People, please read this... (re: Same sex mariage)

Zealot writes:

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If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

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Can you tell me which word is wrong ?

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You've already been told.The word that is wrong is "abomination." "To'evah" doesn't really mean that. Instead, it means "ritually unclean."In short, Leviticus is about ritualistic practices. And in specific, that verse is about ritualistic sex.Since the people at the time had no concept of homosexuality and no words to describe it, it can't possibly be a reference to what we call "homosexuality."------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Zealot writes:

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IT DOES refer to homosexuality alone.

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No, it doesn't.

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PLEASE Holmes, its clear, you know that, I know that, Rei AND Rrhain knows that.

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I'll ask you to kindly refrain from claiming access to what I do and do not know.What I know is that it has nothing to do with homosexuality. They had no concept for it and no words to describe it. How does one make a statement, pro or con or even neutral, about something that on doesn't comprehend and has no words to describe?

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Its NOT taken out of context, the context is sexual immorality as I've shown.

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No, you haven't shown. All you've done is repeat the same verse over and over again.

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Read the text again.

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I have...it keeps coming up the same way:Ve'ish asher yishkav et-zachar mishkevey ishah to'evah asu shneyhem mot yumatu dmeyhem bam.That word, "to-evah," it keeps coming up to mean "ritually unclean." I don't know where you got "abomination."

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Why do you think Isrealites were not allowed to have gay relationships or marriages ?

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Because it never occurred to them that anybody would. They had no concept of homosexuality. Even people whom we would consider to be gay by our standards wouldn't understand what we're talking about.That said, the biggest love story in the Old Testament is one between two men: David and Johnathan.

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Because this was the LAW, passed down to them.

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Where? I don't see anything in the law that proscribes same-sex marriage.

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There is in now way, a more specific wording could be used to indicate a man-man relationships to be sinfull.

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Actually, there are plenty of ways to directly state it: "Homosexual relationships are sinful."The problem is, there was no word for "homosexual" and not even a concept to describe such a thing.Therefore, how could anything in the text possibly refer to what we consider homosexuality?F'rinstance, if you look at the laws in Victorian England regarding sex between people of the same sex, they didn't apply to women. Why? Because it never occurred to them that women would ever do that sort of thing. They didn't think lesbians existed.

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Once you agree its sin, we can go on to the topic of why it is still sin, when other Mosaic Laws aren't.

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Um, there's nothing in the New Testament about homosexuality, either.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Zealot writes:

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HOWEVER the important part is FIRSTLY to be able to convince Holmes and others that according to Lev. law, homosexual sex is a sin, before I can continue with this discussion.

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But since it isn't, you're going to be here a long time. Leviticus has nothing to say about homosexuality as we understand it.How could it? The Ancient Hebrews had no concept of homosexuality and no words to describe it.

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Unfortunitely the only people that seem to air their views are Holmes (bisexual) and Rei (lesbian) and Rrhain (not sure about his sexuality).

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Does it matter?Why does the sexual orientation of a person affect the validity of the argument?There's a reason I keep my sexual orientation and personal religious views out of these discussions: It's to prevent people from saying, "You're only saying that because you're such-and-such."Would my arguments change at all if you were to find out that my sexual orientation were not what you are guessing it to be?If not, then who cares?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

