Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman

[tbonez]

It's not practiced because the world is not "pure or in holy state."....

Thanks for that.

Totally answers my question 100%

Thanks again!

 

[Jory]

 

[reverb285]

There is a verse in Matthew, the one about men who are "born eunuchs for the Kingdom of God."

Eunuchs are men incapable of reproduction, not gay men. This appears to be the same type of revisionism that all of a sudden says that Jonathan and David were lovers. You'll note in the same book (Matthew) Jesus is quoted making a reference to God's original plan of a man and woman in union - a popular verse many Christians use when asked what Jesus had to say about homosexuality.

 

[tbonez]

^^ Great scene^^

While I only ever saw the show after it was cancelled I have always thought it was the best thing ever on American TV. Brilliantly written, well cast and always captivating.

Thanks for reminding me why I enjoyed it so much!

Think I'll DL some of the episodes I've missed.

 

[tbonez]

You'll note in the same book (Matthew) Jesus is quoted making a reference to God's original plan of a man and woman in union - a popular verse many Christians use when asked what Jesus had to say about homosexuality.

Typical homophobic subterfuge.

Clearly it says nothing about homosexuality, just heterosexuality.

As has been pointed out countless times before, It occurs to me that if Jesus had wanted to condemn homosexuality he was quite capable of making this clear. He did not.

If it is so grievous for two men who love each other to build a life around that love... doesn't it seem odd that we don't have 11 commandments?

 

[reverb285]

Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus said: "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.

Gay men and lesbians are men and women.

 

[reverb285]

There are plently of grievous things that could be the 11th 12th 13th 14th and so on.....commandment, but aren't. Doesn't seem odd at all to me.

 

[teadrinker]

One trouble is that it's simply impossible to tease apart the various strands of Jewish tradition, law, mistranslations and the rest from the Bible. Even if you assume that in the NT, Jesus claimed to be bringing new commandments to override the old, many of the Pauline epistles (which are scriptural, after all), attempt to codify the ethical life.

Like all holy books, the bible is a mixture of the apparently prescriptive, and the extremely vague. This is why biblical criticism and interpretation has always been, and will remain, a major study. And also why there is so little agreement as to meanings.

Not being a Christian, I don't believe any of it myself.

-T.

 

[RationalLunacy]

No I will not. This doesn't even make sense. All scholars, who analyzed that passage know it refers to men having sex with men. The only argument is what type of sin, and the scope of it.

I would love to see you explain away Leviticus 20:13
I will even link to the religion apologist website, religious tolerance
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibh3.htm


If you have nothing to add to this discussion, then don't waste my time.

I'm not going to even bother arguing with you. You now have the honor of being the first person on JUB I've ever placed on ignore.

As Jesus himself said: "Cast not your pearls before swine."

 

[RationalLunacy]

One can't help wonder, however, why it is that so many well-educated and passionate people who have made the study of the Bible (in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, etc) and the history of the Jewish and Christian faiths their life's work still believe that homosexual sex is singled out in the scriptures of the Hebrews and, for the Christians, in the letters of Paul as being a particularly heinous sin in the eyes of God, not the least of them being the current Pontifex Maximus.

The explanation would be too complicated to go into here. I would suggest reading Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, and his later work Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. They'll answer your question in depth. Neither book is an easy read, but the information contained therein is illuminating.

....and yes, I can be serious on occasion.

 

[Giovanni]

The NT is all that should matter to Christians, but alas, most Christians still cling to the outdated OT.

 

[RationalLunacy]

In Judaism, homosexual acts not feelings or attraction is the forbidden part. The passage in Leviticus does prohibit the act, there is no question about it, but also (people should not ignore that the Torah or the Old Testament in English, does forbid or regulate many straight sexual acts too). In Jewish law homosexual acts are not seen as the worse thing a person can do, so the Rabbis are never crazy about it like you see in many Christian Churches.
The Jewish Sages have commented on this in the Talmud throughout ages. There are many explanations given for this prohibition including and not limiting to the story of Sodom where besides hedonism, theft, and greed, lascivious sexual behaviors were blamed. One part includes the story where young boys were used as prostitutes by adult male population and other includes a story where Lot's male guests were raped and abused by the idol worshipers i.e. Sodomized.

In Middle Ages, Talmudic scholars pondered if this prohibition applied to their times, and they answered that it did because they saw homosexuality as a threat to procreation and stability in households--marriage, family and procreation being the foundations to Jewish life. They feared that if prohibition was lax, men would chose to stay in homosexual relationships and stop marrying women and having kids or husbands would have more chances to cheat on their wives.

http://myjewishlearning.com/ideas_b...sexuality/Sex_Homosexuality_Halakhah_Gold.htm

Actually, there's more to the story. The writer of the passage aforementioned in Leviticus uses the Hebrew term "zakar" as the person not to be slept with. That word does not mean just any man, but, according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance "a male person worthy of note." Taking the passage into the proper context, it can mean only one man -- a high priest of the god Moloch (or Molech, depending on which translation you use). The ancient peoples believed sperm to be a symbol of fertility -- not just procreation, but life itself. It meant many offspring to till the soil and plant the crops and tend the flocks and herds. More fertility, more crops and more animals. All of this meant more wealth. By performing sexual favors for the high priest of Moloch, it was a symbolic ritual by which in return they expected Moloch to grant them fertility of family, crops, and animals. The passages in Leviticus were, therefore, not condemnations of loving same-sex relationships, but a stern warning not to practice pagan fertility ritual, thus keeping the Nation of Israel clean and free from idol worship.

 

[star-warrior]

I was reading one of the books of Samuel last night. David, King of Israel commits adultery with a woman, and has her husband sent to the front of his army to be slaughtered in battle. When the woman is pregnant, a child was born.

God's holy commandment of Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery does not punish the adulterous couple with death. Death is visited upon the innocent product of their union, the baby, as God strikes it down with an illness. David lives, as does the adultress, only to give birth to another son whom God loves, apparently. Forgiveness for the transgressors by visiting the sin of the father on the child.

If God can spare David even though he broke one of the Ten Commandments? Why should homosexuals deserve such castigation even though there is no commandment not to sleep with men?

The thing about reading the correct meaning of Leviticus 18:22 was brought up earlier in the thread.

It is unclean to sleep with a man in the same bed as you bed your woman. This implies that it is ok to sleep with a man, so long as you don't do it in the same bed as you bed your woman in.

 

[star-warrior]

The other passage used by fundies and other Xtians to say that homosexuality is bad comes via the story of Lot, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

If you read the meanings of the original Hebrew, it is about hospitality, not rape. At least, that's my understanding of it.

Besides, the latter part of the Lot story has his two daughters getting their father drunk and then having sex with him. The Lord spared one of the cities of the plains, but destroyed the others, so there must be other men living in the spared city. But these two daughters wanted to have incestuous relationships with their father.

Yet, the bigots dismiss, or gloss over this and twist the story into an anti-gay thing, whilst silently condoning incest.

Go figure.

 

[rareboy]

Isn't it great to have Nitish back?

Still doesn't understand that Christ, the head honcho of Christianity doesn't pick on homos at all.

Just because we ended up with the selected Jewish and Greek texts, translated by religious scholars and wing-nuts doesn't change the core of Christian theology.

But frankly, as shown in his many past threads, Nitish doesn't understand any of the nuances of theology. Not to worry. As usual, he'll tire of the game by pronouncing himself to be absolutely right and then depart.

 

[DaddyBadger]

"If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine - but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good - and CARES about any of it - to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working." [The Real Frank Zappa Book, ("Church and State" chapter) by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso, p. 301]

"The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions."
-- Frank Zappa, interview, Playboy, May 2, 1993

"So, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, if you go for all these fairy tales, that "evil" woman convinced the man to eat the apple, but the apple came from the Tree of Knowledge. And the punishment that was then handed down, the woman gets to bleed and the guy's got to go to work, is the result of a man desiring, because his woman suggested that it would be a good idea, that he get all the knowledge that was supposedly the property and domain of God. So, that right away sets up Christianity as an anti-intellectual religion. You never want to be that smart. If you're a woman, it's going to be running down your leg, and if you're a guy, you're going to be in the salt mines for the rest of your life. So, just be a dumb fuck and you'll all go to heaven. That's the subtext of Christianity."
-- Frank Zappa


"If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT."
-- Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book





Personally, I couldn't agree more...

Jerr

 

[reverb285]

Did Jesus Bless Homosexuality?

Did Jesus Condemn Homosexuality (1)
Did Jesus Condemn Homosexuality (2)