Not a problem; it’s one of the hazards of finding a conversation in mid-blather. Done it plenty of times myself.

Best,

Sheldon

Best,
Fiona

Let me briefly point out that there is no word in biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, or koine Greek for homosexual or homosexuality (the OT was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, the NT in koine Greek). The ancient Jews and Greeks had conceptions of gender and sexual acts, but not what modern psychology calls sexual orientation. The word homosexual in English was not coined until the end of the 19th century and the notion of sexual orientation is largely a 20th century psychoanalytic construct. The word “homosexual” was first used in an English translation of the Bible, the Revised Standard Version, in 1948 (the passage was 1st Corinthians 6:9). If Greek and Hebrew had no words for homosexual, and the English word was not introduced into the text of the Bible until 1948, I think that some revision of thought is in order.

Let’s review the texts about which you ask. Here is a transliterated text of the Hebrew into English characters:

The Hebrew texts read: Leviticus 18:22 v’t-zkr l’ tskb mskby ’sh tvjbh hv’.
Leviticus 20:13 v’ys ’sr yskb ‘t-zkr mskby ’sh tvjbh jsv snyhm mvt yvmtv dmyhm bm.

In the 3rd century BC, the Greek Ptolemy’s in Alexandria Egypt commissioned a Greek translation of OT from Hebrew into Greek. Some 72 Greek speaking Jewish scholars are said to have collaborated on it; it is consequently called the Septuagint (”Seventy”). It was widely used throughout the Mediterranean since Greek was the international language of the time. The Greek texts from the Septuagint read: Leviticus18:22 και μετα αρσενος ου κοιμηθηση κοιτην γυναικος βδελυγμα γαρ εστιν
Leviticus 20:13 και ος αν κοιμηθη μετα αρσενος κοιτην γυναικος βδελυγμα εποιησαν αμφοτεροι θανατουσθωσαν ενοχοι εισιν

The King James Bible was a translation of the entire Bible into English in 1611. The translators made use of many earlier translations of the Bible including the Latin Vulgate Bible used by the Catholic Church. The texts in the KJV read: LEV 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
LEV 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

These two passages are badly misunderstood, particularly because of the inaccurate and inexact use of “abomination” in English to translate a much more particular word in the original Hebrew. Both say essentially the same thing in Hebrew and Greek (the Septuagint). The verb and the direct object are cognates (a so-called cognate accusative). The root for both the verb and the object can mean several different things. The verb has possible meanings of “going to sleep, going to bed, having sex.” The object of the verb means “sleep, bed, sex” To translate literally one has several alternatives: “Do not sleep the sleep; do not lay the laying; do not engage in sex with the sexuality,” etc. The object is then modified by a word meaning “of a woman, female, feminine.” One ends up with the difficult phrase “Do not sleep the sleep of a woman with a man, do not lay the laying of a woman with a man, etc.” Jewish moralists for over a millennium have debated exactly constitutes “the sleep of a woman” and who is technically a “man” in the situation.

No one in the time of Moses or Christ ever used the word “abomination.” It is a modern English word and English as we know it did not exist in Biblical times. “Abomination” is correct only in the Elizabethan sense of the word which is borrowed from Latin “abominatio.” The root is omin- which means “omen.” The prefix “ab” means away. Thus the word means to turn away from something because it is ill omened or portentous. But what about the original text in Hebrew?

Various things in Leviticus are called an “abomination.” Some are what we would consider moral issues (incest), but others are manifestly about health and hygiene (avoiding pork, shell fish, brackish water). Some are matters of cleanliness (touching dead snakes, sleeping with a woman during menstruation). Others still are issues of ethnicity and religious identity (cutting of hair and beard, etc.). The word “abomination” translates the Hebrew word “toevah” which really means something like “impure or unclean for the purposes of ritual” (i.e. something that could unfavorably affect sacrifices, auspices, etc.). It is not a blanket denunciation of all homosexuals any more than it is a denunciation of all women by saying that they are also considered “toevah” during menstruation. This is further underscored by one of the oldest most authoritative translations of the Old Testament–the Septuagint. Beginning in the 3rd century BCE Greek speaking Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament into Greek. The Greek language distinguishes between violations of morality and justice (anomia) and infringements of ritual purity (bdelugma). In Leviticus 18:22, the activity is called a bdelugma making it an issue of ritual purity rather than one of general morality. The word “toevah” is used throughout the Old Testament to designate those Jewish sins which involve ethnic contamination or idolatry and very frequently occur as part of the stock phrase “toevah ha-goyim,”"the uncleanness of the Gentiles” (2 Kings 16:3). It is often used in condemnations of temple prostitution (1 Kings 14:24–”sodomite” in the KJV is a mistranslation for the Hebrew “kadash” or temple prostitute). Often it simply means idol. The severity of the punishment (death), then, would seem to arise from the association of the act with idolatry and paganism. The law is one that preserves the ethnic and religious identity of the Jews and is backed by the first few exhortations of the Ten Commandments.

