When we entered the book of Leviticus in our Bible study, I wasn't happy about it. Rather, I was nervous and desperate to get back to the story-telling parts. In my point of view, we had nothing to learn from old barbaric animal sacrifices and countless rules about the silliest things. I've only seen Leviticus being quoted to bring about harm, particularly towards the LGBTQ community.
I've since found value in Leviticus. The rules given to Moses and his chosen people kept them safe at the time, and set them apart from neighboring nations. Keeping a clean diet may have kept away food-borne illnesses. Quarantine of the sick served the same purpose of bodily protection. In barbaric, uncivilized times, their practices were not the best, but certainly not the worst.
Then, Leviticus 18:22 came along.
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."
Guess I was getting too comfortable! Reflection on how to get past this passage brought me back to the basic tenants argued in "Misquoting Jesus":
1.) The Bible has been translated and re-translated many times over.
2.) Those who have translated the Bible stories come with their own cultural influence and biases, often forgetting about the culture and context the stories took place in.
3.) Pay attention to if a passage fits in context, to see if people are misquoting it.
The Land of Canaan:
Much of this chapter deals with detestable sexual activity. Most of it, you will find, talks about incestuous relationships. 12 verses. Then comes a healthy reminder not to have sex with your boss's wife, a woman on her period or animals. It even specifies that a man shouldn't have sex with an animal, nor should a woman. All of this makes perfect sense to me, as these acts remain detestable today. In the midst of those passages is verse 22.
The land of Canaan, the land promised to the people of Moses by God, was known for its violence, and for mistreating of vulnerable populations (1). It was also known for ritualistic sexual acts for the sake of appeasing a fertility goddess. We think of much of the Bible as talking about moral laws, but so much more of Leviticus talks about ritualistic laws (2), in order to keep people from repeating the acts of the Canaanites and following their ritual practices.
Elsewhere in Leviticus you see God dedicate some time to remind God's people that "You were once strangers in a foreign land" and to "treat the alien as your own", possibly to counter the incoming cultural shock in the land of Canaan as well.
Let's keep the cultural context in these verses instead of pulling them out of their time period.
Lost in Translation:
You will find that, according to what Bible you read, the word "homosexual" is inserted into the verse. There was no such word in the Hebrew language. Writing "homosexual" anywhere into the Bible is inserting our current cultural biases into a Bible verse. This passage is strictly referring to male-male sexual behavior, which is not by itself synonymous for "homosexuality". Let's explore how else the verse might have been mistranslated.
The word "abomination" feels like a slap in the face, but the Hebrew written into this passage is the word for "ritually unclean", rather than the word for morally detestable. For the curious, the word "bdelygma" meant ritual impurity, while the word "zimah" referred to moral impurity. We see both words used elsewhere in the Bible. These are not words of uncertain meaning.
Patriarchal Assumptions:
Going back to the culture of the Hebrews, they had a patriarchal society in which men were highest in the caste system, and women were lower on the totem poll. For a man to "be made like a woman" or to have sex in the same way women have sex with men was seen as socially degrading for the men, as one man would be seen as taking a "passive" sexual role in male-male relations.
Conclusion:
The translations we read today of Leviticus 18:22 are not scripturally or historically sound. We read the Bible from our modern day perspective, and some of us so are used to homophobia in our church communities, we have never questioned the very few passages people use to fuel homophobic Biblical arguments. For a more in dept discussion, I highly recommend delving in the resources I've used below.
I am no longer scared of talking about Leviticus because of this one, seemingly strong-worded verse.
1.) https://thebibleproject.com/blog/judgement-cruelty-conquering-promised-land/
2.) https://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Booklet-about-Homosexuality-and-the-Bible-Sept.-2016.pdf
3.) http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibh5.htm
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