Anyone wanting to know about the Old Testaments witness to homosexual practice will expect an exegete to focus primarily on two sets of texts: first, the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen 19:4-11 (within the epic written by the Yahwist, J); and, second, the legal proscriptions found in the section of Leviticus known as the Holiness Code (H), 18:22 and 20:13. Indeed, attention to these texts is justly deserved. Yet a proper treatment of same-sex intercourse in the Old Testament requires expanding discussion to other key areas. First, it is necessary to set the stage by examining the ancient Near Eastern background. In what ways did Hebrew attitudes toward homosexual practice reflect or differ from the larger cultural horizons? To what extent can gaps in our understanding of the ancient Israelite worldview be filled in by other ancient Near Eastern data? Second, the creation stories in Genesis 1-3 are important for grappling with a broader vision for male and female sexuality, at least on the part of the framers of P (the Priestly Writing) and J. Even though the creation accounts are directed toward other purposes, they provide guidance for the interpretation of homosexual intercourse. Third, two other narratives have an important bearing on the question of the Bible's attitudes toward same-sex intercourse: the story of the curse of Ham in Gen 9:20-27 (J); and the account of the rape of the Levite's concubine in Judg 19:22-25 (within the Deuteronomistic History, Joshua through 2 Kings), which closely approximates Gen 19:4-11. Fourth, the question of homosexual cult prostitution during the period of the divided monarchy is pertinent for assessing attitudes toward homosexual practice held by the architects of Deuteronomic law (Dtn) and the author of the Deuteronomistic History (Dtr). Finally, the question of whether the relationship between David and Jonathan had any homoerotic aspects requires discussion.
Recent summaries and analyses by David Greenberg, Martti Nissinen, Donald Wold, and Saul Olyan provide a helpful starting point for describing ancient Near Eastern perspectives on homosexuality.1 Our overview will be ordered according to the amount of information available for a given region or ethnic group: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Hittite kingdom in the Anatolian peninsula, and Canaanite territory.
Most of our data regarding homosexual behavior in the ancient Near East comes from Mesopotamia. Here there are four primary sources of information: laws, magical texts (omens, incantations), myth and ritual practice, and epic stories.2
Same-sex intercourse goes unmentioned in Mesopotamian law codes until the Middle Assyrian Laws of the late second millennium B.C.E. Laws 19 and 20 (tablet A) address the matter:
If a man [or: a seignior; i.e., an aristocrat] furtively spreads rumors about his comrade [or: neighbor], saying: "Everyone has sex with him" [or: "People have lain repeatedly with him"], or in a quarrel in public says to him: "Everyone has sex with you [or: People have lain repeatedly with you], I can prove the charges," but he is unable to prove the charges and does not prove the charges, they shall strike him 50 blows with rods; he shall perform the king's service one full month; they shall cut off (his hair?) [better: they shall castrate him] and he shall pay one talent of lead.
If a man [or: a seignior] has sex [or: lay] with his comrade [or: neighbor] and they prove the charges against him and find him guilty, they shall have sex [or: lie] with him and they shall turn him into a eunuch.3
The word for "comrade" or "neighbor," tappa3u, denotes "a man of equal social status, or a man who was otherwise socially involved with the perpetrator, like a neighbor or a business partner."4 The verb for "have sex with," "lie with," niaku, means "have sex as the dominant (i.e., penetrating) partner."5 It is unclear whether the verb implies rape. It seems unlikely for A §19, but probable for A §20.6 Presumably, if the "comrade" in A §20 wanted to be penetrated, he would have no grievance to bring to the courts, and the man doing the penetrating would not be criminally liable.
In the case of both laws it was apparently regarded as degrading and shameful for a man to be penetrated as if he were a woman, regardless of whether the passive partner was a voluntary participant. To be routinely penetrated by other men was to be treated as a "man-woman" and hence made inferior in honor and status to those doing the penetrating. The principle of lex talionis explains the punishment: just as the penetrator deprives the penetrated man of his manhood, so too the penetrator will be denied his manhood by being castrated. It is thus assumed in both laws that no self-respecting man would want to be penetrated by another man. In light of this, Nissinen's comment may be misleading: "It cannot be said that Middle Assyrian Laws would take into consideration a case in which two men were involved as equals in a voluntary homoerotic relationship and for mutual satisfaction." It is not just that "neither homosexual acts nor heterosexual acts were considered as being done by two equals."7 There was something wrong or strange about any man who wanted to be penetrated as if he were a woman. Nevertheless, although such a man was an object of scorn or pity, he was not prosecuted.
Because The Middle Assyrian Laws were oriented toward protecting the rights of men in their dealings with other men of roughly the same social circles, all that can be inferred from the absence of a law protecting a man from being "mounted" by a social superior and/or one not living in spatial proximity is that the former had no recourse in the courts. In the nature of things, a social inferior (for example, a foreigner or resident alien, a prisoner of war, a slave) might have been expected to put up with the same-sex passions of a superior. The active partner, though, apparently did not incur shame, even when his behavior had to be criminalized to protect others. Indeed, his actions were taken as a sign of his superior social standing and power over the one penetrated. This was certainly true of homosexual rape,8 but probably it would also have been true when the passive partner was a willing participant. In short, the laws were interested in applying criminal sanctions only to two specific cases of (male) same-sex intercourse: a man who slandered another man with the charge of being repeatedly penetrated by other men; and a man who coercively penetrated another man of similar social status and/or belonging to the same clan. The penalty for such acts was severe (castration), though less than the maximum penalty of death prescribed for some cases of adultery (see A §§12-13).
In the Babylonian omen text, Summa alu (pre-seventh century B.C.E.), five of thirty-eight omens involve homosexual intercourse.9 Two of them are positive omens: "If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers"; and "If a man copulates with a male cult prostitute (assinnu), a hard destiny (or: care, trouble) will leave him." The first confirms that the man who penetrated a male in his social circle lowered the latters status in relation to himself.10 The second indicates a form of homosexual intercourse that received societal acceptance or at least tolerance: sex with a male cult prostitute. A third omen, involving sex with a courtier (gerseqqu), appears to be moderately negative ("terrors will possess him for a whole year and leave him").11 Two other omens foretell a "hard destiny": a man in prison who desires to mate with men "like a male cult prostitute" and a man who copulates with his house born slave. The prison omen reflects societal disgust for a man who takes on the role of male cult prostitute without in fact being one (that is, one who practices without a valid license to do so). The situation of sex with one's slave is less clear. Was having sex with one's slave an ill omen because "a sexual connection would erode a master's authority over his slaves," or because "a slave born at home is comparable to a family member," or because the slave's social status was too low?12
Another text, an Almanac of Incantations, speaks favorably of "love of a man for a woman," "love of a woman for a man," and "love of a man for a man." The last mentioned category suggests that same-sex intercourse between two men in Mesopotamia could be construed as something other than a power trip by a dominant partner.13
As an omen text cited above indicates, there was a certain acceptability in Mesopotamian society for sex with an assinnu, kurgarrû, or kulu u (words sometimes translated as "male cult prostitutes").14 They were closely connected with the goddess Inanna (her Sumerian name) or Ishtar (her Assyrian name), who was identified with Venus (masculine as the morning star and feminine as the evening star)—hence, a goddess possessing androgynous features and traits. In the mythic story, Inanna's (or Ishtar s) Descent to the Underworld, cult prostitutes helped free the goddess from the underworld.15 In keeping with their role in the myth, their liminal state between two sexes, and their status as devotees of the goddess, they were thought to possess magical power that could deliver people from sickness or other troubles, or bring people success against enemies. They dressed like women, wore makeup, carried with them a spindle (a feminine symbol), and engaged in ecstatic dance and ritual self-torture (probably including selfcastration, like the galli of Hellenistic and Roman times); some may have been born hermaphrodites. The goddess, it was believed, had transformed each into a «man-woman» or even a "dog-woman" (with "dog" denoting a disgusting transformation of masculinity and possibly also intercourse in a doglike position). There is good evidence that they offered their services for a fee as the receptive partner in anal intercourse.16 Ideally, a man who had intercourse with an assinnu did so as a means of accessing the power of the goddess herself. Although the role of the assinnu, kurgarrû, or kulu u was institutionalized, they were often treated with great disdain. In addition to the epithet "dog," they were said to have been created from the dirt under the god Enki's nails, a mere "broken jar." One text speaks of them as those "whose masculinity Ishtar changed into femininity to strike horror into people—the bearers of daggers, razors, pruning-knives and flint blades who frequently do abominable acts to please the heart of Ishtar." Another text refers to their detestable lot in life: "Bread from the city's ploughs [a euphemism for penises] shall be your food, the city drains shall be your only drinking place, the drunkard and the thirsty shall slap your cheek."17
Some interpret The Gilgamesh Epic as depicting a homosexual relationship between Gilgamesh, the oversexed superhuman king of Uruk, and Enkidu, the uncivilized wild man created by the gods as a suitable partner for Uruk.18 Enkidu is described as a man with a hairy body and "tresses like a woman."19 A harlot with whom Enkidu falls in love describes Gilgamesh to him as a man whose "whole body is charged with seductive charm." Gilgamesh relates to his mother a dream in which "a sky-bolt (kisru) of Anu kept falling upon me. . . . I loved it as a wife, doted on i t . . . . You treated it as equal to me" (a possible word play with kezru, a "male with curled [i.e., dressed] hair," and kezertu, a female devotee of Ishtar, a cult prostitute). In a second dream Enkidu is likened to an "axe" (hassinnu, a possible word play on assinnu). Gilgamesh's mother interprets his love for Enkidu «as a wife» to mean that the latter will be a friend who never forsakes Gilgamesh; that is, she does not interpret the erotic connotations of the dream to mean an erotic relationship in reality. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu finally meet, Gilgamesh defeats Enkidu in a fight. Then they "kissed each other, and formed a friendship." The story of their relationship never explicitly mentions sexual intercourse between the two. When Enkidu eventually dies, Gilgamesh laments his death with the words: "My friend has covered his face like a bride. . . . Enkidu, my friend whom I love so much." The degree to which one describes the relationship as homosexual depends on how much one wants to read between the lines. Nissinen characterizes their relationship as
an accentuated masculine asceticism. . . . Eroticism is important first and foremost as the impetus to the transformation which leads first from savage sexual behavior to mutual love, and finally away from physical sex. . . . Especially noteworthy is the equal relationship between the men, with no clear social or sexual role division. . . . This exemplifies less a homoerotic than a homosocial type of bonding, which is often strong in societies in which men's and women's worlds are segregated.20
Greenberg, who argues in favor of a homosexual relationship, has a different take on the question of equality. "Though Enkidu was certainly not effeminate, he is analogized to a female prostitute by virtue of the subordinate sexual role he played after being defeated by Gilgamesh."21 Both Greenberg and Nissinen compare the relationship to that of David and Jonathan, and Achilles and Patrocles in the Iliad. The analogy of David and Jonathan, however, might rather speak for an intimate but entirely nonsexual relationship. Wold contends that "Nothing in the language of the epic is suggestive of a homosexual relationship."22 Certainty is not possible. If the story expresses approval of a man offering himself for penetration (mutual, consenting, or otherwise), it is in tension with the Middle Assyrian Laws. Perhaps one should speak of a deep platonic admiration or even attraction between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Since no legal codes have been discovered in ancient Egypt, it is even more difficult to assess Egyptian attitudes to same-sex intercourse than it was for Mesopotamia. The evidence, such as it is, is conflicting.23
(1) Although the Egyptian pantheon of gods (like the Mesopotamian pantheon) included hermaphroditic deities, there is no evidence of homosexual cult prostitution. However, a positive, metaphorical use of homosexual imagery in relation to the gods can be found in coffin texts; for example: "I will swallow for myself the phallus of Re" and "his (viz., the earth god Geb's) phallus is between the buttocks of his son and heir."24 Another coffin text, though, uses the metaphor of same-sex penetration to express fearlessness regarding a god's ability to do him harm: "[The god] Atum has no power over me, for I copulate between his buttocks."25
(2) There is an account of Pharaoh Pepi II (ca. 2400 B.C.E.) making regular secret nocturnal visits to an unmarried general, Sisene, apparently for homosexual intercourse. It is unclear whether such a relationship would have been viewed at the time as a scandal because of the homosexual connotation.26 A tomb for two manicurists and hairdressers of Pharaoh Niuserre (ca. 2600 B.C.E.) pictures the two men holding hands, embracing, and touching noses. Pharaoh Ikhnaton (ca. 1370 B.C.E.) is depicted in intimate scenes (nudity, chin-stroking) with his son-in-law and probable co-regent Smenkhare. The former is drawn with a feminine physique and the latter is given titles of endearment normally reserved for Ikhnaton s concubines and queen.27
(3) In one version of the myth of Horus and Seth (ca. 1160 B.C.E.), the gods are deliberating about which of the brothers should rule Egypt. When Seth reveals that he had "played the male role" with Horus, successfully ejaculating his semen "between Horus' buttocks" while the latter was asleep, the gods "screamed aloud, and belched and spat on Horus' face." However, Horus is able to turn the tables on Seth by mixing some of the sperm in Seth s food.28 Temple inscriptions at Edfu from the Ptolemaic period (third-second centuries B.C.E.) convey a similar theme: Horus eats lettuce (whose juice is identified with semen) so that he can ejaculate into Seth's anus.29 Both accounts are primarily about aggression, not homosexual desires. so that he can ejaculate into Seth's anus.30 Yet they do indicate that shame is associated with being a receptive male partner.
(4) The Book of the Dead (fifteenth century B.C.E.) contains two confessions in which the deceased proclaims in his defense, "I have not defiled myself. . . . I have not been perverted; I have not had sexual relations with a male lover (or: boy)" (ch. 125).31 The Edfu inscriptions mentioned above also contain a prohibition against coupling with a nkk or hmw, terms associated with either an effeminate coward or a receptive male partner. The active role is thus condemned in both pieces of evidence.32 In a late Heracleopolitan inscription, a man declares, "I did not wish to love a youth. As for a respectable son who does it, his (own) father shall abandon him in court."33 Here both adult-insertive and youth-receptive homosexual acts are viewed as reprehensible, perhaps even subject to criminal prosecution.
Overall, the evidence for approval of some forms of same-sex intercourse is not as strong in Egypt as in Mesopotamia. Egyptian toleration of same-sex intercourse appears to have been greater early in its history rather than later. In a few dynasties at least, a small number of Pharaohs and court officials engaged in homosexual practice. As in Mesopotamia, there was a tendency to stigmatize the receptive male partner (though not a universal tendency) and to regard aggressive penetration of another man as proof of superiority. There is also evidence of attitudes that deplore the actions of the insertive partner, though the severity of societal censure is not clear.
Hittite law (second millennium B.C.E.) forbids sexual relations between father and son, apparently on the grounds that it is incestuous, not homosexual.34 No other mention of same-sex intercourse is made in Hittite literature, even though their law code mentions related sexual impurities such as incest, bestiality, adultery, and rape. Whether the silence indicates societal approval of same-sex intercourse or the rarity of the practice in Hittite culture cannot be determined.
Ugaritic literature and art discovered to date gives no hard evidence of homosexual practice, though it does of bestiality and incest.35 Both the Levitical Holiness Code (Lev 18:1-5, 24-30; 20:22-26) and the Deuteronomistic History (1 Kgs 14:24)36 speak of homosexual intercourse as one among many "abominations" for which God drove out the Canaanites and other nations before Israel. If the story of Ham ("the father of Canaan") "seeing his fathers nakedness" refers to an act of same-sex intercourse, then the Yahwist too would have regarded this practice as typical of the Canaanite population. The attestation of three independent sources, along with the persistence of male temple prostitutes in Israel during the era of the divided monarchy, speaks against an entirely imaginative reconstruction of the past by any one biblical author.37
In the ancient Near East one cannot speak either of uniform approval or uniform disapproval. Viewpoints varied among different population groups (ethnic, socioeconomic, religious) and during different periods of history. Unfortunately, laws regulating homosexual practice can be found in only one legal code, The Middle Assyrian Laws. Since no legal codes from Egypt have survived, nothing can be concluded from the absence of specific regulations there. The silence emanating from Hittite legal material and from Ugaritic literature and art is difficult to interpret, though independent testimony from J, D/Dtr, and H emphatically attributes homosexual practice to the non-Israelite ethnic groups in Canaan.
The two Middle Assyrian Laws that pertain to same-sex intercourse characterize "lying with" a man as an inherently degrading act for the male who is anally penetrated. To be known as a man with whom many other men have slept could severely damage one's standing in the community—so much so that a man who falsely accused another man of such was liable to castration. Homosexual rape was also grounds for castration. The implication of the penalty is that the man who played the female role in male-male intercourse lost his manhood. A man who attempted to deprive another man of his manhood, without the latter s consent, would himself be deprived of manhood through castration. In Lev 18:22; 20:13, the characterization of homosexual intercourse as "lying with a man as though lying with a woman" conveys a similar thought. However, there are also significant differences.
The Middle Assyrian Laws did not criminalize any consensual homosexual practice. Possibly they even permitted homosexual rape of a man of lower social status or of a man who did not belong to one s clan or village. Both Assyrian magical texts, on the one hand, and Egyptian myth, magic, and coffin texts, on the other, were able to put a positive spin on the "conquest" achieved by men who forced other males to be penetrated anally. (However, some Egyptian inscriptions, along with two confessions in The Book of the Dead, stigmatize the behavior not only of consenting passive partner but also of the dominant homosexual partner—though it is not clear how badly.) In one or two Mesopotamian texts and in two Egyptian tomb scenes homosexual love appears to be extolled. Homosexual cult prostitution was apparently an accepted part of Mesopotamian society. The masculinity of certain men had been transformed into femininity by the goddess Ishtar. Although such men were held in extremely low esteem, their behavior was understood to be forced on them by the goddess. Intercourse with such a "dog/man-woman" could bring good fortune on oneself. So the negative attitude toward homosexual practice in the ancient Near East, even in The Middle Assyrian Laws, was hardly uniform and total.
The Levitical laws, however, criminalized not only the behavior of all homosexual rapists but also the behavior of both partners in a consensual act of same-sex intercourse. Both have committed an abominable act. They also applied the same sanctions to Israelite and resident alien alike and made no concessions for homosexual intercourse with a person of unequal social status. According to The Middle Assyrian Laws, the maximum penalty for homosexual libel and homosexual rape was castration (in addition to blows with a rod, fines, and a limited period of forced labor). In the Levitical laws, the penalty for homosexual intercourse was death for both the passive partner (presumably, consenting) and the active partner (whether acting with the consent of the passive partner or not). The level at which the Levitical laws stigmatize and criminalize all homosexual intercourse, while not discontinuous with some trends elsewhere, goes far beyond anything else currently known in the ancient Near East.38
The creation stories of Genesis 1-3 do not speak directly to the issue of homosexual practice. However, they do supply us with a general understanding of human sexuality, set within the broader context of God's grand purposes at creation. As such, important implications for acceptable sexual practice arise out of them. The scholarly consensus holds that Genesis 1-3 is the product of two different authors or schools: Gen l:l-2:4a can be traced to the Priestly writer (P); Gen 2:46-3:24 to the Yahwist (J).
When looking at P's view of human sexuality, one has to first step back and assess the overall purpose behind the writing of Genesis 1, then ask how the author's view of human sexuality fits into those purposes. The description of Gods act of creating the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1 has as its ultimate purpose the justification of a holy day of rest on the seventh day. This is evident not only from the uniqueness of the seven-day schema among creation stories of the ancient Near East, but also from the fact that eight acts of creation require a doubling up of creative acts on days three (dry land and vegetation) and six (land creatures and humans), and from the conclusion in 2:1-3, which stresses the precedent for the command to sabbath rest in God's own rest.
The creation of human beings corresponds closely to the attention given to sabbath rest. This is so because only human beings, made in God's image and given the task of ruling the creation on God's behalf (cf. Ps 8:5-8), are capable of doing the following two things: (1) responding to God's command to rest after every six days from the work of subduing (not exploiting) the earth; and (2) consciously worshiping the Creator on the seventh.39 The pinnacle of God's creative work is thus human beings as creatures capable of receiving and carrying out commands from God in relation to the rest of creation. Filling or populating the earth with humans is a precondition for ruling it, and procreation is a precondition for filling the earth. The complementarity of male and female is thereby secured in the divinely sanctioned work of governing creation.
26And God said, "Let us make °adam (man, an earthling, humankind) in our image (bSsalmenu), in accordance with our likeness (kidmutenu), and let them have dominion over the fish . . . birds . . . cattle . . . wild animals . . . and over every creeping thing. . . ."
27And God created the adam in his image, in the image of God he created it (or: him), male and female he created them.40
28And God blessed them and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish . .. the birds . . . and every living thing. . . ." (Gen 1:26-28)
Is the sexual complementarity of men and women, then, contingent on procreation? The argument might be made that since the present problem of the earth is not underpopulation but overpopulation, the mandate for heterosexual coupling need no longer be the norm.41 Doubtlessly, the Priestly writer would have responded: Should humans then mate with animals to avoid procreation? Or has God changed the complementarity of male and female anatomy? God's intent for human sexuality is imbedded in the material creation of gendered beings, irrespective of the globes population. "Male and female he created them" probably intimates that the fullness of God's "image" comes together in the union of male and female in marriage (not, one could infer, from same-sex unions).42 Marriage is not confined only to procreation, a point certainly made by the Yahwist in his treatment of the creation of the female human. Perhaps, too, even in the event of overpopulation, the Priestly writer would have insisted on the necessity of fulfilling the mandate to "be fruitful and multiply." First, for humans in general, a procreative purpose for marriage avoids a detachment of sexuality from stable family structures (though P might have allowed for fewer children per couple). Second, for God's people in particular, procreation is vital because Gods people play a special role in discerning God's will for the created order and for communicating that will to the next generation.
In the Yahwists version of creation, Gen 2:4b-3:24, the human is made even more of a focus of God's attention than in Genesis 1. The Dadam is formed before plants and animals (2:5) "from the ground (adama)" and receives life from God's breath (2:7). God delayed the creation of plants until the creation of adam to till the ground and keep the "garden in Eden" in shape (2:5, 8-9, 15). Animals were formed for the express purpose of providing companionship and support for the 3adam, that he might have "a helper as his counterpart" (cezer kenegdÔ),43 for "it is not good for the adam to be alone." Yet they were found to be unsuited for that role (2:18-20). The solution that God arrived at was not the independent creation of another adam, a replica of the first, but rather to "build" a complementary being from a portion of adam's own self, a "rib" (2I21-22).44 That the unique complementarity of male and female is being stressed in the narrative is evident from adam's response when this new being was presented to him (now clearly a "him"): "This at last is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; to this one shall be given the name 'woman' ( i ) for from man (i ) this one was taken" (2:23). Only a being made from adam can and ought to become someone with whom adam longs to reunite in sexual intercourse and marriage, a reunion that not only provides companionship but restores adam to his original wholeness. The woman is not just "like himself but "from himself and thereby a complementary fit to himself. She is a complementary sexual "other."45
This is the very point made by the narrator in the next verse: "Therefore a man (i ) shall leave his father and his mother46 and become attached47 to his woman/wife (id) and the two will become one flesh" (2:24). The sexual union of man and woman in marriage, of two complementary beings, in effect makes possible a single, composite human being. So great is the complementarity of male and female, so seriously is the notion of "attachment" and "joining" taken, that the marital bond between man and woman takes precedence even over the bond with the parents that physically produced them. A descriptive statement about the creation of woman thus provides etiological justification for prescriptive norms regarding marriage.48 It is important that in the Yahwist's version of the creation of man and woman, attention is focused not on the goal of procreation (childbearing receives mention only in 3:16)49 but rather on the relational (including physical/sexual) complementarity of male and female, that is, on the companionship and support provided by heterosexual marriage.50
It will not do to argue that nothing is said here about the legitimacy of homosexual relationships.51 Even though an evaluation of same-sex intercourse is not the point of the text, legitimation for homosexuality requires an entirely different kind of creation story.52 Only a being made from man can be a suitable and complementary counterpart for him. The language of the narrative is, of course, mythic. The Yahwist "presumes that his hearers know that he did not shape the imagery himself, but is passing on very ancient traditions formed long ago."53 Yet the story remains authoritative for conveying that the obvious complementarity (and concordant sexual attraction) of male and female witnesses to God's intent for human sexuality. Male and female are "perfect fits" from the standpoint of divine design and blessing. Male and male, or female and female, are not.54
Hence, already at the start of the canon, in the description of human origins in Genesis 1-3, a justification for male-female union is provided: the physical, interpersonal, and procreative sexual complementarity of male and female. As we shall see, this motif will reappear as a continuous thread in the Old Testament, early Jewish, and New Testament critiques of same-sex intercourse as "contrary to nature."
In Gen 9:20-27, the Yahwist tells the story of how it came to be that the Canaanites were subjugated to the Israelites.
20Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21When he drank some of the wine, he became drunk and was uncovered55 in the middle of56 his tent 22and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness57 of his father (wayyar3... 3et cerwat 3abiw) and told (it) to his two brothers outside. 23And Shem and Japheth took the (Noah's?) outer garment58 and put (it) on the shoulders of the two of them and walked backwards. And they covered the nakedness of their father, with their faces turned the other way,59 and they did not see the nakedness of their father. 24WhenNoah woke up from his wine (that is, drunkenness), he came to know60 what his youngest son had done (casd) to him. (9:20-24)
Noah then cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, declaring that Canaan would become the slave of "his brothers," Shem (= Israel) and Japheth (= the Philistines?). God would give the land of Canaan to Israel but would also "make space for Japheth" by permitting Japheth to "live in the tents of Shem" (9:25-27).
What was Ham's horrible crime? A simple interpretation of the text indicates that the Canaanites were cursed because the father of their eponymous ancestor Canaan saw his father Noah lying in his tent naked and provoked Noah's ire. That a literal "seeing" was involved, nothing more, is suggested by the attribution of Shem s and Japheth's "not seeing" to keeping their faces turned away from Noah. Moreover, Noah's "uncovered" state is rectified by putting Noah's cloak over him.61 However, as Wold notes, there are problems with this interpretation.
Was there a custom that children did not even look into the tent of their parents? How could Ham have known that his father was naked when he opened the tent flap? Perhaps, in his innocence, he meant only to speak with his father. Or, more altruistically, perhaps he knew that his father had taken too much wine and needed assistance of some sort. Perhaps Ham saw his naked father and entertained lewd thoughts (i.e., lusted after him), but did nothing about it. If so, this incident would be one of the earliest examples where an individual is made liable to a curse or penalty for merely intending to do something.... Scholars who accept the literal view maintain that Ham only saw his nude father, but they must defend a custom about which we know nothing. They must also presume an immoral intention based on the severity of the curse imposed by Noah. A further problem with this view is that it does not explain why the curse was pronounced on Ham's son Canaan and not on Ham himself.62
These problems are resolved satisfactorily when one understands this story as an instance of incestuous, homosexual rape. Wold and Nissinen, among others, have made a convincing case for this interpretation.63
First, the story appears to place Ham inside the tent, suggesting an action beyond peeking into the tent. Gen 9:22 clearly states that, after seeing his father's nakedness, Ham "told (it) to his two brothers outside." The Septuagint is even more explict, adding (or translating from a different Hebrew version) that Ham "went out and told . . . " (exelthdn). What was he doing inside the tent? Possibly the tent was understood to be off-limits to the sons, explaining why Shem and Japheth were "outside" and unaware. The fact that v. 23 refers to Shem and Japheth taking "the outer garment" suggests that the garment was Noah's.64 How did Noah's garment happen to be outside the tent? The most likely answer is: Ham brought it out when he went back outside. Why would Ham have brought out Noah's garment? A possible answer: Ham brought the garment out as proof of what he "had done" to his father. It was the evidence he needed to establish bragging rights.
Second, when Noah woke up, "he learned what his youngest son had done to him"—not the expression one would expect to describe an unintended glance or even voyeurism.65 If wayyitgal is translated "and he was uncovered" rather than "and he uncovered himself," it "leaves the door open" for asking: who uncovered Noah? The continuation in 9:22 (which need not be separated from 9:21 with a period) intimates that Ham committed the unspeakable act.
Third, and most important, the language of "uncovering" and "seeing the nakedness of connects up with similar phrases denoting sexual intercourse.66 Leviticus uses the phrase "uncover the nakedness of to denote incest (18:6-18; 20:11, 17-21; also in 18:19, of sexual intercourse with a woman during her menstrual cycle). The same phrase is used elsewhere in the Bible of prostitution and adultery, and of rape and/or public exposure for adultery.67 In Lev 20:17, the expression "sees his/her nakedness" is used to describe sibling incest; in other instances, the phrase "seeing the nakedness of may imply an opportunity for rape.68
Fourth, the claim that the text is concerned with Ham's homosexual rape of his father is bolstered by the depiction of homosexual rape in a Mesopotamian omen text and the Egyptian myth of Horus and Seth (both cited above); in other words, as attempts at emasculating, disgracing, and demonstrating one's power over a rival. By raping his father and alerting his brothers to the act, Ham hoped to usurp the authority of his father and elder brothers, establishing his right to succeed his father as patriarch.
Fifth, the brothers' actions in "covering their father's nakedness" and taking great pains not to look at their father is compatible with an interpretation of "seeing another's nakedness" as sexual intercourse. The brothers' actions play on the broader meaning of the phrase. Not only did the brothers not "see their father's nakedness" in the sense of having intercourse with him, but also they did not even dare to "see their father's nakedness" in a literal sense. Where Ham's act was exceedingly evil, their gesture was exceedingly pious and noble.
Sixth, understanding Ham's action as incestuous, homosexual rape of one's father explains the severity of the curse on Canaan. According to Lev 18:24-30; 20:22-26, the reason God decided to "vomit out" the Canaanites from the land was their participation in such "abominable practices" (coercive or voluntary) as incest (mentioned most often in Leviticus 18, 20) and same-sex intercourse (singled out for special mention as an "abominable practice"). The etiological thrust of Gen 9:20-27 lies at the forefront: The Canaanites deserve to be dispossessed of the land and made slaves because they are, and always have been, avid practitioners of immoral activity. In the new post-diluvian world, it was their ancestor that committed the most heinous act imaginable—not just rape, but incest; not just incestuous rape, but homosexual intercourse; not just incestuous, homosexual rape, but rape of one's own father, to whom supreme honor and obedience is owed. It is, in effect, in the Canaanites' blood to be unremittingly evil. Canaanite proclivity to homosexual rape is hinted at by J in Gen 10:19 when he mentions the fact that the territory of the Canaanites extended as far south as Sodom and Gomorrah. The etiological character of the story about Ham also explains why the curse fell on Canaan rather than Ham. The story was being transmitted at a time when Canaan alone— not Egypt, Cush, and Put, Ham's other "sons"—had been dispossessed by Israel. History had shown that the curse on Ham was really a curse only on Canaan. And the punishment eminently fit the crime (lex talionis). Just as Ham committed a heinous act with his "seed" (sperm), so too the curse fell on his "seed" (son, descendants).69
Thus it is likely that the narrator charged Ham with committing a heinous act of incestuous, homosexual rape of his father. This interpretation of Gen 9:20-27 is not unique in the history of interpretation. Three Greek translations of 9:22 (those of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian) substitute ten aschemosynen ("shamefulness") for ten gymnosin ("nakedness")—the same Greek term employed by the LXX in the phrase "uncover the nakedness of throughout Lev 18:6-19 and 20:11, 17-21 (referring to incest). It is also applied by Paul to homosexual intercourse in Rom 1:27. "Perhaps Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian intended to imply that Ham committed a homosexual act with his father, but this implication is not necessary, as they might have chosen aschemosyne to render cerwat and to mean nothing more than nakedness."70 The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 70a) records a debate between Rab and Samuel (early third century c.E.) about the meaning of "had done to him" in Gen 9:24: "Rab and Samuel [differ], one maintaining that he castrated him, while the other says that he had homosexual relations with him."71
The relevance of the story for discussing contemporary homosexuality is complicated by other factors. Gen 9:20-27 is not just about samesex intercourse but also about other grave offenses: rape, incest, and dishonoring one's father. Perhaps Ham is condemned for the latter three offenses, not the same-sex component of the act? Yet for the Yahwist, whose view of Canaanite sexual immorality appears to have been similar to that espoused in Levitical law, Deuteronomic law, and the Deuteronomistic History, it can hardly be doubted that the element of same-sex intercourse was an important compounding factor leading to the curse.
