April 20, 2007

Let There Be Homo

This is an eye opening site. Click on the billboards on the right-hand side for a discussion about each.

Some of the arguments are less compelling than others and seem more like rhetoro-semantical mental masturbation, but they do raise interesting and valid points. As someone who speaks multiple languages, I appreciate the difficulties in translating from one language to another while still retaining all of the original meaning. Many times there aren't equivalent words, so you have to choose one that comes as close to the mark as possible. Something inevitably gets lost.

That's the one of the points that the authors of the site are trying to make. Modern society doesn't really have the concept of "sluts for Jesus" or "Hindi hookers" or what-have-you. There are no major world religions that use sex as a ritual part of their worship. But this cultural concept certainly existed in the old world. It seems to me that equating homosexuality with the types of sexual practices associated with the specific word(s) used in the Bible is disingenuous. The original words refered to some very specific types of ritualized sex. Additionally, it's not intellectually or practically honest to translate the original terms as 'homosexual' when that word and its modern meaning were coined no earlier than 1898 in Germany. It's like saying that all gay people are into fisting and that's the only type of sex they have. It doesn't make sense; it's not logical.

Another thing I find very interesting is that nowhere in the Bible is lesbianism condemned -- I don't think it's even mentioned. All the passages seem to be geared at man-on-man action. This speaks volumes about the cultural constructs of 'manliness' and 'womanliness.'

At any rate, all the passages dealing with homosexuality should be dealt with very carefully for 2 reasons. 1) Problems with translation pertaining to cultural concepts and practices that existed 2000 years ago but are no longer. 2) Jesus placed one rule above all the others -- 'love thy neighbor'. He was very adamant to remind everyone not to throw stones or judge others.

1 comment:

Dave said...

Romans 1:26-27 might be referring to lesbianism: "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another."

Of course, if you read Romans 1 very carefully, you find that the real sin mentioned is turning away from God towards pagan worship, of which being consumed with passion was either a punishment or a consequence. And then Romans 2:1-3 lays the whammy on those who have been listening to the whole first chapter and nodding their heads vigorously:

"Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, ‘We know that God’s judgement on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgement of God?"

WJD really ought to expand on this theme more fully. The full version of the passage, for your reading pleasure.