You attempt isn't even laughable, it's just sad.Lev 20:8And keep ye My statutes, and do them: I am the LORD who sanctify you.vs 9 For whatsoever man there be that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.10 And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.-sex11 And the man that lieth with his father's wife--he hath uncovered his father's nakedness--both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.-sex12 And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have wrought corruption; their blood shall be upon them.-sex13 And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.-sex14 And if a man take with his wife also her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you.-sex15 And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall slay the beast.-sex16 And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.-sex17 And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness: it is a shameful thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people: he hath uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.-sex18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness--he hath made naked her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood--both of them shall be cut off from among their people.-sex19 And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister, nor of thy father's sister; for he hath made naked his near kin; they shall bear their iniquity.-sex20 And if a man shall lie with his uncle's wife--he hath uncovered his uncle's nakedness--they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.-sex21 And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is impurity: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless.-sexThis is all about sexual sins. You like to think God should use the word 'homosexuality' INDEED you prefer God to say 'HOMOESEXUALITY' is a sin, YET there your claimes are 'there is NO such word' ???So what does God do. He sais:13 And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.They will be put to death Yes, its unclean.. WHO CARES whether its an abomination/unclean ? The penalty is death!There is no word (as you claim!) for homosexuals, so God makes it clear 'MAN LIE MANKIND', NOT 'Man sells himself as prostitute', after all there was a word for prostitute, was there a Hebrew word for 'Temple' ? Indeed as you claim there was even a word for temple prostitute! Does God use that word ? NO. He makes the comparison VIVID and CLEAR, just as he makes beastuality CLEARLY A SIN." And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall slay the beast. "But wait, shall we use the same argument and say that its only a sin because it in Leviticus and doesn't apply anymore ?

Zealot responds to me:

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You attempt isn't even laughable, it's just sad.

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I know...that's why you have all of our sympathy, Zealot. We're hoping you can get over this sad insistence of yours that you've got the perfect translation, but only you can do the work required.

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WHO CARES whether its an abomination/unclean ? The penalty is death!

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The penalty is death because it is unclean.And you would only apply the penalty to one who had done the "to'evah" action in the first place.Do you see anybody having sex with the temple prostitutes these days?No?Then I guess Leviticus 20:13 doesn't really apply, then, does it?

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There is no word (as you claim!) for homosexuals, so God makes it clear 'MAN LIE MANKIND'

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But in reference to temple prostitution.Therefore, it doesn't apply to homosexuals. After all, not only is there no word to describe homosexuality, the Ancient Hebrews don't even know what homosexuality is.

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NOT 'Man sells himself as prostitute'

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But Lev. 20:13 isn't about the temple prostitute. It's about the Jew who avails himself of the temple prostitute as the pagan rituals required.

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He makes the comparison VIVID and CLEAR

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Indeed: Don't have sex with the temple prostitutes as required by the pagan rituals.

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But wait, shall we use the same argument and say that its only a sin because it in Leviticus and doesn't apply anymore ?

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Irrelevant. I'm not arguing that Leviticus doesn't apply. In fact, I'm arguing from a Judaic tradition which certainly does think that Leviticus applies and if they don't think homosexuality is a sin, then I think they get to trump whatever Christians claim.Now, if you want to argue the New Testament, we can go over there. There's nothing in there about homosexuality, either.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