This is confirmed by the way in which Levitical law frames the discussion of incest and same-sex intercourse. None of the prohibitions of specific forms of incest in Lev 18:6-18; 20:11-21 mentions acts of incest between two males. There are no explicit prohibitions of intercourse between a father and a son (or son-in-law, or stepson), or grandfather and grandson, or a man and his brother (or stepbrother, or brother-in-law), or an uncle and a nephew.72 Clearly, this is not because incestuous same-sex intercourse was permitted (see the placement of the prohibition against same-sex intercourse in 20:13 in the midst of a series of incest prohibitions). Rather, its occurrence was probably considered so rare and heinous that no explicit prohibition was required other than the general prohibitions in Lev 18:22; 20:13. Homosexual intercourse was understood to cut across all categories of sexual immorality, constituting its own distinct sin.
Furthermore, in Gen 19:30-38 the Yahwist recounts another story of offspring taking sexual advantage of their fathers state of drunkenness. The Yahwist finds the circumstances distasteful and undoubtedly employs the story to slander the origins of the Moabites and Ammonites. However, the degree of revulsion expressed by the Yahwist for this case of heterosexual incest is nothing like the degree of revulsion registered toward Ham's act of homosexual incest (certainly one can sympathize with the motives of the daughters of Lot: the desire for progeny; compare the Tamar-Judah episode in Gen 38). Thus incestuous homosexual practice counted as two heinous acts, not one: incest and homosexual practice.
Nissinen points out that the story "does not speak of Ham's homosexual orientation but his hunger for power."73 Whether the Yahwist thought that Ham's aggressive act was carried out entirely apart from any depraved, same-sex lust cannot be known with any certainty. Nissinen, though, is certainly correct that Ham's behavior was significantly motivated by a lust for power. Does that mean that the story does not speak to consensual and loving homosexual acts? The question of homosexual orientation was surely irrelevant to the denunciation of same-sex intercourse, just as any debate about an orientation toward incest (or bestiality) would have been irrelevant. It was the act that mattered.
As with Lev 18:22; 20:13, the author probably regarded every act of male same-sex intercourse as detestable since the penetrated male, at the moment of penetration, inherently functions as a female—whether the act of same-sex intercourse is coercive or consensual. We have also seen a similar disdain in ancient Near Eastern texts both for men who rape other males and for males who willingly offer their bodies to other men (male cult prostitutes partly exempted).
Gen 9:20-27 takes an even more stringent approach. Whereas in the ancient Near East generally there were some mixed signals about homosexual behavior, especially as regards the status of the one doing the penetrating, the narrator in Gen 9:20-27 is unequivocal in his condemnation of Ham. If Hams intent was to use anal penetration of his father as a means of establishing the dominance of his lineage over that of his brothers, his plan backfired, for he brought upon his descendants a horrific curse.
Traditionally, Gen 19:4-11 has been regarded as the classic Bible story about homosexuality. However, to the extent that the story does not deal directly with consensual homosexual relationships, it is not an "ideal" text to guide contemporary Christian sexual ethics. Nevertheless, many go too far when they argue that the story has little or nothing to do with homosexual practice; that, instead, the story is only about inhospitality or rape.74 As with the story of Ham's incestuous, homosexual rape of Noah, the inherently degrading quality of same-sex intercourse plays a key role in the narrators intent to elicit feelings of revulsion on the part of the reader/hearer.
In Genesis 18, Abraham is visited by three "men," who (according to the narrator) are Yahweh and two angels. After Abraham's and Sarahs show of hospitality to the visitors (18:1-8) and an assurance from one of the visitors that Sarah would give birth to a son (18:9-15), Yahweh informed Abraham that the two angels were being sent to Sodom to see if the "outcry" against the people of Sodom and Gomorrah concerning their "grave sin" was true (18:20-21; cf. 19:13). In the meantime, Abraham secured from Yahweh an agreement not to destroy Sodom (the residence of his nephew Lot) if ten righteous people could be found (18:22-33). When the two angels arrive, only Lot acts hospitably by taking the visitors into his home and exhibiting further kindnesses (bows, washes their feet, makes them a feast; 19:1-3).
4Before they could lie down,75 the men of the city, the men of Sodom— from young to old, all the people, from one end (of the city to the other)76— surrounded the house, they called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know (= have intercourse with) them.6Lot went out to the doorway to (meet) them and shut the door behind him.7He said to them, "No,8Here are two daughters of mine who have not known (= had intercourse with) a man. Let me bring them out to you; and do to them according to that which is good in your eyes;77 my brothers, do not act wickedly.78 only do not do a thing to these men for they have come under the shelter79 of my roof."9But they said, "Step away over there!"80 And they said, "This guy82 and he has the nerve to act like a judge!81 came to live as an immigrant83 Now we will act more wickedly toward you than toward them." 85 the man84 And they kept putting intense pressure on86 Lot and stepped forward to break down the door. 10But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door.11They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blinding light,87 from small to great, so that they grew tired (of trying)88 to find the doorway. (Gen 19:4-11)
The angels then confirmed to Lot that Yahweh had sent them to destroy the city (19:12-14). In the morning, Lot, his wife, and his two daughters were coaxed by the angels out of the city (19:15-23). Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the Plain (except Zoar) were then destroyed and Lot's wife, looking back, was turned into a pillar of salt (19:24-26). Later, while living in a cave in the hills, Lot's two daughters get him drunk and "lay with" him on two consecutive nights "so that we may preserve offspring through our father." From these acts of incest Moab and Ben-ammi were born (19:30-38).
Derrick Bailey, followed by John Boswell and John McNeill, argues that "know" in Gen 19:5 meant "get acquainted with," not "have sexual intercourse with." c ("to know") is used in a sexual sense only fifteen other times out of nine hundred forty-three uses in the Hebrew Bible (though six of these are found in Yahwistic material in Genesis alone).89 It is true that the Hebrew verb yada90 Even so, the immediate context (Lot's offer to give the men of Sodom his "two daughters who have not 'known' a man," 19:8) and the close parallels in the related story of the Levite's concubine in Judg 19:22, 25 (which clearly use "know" in the sense of "have sexual intercourse with") leave little room for doubting the sexual connotation. In looking at the meaning of words, to paraphrase a slogan from the real estate industry, three things are most important: context, context, context. Few scholars today, even among supporters of homoerotic behavior, adopt Bailey's argument.91
Certainly the reason given by Lot for not handing over the men ("for they have come under the shelter of my roof) suggests his intention to act as a proper host in accordance with the high value placed on hospitality by ancient convention.92 Both the safety of his guests and his own honor are at stake. Beyond that, it is difficult to say from the story's perspective how much of Lot's desire to give up his own daughters instead of offering himself is due to plain self-interest,93 how much is due to a devaluation of women in ancient culture,94 and how much is due to the revulsion felt for same-sex eroticism. Ultimately, however, since the story is used as a type scene to characterize the depth of human depravity in Sodom and Gomorrah and thus to legitimate God's decision to wipe these two cities off the face of the map, it is likely that the sin of Sodom is not merely inhospitality or even attempted rape of a guest but rather attempted homosexual rape of male guests.
As with Gen 9:20-27, the perversion of same-sex male intercourse appears to be an integral part of this story, along with other factors. Just as one form of illicit copulation (between angels and women) contributed to the earlier cataclysm of the great flood in Genesis 6 (an important element in the general "wickedness of humankind," 6:5), so too another form of unnatural sexual relations (between men) served as a key contributing factor in the cataclysmic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.95 The story in Gen 19:1-14 is just one event, but a vital one in epitomizing the towns' widespread wickedness (cf. 18:20: "how very grave their sin!").
Middle Assyrian Law A §20 proscribes homosexual rape precisely because of the homosexual element. This is clear enough from the implicit application of the lex talionis in the punishment (castration) and by the preceding law (MAL A §19) regarding the great social disgrace of being known as a person with whom other men have had intercourse. To "lie with a man as though lying with a woman" (Lev 18:22; 20:13) was to treat a man as though his masculine identity counted for nothing, as though he were not a man but a woman. To penetrate another man was to treat him like an assinnu, like someone whose "masculinity had been transformed into femininity." Thus three elements (attempted penetration of males, attempted rape, inhospitality), and perhaps a fourth (unwitting, attempted sex with angels),96 combine to make this a particularly egregious example of human depravity that justifies God's act of total destruction. It may well be that inhospitality and social injustice constitute the overarching rubric for the story, as subsequent interpretations of the event indicate. Yet what makes this instance of inhospitality so dastardly, what makes the name "Sodom" a byword for inhumanity to visiting outsiders in later Jewish and Christian circles, is the specific form in which the inhospitality manifests itself: homosexual rape.
The demand of the men of Sodom to have sex with Lot's visitors, along with their subsequent threat to "act more wickedly toward you [Lot] than toward them [the two visitors]" (19:9), climaxes and establishes beyond doubt the utterly evil character of the city's inhabitants that had been alleged on other grounds earlier in the narrative (13:13; 18:20-33). The inhospitality here was not a minor breech of etiquette such as neglecting to set out the best dinner plates and utensils. It was not just a case of failing to take a traveler into one's home, to wash his feet, to offer food, shelter, and protection.97
Leland White, Daniel Boyarin, and Martti Nissinen, among others, posit that the intent of the Sodomites was to challenge Lot's honor as a resident alien by dishonoring Lot's guests.98 This being the case, one cannot say that their desire was to have homosexual sex "unless we want to believe that all the men of Sodom are homosexual."99 The truth is that no one can say precisely how the Yahwist construed the motives of the men of Sodom (beyond generic evil), though a reasonable conjecture might be a combination of homoerotic or bisexual lust on the part of at least some of the crowd and an aggressive intent to dominate and humiliate strangers to Sodom by forcing on them an abominable and shameful practice. A strict either/or interpretation, either homosexual/bisexual lust or an aggressive disgrace of visitors, goes beyond the wording of the text and imposes a distinction that did not always hold true in the ancient world. As we have seen, homosexual desire was not unknown in the ancient Near East, not to mention ancient Greece. Heterosexual rape is an act of aggression, but it is usually not void of all sexual desire. There was no need for the Yahwist to stress the intentions of the inhabitants that lay beyond their demand to have sex with Lot's male visitors. Whether each and every man in the mob aimed solely at pure violence and domination, or whether some hoped to take advantage of the strangers for a sexual thrill as well, matters little to the story line—and certainly would have mattered little to the visitors. The stress is entirely on the mob's horrible plans for mistreating the seemingly helpless visitors—not just that they wanted to mistreat them but the way in which they chose to mistreat them. As with the author(s) of the Levitical prohibitions, the Yahwist is less concerned with motives than with the act of penetrating a male as if he were a female, an act that by its very nature is demeaning regardless of how well it is done.100
To suggest that the story does not speak to the issue of homosexual behavior between consenting adults, even in an indirect way, is misleading. Undoubtedly for the Yahwist, the difference between consenting homosexual intercourse and coerced homosexual intercourse was that in the former both participants willingly degraded themselves while in the latter one of the parties was forced into self-degradation. The burden of proof is entirely on those who would assert otherwise, particularly given the Yahwistic material in Genesis 2-3 that gives etiological sanction only for marriage and sex between male and female, the story of Ham's homosexual rape of his father, the exclusively heterosexual relationships portrayed throughout the Yahwistic source, and the general consonance between the Yahwist and the legal material of the Pentateuch in assessing abhorrent sexual practices. While the story of Sodom, because of the added factors of inhospitality and rape, is not an ideal passage for studying the Bible's views on same-sex intercourse, it nevertheless remains a relevant text.101
Sometimes the argument is made that, since later biblical texts mention things other than homosexuality as the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen 19:4-11 must not have anything negative to say about homosexual conduct.102 Four groups of Bible texts stand out.103
(1) Isaiah likens the devastation of the country around Zion to that of Sodom and Gomorrah, refers to the leaders of Judah as "you rulers of Sodom," labels their offerings and incense an "abomination," and then proceeds to accuse them of having blood on their hands because they have not given justice to the oppressed, the orphan, and the widow (Isa 1:7-17). These themes resemble the Yahwist's motif of Sodom's hostility toward the vulnerable among them, visitors (the angels), and resident aliens (Lot).
(2) Ezekiel states that "the sin" of Sodom consisted of the fact that "she and her daughters (i.e., the towns in Sodom's territorial orbit) had pride (or: arrogance), an oversatiation from food, complacency (or: unconcern) brought on by peace and quiet; and she (Sodom) did not take hold of the hand of the poor and the needy (i.e., did not help them). And they grew haughty and committed an abomination (watacasênâ tôcebâ) 104 before me and I removed them when I saw it" (16:49-50).105
The context is a comparison of the "abominations" of Jerusalem/Judah with those of her "sisters" Samaria and Sodom. In ch. 16, Jerusalem's "abominations" are idolatrous actions (image making, child sacrifices, foreign alliances). The effect of such actions on the covenant with Yahweh is communicated (as often in the prophets) through the metaphor or allegory of the unfaithful wife (here adultery, paying others for sex, lustful abandon to other lovers). Thus, on the level of allegory, Jerusalem's "abominations" are sexual sins; on the level of reality, Jerusalem's "abominations" are idolatrous practices.
At first glance, Ezekiel's description of Sodom's sin appears to focus exclusively, or at least primarily, on the sin of social injustice. A robust economy at Sodom (cf. Gen 13:10) led to complacency and pride which, in turn, led to a callous indifference toward the plight of "the poor and needy." It is commonplace among proponents of same-sex intercourse to assert that Ezekiel did not interpret the sin of Sodom in terms of sexual immorality, at least not in its own right.106
Yet can such an assertion be justified? The passage does not explicitly state that the "abomination" consisted of a failure to attend to the poor and needy. Since the Hebrew word for "abomination" (tôcebâ) is the same word used in the Levitical prohibitions for homosexual intercourse, it is conceivable that Ezekiel is alluding to the same.107 The overtone of sexual immorality in the surrounding allegory lends support for such an interpretation. However, this identification could be questioned. The plural "abominations" (tôcebôt) is applied elsewhere in Ezekiel to a wide array of vices, including sins of social injustice, so it is possible that "abomination" here does refer to failure to help the poor and needy. One must decide whether the progression in 16:49-50 consists of three steps or four. Is the progression: (1) abundance; (2) flagrant disregard of God's will; (3) callous indifference toward the poor (= abomination)? Or should the "abomination" be viewed as a fourth stage: (4) abominable same-sex intercourse? Alternatively, "abomination" may have in view the rape of helpless visitors sheltered by a resident alien, made doubly offensive by the inherent degradation of same-sex intercourse, as a particularly vivid instance of crimes against "the poor and the needy."108
Ezek 18:10-13 provides an intriguing double use of tôcebâ that may solve the dilemma:
10But if he has born to him a son who is a ruffian (or: a violent person; a burglar), a shedder of blood, and he does any of these things— 11although he (viz., his father) has not done any of these things: he eats on the mountains, or defiles his neighbor's wife, 12oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not return a pledge, or lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits an abomination (casâ tôcebâ), 13lends at interest and takes an extra charge, shall he (viz., the son) then live? [or: he shall certainly not live]. He committed all these abominations (¸et kol hattôcebôt ha¸ellehcasâ);109 he shall certainly be put to death. His blood shall be on himself.
It is apparent that "he commits an abomination" does not directly refer back to the clause "he oppresses the poor and needy" because the clause "or he lifts up his eyes to the idols" intervenes between the two expressions. This in turn suggests that the clause "he committed an abomination" in 16:50 does not refer back to the preceding "she did not take hold of the hand of the poor and the needy." Moreover, there is little reason to believe that "he commits an abomination" in 18:12 alludes to the immediately preceding clause (idolatry) or the following clause (interestbearing loans) since it appears as just one element among many in an ongoing list.110 There are no indications in the Hebrew that a break in thought has occurred either just before or just after the clause, as if the clause represented a sort of parenthetical declaration about all the sins being mentioned.111 The concluding summary, "He committed all these abominations," plays that role. The clause "he commits an abomination" must then refer to a distinct act of its own, perhaps so heinous in the author's view that it could be described only by way of metonymy.
The explanation for the singular and plural uses of tôcebâ in 18:12-13 probably lies with the similar phenomenon in Leviticus 18, part of the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26). A summary following a list of forbidden sexual relations in Lev 18:6-23 characterizes all of the preceding acts as "abominations" (tôcebôt, 18:24-30, with the plural appearing in 18:26, 27, 29, 30). However, in all of the Holiness Code only homosexual intercourse is singled out for special mention within the list as "an abomination" (18:22 and 20:13). The point is probably the same for Ezek 18:10-13; all of the preceding acts are "abominations," but there is one specific act that deserves the label above all others: homosexual intercourse. The phrase in Lev 20:13 is nearly an exact match with Ezek 18:12: "they committed an abomination" (casû tôcebâ). The lists of evil actions in Ezek 18:5-9,10-13, 14-18, each of which overlaps the others significantly, bear very strong connections to the Holiness Code, so a tie to Lev 18:22; 20:13 ("an abomination") and 18:26-30 ("abominations") is likely.112 The two other singular uses of tôcebâ in Ezekiel (22:11; 33:26), like all the occurrences of tôcebâ in Leviticus (singular and plural),113 refer to sexual sins as well.114 Therefore, the evidence indicates that the singular tôcebâ in Ezek 16:50 refers to the (attempted)commission of atrocious sexual immorality at Sodom, probably the homosexual intercourse proscribed in Lev 18:22; 20:13.
In that case, an important literary nexus would be created between the Holiness Code (or the circles out of which the Holiness Code grew) and the Yahwist's epic (or an independent tradition similar to Gen 19:1-11), by way of the sixth-century exilic prophet-priest Ezekiel. For we are contending that Ezekiel interpreted the actions of the men of Sodom in Gen 19:1-11 in the light of Lev 18:22; 20:13 (or prototypes of these texts). In both contexts, the commission of immoral sexual acts led, or is said to lead, to "removal": Sodom's destruction and Canaan's dispossession. We have already observed a similar link between the story of Ham's act of incest and homosexual intercourse in Gen 9:20-27 and the laws in Leviticus 18. In both texts the Canaanites are said to have been disinherited from the land of Canaan because of their abominable commission of such forbidden sexual sins as incest and homosexual intercourse. A connection between Lev 18:22; 20:13 and Gen 19:1-11 in EzekiePs thinking would also mean that Ezekiel defined one of two concrete manifestations of sin at Sodom as sexual immorality (the other being social injustice).
Even this analysis, though, does not get at the deeper sin of Sodom from Ezekiel's perspective. Ezekiel thought that the inhabitants of the city became "prideful" and "haughty" as a result of the city's prosperity, and in their prosperity they both neglected the poor and committed a particularly abominable act of sexual immorality. The two evils are linked by a flagrant disregard of God's own priorities, putting the human self at the center of the cosmos. In Ezekiel's view, the overarching rubric for the sin of Sodom is not inhospitality or homosexual behavior but human arrogance in relation to God. The focus is theocentric.115
A similar theocentric focus appears in the earliest known interpretation of Ezek 16:49-50. Yeshua ben Sira (a teacher of wisdom living in Jerusalem, ca. 200-180 B.C.E.) wrote that God "did not spare those living in the place where Lot sojourned, whom he regarded as abominable116 on account of their pride (or: arrogance)" (Sir 16:8). "Pride" was a central negative concept for ben Sira (as for wisdom literature generally), treated as the antithesis of the humility necessary for attaining wisdom. In Sir 10:12-18, ben Sira states that
the beginning of pride is when a human withdraws from the Lord, and his heart withdraws from his Maker. For die beginning of pride is sin, and the one who clings to it will pour forth abomination. Because of it the Lord brings on them unheard-of calamities, and utterly destroys them. . . . The Lord lays waste the lands of the nations and destroys them to the foundations of the earth. He removes some of them and destroys them, and erases the memory of them from the earth. Pride has not been created for human beings, nor violent (or: furious, stubborn) anger for those bom of women.
The description reads like an indirect commentary on the cataclysmic destruction of Sodom. Pride, by definition, is the rejection of the Creator and the divinely sanctioned order of creation. Genesis 1-3, Lev 18:22; 20:13, and, as we shall see below, Rom 1:26-27 all suggest that same-sex intercourse was rejected on the grounds that it constituted a violation of the anatomical and procreative sexual complementarity of male and female in creation—by definition an instance of pride, a supplanting of God's design in creation for sexuality in favor of one's own design.
However, the context of Sir 10:12-18 points in the first instance to the social injustice (adikia) of the rich and powerful against the lowly (10:8, 14-15, 18), getting angry with one's neighbor "for every injury," and "violent anger." Since 10:12-18 does not directly mention Sodom, we can expect the application to be tailored to the specific needs of the authors subject matter rather than to the story of Sodom itself. In close proximity are warnings about sexual sin (sex with a prostitute, adultery, fornication, 9:1-9). Elsewhere ben Sira can speak of sexual sin too as the product of arrogance and an absence of the fear of the Lord. "The one who sins against his marriage-bed says to himself, 'Who can see me? . . . The Most High will not remember sins.'. . . So it is with a woman who leaves her husband . . . her disgrace will never be blotted out. Those who survive her will recognize that nothing is better than the fear of the Lord . . ." (23:18, 22, 26-27).117 Consequently, it is possible that in 16:8 ben Sira interpreted the sin of Sodom as both violent injustice toward strangers and immoral sexual conduct toward the same; or as hostile behavior toward "sojourners," climaxing in an act of homosexual rape.118 The theme of hostility toward visitors is confirmed by Wis 19:13-14, though given an odd twist. The Egyptians in the time of Moses "suffered justly for their own evil acts, for they practiced a more grievous hatred of strangers. For others (the citizens of Sodom?) did not receive/welcome visitors whom they did not know, but these (viz., the Egyptians) enslaved guests and benefactors."119
(3) In the New Testament, an early strand of Jesus tradition (Q) hands down words of Jesus that compare the greater culpability of those who treat Jesus' messengers inhospitably with the lesser guilt incurred by the people of Sodom. "Whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, as you go out of that town shake off the dust from your feet. I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day (of judgment) for Sodom than for that town" (Luke 10:10-12 par. Matt 10:14-15).120
(4) Jude 7 characterizes Sodom and Gomorrah as cities "that committed sexual immorality [ekporneusasai] and went after other flesh." The reference to sexual immorality is ambiguous (though it probably refers to homosexual acts), while the clause "went after other flesh" probably refers to their attempt to copulate with Lot's angelic visitors. In other words, the two actions (committing sexual immorality and pursuing angels) are to be treated as related, but distinct, actions. Less likely, the two actions are to be regarded as a unitary concept (a hendiadys): they "practiced sexual immorality by going after other flesh." Since Gen 19:1-11 nowhere intimates that the men of Sodom were aware that the visitors were angels, or that the men desired to have sex with angels, this interpretation appears strained. A better understanding is that in their lust for sexual intercourse with other men, the men of Sodom inadvertently put themselves in the sacrilegious position of pursuing sexual intercourse with angels. "In like manner" the false believers, against whom Jude wages combat, had through their lust for immoral sexual behavior come into conflict with the angelic guardians of this world order. The sexual freedom of the former required the rebuttal and slander of the latter. Second Peter 2:6-10, partly dependent on Jude 7, speaks of the "licentious conduct of the lawless" Sodomites and God's judgment on them as a lesson to "those who indulge the defiling passion of the flesh." Thus both Jude 7 and 2 Pet 2:6-10, like some texts in the Pseudepigrapha,121 connect the sin of Sodom with passions for sexual immorality, not failure to provide social justice or inhospitality.
The above overview demonstrates two main strands of interpretation regarding Sodom's sin(s): one that focused on sins of social injustice or inhospitality; another that stressed sexual immorality. Some authors weave the two themes together. In the case of those who mention only the first strand, social injustice or inhospitality, it would be a mistake to conclude from their silence about any homosexual sin at Sodom that they did not regard homosexual intercourse as exceedingly sinful. Some pre-exilic and exilic prophets may have had access only to a tradition about the evil at Sodom that contained no mention of attempted homosexual rape. Even the Yahwist's version of the Sodom cycle in Genesis 18-19 views the story in 19:1-11 as a definitive proof of a larger truth; namely, that the "great outcry" that had come to God regarding the "very grave sin" of Sodom and Gomorrah was accurate (18:20-21). The abuse of outsiders who sought lodging in Sodom and Gomorrah undoubtedly took other forms in addition to homosexual rape. Some other interpretations imply that the Sodomites perpetrated evils on its own citizenry, not just outsiders. Writers would be free to select elements of the Sodom tradition that most spoke to their contemporary situation.
Even if, contrary to what we have argued, the texts in Ezekiel and Jude were construed as making no reference to homosexual intercourse, one still would have little basis for inferring that these authors were somehow neutral about homosexual practice. Ezekiel was a Zadokite priest. His message within the prophetic corpus of the canon shows the deepest concern for the kinds of purity law enshrined in Leviticus 17-26. Both he and the author of Jude are among the more "orthodox" and conservative of the writers of the Bible. It is unimaginable that either of them would have adopted a more liberal stance on the question of homosexuality. Any putative silence on their part about homosexual intercourse would have to be attributed to the ad hoc nature of their writings. In a desire to make tradition or Scripture relevant to their audience, they highlighted elements in the Sodom story that spoke to the issues of their own day. If same-sex intercourse were not an issue among their readers, there would have been little need to address it explicitly.
The stance of Jesus on homosexual behavior will be dealt with in ch. 3. Suffice it for now to say that inhospitality and homosexual practice were probably not mutually exclusive categories for Jesus.122 In the Jesus saying cited above, Sodom is singled out as the most atrocious example of inhospitality mentioned in the scriptures of Israel (a reasonable interpretation given the cataclysmic judgment of God on the city). What made it so atrocious? Many factors, to be sure, but the height of the town's evil was epitomized by the attempt to rape visiting strangers and a resident alien, and, worse still, sexual intercourse with males: emasculating Lot's guests by treating them not in accordance with their nature as males but as females to be penetrated in anal sex. What gives the Jesus saying an unusual twist is its assertion that, as bad as the inhospitality of Sodom was (and it was bad), those towns that refuse to listen to Jesus' messengers proclaiming salvation before the Day of the Lord will be charged with even greater inhospitality.
Jesus' likely awareness of the homoerotic dimension to the sins of Sodom is confirmed not only by the presence of Gen 19:4-11 in his scriptures but also by the fact that the two most prominent Jewish writers of the first century C.E., Philo and Josephus, interpreted Gen 19:4-11 to refer explicitly to homosexual acts.123 Both Philo (a Jew from Alexandria, Egypt) and Josephus (who lived in Israel for the first thirty years of his life, thereafter Rome) also cited other sins of the people, such as arrogance, inhospitality to strangers, gluttony, drunkenness, and adultery, all sins due to the extreme wealth and excess prosperity of these cities.124 For Philo and Josephus homosexual conduct was merely the most outrageous example of a much wider range of sinful excess. This validates the observation that some of the other applications of the Sodom story (arrogance, inhospitality, social injustice) were not necessarily made to the exclusion of a critique of homosexual intercourse.
This story parallels closely the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. 125 Here a certain Levite from the hill country of Ephraim had just negotiated in Bethlehem with his father-in-law for his concubines return.126 En route to Ephraim they and a male servant stopped off at Gibeah (in Benjamin). They waited for a time in the public square "but no one took them in to spend the night." Finally, an old man (also originally from the hill country of Ephraim, not a Benjamite) took them in.
22While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, worthless men,127 surrounded the house, pounding on the door. They said to the
old man, the master of the house, "Bring out the man who has come to your house so that we may know (= have intercourse with) him." 23The man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, "No, my brothers, do not act wickedly. Since this man has come to my house, do not do this disgrace (n balâ).128 24Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let me bring them out; and violate129 them and do to them that which is good in your eyes; but to this man you must not do this disgraceful thing (debar hann balâ)."25But the men were unwilling to listen to him; so the man seized his concubine and thrust her outside to them. They knew (= had intercourse with) her and they abused130 her all night until the morning. When dawn began to break, they let her go.
The woman dragged herself to the door and collapsed. In the morning "her master/husband" (¸adônêhâ) got up and found her lying at the door. When she did not answer his command to "get up," he put her on his donkey and, on returning home, cut her up into twelve pieces. The parts were distributed through emissaries to the various tribes, as a summons to holy war against the tribe of Benjamin (the battle and aftermath are described in chs. 20-21).
Similar questions to those raised by the story of Sodom appear here. Was the owner of the house willing to sacrifice his daughter and the Levite's concubine to the mob, rather than let them have the Levite, because of the inferior social status of the women? Or was it because male rape of a female was considered less heinous than homosexual intercourse? Given the poor treatment of the concubine throughout the story, it can hardly be doubted that her life was viewed by the old man (and by the Levite) as worth less than her husband's. Even though she too was a guest (unlike the old man's daughter), she was a guest of significantly lesser stature than her husband. When the old man twice implored the men of the city not to do this "senseless, disgraceful thing" or "appalling act" (n balâ, 19:23-24), a good part of what he had in mind was the inhospitable humiliation and subduing of a traveler through forced sex. Thus he could say with reference to the women: "violate (humiliate, overpower, subdue) them," that is, rather than violate the Levite (19:24). The Levite could later refer to what happened to his concubine, along with the attempt on his own life, as a n balâ (20:6; cf. 20:10). Indeed, in recounting the events at Gibeah, the Levite says nothing about an attempted homosexual rape; only the words "they intended to kill me" (20:5). Quite apart from a homosexual assault, the heterosexual rape and murder of the traveler's concubine was alleged to be the greatest atrocity committed by Israelites since the days of the exodus from Egypt (19:30).131
The theme of inhospitality is clearly marked at the beginning of the narrative by the comment that "no one took them in to spend the night" when they sat down in the city square. As with the Sodom story, the only one who extended an offer of lodging was a man who was not native to the city.132 So one could argue that the Gibeah incident is not so much about homosexual practice as about inhospitality manifested in a vicious rape and murder. Nissinen, following Boyarin, can state:
The main cause for offense in the story of Gibeah is the heterosexual assault on the Levite's wife. Perhaps not surprisingly, no later interpreter of the story, ancient or modern, has condemned heterosexual behavior because of this text, although it is structurally equivalent to the story of Sodom, which has been used to condemn homosexuality.133
In other words, people do not draw the conclusion that all heterosexual intercourse is bad from a story about heterosexual rape; why should they draw the conclusion that all homosexual intercourse is bad from a story about attempted homosexual rape?
