What the Bible Says

What does the bible say about homosexuality? :P

Not very much. It says that men raping other men is wrong. And it says that you shouldn't pretend to be a sexuality other than what you were born as. Other than that, nothing that's not a mistranslation.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I think that this is not the case. Paul says plainly that men having intercourse with other men is wrong and sinful.

Now, some (I, for example) would argue that one must understand the cultural context in which Paul lived, and that furthermore the Bible is not to be interpreted as a book of law; but if we are concerned with the literal meaning, it seems clear to me that — while homosexuality is certainly not an argument of special relevance — the Bible disapproves of it.

edited 5th May '12 12:07:40 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Source? I was under the impression that back in those days they didn't have the concept of hetero/homo/other-sexual people, only hetero/homo/other-sexual acts.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

It says men LYING with other men is wrong. I know Hebrew (enough to translate that line, at least), that is what that word means. It is not a mistranslation, what you are saying is the mistranslation.

The Bible (at least the OT) really IS anti-homosexuality, and I wish we could all just accept it for the 3000-year-old Babylonian law code it is, instead of pretending it has any kind of moral relevance for a people and a time vastly different then the one it was written for.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Oh, no, that's Leviticus. It's in there with the bit banning shrimp and poly-cotton blends. The New Testament explicitly says that Christians should ignore that whole passage.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The "raping other men" part comes from the whole Sodom and Gomorrah part.

So woman on woman is ok.

edited 5th May '12 5:18:05 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Even Babylonian times, Girl on Girl Is Hot.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

At the time of Sodom, it was a common thing for mobs of men to gang rape others as almost a male initiation act. We have other non-religious sources on this. So it wasn't so much of the homosexual sex part as it was the mob not accepting the right of a guest to be excluded from town customs.

I have had it interpreted as both a parable of how god's law superceeds man's law, a parable on hospitality, and also how one should obey god regardless of how unusual or abnormal the command.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

, Obviously meant as a joke, but since it might get brought up for real at some point, ancient Jews had basically no concept of girl-on-girl, considering how closely guarded daughters were.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

I thought that the section in Paul's letters also mentioned female homosexual acts? Or am I misremembering it?

Be not afraid...

It actually says the opposite.

He also tells the disciples to stop getting neurotic about food on a different occasion though. This is typically used as the green light to not throw out the old law wholesale, but to at least consider them more guidelines than a final word and exercise judgment — especially in reference to douchebags who game the system with rules lawyering (see Pharisees). Hence why we went back on so much of it.

edited 5th May '12 6:46:25 PM by Pykrete

The interesting thing about Sodom is that God doesn't seem to have had a problem with Lot offering his daughter to be raped instead of the angel.

On the one hand you COULD think "it's a desperate situation and SOMEONE is going to be raped so I'm going to protect my guest over my family", which is probably what the writers were thinking, but then again he could have offered HIMSELF so that doesn't really help much...

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

No, it doesn't. There's a lot of ways to take the expounding of the law if you just take that single verse out of any context whatsoever, but within the larger context of Matthew 5 (let alone the NT), that interpretation doesn't remotely stand up.

There was some early question in the Christian community if the Jewish laws now also applied to Gentile converts to Christianity, and, if you read as far as the Pauline epistles, the answer is a pretty solid "no". Even in the OT, Levitical law doesn't apply to gentiles anyway, so even if we took all of it, it would have no bearing on the average Christian's life.

And yes, dietary restrictions in particular are singled out as being contrary to Christianity, as well as capital punishments, allowing for divorce, etc. I find it really weird how many people (usually non-Christians) take out that one verse from Matthew 5 but somehow totally manage to miss the rest of the expounding.

There are a few offhand references in the NT to those who 'abuse themselves with men', which is traditionally taken as a reference to homosexuality, pederasty or even anal sex in general, but nothing really wrt female-female sex acts in any early Christian epistle.

However, there are at least two dietary restrictions which are explicitly restated in the New Testament:

(Acts 15:28—29)

Paul later argues convincingly that it is irrelevant whether meat is offered to idols or not (although it is not clear to me whether he had the authority to cancel a rule stated by Peter); but as for the prohibitions from blood and from strangled animals, we know that the early Church observed them (for example, in 731 Pope Gregory the Third said that these things carried a penalty of 40 days of penance.) However, nowadays most Christians — me included — do not really give much thought on whether eating black sausage is sinful.

From my point of view, this can be explained by saying that these rules had the purpose of avoiding hurting the sensibilities of the early Jewish converts to Christianity, and that this purpose does not apply nowadays; but strictly speaking, this is a decree of the First Council of Jerusalem which has never been explicitly canceled, and that should theoretically apply even nowadays.

EDIT:

There is a passage by Paul, in Romans 1:26—27:

edited 11th May '12 12:50:23 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

So having sex is ok, so long as both men aren't in a lying position at the same time. And then there's that "with a man as you do with a woman" part... how's that in the original? can it be intreperted as affecting only bisexuals? Though there's still other passages that can't be intrepreted as liberally

I know, I know, Jesus wasn't too fond of rules lawyering, but I don't see all Christians agree with him.

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

Here's what the bible says:

Jesus said, "love everyone,

treat them kindly, too

When your heart is filled with love,

others will love you."

All the rest is just annotation.

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books

Qeise: Technically speaking, yes. But considering this is the God of the OT you're dealing with, be prepared to get smited anway.

ATC: Ripping off Rabbi Hillel, eh?

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

In a way, but I think you're missing a few but critical words.

Now using Trivialis handle.