Christians like to cherry pick the Bible for what they want to believe in. The author uses such examples in the article as mixing fabrics for clothes and seeds in the same field (Lev 19:19), eating pork (Lev 11:7-8), and polygamy, which is widely practiced throughout the Old Testament. This is a major issue that your beloved writer and the author of the article both have in common.

This is now where your beloved writer deeply diverges from the point of view of not only the author, but also of Christians in general. The author now, instead of actually discussing the Old Testament passages, glosses them by saying they no longer are applicable according to Paul. What then about the case against murder, theft, etc? These are Old Testament commandments, and Christians have no issues with this. This is where the typical Pauline interpretation fails. The author uses Hebrews 7:18-19, which discusses the change in priesthood from the Levitical order to the order of Melchizedek, Galatians 3:23-25, which discusses righteousness through faith, and not the Law, Romans 7:4, which discusses Jesus' death in relation to the Law, and Romans 6:14, which discusses the domain of sin and righteousness. Now, these passages are used to express that the Law of Moses is no longer applicable to the new Christians. This, however, is short sighted, and doesn't follow traditional Jewish thought. Firstly, Gentiles were never bound to the Law of Moses, but rather the Noahide Laws, which are 7:

1. The prohibition of Idolatry
2. The prohibition of Murder
3. The prohibition of Theft
4. The prohibition of Sexual Immorality
5. The prohibition of Blasphemy
6. The prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive
7. The requirement of maintaining courts to provide legal recourse

So, this was the major argument put forth in the earliest years after Paul's conversion. Paul believed that Jesus was sent to all people, and that the gentiles were included in the call. Because of this, Paul believed that they were held to the Law of Noah, and not the Law of Moses. James and Peter were of a different persuasion, and believed that Jesus was only sent to the Judaic people, and that for a gentile to be a follower of Christ, then that person must follow the Law of Moses. This entire dispute above mentioned revolves around this. This is far from taking Christians outside the domain of the Law, but rather changes the domain of which Law they should be adherent to. Adherence to the Law of Moses makes gentiles righteous, and this is what is expected of them. When Paul talks about the Law being brought because of sin, it is because of the transgressions of the Hebrews that the Law of Moses was put forth, and the reason for its being strict. This dispute can be further referenced by looking to the incident at Antioch. Here Peter and Paul agreed to let Jews continue to follow the Law, and for the gentiles to be allowed to follow the Noahide laws. This makes them righteous. By Jesus dying on the cross, this allowed for communion between Jew and gentile, according to Paul. The Law was dead to these gentiles to whom Paul was preaching. I'm not going to delve into topics such as the authenticity of Hebrews, as it is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion. However, saying that Christians are no longer held to the Law, does not mean that they have free reign to sinful things, as Paul states in Romans 6:1-4. As are shown above, the Noahide Laws still forbid sexual immorality, which we are getting closer to actually discussing.

The author reiterates again that Christians are selective as to what parts of the Bible they choose to follow, and this time uses examples from the New Testament, such as women covering their hair (I Corinthians 11:1-16). The author then goes to give the New Testament verses in question, and still ignoring the Old Testament. The verses are 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, Romans 1:26-27. These are all very clear condemnations of homosexual sex between two men. The author, however, now begins to cherry pick history as well. The author, again rightly, states that the ancient Greeks and Romans had no word that corresponded with 'homosexual.' This is the case, but this is where the author's arguments begin to fail. He claims that the only homosexual acts known to the ancients were aggressive rapes and pederasty, and that this is what was being contravened during these passages. This is blatantly false. There were many acts that fell into what we now term homosexual, but of particular importance are those of mainland Greece, and of southern Greece. In Athens, and the Athenian influenced areas, pederasty was the norm. This was part of the upbringing of young boys, as abhorrent as it may seem to the modern mind. In southern Greece, i.e. Sparta and the like, homosexual acts between peers were considered the norm. In all cases, these were considered consensual, and not aggressive crimes. Even in the case of male slaves, the slaves were frequently eunuchs and other slaves who were purchased for the purpose of sexual intercourse. This is not to say that aggressive crimes such as what is described by the author did not occur, as they most certainly did, but this is not what Paul was referring to, nor was this what the Old Testament writers were referring to. In fact, in ancient Greece, it was seen as impossible to love a woman, but only possible to love another man due to the inferiority of women.

As the author has stated, we cannot let our disgust or aversion to something sway our opinions of it. Just because the ancients participated in acts that we find repulsive does not mean that they were non-consensual, nor does it mean that the acts were considered wrong by Paul for the same reasons that we find them to be so. This is an anachronism of the worst type.

The author also goes so far as to state that there was no concept of gay marriage during the time of the Bible. This is also blatantly false, and ridiculous. There were a number of different types of relationships, and different groups of people who practiced a variety of relationship types. The Roman emperor Nero was said to have married more than one male. The author clearly doesn't have even the most basic concept of history.

That pretty much concludes the content of the article itself, but before we conclude, what about those other passages in the Old Testament that the author skipped over? The prominent examples used are the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, and the prohibition of homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22, while Judges 19:22 is another that coincidentally is almost identical to the story of Lot. Of particular interest is the verse in Leviticus. This particular verse states that a man lying with another man as he would a woman is abhorrent. The context of this is that both the people from whom the Hebrews were delivered, i.e. the Egyptians, and the people to whom they are going, i.e. the Canaanites, perpetrate these acts. We have already discussed above that these acts were not across the board aggressive acts. Instead, Leviticus goes on to state that this is a defiling act, and that it leads to impurity, and goes so far as to state in Lev 18:29 that all people who do these things will be cut off. This makes no distinction at all. The Old Testament does not shy away from discussing rape, and other aggressive acts, but, according to the author, we are supposed to assume that in this one special case that the authors just left this out.

Again, I would like to reiterate that I have no vested interest in the Biblical narrative, but I do have a vested interest in being correct in reading a book, and looking at history. The author of this article obviously is not. If you want to deny that these rules are applicable, you need to come up with a more convincing argument than just a simple, “Cuz I said so.” Saying that you are going to cherry pick because that is what Christians do is absolutely absurd. It is this kind of blind-eye exegesis that makes Christianity look like a joke. Christians, I make an appeal to you to take your faith more seriously, or leave it behind. This article is just sad.