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Condemned or not? St Paul, Romans and homosexuality

Does St Paul condemn homosexuality in Romans? I don’t think so. The video explains why. Below you can find the transcript, and then scholarly resources on Roman sexuality, on what ‘against nature’ might mean, on what the females were doing, on pagan temple worship and Romans, and other interpretations not covered in the video. I have also included a short extract from Wisdom 14 as a parallel Jewish rhetorical attack on pagan idolatry.

Transcript

Does St Paul condemn all homosexuality, both those who are lesbians, those who are gays, in Romans chapter one? These are probably the most important verses in the entire Bible for this issue. But I think non-affirming interpretations are wrong. Keep watching to find out why.

Sometimes people claim a plain reading of Romans clearly condemns lesbianism and homosexuality. If you take the Word of God seriously, you need to take Paul’s condemnation seriously.

The thing is, though, the people in Paul’s churches might have thought that the plain meaning of Romans was something entirely different.

How come? The past is a foreign country – they do things differently there (LP Hartley, The Go-Between, 1953). To understand Paul’s letter to the Romans, we need to understand Paul’s world.

How the Roman world saw sexuality

The ancient world saw sexuality differently from the modern Western world. There were no categories of ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual’ as specific, separate orientations. There was occasional comment or recognition about certain people who only favoured their own genders, but this was rare.

The main categories for sexuality revolved around practice – who was the dominant, active partner in an encounter, the one doing the penetrating, and who was the submissive, passive partner.

Status mattered more than gender. So, to maintain high status, a freeborn male had to be the dominant, active partner in an encounter.

In contrast a woman, who always had lower status in that society, should be the submissive, passive partner.

In general, a high status person had to be the dominant partner; a low status person or someone with no status should be the submissive partner.

So long as the freeborn man was the active partner, it was socially acceptable to have intercourse with:

  • his wife, of course;
  • but also with boys (freeborn in Greek culture, slaves in Roman culture);
  • with slaves (male or female), because slaves had no honour;
  • with prostitutes, male or female, because prostitutes had no honour;
  • and with actors and bar staff, because they too had no honour in that culture.

Sleeping with someone else’s wife or daughter was not acceptable, because that was violating honour – that was moicheia: adultery.

But slaves and prostitutes had no honour to violate, so legally sleeping with a slave or a prostitute was not adultery.

And there were plenty of opportunities. So a married man might go out to a brothel, and have intercourse with a boy slave prostitute, and then return home to his wife, and that was part of the social landscape.

In general, the Roman world’s attitude to intercourse could be summarised as:

Forbidding adulteries, building brothels.

Jewish attitudes to sexuality

But Paul was Jewish. What were Jewish attitudes to intercourse? The Judaism of the time strongly linked prostitution with idolatry, and so prostitution was condemned. Similaly, pederasty was linked with idolatry, and was condemned.

But the Judaism of the time also frowned upon any type of intercourse that was non-procreative – basically, anything that couldn’t result in a pregnancy. In contrast, the Greco-Roman world generally accepted such practices as anal intercourse.

I want to emphasise what seems to us, and is, horrendous;

the use of boys for intercourse, pederasty, was widespread.

Judaism and early Christianity both condemned it. For example, an early Christian teaching manual says:

Commit no murder, adultery, corruption of children, sexual immorality…
[Didache 2:2]

[You can find more examples of early Christian teaching condemning child corruption/pederasty on my page explaining the background to 1 Corinthians 6:9-10].

Notice that adultery (moicheia), corrupting children and sexual immorality are listed separately. Of those, only adultery would be widely condemned by all three of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman cultures.

What about lesbian women?

But what about women with women? The ancient world, at least in official, written sources, wasn’t terribly interested. Now in part, that’s because ‘intercourse’ was not seen as really taking place because there was no penetration, and in part, it is because the male-dominated society wasn’t terribly interested generally in what women said or did. And that is true both for Greco-Roman and Jewish sources.

This is not to say that female-female sex did not take place – we know that it did from written spells and dream interpretations and other evidence that has been relatively recently compiled. But it was generally looked down on in both Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures but not much talked about.

If anything, the evidence points to it being treated as being less serious an issue within Judaism. That’s partly because it wasn’t forbidden specifically in the Torah, and partly because again there was no penetration involved. And so some rabbis would view it as being similar as an offence to masturbation. It was treated completely differently and separately from male-male intercourse.