The portions immediately surrounding Lev20:13 do not put it into proper context. My analogy to pulling clips out of a work manual still holds.Let us look at this reasonably. Read the entirety of Leviticus (in English). This should not take you too long, as I did it last night.It goes through religious practices... lots of religious practices. It defines what is considered clean and unclean for later consideration of who can do what in the temple. It also defines punishments for breaking the rules related to general practice, and to the rules regarding cleanliness.You will note that it is in a pretty early chapter that Lev discusses proper rites for having broken commandments (sins).I think you will agree with me that up until Lev 18, the point of discussion are as I have mentioned: ritual practices, rules of cleanliness, punishments for breaking them in practice.In Lev 18, God starts by laying out that the rules which follow are about practices that were allowed in other nations (pretty specific nations at that). He thinks these practices are unclean, and have defiled the nations he is talking about.Now we can either assume he has suddenly shifted gears to talk about practices in daily life, or he is talking about ritual practices.It is known that competing religions at the time allowed and involved the sexual practices Lev 18 goes on to outline. Incest was a pretty huge one in Egypt. Male prostitution in a religion of... I think that was Canaan.Either way, you may note that Lev 18 talks about doing these things outside the borders of Israel as unclean. There is no idea that such people (who do not believe) must be killed for doing such things, nor perhaps those Jews who do them (or did them) while in those lands. The main thing is to shun those practices and shun those who practice them.Then we return in Lev 19 to religious cleanliness? Or is it a continuation?Then in Lev 20, God restates most of what he said in Lev 20, but with an added emphasis on punishment. It should be noted he emphasizes that these strong proscriptions are for those living within Israel as well as for the "children of Israel".Here is where some real questions are raised.It makes sense that in the confines of religious practice, the punishment within Israel should be much higher (even for strangers within Israel), than for those outside of Israel (even though they may be Jewish). Israel at that time is God's special place on earth and would want to punish any ritual uncleanliness there with dire force.But what is meant by the added mention of "the children of Israel"? Is this referring to Jewish settlements outside Israel, or Jewish Temples outside Israel, or to all Jews?Given Lev 18 it seems odd to think it refers to all Jews outside Israel. But maybe it does. I am not making a claim one way or the other.Both 18 and 20 could very well have been practiced more broadly, as the rules of uncleanliness regarding food most certainly are today.Following Lev 20, we once again return to proscriptions/cleanliness rules... or is it a continuation?In CONTEXT, it seems odd to say that 18 and 20 defied the rest and dealt with everyday practices. However, I am totally in tune with what this suggests... God is NOT hip to gay sex acts, that goes double within ritual, and goes multiple within the Temples of Israel... or was that everywhere within the borders of Israel?I have never said otherwise, and in fact have maintained, that the Judeo-Xtian God is rather hetero to the point of mildly homophobic. But this does not erase the fact that the proscriptions stated outside of Lev use words specific to male prostitution, and those within Lev sure seem to be talking about religious practices.I might mention that in cutting around Lev you have left out the nonsexual proscriptions, as you have cut around a point in my previous post.Food/animals are listed as abomination. Does this not suggest what abomination means elsewhere? In particular the sons of Aaron are killed (as an example) when they smoked the wrong meats at temple (or smoked them in the wrong way?).Do you advocate the methods listed in Lev for burning strange fires, or any of the other rituals?More importantly though (and getting back to my other post) what of the palmreaders? They are also to be killed. DEATH! Do you believe this stance still belongs in the Xtian church?Furthermore, do you believe the government should pull business licences from palmists and tarot card readers, as Xtians advocate preventing marriage licences from going to Homosexuals? This is certainly the same principle (gov't advocating something against Biblical tradition), and palmists are certainly under the same punishment according to Lev 20.And along those lines so is swearing at your parents. DEATH to those who swear at there parents! Or does it make MORE sense that Lev was telling people not to do so within the walls of the temple (or worship). If not, do you believe people who swear at their parents should be killed? Yes, as long as you can agree that the entirety of Lev is obviously in regards to ritual practices. And that puts the proscription against homosexuality in the CONTEXT of religious ritual. This made more obvious by God's description (beginning Lev 18) of other nation's use of these rituals having made them unclean before his eyes.If you do not agree with this, please explain why 18 and 20 deviate from the remainder of Lev.If you want to argue that these proscriptions were eventually practiced in a broader sense, such that when Xtians came along it was easy to view and interpret all words relating to temple prostitutes as gay sex acts, then I think you gain some footing on the issue.If you want to argue this is why gay marriages were not allowed in Jewish Temples... heheheh, I think you would have a VERY VALID ARGUMENT.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 10-23-2003]

Sorry to but in and please forgive my ignorance, but I have some questions for Rrhain (or anyone else if they care to respond).You said:

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After all, not only is there no word to describe homosexuality, the Ancient Hebrews don't even know what homosexuality is.

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How is this possible? I'm sure homosexuals were around at the time so why would they have no name for it? Is it basically because it was unimportant to them?Do you happen to know when terms referring to sexual orientation did pop up in history?

roxrtool responds to me:

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After all, not only is there no word to describe homosexuality, the Ancient Hebrews don't even know what homosexuality is.

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How is this possible?

