Homosexuality and the Bible

Homosexuality and the Scriptures
Arlene Robbins
Chapter 1: So What REALLY Happened at Sodom???
Chapter 2: Who is the Law For?
Chapter 3: Paul Talks to the Romans
Chapter 4: Paul Writes to the Sex Capitals of the World
Chapter 5: Huh, What'd He Say?
Chapter 6: A Little "Church" History
An Afterward
Bibliography

Chapter Six:
A Little "Church" History

In doing this series, and in simply being a part of this culture, I’ve constantly wondered what on earth has caused our society as a whole to regard homosexuals with such violent and irrational hatred.

It seems to me that, as with any disease, we need to find the cause before we can find the cure.

I really recommend that anyone interested in more detail about the history of the disease of homophobia read a few of the books listed in the back, especially the classics: Boswell and Greenberg. Greenberg writes a really wonderful cross-cultural and historical account of attitudes toward homosexuality.

The origins
In classical Greek culture, Aristophanes described “homosexual desire as a ‘natural necessity’ like heterosexual desire, eating, drinking and laughing. Xenophon expressed the opinion of most Greeks of his day when he commented that homosexuality was a part of ‘human nature.’” Plato’s discussions of love assume the “ubiquity of homosexual attraction[where] heterosexuality appears in some of them as a somewhat inferior preference” (Boswell, p. 49).

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah had no homosexual inference until New Testament times. Old Testament sources list the sins of Sodom as pride, arrogance, lack of care for other human beings (Ezekiel 16:49, Jeremiah 23:14).

Late New Testament books (2 Peter, Jude), written around 150 C.E. (Common Era, the non-Christian equivalent to A.D.) are the first references we have hinting at homosexuality in the Sodom story.

Between 100 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), when the author of 3 Maccabees (an apocryphal book) described the men of Sodom as “workers of arrogance” and 2 Enoch, written by a Hellenistic Jew (i.e., one who was under the influence of Greek culture) before the middle of the first century C.E., a major change occurred in interpretation. 2 Enoch identifies the crime of Sodom as “child corruption.”

But then, this was also the time when Nero had an 8-year-old boy castrated and married him in an elaborate public ceremony that must have completely disgusted the Jews and most other folks.

But how could they condemn this behavior without getting in trouble with the Romans? Josephus, a historian, and Philo, a Jewish theologian from Alexandria, both Hellenistic Jews writing at about the same time, chose the Sodom story to describe in lurid detail what was going on around them, using the same details as did Juvenal and Petronius, who wrote about contemporary Roman culture.

It was undoubtedly safer to describe “Sodom” instead of “Rome.” One could keep one’s head on longer. But the people they wrote for knew who they were really talking about.

The “wickedness of Sodom” was equal in Jewish eyes to “the lawlessness of the Gentiles,” whom the Hellenistic Jews saw everywhere engaged in promiscuous and perverse behavior, both in their personal and religious life.

Later writers, however, took Josephus’ and Philo’s writing literally, forgetting that they were really describing Roman behavior.

And so Sodom took on the vices that were well-known and common in Rome and Greece. It became a symbol “for every wickedness which offended the devout Jewish spirit—pride, inhospitality, adultery, forgetfulness of God and ingratitude for his blessings” (Bailey, p. 27).

It was the Hellenistic Jews, of whom Paul was one, who were most exposed to the “vices of the Gentiles,” and who, as a result, were most antagonistic to homosexuality.

Philo wrote about the Scriptural laws in terms of the behavior he saw. “he speaks fearfully of the popularity in his day of pederasty among the pagans. It has invaded the cities like a troupe of disorderly revelers. Nowadays both the active and the passive partner boast of their deeds. The effeminate call-boy openly struts about with his perfume, coiffured hair, white powder and rouge on his face. ‘In fact the transformation of the male nature to the female is practiced by them as an art and does not raise a blush.’” He continues by writing about the religious processions in which these people are “honored participantssome are even castrated” (Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality , p. 94.)

Josephus suggests, among other things, that the Greeks attribute to the gods the “‘intercourse of males’ in order to have an excuse to indulge in their unnatural pleasures (para phusin).” [Para phusin is the same phrase Paul uses in Romans, which is translated “against nature.”]

