Several passages in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual acts and desires.
Hebrew Bible
Leviticus 18 and 20
Chapters 18 and 20 of Leviticus form part of the Holiness code and list prohibited forms of intercourse, including the following verses:
- "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Chapter 18 verse 22
- "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." Chapter 20 verse 13
These two verses have historically been interpreted by Jews and Christians
as clear overall prohibitions against homosexual acts in general. More
recent interpretations focus more on its context as part of the Holiness Code, a code of purity meant to distinguish the behavior of Israelites from the polytheistic Canaanites. One of those interpretations is from Janet Edmonds, which says:
"To interpret these passages of Leviticus, it’s important to know that this book of the Bible focuses on ritual purity for the Israelites, and setting guidelines for the Israelites to distinguish themselves from their pagan neighbors, the Egyptians and Canaanites, who lived in the lands before they were settled by the Jews. This is shown in Leviticus Chapters 18 and 20 by three specific scripture passages (Leviticus 18:2-3, 18:24 and 20:23) that state that the Israelites should never do what the Egyptians and Canaanites did."
Other interpreters state that God was commanding the Israelites to not to imitate anal sex between men practiced at the temples of Molech.
Daniel A. Helminiak,
a Christian author and theologian says "the anti-gay 'unnatural'
hullabaloo rests on a mistranslation." and that "nowhere does the Bible
actually oppose homosexuality"
Sodom and Gomorrah
Lot prevents Sodomites from raping the angels, painting by Heinrich Aldegrever, 1555
The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis
does not explicitly identify homosexuality as the sin for which they
were destroyed. Some interpreters find the story of Sodom and a similar
one in Judges 19 to condemn the violent rape of guests more than
homosexuality, but the passage has historically been interpreted within Judaism and Christianity as a punishment for homosexuality due to the interpretation that the men of Sodom wished to rape, or have sex with, the angels who retrieved Lot.
While the Jewish prophets spoke only of lack of charity as the sin of Sodom,
the exclusively sexual interpretation became so prevalent among
Christian communities that the name "Sodom" became the basis of the word
"sodomy", still a legal synonym for homosexual and non-procreative sexual acts, particularly anal or oral sex.
While the Jewish prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Zephaniah refer vaguely to the sin of Sodom,
Ezekiel specifies that the city was destroyed because of its commission
of social injustice as well as its commission of 'abomination':
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
The Talmudic
tradition as written between c. 370 and 500 also interprets the sin of
Sodom as lack of charity, with the attempted rape of the angels being a
manifestation of the city's violation of the social order of
hospitality; as does Jesus in the New Testament, for instance in Matthew
10:14–15 when he tells his disciples that the punishment for houses or
towns that will not welcome them will be worse than that of Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Later traditions on Sodom's sin, such as Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, considered it to be an illicit form of heterosexual intercourse. In Jude
1:7 the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah are stated to have been
"giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh", which may refer to homosexuality or to the lust of mortals after angels. Jewish writers Philo (d. AD 50) and Josephus (37 – c. 100) were the first to assert unambiguously that homosexuality was among the sins of Sodom. By the end of the 1st century Jews commonly identified the sin of Sodom with homosexual practices.
David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi
The account of the friendship between David and Jonathan in the Books of Samuel has been interpreted by traditional and mainstream Christians as a relationship only of affectionate regard. Some sexual scholars have concluded, "There is nothing to show that such a relationship was sexual." It has also been interpreted by some authors as of a sexual nature. Michael Coogan addresses the claim of their homosexual relationship and explicitly rejects it.
One relevant Bible passage on this issue is 1 Samuel 18:1:
- When David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan and David became bound together in close friendship. Jonathan loved David as much as he did his own life. (NET)
Another relevant passage is 2 Samuel 1:26, where David says:
- I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan. You were very dear to me. Your love was more special to me than the love of women. (NET)
The story of Ruth and Naomi in the Book of Ruth is also occasionally interpreted by contemporary scholars as the story of a lesbian couple. Coogan states that the Hebrew Bible does not even mention lesbianism.
