Here's a good article on homosexuality in the bible.

http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian-bible-gay-christian

Mainly I want to get feedback from the christians out there that use the bible as a tosay that homosexuality is wrong.

bigNATE :
"If you are willing to throw out parts of the Bible that deal with sin simply because today's society ignores its teaching, then you aren't teaching the truth."

So you follow all the scriptures? What about
· DEUTERONOMY 22:13-21
If it is discovered that a bride is not a virgin, the Bible demands that she be executed by stoning immediately.

or

· LEVITICUS 18:19
The Bible forbids a married couple from having sexual intercourse during a woman's period. If they disobey, both shall be executed.

or

· MARK 12:18-27
If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered by biblical law to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir.


"Slavery was much different back then, they were really just servants and captives from conquered lands"
ummm, that's still slavery.

"Young marriage was prevalent, but not that young. It was more likely 15-16."
The legal age for girls was about 12 and for boys was around 13.

"When he gets all this stuff wrong, I can't actually believe him when he says "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." means homosexuality is OK."

He explains how that is a Holiness code and is mainly meant for the priest of Israel.

It is against the bible though it doesn't say directly, "thou shall not be a homosexual" it is against it as demonstrated in Romans 1.

Just a question, but isnt https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=12051 "Leviticus 18:22" about the same as this anyway?
I mean people have posted the same subject matter there...

On topic (just in case this would be considered different), it's foolish to follow everything the bible says.
People can prattle on about "oh but this bit only applied in 400BC" or some garbage, but unless it specifically says that then they are making assumptions, which means that we should go and kill a bunch of people, even if they dont beleive in said book.

I recall one of the members that said certain bits only apply to certain time periods said everything in Leviticus 18 should be followed at all times and that those things did apply to all time periods, so 18:19 sorta bites them and makes them look like an ass, doesnt it, lol

Hoochman : The writer of the article gives several explanations of those verses. It's in his fifth premise.

DH: That's concerning a single verse. There are plenty of other things that are brought up in the article.

It keeps telling me the article isn't found.

DH: well, the only flaw I can see in your argument is that I think the rules listed in the Bible are internally served. You don't go outside of the religion and start applying the laws to other people with the exact same punishments.

However, be that as it may.... I think most Christians would say that the law of Moses (which encompasses the 2-5th books of the Bible) were fulfilled and are no longer followed by Christians. There is a verse in the New Testament where Jesus talks about how the law of Moses is fulfilled in him.

Hoochman : did you even read the article? The author actually addresses that chapter and gives an interpretation about the verses you are probably thinking about. It's worth reading... even if you disagree with it.

Hoochman : That was happening to me to for some reason. The link should work now

Zamiel : Meh, fair enough, though alot of the arguements I made in there apply here as well anyways

geeogree : Well ignoring that fact, that people of one religion should leave everyone else that isnt in it alone (which is a GREAT thing to do, I would LOVE it if people ACTUALLY did that) and not apply their rules and judge them, does it mean that it's seriously ok for one christian to kill two other christians just because they couple had sex during the wifes period?
Because I think that is really warped and perverse thinking if that's the case.
I'm just going off what christians have said about which parts are still relevent or not, cause in my opinion it's just a book filled with poetry and explainations for what was unexplainable.

You didn't understand what I just told you....

Christians don't follow the law of Moses.... Jews do. Christians believe (or at least some do) that the law of Moses was fulfilled in the death of Jesus Christ and that a new way was set forth from that time forward.

Jesus himself even set forth a higher law for Christians to follow than the law of Moses. It's in Matthew 5-7. If you want to know how Christians are supposed to act from the mouth of Jesus himself it's in those 3 chapters. You want to judge them appropriately, do it from what is written there. It's the most comprehensive and straightforward explanation of how Christians should act.

Zamiel : there is actually something regarding executions and the law of moses that needs to be understood.

The penalty for dishonoring your parents was stoning... or to be specific... the MAXIMUM penalty for this crime was stoning to death. Guess who had to do it? The parents. So, while many of these things had crimes that were punishable by death... that was not the absolute punishment that had to be inflicted.

And one other thing to rebut something the author said....

Lev 18:2 says "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them..." and then it goes on to list all the things that you shouldn't do with regards to sexuality... so the idea that Lev. 18 was only for priests is not true by my interpretation of the text.

Zamiel : You misunderstand my point. I agree with geeo that that law is fulfilled. In fact, many of those laws were simply to keep the people healthy. However...
Multiple verses that were pointed out came from the NEW Testament. Those should still be followed. And it wasn't simply to have sex with the husband's brothers, the point was to marry them.
The slaves back then were not mistreated or treated like property. They were either people serving as slaves to work off debt or captives from another land, and that was what they got rather than sitting in prison or being killed. Slaves were treated very well in ancient times.
What I'm getting at is that if he's willing to throw out parts of scripture not because Jesus said it was fulfilled or another good reason, but because the World is against acting like that, then he's wrong and can't be trusted. That would be like saying "everybody thinks it's OK to steal now, and there aren't even laws against it any more. So, even though the Bible is against it, we can forget that because today's society is different". That is basically what he's saying about sexual practices. I don't advocate shunning them, but rather showing them that they're wrong. A true Christian wants to live a life as Christ and the Bible say to live, not in the blatant of homosexuality.