The logic sounds convincing until one stops to reflect on the historical and literary contexts for the narrative in Judges 19-21. The Deuteronomistic History, as we shall argue below, takes a clear stance against homosexual intercourse as an abominable violation of God's standards for human sexual expression. It is itself dependent on the Deuteronomic law code for its moral valuation of various acts, a work which also takes a demeaning view of homosexual intercourse (referring to homosexual cult prostitutes as "dogs"). As noted in connection with the narrative about Sodom and Gomorrah, similar views were held by the authors of pentateuchal material and in the ancient Near East generally. In these contexts, how is it possible to reasonably argue that homosexual intercourse per se did not add to the dimension of horror for the old man, for the Levite, and for the narrator of the story? Repugnance for male penetration of males must have been a significant factor in twice designating the demand for sexual intercourse with the Levite as a n balâ much greater than that involving intercourse with the old man's daughter and the Levite's concubine. It was an act that underscored the perversion of the Israelite men of Gibeah.134 A similar conclusion was reached by Susan Niditch:
In Judges 19, the unwelcome attack has the additional negative feature of homosexuality. . . . The threat of homosexual rape is thus a doubly potent symbol of acultural, non-civilized behavior from the Israelite point of view. . . . homosexual rape is not merely an attack against an individual. It threatens proper family-concepts and . . . the greater community of Israelites. . . . the Benjamites' rape of a female is hypothetically less of an abomination than the homosexual attack.135
Niditch explains the subsequent terse statement of the Levite to the tribal assembly at Mispah ("they intended to kill me," Judg 20:5) as due to "uncomfortableness in the tradition about reemphasizing the homosexual aspect of the attack."136 One can read between the lines: Homosexual rape is inferred from the next statement, that "they raped (cinnû) my concubine until she died." Another possible explanation for the failure to mention homosexual rape in Judg 20:5 is that the narrator wanted to underscore the disreputable character of the Levite himself. The Levite sought to exaggerate the danger to his own person in order to rationalize his own complicity in the atrocity. Consistent with this is the fact that he "forgets" to mention his role in thrusting his concubine outside.137
The fact that the men of the city proceeded to rape the concubine raises doubts that the original demand to have sex with the Levite stemmed in part from exclusive homosexual passions, for some or all of the perpetrators.138 Rape is obviously an act that has to do with aggression, dominance, control, and humiliation of another. However, heterosexual rape often occurs in conjunction with sexual desire. Homosexual rape would appear to require some degree of sexual stimulation, if for no other reason than that sexual stimulation is usually required for erection, and erection for penetration. A strict either/or approach to the question of motivation (intent to do harm vs. sexual passion) is unwarranted for this story. In any case, the text itself is silent on the question of internal sexual motivation. As in the case of the Yahwist's rendition of the story of Sodom, the narrator here is concerned with describing evil actions, not with psychologizing the motives of the perpetrators of this vile act. Rather than argue that the narrators of the twin stories of Sodom and Gibeah would have changed their perspective on homosexual intercourse had they only had a modern understanding of sexual orientation, it is more plausible to say that it probably would not have made any difference to them.
Beyond the issue of same-sex intercourse, the story raises a number of concerns about the treatment of women.
(1) The concubine or secondary wife of the Levite is nameless and silent throughout the story, a symbol of her devaluation as a person.
(2) At the beginning of the story the narrator states that the Levite's "concubine became angry with him (Greek/Old Latin; Heb.: prostituted herself against him), and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem" (19:2). When the Levite went to Bethlehem to "speak tenderly to" his concubine in the hopes of bringing her back to the hill country of Ephraim, her fate appears to be largely in the hands of her father and her husband (19:1-9). Only the two men are explicitly mentioned as being present at the feasts. The text indicates that the woman's acquiescence is important (otherwise in her anger she might run away again and there would be no point to the Levite "speaking tenderly to" her), but the formal decision about her return ultimately rested with the two key men in her life.
(3) The decision about where to spend the night, Jebus or Gibeah, is debated by the Levite and his male servant. The concubine appears not to have any input (19:10-13).
(4) The old man at Gibeah took it upon himself to offer not only his daughter but also the Levite's concubine to the men of the city for sexual intercourse (19:24). The Levite "seized his concubine and put her out" the door in order to save himself from the mob (19:25). At no time was the concubine ever consulted.
(5) The concubines "master/husband" does not open the doors of the house again until morning, when it is time for him to leave. His intent in opening the door is not to rush out to his battered concubine but rather "he went out to go on his way" (19:27). As Lasine notes, "He acts as though he were in a hurry to get on the road to beat the morning traffic."139 His response to his concubine lying at the door is curt: "Get up, we are going" (19:27-28). When his concubine does not answer, it occasions no remark from the Levite. The text notes only that "he put her on the donkey and the man set out for his home" (19:28).
(6) Upon arriving home, he dismembered her (the MT, unlike the LXX, does not even make clear that the concubine is dead), sending her twelve pieces to the twelve tribes in a call for holy war against the Benjamites (19:29). In chopping her up, he puts the punishment of the Benjamites above a decent burial for his concubine.140 In his accompanying message he (according to the MT) does express outrage at the events of the previous day (19:30). Later at Mispah he refers to the attempt on his own life and the rape and killing of "my" concubine as a "vile outrage" (NRSV) or "monstrous crime" (NAB;20:5-6) 141 The narrator does not comment on whether the Levite's outrage was due solely to the destruction of his "property" and offense to his honor, or whether there was an element of compassion toward his deceased concubine. The behavior of the Levite throughout the story, though, suggests the former. .
(7) As an addendum, at the end of the tribal war against the Benjamites, surviving Benjamite soldiers are advised by the tribes to abduct two hundred young female dancers at the yearly festival at Shiloh and to make them their wives so that the tribe of Benjamin would not be "blotted out" (21:15-24). This they do, without the consent of the young women. Forcible abduction appears to be the only way to get around the tribes' previous pledge not to give any of their daughters in marriage to the Benjamites (21:1), even if it is by means of a mere technicality (Ackerman refers to it as "sheer casuistry").142
As a narrative with a descriptive rather than a prescriptive quality, the actions of the old man, of the Levite, and of the tribal muster in "sacrificing" women (like the action of Lot in offering his daughters to the men of Sodom) are not necessarily presented with the narrator's approval. Judges 19-21 begins with the notice "In those days, when there was no king in Israel. . ." (19:1) and ends with the notice "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes" (21:25). With these notices "the editor signals that the whole Judges 19-21 complex depicts a world gone grossly awry" (so Ackerman).143 As Nissinen puts it, 'The narrator depicts the dishonored Levite not as an innocent victim but as a coward.... The Levite's manly honor is challenged not only by the men of Gibeah but also by the narrator, who uses this horrifying incident as an example of the anarchy that allegedly prevailed in Israel before the monarchy was established."144 Niditch argues that the harsh actions of the Levite exceed any misogynist tendencies that might be found in the Old Testament generally. "In contrast [to Abraham's treatment of Sarah in Genesis 12], Judges 19 has the Levite prepared to sacrifice his concubine to a violent mob to save himself.... His crass command, 'Get up; let's go,' might be assessed as a reflection of a world-view in which women are regarded as no more than chattel. Yet though the OT law subordinates women to men, the woman is understood as a human being under the man's protection." 145
This is not to say that women in ancient Israel were normally "liberated" by contemporary standards. There are prescriptive laws in the Torah that clearly indicate significantly inferior status and fewer legal rights for women, at times even treating them as nearly non-persons from a modern perspective (the virtual property of their fathers or husbands). Deut 22:28-29, for example, prescribes the following penalty to a man who rapes an unattached virgin: he is to pay a bridal price to her father, marry the young woman, and to give up his right of divorce. Some consideration is given to the woman. In such a culture her prospects for marrying anyone else would be remote; permanent marriage even to such a brute might be better than the extreme hardship of never marrying. But the fathers rights are paramount. Similarly, if a young woman who is promised in marriage is raped, the rapist is to be killed because "he violated his neighbor's wife" (Deut 22:23-27).146 Despite such inequalities, the narrator of Judges 19-21 does portray the gang rape and murder of the concubine as an utterly heinous crime and appears to treat the Levite's callous and cowardly behavior toward his concubine as deplorable.
There is good evidence of homosexual cult prostitution in Israel during the period of the divided monarchy.147 A number of texts speak of the existence of q dešîm (sg. qadeš, twice used as a collective), literally, "holy/sanctified men," "consecrated men," "men dedicated to the deity" (Deut 23:17-18; 1 Kgs 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kgs 23:7; Job 36:14). The term is usually rendered in standard English translations to denote men at cult sites who engaged in homosexual prostitution: "male temple (or cult, shrine, sacred) prostitutes." 148
There shall not be a q dešâ (the female counterpart of the male qadeš) from among the daughters of Israel and there shall not be a qadeš from among the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the earnings149 of a female prostitute/harlot {zônâ) or the wages150 of a "dog" (keleb) into the house of Yahweh your God for (viz., in payment or fulfillment of) any vow, because both of them are an abomination (tôcebâ) to Yahweh your God. (Deut 23:17-18 [MT: 18-19])
Rehoboam, son of Solomon, reigned in Judah. . . . and the name of his mother was Naamah the Ammonite. Judah did evil in the sight of Yahweh. . . . They even built for themselves high places (bamôt), and pillars (massebôt), and Asherah poles {¸ ašerîm) on every high hill and under every green tree. And even qadeš were in the land. They (viz., the people of Judah) conformed their behavior to all the abominations (tôcebôt) of the nations which Yahweh dispossessed151 before152 the descendants of Israel. (1 Kgs 14:21-24)
Asa (grandson of Rehoboam) got rid of the q dešîm from the land and removed all the idols which his ancestors had made; and he also removed his mother Maacah from the position of queen mother because she had made a disgraceful image for Asherah. And Asa cut down this disgraceful image of hers and burned it in the wadi Kidron; but the high places were not removed. (1 Kgs 15:12-14)
The rest of the qadeš who had been left in the days of Asa his father, he (Jehoshaphat) removed completely153 from the land. (1 Kgs 22:46 [MT: 47])
He (Josiah) tore down the houses (or: quarters, apartments) of the q dešîm which were in the house of Yahweh, where the women did weaving for Asherah.154 (2 Kgs 23:7)
The godless in heart put on155 anger. They do not cry for help when he chains them. Their life-breath dies/expires in their youth, and their life at the same time as156 the q dešîm. 157(Job 36:13-14)
The following arguments speak in favor of identifying the q dešîm with men "whose masculinity had been transformed into femininity" by a goddess (Asherah? Astarte?)158 and one of whose cultic functions was to offer their bodies to other men for same-sex intercourse. Deut 23:17-18 appears to make a strong connection, if not outright identification, between the qadeš and his female counterpart the qadešâ on the one hand and a "dog" and a prostitute (zônâ) on the other hand.159
The two other occurrences of q dešâ in the Bible (Gen 38:21-22; Hos 4:14) also link it with the term zônâ, "prostitute, harlot."160 The slur "dog" was applied to the assinnus, the "men-women" devoted to Ishtar who feminized their appearance, probably underwent castration, and for a fee allowed themselves to be penetrated anally by other males. The Syrian galli who performed a similar role in their devotion to the goddesses Atargatis or Cybele during the Hellenistic and Roman periods were called "holy" (hieroi).161 The remark in 1 Kgs 14:24 that the people of Judah "conformed their behavior to all the abominations (tôcebôt) of the nations which Yahweh dispossessed" sounds remarkably like the summary in Lev 18:24-30, which followed a listing of sexual offenses that singled out in particular same-sex male intercourse as an "abomination."
Job 36:14 indicates that the q dešîm were thought to live a miserable existence that led to an early death.162 This is consistent with the despised, degrading and debilitating lifestyle that characterized the sexual transformation and anal-receptive prostitution associated with the assinnus. If the q dešîm were simply cultic functionaries who had no connection to profligate sexual acts, it is difficult to see why the author would have used them as the epitome of those who lead short lives. Surely the point of comparison with the q dešîm is not anger per se but rather the deleterious effects of harbored anger and atrocious sexual immorality, two forms of self-destructive behavior, on the quality and length of life.
Some have argued that the q dešîm may have serviced barren women rather than men.163 Such a supposition, though, presupposes a custom that cannot be documented for the ancient Near East, whereas the same-sex role of the assinnu, kurgarrû, and kulu¸u(who, owing to castration, were certainly unsuitable partners for heterosexual intercourse and impregnation) does provide good evidence for homosexual cult prostitution. Moreover, the theory of male-to-female cult prostitution is difficult to harmonize with the attention given by Israelite society to guarding the sexual purity of their women.164 The harsh descriptions of the q dešîm in 1-2 Kings (1 Kgs 14:24: "even qadeš were in the land") and Job 36:14, along with the epithet of "dog" in Deut 23:18, suggests a degree of revulsion more suited to same-sex male cult prostitution.
Many centuries later, John of Patmos could write:
Outside (the new Jerusalem) are the "dogs" and the sorcerers and the fornicators (pornoi) and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying. (Rev 22:15)
"Dog" (Gk. kyon; pl. kynes) was a pervasive epithet in antiquity.165 It has been suggested that the Jesus saying in Matt 7:6 ("Do not give that which is holy to the dogs") used "dogs" as a general term for contemptible people; less likely a term for gentiles. 166 However, it is possible that the saying alludes to Deut 23:18 since "what is holy" (to hagion) could be a play on words with qadeš(qodeš = "a holy thing, a votive offering"). The advice not to give what is holy to the dogs could be a logical reversal of the command not to allow "dogs" to give money received from abominable practices to the holy place (the temple) as a votive offering (cf. the emphasis on holiness in Lev 19:2; 20:7, 26 as a contrast to abominable sexual acts).
In any case, "dogs" can hardly mean gentiles in the context of Revelation where the author envisioned "a great multitude . . . from every nation . . . standing before the throne . . . robed in white" (7:9). Though a general reference is possible, it is more likely that in a vice list focusing on sexual immorality and cultic practices the text hearkens back to Deut 23:18. This is confirmed by the parallel vice list in Rev 21:8:
But as for cowards and the faithless (or: unbelievers) and the abominable and murderers and fomicators and sorcerers and idolaters and all the liars, their share shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
The reference to "the abominable" (ebdelygmenois) matches up with "dogs" in 22:15. The perfect passive participle of bdelyssomai appears also in Lev 18:30 (LXX), which refers to the "abominable practices" of the Canaanites (including incest and same-sex intercourse). The related noun, bdelygma ("abomination") is the word chosen by the LXX to translate Hebrew tôcebâ in Lev 18:22 and 20:13.167 The existence of male (same-sex) cult prostitutes was well known to Jews of the period, as Philo's comments testify (see the next chapter). Thus the most likely explanation is that the term "dogs" in Rev 22:15 primarily has in view emasculated male cult prostitutes, without excluding a wider reference to any who engage in homosexual practice.168
Some contend that the q dešîm were a piece of Deuteronomistic fiction.169 Such a conclusion appears unlikely in view of the date of the writings in question. Second Kings 23:7 reports that King Josiah "tore down the houses of the q dešîm which were in the house of Yahweh, where the women did weaving for Asherah." This is an extremely specific point, and it has to do with activity transpiring in the temple precincts itself, not in some remote area of the hill country. The Josianic reform, including this action of tearing down the houses of the q dešîm, was part of a series of steps that Josiah took immediately after the discovery of "the book of the law/covenant" in the temple in 622 B.C.E. (2 Kgs 22:8-23:3), a book that most scholars identify as Deuteronomy 12-26 (the section of Deuteronomy containing the law code). That means Josiah's action against the q dešîm in the temple precincts was likely taken as a direct result of the laws in Deut 23:17-18 regarding the q dešîm or "dogs."
Some (Frank Moore Cross, Richard Elliott Friedman, and others) argue for two editions of the Deuteronomistic History, the first written before Josiahs death in 609 B.C.E. and the second written soon after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. (i.e., less than twenty-five years later), perhaps by the same author. That would mean that 2 Kings 23 was written very close in time to the event it describes and by someone with superb access to court archives—possibly someone who was an eyewitness to the Josianic reform and who played an integral role in that reform.170 All of this speaks well of the accuracy of the information in 2 Kgs 23:7.
The Deuteronomistic Historian reports that q dešîm appeared in Judah during the reign of Rehoboam. Why not speak of their presence in Canaan during the periods of the conquest and tribal confederacy? Why not also mention their presence in Israel (the northern kingdom) if he were making up their existence? He subsequently mentions that Rehoboam's grandson Asa "got rid of the q dešîm from the land" (1 Kgs 15.12). Yet, later, he notes that the "rest of the qadeš who had been left in the days of Asa his father, he (Jehoshaphat) removed completely from the land" (1 Kgs 22:46). Why even bother to mention that Jehoshaphat finished the job, when he makes no inference in 15:12 that Asa had failed to make a clean sweep of the q dešîm? It does not sound like the land of detail that an historian would make up. The Deuteronomistic Historian otherwise makes no explicit mention of the existence of q dešîm in Judah in the two centuries between the reign of Jehoshaphat (ca. 873-849 B.C.E.) and the reign of Josiah (ca. 640-609 B.C.E.); hardly what one would expect of a historian obsessed with reading an imaginary construct back into the period of the divided monarchy. Then, too, one has to explain the reference to q dešîm in Job 36:14, which does not lie within the Deuteronomistic orbit. Given the existence of the assinnu, kurgarrû, and kulu¸u in Mesopotamia, there seems to be little reason to doubt the accuracy of the reports of qēdēšîm in both Deuteronomic law and the Deuteronomistic History.
Yet even if the q dešîm were a literary fiction, the texts would still be relevant to the discussion of same-sex intercourse in the Bible. For they demonstrate the attitude toward same-sex intercourse adopted by both the authors/transmitters of Deuteronomic law and the Deuteronomistic Historian. It can hardly be denied that these two groups (and the author of Job 36:14) regarded the q dešîm as homosexual cult prostitutes.171 Cult association is established by the name "holy/consecrated ones" and by the connection to Asherah. The element of prostitution is clear from Deut 23:17-18 (fees for services rendered) and the connection to q dešôt, who elsewhere are identified as harlots. The same-sex dimension is suggested by the label "dogs," by history-of-religions parallels, and by the unlikelihood of male heterosexual prostitution. One can quibble how big a role same-sex intercourse played in the life of q dešîm, or for that matter assinnus (as Nissinen does). Regardless, it can scarcely be doubted that these biblical authors put the dimension of same-sex prostitution at the forefront of their own reasons for being utterly disgusted with the existence of q dešîm in Israel.
One might then counter, "Okay, these biblical authors were opposed to male, same-sex cult prostitution. But that only tells us what the author believed about consensual homosexual practice conducted in the context of idolatrous cults and prostitution, not the kind of loving expressions of homosexuality we witness today." Such a rationale would overlook the ancient Near Eastern context. The Mesopotamian evidence explored at the beginning of this chapter makes clear that the most acceptable form of same-sex intercourse—not the least acceptable was precisely same-sex intercourse conducted in a religious context. Otherwise, for a man to want to be penetrated by another man was generally regarded as disgraceful.
The assinnu, kurgarrû, and kulu could be tolerated because their femininity was the goddess's doing, not their own. When the biblical authors rejected homosexual cult prostitutes—and surely not just because they were connected to Asherah, as the epithet "dogs" indicates—they were in effect rejecting the whole phenomenon of homosexual practice. They were repudiating a form of homosexual intercourse that was the most palatable in their cultural context. If they rejected that particular form of homosexual practice, how much more all other forms? Certainly the prohibition against cross-dressing in Deut 22:5 puts this beyond doubt (any obscuring of male-female sexual differences is "an abomination [tôcebâ] to Yahweh your God, everyone who does these things"), as does the absolute form of the prohibition in Lev 18:22 and 20:13.172
In his discussion of assinnu, Nissinen argues:
[I]t is misleading to affiliate assinnu with our concept of homosexuality. After all, there is no way of knowing whether they were sexually oriented toward men—or, if emasculated, toward anybody. We can speculate, of course, that men who looked for this role already had a homosexual orientation or a transvestite need and were better able to express it in that role or that they felt themselves otherwise incapable of fulfilling the requirements of the male role in a patriarchal society. Their gender identity certainly changed along with the change of gender role and after the eventual castration. Moreover, there may have been persons among them who were transsexual or born intersexed. All this is beyond modern knowledge.173
Yet all such considerations were also irrelevant to the biblical authors because it was the act that counted most, not the reasons for doing it (unless, of course, a man was the unwilling victim of same-sex rape). Probably there were some assinnus, and some q dešîm, who were not homosexually oriented at the time they entered their roles; probably, too, there were some who were. The same could be said for those who had sex with male cult prostitutes: some may have engaged in the act for purely religious or pragmatic reasons (for example, as a means of obtaining the goddess's help on some matter), others may have participated in whole or in part because of a homosexual inclination. The bottom line for biblical authors: it did not matter why people willingly engaged in same-sex intercourse, just as it was unnecessary to parse the motivations of those who participated willingly in incest, bestiality, adultery, fornication, or heterosexual prostitution.174
The existence of homosexual cult prostitutes in Judah was a recurring problem. At least this was so in the roughly fifty years from the start of the reign of Rehoboam to the start of the reign of his greatgrandson Jehoshaphat (922-843 B.C.E.) and in the period leading up to the Josianic Reform two centuries later (622 B.C.E.). 175 Their presence makes it possible that some Judeans did participate in homosexual practices, particularly in conjunction with a resurgence of the Asherah cult. Precisely how many may have participated cannot be determined. However, the phenomenon had enough official endorsement in the late-seventh century that q dešîm (along with other devotees of Asherah) could be housed even in the temple precincts. The Deuteronomistic Historian regarded tolerance of their behavior as completely incompatible with Yahwistic faith and practice; they were an "abomination" to the Lord (Deut 23:18; 1 Kgs 14:24). This viewpoint is consistent with the viewpoint held by the Yahwist and the authors/transmitters of the Levitical Holiness Code.176
VII. Leviticus 18:22; 20:13: Laws
"With a male you shall not lie as though lying with a woman; it is an abomination." (Lev 18:22)
¸iššâ tôcebâ hiwet zakar Io¸ tiškab mišk bê¸.
"And a man who will lie177 with a male as though lying178with a woman, they have committed an abomination, the two of them; they shall certainly be put to death; their blood be upon them." (20:13)
wcasû š nêhem môt yûmatû d mêhem bam.¸îš¸ašer yiškab¸et zakar mišk bê ¸iššâ tôcebâ
Unlike stories, commands have a definite prescriptive or prescriptive (not just descriptive) function. Both of these commands occur in the context of a larger block of laws (Leviticus 17-26) that many scholars refer to as the Holiness Code (H), a law code which urged all Israelites (not just the priests) to keep the land (not just the sanctuary) unpolluted through holy obedience to the commands. 179
Six features of these two commandments are important for establishing their hermeneutical relevance.
(1) Lev 18:22 occurs in a larger context of forbidden sexual relations that primarily outlaws incest (18:6-18) and also prohibits adultery (18:20), child sacrifice (18:21), and bestiality (18:23). These prohibitions continue to have universal validity in contemporary society. Only the prohibition against having sexual intercourse with a woman "in her menstrual uncleanness" (18:19) does not.
(2) The degree of revulsion associated with the homosexual act is suggested by the specific attachment of the word tôcebâ, "abomination," "an abhorrent thing," or "something detestable, loathsome, utterly repugnant, disgusting,"180 intimating a particularly revolting and conspicuous violation of boundaries established by God against the defiling behavior characteristic of other peoples. In the concluding summary in 18:24-30 all the practices mentioned in the chapter are described as "abominations" (18:26-27, 29-30); yet in the preceding list of specific commands in 18:6-23 the word is mentioned only in conjunction with same-sex male intercourse. Once again in Leviticus 20, where penalties are prescribed for many of the forbidden acts of Leviticus 18-19, the word is applied specifically only to sexual intercourse between males (20:13). In short, in the entire Holiness Code—indeed, in the entire priestly corpus of the Tetrateuch—the only forbidden act to which the designation "abomination" is specifically attached is homosexual intercourse.
(3) The penalty is extreme: death (20:13)181 This penalty exceeds that required by the Middle Assyrian Laws (castration). Homosexual conduct was not merely prohibited but also regarded as a supreme offense, a penalty consistent with its description as an "abomination."182 In ch. 18 homosexual intercourse is listed along with other forbidden sexual acts for which a person should be "cut off from their people" (18:29). Failure on the community's part to take action against offenders would lead to expulsion of the whole community from the land of Canaan, just as the previous inhabitants had been expelled for such practices (18:24-30).
(4) Unlike the proscription of homosexual rape in the Middle Assyrian Laws, the laws in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 are unqualified and absolute. They neither penalize only oppressive forms of homosexuality nor excuse either party to the act.183 The general term "male" (zdkar) is used, not "your neighbor" (recaka, one of equal status or from the same region or clan)184 or "boy, youth" (nacar). The question of whether the homosexual relationship is pederastic or not does not enter the picture. The prohibition applies not only to the Israelite but also to the non-Israelite who lives among God's people (18:26).185 There are no limitations to cultic prostitution.
(5) Contrary to the contemporary trend of Jewish and Christian communities to accommodate to the prevailing cultural approbation of homosexuality, the entire context of the Holiness Code stresses the distinctive holiness of the people of God. God's people are to imitate the holiness and purity of their God and not the abominable and defiling practices of other peoples (18:1-5,24-30; 19:2). "You shall be holy to me; for I Yahweh am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine" (20:26). The commands of God, and not the consensus of the surrounding culture, must shape the behavior of God's people. The relation of church/synagogue to culture is, at least in part, supposed to be reforming rather than conforming.
(6) As we shall see, it is a prohibition carried over into the New Testament. The position adopted by Paul in the New Testament is not an aberration but is consistent with the heritage present in his Scriptures. The two covenants are in agreement.
According to John Boswell,
The Hebrew word "toevah" . . . does not usually signify something intrinsically evil, like rape or theft (discussed elsewhere in Leviticus), but something which is ritually unclean for Jews, like eating pork or engaging in intercourse during menstruation, both of which are prohibited in these same chapters. It is used throughout the Old Testament to designate those Jewish sins which involve ethnic contamination or idolatry. . . . the Levitical enactments against homosexual behavior characterize it unequivocally as ceremonially unclean rather than inherently evil.186
The distinction is odd in view of the way in which the word is used in Lev 18:22, 26-30; 20:13. The word tôcebâ is restricted in Leviticus to forms of sexual immorality that can be characterized in three ways: (1) a sexual act regarded by Yahweh as utterly detestable and abhorrent; (2) a sexual act which rendered the individual participants liable to the death penalty or being "cut off from God's people; (3) a sexual act which, if left unpunished by the nation, put the entire nation at risk of God's consuming wrath, God's departure from the midst of the people, and expulsion of the people from the land of Canaan (18:22, 26-30; 20:13). Homosexual intercourse is singled out among other abominable sexual acts in Leviticus 18 and 20 as a form of sexual misconduct particularly worthy of the designation tôcebâ. It is difficult to see how one can speak of this or other acts in Leviticus 18 and 20 as "ceremonially unclean rather than inherently evil" for the author or even for ourselves. Whatever one does with the proscription of sex with a menstruating woman, there is no basis for asserting that" 'toevah'... does not usually signify something intrinsically evil." As Greenberg states:
Leviticus does recognize forms of ritual uncleanness that are not morally condemned, e.g., childbirth, seminal emission, heterosexual intercourse, and menstruation. Purification from these pollutions is accomplished quite simply through bathing and sacrifice. The word toevah is not used to refer to these conditions, nor are they punished. . .. Idolatry was not simply unclean; it was a grave offense. . . . That intercourse with a menstruating woman is also classified as an abomination along with homosexuality is an indication not, as Boswell suggests, that the latter offense was considered trivial, but rather that the former was considered extremely grave.187
Outside of Leviticus, tôcebâ appears most frequently in Ezekiel (forty-three times), the exilic priest-prophet who demonstrates close ties with the legislation found in the Holiness Code. Ezekiel expands the application of the word tôcebâ to a wide array of offenses. In the rest of the Old Testament, the word occurs sixty-eight times: twentytwo times in Proverbs, seventeen times in Deuteronomy, eight times in Jeremiah, and twenty-one times scattered elsewhere in the Old Testament.188 The "abominations" most frequently involve the worship of other gods (Deut 7:25-26 and very often), including sacrificing one's children to pagan gods (Deut 12:31 and often) and practicing sorcery, divination, and necromancy (Deut 18:9-12; 2 Kgs 21:2, 6). The word is also used often of sexual sins: adultery (Ezek 18:6, 11, 15; 22:11; Jer 7:9); incest (Ezek 22:10-11); intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period (Ezek 18:6; 22:10); cross-dressing (Deut 22:5); remarrying one's divorced spouse after remarriage to another (Deut 24:4, probably an act of fraud for acquiring dowry money); and bringing a prostitute's fee to the temple as payment of a vow (Deut 23:18). As noted in our discussion of biblical interpretations of the Sodom story, tôcebâ probably refers to homosexual intercourse in Ezek 16:50; 18:12; 33:26.
In addition to the above, the following also constitute "abominations" in various texts: murder (Jer 7:9; Ezek 22:6; Prov 6:17); swearing falsely (Jer 7:9; Ezek 22:9, 12; Prov 6:19); habitual lying (Prov 6:16; 12:22; 26:25-28); oppressing or not aiding the poor, aliens, widows, and orphans (Ezek 16:47-52; 18:7, 12, 16; 22:7, 29); a "false balance" used to cheat the poor (Prov 11:1; 20:10, 23); robbery, extortion, and charging interest to Israelites (Ezek 18:7-8, 10-13, 16-17; 22:12, 29; cf. Jer 7:9); treating father and mother with contempt (Ezek 22:7); wicked people (Prov 3:32 and often in Proverbs); the arrogant (Prov 6:16; 16:5); one who creates family strife (Prov 6:19); "one who justifies the wicked and one who condemns the righteous" (Prov 17:15); the hypocritical incense, sacrifice, or prayer of the wicked (Isa 1:13; Prov 21:27; 28:9); cheating God by sacrificing an ox or sheep that has a defect (Deut 17:1); profaning the sabbath (22:8, 26); marriage to someone who worships a different god (Mal 2:11); and putting foreigners in official positions in the temple (i.e., people without devotion to Yahweh, Ezek 44:6-8). In Deut 14:3 animals that are not to be eaten because of their uncleanness are referred to as "abhorrent things," but eating them is not said to be an "abomination." Moreover, the last-mentioned reference (cf. Ezek 22:8, 26), along with the prohibition against intercourse with a menstruating woman, are not representative of the kinds of behavior delimited by the word. Thus Boswell's contention that tôcebâ "is used throughout the Old Testament to designate those Jewish sins which involve ethnic contamination or idolatry" is misleading.
Saul Olyan criticizes the translation "abomination" not for what it intimates but for what it does not. "The conventional translation 'abomination' suggests only what is abhorrent; it does not get across the sense of the violation of a socially constructed boundary, the reversal or undermining of what is conventional, but viewed as established by the deity."189 To be sure, the issue of "boundaries" is important for the meaning of the term. Leviticus 18-20 (cf. Deut 12:29-32) requires the Israelites to abstain from the very practices of the Canaanites that led to the defiling of the land of Canaan and the land's "vomiting" them out. However, terms such as "socially constructed" and "conventional" should not leave one with the false impression that tôcebâ is applied only or even primarily to antiquated notions of ritual purity. The word is generally applied to forms of behavior whose abhorrent quality is readily transparent to contemporary believers. Worshiping other gods, child sacrifice, incest, bestiality, adultery, theft, oppressing the poor, false testimony in court against another person, and deceit are not oddities of a superstitious, pre-Enlightenment people whose sole function was to keep the people of God separate from the surrounding culture. It is contextually clear that what is generally meant by tôcebâ is something that "Yahweh hates" (Deut 12:31; Prov 6:16). The passage of time produces changing conceptions of what is detestable to God (as well as changing civil penalties) but, in this case, what is striking is the high degree of continuity between the values of Israelite culture and post-Enlightenment culture.
These considerations, both the six salient features of the Levitical prohibitions against homosexual intercourse and the application of the word tôcebâ to "intrinsically evil" acts, should give anyone pause before rejecting the relevance of these commandments for our contemporary setting. However, the case is not completely airtight. Paul taught that the law of Moses, the contingent expression of God's will given on Mount Sinai, had been abrogated in Christ. Continuity in much of the divine will remains because the same God who gave the Sinaitic code is also the God of Jesus Christ. Yet because of the Christian conviction of a change in dispensations, the witness of these two laws from Leviticus has to be tested against the New Testament witness.
