Bogie

Count on the former. I'd wager that he thinks "preaching" IS properly attacking Pervy's argument. Additionally, watch for the odd ad hom now and again.

jeremyp

I have a question,

I'm not a scholar, but I do get into arguments about homosexuality and christianity on other boards. It seems like Pervy has put together a pretty strong case for his point of view. In fact, in the context of the debate, he has Bible John dead in the water, it's almost embarrassing.

In the past I've always used "the people who wrote Leviticus were just mirroring the standards of the time, what did they know" argument to counter the Leviticus law which doesn't really cut much ice with fundies who believe it was divinely inspired. Pervy seems to make a pretty good case that Leviticus doesn't say what we think, but I'm not qualified to judge, for instance, whether his translations are correct.

The question is: forgetting about Bible John, do Pervy's posts stand up to proper academic criticism?

Evilicious

The laws of Leviticus were originally priestly prohibitions FOR JEWS regarding ritual purity and are proscriptions against idolatrous practices of pagan religions of the time. They were not applied to gentiles. Homosexuality & the Hebrew Bible was written by a heterosexual Rabbi (Gershon Caudill) who has become relatively famous in the gay rights movement. Anti-gay Christians ignore all the Levitical Laws except those they can cherry-pick to condemn gays. It's the mote-beam-eye thing.

Solo

There is nothing wrong with a man fucking either sheep as long as it's not for the express purpose of procreation ! :thumbs:

CJD

First nit with Pervy: His final translation of Leviticus 18:22.

Cutting away the fat, we are left with the crux of his argument — that תֹּועֵבָ֖ה (to'ebah) is to be understood as that which takes place specifically in a ritualistic context. An act, in short, that takes place at a sacred time and in a sacred space. But it cannot carry this weight.

The sacred and the profane, while certainly distinguished, are not and cannot be fully separated (Pervy's list of citations shows as much, and there are many, many more not mentioned). An abominable act, in other words, can be enacted both during worship and during everyday life. Indeed, all of life is worship. Consider the shema (Deut. 6:4–9):In other words, do it all the time, wherever you are. To not do it, is an abomination. This has bearing on Pervy's jump (or somersault, whichever you prefer) in translation: "Don't have ritual sex with either men or women, it is the wrong sort of worship." It's a fine alternate, to be sure. But the word in question cannot be limited without a viable reason. And the fact is, Pervy didn't even offer one, or, the one he implied (that תֹּועֵבָ֖ה must refer to a ritualistic context) simply doesn't hold.

The most simple reason is as follows: the very context within which this verse finds itself (the very context Pervy leans on) has something to do with performing rituals (like the bit about offering children to Moloch), but it has more to do with acts committed while living everyday life. To put it another way, the "ritual/non-ritual" dichotomy is not present and cannot be leaned upon too heavily (or else why wouldn't Lev. 18:21 inlcude the offering of children as an תֹּועֵבָ֖ה ?). If context is king, was this context not that important to the argument?

Pervy's literal sense of the verse in question is also a little confusing (if not misleading). The transliterated Lev. 18:22 reads as follows: "V’et zachar lo tishkav mishk’vey eeshah toeyvah hee," and the first clause reads, literally, "And with a male you shall not lay lyings of a woman …." Compare this to Pervy's "And do not sleep with a man, sex with a woman …" (which he of course leans a bit heavily on the Greek to produce).

No doubt the first clause is ambiguous. And whatever act the interpreter believes is being forbidden here will undoubtedly color their rendering. Pervy wanted to show us as objectively as possible how the second clause gives the first clause its meaning. For this reason, and since I've shown just in passing how tendentious that can be, this verse (as a stand alone) doesn't serve any side better than the other. But a few things are certain:

1. Contra Pervy, we cannot straight-jacket to'ebah into meaning "ceremonial uncleanliness" at the expense of "moral rebellion."

2. Contra conservatives, we cannot simply add "as with a woman" and call it a day. Nevertheless, given that the Levitical holiness code was part of Torah and intended to be read with the rest of the writings of Torah, the fact that from the creation stories to the Deuteronomic code sexual intimacy is conceived of only in terms of male-female relationships, the hand tips in their favor that at the very least, it would not be surprising if that which is forbidden here has something to do with same-sex relationships.

Hopeless? Maybe not.

