| What Does the Bible Say about Homosexuality? | |
|
Letter to a Noahide Mr. K. By Rabbi David Eidensohn
This article is an answer to a Noahide young man, Mr. K., who asks,
"How do I answer my Reform Jewish friends who think that homosexuality
is permitted by the bible?"
The bible in Leviticus, chapter 18 passage 22 states, "And you
the male: Do not sleep the intercourse of the woman. It is an
abomination." This literal translation clearly identifies the sexual
act of homosexuality as an abomination. The context of the passage is about
sexual sins. The following passage, for instance, is, "You shall not
give your intercourse in any animal, to be by it defiled, nor shall a woman
stand before an animal for intercourse: This is a great evil." We see
that the passage deals with the act of homosexual sex. You told me that your
Reform Jewish friends tell you that homosexuality is permitted, and the
bible only forbids homosexuality that is a pagan rite. Where in the bible is
there a mention of pagan rites? In Leviticus 18,22 homosexuality is
forbidden and pagan rites are not mentioned. Homosexuality is also
proscribed in Leviticus 20 passage 13 and the chapter there is about sexual
sins. The previous passage is about sleeping with one's daughter-in-law and
the following passage is about sleeping with one's wife's mother or
daughter. Obviously, we deal here with cardinal sexual sins, and not about
paganism.
In both of these chapters the vast majority of the passages are about
sexual sins, so we cannot interpret these sexual sins as being forbidden
only when they are pagan rituals. Do your Reform Jewish friends believe that
one may sleep with his wife's mother or daughter and the bible refers only
to pagan rites?
Interestingly enough, although the two chapters, 18 and 20 deal with
sexual sins, in chapter 18 we find something interjected that has nothing to
do with sexual sins, or so it would seem. This is the prohibition to fling
one's child into the fire, a pagan practice. What does this have to do with
sexual sins? The answer is that people who commit sexual crimes and have
children from incest, etc., often do not want to see the fruition of their
evil deed. Sometimes they abort the child, and if they don't do that, they
figure out some other way to get rid of it, perhaps through adoption. In
ancient times, a father could get rid of a child fathered by evil, or by
adultery, by offering the child as a burnt offering. Therefore, the sin of
burning one's child is placed in the chapter about sexual sins.
To repeat: The Talmud and the Codifiers of Jewish law and the obvious
meaning of the biblical passage proscribe homosexuality.
|
|
|
D. Eidensohn's poem
"The Wall" won an International Poetry Contest. His poems appear in
|