BiAnon2208 (heterophobic)

Part I: Leviticus 18:22

First off, external context:

The following text is from The New Catholic Bible: St Joseph Compact Size Edition (2019)

Modern critics agree that during the Babylonian Exile some priests (of the tribe of Levi) collected and made part of their final text the liturgical books that had taken shape in the course of time: a ritual for sacrifices, another for the investiture of priests, a set of norms for distinguishing clean from unclean; at some later point, they added the "Law of Holiness" (chs. 17-26). It is this body of material that makes up the Book of Leviticus. The various components are not all from the same period: some prescriptions date from the time of Moses and even earlier; in other instances the editors adapt ancient rites to their own present religious concerns. The Law of Holiness, which probably dates from the last years of the monarchy (end of the seventh century) reflects the viewpoints of the Jerusalem priesthood and stands in contrast to the viewpoints found in Deuteronomy, which was published during the same period.

All the laws systematized in Leviticus are regarded as expressing God's will. They impose on the chosen people a common religious behavior by which this people will show themselves to be the people of the Sinai covenant. The Lord has delivered his own from the land of Egypt and he now expects them to acknowledge his presence and render him the worship due to him.

Sacrifice, which takes numerous forms, is the essential act of worship. It signifies that the children of Israel hand over themselves and their possessions to him who is their supreme protector. It unites them to their God and, by winning his forgiveness, restores this union when sin has broken it. In short, through sacrifice God saves and sanctifies his people. Israel is a priestly people; the priests in their actions symbolize the worship of an entire people.

In addition to moral and liturgical precepts, Leviticus lists various, sometimes quite detailed regulations meant to decide which objects and things hinder a person from drawing near to what is sacred, even though no moral fault might be involved; it was thought that these objects had a baleful power. Like the neighboring peoples, the children of Israel had their prohibitions, but even through these taboos, which were standard in this ancient civilization, they came to know the holiness of God, which is so strongly asserted throughout this book and which came to pervade their entire existence.

Let’s do some close reading here. First of all, Leviticus as we have it was compiled and written during the Babylonian Exile, likely combining oral tradition, Jewish practice and written documents. This means that the text carries with it a long history of existing laws and reflection on customs and law/the priesthood. This isn’t to say that the text isn’t divinely inspired (a doctrine I personally affirm though you don’t have to), but because it was written through mortal men we can assume the limitations of humanity apply such as bias, cultural understanding (such as the way an American’s understanding of the date 9/11 is coded by the 2001 plane attacks as a modern day citizen), and imperfect dialectic and rhetoric skills. Once again, this doesn’t denigrate the text as much as just humbly acknowledge that as humans we are limited, and we must approach Scripture with that knowledge lest our arrogance overtake us into the sin of pride (which is similar to the issue a lot of Catholics take with Protestants defending strict sola scriptura). This means that we must approach the text with the understanding that Leviticus 18:22 was written after the law was given, traveling in the desert, the establishment of Israel as a kingdom and the Babylonian captivity and exile. That’s…a lot of time for potential interference between the law given by God and the text in our hands. It’s like playing a really long game of telephone: we’re probably really close, but there can be gaps and we should acknowledge that potential. So I can acknowledge that the verse was written by fallible men, with human limitations, quite some time and distance culturally and geographically from the original handing of the law at Sinai. Once again, this doesn’t denigrate Scripture and its worthiness, but is a necessary acknowledgement for humility and understanding within the text’s proper context.

Second of all, the above quote tells us that the laws are there to show that the Sinai people are different and set apart (more on this later). This gives us the motivation and intention of the text and the laws within them. Now, while we may certainly argue that the truths expressed in the law have worthiness in being continued (one of my favorite parts of Leviticus is the house code of Leviticus 14 which tells the priesthood how to deal with mold infections in a house and when it’s salvageable and when it needs to be destroyed/how to avoid getting sick from it with the means available to them in the desert and later on when they could actually build houses) it’s important to recognize that the law was given to the Jewish people in order to keep them alive in the desert and to separate them from Egypt and the Canaanites (Leviticus 18:3). Thus everything contained in the law is for one or both purposes, and should be evaluated in this way. The question becomes: what was the behavior being addressed in 18:22, and how did that keep them alive in the desert and/or separate them from the people around them? I’ll come back to this question later.

