Errors of Biblical proportions

Re: Warren Hagey's response on Fri. 12, July to Dan

You quoted Leviticus 18:22 from one of many modern day translations. The detestable act or as the King James Version rends it an abomination which means "ritually unclean" relate to the practices in the nearby fertility cult of Molech. Such abomination implies, from the Hebrew word to mean "idolatrous practices," not necessarily sexual. (Add Lev. 20:13-14) Here you find the whole lot in the "Holiness Code," which emphasized to the Israelites that they were to be set apart to God, and were to practice nothing that these fertility cults practised. The seriousness of this idolatry in Hebrew eyes was compounded by the belief that to "lie with a man as with a woman" violated the dignity of the male sex, which was in the image of God, while women were treated only as "property." To treat a man the way women were treated was reducing him to property, and thereby violating the image of God. This issue was sexual abuse of any kind, and idolatrous activity in particular. Leviticus was a priestly code of man made rules (Levites) not a general one. Your remarks are out of context.

Mr. Hagey, you said it is a matter of what is right and what is wrong. Is the Bible the source of ultimate truth? Certainly it has some truths and there are errors due to translation and to those scribes and teachers who would alter doctrine for their own gain. I am surprised that you did not use Paul's account of homosexual behaviour. However, so broad is the language and it must be read with the whole chapter in mind which deals with temple prostitution and again, to the fertility cult worship. Even in the general gospels Jesus mentions nothing of homosexual behaviour. Are we to assume it does not exist? What about John the Beloved, or more accurately translated, John the disciple that Jesus loved? What of same sex account when we read in Luke 17:34, "I tell you, that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other left"? What about the narrative and love epic of David and Jonathan in I Samuel 18-20? There are scriptures condemning heterosexuals for performing homosexual acts which are out of decadence. The reality of a homosexual nature is distinctly modern and the present canonized scriptures do not address this. I suspect it has been edited out from a historical context would not be a new phenomenon (eg the Cathars of Southern France).

Mr Hagey, you have given no practical advice as to an alternative to this "abomination" outside of a "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Your words imply and condemn the individual to repress their feelings and very core of their being. I am not so sure of your attitude to separate the person from the action. Fundamental Christians use this in a condescending manner as an effort to exert authority and exact guilt. If the bible is the source of ultimate truth then what of the other religions around the world like muslims and hindus?

Finally your trite phrase: "take heart, I will be praying for you," please do not bother. If you really want to follow Christ's example of humility and compassion then you will pray for yourself to be protected from your own narrowness and condemnation and self-righteousness which is like the pharisees who Jesus likened unto... "white sepulchres (coffins) in which dead men's bones were interred." I realised a long time ago that negative judgement is a reflection of our own inner natures. Christ said that. Oh yes, in closing, I love you as a Christian and your behaviour stinks.

Sincerely,

Back | Index | Forward

Send comments to: kovu at lionking point org