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The same way the Victorians didn't think that lesbianism existed. It just never occurred to them. The way society worked, that conception of the universe simply never got organized into its own category.How about an example from our own culture:What is the blue or green equivalent of "pink"?You have to futz around to come up with an answer. In English, there simply is no color term for a light shade of blue the way there is for a light shade of red.Now, you can sorta talk about it, but you are constantly referring to the base color in order to do so. Sky blue, baby blue, powder blue, they're all a type of blue. But pink, on the other hand, has managed to get separated from red. We don't see light shades of blue as something other than blue but we do see light shades of red as a different color from red.Other languages have even more dramatic versions. Some languages have only two color terms: Black and white (and for all languages that have only two color terms, they are always black and white.) It isn't that they don't see color. It's that they relate to color as it connects to other objects. In English, "turquoise" as a color refers to the rock. "Lavender" refers to the plant. But in two-color languages, all colors are in reference to objects, not to colors in and of themselves.[Interestingly, the fruit called "orange" in English is named after the color rather than the other way around.]When it comes to sexuality, cultural attitudes can play a lot. Ancient Athens and Sparta often had separated societies of men and women. Sparta's version was quite extreme: Males were separated from their mothers when they were 7 years old and never really saw them ever again until they married...usually when he was coming upon 30 years old. During that time, he had been instructed in sex by other men.How on earth would these people deal with the opposite sex when it comes to sexuality? The society had a way of dealing with it: On the wedding night, the groom would steal away from his companions in the mess, go to visit his bride, have sex with her, and then return. In essence, he would have the best of both worlds. Most men made the transition fine, but for some, they would continue this focus on their comrades for years.But nobody would ever have called what was going on in the mess "gay." They simply didn't see the world that way. It wasn't that they didn't recognize the fact that people of the same sex were having sex. It's that they didn't equate what was going on between people of the same sex as the same kind of relationship as that between people of the opposite sex.

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I'm sure homosexuals were around at the time so why would they have no name for it?

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Because nobody thought homosexuality as we understand it even existed. Our society has come up with this concept of the "nuclear family" where a man and a woman get married and become an independent unit, leaving everyone else behind. That is an extremely recent innovation. If you look at society in earlier times, you find that families tended to stay together in much larger groups. And when you go back further to before industrialization and the rise of the leisure class, we find more restrictive gender roles and men and women often only rarely saw each other for extended periods of time.And when you put people together who haven't had sex in a long time, they eventually take care of business on their own.There's a lot of sex that goes on in prison. Pretty much all of it is same-sex. Very few of them would consider themselves to be gay. They don't see it that way.Take a look at many of the cultures that subscribe to what we tend to call "machismo." A man having sex with someone of the same sex is not gay if he is the one on top. In fact, it enhances his masculinity. He cannot neglect his need to father children, but he can still screw around with guys pretty much with abandon.

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Is it basically because it was unimportant to them?

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Depends upon the culture. In some cases, "guys will be guys" and as long as the important "husbandly duties" are taken care of, it's no big deal. In some cases, especially with women, it's because they simply don't think that sort of thing can happen. Women don't enjoy sex, so what on earth would they be doing having sex with each other?

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Do you happen to know when terms referring to sexual orientation did pop up in history?

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The origin of the words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" is from the late 1800s, however other words are much older. For example, "catamite" is from the 16th century, "sodomite" from the 14th, and "sodomy" from the 13th.Our current understanding of sexual orientation is a fairly modern one.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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What is the blue or green equivalent of "pink"?

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You have to futz around to come up with an answer. In English, there simply is no color term for a light shade of blue the way there is for a light shade of red.

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Now, you can sorta talk about it, but you are constantly referring to the base color in order to do so. Sky blue, baby blue, powder blue, they're all a type of blue. But pink, on the other hand, has managed to get separated from red. We don't see light shades of blue as something other than blue but we do see light shades of red as a different color from red.

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Other languages have even more dramatic versions. Some languages have only two color terms: Black and white (and for all languages that have only two color terms, they are always black and white.) It isn't that they don't see color. It's that they relate to color as it connects to other objects. In English, "turquoise" as a color refers to the rock. "Lavender" refers to the plant. But in two-color languages, all colors are in reference to objects, not to colors in and of themselves.

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[Interestingly, the fruit called "orange" in English is named after the color rather than the other way around.]