Since there is no biblical word for homosexual, the passages in Leviticus are problematic but refer to ritual purity as opposed to universal morality, there is no intrinsic contradiction between being gay and a Christian.

P.S. The books of the Bible were not collected into one literary compendium until the 4th century CE at the Council of Nicea. The word Bible comes from Greek biblia meaning books (in the plural). The books were codified by a vote of the committee, and what books were to be include were a matter of dispute by different denominations into the 18th century. The Roman emperor Constantine employed St. Jerome to translate the collected books into Latin. The original language texts are nonetheless still available. You can see them online at the following sites:

http://unbound.biola.edu/

And you know what the most important part of all is? None of this is relevant under civil law in this secular nation. We are talking about civil law, not religious beliefs — except about the way that religious beliefs have been forced into civil law by a church functioning as a PAC.

I’m not LDS (I am straight and married, BTW). Why should I be subject to any of the Word of Wisdom/Pearl of Great Price, etc., that my parents chose to follow when they joined the church after I was an adult. And why should law-abiding, tax-paying gay couples be denied the same right to marry that I have just because of your church’s doctrine?

I do want to apologize for the contentious ethos of my post.

To say that male homosexuality and illicit heterosexual unions are forbidden because “they are both sins” is to make a circular argument. It tells us nothing about why this prohibition is here, in this particular chapter.

If, as you suggest, homosexual unions are forbidden because Leviticus is comparing them to adultery as mentioned verse 20, then by implication male homosexuality is not forbidden so long as the men involved are unmarried. That interpretation also conflicts with the context of verse 22, which invokes “it is an abomination” as the reason for the prohibition. Verses 24 and following make it clear that abominations are acts that defile the land in such a way that the land will expel the people to do or allow such practices. This is a very specific historical setting, and obviously cannot apply to 21st Century California.

So, if the comparison with adultery cannot be justified, we are left with the matter of male homosexuality between close relatives, which includes most of the sexual prohibitions in this chapter.

So no, I do not ignore verse 20, although you seem willing to ignore much of the context provided by chapter 18. You also ignore the question of the OT’s silence on female homosexuality.

You also state that “be fruitful and multiply” is obviously a commandment because the Temple says so. You are right that the Temple ceremony treats that phrase as a commandment. However, the Bible does not. Go and read it for yourself; there are roughly eight instances of the phrase “be fruitful and multiply” all but one (if memory serves) in Genesis. All of them–every last one–are given in the context of a blessing. “And God *blessed* them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen. 1:28). Now, if God had meant it as a commandment, wouldn’t the text say so? But it does not. It is clearly a blessing.

So you now have a problem. The temple ceremony and the Old Testament are clearly contradicting each other here. And just to make it more interesting, you can check the Genesis portions in the Pearl of Great Price. They all use “bless”. By your absolute standards, either the OT/PGP or the Temple ceremony is false.

Well? Which is it? What’s it gonna be?

All religions have contradictions within them, Mormonism included. If you truly think that the Standard Works are a completely unified, consistent, non-contradictory body of work then you haven’t read them carefully or with an open mind. If you think that the General Authorities are never wrong or never contradict each other, you haven’t been paying attention. The only way one can maintain this kind of scriptural and ecclesiastical world view is to elevate “picking and choosing” scripture and statements of modern prophets to an art form. Otherwise, one persistent flaw and your whole edifice cascades to dust.