Paul’s argument in Romans 1

OK, that’s a broad sweep of the background to sexuality in the ancient world. Let’s have a close look now at Romans 1.

Paul is conducting a sting operation here against the Jewish listener. He produces a stereotypical Jewish argument against gentile society – you can see a similar example in the book Wisdom of Solomon 13-14.

The gentiles, the pagans, worship created things rather than the creator: idolatry. And the results of idolatry are awful and evil, and God judges them. And the Jewish listener is expected to be nodding along, going ‘yes, yes’, only to be told in chapter 2 ‘you’re no better than the pagans’.

Paul begins by describing the replacement of God with images of humans, or birds, or beasts, or reptiles or animals. Some have seen echoes of Genesis here. Because of this worship of idols, God gives them up.

God gives them up to: impurity; to dishonourable passions; to a debased mind.

The key verses

So let’s now have a look at the key verses – Romans 1:26-27. This is my own translation:

On account of this [the gentile idolatry] God handed them over to dishonourable passions: for both their females exchanged the natural usage for the usage against nature, likewise also the males, having left the natural usage of females, were burnt up in their desire for each other, males in males doing that which brought shame and receiving in themselves the due rewards which inevitably came from their going astray.

There are three areas we need to look closely at – what does ‘against nature’ mean; what were the females doing, and what were the males doing?

Against nature

‘Against nature’ (para phusin) could mean a variety of things. For Paul writing elsewhere, it seems to mean going against the natural order of things. And that can be both negative, such as long hair on a man [1 Cor. 11:14]; but also positive, such as the gentiles being grafted into the ‘olive tree’ of Judaism [Rom. 11:24].

For other Jewish writers of the time, against nature could mean any form of intercourse that couldn’t lead to pregnancy. Philo is an example who uses the term ‘against nature in this way.

So, prohibited forms of intercourse would include oral and anal, it would include intercourse during menstruation, using any form of contraception, and also having intercourse where you know that one of the partners is infertile.

So if you insist on this particular understanding of ‘against nature’, be aware that it does rule out oral intercourse, it rules out using any form of contraception, and it rules out marriage between couples beyond child-bearing age, or where you know one of them is infertile.

Within the wider Greco-Roman world, ‘against nature’ could also mean excessive sexual desire: desires which go beyond proper, normal bounds. Self-control was a key virtue in the Greco-Roman world. On this understanding, Paul would be condemning the sexual activity as being an expression of excessive, uncontrolled lust.

What were the females doing?

Let’s move onto the females. Many people assume that Paul had lesbian activity in mind, but he doesn’t say that two women were involved. He says ‘the females exchanged the natural usage for the usage against nature’.

Did Paul have female-female sex in mind?

In favour of this view, it is parallel to male with male. But why talk about female-female sex first?

In the ancient world, dominated by men and where men get talked about first, this is surprising. Commentators scoot round trying to find a reason for it. Some suggest that it demonstrates Paul’s egalitarianism talking about women first, and others suggest perhaps Paul is taking a really bad example first.

But it is odd for Paul to be writing about female-female sex at all. There are very few Jewish references to it in the writings, and there aren’t that many more in the Greco-Roman world either. And also, everyone looked down on it, it wasn’t seen as a particularly gentile vice. And also, the early church didn’t understand the passage this way for roughly the first four hundred years.

But is there an alternative understanding? Yes, as we’ve heard, in Jewish sources unnatural usage often refers to intercourse which couldn’t result in a pregnancy. So females exchanging the natural usage for the usage against nature could be women changing to forms of intercourse, such as anal intercourse (perhaps used as a method of contraception), widely accepted in gentile society, but not within Judaism.

So Paul in Romans 1 could be accusing gentile, pagan women of indulging in what would be seen by Jewish contemporaries as excessive, unnatural intercourse with men.

What were the males doing?

What about the men, though? Except it doesn’t say men, it says males with males. Why is this significant? Because males includes boys, as well as men. As I’ve said, pederasty was widely accepted in the Greco-Roman world. It was by far the most common form of male same-sex activity. And it was closely associated with idolatry in Jewish thought.

