Alaina Ungarini

Internet Issue

Homosexuailty in the Bible

Passages in the Bible have often been used to prove a point of a certain group. In many strict Christian denominations such as Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, biblical passages are used to promote their beliefs on homosexuality. Perhaps the most well known passage is the story of Sodom.

“The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.” Genesis 19:1-38

As we have read, the story of Sodom ends with the city being destroyed. Certain Christian groups use this passage and the events that occur in it to their advantage proving the sinfulness of homosexuality. The Sodomites attempt to rape the male angels who they perceive as unwelcome guests that need to be punished. These groups believe that the city was destroyed by God because of the sinful acts of homosexuality between the Sodomites and guests of the city.

Another passage used to promote their beliefs can be found in Leviticus:

“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”

Leviticus 20:13

This straightforward passage plainly says that homosexual acts are detestable which can easily be used to the advantage of a person or group trying to portray homosexuality as sinful. There is no other interpretation that can be taken out of this short passage because there is no surrounding context. This is how Christian groups manipulate the Bible to their own advantage.

“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 recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:27

This passage talks about procreating with women as natural and relations between men and other men are formed out of lust, which is also sinful.

Christian groups like Evangelicals use these and many other passages to prove the point that they believe homosexuality is sinful. These groups take the word of the Bible literally and don’t analyze other possible meanings that could be found when read into deeper. Even the sources that I found these passages from are bias by only showing a short excerpt of a passage and not the context of the book. Their strong opinions have possibly been based on false understanding of what the actual meaning of the passages are. By looking past what the words literally say, one can read into the real meaning that these passages are trying to convey.

http://www.openbible.info/topics/homosexuality

http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_homosexuality.htm

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Homosexuality/

 Zeitlin, Irving M. Jesus and the Judaism of His Time. Cambridge: Polity, 1988. Print.

In order to find my book in Skillman, I used the Lafayette Library website catalog. To find the location of my book I searched keywords like “bible” and “Jesus” . That helped me come across the section in the basement where I found this book and a bunch of other ones like it. I was originally searching for another book but found this one to be more interesting at first glance because of the title and the cover art.

The book I chose is called Jesus and the Judaism of His Time. This book explores what life would have been like during the time Jesus was alive.  A lot of the research in this book focused on trying to discover what Judaism in the first century was like. The book also attempts to explore how Jesus understood himself and his role in religion. Charisma and its role in Jesus’s life is also brought up in relation to how Jesus came into his role in early Christianity. The sources used in this text to uncover more about Jesus’s life and Jewish traditions were ancient writers such as Josephus who lived during that time. Other than discussing life in the first century, this book evaluates the legitimacy of certain authors in the New Testament such as Matthew. The straightforwardness of the title kept true to the contents of this book.