Notably, the point of being separated from people around them was twofold: the purpose was either to avoid being judged and looked down upon by other nations (by doing something they’d see as shameful or dishonorable) OR it was to set apart Jewish religion from other religious practices around (remember Leviticus is primarily aimed at priests and framed within a religious law (rather than secular) context). So 18:22 must be referring to behavior either condemned by other nations OR religious behavior normalized within other nations (a good comparison is the prohibitions of scarification and tattoos, as these were regularly performed by surrounding religious groups for ritual purposes. Notably, we no longer uphold such prohibitions as we are not Ancient Israel.)

As a quick side note the detail on describing houses of stone also emphasizes my above point about the text being written post Sinai and the desert exile (when they were more nomadic and largely in tent encampments).

Another aspect of note is when the quote above talks about “the various components are not all from the same period: some prescriptions date from the time of Moses and even earlier; in other instances the editors adapt ancient rites to their own present religious concerns.” This also affects our approach to the applicability of the text in our lives, and we must acknowledge that we don’t have the law dictated by God at Sinai (dated roughly 1313 BC), we have an inspired account by men written during the exile (dated roughly 425 BC to 328 BC). That’s a thousand year separation. Remember that game of telephone? So we have God’s dictated law, filtered through God’s inspired scripture a thousand years later by a divinely inspired yet still fallible and limited human being. And that’s just the original copy. The earliest manuscript of Leviticus we have, 4QExod-Lev of 4Q17, is a Dead Sea scroll that dates to 250 BC (so at least 78 years since the original), and that manuscript doesn’t even have 18:22. For that verse we have to go to 4Q23 which is dated sometime between 140 and 37 BC. So now we have our divinely dictated word of law being written by divinely inspired humans, then (since we only assert that the originals are divinely inspired, not copies or translations) being copied and translated into a not divinely inspired manuscript written approximately 1,173-1,276 years after the original law was dictated at Sinai, all by fallible humans. That’s a lot going on in our game of telephone before we even touch the question of translation, preservation, and the biblical canon.

That’s made even more complicated by the fact that 18:22 is part of the Law of Holiness, which “probably dates from the last years of the monarchy (end of the seventh century) [and] reflects the viewpoints of the Jerusalem priesthood [of the time] and stands in contrast to the viewpoints found in Deuteronomy, which was published during the same period.” Telephone game and human limitations.

Finally, for external context, we have the following part of the quote: “Leviticus lists various, sometimes quite detailed regulations meant to decide which objects and things hinder a person from drawing near to what is sacred, even though no moral fault might be involved; it was thought that these objects had a baleful power. Like the neighboring peoples, the children of Israel had their prohibitions, but even through these taboos, which were standard in this ancient civilization, they came to know the holiness of God” I want you to keep this in mind as we move into the next part of our verse analysis

Internal context:

Leviticus 18 is part of the Law of Holiness (or Holiness Code), which is unique for regarding all of Israel as holy (not just the priests or sacrifices) and mainly is the bit where God says that the Canaanites were doing certain practices and Israel needs to not do them. So we know 18:22 refers to something the Canaanites were doing, which satisfies the earlier question about the verse needing to help Israel survive in the desert and/or set them apart from other peoples. 18:3 specifies this by saying “you shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes.”