But there’s an interpretation which takes not only this aspect seriously, but makes sense of the whole passage, and is also the way in which some of the earliest Christian commentators understood the passage.

Let’s remind ourselves of Paul’s argument. The critical failing of the gentiles (not all humanity) is idolatry: worshipping creation, not the creator. Pagan worship at the time of Paul included goddesses associated with fertility, like Artemis, Aphrodite, Isis, Ceres, and Cybele.

Worship of Cybele was said to include all sorts of sexual practices. Priestesses used phalluses during ecstatic worship to penetrate male eunuch priests, known as galli. These galli, dressed as women, would then also penetrate each other. Initiation involved castrating themselves as part of the ecstatic worship at festival time.

Here’s an account of that worship from the second century:

During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. I will narrate what they do. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd, and picks up a sword from a number of swords which I suppose have been kept ready for many years for this purpose. He takes it and castrates himself and then runs wild through the city, bearing in his hands what he has cut off. He casts it into any house at will, and from this house he receives women’s raiment and ornaments. Thus they act during their ceremonies of castration. (Lucian, Syr. d. 51)

Paul was writing to Rome, where Cybele worship was part of the official calendar and where the empress Livia, Caesar Augustus’ wife, had been head of the cult.

Was the worship as frenzied as sources claimed? It is probably much exaggerated; Rome publicly valued restraint and respectability, and modified worship accordingly. Accounts of debauched orgies owe more to rhetoric than reality.

But in Romans 1 we are dealing with rhetoric. Paul has launched a rhetorical attack on pagans that focuses on the reputation of pagan worship.

How does this rhetoric fit in with the chapter? On this reading, in Romans 1:26-27 Paul is still talking about idolatry directly. Anyone in Paul’s world hearing his language would naturally link it to the ecstatic, orgiastic worship that pagans were accused of.

This explains why the females are mentioned first – they were the priestesses, the ones ruling the cult.

It explains the exchange of a natural use for an unnatural one – priestesses using phalluses. And it explains the male-male burning in desire for each other – the male galli having orgies.

It further explains the punishment (due reward) having already been received in themselves: it is a reference to self-castration.

And, just like in other Jewish literature, the frenzied pagan worship is followed up by general accusations of all sorts of wickedness. This is perfect for Paul’s broader rhetorical aim of springing a trap upon the Jewish hearer who is thinking ‘I’m better than them’ and judging the pagans.

Evaluating different interpretations of Romans 1

Let’s recap the different possibilities.

Any interpretation of Romans 1:

  • has to make sense of Paul’s Jewish background;
  • it has to have Paul criticising practices that are identified with pagans, not Jews;
  • it should fit in with Paul’s argument about idolatry;
  • and account for Paul naming females first; and ideally, it should match the earliest Christian understandings of Romans.

The idea that Paul was writing about people who are lesbians and gays fails at numerous points. No-one, Jewish or pagan, categorised sexuality this way; it doesn’t account for females being named first; and it doesn’t match early Christian understandings.

The idea that Paul was writing about female and male same-sex activity, not orientation, is stronger.

It makes sense of Paul’s Jewish background, and pederasty was associated with gentile rather than Jewish practice, although this is not particularly true of female same-sex activity. It sort of fits Paul’s argument from idolatry, if you see it as a distortion of the creation in Genesis. It doesn’t explain why females are mentioned first by Paul, and this interpretation of Romans can’t be found amongst Christian writings until the late fourth century.

What about Paul referring to females having unnatural intercourse with males, and pederasty?

This fits Paul’s Jewish background, and uses accusations that are specific to pagans. It also fits with Paul’s argument about idolatry, and makes some sense of females being named first – Paul is starting with male-female unnatural intercourse before moving to male-male pederasty. This interpretation also fits in with references to Romans in early Christian writings from the second century onwards.

But could Paul have been talking about pagan goddess worship? It fits Paul’s Jewish background, uses accusations that are closely linked to pagans (particularly in Rome), is continuing the theme of idolatry, makes sense of why females, the priestesses, are named first, and matches the earliest Christian writings on Romans.

What may have seemed a plain meaning of Paul’s letter to ancient hearers can be obscured to us because their world is different from ours.

But if Paul is condemning pederasty, or idolatrous, ecstatic orgiastic, self-harming pagan goddess worship, that’s quite different from loving, committed, faithful relationships.

