Leviticus 18:22 - What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

Leviticus is named after the Levites, those tribe of Israel that provided the priests, not after a person called Leviticus. It is the third of the 5 books of the Torah or Pentateuch and can be found at the beginning of the Old Testament. It contains instructions regarding worship, as well as lining out duties and rights for both the priests and the laity. It is based on various, older, sources, both oral traditions and written documents, and most scholars agree that it got it's final form between the 6th and 4th century before our time, making it around 2,500 years old.

The Bible is, amongst other things, also a history book. Perhaps not in the sense how we understand this term today, but nevertheless, the writers of the Bible documented the history of Israel (Old Testament) and Jesus and the early Church (New Testament) in the words and with the concepts of their time. Historically the events of Leviticus are located after the tribes of Israel escaped slavery in Egypt and Moses received the Ten Commandments (and other laws and commandments) on Mount Sinai from God, but before the tribes of Israel entered the Holy Land. These events took place around the 12th century before our time, a time frame most academic scholars agree upon.

So, between the events described and the 'publishing of the final version' of Leviticus lay at least 600 or 800 years ;-) Welcome to the fascinating world of Bible study ;-)

With "biblical context" I mean where a certain verse or chapter is located in the Bible. In the case of Leviticus 18:22 that means in the Old Testament and, surprise, surprise, in a book called Leviticus ;-) The bit with the Old Testament is important as there are many, many laws and commandments in it, that Christians, for various reasons, happily and rightfully ignore today. The best known one perhaps being the prohibition to eat pork. Not eating pork was a very, very good idea at that time and a commandment that made perfectly sense if you remember that we are speaking of a time before refrigerators and of a region with a hot climate...

Others, like the Ten Commandments, are rules that Christians still strive to live by today. So, why do some Christians think that also the rules about and prohibition of homosexual acts belong into the second category and not in the first? Bear with me, all will be clearer at the end.

Lets look at the location of said verse inside the book. Leviticus 18:22 is part of a large section of laws, commandments and explanations called the Holiness Code.

The 'Holiness Code' is the name Jewish scholars gave to the chapters 17 to 26 of the book Leviticus. The word 'Holy' had at that time an additional meaning to how we would use it today. Holy meant 'set apart' and especially to be set apart from their neighbors, both in behavior and worship. Whilst the tribes, that later would become Israel, worshiped only one God, its neighbors were polytheistic, worshiping many deities. And some of them even included Shrine (Temple) or Sacred Prostitution into their worship, see Deuteronomy 23:17 "No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute."

The other need for these type of holiness stemmed also from the need of preserving one distinctive cultural identity as 'The Chosen People of God' amongst the many and varied neighboring tribes. So, the Holiness Code, at that time, helped people to:

• Be ritually clean in order to be able worship God in the right way.
• Be different from their neighbors in order to preserve their cultural identity.
• Be healthy by following dietary laws important for that time and climate.
• And, with regard to Leviticus 18:22, to procreate and increase in numbers.

Regarding the last point, it is important to note that at that time people believed that procreation was achieved when a man 'planted his seed' in the womb of a woman, the role of the woman was merely that of 'incubator' for his seed. This might explain why most Bible verses concerning homosexual acts were only concerned about those between two men, and not about those between two women. Procreation was incredibly important at that time as the Jewish tribes were outnumbered by powerful neighbors and one way to overcome this disadvantage was to grow the tribe. And the union of two men, or of two women, wouldn't have had any offspring.

Jews followed the Holiness Code until the year 70 of our time completely, but with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, their main sanctuary, many of its laws and commandments regarding temple worship and sacrifice couldn't be followed anymore. Most Jews today will indeed still follow the dietary laws and all the others that don't relate directly to temple and sacrifice. Some Christians will make a kind of 'pick and choose' decision and will follow only a handful of these laws and commandments, normally ignoring all the dietary laws, but insisting that all the rules for sexual behavior laid out in the Holiness Code have to be followed.