The Holiness Code is very much concerned with matters of purity and many of the requirements no longer have force today; for example, the forbidding of sex with a woman during her menstrual cycle (18:19; 20:18), the prohibition against breeding two different kinds of animals, sowing with two different lands of seed, or wearing clothes made of two different materials (19:19), or the command not to round off the hair on one's temples or mar the edges of one's beard (19:27). Some of these commands may have arisen out of traditional taboos regarding the sacral quality of blood and semen, a concern not to mimic fertility practices of the Canaanites, a desire for consistency in maintaining clear social boundaries and the divinely ordained categories of creation, and/or the intent to symbolize Israel's "set apart" status (that is, its separate and pure devotion to God).
Obviously, one cannot simply say: it is in the book of Leviticus so obey it. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to regard the statutes in the Holiness Code as consisting of largely irrelevant purity regulations. Indeed, most of Leviticus 18-20 can be thought of as an expanded commentary on the ten commandments, with prohibitions against idolatry and witchcraft, stealing and lying, adultery and incest; and commands to honor one's parents, keep the sabbath, and to "love one's neighbor as oneself (Lev 19:18). Ritual and moral, eternal and contingent, are combined in the profile of holiness developed in Leviticus 17-26. Christians do not have the option of simply dismissing an injunction because it belongs to the Holiness Code. The same God who gave the laws of the Mosaic dispensation continues to regulate conduct through the Spirit in believers. A substantial case must be made for affirming conduct that was regarded with such revulsion.
Paul himself, the very apostle who proclaimed salvation in Christ "apart from the law," clearly believed that there was considerable continuity in the divine will across the two covenants in matters of sexual ethics. That Paul consciously formulated his opposition to same-sex intercourse in the light of Levitical prohibitions is evident from the following. Paul's stance against incest in 1 Corinthians 5 echoes the incest laws in Lev 18:6-18 (cf. the description "fathers wife" in 1 Cor 5:1 with Lev 18:7-8 LXX). His reference to same-sex intercourse, along with other vices, as "worthy of death" in Rom 1:32 may have had in view the penalty of death prescribed for homosexual intercourse in Lev 20:13. His use of the word aschemosyne ("indecency, indecent exposure") in Rom 1:27 coincides with its usage twenty-four times in Lev 18:6-19; 20:11, 17-21 (LXX) to describe various illicit sexual acts. The word akatharsia ("uncleanness, impurity") in Rom 1:24 appears also in Lev 18:19; 20:21,25 (LXX).190 Finally, the very term that Paul employed for men who take other males to bed, arsenokoites (1 Cor 6:9), is a compound formed from the words in Lev 18:22; 20:13 (LXX) for "male" and "lying."
Bernadette Brooten is a strong advocate for the view that Rom 1:26-32 "directly recalls" Lev 18:22 and 20:13. However, rather than treat this as an argument that supports the contemporary relevance of the Levitical prohibitions, Brooten believes that Paul's connections to the Holiness Code constitute a good reason for disregarding Paul's stance on same-sex intercourse. Such connections, she argues, demonstrate that Paul's position was based on antiquated views of impurity, defilement, and shame that cannot be considered normative for our own time. With regard to the forbidden sexual relations in Leviticus 20, Brooten contends that neither age nor consent factored into penalties. A minor and a person raped would suffer the same penalty as the adult perpetrator because purity, not moral agency, was the issue. "Likewise for Paul, consent and coercion do not play a role in his condemnation of homoeroticism." The concern of both the Levitical code and Paul was solely for "the holiness and purity" of the community, not the rights of the individual victim.191
Brooten's argument is flawed. First, although it is true that the laws in Leviticus 20 do not explicitly make exceptions for those who cannot give consent, neither do they explicitly condemn such. Brooten's case is simply a dubious argument from silence. She suggests that Lev 20:14, a law against taking a "wife and her mother" and carrying the penalty of burning all three participants, would have taken effect if a father raped his minor daughter, thus resulting in the burning not only of the perpetrator but also of the victim and the "nonperpetrating" mother.192 However, her hypothetical scenario would appear to be discounted by the wording: a man deliberately "takes (viz., in marriage or by common consent, not rapes) a wife {¸iššâ; a woman, not a girl) and her mother." The language also indicates that the ¸iššâ was not the man's own natural child. Elsewhere in Leviticus 20 the refrain "their blood [be] upon them" (vv. 11-13, 16, 27; v. 9 has "his . . . him") suggests a measure of consent on the part of all the human parties involved, each of whom are justly held accountable for their own executions (cf. 2 Sam 1:16: "Your blood be on your head; for your own mouth has testified against you .. .").193 The priestly distinction between sins that are "inadvertent" or "unintentional" and sins that are committed "high-handedly" or "deliberately" is well known and attests to levels of culpability based on deliberate moral intent.194 Deut 22:23-27 penalized an engaged virgin for having intercourse with another man only if she did not cry for help; a cry for help indicated rape and the victim of a rape was not penalized.195 Hence, Brooten has little on which to base her claim that Lev 20:13 would have condemned to death a "boy raped by an adult male."196
Second, if there is little basis for arguing that Lev 20:13 condemned to death victims of homosexual rape, there is even less reason for arguing that Paul held such a position. The whole point of the argument in Rom 1:18-32, and one that provides the basis for drawing a parallel with the Jew in 2:1-3:20, is that the gentiles who are subjected to God's wrath in the present and in the future Day of the Lord are "without excuse" precisely because of a conscious and deliberate suppression of the truth (1:18-20). They are liable to judgment not because they don't know "that those who do such things are worthy of death" but because they do know (1:32). Furthermore, the discussion of same-sex intercourse in 1:26-27 makes clear that Paul was applying his condemnation only in cases where mutual choice and gratification on the part of both partners was involved ("inflamed with their yearning for one another, males with males committing indecency"). This picture of judgment based on willing consent is also confirmed by Philo's discussion in Spec. Laws 3.37-38. There is no evidence anywhere in Paul's letters that those victimized by the sins of others (sexual or otherwise) were held morally accountable. Indeed, all the parenesis in Paul presupposes active and willing moral agents.
Brooten presumes that, because Paul did not specifically mention factors of consent or coercion in his discussion of the case of incest in 1 Corinthians 5, these issues were irrelevant to his decision to have the man expelled from the community. She writes:
Note that Paul's judgment does not reflect moral categories that we might employ today, such as coercion or consent. . . . For example, the fathers wife could have initiated intercourse with her stepson while he was still a minor, and the present relationship could, therefore, continue what we would call an earlier victimization of the man while he was still a boy.197
This is special pleading. The fact that Paul did not explicitly mention issues of consent or coercion in 5:1-8 in no way implies that abuse of a minor would have been irrelevant for Paul. Paul and the Corinthians knew the circumstances; if they were aware that both parties were consenting adults there would have been no need for Paul to bring up such issues. Contemporary readers are picking up the conversation in midstream. Absolutely nothing can be inferred regarding Paul's inattention to issues of coercion and consent. If anything, the language, "someone has his father's wife" (5:1), indicates that the male involved was not only a consenting adult but also the active partner in the relationship.
Third, even if Leviticus 20 mandated death for perpetrator and victim alike (a point which I do not concede), that still would not lead to the conclusion that the list of forbidden sexual practices enumerated there has little moral force for contemporary society. It might mean that additional considerations, other than those which we might identify as "moral," accounted for the particular severity of the penalty or its application to all parties regardless of consent. Yet it does not necessitate the view that the entire foundation on which the prohibition was built was essentially amoral. Indeed, it may merely buttress the moral focus on the inherently degrading character of the act itself for its participants and its destabilizing effects on the community, making any talk about the positive moral intent of the participants irrelevant. Contemporary moral standards still exclude nearly all of the prohibited acts of Leviticus 18 and 20, which is itself testimony to their fundamentally moral grounding.
According to Stephen F. Bigger:
Pollution restrictions were not directly concerned with moral questions and most have no bearing on morality, but in some cases (such as in sexual matters) morality was in practice encouraged by fear of pollution. Mary Douglas commented: "The fact that pollution beliefs provide a kind of impersonal punishment for wrongdoing affords a means of supporting the accepted system of morality."198
Peoples fears of the consequences of a particular form of behavior, including fears of social disintegration and fears of angering the deity by flouting the order visible in creation, lead to the construction of purity systems as safeguards against unintentional or intentional transgressions. Purity regulations associated with sexual activity often serve the social function of protecting females "from sexual advances in the domestic sphere," reducing "the possibility of domestic tension" and "jealousy," and maintaining a stable line of descent. For example, in the case of the prohibition of a man being married to a woman and her mother at the same time (18:17; 20:14, cited above), the
prime concern of the legislator was not the impurity of incestuous relationships but the inter-relationship between the two women involved. Such a marriage would cause bitter tension within the domestic sphere since, of two women who should have enjoyed equal status, one was in fact dependent upon the other. Both women would find their conflicting dual roles impossible to reconcile.199
Purity and morality are not necessarily antithetical concepts in Leviticus; in Paul they never are.
Particularly in the area of sexuality, where the potential for abuse is greatest because of the addictive character of sexual pleasure and the self-justification that invariably follows, laws may appear to be more inflexible and harsh than need be the case for every individual violation. In contemporary societies the visceral negative reactions experienced by most citizens, which accompany the legal condemnations of certain forms of forbidden sexual conduct, serve the same role as the purity rules of old. Theoretically, the case could—and has—been made that some sexual relationships between adults and minors may be healthy (for example, between a twenty-one-year-old man and a mature fourteen-year-old girl). One could also argue that even sexual relationships between siblings have positive potential when they involve consenting adults who have taken steps to ensure that intercourse will not lead to conception. However, most contemporary Western legal systems do not make exceptions for these cases because of the justified fear that exceptions would lead to a weakening of society's resistance across the board against pedophilia and incest. Most instances of pedophilia and incest pose a threat to the health and stability of families and society. Consequently, the interests of the many must be given priority over the interests of the few. A rigid and visceral societal stance against all manifestations of pedophilia and incest is required to banish even the thought of it from the vast majority of people. Such a point was made in Plato's Laws at one point in the conversation between the Athenian stranger and Megillus of Sparta:
Ath.: Even at present... most men, however lawless they are, are effectively and strictly precluded from sexual commerce with [some] beautiful persons,—and that not against their will, but with their own most willing consent.
Meg.: On what occasions do you mean?
Ath.: Whenever any man has a brother or sister who is beautiful. So too in the case of a son or daughter, the same unwritten law is most effective in guarding men from sleeping with them, either openly or secretly, or wishing to have any connexion with them,—nay, most men never so much as feel any desire for such connexion.
Meg.: That is true.
Ath.: Is it not, then, by a brief sentence that all such pleasures are quenched?
Meg.: What sentence do you mean?
Ath.: The sentence that these acts are by no means holy, but hated of God and most shamefully shameful. And does not the reason lie in this, that nobody speaks of them otherwise, but every one of us, from the day of his birth, hears this opinion expressed always and everywhere, not only in comic speech, but often also in serious tragedy. . . . (838A-C; [R. G. Bury, LCL])
In a similar way, the conjunction of purity and prohibition in the priestly laws of the Torah, particularly those having to do with sexual intercourse, often had the effect of strengthening (not detracting from) moral considerations. To state that the Holiness Code and other law codes of the Bible are concerned with issues of purity and pollution, sanctification and shame, is not to establish their irrelevance for contemporary moral discourse. In many cases it signals a staunchly moral stance.200
Apart from comparing the law against same-sex intercourse with other laws in the Holiness Code that are no longer regarded as binding, there have been more sophisticated attempts at undermining the Levitical prohibitions against homosexual behavior by spelling out an implicit motive clause that ceases to hold true in a modern context. We describe below four different ways of explaining the rationale behind the prohibitions in 18:22; 20:1s.201
Some have argued that the reason for the prohibition against males having intercourse with males is because of the connection of such behavior with idolatry.202 They point to two indications in the context of Lev 18:22; 20:13. First, the prohibition against homosexual intercourse in 18:22 immediately follows the prohibition against sacrificing one's child to Molech (18:21). Second, the warnings against following the practices of the Canaanites at the beginning and end of ch. 18 (vv. 1-5, 24-30; also 20:22-26) suggest that 18:22 has in view homosexual cult prostitutes (the q dešîm) and their clients. Intercourse between males was not inherently bad but bad because of its typical associations. Lacking such a cultural context for homosexual practice in our own times, we are free to disregard these prohibitions.
Few today give this argument much credence and for good reason. The repetition of the prohibition against homosexual intercourse in 20:13 does not follow immediately upon the references to child sacrifice in 20:2-5, but rather is sandwiched in between prohibitions of adultery and incest (20:10-12) and prohibitions of incest and bestiality (20:14-16). The link with child sacrifice in Lev 18:21 probably involves
nothing more than threats to the sanctity of the Israelite family.203 Or, as Wold puts it:
The Molech cultus . . . consisted of a sexual element and is therefore categorized as tôcebâ; it is the sexual aspect of the cultus that places it in the list of crimes in Leviticus 18, not its idolatrous element. Giving one's seed to Molech may have involved cultic prostitution of some kind, dedicating a child to the idol, or even child sacrifice.. .. The idolatry of Molech worship is incidental to the sexual nature of this crime in this context. . . . The sex crimes of Leviticus 18, with the possible exception of Molech worship, were not cultic in nature.204
There is also an inconsistency in the application of 18:21 on the part of those who use it to limit 18:22 to cultic contexts. Those who contend that the broadly worded proscription against same-sex intercourse should be confined to cultic prostitution do not contend that the narrowly worded proscription of child sacrifice to Molech205 had no implications for other forms of child sacrifice. It is not likely that 18:21 was formulated as narrowly as it was in order to leave the door open for child sacrifice to other pagan gods besides Molech, or even to Yahweh. Clearly the authors and framers had in mind all kinds of child sacrifice— indeed, infanticide of any sort. By what rationale, then, is a narrow proscription to be taken broadly but a broad proscription only narrowly?
I do not doubt that the circles out of which Lev 18:22 was produced had in view homosexual cult prostitution, at least partly. Homosexual cult prostitution appears to have been the primary form in which homosexual intercourse was practiced in Israel. However, male cult prostitution was not the only context in which homosexual intercourse manifested itself in the ancient Near East generally. It was merely the most acceptable context for homosexual intercourse to be practiced in Mesopotamia, certainly for those who played the role of the receptive partner. In our own cultural context we think that the banning of male cult prostitution does not take into account consensual, non-cultic, loving homosexual relationships. In the cultural context of the ancient Near East the reasoning has to be reversed: to ban homosexual cult prostitutes was to ban all homosexual intercourse. In any case, the authors of Lev 18:22 could have formulated the law more precisely by making specific reference to the q dešîm (as in Deut 23:17-18), if it had been their intent to limit the law's application. That they did not do so suggests that they had a broader application in mind. Moreover, the Levitical rejection of same-sex intercourse depends on Canaanite practices for its validity about as much as the rejection of incest, adultery, and bestiality.206
Just as an uncompromising devotion to the one god, Yahweh, stood out in the Holiness Code (and the Hebrew Bible generally) against the background of the polytheism of the ancient Near East, so too an uncompromising stance against male-male sexual intercourse distinguished this legal corpus from those of surrounding cultures. What is unclear is why the distinctiveness of Israel's attitude to same-sex intercourse should translate hermeneutically into contemporary irrelevance. In fact, it ought to do the opposite. There were many other Canaanite practices that the Israelites did not reject. That homosexual behavior among the native peoples of Canaan was rejected was undoubtedly due to the fact that it came into conflict with pre-existing, traditional Israelite cultural values. For Israelites to maintain such adamant opposition in the face of a spectrum of only qualified opposition and even toleration in the ancient Near East required a conscious and deliberate effort on their part. "That Canaanites practised homosexuality no doubt enhanced Israel's aversion to i t . . . , but it is not the fundamental motive for it."207
Some scholars believe that the injunction against same-sex male intercourse was due exclusively or primarily to the fact that such intercourse "wastes seed" and could not lead to procreation.208 The implication is that the modem-day population explosion and the widespread acceptance of contraceptives in Jewish and Protestant circles would seem to render an objection to homosexuality irrelevant in our own context. Five considerations speak in favor of procreation as at least a factor in prohibiting same-sex male intercourse. First, such an interpretation coheres with a possible implicit motive clause for each of the forbidden practices in Leviticus 18 (incest, intercourse with a menstruating woman, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexual intercourse, bestiality): they all pose "a threat to the integrity of the Israelite lineage" (Eilberg-Schwartz) or constitute "affronts to procreation" (Biale). Second, the issue of procreation ties in with the command to "be fruitful and multiply" which, according to the creation story in Genesis 1 (P), is one of two great commands that God gave to the human species (Gen 1:28; the other is to "subdue" and "have dominion over" the earth). Third, given the designation of male sperm as "seed" and some history-of-religions parallels, it may be that ancient Israelites conceived of the man's sperm as containing the whole of life, with the woman's body being nothing more than a "field" or "soil" that supplies the nutrients (blood and milk) to stimulate the seed's growth (cf. Philo, Spec. Laws 3.39). Male sperm is life itself, so the wasting of it in intercourse with other males is regarded as a serious offense.209 Fourth, in the first century C.E. both Philo and Josephus viewed the wasting of seed in non-procreative sex as one of the problems with homosexual intercourse (Philo also expresses concern for the feminization of the passive partner). Fifth, the fact that women do not emit "seed" and therefore cannot waste it may help to explain why same-sex female intercourse goes unmentioned in the Holiness Code.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the non-procreative aspect of samesex male intercourse constitutes the sole or even primary reason why such behavior is banned in the Holiness Code. First, the various behaviors prohibited in Leviticus 18 can be linked under a common rubric only when that rubric is stretched beyond "failure to procreate." Incest (including that between in-laws) and adultery were prohibited even though (and partly because) such sex acts could result in procreation. Sex between a woman and an animal is arguably prohibited because it does not result in procreation, yet it does not result in a loss of human "seed." Child sacrifice destroys what is procreated but it is not a failure to procreate. Once the heading for Leviticus 18 broadens beyond "failure to procreate" to "a threat to the integrity of the Israelite lineage" or "affronts to procreation," the implicit motive clause for the interdictions against male-male intercourse need no longer be restricted to "wasting seed" in the strict sense of failing to procreate. Second, if failure to procreate were the central concern, it is puzzling that a number of other sexual acts that do not lead to procreation were left out, such as heterosexual sex during a woman's pregnancy. The death penalty (or, indeed, any penalty) was not prescribed for masturbation even though it resulted in loss of semen (the issue in Gen 38:8-10 is not masturbation itself but rather failure to fulfill kinship obligations in levirate marriage). Third, it seems unlikely that the highly emotive reference to intercourse between males as an "abomination" can be limited to a failure to procreate. Is it reasonable to say that from the standpoint of the framers and transmitters of these prohibitions the fundamental problem with bestiality was that it did not produce offspring? Surely there was a different level of revulsion expressed for bestiality and homosexual intercourse than there would have been in the case of heterosexual sex with a "barren" woman (as Philo makes clear in Spec. Laws 3.33-50).
The same lands of critique against "failure to procreate" as the implicit motivating clause for the prohibition of homosexual intercourse can also be made against another theory. According to Saul Olyan, "male-male anal intercourse may have been proscribed in order to prevent the mixing of two otherwise defiling substances [—excrement and semen—from mingling in the body of the receptive partner], and thereby prevent the defilement of the land of Israel."210
While this, like the procreation argument, may be a secondary factor in the rejection of homosexual intercourse, it would appear to be subordinated to the larger category of mixing non-complementary genders. Lev 18:22 and 20:13 make no mention of dung (contrast the explicit mention of menstruation in 18:19 and blood flow in 20:18), but they do speak explicitly of gender discomplementarity ("as though lying with a woman"). Of the five other prohibited acts in Leviticus 18 (incest, intercourse with a menstruating woman, adultery, child sacrifice, bestiality), only one probably bases the prohibition on a mixing of two antithetical bodily secretions. In the case of the law regarding bestiality, which is in closer proximity to the law regarding homosexual intercourse than is the law concerning intercourse with a menstruating woman and which bears a stronger resemblance, the paramount violation is the merger of two different kinds of creatures that should never be merged. The transfer of semen from human to beast or beast to human, like the preceding act of penetration, is significant insofar as it conveys that merger. Similarly, to make the commingling of semen with excrement the main concern behind the interdiction in 18:22 and 20:13 is to miss the fundamental concern to which the penetration into the "dirty" anal orifice and the semen transfer point: an abhorrent violation of the gender boundaries for sexual intercourse. Furthermore, if the central concern in 18:22 and 20:13 was the mixing of semen and excrement, then why was there no corresponding prohibition against heterosexual anal intercourse? One might compare the similarly worded proscription against cross-dressing in Deuteronomic law (Deut 22:5; cf. 23:1 [MT 23:2] on the exclusion of eunuchs from "the assembly of Yahweh"). This command has nothing to do with semen and everything to do with maintaining gender distinctions.211
Thus there are good grounds for asserting that the primary problem with male-male intercourse is the more general concern that it "mixes" two things that were never intended to be mixed.212 The issue of procreation would be a specific concern within this larger category. The refrain in 18:22 and 20:13, "as though lying with a woman," is the best indication we have of what the primary concern was; namely, behaving toward another man as if he were a woman by making him the object of male sexual desires. That is an "abomination," an abhorrent violation of divinely sanctioned boundaries—in this case, gender boundaries established at creation. The issue of mixing appears elsewhere in the Holiness Code. Both bestiality and sex with one's daughter-in-law were referred to as a tebel ("an appalling mixture or confusion," 18:23; 20:12)213 and on grounds other than that semen was lost. Maintaining pure categories extended even to forbidding the breeding of "two lands" of animals, sowing one's field with "two kinds" of seed, and putting on a garment made of "two kinds" of material (Lev 19:19; cf. Deut 22:9-11). While the last set of prohibitions strike us as quaint,214 the interdiction of bestiality and incest does not. The priestly version of the creation story in Genesis 1 emphasizes that each of the creatures in the sea, in the sky, and on the earth were created "according to its kind" (also vegetation; Gen 1:11-12, 21, 24-25).
All the laws in Lev 18:6-23; 20:2-21 legislate against forms of sexual behavior that disrupt the created order set into motion by the God of Israel. Each of the laws has as its intent the channeling of male sexual impulses into a particular pattern of behavior, a pattern conducive to the healthy functioning of a people set apart to serve God's holy purposes.215 Within that general intent, though, the reasons for banning specific forms of sexual behavior vary.216
The laws against incest (18:6-18) may have had as many as four aims: (1) protecting females (both blood relations and in-laws), including girls, in the intimate context of an extended family from the predatory sexual habits of male family members; (2) reducing sexual temptations within the family and preventing infidelity, which breeds alienation and distrust in one's spouse and could result in the dissolution of a family; (3) reducing intergenerational conflict, disorder, and dishonor that would arise through sexual rivalry within the family; and (4) ensuring healthy offspring by limiting inbreeding.
The law against intercourse with a menstruating woman (18:19; cf. 15:19-24) may have had in view taboos against mixing a medium and symbol of life (semen ejaculated during intercourse) and a medium and symbol of death (menstrual blood flowing out). Life-creating fluids must be separated from life-destructive fluids (a separation of kinds). A woman's flow of death-bearing menstrual blood may have been taken by ancient Israelites as a natural sign from God that access by life-creating semen was undesirable (an argument from nature). The menstrual period was the time that God had given women to cleanse their bodies from impurity as a prelude to renewing a cycle of fertility (a sabbath of sorts from sex). It was not the time for men to intrude with procreative designs. Deliberate intercourse during a menstrual period not only had the effect of "wasting seed" but also of putting one's own desires at cross-purposes with God's timing. Men were required to exercise self-restraint and wait for divinely created processes to run their course. Not to be overlooked as well are other possible factors: the sheer repulsive effect that the appearance of menstrual blood has had on most men in all cultures, eliciting a visceral response against men not similarly repelled; and concerns for the woman's privacy and pain.217
The goals of the other laws in 18:20-24 do not require as much explanation. The law against adultery (18:20) is obviously designed to protect the integrity and stability of the marriage bond from interference by males outside the extended family. The law against sacrificing newborn children (18:21) is a safeguard against destroying the fruit of a married couple's procreative efforts. As noted above, the law against bestiality (18:23) thwarts a revolting sexual mixing of two different kinds of species, one created "in God's image" and one not so created.
The particularly "abhorrent" character of homosexual intercourse cannot be explained solely or primarily by its lack of procreative potential. Rather, it is to be traced to its character as a flagrant transgression of the most fundamental element of human sexuality: sex or gender. Homosexual intercourse requires a radical "gender bending" of human sexuality by the very creatures whom God placed in charge of the good, ordered creation. Such an act constitutes a conscious denial of the complementarity of male and female found not least in the fittedness (anatomical, physiological, and procreative) of the male penis and the female vaginal receptacle by attempting anal intercourse (or other forms of sexual intercourse) with another man. Anal sex not only confuses gender, it confuses the function of the anus as a cavity for expelling excrement, not receiving sperm.218 Gender complementarity between male and female is expressed not only in basic sexual anatomy but also in a more holistic sense, as suggested by the Yahwist's depiction of woman's creation out of man's "rib."
Unlike in ancient Greek culture,219 where the appropriateness of homosexual intercourse was evaluated on the basis of status (the male penetrated must be of lower status), the critique against homosexual intercourse in ancient Israelite culture appears to have been based in the first instance on the absence of gender complementarity between males. Status degradation was at best a secondary consideration.220 The absence of any loopholes in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 for homosexual intercourse with lower-status members of society undermines Nissinen's emphasis on the disgracing of "manly honor." Even though Nissinen acknowledges that "the Holiness Code does not even make any difference with regard to the social status of the partners," he argues that the Holiness Code treats homosexual intercourse between men in 18:22 and 20:13 as abhorrent primarily because it reduces one of the men involved to the degrading status of a woman. "Sexual contact between two men was prohibited because the passive party assumed the role of a woman." The issue, Nissinen implies, is not gender but "gender roles"; and by "gender roles" he means the presumption of male superiority and dominance over women in antiquity.221 The inference Nissinen would like us to draw is clear. In contemporary Western society, where women are regarded as the social equals of men, the Levitical prohibitions of homosexual intercourse not only make little sense, they are based on a premise offensive to modern sensibilities.
By way of response to Nissinen, we can admit that in ancient Israel, as in the ancient Near Eastern generally, there were misogynistic attitudes toward women. A man putting himself in the sexual role of a woman in ancient Israel would have diminished his social station considerably. However, it was not just the abandonment of traditional male-female hierarchichal roles that made homosexual intercourse such an abhorrent act. If surrendering dominant male social status were the real issue behind the proscriptions of Lev 18:22; 20:13, we would expect the legislators of the Holiness Code to have made subversion of male hierarchy punishable by death, not just the "symptom" of homosexual intercourse. We would expect the authoritative role of "judge" Deborah in Judges 4 to have been "judged" an abomination in ancient song and the subsequent narrative tradition. We would expect the Yahwist to have traced the husband 's "rule" over his wife to conditions in the garden of Eden rather than regard it as part of the curse on Eve for listening to the serpent (Gen 3:16). We would wonder why the Priestly writer likewise failed to ground male superiority and dominance over women in his creation account; why he speaks only of the collective rule of humans over the rest of creation, their differentiation into male and female, and their duty to procreate (Gen 1:26-31).222 The implication of all these texts is that there was something antecedent and more essential than male hierarchy in the created order: human sexuality as expressed in male and female pairing.
Further, why should the Holiness Code have been so absolute in its prohibition of homosexual intercourse if status were the primary issue? Why not permit, as The Middle Assyrian Laws seem to have done, high-status men to coerce sex with low-status men, or permit all consensual homosexual acts? Or why not permit homosexual intercourse in instances where the two male partners were social equals and alternated active and passive roles? Why even regard the male object of another man's affections as standing in for a female, rather than adopt a model closer to the practice of Greek pederasty? The answer to these questions is apparent. The unqualified character of the prohibitions in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 intimates a more fundamental problem with homosexual intercourse than mere status: a distortion of gender itself, as created and ordered by God. At issue was not so much status differentiation as sexual differentiation. Males were created by God, anatomically and otherwise, for pairing with an "other," not a "like," of the same species. The thinking of the legislators of the Holiness Code was apparently not "Men should not take on the role of women in sexual intercourse because women are inferior beings" but rather "Men should not take on the role of women in sexual intercourse because God created distinct sexes, designed them for sexual pairing, and did so for a reason." While status inversion and gender inversion are related concepts, they are not identical. The latter, not the former, is the main concern behind the Levitical laws.
As we shall see, Paul's own reasoning, grounded in divinely given clues in nature, is similar even though the terminology employed is Hellenistic. Hence, the most likely reason why homosexual intercourse was viewed as wrong in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 was that it mixed two partners in sexual intercourse that God the Creator never intended to be joined: two males. For one man to "lie with" another man in the manner that men normally "lie with" a woman was to defile the latter's masculine stamp, impressed by God and evident in both the visible sexual complementarity of male and female and in the sacred lore of creation. The very integrity and health of the family unit was also undermined. Inability to procreate and misuse of semen were important secondary factors in the critique.
One ambiguity remains: Are Lev 18:22 and 20:13 only prohibiting (anal) intercourse between men? Both Olyan and Boyarin think that is the case. Olyan compares the phrase "the lying down of a woman" in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 with the phrase "the lying down of a male" in Num 31:17-18, 35; Judg 21:11-12, where a female virgin is defined as someone who does not "know a man with respect to the lying down of a male" and a non-virgin is defined as someone who knows a man in that respect. Since the difference between being a virgin and a nonvirgin is penetration of the vagina, it would appear that the comparable phrase for male-male intercourse would imply penetration of a male anal orifice as if it were a female vaginal orifice.223 Boyarin cites texts from the Babylonian Talmud that indicate that the only type of malemale intercourse regarded as worthy of stoning was anal penetration (b. Nid. 13b);224 that women who "rubbed" other women were not disqualified from marrying priests (b. Yebatn. 76a and Sabb. 65a-b);225 and that a woman was not guilty of adultery (and thus subject to stoning) if she had intercrural intercourse with another man but she was guilty if she had vaginal or anal intercourse.226 There is therefore a good case for asserting that Lev 18:22; 20:13 had in mind intercourse between males that involved anal penetration.
However, if this were true, it would still be erroneous to conclude (as both Olyan and Boyarin do) that other forms of homoerotic contact would be permitted. Such a conclusion is akin to arguing that, because any particular corpus of law in the Old Testament explicitly proscribes only penetrative intercourse in the case of incest, adultery, fornication, rape, and bestiality, we can assume that fondling one's stepmother, or a neighbor's wife, or a virgin, or an animal would be acceptable behavior in ancient Israel (cf. the Hebrew idiom "uncover her nakedness" for sexual intercourse).227 One can of course go quite far in sexual stimulation without technically engaging in intercourse. As the Talmudic examples cited above indicate, such fondling may constitute a lesser transgression of the law that is not subject to the death penalty but would still be considered a transgression.