Conclusion

My view? What St Paul was condemning in Romans has got nothing to do with what we’re talking about today. Remember to subscribe to the channel, and you can find links to resources and scholarship at www.bibleandhomosexuality.org.

The other key passage from Paul’s letters on this topic comes up in 1 Corinthians 6 – here is my explanation of these crucial verses.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Resources on Roman sexuality

The best general background to the world of Roman sexuality (especially in relation to homosexuality) is provided by Craig Williams, which highlights some of the differences from Ancient Greece covered in Dover’s ground-breaking work. Karras also provides a helpful review of the evidence. Were there any homosexual partnerships in the modern sense that show any traces in the sources? Not many at all, but for potentially gay relationships, see Hubbard’s review of peer homosexuality. For female partnerships, see Brooten (though I disagree with her interpretation of Romans 1).

Brooten, Bernadette J. Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Hubbard, Thomas K. “Peer Homosexuality.” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, edited by Thomas K. Hubbard, 128-49. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Active/Passive, Acts/Passions: Greek and Roman Sexualities.” The American Historical Review 105, no. 4 (2000): 1250-65.

Williams, Craig. Roman Homosexuality. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Resources on against nature and females

More scholars are now questioning strongly whether or not Romans 1:26 refers to unnatural acts with other females or with males. Some of the key work here was done by Miller, both in his 1995 article and his 1997 rebuttal of Smith (1996). See also Swancutt, Banister and Lamas Jr. Looking at interpretations of Romans, de Bruyn notes that the fourth century Ambrosiaster initially interprets Romans 1:26 as involving women having unnatural relations with men.

The meaning of ‘against nature’ as being excessive desire is forcefully argued by Dale Martin, who also critiques many traditional interpretations of Romans. Swancutt also follows this line in her interpretation.

Banister, Jamie A. “Ὁμοίως and the Use of Parallelism in Romans 1:26–27.” Journal of Biblical Literature 128, no. 3 (2009): 569-90.

de Bruyn, Theodore. “Ambrosiaster’s Interpretations of Romans 1:26-27.” Vigiliae Christianae 65, no. 5 (2011): 463-83.

Lamas Jr, Mark. “The Sin of Cunnilingus.” In Centre for the Study of Christian Origins, edited by Helen Bond, Paul Foster, Larry Hurtado, Timothy Lim, Matthew Novenson, Sara Parvis, Philippa Townsend and Margaret Williams. Edinburgh: New College, University of Edinburgh, 2017.

Martin, Dale B. “Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32.” Biblical Interpretation 3, no. 3 (1995): 332-55.

Martin, Dale B. Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006.

Miller, James E. “The Practices of Romans 1:26: Homosexual or Heterosexual.” Novum Testamentum 37, no. 1 (1995): 1-11.

Miller, James E. “Response: Pederasty and Romans 1:27: A Response to Mark Smith.” American Academy of Religion 65, no. 4 (1997): 861-66.

Smith, Mark D. “Ancient Bisexuality and the Interpretation of Romans 1:26-27.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, no. 2 (1996): 223-56.

Swancutt, Diana M. ““The Disease of Effemination”: The Charge of Effeminacy and the Verdict of God (Romans 1:18–2:16).” In New Testament Maculinities, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

Resources on pagan temple worship

The most comprehensive account is given in two articles by Jeramy Townsley, which cover the rhetoric around pagan temple worship as a background to Romans 1:26-27, and then also the early Christian interpretations of the passage, which refer to pagan worship. Budin provides an argument that sacred temple prostitution only ever existed in rhetoric and not reality. See also the blogpost by Helen King on the mundane reality of Roman worship.

Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

King, Helen. “Temple Prostitution for Christians.” In Shared Conversations. https://sharedconversations.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/temple-prostitution-for-christians/, 2016.

Townsley, Jeramy. “Paul, the Goddess Religions, and Queer Sects: Romans 1:23–28.” Journal of Biblical Literature 130, no. 4 (2011): 707-28.

Townsley, Jeramy. “Queer Sects in Patristic Commentaries on Romans 1:26-27: Goddess Cults, Free Will, and “Sex Contrary to Nature”?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion  (2012).