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An interesting side tangent To add to it, pink itself is named after the flower, which is in turn named after the "pinked" edges of the petals ("pinked" as in what "pinking shears" do to fabric - rippled edges).Also, in Japanese, there weren't distinct colors for blue or green until western influence arrived - there was only one color, which is halfway between the two (aoi - eg, one might say "Anokata wa aoi hitomi iru" -> "That person has blue-green eyes."). The concept of a distinct color for green and a distinct color for blue but not a distinct color for "blue-green" was foreign to them.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Aimed nowhere in particular, but maybe at home in this thread, is this item from "Random Samples" in Science, vol 302, p 387 (17 Oct 2003):

Cornflower?Seriously, don't you have a box of crayons at your house?

Rei responds to me:

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To add to it, pink itself is named after the flower,

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Um...I'm not so sure about that. In English, "pink" is a pure color term. "Turquoise" is not.

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Also, in Japanese, there weren't distinct colors for blue or green until western influence arrived - there was only one color, which is halfway between the two (aoi - eg, one might say "Anokata wa aoi hitomi iru" -> "That person has blue-green eyes."). The concept of a distinct color for green and a distinct color for blue but not a distinct color for "blue-green" was foreign to them.

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The development of color terms is quite fascinating. There appears to be something wired in our brains about this. That is, if you look at languages with regard to their pure color terms, there is a definitive progression:1) There are no one-color or zero-color languages.
2) All two-color languages are black/white.
3) All three-color languages are black/white/red.
4) At four colors, it is either yellow or blue/green.
5) At five colors, if you had yellow, you get blue/green. If you had blue/green, you get yellow.
6) At six colors, blue and green separate.Beyond that, things get funky with how colors like orange, purple, grey, pink, and so on come in.Now, how do we know this? Because native speakers of the language are presented with a color-chip board representing an astounding number of hues and are asked to choose the color that best typifies the word in question. In all two-color languages, it is the same color that we as speakers of English associate with the word "black." That is, they define "black" the same way we do.Languages with "blue/green" are interesting, however, in that the choice is either what we would call "blue" or "green," but the other color is considered a shade of it. Thus, if the language has centered on "blue," they would consider colors that we would call "green" to be shades of "blue."That is, if you were to take a speaker of English and show them the color chip and ask what the most typical example of "blue" and what the most typical example of "green" is and then take a speaker of a "blue/green" language and ask what the most typical example of "blue/green" is, it would be one of those two colors that we, as speakers of English, would have chosen. They don't choose a color in between what speakers of English tend to define as typical "blue" or "green."It isn't that they don't see the difference. They just don't divide the world up the same way. We, as speakers of English, divide pink off from red but don't do the same for any other color.Oh, and to put an evolutionary spin on this, is anybody surprised that the first three colors that show up in language are black, white, and red?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog responds to me:

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What is the blue or green equivalent of "pink"?

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Cornflower?

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That's not a color term. It's a reference to an object. I mentioned others in my post. Didn't you read it? "Sky blue," "baby blue," "powder blue." Besides, you abbreviated it. The full term is "cornflower blue."Nobody says, "pink red."

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Seriously, don't you have a box of crayons at your house?

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That's what my computer is for. But you're ignoring the point. It isn't that we don't have ways to describe light blue. It's that the only way we can do it is to either refer to an object ("turquoise") or put an adjective in front of the color term ("cornflower blue").Notice that we don't have any color terms for darker shades (the closest English has is "grey" which is more a middle term for black and white rather than a "dark" white.) "Pink" is a pure color term for a light shade of red, but what is the complement for dark shades? We don't have any. We have to modify the original term: "Blood red," "Navy blue," "forest green," "royal purple."My point in bringing this up is that our society organizes the world in certain ways. That attitude is reflected in our language. It isn't that we cannot ever conceive of it but that the only way we can is to do so via roundabout methods.If Ancient Hebrew is going to be referring to gay people, it's going to have to do it in a roundabout fashion because there simply weren't any words in the language to do it. They didn't organize the world that way.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Can somebody show me a picture of a cornflower? I've seen lots of corn but none of it had flowers.

google brings up many pretty pics. ------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato