-Caveat Lector-
From: "Aleisha Saba" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Well Nathan - it is Joe Lieberman's bible, not mine that condemns
> sodomy......
I've saved the following article from the magazine Bible Review for years, for uses
such as this, for pompous
asses who presume to pontificate about what the Bible teaches regarding
homosexuality...
The article is written by a rabbinical scholar...
June
=============================================
Bible Review, December 1993, p. 11
DOES THE BIBLE PROHIBIT HOMOSEXUALITY?
Jacob Milgrom
____________________________________________________________
The biblical prohibition is addressed only to Israel. It is incorrect to apply it on
a universal scale.
____________________________________________________________
This past Yom Kippur, September 25, 1993, my synagogue invited me to explain the
afternoon scriptural reading,
the list of forbidden sexual liasons in Leviticus 18. I chose to focus on what is
today one of the most
frequently quoted passages in the entire Bible, "Do not lie with a male as one lies
with a woman, it is an
abomination" (Leviticus 18:22).
What I said may be both good news and bad news to my Christian friends, depending on
their position on gay and
lesbian rights. This biblical prohibition is addressed only to the Jews. Non-Jews
are affected only if they
reside in the Holy Land, but not elsewhere (see the closing exhortation in Leviticus
18, verses 24-30). Thus,
it is incorrect to apply this prohibition on a universal scale.
But I spoke to my fellow Jews, who are required to observe this prohibition. What is
the rationale for this
prohibition? In a previous column, I noted that the Bible's impurity rules are part
of a symbol system
representing the forces of life and death. Israel is required to avoid these
impurities and adhere to
the laws commanded by God, who promotes the forces of life. Thus in the same chapter
we read, "You shall heed
my statutues and my rules, by doing them one shall live" (Leviticus 18:5). A man who
discharges semen,
whether intentionally or otherwise, is declared impure and must purify himself by
bathing (a sort of
re-baptism) before he is permitted to enter the Temple or touch sacred (sacrificial)
food (Leviticus
15:16-18). Why? Because semen stands for life, and the loss of semen symbolizes the
loss of life.
Note also that in the entire list of forbidden sexual unions, THERE IS NO PROHIBITION
AGAINST LESBIANISM. Can
it be that lesbianism did not exist in ancient times or that Scripture was unaware of
its existence? Lesbians
existed and flourished, as attested in an old (pre-Israelite) Babylonian text and in
the work of the lesbian
poet Sappho (born c. 612 B.C.E., during the time of the First Temple), who came from
the island of Lesbos
(hence lesbianism). But there is a fundamental difference between the homosexual acts
of men andwomen. IN
LESBIANISM THERE IS NO SPILLING OF SEED. Thus life is not symbolically lost, and
therefore lesbianism is not
prohibited in the Bible.
My argument ostensibly can be countered by a more comprehensive biblical injunction.
The very first
commandment, given to Adam and repeated to Noah, is "Be fruitful and multiply and fill
the earth" (Genesis
1:28 and Genesis 9:1,7). The descendents of Noah--the entire human race--are
duty-bound to fulfill this
commandment. But the truth is that we have not only filled the earth, we have
over-filled it. This does not
mean, however, that the commandment should be thought of as no longer in
force--especially among Jews, who
have lost a third of their members in our lifetime. I recall an incident during a
premarital interview from
the early years of my rabbinate. The starry-eyed bride declared her noble intention
to have twelve children
to compensate for the tragic loss of six million killed in the Holocaust. I gasped,
"Must you do it all by
yourself?"
I have since come to regret my flippant reply. This couple regarded their forthcoming
marriage as a sacrament
not just between themselves, but with the Jewish people. The problem has worsened for
American Jews. Because
intermarriage is rife and the Jewish birth rate is low, American Jewry, once at zero
population growth, has
dipped into the minus column. Were it not for a steady stream of converts, the
extinction of American Jewry
would be even more imminent. For us the divine command, "Be fruitful and multiply" is
truly in force.
To Jewish homosexuals I offer an unoriginal solution. As compensation for your loss
of seed, adopt children.
Although adoption was practiced in the ancient world (as attested in Babylonian law),
there is no biblical
procedure or institution of adoption. As a result the institution of adoption is
absent from rabbinic
jurisprudence. Yet there are isolated cases of a kind of pseudo-adoption in the
Bible. For example, Abraham,
long childless, complains to God that Eliezer of Damascus, his steward, will inherit
him (Genesis 15:2). And
barren Rachel beseeches her husband Jacob, "Here is my maid Bilhah--go into her that
she may bear on my knees
and that through her I too may have children" (Genesis 30:3). Adoption is certainly a
possibility today.
Lesbian couples have an additional advantage. Not only do they not violate biblical
law, but through
artificial insemination each can become the natural mother of her children.
Thus from the Bible we can infer the following: Lesbians, presumably half of the
world's homosexual
population, are not mentioned. More than ninety-nine percent of the gays, namely
non-Jews, are not addressed.
This leaves the small number of male Jewish gays subject to this prohibition. If they
are biologically or
psychologically incapable of procreation, adoption provides a solution.
I hope the Eternal, in love and compassion, will then reckon their spilled seed as
producing fruit.
Jacob Milgrom.
__________________________________________________________________
Bible Review, a publication of the Biblical Archeology Society
3000 Connecticut Avenue NW
Suite 300
Washington DC 20008
202 387 8888
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