Healthy religion can deal with ambiguity. It is intellectual as well as spiritual. It is flexible and allows for different perspectives and beliefs. It will not assume apostasy or heresy so glibly, or accuse the theologically eccentric among us of being in Satan’s thrall.

You would be much better served to study the scriptures in their contexts for those principles that transcend the diversity of voices, language, culture, vision, and history. When you do, you will find that one of the most strongly stated principles is compassion. Do good to others. Rage against homosexual married households if you must, but as for me and my house, we will contend for compassion to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who wish only to build strong families, or hold intact the families they have fought so hard to create.

If that is picking and choosing, so be it.

Sheldon says:
If male homosexuality is intrinsically forbidden, why compare it to illicit heterosexual unions?

A: Because they are both sins.

To claim that the prohibition is only in regard to homosexual relations between relatives condradicts Sheldon’s rhetorical question of “Shall we pick and choose what we claim to accept or ignore, or shall we let the text speak for itself and not try to impose our biases on it any more than we can help?”. This is because verse 20 of the chapter 18 of Lev. is not talking about illicit relations between relatives. So I ask “shall we just ignore verse 20 because it does not fit our theory?”

So to say “Clearly this verse [22] is intended to supplement the rest of that list, and thus proscribes male homosexual acts between close relatives.” is not true if you let the “text speak for itself and not try to impose biases on it”.

Other things don’t make senses either. To say that “be fruitful and multiply” is not a commandment is obviously wrong to is familiar with the teaching learned in the Temple. To say that the Temple is irrelevant to this discussion then makes it impossible for members of the Church to take this argument serioulsy. How do you expect to show LDS members that their belief regarding homosexuality is not scriptural if you “pick and choose” doctines of the Church as they fit a theory. You have to accept all of it, unless your saying the Church just isn’t true. Then you can claim to have a good reason to pick and choose doctrine to support your claim.

Another thing makes no sense. To claim that barren women who pray for children are praying in vain, because having children is not a commandment, makes no sense unless you can address the counterpoints of the previous paragraph.

Also, the Bible’s text also speaks of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, the Restoration, and the role of Prophets (the Book of Mormon being the key to all of this). Modern prophets say homosexuality is a sin, period. If you want to construct an argument saying this is not the case, the only recourse you have is to say the
Church is false, period (since you can’t just pick and choose doctrines that only seem to support your argument). To say that the Church is true and that not all homosexual relations are a sin is frankly, a joke. You can’t have it both ways. And if the Church is not true, how do we know there is even a God like the one expressed in the Bible? I don’t think you could argue that the Church is true, some homosexuality is good, there is a God, yet God didn’t fulfill all the prophecies regarding the Restoration. I think you have simply, no God. And that would then also undermine the authority of Sheldon’s interpretation of Lev. 18, because the Bible would be a myth.

Thank you for your comments and for inviting me to address your concern.

Given your background, I’m sure you are familiar with the idea of “sacred space” wherein some holy site or edifice is believed to be subject to different standards of behavior, purity, etc., etc. and, by the same token, is thought to be charged with special powers and properties. In the Old Testament we find various examples of this, such as Mt. Sinai and the Temple, which was built in order to replicate Sinai in a manner of speaking.

When they were at Sinai, the Israelites were required to maintain a different level of ritual purity, for instance, no sex was allowed for those camped at the foot of the mountain. If those rules are violated and the sacred space is desecrated, bad things happen.

The same is true here. I invite you to review the latter verses of chapter 18 where it discusses how the land responds to defilement. While verse 24 states that “these things”, i.e., the prohibitions in the chapter, caused God to throw the previous inhabitants out of the land, verses 25 and 28 are explicit that the land (not God) expels those who defile it.

Consider, too, that there are many examples of otherwise righteous men and women violating these rules, but not being punished for them. Jacob, for example, was married to two sisters, but just as he returned to Canaan, Rachel died. Some Rabbinic commentators claim that this was to prevent him from defiling the land of his inheritance. Abraham was married to his half-sister, but lived in Ur of Chaldees (among other places).

I hope this helps to answer your question. Feel free to post again if you have other questions.

While I find much of what you said logical, the qualification of a “place” “taking place within the borders of Canaan seems a weak justification. Would you expand on why a place has some bearing on a theological legality?

I find your comments upon this biblical interpretation refreshing, intuitive and logical.

Good work.