The primacy of penetration for defining sexual intercourse may partly explain why the Holiness Code leaves out lesbian relationships.228 In such acts there is no penetration by a male organ and no transfer of semen—two acts that effect in a real sense a climactic merger of beings and definitively and unambiguously cross boundaries. A similar rationale helps to explain why the prohibition of bestiality (Lev 18:23; 20:15-16), unlike that of same-sex intercourse, is applied to both men and women: apparently it was thought that women could be penetrated by male animals. There probably were other factors accounting for why lesbian intercourse goes unmentioned. It may have been thought of as a transgression of the covenant but one meriting a punishment less severe than death.229 Possibly lesbianism was unknown to the Israelites and/or Canaanites (it goes unmentioned in other legal materials from the ancient Near East) so there was no need to legislate it out of existence.230 We hear of male homosexual cult prostitutes in ancient Israel but not female homosexual cult prostitutes. In a society dominated by men and with a high view of chastity it might have been impossible for a sustained lesbian relationship to develop. It could be taken for granted that Israelite women would go on to marry men, regardless of what experimentation took place with other women before marriage. Female-to-female eroticism would thus constitute no danger to Israelite family structures or determination of paternity. In the end, one cannot know what the precise reason for its exclusion from Lev 18:22; 20:13 was.231 What we do know is that both Paul in Rom 1:26 and The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides 192 (a Jewish text from roughly the same time period as Paul), not to mention the Church Fathers, expanded the prohibitions in Leviticus to forbid lesbian intercourse explicitly.
Incidentally, it is helpful to remember that had the first chapter of Romans not been preserved for posterity, one might have falsely concluded on the basis of 1 Cor 6:9 that Paul opposed only same-sex male intercourse. So the argument from silence with regard to Levitical prohibitions is dubious at best. We also know that Jesus and the early church expanded the definition of sexual intercourse to include the interior lust of one's heart toward another. For such communities of faith, the prohibitions in Lev 18:22; 20:13 could not be restricted to male anal intercourse.
Only after treating explicit OT references to same-sex intercourse is it possible to put into proper perspective the stories about David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18-23 and Davids eulogy for Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1. It is sometimes alleged that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship which the narrator suppressed.232 A review of the story and of the expressions used to describe their relationship will make clear the problems with this allegation.233
Davids first encounter with Jonathan occurred shortly after David slew Goliath. David was brought before King Saul.
1When (David) had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound (niqš râ) to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved (wayye¸ habeû) him as his own soul. 2Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his fathers house, 3Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. 4Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt. 5David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him. . . . I5When Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in awe of him. 16But all Israel and Judah loved David; for it was he who marched out and came in leading them. (1 Sam 18:1-5, 15-16 NRSV)
Here Jonathan's love of David is portrayed as part of a much larger love affair of the people of Israel with David, a love affair based on Davids zeal for Yahweh and his military prowess in the context of a life-and-death struggle with the Philistines (18:5). Rather than responding in jealousy as his father Saul soon would, Jonathan offered his complete loyalty to David. In making a covenant with David he adopted David into the royal "house" or family (an extension of Saul's action in not letting David return to his fathers house).
David and Jonathan had in effect become "kin," with all the mutual privileges and obligations that such a relationship entails. The two now relate as brothers, not as a romantic couple (cf. 2 Sam 1:26: "my brother Jonathan"). Mention of the fact that Jonathans "soul" (i.e., "life," nepeš) "was bound to" David's soul no more expresses erotic love than do the words of Judah to Joseph in Gen 44:30-31: If Judah returns to his father Jacob without Benjamin, Jacob will die because "his (Jacob's) soul is bound up with {q šûrâ) his (Benjamin's) soul." The verb qasar usually refers to a binding together of people for political purposes.234 In effect, Jonathan is assuring David that he has hitched his fortunes to those of David, politically and emotionally. Whatever happens to David happens also to Jonathan. If David hurts, Jonathan hurts. If David rejoices, Jonathan rejoices. Consequently, if David becomes king, Jonathan has every reason to rejoice.
The relationship between Jonathan and David cannot be divorced from the context of the royal court: Jonathan is the king's son and rightful heir to the throne; but David is God's apparent choice to lead Israel. The two have formed a deeply personal, but nonetheless political, alliance. Two points underscore this. First, the language of love is typical of covenant-treaties between an overlord and vassals or between two political rulers of roughly equal power. For example, future vassals of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal were instructed, "You must love [him] as yourselves."235 King Hiram of Tyre is described as a "lover" or "friend" of Davids (1 Kgs 5:1).236 Likewise, all Israel and Judah "loved" David because he successfully led them in battle. Saul was correct to construe this adulation as a sign of crumbling loyalties to his own reign. In an attempt to deceive David, Saul sent word to David that "all [the king's] servants love you" (18:22).
Second, Jonathan's act of handing over his robe, armor, and "even" his sword, bow, and belt was not only an extraordinary token of heartfelt commitment to love David "as his own soul" and to protect him at any personal cost; it was also an act of political investiture. "The passing of arms from the lesser to the greater.. .seems to have had political implications in the Ancient Near East."237 Ironically, Saul attempted to clothe David with his armor for David's battle with Goliath (1 Sam 17:38-39). After David defeated Goliath, he took Goliath's own sword and killed him, then put Goliath's armor in his tent (1 Sam 17:51,54). Second Kings 11:10 reports that the priest Jehoiada brought out Davids spears and shields when the time came to usurp Queen Athaliah's rule with the coronation of her grandson Joash. Jonathan's robe (m cîl) too is probably to be regarded as a royal accoutrement. Giving it to David symbolizes the transfer of the office of heir apparent. Only three chapters earlier, the accidental tearing of Samuel's robe (m cîl) by Saul is followed by Samuel's declaration that God "has torn the kingdom of Israel from you . . . and given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you" (1 Sam 15:27-28). "Jonathan is shown here to transfer his privilege of succession willingly to David out of his admiration and affection for him and . . . loyalty."238
Later, when Saul spoke with Jonathan and all his servants about killing David, Jonathan secretly relayed to David his father's plot because he "delighted very much" or "took great pleasure" (hapes m¸od) in David (19:1). The verb hapes carries no sexual connotation in context, as the previous occurrence in 18:22 indicates ("See, the king is delighted with you, and all his servants love you; now then, become the king's son-in-law" [NRSV]). It denotes simply that David found favor in Jonathan's eyes, including political favor.239
After Saul's attempts on David's life, David flees. When he visits Jonathan he asks what wrong he has done to deserve such treatment. Jonathan assures David that his father does nothing without consulting him. David is less confident: "Your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes; and he thinks, 'Do not let Jonathan know this, or he will be grieved'" (1 Sam 20:3). David then devises a plan by which he may discover Saul's intentions and urges Jonathan not to betray him: "Do hesed (i.e., show loyalty, faithfulness, kindness) to your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of Yahweh240 with you" (20:8). The use of the self-deprecating expression "your servant" underscores the political dimension of the proceedings. Jonathan in turn reassures David that he will disclose any knowledge he may have of his father's plans to harm David (20:12-13). He renews his covenant with David, with the additional stipulation that David never extirpate Jonathans lineage:
14"If I am still alive, do with me the hesed of Yahweh; but if I die15never cut off your hesed from my house, even if Yahweh were to cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face to the earth.",16Thus Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, "May Yahweh seek out the enemies of David."17Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him; for he loved him as he loved his own soul." (1 Sam 20:14-17 NRSV modified)
Jonathan recognizes that the Lord is on the side of David. He knows that his father's attempt to destroy David will bring God's wrath. Just as he is willing to risk his very life for David, he asks David to spare his lineage from the divine retribution that is surely coming upon all Davids enemies.
When David did not show up at the king's table, Saul flew into a rage and said to Jonathan:
30'"You son of a perverse, rebellious woman (na241 Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame (l bošt ka) and to the shame (l bošet) of your mothers nakedness (cawat hammardût)!31For as long as the son of Jesse lives upon the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Now send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die." cerwat)? 32Then Jonathan answered . . . , "Why should he be put to death? What has he done?"33But Saul threw his spear at him to strike him. . . .34Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food . . . , for he was grieved for David, and because his father had disgraced him (hiklimô). (1 Sam 20:30-34 NRSV)
Saul shames Jonathan by declaring him to be, in saul's eyes, the equivalent of a bastard offspring of an adulterous wife. Although Jonathan's mother is slandered, the insult is clearly aimed at Jonathan. The reference to his mother as an adulteress conveys Saul's sense of betrayal. He accuses Jonathan of aligning himself with David, his family's own enemy, and thereby ruining his own chances to become king. From Saul's perspective, such a course of action would not only be shameful for Jonathan but would also bring shame on his mother to have borne such an offspring as this (hence "to the shame of your mothers nakedness").242 Saul may have viewed Jonathan's avoidance of the mantle of leadership as an unmanly shirking of responsibility, but it is Jonathan's acquiescence to Davids political ascendancy, not Jonathan's adoption of the female role in a homosexual relationship with David, that Saul is referring to. 243
When Jonathan communicated to David his father's reaction, David
bowed three times, and they kissed each other, and wept with each other; David wept the more. Then Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, since both of us have sworn in the name of Yahweh, saying, 'Yaliweh shall be between me and you, and between my descendants and your descendants, forever.' " (1 Sam 20:41-42 NRSV modified)
David's threefold bowing to Jonathan speaks to the political overtones of the farewell. David and Jonathan are in extreme distress because Saul's actions have made it clear that he has set his house against the house of David. David and Jonathan know that they might never see one another alive again. Understandably, their departure from each other is emotional, just as it would be between father and son or between two brothers. There is nothing inherently homosexual about two men kissing each other in ancient Near Eastern society.244 These were not erotic kisses but kisses of sorrow that conveyed the deep emotional pain of a committed friendship and alliance cleft by circumstances beyond their control.
Subsequently, Jonathan visited David while the latter was on the run. There Jonathan explicitly stated his conviction that David "shall be king over Israel, and I shall be second to you" and, for a third time, made a covenant with David (1 Sam 23:16-18). The political side of the relationship is unambiguous.
When David later learns of the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, he bemoans Jonathan's fate in endearing terms:
I am in distress because of you, my brother Jonathan; you were very dear to me (na245 your love to me was more wonderful to me than the love of women. (2 Sam 1:26) camta lî m¸od);
Jonathan's repeated display of (non-sexual) kindness to David at a time when Jonathan was in a position of power, selflessly risking his own life and certainly his own kingdom, surpassed anything David had ever known from a committed erotic relationship with a woman. No more and no less than this is the point of David's eulogy of his dear friend. David subsequently lived up to his covenant agreement with Jonathan by restoring the fortunes of Jonathans crippled son Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9).
None of these texts, taken singly or as a collective whole, provide persuasive support for a homosexual relationship between Jonathan and David. On no occasion does the narrator ever refer to sexual intercourse, between David and Jonathan. The verbs šakab ("to lie") and yadac ("to know") are never employed.246 Davids heterosexual vigor was hardly in question, as the texts that speak of his many wives, concubines, and children attest (1 Sam 18:17-29; 25:39-43; 2 Sam 3:2-5, 13-16; 5:13-16; 11). Indeed, after David's first encounter with Jonathan in ch. 18, the attention of the narrator shifts to Saul's attempts to thwart marriage between one of his daughters and David. It is clear enough from the Bathsheba episode that David could be erotically stimulated by the sight of a pretty woman bathing (2 Sam 11:2-5). Jonathan too was married and had children (1 Sam 20:42; 2 Samuel 9). Of course, heterosexual desires do not necessarily preclude homosexual desires. Yet the narrator's willingness to speak of David's heterosexual sex life puts in stark relief his complete silence about any sexual activity between David and Jonathan or any sexual activity with men after Jonathan's death.
One could argue that the narrators have worked hard, but not entirely successfully, to suppress the details of a homosexual relationship. However, such a theory flies in the face of an important fact. At neither of the two most important stages of the tradition history of the narrative, whether during the composition of the Succession Narrative247 or at the time of its editing and incorporation into the Deuteronomistic History, is there any indication that the narrators were in the slightest bit concerned about a possible homosexual misunderstanding. Indeed, far from censoring, the narrators did their best to play up the relationship between Jonathan and David. The more covenants and the greater the emotional bond between these two, the merrier. Why were the narrators unconcerned about a hint of homosexual scandal? The answer is obvious: nothing in the stories raised any suspicion that David and Jonathan were homosexually involved with one another. Only in our own day, removed as we are from ancient Near Eastern conventions,248 are these kinds of specious connections made by people desperate to find the slightest shred of support for homosexual practice in the Bible.249
Viewing the relationship of Jonathan and David in purely personal terms grossly distorts the purposes of the narrators. The personal dimension is significant, but primarily insofar as it conveys a political point: David is not a rogue usurper of the kingdom of Saul and Jonathan. The transition of royal power to David came with Jonathans own blessing and even initiative. David was not an enemy of the house of Saul but in some respects its staunchest supporter. Some companions destroy each other "but there is a lover/friend (¸oheb) who sticks250 closer than a brother" (Prov 18:24). David and Jonathan had the latter type of relationship and it was one which was completely asexual.251
Old Testament texts that speak to the issue of same-sex intercourse are sufficiently widespread to claim the existence of a pervasive viewpoint within the Old Testament canon.
The Yahwist's (J's) stance toward intercourse between males is evident in three stories: the creation of woman, Ham's homosexual rape of his father, Noah, and the attempted rape of Lot's angelic visitors by the men of Sodom. In the creation story, intercourse between a man and a woman is justified on the grounds that woman was formed from man. Marriage in general and sexual intercourse in particular is thus evaluated as an attachment of two complementary beings into "one flesh," a reunion with one's sexual "other." No such justification is, or can be, provided for same-sex unions. The stories about Ham and Sodom deal not only with homosexual intercourse but also with other factors: incestuous rape of one's father in the case of Ham, rape of vulnerable visitors and resident aliens in the case of Sodom. In both stories, however, homosexual intercourse is made a key component in characterizing an event as a "type scene" of unprecedented evil, vindicating God's subjugation of the descendants of Ham (the Canaanites) and the complete destruction of Sodom. In line with The Middle Assyrian Laws, if the Yahwist regarded homosexual rape as an act that brought great shame on the man raped, he can hardly have approved of those who willingly allowed themselves to be "lain with as a woman."
Both the Deuteronomic law code and the Deuteronomistic Historian deal primarily with the phenomenon of homosexual cult prostitution. We argued on the basis of ancient Near Eastern parallels that this was the most acceptable manifestation of receptive homosexual behavior in Israel's cultural environment. If even this form of homosexual intercourse could not be integrated into the Yahwistic faith, then none could be. The epithet "dog," as ancient Near Eastern parallels show, conveys an expression of particular disgust for the receptive partner in male homosexual intercourse. The prohibition against cross-dressing in Deut 22:5 gets at the same concern for maintaining lines of distinction in maleness and femaleness. The story of the attempted homosexual rape of the visiting Levite, along with the subsequent rape and death of the Levite's concubine (Judg 19:22-26), epitomizes and climaxes the sad state of affairs in the pre-monarchical period: everyone did what was right in his/her own eyes. Its close parallels with the story of Sodom underscore the Deuteronomistic Historian's basic agreement with the Yahwist's position toward homosexual intercourse.
The position of the Priestly writer (P) and the author(s) of the Holiness Code (H) toward same-sex intercourse is clear. The importance given to procreation and to ordering creation according to various "kinds" precludes any openness on P's part toward same-sex intercourse, regardless of whether P knew H. The straightforward declaration that God created male and female for sexual union and blessed that union, and no other, with the capacity to be fruitful and multiply leaves same-sex unions without place in the structures imbedded by God in creation. The framers of the Holiness Code, like the Yahwist, understood Canaanite participation in incest and same-sex intercourse to be two key reasons why God vomited the Canaanites out of the land. They explicitly declared all sexual intercourse between males to be abominable or utterly detestable to God and worthy of the sentence of death. In taking such a severe and comprehensive stance towards male homosexual behavior, Lev 18:22 and 20:13 represent a level of revulsion toward same-sex intercourse without parallel in the ancient Near East. The framers were neither blindly imitating the cultural trends of their own day, nor responding in idiosyncratic fashion to the trauma of exile and restoration. They were not reacting negatively to same-sex intercourse primarily because of its connections to idolatry or because of its impurity owing to the contact of semen with excrement. Not even its procreative incapacity accounts for the degree of abhorrence generated by homosexual intercourse. Rather, H was responding to the conviction that same-sex intercourse was fundamentally incompatible with the creation of men and women as complementary sexual beings. For a man to have sexual intercourse with another male as though the latter were not a male but a female violates God's design for the created order. It puts another male, at least insofar as the act of sexual intercourse is concerned, in the category of female rather than male. It is nothing short of a rebellion against the way in which God made humans to function as sexual beings. We argued, too, that a focus on anal intercourse between males did not imply acceptance of other forms of homosexual behavior, including female homosexual behavior. While recognizing the obsolescence of some of the laws of the Holiness Code in relation to the moral behavior of Christians, we pointed to three factors as evidence for the enduring validity of Lev 18:22 and 20:13: (1) the grounding of these proscriptions in transcultural creation structures; (2) the fact that the closest analogies appear in the proscriptions to incest, adultery, and bestiality—forms of sexual behavior that continue to be rejected by contemporary communities of faith; and (3) Paul's conscious appropriation and endorsement of the Levitical standards against homosexual intercourse for Christian churches not under the Mosaic law.
Among the prophets, it is likely that Ezekiel characterized homosexual intercourse as an "abomination" and connected it with the story of Sodom. Even though the rest of the prophetic corpus is silent about the matter of same-sex intercourse, the role of prophets as spokespersons of God who enforced and creatively applied the old covenant law of the league makes it highly unlikely that any would have condoned same-sex intercourse.
The clear and unequivocal position of the Hebrew Scriptures against homosexual intercourse provides an important backdrop to a discussion of the New Testaments witness. However, because the views of late Second Temple Judaism were also shaped by trends within the broader cultural milieu of the Greco-Roman world, a discussion of the New Testament witness must be preceded by a discussion of further developments in early Judaism.
1. David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 96-99, 124-35; Nissinen, Homoerotidsm, 19-36, 144-52 (notes); Wold, Out of Order, 43-61; Olyan," 'And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman': On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13," ]HSex 5 (1994): 192-95; Springett, Homosexuality, 33-48. Also: J. Bottéro and H. Petschow, "Homosexualitët," RlA 4 (1975), 4:459-68; W. Westendorf, "Homosexualitët," LA 2 (1977), 2.1272-74; Karl Hoheisel, "Homosexualitët," RAC 16 (1994): 294-97; Gordon Wenham, "The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality," ExpTim 102 (1990-91): 359-61; Marvin H. Pope, "Homosexuality," IDBSup (1976): 415-16; Derrick Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1955), 30-37; H. A. Hoffner, Jr., "Incest, Sodomy, and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East," Orient and Occident (ed. H. Hoffner; AOAT 22; Neukirchen: Butzon & Bercker, 1973), 81-90.
2. Greenberg cites other evidence: "Anal intercourse was part of the sexual repertoire: it is depicted in figurative art from Uruk, Assur, Babylon, and Susa as early as the
beginning of the third millennium B.C. There is no evidence that fellatio or cunnilingus was practiced, either heterosexually or homosexually.. . . Zimri-lin, king of Man, and Hammurabi, king of Babylon, both had male lovers; Zimri-lin's queen refers to them matter-of-factly in a letter" (Construction, 126).
3. Translation by Martha Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995); cited in Nissinen. Material in brackets is from the translation of T. Meek in ANET, 181.
4. Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 26. It is not entirely clear whether the term tappa u puts the primary emphasis on equal social status or spatial proximity (for example, a member of one's clan or village).
5. Cf. A § 18, which has a similar form to A §19 but replaces the charge with "Everyone has sex with your wife."
6. So Olyan and Greenberg. Nissinen is unclear whether rape or a nonviolent sexual subjection by a dominant partner is at issue in A §20. Wold questions whether force
is implied in A §20. The consensus is that A §19 refers to a false charge of voluntary prostitution. But is an exchange of money necessarily inferred? Is the receptive partner thought of as someone with an erotic desire for penetration? Or is he too weak to protect his own manly honor? Or is he all of the above?
7. Homoeroticism, 26.
8. For examples, see ibid., 26-27.
9. For translations, see Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 27; A. Kirk Grayson and Donald B. Redford, Papyrus and Tablet (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 149 (quoted in Greenberg, Construction, 126-27).
10. This is not necessarily a contradiction of Middle Assyrian Law A §20. Omens neither prescribe nor proscribe behavior.
11. Several things in this third example are unclear: the precise meaning of gerseqqu (a member of the court? the chief family assistant? a eunuch?), and the reason why the omen is negative, or even whether the omen is negative at all (Greenberg, citing the translation of Grayson and Redford, reads: "For one whole year the worry which plagued him will vanish" [127]).
12. For the first view, Greenberg, Construction, 127; for the second, Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 28; for the third, Wold, Out of Order, 48.
13. Nissinen s confident assertion that the incantation "can scarcely be interpreted as referring to mutual love between two equal and consenting male citizens" is overstated (Homoeroticism, 35). Such an interpretation appears to contradict his own reading of the Gilgamesh Epic.
14. Nissinen provides a helpful discussion of them (Homoeroticism, 28-34). See also Greenberg, Construction, 94-106, esp. 95-97; Springett, Homosexuality, 41-45.
15. See ANET 52-57, 106-9; Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 154-62.
16. In addition to the omen text cited above and the "plough" text cited below, Nissinen refers to the following texts: "When the kalû wiped his anus, (he said): 'I must not excite that which belongs to my lady Inanna' "; "When a ['man-woman'] entered the brothel, he raised his hands and said: 'My hire goes to the promoter. You are wealth, I am half "; "Men take into their houses kurgarrûs who deliver them children"; and another umtna alu omen, which predicts that a man will experience a need to have sex with another man like an «assinnu.» "Male cult prostitutes" is thus a fair designation for one of their functions in Mesopotamian society. Greenberg regards such a conclusion as "inescapable" (Construction, 97-98). Nissinen thinks it "possible," though he regards "homoeroticism" as only a "sideissue" (Homoeroticism, 33-35). Wold states with regard to these cult functionaries that "it is not possible to deduce . . . a pattern of homosexual practice in the religious sphere at this time" (Out of Order, 49). Elsewhere, though, he speaks of same-sex intercourse with male cult prostitutes as a reality of ancient Mesopotamian society (ibid., 48, 51).
17. The first text is the Epic of Erra 4.52-56 (eighth century B.C.E. or earlier; Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 305), the second Ishtar's Descent to the Underworld 101. See the following seventh-century B.C.E. curse on a monument praising the victory of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon over the king of Egypt: "If somebody
moves this monument, removes my name from it and writes his own name instead . . . , let Ishtar transform his masculinity into femininity and put him tied in front of the feet of his enemy" All three texts are cited in Nissinen.
18. The story begins with a complaint by the nobles of Uruk to the gods regarding Gilgamesh s sexual abuse of young men and women alike: "The nobles of Uruk are worried in their chambers: 'Gilgamesh leaves not the son to his father; day and night is unbridled his arrogance. . . . Gilgamesh leaves not the maid to her mother, the warrior's daughter, the noble's spouse!'" (translation by E. A. Speiser in ANET 73-74).
19. The translations are primarily by Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, cited in Nissinen.
20. Homoeroticism, 24.
21. Construction, 113.
22. Out of Order, 49.
23. Greenberg provides a good summary (Construction, 127-35). See also Wold, Out of Order, 56-59; Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 19,144 nn. 1-3.
24. Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1973), 2.162, 264.
25. Coffin Texts VI, 258 f-g (Westendorf, "Homosexualitat," 1272).
26. Greenberg argues that "it does not necessarily follow that Egyptians of the time viewed homosexuality negatively" (Construction, 129). Wold argues differently: "Since the reign of Pepi II was long and corrupt, it possibly reflects a part of that decay" (Out of Order, 56).
27. Greenberg, Construction, 130.
28. Ibid., 131; Grayson and Redford, Papyrus and Tablet, 76.
29. Greenberg, Construction, 132; J. Gwynn Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus and Seth (Chicago: Argonaut, 1969), 45-46.
30. However, homosexual desire on the part of Seth cannot be ruled out. Springett cites a papyrus fragment found in Kahun: "The Majesty of Seth said to the Majesty of Horus, How beautiful are your buttocks!" (Homosexuality, 35-36; quoted from Griffiths, Conflict, 42). See H. Te Velde, Seth: God of Confusion (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 55, 59.
31. ANET 34-35. Greenberg contends that such confessions do not imply that an insertive partner had committed a grave offense (Construction, 134).
32. Greenberg argues for a restriction of such attitudes to "priests and moralists." A much earlier text, The Instructions of Vizier Ptahhotep (mid-third millennium B.C.E.) warns only against forcing a "vulva-boy" to have sex against his will (Construction, 134).
33. Wold, Out of Order, 59.
34. "If a man violates his own mother, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his daughter, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is a capital crime" (Law 189; ANET 196).
35. However, Delbert Hillers has referred to the Canaanite goddess Anath as one who, like Ishtar, "takes away men's bows, that is, who changes men into women" ("The Bow of Aqhat," Orient and Occident, 74).
36. The Deuteronomistic Historian appears to make a connection between Rehoboam's Ammonite mother (1 Kgs 14:21) and the introduction of "high places, pillars, and Asherim . . . and male temple prostitutes" (14:23-24).
37. Contra, e.g., Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 37.
38. For similar verdicts, see Wold, Out of Order, 59; Olyan, " 'And with a Male . . . ' ," 194-95. Nissinen, while contending that "other ancient Near Eastern sources display sexual ethics, taboos, and gender roles basically similar to those in the Hebrew Bible," also acknowledges: "Unlike the sources from classical antiquity, the Holiness Code does not even make any difference with regard to the social status of the partners; the prohibition concerns all male couplings even if the social stratification is otherwise widely recognized in its proscriptions" (Homoeroticism, 42, 44).
39. See Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984 [German orig., 1974]), 157-58; Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 1-11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 28-29; idem, "Genesis and Ecology: Does 'Subdue' Mean 'Plunder'?" ChrCent 87 (1970): 1188-91.
40. Cf. 5:1: "On the day when God created adam, in the likeness (bidmÛt) of God he made him (or: it), male and female he created them; and he blessed them and called their name 'adam on the day when they were created."
41. See, inter alios, Richard E. Whitaker, "Creation and Human Sexuality," Homosexuality and Christian Community, 11-12.
42. Contra Phyllis A. Bird in two articles republished in Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997):
'''Male and Female He Created Them': Genesis l:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation," 123-54 (HTR 74 [1981]); and "Genesis 1-3 as a Source for a Contemporary Theology of Sexuality," 155-73 (ExAud 3 [1987]). See now also: Bird, "The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation Concerning Homosexuality: Old Testament Contributions," Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, 166-68. Bird believes that the sexual differentiation described in 1:27 has an extremely limited function. P, who among the Pentateuchal authors took the most care in maintaining God's transcendence and in avoiding anthropomorphic descriptions, would have been repulsed by the notion that God possessed any form of sexuality (pp. 142, 151, 160). Rather than relate sexual differentiation to the divine image, P views sexual differentiation as a feature that makes humans unlike God and like other creatures (pp. 142-43, 158, 168). Indeed, whereas sexual differentiation of other creatures can be assumed, it must be explicitly stated in the case of humans because being made in God's image implies the absence of such differentiation (pp. 142,160). Thus, the "parallel statements of v. 27 must be understood as sequential, not synonymous" (p. 158). "It relates only to the blessing of fertility, making explicit its necessary presupposition. It is not concerned with sexual roles, the status or relationship of the sexes to one another, or marriage" (p. 149; cf. p. 162). "P's statement concerning human sexuality . . . focuses solely on its biological nature" (p. 170).
Bird pushes her argument too far. It is obvious that, contra Bird, the clauses in v. 27 are not sequential but parallel; the sequence is between (not within) verses: from v. 26 ("Let us make . . .") to v. 27 ("God created ...") and then to v. 28 ("God blessed them and said . . ."). Bird's reading virtually requires reading 1:27c (and 5:1c) as standing in an adversative relationship to the preceding two clauses: ". . . in the image of God he created it/him, [but] male and female he created them." Yet this is manifestly not what the absence of an adversative conjunction implies. While other creatures also share in sexual differentiation, human sexual differentiation is distinctive in that it is connected with, or follows from, the special status of being made in God's image. P's emphasis on divine transcendence would not have been compromised if he had regarded complementary differences between male and female humans as bringing out different facets of the divine image (for example, God as ruler and God as nurturer). That the creation of "male and female" would have held for P no implications regarding "the status or relationship of the sexes to one another, or marriage" is hard to accept, given the following verse with its command to procreate. To suppose that P viewed marriage as solely "biological," as if for P marriage was just a mechanical and impersonal relationship void of mutual affection, is to posit for P a view of sexuality out of step with the rest of the Hebrew Bible. The exuberance of the command to "be fruitful and multiply" hardly intimates that husband and wife should "hold their noses" while having sexual
intercourse, doing their best to restrain sexual passion for one another. As such, "male and female he created them" has important implications for human sexuality, both in conjunction with and apart from procreation.
43. As J. Andrew Dearman notes: "The term 'helper (ezer) does not imply inferior status but one who supplies what is lacking. The Lord is the 'help/helper' of Israel (see Ps 121:1-2)" ("Marriage in the Old Testament," Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality, 65 n. 4); similarly, Gowan, From Eden to Babel, 46; Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 85; Terence E. Fretheim, "Genesis," NIB 1:352. "The comment that her husband 'shall rule over her' [3:16]... probably reflects the cultural primacy of the man in subsistence efforts (farming, gathering, and herding). . . . The intensive process of birth and nurture kept the mother closer to the domicile as manager of the household, although her duties were not limited to child rearing. . . . These circumstances of labor and 'hierarchical' gender roles result from the disobedience of the man and the woman; they are not 'creation mandates' but prospective explanations of physical existence outside the garden" (Dearman, "Marriage," 56; similarly, Bird, "Male and Female," 152-53; "Genesis 1-3," 165-66). It is interesting that while J views the subordination of women to men as a product of the fall (implying the woman's equal status pre-fall), he unmistakably views the divine authorization for (and only for) heterosexual marriage as a pre-fall phenomenon. Those who argue that the case for validating homosexual behavior is comparable to the case for validating women's equal status overlook this point.
44. The precise meaning of selac is not clear since nowhere else is it used of part of a human body; normally, it denotes the side of an object. A third-centuryB.C.E. rabbi, Samuel bar Nahman, thought of Adam as an androgynous being that was sliced in half, down the side: "When God created Adam, he created him facing both ways; then he sawed him in two and made two backs, one for each figure" (Gen. Rab. 8:1; cited by George Foote Moore, Judaism [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927-30], 1.453, 3.137).
45. Contra Whitaker, "Creation and Human Sexuality," 9.
46. "The woman in his day might have no choice but to leave her home, because her father arranged a marriage for her; so it is the man, who had more freedom, of whom ] speaks" (Gowan, From Eden to Babel, 49).
47. Or: join, stick, cling, cleave, be united (dabaq).
48. Bird argues that, as etiologies, Gen 1:26-28 and Gen 2:22-24 explain "why things are the way they are," not why they should be this way ("The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 167). The dichotomy is artificial. Often—and surely this is the case here—etiologies do both, providing additional sanction for why things should continue to remain as they are.
49. Gen 3:16 makes a woman's "pain in childbearing," not childbearing itself, the punishment for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
50. See Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 234.
51. Even though they are not happy about this conclusion, Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn accept it: "Just as relations with parents and children are
diminished, so, too, are excluded relations between people of the same sex. The 'helper corresponding to [like-opposite]' the human/man is a sexual 'opposite.' According to this claim, human sexuality is clearly monogamous exogamous heterosexuality: one partner, outside the family, of the opposite sex. Partnership, according to this agenda, demands sexual and familial difference" (Gender, Poioer, and Promise: The Subject of the Bible's First Story [Nashville: Abingdon, 1993], 29).