New Testament
Romans 1:26-27
| “ | For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. | ” |
This passage has been debated by some 20th and 21st-century
interpreters as to its relevance today and as to what it actually
prohibits: although Christians of several denominations have
historically maintained that this verse is a complete prohibition of all
forms of homosexual activity,
some 20th and 21st-century authors contend the passage is not a blanket
condemnation of homosexual acts, suggesting, among other
interpretations, that the passage condemned heterosexuals who
experimented with homosexual activity
or that Paul's condemnation was relative to his own culture, in which
homosexuality was not understood as an orientation and in which being
penetrated was seen as shameful. These interpretations are in a minority. Several scholars believe these verses are part of a much larger non-Pauline interpolation, a later addition to the letter.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
In the context of the broader immorality of his audience, Paul the Apostle wrote in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 6 verses 9-11,
| “ | Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. | ” |
The Greek word arsenokoitai (ἀρσενοκοῖται)
in verse 9 has been debated for some time, and has been variously
rendered as "abusers of themselves with mankind" (KJV), "sodomites"
(YLT), or "men who have sex with men" (NIV). Greek ἄῤῥην / ἄρσην [arrhēn / arsēn] means "male", and κοίτην [koitēn] "bed", with a sexual connotation.
Paul's use of the word in 1 Corinthians is the earliest example of the
term; its only other usage is in a similar list of wrongdoers given
(possibly by the same author) in 1 Timothy 1:8–11:
In the letter to the Corinthians, within the list of people who will not
inherit the kingdom of God, Paul uses two Greek words: malakoi and arsenokoitai. Malakoi
is a common Greek word meaning, of things subject to touch, "soft"
(used in Matthew 11:8 and Luke 7:25 to describe a garment); of things
not subject to touch, "gentle"; and, of persons or modes of life, a
number of meanings that include "pathic". Nowhere else in scripture is malakoi used to describe a person.
Interpretation
Bishop Gene Robinson
says the early church seemed to have understood it as a person with a
"soft" or weak morality; later, it would come to denote (and be
translated as) those who engage in masturbation, or "those who abuse
themselves"; all that is factually known about the word is that it means
"soft".
| “ | But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. | ” |
Most scholars hold that Paul had two passages of the Book of Leviticus, 18:22 and 20:13, in mind when he used the word ἀρσενοκοῖται (which may be of his coinage) with most commentators and translators interpreting it as a reference to male same-sex intercourse.
However, John Boswell states that it "did not connote homosexuality to
Paul or his early readers", and that in later Christian literature the
word is used, for instance, by Aristides of Athens (c. 138) clearly not for homosexuality and possibly for prostitution, Eusebius (d. c. 340) who evidently used it in reference to women, and in the writings of 6th-century Patriarch John IV of Constantinople, known as John the Faster. In a passage dealing with sexual misconduct, John speaks of arsenokoitia as active or passive and says that "many men even commit the sin of arsenokoitia with their wives".
Although the constituent elements of the compound word refer to
sleeping with men, he obviously does not use it to mean homosexual
intercourse and appears to employ it for anal intercourse, not generic
homosexual activity.
Particulars of Boswell's arguments are rejected by several scholars in a
way qualified as persuasive by David F. Greenberg, who declares usage
of the term arsenokoites by writers such as Aristides of Athens and Eusebius, and in the Sibylline Oracles, to be "consistent with a homosexual meaning".
A discussion document issued by the House of Bishops of the Church of
England states that most scholars still hold that the word arsenokoites relates to homosexuality.
Another work attributed to John the Faster, a series of canons that for
various sins provided shorter though stricter penances in place of the
previous longer penances, applies a penance of eighty days for
"intercourse of men with one another" (canon 9), explained in the Pedalion as mutual masturbation – double the penalty for solitary masturbation (canon 8) – and three years with xerophagy or, in accordance with the older canon of Basil the Great,
fifteen without (canon 18) for being "so mad as to copulate with
another man" – ἀρρενομανήσαντα in the original – explained in the Pedalion
as "guilty of arsenocoetia (i.e., sexual intercourse between males)" –
ἀρσενοκοίτην in the original. According to the same work, ordination is
not to be conferred on someone who as a boy has been the victim of anal
intercourse, but this is not the case if the semen was ejaculated
between his thighs (canon 19). These canons are included, with
commentary, in the Pedalion, the most widely used collection of canons of the Greek Orthodox Church,
an English translation of which was produced by Denver Cummings and
published by the Orthodox Christian Educational Society in 1957 under
the title, The Rudder.