CJD

CJD

Regarding Pervy's explanation of Gen. 19, I have little misgivings. I don't think it's as certain as Pervy wants, however. He writes: "Like the Leviticus verses above, this actually has nothing to do with homosexuality." I think I showed above (at least a little bit) why we ought not be surprised if homosexuality is in view. יָדַ֖ע (yeda) is, however, not in and of itself a euphemism for sex (as Pervy notes). Yet, translators aren't merely and unthinkinly sticking in this euphemism based simply on precedent; they really do think the context calls for it, just as Pervy thinks it does not.

His description of the context is good, in my opinion. It seems entirely plausible that the men of Sodom were not known for their hospitality. Pervy could have added that when the two "angels" (or "messengers" — where is the third one anyway?) came in while "Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom" (19:1), and that he was the only one to greet them. Presumably, the other elders and leaders of the city were around too, but only the immigrant among them showed the proper respect and hospitality. This helps explain why the two wanted to spend the night in the courtyard (given the Sodomites inhospitable ways) and why Lot "twisted their arms" (v.3) to get them to spend the night at his place (precisely because of their inhospitable ways). This, as Pervy notes, included with the previous context of war and loss, does indeed lead us to see the angry mob on Lot's front porch as a curious bunch (a lynch mob, in Pervy's words). But I am not so sure that this is it all that it means. The bit about Lot offering his daughters, and making a point about their virginity, is hard to reconcile with the notion, as Pervy suggests, that he is merely indicating "that legally they are his to give away, as opposed to married daughters who would belong to their husbands.… The Sodomites are breaking the rules of hospitality by wanting to lynch Lot's guests – and as a contrast Lot is demonstrating proper hospitality by being prepared to give up his property (in the form of his daughters) for the sake of his guests." Still, this isn't all that far-fetched. And, if it were just the men of the city out there (which I think it was, see below), and if they were a homosexual rape-mob, then how indeed would giving two virgin daughters satisfy their repugnanat desires?

I think the real point here is what the narrator was attempting to show: that there is no one righteous in Sodom — whether through gang rape (a far more serious breaking of oriental social norms in my opinion) or through (possibly) violent interrogation (as Pervy suggests).

Finally, וְ×?ַ�*ְש×?ֵ֨י (the "men of"), on the other hand, does not refer generically to "people" as much as we are led to think. Unless we're confusing which word is employed here, וְ×?ַ�*ְש×?ֵ֨י ('iysh) more often refers to men, and even in contradistinction to women. Still, there are times when it can and does refer to human beings in contrast to God.

[edited to add: Incidentally, one other canonized writer does think one of the sins of Sodom had something to do with the gross immorality of gong after "strange flesh" (Jude 7).]

Regards,

CJD

Johnny Skeptic

Message to CJD: Please reply to my most recent post in the other Peanut Gallery thread on homosexuality.

Anat

Regarding Genesis 19: The way the story is placed after the visit of the angels with Abraham, and the parallel between Abraham's acts of hospitality with those of his nephew make it obvious that the focus of the stories is on hospitality. In Jewish tradition, in midrash, Sodom is described as a city that was perversly wicked towards guests and people who supported them - for example the story about the bed of Sodom that guests were forced to sleep in - if the guest was too tall to fit the excess was chopped off, if he was too short to fill the length of the bed he was stretched until he was disjointed. This tradition continues Ezekiel's usage of Sodom as a symbol for lack of compassion. Whether the people of Sodom intended to rape the guests or not, the emphasis is on extremely mistreatment of outsiders, against he norms of hospitality, rather than on the fact that the means of attack may include male-male penetration. As I understand, the story of Sodom has parallels from other cultures in the region where lack of hospitality results in a disaster that wipes the community off the face of the earth, poisons it, etc.

(As for the fate of the third - or actually first - angel: He had fulfilled his mission by announcing Isaac's birth. Notice the singular speaker in 18:10, vs the plural in 18:9. Once an angel fulfills his mission he disappears from the story.)

KnightWhoSaysNi

Due to a forfeiture from a missed grace period, the formal debate is now complete. Pervy and Bible John are welcome to post in this thread now if they wish to.

- NS, FD Moderator

David Vestal

In a way, I'm glad that was cut short. I think Bible John had already shot his quiver empty.