Other interpretations

There are other interpretations of Romans 1. Overlapping with what is covered in the video, Diana Swancutt argues that Paul is condemning active, ‘masculine’ women and passive, ‘feminine’ men. In a completely different take, Elliott argues that Paul is actually targeting the scandalous behaviour of Roman emperors. I am not entirely convinced, but was surprised by how persuasive his argument is.

Elliott, Neil. Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.

Swancutt, Diana M. ““The Disease of Effemination”: The Charge of Effeminacy and the Verdict of God (Romans 1:18–2:16).” In New Testament Maculinities, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

Excerpt from Wisdom of Solomon as an attack on pagan idolatry

Wisdom 14:21-29

21        And this became a hidden trap for humankind,
because people, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority,
bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared.

22        Then it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God,
but though living in great strife due to ignorance,
they call such great evils peace.

23        For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries,
or hold frenzied revels with strange customs,

24        they no longer keep either their lives or their marriages pure,
but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one another by adultery,

25        and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury,

26        confusion over what is good, forgetfulness of favours,
defiling of souls, sexual perversion,
disorder in marriages, adultery, and debauchery.

27        For the worship of idols not to be named
is the beginning and cause and end of every evil.

28        For their worshipers either rave in exultation,
or prophesy lies, or live unrighteously, or readily commit perjury;

29        for because they trust in lifeless idols
they swear wicked oaths and expect to suffer no harm.

Posted by admin in New Testament - Paul's letters

Does Leviticus mean homosexuality is an abomination?

This video explains why Christians should not consider homosexuality an abomination because of Leviticus. The video first explains the context in which Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 were written: male temple prostitutes for pagan goddesses and pederasty. It then goes on to how Christians use Leviticus generally. It is not a rule book to be followed, because the Law’s time has come to an end, fulfilled in the single command to love. It makes no more sense to condemn Christians who are gay as practising abomination than it does Christians who sport tattoos, wear mixed fibres, or eat ham and cheese sandwiches.

Transcript

The book of Leviticus in the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination, and so it can’t possibly be right for Christians.

You’ve heard this? Keep watching to find out why I disagree.

There are two verses from Leviticus that figure in the debates over the Bible and homosexuality. First of all Leviticus 18:22, which says:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

And the second one is similar. It comes from Leviticus 20:13:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

To understand these verses, we need to know a little bit about the background to them. First of all though, some general points about this section of Leviticus.

The holiness code

Because this section, between chapters 17 and 26, is often called the holiness code because of the emphasis throughout it on holiness, on being holy, on being pure. And so what you eat, what you do, what you are, all these things can affect how holy you are, how pure you are.

Mixed fibre wool and silkAnd so eating the wrong food makes you less holy [Lev. 20:25]. Having a tattoo makes you less holy [Lev. 19:28]. Wearing clothes from different fibres – like wool and linen together – makes you less holy [Lev. 19:19]. Even having a physical disability makes you less holy [Lev. 21:16-23].

What’s going on here? In part, the holiness code is encouraging the Israelite people to be pure, to be separate from, to be different from their pagan worshipping neighbours. And everyday life becomes a symbol of that purity, that holiness – the Israelite people are not to assimilate to surrounding cultures, just as different types of fibres shouldn’t be in the same cloth.

Background to the verses

So what’s going on in the two verses that we’re looking at? First of all, these verses are addressed only to males – there is no mention here of two women. Secondly, how are the Israelite people going to be distinct from, different from their neighbours by putting these into practice?

Well, in the surrounding cultures, the major socially acceptable form of same-sex activity was with male shrine prostitutes as part of temple worship to pagan gods and goddesses. And there is repeated rhetoric against these shrine prostitutes at different parts of the Hebrew Bible [see Deut. 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24 (linked with abomination), 15:12, 22:46, 23:7].

Looking wider afield, there were cultures like Ancient Greece, where the dominant form of male-male intercourse was (usually married) men with boys – pederasty. And did you notice that the verses said a man lying with a male, not a man lying with a man?

Now, occasionally I’ve seen some commentators claim that this is trying to link it back to Genesis (male and female he created them), but if so it is rather strange that ‘female isn’t used’; it’s ‘as with a woman’ and not ‘female’.

I think it more likely that ‘male’ is used here precisely because it can include lying with boys as well as men.