On the other hand there are small groups of Christians that do follow the Jewish dietary laws still today and some Churches that don't teach that Homosexuality is a sin, but instead see it as a normal variation of human sexuality and even bless same-sex couples. The best known example for this is perhaps the Episcopal Church in America which ordained the first openly gay and partnered bishop in modern history, +Gene Robinson, Diocese of New Hampshire.

So, what is right? Whose interpretation is the correct one? What decides which laws we should still follow and which not? For this we have to delve deeper into the text.

The Problem with Translations

Anybody that speaks more than one language knows that translating is an extremely difficult art. Conveying in one language the exact meaning a word has in another is the big challenge. Add to this the difficulty of translating from a language into another that doesn't belong to the same group of languages, meaning doesn't share the same roots and concepts behind the language and add a few thousand years of difference between the two languages and you see what a difficult job Bible translators really have. If you don't speak another language than English, here an example just for you:

The word 'gay' meant until roughly the 20th century mainly 'happy' or 'joyful'. If you listen to the video above this paragraph, you'll hear the famous song "A Bachelor Gay" describing how the "gay bachelor" falls in love with several --- woman ;-)

If the meaning of one word has changed so much in less then 100 years, what do you think how complicated it is to match the meaning of a translated word with both our vocabulary today and the original meaning of the word 2,500 years or more ago and still rendering a text that is both easy to read and faithful to the original meaning?

The meaning of the word 'to'ebah' (also transcribed as tōʻēḇā or to'e'va (noun) or ta'ev (verb) ) is similar to 'taboo', a thing or act that renders the offender ritually unclean. We find many things and acts in the Old Testament that are taboo in the sense of 'to'ebah', here two examples.

• The Israelites themselves, whilst in Egypt, were 'to'ebah' to the Egyptians, Egyptians wouldn't eat or drink with them. See Genesis 43:32 "They served him by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because Egyptians could not eat with Hebrews, for that is detestable ('to'ebah') to Egyptians."
• Many things that Christians eat today were and are 'tōʻēḇā' to observant Jews, such as pork, rabbit, shrimps and lobster. (see Deuteronomy 14 for the full list)

Other things that are considered to'ebah are

• Idols, like figurines or statues of other deities.
• Sexual relationships between near relatives.
• Using incorrect measures in order to sell things for an inflated price.
• Having intercourse with your own wife during her monthly period.
• For more, have a look at the Jewish Encyclopedia here: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/352-abomination

Before I start to pack all these information together, here something else to bear in mind:

The Bible has no concept of homosexuality as a variation of human sexuality,

only of homosexual acts!

At first sight that might seem irrelevant, but it isn't. Homosexuality was first described as a variation of human sexuality in the 19th century, over 2,000 years after the first 'publication' of Leviticus 18:22 and similar. Therefore we must bear in mind that the Bible doesn't make any statements about homosexuality as such, only about certain, homosexual acts.

Leviticus 18.22 and similar verses of the Old Testament are part of the Holiness Code written 2,500 years ago. At that time these commandments were important for those tribes that later would become Israel as they made sure that the population grew at the maximum rate possible.

However, this reason can not be applied today as we Christians don't rely on 'outnumbering' our neighbors anymore. Regarding committed, homosexual relationships today therefore Leviticus 18.22 and similar should go the same way as the prohibition to eat pork or shrimps.Something what a variety of Churches like the Episcopal Church in the USA, the United Church of Christ and others have already recognized.

As a Christian I believe that

a) Gods commandments always make sense and

b) if circumstances change in a way so that they don't make sense anymore we have to adapt our interpretation of them to this and not the other way round.

In the end, I know a lot of 'good Christians' that eat shrimps, enjoy a rabbit stew and do many other things that were originally prohibited in the Old Testament ;-) So, why do they insist that some of the rules about sexual behavior haven't changed in a similar fashion? Amongst my friends are several gay people that live in a deeply committed, faithful partnership since many years, some of them are with the same person since over 40 years! And I don't believe that God disapproves of them. In the end, why should he? There is no reason anymore ...

All Bible quotes in this article were taken from the NIV translation unless otherwise stated.