Remember the earlier definition of “set apart”? Let’s come back to that. Option 1 is to avoid shame. Option 2 is to avoid religious practices to set Judaism apart. The word used in 18:22 is the infamous to’evah. Abomination. What does to’evah mean in its original context? Let’s look at other verses. In Genesis 43:32, it’s used to describe the way Egyptians believed it was a to’evah to eat bread with the Hebrews. In Genesis 46:34, it’s used to describe how Egyptians saw shepherds as to’evah. In Exodus 8:26, it talks about how the Egyptians saw certain Hebrew sacrifices as to’evah and that’s why Moses asked pharaoh to let them go out of Egypt to make sacrifices. In all these cases, option 1 (behavior detested by other nations) seems to be the best case. It’s notable that none of these things are morally bad in of themselves (the Bible itself discusses how shepherds, Egyptians and jews eating bread together, Jewish sacrifices are all fine) but instead are cultural taboos.

So let’s look at behaviors that were prohibited by surrounding nations:

First off the Hittites had laws against a father having intercourse with his son (I don’t know for sure if this means consensual or not because the term I came across is “violates” which could mean rape or it could mean defilement). It is accompanied by other anti incest laws similar to the rest of Leviticus 18. The scholar Harry Hoffner Jr notes that the Hittite law was because the partner was the man’s son, not because they were of the same sex. The following quote is by scholar Brian Gerig:

Table A, paragraph 20 deals with a physical act done, not just a rumor: “If a seignior [an Assyrian man] lay with his neighbor [another citizen], when they have prosecuted him (and) convicted him [the first citizen], they shall lie with him (and) turn him into a eunuch.”14 This describes a situation where a man has forced sex upon a local resident or business partner, who then has the option of bringing a charge against him. Noticeably, the perpetrator is punished while the victim is not; so the crime here is rape. Homosexuality itself is not condemned, nor looked upon as immoral or disordered. Anyone could visit a prostitute or lay with another male, as long as false rumors or forced sex were not involved with another Assyrian male. Still, both of these laws suggest that for a male to take the submissive woman’s role in same-sex intercourse was looked down upon as shameful and despised.

I’ll come back to the idea of a man in a submissive woman’s roles being looked down upon later. But for now, Brian Gerig continues on:

Pictorial and literary references in ancient Mesopotamia show acceptance of some forms of homosexuality, but wariness toward others. Anal intercourse was freely pictured in figurative art in the ancient cities of Uruk, Assur, Babylon, and Susa from the 3rd millennium B.C. on – and images show that it was practiced as part of religious ritual. Both Zimri-lin (king of Mari) and Hammurabi (king of Babylon) had male lovers, which the queen of Zimri-lin mentions matter-of-factly in a letter. The Almanac of Incantations contained prayers favoring on an equal basis the love of a man for a woman, of a woman for a man, and of a man for man.16 (Lesbian love is not mentioned, probably because of the low status of women in ancient times, when women were basically considered property, and adultery was considered a trespass against the husband’s property. A husband was free to fornicate, but a wife could be put to death for the same thing.17) The Summa alu, a manual used to predict the future, sought to do this in some cases on the basis of sexual acts, five of which are homosexual:

“If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers.

If a man yearns to express his manhood while in prison and thus, like a male cult-prostitute, mating with men becomes his desire, he will experience evil.

If a man copulates with an assinnu [a male cult-prostitute], trouble will leave him

If a man copulates with a gerseqqu [a male courtier, or royal attendant], worry will possess him for a whole year but will then leave him.

If a man copulates with a house-born slave, a hard destiny will befall him.”18

The fact that different kinds of homoerotic pairing will occur is taken for granted. What mattered was the role and the status of a partner, especially the passive partner – and the anticipated ramifications in each case. To penetrate a male who was of equal status or a cult prostitute was thought to bring good fortune; but copulation with a royal attendant, a fellow prisoner, or a household slave was thought to probably spell trouble.19