52. Cf. the creation myth concocted by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium, discussed in ch. 5.1. George R. Edwards somehow arrives at the conclusion that because Adam may have been an androgynous being before the creation of woman "the foundations of creationist homophobia" are dissolved ("A Critique of Creationist Homophobia," Homosexuality and Religion [ed. R. Hasbany; New York: Haworth, 1989], 112). I cannot make out the logic of his argument.
53. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 230.
54. Whitaker attempts to split the hermeneutical application of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2: "Genesis 1 emphasizes God's sovereign power; Genesis 2 highlights human freedom"; Genesis 1 expresses an outdated "procreational model," while Genesis 2, with its model of "sexuality as companionship, as the sharing of tasks [and] as the enjoying together of the fruits of our labors and of each other, fits easily into contemporary society" ("Creation and Human Sexuality," 11-12). Cf. also Bird, who similarly emphasizes the differences between J's "psychosocial" portrait of sexuality and P's merely "biological" portrait ("Male and Female," 152-53; "Genesis 1-3," 170-71). To drive such a wedge Whitaker has to ignore completely the motif of the exclusive complementarity of male and female genders and the Yahwist's own exclusive sanctioning of male-female sexual union in 2:23-24. The notion of
"attachment" or "joining" in 2:24 may not be limited to the act of sexual intercourse but it certainly includes it (as the following verse's comment about an unashamed nakedness suggests). The Yahwist recognizes that (a) the "parts fit" male to female only and (b) a holistic, personal complementarity is achieved only in opposite-sex unions. A man can never be a complementary sexual "other" for another man. P and J (and the traditions they draw on) may emphasize different aspects of male-female complementarity but they are in complete agreement over the exclusive claim to complementarity possessed by heterosexual unions.
55. wayyitgal, hitpacel oigala. Some translate as a reflexive, "uncovered/exposed himself' [HALOT, NASB, NJPS; the translations in the commentaries of Wenham, Hamilton, Mathews); BDB as a passive, "was uncovered"; most as a mediating stative, "lay uncovered/naked." The difference between the reflexive and passive senses is that between Noah taking off his own clothes and someone else entering the tent to undress Noah.
56. Or: inside (bS tôk).
57. Specifically, genitals.
58. Or: mantle, wrapper; bed covering (Simla). "They used 'a cloak' to cover Noah, that is, the outer daytime garment also used as a blanket at night (Exod 22:26)» (Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 [WBC; Waco: Word Books, 1987], 200).
59. Lit., "and their faces backwards" (ûpnehem hOrannit).
60. That is, learned, found out (wayyedac).
61. Cf. Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984), 2.148-51; Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 200; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 323; Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26 (NAC; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 418-20; Gowan, From Eden to Babel, 108-9; and Fretheim, "Genesis," 404. According to Westermann, it was "a question of the obligations of the son to take care of his father who has become heavy with wine, as in the Aqht myth (cf. ANET, p. 150, 11.32-33). . . . Ham's outrage consists in not covering his father" (Genesis 1-11, 484-85, 488). For the disgrace of being uncovered, he cites Exod 20:26; 2 Sam 6:16; 10:4-5; Lam 4:21; and Hab 2:15. Yet, contra Westermann, Gen 9:22-23 is clear that "Ham's outrage" is not so much failing to cover his father as "seeing his father's nakedness." Moreover, Noah expresses consternation over what Ham "had done to him," not what he failed to do for him.
62. Wold, Out of Order, 66-67.
63. Ibid., 69-76; Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 52-53. Springett considers such an interpretation possible {Homosexuality, 77-78). Cf. Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (Macon:Mercer University Press, 1997; trans, of 3d Germ, ed., 1910), 80; Gerhard von Rad,Genesis: A Commentary (rev. ed.; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972; orig.Germ, ed., 1949), 137; J. E. Bruns, "Old Testament History and the Development of a Sexual Ethic," The New Morality (ed. W. Dunphy; New York: Herder andHerder, 1967), 75-76; Anthony Phillips, "Uncovering the Fathers Skirt," VT 30 (1980): 41; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (JPSTC; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 66; Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist (FRLANT 157; Gottingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 119; Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 88, 193 n.6; Seth Daniel Kunin, The Logic of Incest: A Structuralist Analysis of Hebrew Mythology (JSOTSup 185; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 174-75; Athalya Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and 'Sexuality' in the Hebrew Bible (BIS 26; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 107-109; O. Palmer Robertson, "Current Critical Questions Concerning the 'Curse of Ham' (Gen 9:20-27)," JETS 41 (1998): 177-88, esp. p. 180. Marc Vervenne alludes vaguely to the texts condemnation of the "erotic aberrations of the Umwelt" ("What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor? A Critical Re-examination of Genesis 9.20-27," JSOT 68 [1995]: 33-55).
64. Gunkel, Genesis, 80.
65. As Robertson remarks, "It seems very unlikely that Noah would have had any remembrance of a mere look from his son while he was in a state of drunkenness"
("Curse of Ham," 179). Wold takes up the question of whether the narrator could have the "evil eye" (i.e., visual witchcraft) in mind and concludes: "In my opinion, the idea is not far-fetched, but it is purely speculative.... no extant [ancient Near Eastern] text describes the punishment of a person for merely looking at someone who is naked" (Out of Order, 68).
66. The famous divorce text in Deut 24:1 probably also means by "a nakedness of some sort," an objectionable act of sexual intercourse. For the phrase "uncover the nakedness of," HALOT translates: "sleep with."
67. Ezek 22:10 ("in [Jerusalem] they uncover their fathers' nakedness") may refer to incest with one's mother or stepmother (cf. Lev 18:7-8; 20:11; also, Deut 22:30; 27:20, "uncovering his father's skirt," of incest with a stepmother); contra Anthony Phillips, who interprets "the nakedness of your father" in Lev 8:7a and "uncovering his father's skirt" in Deut 22:30 and Ezek 22:10 as a reference to sex with one's father ("Uncovering the Father's Skirt," 38-43). Regarding metaphors for prostitution and adultery, see Ezek 16:36; 23:18; and for rape and/or public exposure in an adultery trial, Isa 47:3; Ezek 16:37; 23:10; 23:29.
68. For the "uncovering nakedness'Tseeing nakedness" parallel, see Isa 47:3; Ezek 16:37 (cited above). For "seeing nakedness" as an opportunity for rape, see Lam 1:8-10; Hab 2:15; Nah 3:5.
69. This explanation also renders superfluous the old hypothesis (adopted by
Wellhausen, Gunkel, von Rad, and others) that 9:22 originally read just "Canaan" rather than "Ham, father of Canaan."
70. Albert I. Baumgarten, "Myth and Midrash: Genesis 9:20-29," Christianity, Judaism, and Other Greco-Roman Cults (ed. J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 3.66. Cf. Wold, Out of Order, 69-70; James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 222. The targums on Gen 9:22 (Onqebs, Neophyti, Pseudo-Jonathan; cf. the Peshitta) indicate that Ham "told his two brothers in the street" (i.e., he was indiscrete in relating what he saw). Another tradition states that "while he was asleep, his shame was uncovered. Ham laughed at his father's shame and did not cover it, but laughed about it and mocked" (Cave of Treasures [E] 21:3).
71. "He who maintains that he was castrated [reasons thus:] since [Noah] cursed [Ham's] fourth son, [Ham] must have injured [Noah] with respect to [having] a fourth son. But he who says that [Ham] had homosexual relations with [Noah] draws an analogy between 'and he saw' written twice," both in Gen 9:22 and Gen 34:2 (where Shechem "saw" Dinah and lay with her by force; b. Sanh. 70a). The tradition of castration appears also in: Theophilus of Antioch (late-second century c.E.), Autol. 3.28; and Tg. Ps.-J. 9:24. Baumgarten argues that the "later versions of the castration are not based on some pre-existing tradition, but were creations of the second century A.D." to explain why the curse fell on Ham's fourth son and not on Ham himself ("Myth and Midrash," 69, 71). "Homosexuality remains an attractive possibility" (ibid., 64 n. 56).
72. Obviously, when the Levitical laws against incest forbid, for example, sexual intercourse with one's mother or sister-in-law or aunt, they are referring to incest committed by men against women; that is, "you" refers to Israelite males (see 18:23: "You shall not have sex with any animal. . . , nor shall any woman . . .")• The prohibition against sexual intercourse with "your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother" refers to intercourse with one's mother, not one's father (18:7; cf. 18:8; and Jub 33:1-17: when Jacob discovered that his son Reuben had lain with his concubine Bilhah, he "was very angry with Reuben because . . . he had uncovered his father's robe"). The Levitical laws against incest are directed at men, not women, apparently because the potential for uncontrollable domestic abuse lay not with women but with men (who were in positions of domestic authority, whose physical strength lent itself to abuse, and whose proclivity to sexual immorality was considered greater). Incidentally, Frederick W. Bassett appeals to the wording of Lev 18:8 as a basis for arguing that Ham had sex not with Noah but with Noah's wife (Ham's mother), making Canaan a child of incest ("Noah's Nakedness and the Curse of Canaan," VT 17 [1971]: 232-37). The key problem with this theory is that Gen 9:20-27 is quite explicit that Noah's own nakedness is at issue. See the critique by G. Rice, "The Curse That Never Was,"/flr 29 (1972): 5-27, esp. 11-13.
73. Homoeroticism, 53.
74. Even Richard Hays, who affirms the biblical witness against homosexual activity, has stated: "The notorious story of Sodom and Gomorrah—often cited in connection with homosexuality—is actually irrelevant to the topic" ("Awaiting the Redemption of Our Bodies," 5). Bird qualifies this: "I believe [Hays] is right in insisting that this text does not address the cases under consideration today, but I do not think it can be dismissed as testimony to the OT's attitude toward homosexual activity" ("The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 147).
75. Or: go to bed/sleep (yiškabu). Possibly the writer is setting the stage for the abomination of men lying with men (compare the same verb in Lev 18:22; 20:13).
76. miqqdseh: lit., "from the end/edge/border/extremity/outskirts," an abbreviation for minhaqqdseh °el haqqaseh (Exod 26:28; 36:33); thus, "from one end (of the city) to the other" (HALOT, Westermann; for similar terms elsewhere HALOT translates: "without exception," or "every single one of them"). Cf. BDB: "A condensed term for what is included within the extremities = the whole," here "in its entirety." The emphasis in this verse is on the wickedness of every inhabitant of Sodom (at least every male), justifying the city's complete destruction (18:22-33).
77. Or: I beg you; please (3al na3).
78. Most render idiomatically: "as you please" or "what(ever) you like/want/wish."
79. sel: "shadow, shade (as protection)"; "shelter" (most), "protection" (NIV, NJB).
80. geš (qal imptv. nagaš) hal¸â: lit., "step forward or approach thither."
81. Lit., "the one" (haehad), but as contemptuous address.
82. lagûr: "to dwell as alien and dependant" (HALOT); "to stay as foreigner and sojourner" (CHALOT); "to sojourn, dwell (as a newcomer, ger, without original rights)" (BDB). Lot is reminded, however much he has tried to integrate into Sodomite society, that he remains an outsider without legal rights and protection (Sama).
83. wayyišpot šapôt: "act like a judge" (HALOT); "act as a lawgiver/judge/governor" (BDB). The intensifying sense of the infinitive absolute following a finite verb probably carries the sense of outrage and indignation that I have tried to convey with the phrase "has the nerve to."
84. "More wickedly" probably means to kill Lot, not just commit homosexual rape against him.
85. wayyipserû . . . me¸od: pasar = "urge, coerce" (HALOT); "push, press upon" (BDB).'
86. NJPS: "the person o f (ha¸îš); so too the translation of E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB; Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 136.
87. sanwerîm (elsewhere only in 2 Kgs 6:18): "dazzling light" (CHALOT), "blinding light" (Speiser, NJPSV, NAB, NJB), "blinding flash" (Hamilton); less likely, "sudden blindness" (BDB), "blindness" (NRSV, REB, NIV, NASB, Westermann). Speiser and Sama argue strongly for the first sense over the second. The angels "thereby abandon their human disguise" (Speiser).
88. wayyilû(qal impf. la¸â): "grow weary; (+ inf.) become tired of, give up" (KBS); "be weary, impatient" (BDB). Cf. "they wearied themselves trying to find" (NASB; similarly, Westermann, RSV); "they became exhausted trying to find" (Hamilton). Speiser and Sarna, however, argue for the following sense: "they could not (or: were unable to) find/reach" (most); "they were helpless to find" (NJPS).
89. Bailey, Homosexuality, 3-4; Boswell, Homosexuality, 93-94; John J. McNeill, The Church and the Homosexual (Kansas City: Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1976), 54-55.
90. J: Gen 4:1,17, 25; 19:8; 24:16; 38:26. The other uses in the Hebrew Bible are Num 31:17, 18, 35; Judg 11:39; 19:22, 25; 21:11; 1 Sam 1:19; 1 Kgs 1:4. Cf. in the OT Apocrypha: Jdt 12:16; Sus 11, 39; in the NT: Matt 1:25; Luke 1:34. Bailey speaks of ten other uses, not fourteen; he naturally discounts the parallel in Judg 19:22, and also omits Num 31:17, 18; Judg 21:11.
91. Cf. the refutation of Bailey and Boswell by Wold, Grenz, Springett, Nissinen, Edwards, Greenberg, Scroggs; James B. De Young, "The Contributions of the Septuagint to Biblical Sanctions Against Homosexuality," JETS 34 (1991): 158-65; Guenther Haas, "Exegetical Issues in the Use of the Bible to Justify the Acceptance of Homosexual Practice," CSR 26 (1997): 387-88; and Lynne C. Boughton, "Biblical Texts and Homosexuality: A Response to John Boswell," 1TQ 58 (1992): 142-43.
92. In addition to Gen 19:1-3, the issue of hospitality is also highlighted in Abraham's display of hospitality to the angelic visitors in Gen 18:1-16; in the "outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah" which appears to be coming from outside of these cities, probably from travelers seeking temporary lodging (hence the disguise of the angels as travelers; 18:20-21; 19:13); and Lot's plea that the visitors not be harmed, "for they have come under the shelter/protection of my roof (19:8).
93. Cf. Gen 12:13 and 20:2, 11, where Abraham twice passes Sarah off as his sister to avoid being killed. In these two stories, though, Abraham is in far greater danger than Sarah; in the Sodom episode, Lot is in no greater or lesser danger than his two daughters. J. Gerald Janzen tentatively suggests that by offering his daughters, Lot sought "to shock the men of the city to their senses" (Abraham and All the Families of the Earth: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 12-50 [ITC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993], 64).
94. The story of Lot's daughters copulating with their drunken father (19:30-38) may indicate the daughters' revenge for their father's earlier offer to the men of Sodom. This in turn suggests a less than positive opinion of Lot's actions on the part of the Yahwist. "Really, there is no need to make excuses for [Lot], as far as the biblical perspective is concerned. In all the stories about him, the soundness of Lot's judgment is never the point at issue; the opposite, in fact, is more than once indicated" (Bruce Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading [Garden City: Doubleday, 1977], 236).
95. Wenham, "Homosexuality," 361; followed by J. Glen Taylor, "The Bible and Homosexuality," Them 21 (1995): 5. The links between the stories of the Flood and of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are multiple. The two stories are often coupled in early Jewish and Christian literature. Later rabbinic interpretation included same-sex intercourse among the sins of the generation of the Flood (b. Sank 108a; Gen. Rab. 26.5; 27.3; Lev. Rab. 23.9). Cf. Wold, Out of Order, 70; Samuel H. Dresner, "Homosexuality and the Order of Creation," Judaism 40 (1991): 309-21.
96. Notwithstanding Jude 7, the fact that the intended victims are identified by the
narrator as angels would not justify the magnitude of divine judgment since there is no indication given in the story line that the men of Sodom are aware of the visitors' true identity. Possibly, though, there is condemnation for failure to recognize angels in their midst or to take the appropriate precautions in case the visitors proved to be angels (cf. Heb 13:2; T. Asher 7:1, cited below).
97. For a discussion of hospitality in the Old Testament, see Weston W. Fields, Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical Narrative (JSOTSup 231; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 54-67. Fields considers "the primary motif of the Sodom, Gibeah, and Jericho traditions" to be "the treatment of the 'stranger in your gates'" (p. 188). "The misbehavior against a [ger, "sojourner, resident alien"] is compounded by the sexual nature of the abuse or intended abuse, and . . . such sexual improprieties eventuate in communal punishment" (p. 187). According to J. A. Loader: "Their sin is a three-in-one-matter. They violate the sacred law of hospitality and in so doing give themselves over to depravity of a homosexual nature. . . . At the same time it must be said that the sin here is not just a private homosexual act, but homosexual mob rape" (A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, early Jewish and early Christian Traditions [CBET 1; Kampen: Kok, 1990], 37).
98. Cf. 19:9. The men of Sodom interpret Lot's offer of his daughters as an insult to their status as citizens of Sodom. As a lowly resident alien, Lot has no right to dic-
tate to the men of Sodom those with whom they are allowed to have sex. Victor H. Matthews points out that Lot had already committed a violation of hospitality customs when, despite his own status as a resident alien, he took the initiative to bring the visitors to his house. Only a citizen had the right to represent the city at the city gate ("Hospitality and Hostility in Genesis 19 and Judges 19," BTB 22 [1992]: 3-11).
99. Leland J. White, "Does the Bible Speak About Gays or Same-Sex Orientation? A Test Case in Biblical Ethics: Part I," BTB 25 (1995): 20; similarly, Daniel Boyarin, "Are There Any Jews in 'The History of Sexuality?" JHSex 5 (1995): 348-53; Edwards, Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 26-27, 46; Matthews, "Hospitality," 5; H. Darrell Lance, "The Bible and Homosexuality," ABQ 8 (1989): 144; Simon B. Parker, "The Hebrew Bible and Homosexuality," QR 11 (1991): 6-8; Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 48-49. Nissinen refers to the myth about Horus and Seth, Assyrian legal and omen texts, and the use of the phallus as a mode of ritual dominance in ancient Greece. Athens' defeat of Persia in 460 B.C.E. is depicted as a Greek man holding his erect penis as he approaches a bent-down Persian (Figure 3 in Nissinen's book). Statues of the Phrygian god Priapus, portrayed with a large penis, were often placed in strategic locations of homes and gardens to warn intruders of the fate that awaited them (ibid., 48). Cf. Kenneth Dover: "human societies at many times and in many regions have subjected strangers, newcomers and trespassers to homosexual anal violation as a way of reminding them of their subordinate status" (Greek Homosexuality [2d ed.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989], 105).
100. Cf. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 89; Wright, "Homosexuality: The Relevance of the Bible," 292; Westermann, Genesis, 1.301; Speiser, Genesis, 142; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 34-35; Gunkel, Genesis, 207; von Rad, Genesis, 217. The view held by Gunkel and von Rad that the angels were depicted as handsome youths is drawn more from Josephus and Philo than from Genesis 18-19.
101. According to Nissinen, it is "misleading to speak of the 'authors antagonism towards homosexuality' or claim that 'he condemns homosexuality.' " His concluding comment that, other than in the context of aggression, "the Yahwist's attitude towards same-sex interaction remains unknown" is unconvincing. It is not bome out by his own examination of the ancient Near Eastern background. Moreover, it seems to be contradicted by his admissions that gang rape of a man "inevitably has a homoerotic aspect" and that "the homoerotic means of [disgracing Lot's guests] . . . , of course, is condemned as part of the bad behavior of the Sodomite scoundrels" (Homoeroticism, 48-49). A similar criticism can be made against Bird who says, on the one hand, "the ancient Israelites had no experience or conception of male homoerotic relations as consensual or expressive of a committed relationship"; and, on the other hand, "It is not clear whether [the Israelite authors] viewed homoerotic activity among the inhabitants of these wicked cities as consensual and habitual or only as perverse sport with visitors. They do appear to suggest, however, that no Israelite male would consent to engage in homoerotic relations" ("The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 148).
102. Cf., inter alias, Edwards, Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 44-54.
103. Usually the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned as examples of extreme evil, of God's resolve to wipe out evil, and/or of utter devastation at God's hands for evil committed, without any further elaboration of the nature of that evil: Deut 29:23; 32:32; Isa 3:9; 13:19; Jer 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Lam 4:6; Amos 4:11; Zeph 2:9; Hosea 11:8; Matt 11:23-24; Luke 17:28-29; Rom 9:29; Rev 11:8. Jer 23:14 picks up on the theme of sexual immorality in the Sodom story: "But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a more shocking thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from wickedness; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah" (NRSV). Cf. Jub. 13:17 ("the men of Sodom were great sinners"); 22:22; 36:10; Wis 10:6-8 (in their wickedness "they passed wisdom by"); 4 Ezra 2:8-9; 3 Macc 2:5 ("acted arrogantly... notorious for their vices"); Gk. Apoc. Ezra 2:19; 7:12; T. Naph. 4:1; T. Abr. 6:13 (B); m. Sank 10:3. For a thorough discussion of traditions about Sodom and Gomorrah in the OT, early Jewish, and early Christian literature, see Loader, A Tale of Two Cities, 75-138; also, Fields, Sodom and Gomorrah, 155-84. Loader refers to the general "lack of interest in Sodom" in Qumran texts and contrasts that disinterest with the great interest shown by the Samaritan Memar Marqah (third to fourth centuryB.C.E.; Tale, 124-26).
104. "Abomination" is often rendered by translators in the plural. However, a collective singular is questionable, particularly given Ezekiel's liberal use of the plural throughout the chapter (16:2, 22, 36, 43, 47, 51, 58).
105. The final phrase can be rendered as "when I saw (it)" or "as you have seen," depending on whether the verb is read as a first-person singular (MT) or as a second-person singular (some Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and the Vulgate).
106. E.g., Bailey, Boswell, Boyarin, Nissinen, Lance.
107. Moshe Greenberg intimates that the abomination was homosexual anal intercourse (Ezekiel 1-20 [AB; Garden City: Doubleday, 1983], 289). According to Leslie Allen, "Sodom's shocking or abominable conduct in v. 50 may well be a reflection of homosexuality. . . . But the specification of Sodom's sins highlights the city's arrogance or pride in materialistic comfort and excess, coupled with a lack of concern for the poor" (Ezekiel 1-19 [WBC; Dallas: Word, 1994], 244).
108. Was Ezekiel unaware of the tradition enshrined in Genesis 19? Did he have access to an independent tradition about Sodom? Greenberg suggests that Ezekiel merely extrapolated from the reference in Gen 13:10, 12-13 about the abundant fertility of the plain of the Jordan and embellished it further by analogy to the social injustice pervading Jerusalem in his own day (similarly, Allen; Walther Zimmerli (Ezekiel [Hermeneia; 2 vols; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979], 1.350). Westermann, however, concludes that "the prophets rely on a tradition that is independent of Gen. 19" (Genesis, 1.298-99; similarly, Speiser, Genesis, 142). Loader provides the most sophisticated analysis of the tradition history. Already in the pre-monarchic period, "the basic motifs of what we call the Sodom tradition" may have existed: the association of Abraham and Lot with Sodom, Sodom as a paradise of sorts, "a non-Israelite story of several gods who visited the area and a non-Israelite story of the origin of Moab and Ammon," and the image of Sodom as "a wicked city which was destroyed and thus became a barren wasteland." "The Sodom Cycle [in Genesis 18-19] itself was composed in the seventh century B.C.E. and thus could not influence the preaching of the earlier prophets. . . . There is evidence of literary dependence of Ezekiel 16:50 on the Genesis story [18:20]. During the various stages of the exilic period the . . . story of Genesis 18-19 was known. . . . The [pre-exilic] prophetic perspective lived on (Lm 4) and in the later phases . . . was used to ridicule foreign kings and to criticise favouritism in the administering of justice. All of this does not mean that the tradition used by the pre-exilic prophets is older than the tradition used by the author of Genesis 18-19" because both drew on the same pre-monarchic "Sodom tradition" (A Tale of Two Cities, 72-74; my emphasis). "Ezekiel's social motif is essentially the same as that of the Sodom Cycle. For . . . the sexual violence of the Sodomites is also a form of social violence or oppression" (ibid., 65; my emphasis).
109. As with 16:50, most translators render the singular as a plural.
110. Contra REB ("and joins in abominable rites") and Allen, Ezekiel 1-19, 264, 276 ("he engages in a shocking practice, in that he lends at interest. ..").
111. Contra Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1.383. MT's placement of a sillûq at the end of the clause should be ignored.
112. "In many of these short legal rulings [in 18:5-18] there are clear echoes of laws of the Book of the Covenant, of Deuteronomy, and especially of the Holiness Code. Over against this the verbal contacts with the classical Decalogue are surprisingly small" (Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1.380). The prohibition against adultery in Ezek 18:6, 11, 15 matches Lev 20:10. "Lev 25:17 (H; further Lev 19:33; 25:14) is particularly close to Ezekiel's formulation" of oppression (ynh) in 18:7, 12. Robbery (gzl) in Ezek 18:7, 12, 16 "is not mentioned either in the laws of the Book of the Covenant or those of Deuteronomy, but is found in H in Lev 19:13." Showing pity to the needy in Ezek 18:7, 16 is alluded to in Lev 19:9-10. In 18:8,13,17 the prohibition against taking interest "stands particularly close to H in the wording of its formulation" (Lev 25:35-37). "The formulations of the Holiness Code in Lev 19:15, 35 are also very close in language" to the pair of pronouncements concerned with conduct in courts of law in Ezek 18:8. "The same is true of the concluding statement [in Ezek 18:9, 17] which demands obedience to Yahweh's laws and statutes, which has quite close counterparts in Lev 25:18; 26:3" (ibid., 380-81). If "he commits an abomination" does not refer to homosexual intercourse, it may refer to "approaching a woman during her menstrual period" (cf. Lev 18:19; 20:18), which is mentioned in Ezek 18:6 (cf. 22:10) but not picked up in the next two lists in 18:10-13, 14-18.
113. The four plural occurrences of tôcebâ in Lev 18:26-30 and the two singular occurrences in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 account for all the usages of the word in Leviticus. This indicates the close association o(tôcebâ with sexual sin in the Holiness Code. Ezekiel appears to have broadened the usage beyond sexual sin when employing the plural tôcebôt but still limited the use of the singular tôcebâ to sexual sin.
114. Ezek 22:10-11 reads: "In you they uncover their fathers' nakedness; in you they violate women in their menstrual periods. One commits [an] abomination with his neighbor's wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his fathers daughter" (NRSV). Here the tôcebâ is clearly adultery; the sins discussed immediately prior and following are likewise sexual sins (various forms of incest, sex with a menstruating woman). The singular "abomination" refers to a specific type of act; it is not a collective singular. The chapter is introduced with God's command to Ezekiel to declare to Jerusalem "all its abominations." Again, the singular tôcebâ is reserved for sexual sin, even though all the acts discussed in ch. 22 are collectively referred to as abominations. As with ch. 18, allusions to the Holiness Code abound; 22:10-11 is closely tied to Leviticus 18 and 20.
According to 33:25-26, 29, "You eat flesh with the blood, and lift up eyes to your idols, and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? You depend on your swords, you commit [an] abomination, and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife; shall you then possess the land? . . . Then they shall know that I am Yahweh, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed" (NRSV modified). Once more, the singular tôcebâ occurs in a wider context of vices, all of which are collectively labeled "abominations." Given the explicit description of adultery as an "abomination" in 22:11, it is tempting to treat "you commit [an] abomination" and the immediately following clause "each of you defiles his neighbor's wife" as an instance of hendiadys ("you commit an abomination by each of you defiling . . ."). However, the clause "commits an abomination" in 18:12 is distinct from the clause "defiles his neighbor's wife" in 18:11. The close association with adultery in 33:26, though, suggests one of the sexual sins mentioned in Leviticus 18 as the referent for "abomination" (probably same-sex intercourse; alternatively, incest or sex with a menstruating woman). Cf. Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 685: "Although in Ezekiel this epithet ["commit abominations"] usually attaches to idolatry..., in 22:11 it denotes sexual immorality (as in the Holiness Code, e.g., Lev 18:26-30). Since the terms of our clause are obviously related to those of 22:11, it is plausible to take them in a sexual sense (Rashi specifies sodomy, to which the epithet is applied in Lev 18:22; 20:13)" (my emphasis). As with 16:50 and 18:12, many translate the singular as a collective plural.
115. In the opinion of Fields, "The sexual perversion of Sodom is alluded to by the references to gross sexuality both preceding and following the pericope concerning Sodom in Ezekiel 16, but it is secondary for Ezekiel's sense of the tradition. . . . He saw, therefore, that the main point of the story was a polemic against mistreatment of the [ger] as exemplified by the Sodomites' mistreatment of Lot" (Sodom and Gomorrah, [171-]179, 184). Is it not more accurate to say that, in Ezekiel's view, the main point of the Sodom story is human arrogance in relation to God and God's will, a human moral autonomy or self-determination which works itself out in neglecting to aid "the poor and needy" and in the commission of immoral sexual acts against those without legal protection (the resident alien and travelers)?
116. Or: loathed, abhorred, detested (ebdelyxato, related to the noun bdelygma, "abomination").
117. The context also speaks of incest and fornication (23:16-17) and an adulterous woman (23:22-26). Other texts in Sirach treating sexual immorality include 7:22-26; 19:2; 41:21-22.
118. James B. De Young is more confident that "abomination" refers directly to homosexual behavior in Sirach ("A Critique of Prohomosexual Interpretations of the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha," BSac 147 [1990]: 439-42).
119. By any account this is a strange reading of the Sodom episode (if indeed the author is alluding to Sodom). For he compares Sodom's treatment of strangers favorably with Egypt's treatment of the Hebrews. Can the author be referring to attempted homosexual rape as merely an "unwelcoming act" and preferable to Pharaoh s treatment of the Hebrews?
120. This is essentially the reconstruction of the Q saying by the International Q Project headed by James Robinson. "Q" is the alleged written source behind the sayings material common to Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark.
121. Occasionally early post-biblical Jewish texts refer to the sexual immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah without being more specific. In Jub. 16:5-6, the Sodomites are described as "cruel and great sinners and they were polluting themselves and they were fornicating in their flesh and they were causing pollution upon the earth"; 20:5-6 attributes their destruction to "their fornication and impurity and the corruption among themselves with fornication." Two texts from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs also have vague references to sexual immorality: T. Levi 14:6 "predicts" of the Israelites that "your mixing [= sexual intercourse] will become like Sodom"; according to T. Benj. 9:1, "you will commit sexual immorality, the sexual immorality of the Sodomites, and will perish . . . and shall resume illicit acts with women." That the "sexual immorality" in question has to do, at least partly, with same-sex intercourse is intimated by the wording of T. Naph. 3:4. After referring to gentiles changing "the order" of nature by devoting themselves to idols, "Naphtali" leaves the following charge to his descendants: "But you, my children, shall not be like that, (instead) knowing (or: discerning, recognizing) in the firmament, in the earth and in the sea and in all the pieces of workmanship the Lord who made all these things, in order that you may not become like Sodom, which exchanged the order of its nature" (hetis enellaxan taxin physeos antes). The parallel reference to idolatry in 3:3 and the parallels with both Rom 1:18-27 (a two-step "exchange" of "nature" in committing idolatry and same-sex intercourse) and the descriptions in Philo of inhabitants of Sodom (and practitioners of same-sex" intercourse in general) as acting "contrary to nature" confirm that the author has in mind same-sex intercourse as a violation of the sexual complementarity of male and female manifest in human anatomy and procreative function (cf. Loaders observation: "In this context the changing of its order by Sodom can only refer to the homosexual aspirations of the Sodomites mentioned in Genesis 19:5" [A Tale of Two Cities, 82]). The author probably also included a reference to attempted intercourse with angels, given the reference in 3:5 to the angelic "Watchers" who "likewise exchanged the order of their nature" by copulating with human females and given too the exhortation in T. Asher 7:1 not to become "like Sodom which did not recognize the Lord's angels and perished forever" (cf. Jude 7). It is difficult to say whether homoerotic intercourse or intercourse with angels is most in the foreground (Bailey thinks the latter, although he acknowledges the presence of both elements; Homosexuality, 14-18). Second Enoch 10:4; 34:1-2 (long recension, manuscript P only) definitely refers to the sin of Sodom as male-male intercourse but the dating is difficult. Rabbinic texts also mention the sexual dimension of Sodom's sin, but primarily as a means of underscoring the inversion of the social order. In Gen. Rab. 49-51, there is some mention of an agreement on the part of the men of Sodom to subject to homosexual rape all strangers and to take their money (cf. t. Sot 3:11-12). Also, the destruction of the city before sunrise is compared to an abortion carried out at night by an adulterous woman. Otherwise, a discussion of the sexual aspect is omitted. According to b. Sanh. 109a-b, Rabbi Jehudah (+299 B.C.E.) attributed four types of evil to Sodom: (1) their being "wicked with their bodies" (i.e., sexual immorality); (2) money or mistreatment of the poor; (3) blasphemy; and (4) bloodshed. A similar list appears in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Targum Onqelos ("Now the men of Sodom were wicked with their wealth, and they were sinful with their bodies before the Lord, exceedingly") and Targum Neofiti ("And the people of Sodom were wicked toward one another and sinful with sexual sins and bloodshed and idolatry before the Lord, exceedingly") on Gen 13:13. The focus of b. Sanh. 109a-b is on the Sodomites' arrogance arising out of their prosperity, their greed for money, their perverse legal system, and especially their callous and cruel treatment of strangers and the poor. One tradition refers to a charitable act on the part of one of Lot's daughters on behalf of a poor man in the city, for which she was burned (Pirqe R. El. 25). Loader concludes: "In Rabbinic circles the wickedness of the Sodomites was proverbial. . . . Rabbi Jehudah's idea of 'bodily' sin, the sexual aspect, is well attested. . . . It is, however, mostly subsumed under his idea of the Sodomite 'sin with money' and 'with bloodshed', i.e., the socio-economic aspect of the wickedness of Sodom is predominant in the Rabbinic texts.... The social aspect is developed by the logic: wealth-parsimonysocial oppression" (A Tale of Two Cities, 116; cf. Lev. Rab. 23.9, which may allude to homosexual desire). See also Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, 331-34.
122. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 87.
123. Cf. Philo, Abr. 133-41; QG 4.37; Josephus, Ant. 1.194-95, 200-201 (discussed in the next chapter). Josephus also speaks about Sodom's evil in J. W. 4.483-85; 5:566.
124. Cf. Loader, A Tale of Two Cities, 86-104.
125. Parallels between the two texts have been noted at least since the time of Pseudo-Philo (L.A.B. 45:2; first century B.C.E.). It is difficult to discern the precise relationship between the two texts. Literary dependence is likely given the significant verbatim agreement between Gen 19:4-8 and Judg 19:22-24. Most scholars date J prior to the Deuteronomistic History; so it is not surprising that most think that the motif of attempted homosexual rape of the Levite came into being through assimilation to the story of Sodom (cf. Wellhausen, Gunkel; J. Alberto Soggin,
Judges [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981], 282, 288; Bailey, Edwards; Nissinen too leans in this direction). However, Susan Niditch has argued that "Issues of style, plot, theology, integrality, and correspondence between medium and message point to a relative chronology for the Sodomite theme as employed in Genesis 19 and Judges 19-20, and the Judges account appears to be the prior version" ("The 'Sodomite' Theme in Judges 19-20: Family, Community, and Social Disintegration," CBQ 44 [1982]: 375-78; similarly, von Rad and Westermann). Niditch's arguments have been criticized by Stuart Lasine, who points (1) to features in the Judges story that heighten the gravity of the offense (cf. Gen 19:8, "Let me bring them out to you; and do to them that which is good in your eyes; only to these men do not do a thing," with Judg 19:24, "Let me bring them out; and violate them and do to them that which is good in your eyes; but to this man you must not do this disgraceful thing") and (2) to blind motifs (the offer of the old man's daughter is never developed in the Judges narrative and may be a vestige of the offer of Lot's two daughters; contra Lasine, though, the offer of the old man's daughter may prepare the reader for the problem in Judges 21 regarding the offer of daughters to the surviving Benjamite males). Cf. Lasine, "Guest and Host in Judges 19: Lot's Hospitality in an Inverted World,"/SOT 29 (1984): 37-59, esp. 38-41; followed by Marc Brettler, "The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics," JBL 108 (1989): 411. According to Lasine, Judges 19 invites the reader to contrast the behavior of Lot as host with that of the old man (the latter offering his own guest's concubine and explicitly instructing the mob to "violate" both his own virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine instead) and the action taken by Lot's angelic guests and the Levite (the latter thrusting his own concubine outside). If the account in Judg 19:22-25 is dependent on the account in Gen 19:4-11, it would represent the earliest known interpretation of the latter.
126. Susan Ackerman identifies the concubine as a "secondary wife" to the Levite rather than as "a woman who is part of a man's harem but is not one of his actual wives" (the narrative describes the Levite as the woman's "husband" [v. 3] and her father as the Levite's "father-in-law" [w. 4, 7, 9]). The former exercised more "autonomy and authority" than the latter (Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel [New York: Doubleday, 1998], 236).
127. Lit., "men of the sons of worthlessness / uselessness / wickedness" (¸anšê b nê b liyyacal; KBS, BDB); "worthless, good-for-nothing, base fellows" (BDB), "villains" (HALOT), "a perverse lot" (NRSV), "scoundrels" (NJB), "hell-raisers" (Boling), "toughs" (Soggin).
128. n balâ: "senselessness, foolishness, disgrace, disgraceful folly (esp. of sins of unchastity)" (BDB); "stupidity, folly, insulting behavior; willful sin, sacrilege" (HALOT); "senseless disgrace" (Boling); "disgraceful thing" (NIV); "vile thing" (NRSV, Soggin); "outrage" (REB); "crime" (NAB); "infamy" (NJB); "impiety" (Soggin).
129. cannû: "1. oppress; humiliate (a woman by an enforced marriage; Deut 21:14; 22:24, 29)"; "2. do violence to; a. rape (a woman; Gen 34:2; 2 Sam 13:12, 14, 22, 32; Judg 19:24; 20:5; Lam 5:11)"; "abuse" (Ezek 22:10-11); c. "overpower" (HALOT); "humble, mishandle, afflict" (BDB); "ravish" (NRSV, NAB, Boling, Soggin), "abuse" (REB), "ill-treat" (NJB); NIVs "use" is too weak.
130. wayyitcall lû (hitpacel of cll): "deal with someone wantonly, play a dirty trick on"; (poel = "deal severely with, treat violently, injure"; HALOT); "dealt wantonly/ruthlessly with" (BDB); "abused" (HALOT, BDB, REB, NAB, NIV), "wantonly raped" (NRSV), "ill-treated" (NJB), "vilely mistreated" (Boling), "violated" (Soggin).
131. The pronouncement was made by either the Levite (so the LXX: the Levite instructed his emissaries to say, "Has such a thing ever happened . . . ?") or by those who saw the concubine's dismembered body (so the Hebrew Masoretic Text).
132. For the theme of inhospitality, see Matthews, "Genesis 19 and Judges 19," 6-10.
133. Nissinen, Hotnoeroticism, 51; cf. Boyarin, "Are There Any Jews in 'The History of Sexuality,' " 351.
134. Indeed, if (as some argue) the motif of homosexual rape is secondary, from the standpoint of tradition history, there can be no other credible reason for its addition than to intensify the abhorrent character of the Benjamites. In retelling the story, Josephus expunges any reference to the demand by the men of Gibeah to have sexual intercourse with the Levite (Ant. 5.136-49). Given Josephus's contrasting approach to the Sodom story (where he emphasized the homosexual dimension), the probable reason for the omission was to absolve Israelites of any suspicion of homoerotic tendencies (Scroggs, Homosexuality, 90; Edwards, Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 41).
135. "The 'Sodomite' Theme in Judges 19-20," 368-69. Ken Stone is right to stress that, from the narrator's perspective, the truly heinous element of the crowd's demand to have sex with the Levite is the treatment of a man as if he were a woman, that is, as someone who is penetrated in sexual intercourse. However, he overplays the misogynist dimension of the narrator's horror of male-male intercourse by focusing almost exclusively on "gender hierarchy"; that is, on placing the Levite in the shameful position of a socially inferior sexual object (a woman) rather than sexual subject ("Gender and Homosexuality in Judges 19: Subject-Honor, Object-Shame?" JSOT 67 [1995]: 87-107; idem, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History [JSOTSup 234; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996], 69-84). All men, at one time or other in their lives, exist in subordinate relationships to other classes of men. The mere fact of being put in a position of social submission to others does not constitute an inherent form of demasculinization. Moreover, while the author of the book of Judges accepts male headship over women as the norm, the author shows little embarrassment at the commanding role played by Deborah as a judge over Israel (chs. 4-5). It is also surely a questionable assumption that our own culture should take absolutely no account of fundamental physiological and psychological differences between male and female, as if "being a man" and "being a woman" amount to the same thing. Both cultural exaggeration and cultural minimization of divinely created sexual differences between men and women are problematic.
136. 'The 'Sodomite' Theme in Judges 19-20," 371.
137. Certainly the Levite in failing to protect his own concubine would have suffered dishonor. A third explanation for why homosexual rape is not explicitly mentioned in Judg 20:5 is the secondary and late insertion of the theme in 19:22-25.
138. Cf. Boyarin, "Are There Any Jews in 'The History of Sexuality,'" 352 ("the acceptance of a 'heterosexual' substitute shows that the people of Gibeah are not being anathematized as 'homosexuals'"). For the sake of accuracy, it is worth mentioning that the men of the city turned down the old man's offer to send out his daughter and the Levite's concubine as substitutes for the Levite (19:25). Stone makes the point that when the men of Gibeah abuse the Levite's concubine they intend to abuse the Levite through her ("Judges 19," 100-101).
139. "Guest and Host," 45.
140. See Lasine, who stresses the "perversity" of the Levite's action vis-à-vis Saul's dismemberment of the oxen in 1 Samuel 11 (ibid., 41-43).
141. Heb. zimmâ ûn balâ; zimmâ means "an infamy, shameful or lewd behavior, wickedness, immorality, depravity."
142. For a discussion of the terrors of the text for women, cf. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 65-91; Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 235-40, 250-57, 275-76; Lasine, "Guest and Host," 37-59; Cheryl J. Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (Valley Forge: TPI, 1993), 170-201; idem, "Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests Are Being Served?" Judges and Method (ed. G. Yee; Minneapolis: Fotress, 1995), 83-86; Gale A. Yee, "Ideological Criticism: Judges 17-21 and the Dismembered Body," Judges and Method, 161-67. According to Yee, Judges 17-21 was composed by the Deuteronomist to support Josiah's destruction of cult centers outside Jerusalem. The country Levites are shown to be both "corrupt opportunists intent on financial gain" (Judges 17-18) and "heartless individuals who foment civil war to avenge attempts to dishonor them" (Judges 19-20; p. 167).
143. Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 257.
144. Homoeroticism, 51; similarly, Lasine, "Guest and Host," 50.
145. "The 'Sodomite' Theme in Judges 19-20," 370-71.
146. See Carolyn Pressler, The View of Women Found in the Deuteronomic Family Laws (BZAW 216; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993).
147. Cf. esp. the discussions by Greenberg, Construction, 94-100, 140; Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 39-41. Greenberg is confident of its existence, while Nissinen considers it "possible." Also: B. A. Brooks, "Fertility Cult Functionaries in the Old Testament," JBL 60 (1941): 232-43.
148. So NRSV, REB, NAB, NIV, NJB, NLT, CEV, NASB. HALOT has "consecrated, cult prostitute."
149. Or: fee, pay, wages, hire (etnan); HALOT: gift, reward.
150. Or: pay, price, earnings, money (m hîr).
151. Or: drove out.
152. Or: from the presence of, away from, for, because of.
153. Or: burned, exterminated; expelled, banished (bic er).
154. Or: wove garments/veils/ hangings (¸or gôt) for Asherah; "wove coverings for the Asherah pole" (NLT); "wove sacred robes for the idol of Asherah" (CEV).
155. Or: lay up, cherish, harbor (yasîmû).
156. BDB: in the form of, as; others: among (be). The synonymous parallelism with the preceding line suggests that "in (the time of) their youth (bannocar) parallels "in (the time of) the q dešîm" (baqq dešîm); that is, those who harbor anger in their hearts live a miserable existence and die young, just like the q dešîm are known to do.
157. REB ("short-lived as male prostitutes") is to be preferred to NJB ("live among the prostitutes in the temple").
158. The texts in 1-2 Kings suggest a connection with Asherah (Athirat). 2 Kgs 23:7 speaks of "the houses of the q dešîm which were in the house of Yahweh, where the women did weaving for Asherah." The assinnu, kurgarrû, and kulu¸u were well known for carrying a spindle for weaving, a symbol of women's work. Asherah was the wife of El; hence the link with Yahweh, who shared many of the traits of El (cf. the Kuntillet cAjrûd inscriptions: "I have blessed you by Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah"). She was also the chief goddess of Tyre and Sidon (with whom close ties existed in Israel from Solomon on, roughly at the time when the q dešîm are mentioned in the Deuteronomistic History). As a fertility goddess and the "Mother of the Gods," she bears some resemblance to the later figure of Cybele, the Great Mother, with whom the galli were associated. One of her epithets is qdš ("holy place, holiness"). Some see a close relation, possibly identification at times, between Asherah and Astarte (Baal's consort). The latter was the Canaanite equivalent to Ishtar (and later model for Atargatis, with whom the galli were also associated). Cf. the entries "Asherah," "Ashtoreth," and "Atargatis" in The Anchor Bible Dictionary.
159. Possibly, Deut 23:17 refers to sacred prostitution and Deut 23:18 refers to non-religious prostitution. Nissinen alludes to "the Akkadian qadištu, which is a class of female devotees with a disputed sexual function, and the Ugaritic qdš, which also belongs to cult personnel, albeit without a clearly defined role or connection to sexual acts" (Homoeroticism, 40).
160. "When Judah saw her (Tamar), he mistook her for a harlot/prostitute (zônâ). . . . [Later] he (the Adullamite sent by Judah to recover his pledge) asked the men of the place, "Where is the qadešâ . . . ?' But they answered, There was no qadešâ here.' So he went back to Judah and told him,'... the men of the place said there was no qadešâ there' " (Gen 38:15, 21-22); "I shall not punish your daughters when they become prostitutes / play the whore (tiznênâ).... for the men themselves go aside with the whores/prostitutes (hazzonôt) and sacrifice with the q dešôt" (Hos 4:14).
161. Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 40-41.
162. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 93.
163. E.g., Bailey, Homosexuality, 52-53; Boswell, Homosexuality, 99; Scroggs, Homosexuality, 71.
164. At different periods of Israelite history, men sometimes had concubines or harems; women never did. It is unlikely that there would have been much of a market in Israel for men to take their barren wives to a local high place to be impregnated by male cult prostitutes, particularly given that paternity would then be held by the male cult prostitute (or Asherah, a female goddess?), not the husband, creating all sorts of problems related to legitimacy, inheritance rights, and the like.
165. Cf. David E. Aune, Revelation (3 vols.; WBC; Nashville: Nelson, 1998), 3.1223. In the OT, it could be used as a general insult (1 Sam 17:43; 24:14; 2 Kgs 8:13; Isa 56:10-11). The Cynics co-opted the slanderous term. Jews could use it generally of gentiles (Mark 7:27-28 par.; Ps.-Clem 2.19.1-3; cf. Str-B 1:724-26). Christians could apply it to the unbaptized (Did. 9:5), or to Christian heretics and degenerates (Phil 3:2; 2 Pet 2:22; Ign., Eph. 7:1).
166. Dale C. Allison and W. D. Davies, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988, 1991, 1997), 1.675; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7 (CC; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 419. Mark 7:27-28 par. uses the diminuative kynarion (pl. kynaria) of gentiles.
167. Cf. 2 Enoch 34:2: "And all the world will be reduced to confusion by . . . [abominable] fornications, [that is, friend with friend in the anus, and every other land of wicked uncleanness which it is disgusting to report]." The dating of 2 Enoch is in great dispute and the parts in brackets are read in only one of the three or four most significant manuscripts of the shorter recension.
168. Aune thinks the connection to homosexual behavior is possible. Schmidt thinks it is a "suggestive but not compelling" explanation (Straight and Narrow?, 98). Bruce Metzger regards it as probable (private communication).
169. Phyllis Bird, for example, regards them as an imaginative construct, without any historical basis in reality ("The End of the Male Cult Prostitute," Congress Volume Catnbridge 1995 [VTSup 66; ed. J. A. Emerton; Leiden: Brill, 1997], 37-80). Cf. E. J. Fisher, "Cultic Prostitution in the Ancient Near East? A Reassessment," BTB 5 (1976): 225-36; Robert A. Oden, The Bible Without Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 131-53 (Oden, though, does not discuss the evidence for the sexual role of the assinnu, kurgarrû, and kulu¸u); Joan Goodnick Westenholz, "Tamar, q dešâ, qadištu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia," HTR 82 (1989): 245-65; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses (New York: Free Press, 1992), 199-202. For other literature that questions the existence of male same-sex cult prostitutes in Israel, cf. Nissinen; Greenberg; Olyan, " ' And with a Male . . .'," 181-2 n. 6; Karel van der Toorn, "Prostitution (Cultic)," ABD 5 (1992): 510-13; Elaine A. Goodfriend, "Prostitution (OT)," ibid., 507-9. In her most recent treatment ("The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation"), Bird—under the heavy influence of Nissinen's work—appears to have moderated her earlier stance that the existence of homosexual cult prostitutes in Israel is without historical grounding. With regard to the Mesopotamian assinnus et al., she makes such comments as: "their role in homoerotic encounters is disputed and evidence for their sexual activity is almost exclusively inferential. . . . It is difficult to estimate the incidence of male prostitution. . . . If the assinnus and/or related classes supported themselves as male prostitutes, they had a cultic role to fall back on . . . " (ibid., 159-60). Bird remains skeptical about the historical veracity of homosexual cult prostitutes in Israel: "The interpretation of q deš/q dešîm in DH [the Deuteronomistic History] as a class of male homosexual prostitutes misinterprets religious polemic as social history" and exhibits "no firsthand knowledge of the institution they condemn" (ibid., 173). At the same time, in commenting on Deut 23:17-18, she appears open to
assuming their existence: "If [Deut 23:17-18] provides evidence for an accepted (or at least tolerated) form of homosexual practice, then it is instructive that it is in the form of prostitution, a commercial form of sex. . . . If the prohibition of homoerotic relations [in Deut 23:17-18] is primarily concerned with the violation of male honor,. . . then the male prostitute, like his female counterpart, provides a safe, though despised, object as one who stands outside the normal system of sexual honor" (ibid., 171; my emphasis). In this and her earlier article she accepts the view that the Deuteronomistic Historian, at least, emphasized "the repugnant associations [of the q dešîm] with male homosexual activity" ("The End of the Male Cult Prostitute," 75).
170. Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 274-89. Friedman makes the interesting suggestion that Jeremiah, in collaboration with his scribe Baruch, wrote both editions of the Deuteronomistic History (Jeremiah's ministry began in 627 B.C.E., Jer 1:2). Friedman, and others (e.g., Baruch Halpern), think that Deuteronomy 12-26 was an old work that came from Levitical priests at Shiloh (Who Wrote the Bible? [New York: Harper & Row, 1987], 96-149).
171. Cf. De Young, "The Contributions of the Septuagint," 165-77.
172. Grenz appears reluctant to affirm the existence of homosexual cult prostitution in Israel, apparently because of his concern that some scholars have used this view to justify a limitation on Lev 18:22 and 20:13 (Welcoming But Not Affirming, 41-42). His concern is praiseworthy but ultimately misguided.
173. Homoervticism, 34.
174. Accordingly, when I speak of "homosexual practices" or "homosexual cult prostitutes" I am not assuming homosexual orientation.
175. Possibly the q dešîm were reintroduced in the reign of Josiah's grandfather, Manasseh, who set up a carved image of Asherah in the temple (2 Kgs 21:7). It is surprising, though, that the Deuteronomistic Historian does not specifically mention them when he lists the abominable practices associated with Manasseh's reign, for which judah was allegedly punished by Cod with the Babylonian exile. Is this omission due to the author's faithfulness to his archival records, mentioning the q dešîm only when archival materials for a given reign make specific mention of them? Again, this testifies to the Deuteronomistic Historian's restraint in plugging in the theme of the q dešîm into his source material.
176. The question remains of why the Deuteronomic Code does not contain a law like
the one found in Lev 18:22; 20:13. It comes closest with Deut 23:17-18. Based on the observations we have already made, it seems unlikely that those who formulated the Deuteronomic Code had any more positive outlook on homosexual intercourse than did those who formulated the Holiness Code, though it is an open question what penalty would have been thought appropriate. Possibly Deuteronomic law crystallized in a period when the only type of homosexual intercourse practiced in Israel was in the context of cult prostitution and even then only rarely.
177. The verb sakab, when used of heterosexual intercourse, usually has the man (the active partner) as the subject. There are two exceptions to this general rule. In Gen 19:32-35 the daughters of Lot "lay with" their drunken father "so that we may preserve offspring through our father." In 2 Sam 13:11, Amnon "took hold of (his sister Tamar) and said to her, 'Come, lie with me, my sister.' "
178. The Hebrew word for "male" is zakar (Gk. arsen), while the Hebrew word for "lying" is miškab (also "place of lying, bed"; Greek koite). At a later date rabbis and Christians (the latter perhaps through Hellenistic Jews) coined from these words a new word for men who functioned as the active partner in same-sex intercourse: Hebrew miškab zakûr (lit., "lying with a male") and Greek arsenokoites (lit., "a man who lies with a male," "a man who goes to bed with a male"; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10). Cf. Scroggs, Homosexuality, 83,108.
179. The date and integrity of H, as well as its relationship to P (P in Leviticus = chs. 1-16), is far from settled in scholarly circles. The consensus position, if such a
position can be said to exist still, is that Leviticus in its final form (and thus P as a whole) is an exilic or early post-exilic work (sixth century) and that H was absorbed by P. Some parts of H may be pre-exilic (e.g., chs. 18-19) while other parts are exilic or even early post-exilic. Ezekiel appears to know much of the legislation in H; some think also that the final compiler of H knew Ezekiel. There is debate over whether H should even be treated as an originally independent law code. For helpful summaries, cf. Henry T. C. Sun, "Holiness Code," ABD 3:254-56; Baruch A. Levine, "Leviticus, Book of," ABD 4:319-20; idem, Leviticus (JPSTC; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), xxvxxx; Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster, 1996), 4-10; Martin Noth, Leviticus: A Commentary (rev. ed.; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 10-15, 127-28. Jacob Milgrom has argued that both P and H are pre-exilic works and that H was P's redactor. According to Milgrom, P was composed not later than 750 B.C.E.. H was a response by priestly circles in Jerusalem to eighth-century prophetic critiques of the cult, a response that attempted to integrate morality with cult through the rubric of holiness. H then is to be associated with the reforms of Hezekiah. The close links between Ezekiel and H (cf. especially the lists of sins in Ezekiel 18 and 22 with Leviticus 18-20) indicate a pre-exilic date. Cf. Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1-35; also, Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). J. Joosten has recently argued from the "ideational framework" of Lev 17-26 (viz., the focus on the land, the attention to the obligations of the resident alien, and the stress on Yahweh's holy presence in his earthly sanctuary) that "the Holiness Code can best be understood against the background of a rural milieu in Judah of the pre-exilic period" (People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17-26 [VTSup 67; Leiden: Brill, 1996], 9-16, 203-7). Friedman contends that P was composed by an Aaronite priest in Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah as an alternative to the newly combined JE epic and to promote centralization of the cult in Jerusalem around the authority of the Aaronite priesthood. The author brought together a variety of collections of laws, including the Holiness Code which "might originally have been a separate Aaronid document" (Who Wrote the Bible? 207-16).
Regardless of the date of H as a document, whether pre-exilic, exilic, or early post-exilic, most agree that H contains legal material that is considerably older than the date of the final compilation. If, as we have argued above, Ezekiel makes reference to homosexual intercourse in partial dependence on H or the circles from which H stems, then 18:22 and 20:13 must represent pre-exilic sentiment (and one could also throw into the mix the data discussed above from the Yahwist, the Deuteronomic law code, and the Deuteronomistic Historian). It is misleading, then, for some scholars to treat Lev 18:22 and 20:13 (or worse, opposition to homosexual practice itself) as if they were late creations of the post-exilic period (e.g., Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 37-38, 43; Greenberg, Construction, 191-95).
180. HALOT: abomination, abhorrence ("Greuel, Abscheu").
181. Probably by stoning, as with those who sacrifice their children to Molech (Lev 20:2), blasphemers (Lev 24:13-23), sabbath violaters (Num 15:32-36), and rebellious sons (Deut 21:18-21) (cf. m. Sanh. 7-8 for a list of those who are to be stoned; 7:4 refers to stoning men who have sex with males). Lev 18:22 does not have a penalty attached specifically to its proscription, owing to the apodictic form of the prohibitions in ch. 18, but rather is attached to the "collective penalty" at the end of the chapter (Levine, Leviticus, 135). This collective penalty is twofold. First, there is a penalty on the nation as a whole: If the people of Israel commit these practices as the Canaanites did before them, "the land will vomit you out" (i.e., exile of the nation; 18:24-28). Second, there is a penalty on the individual perpetrators of these offenses: "Everyone who commits any of these abominations, the persons who do so will be cut off from the midst of their people" (18:29). The penalty imposed in 18:29 is the kareth penalty (from karat, "to cut off'). Precisely what this "cutting off' entails is a matter of scholarly debate. Some argue that the meaning is excommunication and/or the death penalty, imposed by
the community. Others (e.g., Wold, Milgrom) contend that the kareth penalty was a penalty imposed by God alone, not the community, and could take many different forms: premature death, a blotting out of the offender's name by terminating the family line (cf. Lev 20:20-21: "they shall be childless"), and/or not permitting the offender to rejoin his ancestors in the afterlife (this last punishment closely approximates the denied inheritance in the kingdom of God of which Paul speaks in 1 Cor 6:9-10). How the kareth penalty for 18:22 is to be related to 20:13 is not entirely clear and depends in part on how one views the historical relationship of ch. 20 to ch. 18 (cf. below). In ch. 20 one of the offenses listed in ch. 18 receives both the kareth penalty and a communal sentence of death (those who sacrifice their children to Molech; w. 2-5); others receive only the sentence of death (20:9-16) or only the kareth penalty (20:6, 17-19) or only the punishment of childlessness (20:20-21). According to Wold, whose dissertation was on the kareth penalty, "Leviticus 20 adds the death penalty whereas chapter 18 has only kareth. If one supposes that these penalties are mutually exclusive, some distance may be placed between the two chapters, assigning the latter perhaps to a period when the social nucleus in ancient Israel shifted from the family to the community and then to the state. One could imagine under these circumstances that chapter 20 was written as a separate document. However, I think that the penalties are not mutually exclusive and assign the composition of Leviticus 20 to a period congruent with or shortly after that of Leviticus 18" (Out of Order, 99; see also pp. 97-98, 137-48). On the kareth penalty generally, cf. Milgrom, Leviticus, 457-60.
182. In the list of penalties given for violations of the commandments in Leviticus 20, the only other acts that are specifically connected with the death penalty are: child sacrifice (20:2), cursing ones parents (20:9), adultery (20:10), some forms of incest (20:11-12), marriage to a wife and her mother (20:14), and bestiality (20:15-16). While the penalty may strike us as severe, all of the acts remain reprehensible in our contemporary context. David L. Bartlett argues that, because the death penalty is prescribed for same-sex intercourse, contemporary opposition to samesex intercourse must be called into question ("A Biblical Perspective on Homosexuality," Foundations 20 [1977]: 136). This is a strange argument. Are the laws against adultery and incest irrelevant guides for sexual ethics because the death penalty is no longer prescribed? Paul did not demand that the Corinthian believers put to death the man engaged in incest but he did urge them to expel
the man from the community (1 Corinthians 5). According to the story of Jesus' treatment of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus swept aside the death penalty without ignoring Scripture's negative valuation of the act ("sin no more"; John 8:1-11). Grenz explains the difference between the two covenants as follows: "In contrast to ancient Israel, the New Testament community is not localized within a particular physical land given them through divine promise. Consequently . . . eradication of those who commit abhorrent offenses occurs through excommunication (which is connected with spiritual death) rather than through the death penalty itself (Welcoming But Not Affirming, 47). While I would not want to argue a complete disinterest in the land among early Christians, there is definitely a shift in NT texts toward "spiritualizing" and "eschatologizing" the believers sphere of interest (e.g., Matthew 5-6; John 4:21-26; 2 Cor 10:2-6; Gal 4:25-26; Eph 6:12; Hebrews 11-12).
183. Olyan believes that 18:22 reflects an earlier formulation than 20:13, in which only the dominant, insertive partner (not the receptive partner) was punished (" 'And with a Male . . . ' , " 186-88). He is not alone in regarding Leviticus 20 as stemming from a later time than Leviticus 18 (cf. Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 288-89). Yet his position about only the insertive partner being punished in 18:22 is a case of reading too much out of too little. First, even if 20:13 were a later formulation, it would represent the earliest commentary on the meaning of 18:22; namely, that both partners in homosexual intercourse were liable to the death penalty. Presumably, 20:13 would have been formulated by the same priestly circles as those that formulated 18:22. Is this not the best evidence we have of how the formulators of 18:22 would have understood their own proscription? Second, all of the proscriptions in Leviticus 18 (minus 18:21 which does not deal with intercourse) address only the dominant, active partner (usually the male). The only proscription directed specifically to both males and females is the law concerning bestiality in 18:23, an exception easily explained on the assumption that women were regarded as the initiators in any intercourse with animals. By Olyan's reasoning, the authors of the laws against incest would have held only the men accountable for incest, even in cases where the woman was a willing participant or even prime instigator (in contradistinction to penalties prescribed for both participants in 20:11-21). We would also have to assume that the formulators of the prohibition against having sex with "your neighbor's wife" in 18:20 never intended to penalize the wife in an adulterous affair. Yet all the evidence we have from ancient Israelite law indicates that women involved in adulterous affairs were punished with death, if they were willing participants in the act (Num 5:11-30; Deut 22:13-27; Lev 20:10; Ezek 16:38-41; 23:45-48). The reason why Lev 18:22 focuses on the active male partner is because the passive male partner, the one penetrated, takes the place of the female and the female is not directly addressed in the prohibitions of ch. 18. By analogy with the laws against incest and adultery,
we should assume that both consenting partners in the "abominable act" were liable to punishment. Taylor adds also two other considerations that speak to the mutual consent of the participants: the prohibitions use simply the verb "lie" rather than another expression that would imply rape (such as "seize and lie"); and the accountability clause in Lev 20:13, "their blood be upon them" ("The Bible and Homosexuality," 5).
184. Olyan, " 'And with a Male ...'," 196.
185. Jacob Milgrom's contention that the prohibition against homosexual acts is applicable only to Jews and to those non-Jews that live in Israel (18:26) is true only in the most pedantic sense ("Does the Bible Prohibit Homosexuality?" BRev 9:6 [Dec. 1993]: 11 and "How Not to Read the Bible," BRev 10:2 [Apr. 1994]: 14,48). Strictly speaking, the concluding exhortation in 18:24-30 only speaks to the question of the effect that sin has on the land of Israel by those who live in Israel. However, if one carried Milgrom's interpretation to its logical conclusion, diaspora Jews and gentiles alike would be exempt from the commands regarding incest, bestiality, and child sacrifice, not to mention (if one were to draw on the prohibitions in chs. 19-20 as well) sorcery, cursing one's mother and father, adultery, idolatry, stealing, cheating, lying, false witness, slander, oppression of the poor, etc. The text is speaking to the situation of residents of Israel; it is not, however, granting license to all who live outside the land (cf. Ezekiel's affinities with the Holiness Code in his commands to exiled Jews). That it addresses one situation does not make it irrelevant to others, particularly in a case involving gender confusion, a matter that cuts across ethnic lines. There is much that the Bible does not chastise the nations for, yet few would conclude from this that all such conduct meets with God's approval. In any case, in the Second Temple period and beyond, Jews and Christians certainly regarded Lev 18:22; 20:13 as binding outside the boundaries of Palestine. Milgrom himself notes that some rabbis included homosexuality under the Noahide Laws binding on non-Jews (b. Sanh. 58a; Maimonides, Kings 9:5). According to Luke, one of the four binding requirements in the "Apostolic Decree" placed on gentile believers outside Palestine was to abstain from porneia (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25), a word that undoubtedly included same-sex intercourse (see ch. 5.V).
186. Boswell, Homosexuality, 100-102. For a rebuttal of his attempt to perpetuate the distinction especially in the LXX, see Wold, Out of Order, 110-12. A position similar to Boswell's is taken by Bird: 'The term tôcebâ is concentrated in . . . cultic contexts, where it serves to characterize practices as . . . 'taboo'. . . . It is not an ethical term, but a term of boundary marking. . . . it describes a feeling of abhorrence or revulsion that requires or admits no rational explanation.... It points to a nonrational and preethical judgment" ("The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 151-52,157). As we shall see, the Levitical proscriptions of homosexual intercourse, like most other proscriptions to which tôcebâ is attached in Ezekiel and elsewhere, do indeed carry with them at least an implied rational explanation for the proscribed behavior. Indeed, Bird herself implicitly admits of such an explanation for the Levitical proscriptions when she posits as their raison d'etre an aversion to putting a male in the subordinate status of a female (ibid., 157).
187. Greenberg, Construction, 195-96; cf. Wold, Out of Order, 107-14.
188. Gen 43:32; 46:34; Exod 8:26; 1 Kgs 14:24; 2 Kgs 16:13; 21:2, 11; 23:13; Isa 1:13; 41:24; 44:19; Mal 2:11; Ps 88:8; Ezra 9:1, 11, 14; 2 Chron 28:3; 33:2; 34:33; 36:8, 14.
189. S. Olyan, " 'And with a Male . . . ' ," 180 n. 3.
190. Cf. 1 Thess 4:3-7, where Paul urges the Thessalonians to "abstain from sexual immorality" (pomeia), to choose a wife on the basis of "holiness" (i.e., her holy character) and not on the basis of lustful passion "like the gentiles/nations who do not know God," to refrain from coveting sexual intercourse with another man's wife, "for Cod did not call us to uncleanness (akatharsia) but in holiness." This text makes a number of points of contact with Leviticus 18 and 20: the emphasis on holiness in sexual conduct, the importance of distinguishing oneself from the sexual immorality that typified the gentile world, and the characterization of sexual immorality as "uncleanness" (see also Rom 6:19 and 1 Cor 7:14 for the holiness/uncleanness contrast; and "uncleanness" as a sexual vice in Gal 5:19; 2 Cor 12:21).
191. See Brooten, Love Between Women, 294 (see pp. 281-94). Similar positions are taken by: Bird, "The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 151-57 (who, even though admitting that Lev 20:13 is "without clear cultic associations," contends that the "lack of interest in essential ethical criteria [such as questions of age, initiative, or consent] is strikingly clear in the assessment of penalties. In all of the cases in ch. 20, both of the sexual partners are subjected to the same punishment, including the animal," thereby limiting the usefulness of Lev 20:13 for contemporary sexual ethics); and Schoedel, "Same-Sex Eros," 52, 68-71.
192. Brooten, Love Between Women, 291.
193. Admittedly, the formula is also used in the case of bestiality to justify the execution of both human and animal (20:15-16); but the justification for holding an animal responsible may have been different from the justification given for holding a human responsible (an animal can be held accountable apart from intent because animals are more expendable than humans); or the animal may have been viewed as a willing participant (cf. Exod 21:28-32: an ox that gores a person is to be stoned). Levine speaks of an "attribution of moral norms to the animal kingdom," citing Gen 6:7; 9:5; Jonah 3:7-8; m. Sanh. 7:4 (Leviticus, 138). Certainly
the rationale for sentencing a person who curses a parent was the deliberate undertaking of the action: "for every man who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; his father or mother he cursed; his blood [is] on him" (20:9).
194. E.g., Lev 4:2, 13-14, 22-23, 27-28; 5:2-5, 15, 17-18; 6:4; 22:14; Num 15:22-31; 35:15; Deut 4:42; 19:4; Josh 20:3, 9.
195. Brooten argues that the preceding law against lying with another man's "wife" (Deut 22:22) lacks such a distinction between consent and coercion so that Deut 22:23-27 must apply the distinction only in the specific case of a betrothed virgin (ibid., 291 n. 93). Yet it is difficult to discern why an engaged virgin who cried out would be excused but not a married woman (particularly since the former, though engaged, is already designated "his neighbors wife" in 22:24). Surely the distinction in Deut 22:23-27 supplied a principle operative in 22:22 and in other cases as well.
196. Ibid., 292. Cf. Sipra Qedoshim Pereq 10.11 on Lev 20:13 (369a) which exempts underage boys from punishment.
197. Ibid., 291.
198. "The Family Laws of Leviticus 18 in their Setting," JBL 98 (1979): 195. The quote of Douglas is from Purity and Danger (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 133. "When the sense of outrage is adequately equipped with practical sanctions in the social order, pollution is not likely to arise. Where, humanly speaking, the outrage is likely to go unpunished, pollution beliefs tend to be called in to supplement the lack of other sanctions" (ibid., 132).
199. "Family Laws," 193-96, 201.
200. Wold emphasizes the correlation between the degree of impurity associated with a given transgression on the one hand and the intentionality and moral severity of the transgression on the other (Out of Order, 121-36).
201. Gerstenberger attributes the proscriptions, without justification, to a fear of demons (Leviticus, 254, 297). The two laws in The Middle Assyrian Laws having to do with homosexual intercourse have nothing to do with a fear of demons. Undoubtedly the authors of the Holiness Code feared the wrath of God; but the question still remains: why did they think that God viewed homosexual intercourse as utterly detestable?
202. Cf. Jiirgen Becker, "Zum Problem der Homosexualität in der Bibel," ZEE 31 (1987): 39-41, 55 (though he adds: "To be sure, the Old Testament and Judaism also show how for the sake of the high ethical esteem of marriage all other sexual activities are forbidden"); Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, 7s the Homosexual My Neighbor? Another Christian View (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 59-61 (who also allude to ceremonial uncleanness); Norman H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers (NCB; London: Nelson, 1967), 126; S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1896), 264. Edwards not only argues that Lev 18:22 and 20:13 have in view these male cult prostitutes but also, astoundingly, infers that the absence from the prophetic books of any critique against such figures confirms their openness toward same-sex intercourse (Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 54-68). Boswell does not think the q dešîm engaged in sex with males but he does view tôcebâ as implying ceremonial uncleanness owing to "idolatrous sexuality" (Homosexuality, 99-101). Bailey also denies any homosexual connotation to the q dešîm and puts a different spin on the link to idolatry. "Such acts are regarded as 'abomination' not... because they were practised by Egyptian or Canaanite idolaters (for of this there is no proof), but because, as a reversal of what is sexually natural, they exemplify the spirit of idolatry which is itself the fundamental subversion of true order" (Homosexuality, 59-60).
203. Olyan suggests that it is a late insertion into the series of laws in 18:19-23 (" 'And with a Male . . .'," 198).
204. Out of Order, 119.
205. On the problem of the name "Molech," see the commentaries. "Archaeological evidence from Punic and Phoenician sacrificial inscriptions has shown that a simple sacrificial term stands behind the expression lammolek: 'present as a thanksgiving or votice offering.' Children's bones at sacrificial sites attest the custom of sacrificing infants. Very early, however, the expression was already misunderstood as a reference to a particular god 'Molech' . . . whose name evokes the notion of 'king' in its consonants and 'disgrace' in its vowels" (Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 253, 292).
206. Cf. Gerald T. Sheppard, "The Use of Scripture Within the Christian Ethical Debate Concerning Same-Sex Oriented Persons," USQR 40 (1985): 22: "I do not think that the texts in Leviticus can be read from a historical perspective as applicable only to cult prostitution because they stand in the context of other laws regulating general immoral conduct such as incestuous relationships, adultery, and bestiality. I find Edwards's historical speculation concerning the restriction of the abomination formula to cultic violations weak and uncompelling" (this is from an OT scholar who affirms same-sex unions). See also Wright, "Homosexuality: The Relevance of the Bible," 293.
207. Wenham, "Homosexuality," 362.
208. Milgrom, "Does the Bible Prohibit Homosexuality?" 11 (the loss of semen or spilling of seed "symbolizes the loss of life") and "How Not to Read the Bible," 48 (The basis for the ban [on homosexuality]... is the need for procreation, which opposes, in biblical times, the wasting of seed"); Sarah J. Melcher, 'The Holiness Code and Human Sexuality," Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality, 98-99 (who argues that the issue of procreation keys into a concern for "patrilineal inheritance of the land": "if their system of land tenure fails . . . , the 'sons of Israel' will find themselves to be landless"); Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 183; David Biale, Eros and the Jews (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 29; Thomas B. Dozeman, "Creation and Procreation in the Biblical Teaching on Homosexuality," USQR 49 (1995): 175-76, 179, 189 n. 24; Fewell and Gunn, Gender, Power, and Promise, 106-8 (who cite also the negation of the passive partner's maleness).
209. White, "Does the Bible Speak About Gays or Same-Sex Orientation?" 17-18. White apparently perceives this pre-modem, androcentric understanding of conception as a reason for the focus of the Levitical same-sex prohibitions on the male only, and thus a reason for disregarding these prohibitions. However, the opposite conclusion could be drawn: Since we now know that conception and life is equally due to the woman (indeed, more so), a faithful contemporary appropriation of these prohibitions would entail their expansion to forbid lesbian sex.
210. Olyan, " ' And with a Male . . . ' , " 203. Steven Bigger thinks that the laws in 18:19-23 come under the rubric of "misuse of semen": mixing semen and menstrual blood (18:19); commingling the semen of two different men in the same woman (18:20); emitting human semen into an animal or animal semen into a woman (18:23) ("The Family Laws," 202-3). "Misuse of semen" is a broad generalization that does not require Olyan's conclusion that the problem is mixing semen with excrement. Bigger himself suggests that the reason why homosexual intercourse involved "the misuse of semen" was that it was "seen by the Hebrews as an unnatural variant of heterosexuality," just as the "confusion" caused by bestiality "may have referred to the mixing of different types of semen in the receptive animal or woman, or the confusion of species and social roles" (p. 203). Yet the category of "misuse of semen" is still not broad enough to encompass the case of child sacrifice in 18:21.
211. Boyarin stresses the relevance of this law ("Are There Any Jews . . .," 342-44).
212. Mary Douglas has pointed out that "holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused. . . . Holiness means keeping distinct the categories of creation.... Incest and adultery (Leviticus 18:6-20) are against holiness, in the simple sense of right order" (Purity and Danger, 53).
213. The word appears only in these two verses in the OT. It is related to the verb balal, "to mix, confuse"; hence, "mixture, confusion, shamefulness, disgracefulness" (HALOT); "confusion, violation of nature or the divine order" (BDB); "perversion" (NRSV, NIV, NLT, NASB, Levine), "violation of nature" (REB, NJB; cf. NLT), "abhorrent deed/thing" (NAB).
214. Note too the difference in penalties: sowing one's vineyard with a second kind of seed merely leads to forfeiting the whole yield; the sower is not killed (Deut 22:9).
215. According to Dearman, the rejection of homosexual acts and bestiality "is probably based on the same presuppositions proposed in our analysis of the creation accounts. Homosexuality and bestiality do not conform to the description of existence 'according to their kind,' and the sexual unions they represent are incapable of'reproducing.' This is only consistent with humankind as male and female.... All the forbidden sexual relations in Lev 18:6-23 threaten the proper function of the family" ("Marriage in the Old Testament," 58-59). Cf. Grenz, Welcoming But Not Affirming, 46.
216. Calum M. Carmichael has proposed an interesting explanation for the selection and order of the commandments in Leviticus 18-20: interpretation of the narra-
tive traditions about Israel's first ancestors, primarily in Genesis (Law, Legend, and Incest in the Bible: Leviticus 18-20 [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997], 60-61,182-85). For example, in Lev 18:19-23, the "lawgiver" moved from Genesis 18, where Sarah expects renewed fertility and thus the resumption of menstruation (Lev 18:19: prohibition of intercourse with one's menstruating wife); to Gen 21:22-34, where Sarah comes close to committing adultery with Abimelech (18:20: prohibition of adultery); to Genesis 22, where God requires Abraham to offer up Isaac as a burnt sacrifice (18:21: prohibition of child sacrifice); then the theme of fire taking the lawgiver back to Genesis 19, where Sodom is consumed by fire for homosexual rape of guests (18:22: the prohibition of homosexual intercourse); and the theme of sexual abuse of a visitor calling to mind the rape of Dinah by Shechem (Genesis 34), whose fathers name Ham means "ass" and whose actions weakened Jacobs "house, the house of the Ox" (Genesis 49) (18:23: prohibition of bestiality). With regard to Lev 20:12-14, the lawgiver moved from intercourse between Reuben's brother Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar (Genesis 38; the prohibition against sex with one's daughter-in-law in Lev 20:12); to Tamar's image as a cult prostitute and the associated concept of homosexual cult prostitution (the prohibition against homosexual intercourse in Lev 20:13); to the thought that Tamar had a sexual relationship with a father and his sons (the prohibition of the equivalent male offense, intercourse with a wife and her mother, Lev 20:14). It is difficult to know what to make of Carmichael's proposal. Some of the connections (especially the one to bestiality) seem to be quite a stretch; but, then again, most of the midrashic associations made by ancient writers are indeed enormous exegetical stretches. Whether the redactor(s) of the laws in Leviticus 18-20 would have had access to the stories in Genesis is debatable. Yet if Carmichael is correct, it would be further evidence for the connections between H's prohibitions of homosexual behavior on the one hand, and both the Yahwist's story of Sodom's destruction and the Deuteronomistic Historian's description of homosexual cult prostitutes on the other hand. It would mean that the legislators of the Holiness Code understood both the sin of Sodom and the chief abominable activity of the homosexual cult prostitutes to be homosexual intercourse (not rape of a guest and not cultic prostitution).
217. See the discussion in Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16,940-41,948-53,1001-4; Wold, Out of Order, 132.
218. The kind of mixing that takes place in homosexual intercourse is of a different character from the other forms of mixing cited above. Instead of being a mixing of two dissimilar things, it is a mixing of two similar but noncomplementary things. The prohibition in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 was not a mindless application of the rule that forbade mixture of different kinds, a principle that (rigorously applied) might have led to the assumption that same-sex intercourse was more appropriate than heterosexual intercourse (as some Greeks thought). Rather, it was a reflective assessment of the interlocking nature of male-female sexuality lacking in male-male relationships.
219. Ancient Near Eastern culture in general lies somewhere between the position of ancient Israel and ancient Greece on the question of status. The penetrated male was usually regarded as "feminized" by the act of homosexual intercourse. At the same time, The Middle Assyrian Laws do not criminalize consensual homosexual intercourse, and some ancient Near Eastern texts suggest acceptance or at least tolerance of some forms of homosexual intercourse (such as sex with social inferiors, foreigners, or homosexual cult prostitutes).
220. According to Boyarin, in the biblical culture "penetration of a male constituted a consignment of him to the class of females, but, rather than a degradation of status [as in Greco-Roman culture], this constituted a sort of a mixing of kinds, a generally taboo occurrence in Hebrew culture. . . . God-given categories must be kept separate. . . . Thus when one man 'uses' another man as a female, he causes a transgression of the borders between male and female . . . the issue does not seem to have been status so much as an insistence on the absolute inviolability of gender dimorphism" ("Are There Any Jews in 'The History of Sexuality,' " 341-43,
348). See also Thomas M. Thurston, "Leviticus 18:22 and the Prohibition of Homosexual Acts," Homophobia and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition (ed. M. L. Stemmeler and J. M. Clark; Dallas: Monument, 1990: the anally receptive male does not conform to the class "male"); and, for the rabbinic position, Michael L. Satlow, "'They Abused Him Like a Woman': Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring, and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity," JHSex 5 (1994): 1-25: unlike the Romans who understood sexual penetration politically, "Palestinian rabbinic discourse on homoeroticism is characterized by two traits: concern over gender boundaries, and the divinely ordained limits on sexuality" [p. 23]). Where I would differ strenuously from Boyarin (and Michel Foucault) is over his conclusion that we now know better than to link sexual identity with gender (p. 353). Gender and sexuality ought to be coupled. That the Levitical prohibitions are silent on the question of sexual orientation (e.g., not distinguishing between bisexuals and homosexuals or addressing the question of genetic predispositions) does not make the proscriptions in Lev 18:22; 20:13 irrelevant. Rather, it makes the issue of the special category of the "homosexual" irrelevant for the rejection of such practices (contra also Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 44). Since the Levitical prohibitions are based on the Creator's design for the creation, not on human desires for alternative expressions of sexuality, participation in homosexual intercourse by men with an "exclusive homosexual orientation" would have made no difference to the legislators. Would awareness of an "exclusive orientation to bestiality" have made sex with animals any more tolerable for the legislators of the Holiness Code?
221. Homoeroticism, 42-44, esp. p. 44; similarly, Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge, 139-43; Fewell and Gunn, Gender, Power, and Promise, 107-8; and Bird, "The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 149,157.
222. Whether H was aware of P's creation account or not depends on the relative dating one assigns the two documents. If H used P, he probably accepted P's (and J's) version of creation, since he supplied no alternate account. If P incorporated H into his work, then P presumably interpreted H s proscriptions of homosexual intercourse in the light of his own account of creation. Even if H did not know P, his understanding of creation could hardly have been much different with respect to the exclusive sexual pairing of male and female.
223. Olyan, " 'And with a Male . . .'," 184-86; followed by Nissinen, Homoeroticisvi, 44.
224. Intercrural ("between the thighs") male intercourse was merely a sin comparable to masturbation.
225. Harlots, defiled women, and divorced women were so disqualified. Women who engaged in rubbing against each other's genitals were guilty of "mere lasciviousness/obscenity." For a more negative assessment of lesbian intercourse, see Sipra Aharé 8.7, which lists among the practices of the Egyptians and Canaanites that must not be copied (Lev 18:3) men marrying men and women marrying women.
226. Boyarin, "Are There Any Jews . . . ?" 336-40, 345-47; cf. also Satlow, "Homoeroticism," 1-25; Brooten, Love Between Women, 66-70. It is dangerous to extrapolate from the thought world of the rabbis to the thought world of the framers of the Holiness Code—and not only because of the significant passage of time. The absence of an explicit prohibition in the Torah against nonpenetrative homosexual sex and against lesbianism was almost certainly a major factor in the reticence of the rabbis, a reticence reinforced by the characteristic rabbinic reluctance to apply capital punishment.
227. According to Deut 22:13-21, if at some point during marriage a wife was charged 143
by her husband with not having been a virgin at the time of their wedding, the parents of the woman were given an opportunity to supply proof of their daughter's pre-marital virginity: a cloth used to cover the wedding-night bed with the bloodstains incurred from her first experience of vaginal intercourse. If such a cloth could not be produced, then the woman was considered not to have been a virgin on her wedding day. As a consequence she would be stoned. For legal reasons, then, vaginal penetration became the defining act of sexual intercourse. However, common sense dictates that if a husband caught his wife engaging in various consensual sexual acts with another man (holding hands, mouth-to-mouth erotic kissing, exposed breasts, oral stimulation of the penis [fellatio] or vagina [cunnilingus], etc.), her actions would not have been taken as a minor offense. If a man was caught passionately kissing a cow on the mouth or masturbating on a cow, but no penetration occurred, probably this too would have been considered a major offense. If a man approached his stepmother and they engaged in an array of sexual acts short of vaginal penetration, it is likely that this would have qualified as incest. In all of these examples, whether the penalties imposed would have been less severe than a death sentence is beyond knowing. Can anyone seriously argue, though, that the offenses would have been treated as minor, let alone condoned as acceptable behavior? If not, on what basis can one argue that various homosexual acts shy of anal penetration would have been tolerated? Surely in ancient Israel any homosexual acts involving the anus or the penis in any way (for example, fellatio or intercrural sex) would have been treated as a serious offense, not just penile penetration of the anus. Attempts to restrict in a rigid way the application of Lev 18:22 and 20:13 to male anal intercourse must be viewed as an ultra-legalism of sorts. The law codes of ancient Israel made no pretense to covering explicitly every conceivable violation of the covenant with Yahweh. Most commandments were suggestive of a wider field of unacceptable behavior. 228. Cf. Wold, Out of Order, 116.
228. Cf. Wold, Out of Order, 116.
229. Cf. Greenberg, Construction, 190 n. 35: The fact that lesbianism is not mentioned "may mean that lesbianism was not considered wrong, but more likely it meant that it was handled by fathers and husbands, rather than by public authorities."
230. Cf. Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 297 ("Was love between women considered harmless or even advantageous? This . . . does not seem persuasive. . . . Men were the ones creating these prescriptions. . . . Perhaps they simply knew nothing or too little about the lesbian activities of their own mothers, wives, daughters, and female slaves."). Nissinen thinks that women's homoeroticism goes unmentioned because a "woman could not lose her manly honor, and it was inconceivable to think of a woman in an active role in a sexual act. Neither did female same-sex activity challenge male domination. Therefore, women's homoeroticism did not pose as big a problem as that of men" (Homoeroticism, 43; see also Bird, "The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 152). Similarly, Fewell and Gunn argue that "the most fearful prospect for patriarchy is the possibility that males might not be 'men,'" not that females might "usurp men's dominant functions" (Gender, Power, and Promise, 107). The problem with this view is that it does not explain why in the Greek and Roman world female homosexuality was often considered more appalling than male homosexuality—precisely because of the challenge it posed to male supremacy.
231. "[I]n the current state of research we cannot definitively explain the lack of a prohibition of female-female sexual contact in ancient Israelite law. In the end, the most plausible explanation may simply be that the lawmakers generally showed greater interest in males and their behavior" (Brooten, Love Between Women, 62; similarly, Brenner, Intercourse of Knowledge, 143-44).
232. One author has regarded the relationship of Jonathan and David as so important for the homosexual cause in the church that he entitled his book accordingly: Tom Homer, Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), esp. pp. 26-39. A more recent attempt to argue for a homosexual dimension is: S. Schroer and T. Staubli, "Saul, David, und Jonathan—eine Dreiecksgeschichte?" BK 51 (1996): 15-22. Schroer and Staubli focus on alleged parallel terminology in the David and Jonathan cycle and the Song of Solomon. Cf. Greenberg, Construction, 114: "homophilic innuendos permeate the story." Both Greenberg and Nissinen refer to the relationships between Gilgamesh and Enlddu and between Achilles and Patrocles as parallels. Whether either of these relationships involved sexual intercourse is a matter of debate. Nissinen argues that Gilgamesh's encounter with Enkidu marks a taming of the wild sexuality of each. No such motif appears in the stories about Jonathan and David.
233. The definitive refutation of a homophile reading of the text has been given by Markus Zehnder, "Exegetische Beobachtungen zu den David-Jonathan-Geschichten," Bib 79 (1998): 153-79. Zehnder responds to the claims made by Schroer and Staubli. He rightly points out that the occasional connections with language in the Song of Solomon are due to the fact that "close, non-erotic relationships of friendship stand in terms of content in close proximity to intimate romantic relationships" (p. 177).
234. About 21 of its 44 occurrences convey the sense of "conspiring."
235. Cited by P. Kyle McCarter, 1 Samuel (AB; Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 342. Schroer and Staubli point to Cant 1:7; 3:1-4 ("you whom my soul loves") as an erotic parallel but there "soul" is the subject, not the object (cf. the similar phrase in Ps 11:5 in a nonsexual context). The phrase "love as one's own soul" is closer to the non-erotic command in Lev 19:18 to "love your neighbor as yourself (Zehnder). The vast majority of the occurrences of the noun "love" (¸ahabâ) and the verb "to love" (¸ahab) in the Old Testament have nothing to do with erotic love.
236. MT 5:15. Cf. 2 Sam 19:6 (MT v. 7). The word for "friend" is ¸oheb, a cognate of ¸ahab, "to love."
237. J. A. Thompson, "The Significance of the Verb hove in the David-Jonathan Narratives in 1 Samuel," VT 24 (1974): 334-38; Springett, Homosexuality, 72-73.
238. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 305; similarly, Bruce C. Birch, "The First and Second Books of Samuel," NIB 2:1120, 1133.
239. The word on occasion carries sexual overtones (Gen 34:19; Deut 21:14; Esth 2:14; Cant 2:7; 3:5; 8:4; each time with reference to a man's wife or betrothed), but usually it does not (e.g., Num 14:8; 2 Sam 20:11; 22:20; 1 Kgs 10:9; 2 Chr 9:8; Esth 6:6-11; Ps 18:19; 22:8; 41:11; Isa 62:4; Mai 2:17; 3:1). The dimension of political allegiance and loyalty is evident in 2 Sam 20:11: "Whoever delights in Joab, and whoever is for David, [let him follow] after Joab." From time to time mention is made of God "delighting in" David or Solomon (2 Sam 15:26; 22:20 [= Ps 18:20]; 1 Kgs 10:9; 2 Chr 9:8). "It is thereby implied that Jonathans 'delight' in David corresponds to the will of God" (Zehnder, "David-Jonathan-Geschichten," 161).
240. H.-J. Zobel understands "a covenant of Yahweh" in the sense of "an all-inclusive covenant" ("hesed," TDOT 5:53); cf. NRSV: "a sacred covenant." For the meaning of the word hesed, cf. Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, Faithfulness in Action: iMjalty in Biblical Perspective (OBT; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), esp. pp. 8-15.
241. Literally, "son of a perverse (perverted, wayward, wrongdoing) woman of rebellion." HALOT: "You bastard of a wayward woman."
242. "Jonathan, says Saul, has disgraced his mother's genitals, whence he came forth" (McCarter, 1 Samuel, 343).
243. Cf. Joab's rebuke of David, who mourned for the death of his rebellious son Absalom instead of celebrating his troops' victory: "Today you have covered with shame the faces of all your officers who have saved your life today,... and the lives of your wives and your concubines, for love of those who hate you and hatred of those who love you (¸ohâb ka, lit., your lovers). You have made it clear today that commanders and officers are nothing to you; for I perceive that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased" (2 Sam 19:5-6). In the same way, Saul viewed Jonathan's loving loyalty to David as a betrayal of his own family: love for one who would bring about the demise of Saul's house amounts to hatred of those who bore him. Note, too, in 2 Sam 19:5-6 "love" has political rather than erotic overtones.
244. Of 27 occurrences of the Hebrew verb "to kiss" (nšq, qal and picel), 24 contain no erotic component. Of the three that do, two are from the Song of Solomon (1:2; 8:1; cf. Prov 7:13). Of the 24 that do not, 15 refer to kisses between relatives, usually between fathers and sons or between brothers. Four refer to two unrelated males kissing, again with no sexual connotation: 1 Sam 10:1 (Samuel-Saul); 2 Sam 15:5 (Absalom-people); 19:40 (David-Barsillai); 20:9 (Joab-Amasa). Cf. Zehnder, "Die David-Jonathan-Geschichten," 163. For weeping in association with kissing, cf. Gen 45:15 (Joseph joyously kissing and weeping upon his brothers after revealing his true identity); 50:1 (Joseph weeping over and kissing his just deceased father Jacob). For bowing down and kissing, cf. Exod 18:7 (Moses-Jethro).
245. HALOT gives the meaning "be friendly with" for the verb nacam in 2 Sam 1:26. One could translate "you were an intimate friend of mine" or even "you were very lovely to me," "a delight to me," "a source of pleasure to me." Although two (and only two) of the 26 occurrences of the root ncm are used in a sexual sense (Cant 1:16 [adjective]; 7:7 [verb]), ncm no more has a sexual connotation in 2 Sam 1:26 than it does three verses earlier. There David extols both Saul and Jonathan as "beloved and lovely" (hanne¸îm)—surely David was not referring to Saul's erotic attractiveness to other males. Elsewhere the verb is used of the pleasantness, loveliness, beauty, attractiveness, or delight of the land of Israel (Gen 49:15; cf. Ezek 32:19); knowledge (Prov 2:10); the psalmist's words to God (Ps 141:26); and those who stand for what is right (Ps 141:6). Cf. T. Kronholm, "na¸ habîm w hannecam" TDOT 9:469-70, who says the word is being used in 2 Sam 1:26 of intimate friendship, not erotic love.
246. Zehnder, "Die David-Jonathan-Geschichten," 167,176.
247. Essentially 1 Sam 16:14-2 Sam 5:10 minus editorial insertions.
248. "Men's homosociability apparently was not part of the sexual taboo in the biblical world any more than it is in today's Christian and Islamic cultures around the Mediterranean" (Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 56).
249. An even more desperate attempt is the claim that Ruth and Naomi were involved in a lesbian relationship. Cf. the critique in Springett, Homosexuality, 78-80.
250. The verb here, dabeq, is the same verb used in Gen 2:24 to refer to a man "cleaving" to his wife in a one-flesh relationship; yet there is obviously nothing sexual about the reference in Prov 18:24. This again points up the flaw of construing the David-Jonathan relationship as sexual on the grounds that some of the terminology used to describe that relationship is occasionally used of sexual relationships elsewhere.
251. Nissinen admits that "[m]odern readers probably see homoeroticism in the story of David and Jonathan more easily than did the ancients." Yet he then clouds the issue and waffles by asserting that the text "leaves the possible homoerotic associations to the reader's imagination.... In this sense it can be compared to the love of Achilles and Patroclus (in Homer's Iliad) or the love of Gilgameš" and Enkidu . . . [where] erotic expressions of love are left in the background and only to be imagined, and there is no distinction between active and passive sexual roles. Perhaps these homosocial relationships, based on love and equality, are more comparable with modern homosexual people's experience of themselves than those texts that explicitly speak of homosexual acts that are aggressive, violent expressions of domination and subjection" (Homoeroticism, 56; emphasis added; cf. p. 158 n. 98: contra Greenberg, "there is . . . no indication" that the Deuteronomistic editors deleted a homosexual relationship from the story).
This sounds like double-speak. Is attributing a homoerotic dimension to thestory eisegesis or not? Nissinen cannot have it both ways. Simply because the text does not explicitly deny that David and Jonathan are having sex is no license to imagine that they are. Nissinen's reasoning is the equivalent of saying that when the Gospels depict Jesus as saying "Let the little children come to me" they are leaving possible pedophilic connotations to the reader's imagination. It also defies logic to draw a comparison, as Nissinen does, between the relationship of David and Jonathan, which Nissinen admits probably did not involve any sexual intercourse, with modern homosexual relationships, which are homosexual precisely because they involve same-sex intercourse. Nobody questions the value of intimate friendships between members of the same sex. It is only when sexual intercourse is introduced into a same-sex relationship that important moral issues are raised. If the relationship of David and Jonathan did not entail an erotic component, then there is nothing in that relationship to validate what homosexuals are asking the church to validate: same-sex intercourse.