So two main contexts for the Israelite people to be different from – male-male intercourse linked with pagan temple goddess worship, and pederasty.

Note how different these are from what we are looking at today; with faithful, loving, committed relationships.

Venn diagram showing Bible and homosexuality as different

So if we take these two verses seriously as a guide for Christian life, we have to understand the context in which they would have been heard.

How should we apply these verses (and others from Leviticus)

But there’s actually a much bigger issue here. If you’re a Christian rather than orthodox Jewish, why are you assuming that you have to obey these verses anyway?

Because if you are going to obey these verses strictly – then why not the whole verse? Leviticus 20:13 says – ‘they shall be put to death’. Do you want the death penalty for homosexuality? If you don’t, you’re ignoring part of the verse. If you do – are you consistent? Do you want also want the death penalty for adulterers (that’s from just three verses before)?

TattooAnd what about tattoos? Should everyone with a tattoo be cut off from the community? Or what about clothes with mixed fibres – I hope you don’t have any cotton-polyester blends in your wardrobe. And don’t even get me started on ham and cheese sandwiches.

The first church argument was about whether non-Jewish Christians had to keep the law, the Torah, of which Leviticus is a part. It forms the backdrop to some of Paul’s letters, and the Acts of the Apostles. And the outcome?

Christians don’t have to keep the Law.

Why not? Because, with the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus, the time of the Law has come to an end. [Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:24-26].

We have been given a new law – the law of love. Love God, and love your neighbour [Galatians 5:14]. So it doesn’t matter whether you get a tattoo, or wear a cotton-polyester blend, or work on a Saturday (which is the Sabbath).

The only thing that matters is whether what you are doing is loving.

I sometimes get people asking, but the part these verses are in deal with sexual morality, and surely that doesn’t change, that’s constant.

Well, just three verses away it says: You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. [Leviticus 18:19]. Or, to be more direct, no intercourse during her period.

For Leviticus, this is sexual immorality; it is just as bad, just as abominable, as a man lying with a male.

Yet I’ve never heard any warnings about not having intercourse during a period in any sermon, haven’t come across it in any Christian book or Christian marriage preparation course.

Why not? Because we don’t think it applies, because the time of the Law has come to an end. The only law is the law of love.

Conclusion

To recap – the context for the verses is intercourse with male shrine prostitutes at temples to pagan goddesses, or intercourse between married men and boys. But in any case, it doesn’t matter – Christians don’t look to Leviticus for particular rules for life. Christ has given us the only rule we need – love one another.

So, if I’m honest, I don’t really understand the appeal to Leviticus as meaning that homosexuality is condemned by God. Why pluck these two particular verses out of Leviticus and then ignore the rest of it?

Leviticus does not mean that homosexuality is an abomination.

This is part of a series of videos looking at the Bible and homosexuality. If that interests you, subscribe to the channel. And if you’d like to find out some more background, there’s a companion website at bibleandhomosexuality.org.

Interested in what the gospels say about homosexuality? Find out more here.

Are you conflicted between upholding scripture and including people who are LGBTQI+? Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People helps you resolve that conflict, and is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out more about the book here.


Resources

I give a broad overview within the video of how to approach Leviticus. Within each area, there is a whole realm of specialist literature. Particular understandings are sometimes contested.

For example, there is debate over whether Lev. 18:22 is primarily addressed to the ‘active’ partner (the one penetrating) or to the ‘passive’ partner (the one penetrated), and the reasons for the inclusion of the prohibitions in Leviticus. Olyan argued that the verses refer specifically to anal intercourse (and not other types of male-male sexual activity), and that the verses originally addressed the penetrator.

Walsh disagrees, arguing that it is the penetrated who is addressed. Specifically, the law addresses free-born Israelite male citizens who take on voluntarily the role of the penetrated. He argues that this brings the law into closer conformity with expectations in ancient Rome and Greece, where it was also seen as shameful for a freeborn male to take on the role of the penetrated. See:

Olyan, Saul M. ““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.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5, no. 2 (1994): 179-206.

Walsh, Jerome T. “Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13: Who Is Doing What to Whom?” Journal of Biblical Literature 120, no. 2 (2001): 201-09.