Biology: Or, lesbians don’t count
Disgust at the rampant sexuality and disregard for human dignity around them was only part of the cause of their hostility. The other cause was a commonly held belief that the male seed—the sperm—produced the child, that the female womb was simply the field into which the seed was planted and in which it grew.

The result of this belief was the glorification of the male and the zero status of women.

Philo describes “a man who would knowingly plant his seed in a barren woman [as] an enemy of God and an enemy of nature” (Day, p. 67). This idea of wasting male seed was the source of the Christian tradition equating masturbation and abortion. It was also the reason lesbianism was basically ignored.

This male glorification at the expense of women in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions fed the hatred, because they felt that the male who acted the part of the female in dress or sex act lowered himself to the level of the female and gave up the “glory” of his maleness.

This attitude certainly exists today.

In classic Greek society, it was fine for a man to be the active sex partner in Greek society. He was honored and considered a “man’s man.” It was okay for a youth or a slave or a male prostitute to be the passive sex partner, because they had no status anyway. But a man lost status if he dressed or “submitted” himself like a woman. The man who acted this way degraded himself and all men.

It was never okay to have sex with a child.

Changing legal status: A quick run through history
Homosexuality was legal until the third century C.E., when Roman laws began regulating various homosexual activities. Only in the sixth century was it totally prohibited.

Between the fourth and sixth centuries, the Roman Empire fell apart. As it was dissolving, Roman society became increasingly intolerant of sexual freedom. Christianity, the only organized political force to survive this period simply adopted and continued this intolerance.

Mostly the issue of homosexuality itself was ignored. There were too many survival issues to deal with.

A number of early church “fathers,” like Augustine, had experienced homosexual feelings in their youth and turned bitterly against it, strongly influencing later Christian thought. Other gay people served among the clergy openly or anonymously.

In fact, around the beginning of the 12th century, the concept of a married Catholic clergy was soundly suppressed, partly, some believe, as the result of an internal struggle between gay and heterosexually married clergy (Boswell, p. 216).

No laws were specifically written against homosexuality until 533, when Justinian ruled that homosexuality was in the same category as adultery, subject to punishment by death. Mostly these laws were directed against personal enemies or to get money from groups of people they didn’t approve of. The only ones known by name who were punished were prominent bishops (Boswell, p. 171-172).

From 1050 to 1150 in Europe, a lively gay subculture flourished, producing much gay literature.

The political atmosphere changed after this and gays were among several groups at whom hostility was increasingly directed.

The verses in Leviticus and Romans suddenly turned useful, and were used to make homosexuality a sin equivalent to murder at the Lateran III Council of 1179.

Since this was also happening during the time of the Crusades, much was made of associating homosexual acts with the enemy Muslims (who had no such problem with homosexuality): “Throughout the thirteenth century, wanton and violent sexuality were prominent and regular attributes of Muslim society.Muhammed [was] ‘the enemy of nature, popularized the vice of sodomy among his people, who sexually abuse not only both genders but even animals.’” (Boswell, p. 281).

Commonly “heretics, traitors and sodomites” were mentioned together as if they were one thing. The French word for heretic, “bougre,” came to refer to gay men (as in “buggery”).

Over a period of 200 years, because of the changing political atmosphere, public opinion of homosexual behavior changed from a minor personal activity, “satirized and celebrated in popular verse, to a dangerous, antisocial, and severely sinful aberration” (Boswell, p. 295).

Summary
Early Judeo-Christian writers, like Paul, were people reacting to what they saw. They took their own experiences (what they saw happening around them), combined that with the currently accepted biological “science” of their time and came up with the conclusion that homosexuality was sinful and perverted.

People today—hear me—take what they see, combine it with accepted biological science, and come up with conclusions.

If, in their experience, gay people whom they know are healthy, stable, “normal” people, then it is easier to say, “Well, they are still okay people and maybe we’ve been taught wrong.”

If the only gay people they know are the ones they see as promiscuous or “weird” or always desperately unhappy or mass murderers, etc., etc., that is how they will perceive us.

It gets back to educating people (including ourselves ) out of wrong perceptions. And sometimes that can be very, very difficult.

But it’s worth the try.

God bless.