Some scholars consider that the term was not used to refer to a
homosexual orientation, but argue that it referred instead to sexual
activity.
Other scholars have interpreted arsenokoitai and malakoi (another word that appears in 1 Corinthians 6:9) as referring to weakness and effeminacy or to the practice of exploitative pederasty.
Jesus's discussion of marriage
In Matthew 19:3, Jesus is asked if a man can divorce his wife. In that context,
| “ | He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning “made them male and female” [Genesis 1:27], and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” [Genesis 2:24]? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ | ” |
(Matthew 19:4-6, NRSV translation; Mark 10:6-9 is a parallel text)
Robert Gagnon, an associate professor of New Testament studies,
argues that Jesus's back-to-back references to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2
show that he "presupposed a two-sex requirement for marriage".
Matthew 8; Luke 7
In Matthew 8:5–13 and Luke 7:1–10, Jesus heals a centurion's servant
who is dying. Daniel A. Helminiak writes that the Greek word pais, used in this account, was sometimes given a sexual meaning.
Donald Wold states that its normal meaning is "boy", "child" or "slave"
and its application to a boy lover escapes notice in the standard
lexica of Liddell and Scott and Bauer. The Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott registers three meanings of the word παῖς (pais):
a child in relation to descent (son or daughter); a child in relation
to age (boy or girl); a slave or servant (male or female). In her
detailed study of the episode in Matthew and Luke, Wendy Cotter
dismisses as very unlikely the idea that the use of the Greek word
"pais" indicated a sexual relationship between the centurion and the
young slave.
Matthew's account has parallels in Luke 7:1–10 and John 4:46–53.
There are major differences between John's account and those of the two
synoptic writers, but such differences exist also between the two
synoptic accounts, with next to nothing of the details in Luke 7:2–6
being present also in Matthew. The Commentary of Craig A. Evans states that the word pais used by Matthew may be that used in the hypothetical source known as Q used by both Matthew and Luke and, since it can mean either son or slave, it became doulos (slave) in Luke and huios (son) in John. Writers who admit John 4:46–53 as a parallel passage generally interpret Matthew's pais as "child" or "boy", while those who exclude it see it as meaning "servant" or "slave".
Theodore W. Jennings Jr. and Tat-Siong Benny Liew write that
Roman historical data about patron-client relationships and about
same-sex relations among soldiers support the view that the pais
in Matthew's account is the centurion's "boy-love" and that the
centurion did not want Jesus to enter his house for fear the boy would
be enamoured of Jesus instead.
D.B. Saddington writes that while he does not exclude the possibility,
the evidence the two put forward supports "neither of these
interpretations",
with Stephen Voorwinde saying of their view that "the argument on which
this understanding is based has already been soundly refuted in the
scholarly literature" and Wendy Cotter saying that they fail to take account of Jewish condemnation of pederasty. Others interpret Matthew's pais merely as a boy servant, not a male lover, and read nothing sexual into Luke's "valued highly".
Matthew 19:12
In Matthew 19:12, Jesus speaks of eunuchs who were born as such, eunuchs who were made so by others, and eunuchs who choose to live as such for the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus's reference to eunuchs who were born as such has been interpreted
by some commentators as having to do with homosexual orientation; Clement of Alexandria, for instance, cites in his book "Stromata" (chapter III,1,1) an earlier interpretation from Basilides that some men, from birth, are naturally averse to women and should not marry.
"The first category – those eunuchs who have been so from birth – is
the closest description we have in the Bible of what we understand today
as homosexual."
Acts 8
The Ethiopian eunuch, an early gentile convert described in Acts 8,
has been interpreted by some commentators as an early gay Christian,
based on the fact that the word "eunuch" in the Bible was not always
used literally, as in Matthew 19:12.
Religious commentators generally suggest that the combination of
"eunuch" together with the title "court official" indicates a literal
eunuch — not a homosexual — who would have been excluded from the Temple
by the restriction in Deuteronomy 23:1.