Between them, they lay out a range of possibilities for why the prohibitions existed. These include:

  • association with temple prostitution;
  • failure to act in conformity with the class ‘male’;
  • impurity through mixing two bodily fluids (semen and excrement);
  • failure to have intercourse in a way that is procreative;
  • taking on a socially shameful role as the penetrated partner.

More recently, Töyräänvuori has questioned whether the verses refer to two males having intercourse together at all. She argues that the verses refer to the practice of two men having intercourse simultaneously with the same woman, and that the motive for the prohibition was to prevent children of uncertain parentage, who would therefore pollute the land. The argument is laid out in this article:

Töyräänvuori, Joanna. “Homosexuality, the Holiness Code, and Ritual Pollution: A Case of Mistaken Identity.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 45, no. 2 (2020): 236-67.

There is also much debate over whether male temple prostitutes (or indeed any temple prostitutes) ever existed in reality. For a forcefully argued thesis that sacred prostitution never existed, see in particular:

Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Whether or not they existed in reality, it remains the case that they existed in rhetoric – that is, that accusations of sacred prostitution were made in antiquity. To this extent, whether or not nations surrounding Israel did or did not practise sacred prostitution is less important for understanding Leviticus than whether Leviticus (and its audience) assumed or asserted that they did.

The conservative commentator Robert Gagnon assumes in his treatment that sacred prostitution did exist. He also assumes that this is at least part of the background to Lev. 18:22 and 20:13:

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 [sic] in Israel.
Gagnon, 130.

However, he argues that as this would be the most acceptable context for male-male intercourse, banning cultic prostitution would be to ban all homosexual practice. I find his logic odd here. Cultic practices might have been the highest form for surrounding nations, but for Israel (and in particular the Holiness code in Leviticus) anything associated with idolatry is utterly unacceptable. And we would expect to find anything closely associated with idolatry seen as unacceptable. His argument just does not work.

To demonstrate this, let us consider another practice prohibited by Leviticus and within the Holiness code – tattoos. Lev. 19:28 reads:

‘You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD.’

The prohibition on tattoos is universal. Why might it exist? Four main reasons have been given: that it is associated with pagan practices of mourning for the dead (as making gashes in the flesh in the first part of the verse); that it is associated with idolatry (tattoos proclaiming gods or goddesses or associated with religious practices); that it was associated with slavery (some slaves were tattooed); or that it defiled the body given in creation by God.

If it is one of the first two contexts, as many commentators suggest, then tattooing for religious reason would be the most acceptable context (to parallel Gagnon’s argument). This would lead us to understand (using Gagnon’s logic) that tattoos must be particularly awful in their own right if even religious use was prohibited. But the logic is surely the reverse – tattoos are prohibited precisely because of, and not despite, their links with paganism or with slavery. Gagnon’s argument fails.

For more on tattoos and Leviticus, see:

Huehnergard, John, and Harold Liebowitz. “The Biblical Prohibition against Tattooing.” Vetus Testamentum 63, no. 1 (2013): 59-77.

Gagnon, though, primarily argues that the commands are there to prevent violation of gender complementarity, a distortion of gender. The lack of reference to females is problematic for this interpretation, and it remains speculative at best, despite how strongly he words his conclusions.

Gagnon, Robert A. J. The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001.

More recently still, Stone has published a helpful review of the many different understandings of these verses (he provides 21 different approaches that scholars have taken). He then goes on to outline the main arguments for five principle approaches (including Olyan and Walsh).

Stone, Mark Preston. “Don’t Do What to Whom? A Survey of Historical-Critical Scholarship on Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13.” Currents in Biblical Research 20, no. 3 (2022): 207-37.

Whilst all of these issues need addressing, the fundamental point remains that Christians do not look to Leviticus to order their lives.

At this point, some may argue that I am simply ignoring Leviticus entirely – isn’t it scripture? The argument, laid out more precisely by Tobias Haller, is this:

So the argument is not, “Since we have tossed out one biblical law we can toss out any law,” but rather, “Since we have discerned that we are no longer bound by a law clearly labeled as belonging to a particular category of offense by Scripture itself, can we consider if we are also able to feel ourselves no longer to be bound by another commandment with exactly the same label.”
Haller, 90-91.

Haller, Tobias Stanislaus. Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality. New York: Seabury Books, 2009.

The important command in Leviticus is the one Jesus and Paul refer to – Leviticus 19:18:

You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

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