Needless to say, none of these are about being queer as we understand that now. The closest one is the act of anal sex between men, used as a power and social dynamic: they are equals until anal penetration occurs, after which the penetrator is superior and a leader, and the nature of each case of homosexuality comes down to power dynamics and social class between men. This isn’t an act of a romantic and sexual relationship such as the gays have now. Notably, 18:22 reinforces this distinction by the addition “as one lies with a woman.” The prohibition isn’t against lying with another man, but against lying with him in a specific way. This separates 18:22 from the other verses in ch 18, in which incest is just flat out prohibited in all forms such as 18:7 (you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father or mother), onto 18:20. Similarly, 18:23 (beastiality) is a flat out prohibition rather than a specific font of an action. Only 18:22 stands out with the qualifier “as with a woman.” I would argue this is because of the above power and social dynamics of anal sex in the Ancient Near East. The woman was submissive and penetrated, for a man to receive anal penetration was for him to become a woman and thus degrade himself and be judged for it. That’s why Sodom and Gomorrah ought to be read as gang rape in an attempt to humiliate a foreigner (which is the interpretation that better aligns with Ezekiel 49-50: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.” [Emphasis added]).

This is further emphasized by the fact that Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome both had similar views of anal sex, in which the bottom participant was seen as holding the role of a woman and/or an inferior (and thus denigrated) while the top was accepted (and in some cases seen as asserting his manliness and power in having anal intercourse as the penetrator). More on Rome’s views later.

So to summarize: to’evah suggests practices that are cultural taboos rather than inherently immoral acts. This lends itself to an interpretation of “being set apart from Canaanites” as avoiding behavior that would shame Israel in the eyes of the nations around it. Historical evidence does not suggest that queer relationships were an issue. Instead, the judged behavior was either actions that aren’t queer relationships OR an act based around power dynamics and social class hierarchy and humiliation that led to the social shame of one of the participants as “less of a man” and as an inferior. Obviously, that last one is not the case for modern queer relationships, which are not about power and social class dynamics in that way AND our society does not look down upon men who practice anal sex the same way the Ancient Near East did because we no longer have the same views of men and women and their sexual and social roles (excluding of course modern homophobia which is fueled by verse interpretations and thus out of the question here).

But let’s say I lost you with my interpretation of to’evah as social taboo. Maybe 18:22 was a matter of Israel avoiding behavior that surrounding nations allowed or celebrated religiously or socially (option 2 of being set apart). Let’s examine it again from that lens then:

Brian Gerig and many other Near East religious and cultural scholars highlight laws and cultural norms around homosexuality as taking two main forms outside of the ones already addressed above: pedastry and temple prostitution/religious erotic practices.

Pedastry is, of course, pedophilia. I think we can all agree that pedophilia is evil and also NOT WHAT QUEER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TWO CONSENTING ADULTS IS.

As for temple prostitution (of which Canaanite cultures did have quite a few instances of men and women who engaged in sex with worshipers as an act of religious devotion) and religious erotic practices (in which priests and priestesses engaged in erotic and sexual activities as offerings or devotion to their gods and spirits), this aligns more with the idea of “being set apart” = “not doing religious practices of surrounding nations” (remember the scarification example?). Once again, this is situationally limited (we as Christians no longer prohibit tattoos because we don’t do them religiously and are not Jewish so as to be set apart like Ancient Israel) and more importantly IS ALSO NOT WHAT MODERN QUEER RELATIONSHIPS AND SEX ARE ABOUT. A gay couple isn’t having sex as an offering to an ancient Mesopotamian deity or as a temple act with worshipers and parishioners for religious reasons (most of the time at least, idk what everyone does with their time but we’re not talking about that here).

I have one final nail in the coffin for Leviticus 18:22, and that’s about exegesis and application:

Supersessionism is bad and antisemetic. We’re not replacing Jewish people in the covenant and in being set apart from other nations by YHWH. Thus, we are not under the same category of having to be set apart from Egypt and Canaan like the Ancient Israelites were. You could argue the Holiness Code does not apply to modern day people as a result.