Zamiel : You misunderstand my point. I agree with geeo that that law is fulfilled. In fact, many of those laws were simply to keep the people healthy. However...
Multiple verses that were pointed out came from the NEW Testament. Those should still be followed. And it wasn't simply to have sex with the husband's brothers, the point was to marry them.
The slaves back then were not mistreated or treated like property. They were either people serving as slaves to work off debt or captives from another land, and that was what they got rather than sitting in prison or being killed. Slaves were treated very well in ancient times.
What I'm getting at is that if he's willing to throw out parts of scripture not because Jesus said it was fulfilled or another good reason, but because the World is against acting like that, then he's wrong and can't be trusted. That would be like saying "everybody thinks it's OK to steal now, and there aren't even laws against it any more. So, even though the Bible is against it, we can forget that because today's society is different". That is basically what he's saying about sexual practices. I don't advocate shunning them, but rather showing them that they're wrong. A true Christian wants to live a life as Christ and the Bible say to live, not in the blatant sin of homosexuality.

geeogree : Doesn't really matter if it didn't have to be carried out it's more that it was acceptable to do so.

He didn't actually say that it was just for priest just that it was primarily for priest. That same verse also says that they shouldn't have round haircuts, tattoos, and wearing garments of mixed fabrics.

bigNATE :: He didn't throw out any of the verses from the new testament. He simple explained them in a different light and from the view of the people in that time and how they may have been misinterpreted.

I don't even see why we are talking about ancient slavery lol

geeogree : Well as I said, "I'm just going off what christians have said about which parts are still relevent or not" and at the moment I cant do any further study into the subject.
But if those parts are not even relevent to christians anymore then I dont see why they still insist on qouting them and saying "this is why these things are bad" when they dont apply anymore.

bigNATE : says "And it wasn't simply to have sex with the husband's brothers, the point was to marry them"
Does it specifically say that? If it doesnt specifically say that then it's an asumption you are working under.

In any case whether or not the bible says being gay is bad, it only really applies to those that follow the sayings that say it is bad and they shouldnt judge others that dont follow those teachings.
Now, since Zamiel mostly wants feedback from the christians, I'll take my leave of this thread so you can all say what bits you interpret as being against different peoples.

Well, I just checked the website out at last, and these guys who wrote it are so off on what they list. They can't tell the difference between a practice that is merely allowed and a practice that is actually condoned. They also don't understand some of the bible is meant for the ancient Jewish culture and not actually Christians. He's right about biblical ignorance being at an all time high, I'll give him that, but unfortunately he's part of it. Minor examples of his ignorance include how he say's the prophets are silent on the issue. Moses was a prophet and he spoke of it, another includes how homosexuality was different now than what it was in old times. That's false, as it is referred to in the bible as men lusting after men. Another one that really grinds my gears is how he say's we must be open to new truth from scripture, when in fact we are not to add or take away from what the bible say's. I don't trust this website at all.

"when in fact we are not to add or take away from what the bible say's"

That's a fallacy... just because it managed to be put at the end of the Bible doesn't make it true for the entire book. A very similar verse can be found in Deut. 4:2 so does that one not apply or does Rev. 22:18-19 take precedent? Or maybe they are both referring to something specific and not to the Bible as a whole?

Hoochman : That's the answer I expected from you lol

For your not being open to new truths from the scripture I think he puts it into good prospective why you should be-
"Even when we believe the scriptures are "infallible" or "without error," it's terribly dangerous to think that our understanding of every biblical text is also without error. We are human. We are fallible. And we can misunderstand and misinterpret these ancient words -- with tragic results."
Note how he never once mentions throwing out or adding text to the bible. He brings up good examples of why it should be done. Like how people used to use the bible as evidence as to why the Earth was at the center of the universe.

As for him bringing up versus that are meant for the Jewish community I think this rebukes what you said about him being the ignorant one -
"Jesus and Paul both said the holiness code in Leviticus does not pertain to Christian believers. Nevertheless, there are still people who pull the two verses about men sleeping together from this ancient holiness code to say that the Bible seems to condemn homosexuality."

He never said that Moses didn't say anything on the subject. In fact he gives good reasons why they are not authoritative on the subject.
"Since the writers of scripture are not the final authorities on human sexuality, since they didn't even know about sexual orientation as we understand it today, since Jesus and the Jewish prophets were silent about any kind of same-sex behavior, I am persuaded that the Bible has nothing in it to approve or condemn homosexual orientation as we understand it"
There's lots more to that part.

it just seems like an unnatural act.

fightorace : That my good sir is a great example of spam. Don't do it again :/

Okk.....after reading that article, I have to respond to it with great detail (it's fortunate that my exam got canceled tomorrow). After reading that, I feel that this person has a lack of understand about the Gospel and Bible interpretation.

Let's start with his intro: "I take the Bible seriously." Here, he emphasized his experiences as a clergy and a Christian writer, along with his post-undergraduate education in a "conservative Christian seminary" with his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and the understanding of the background of biblical times. I don't normally look into people's education background (because it really should not matter this much), but does anyone here know which seminary does he go to? FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY!!!! Those of you who don't know about this seminary, it is a LIBERAL seminary. It USED to be conservative, until changes in leadership and direction in the 1970s. There may be some notable conservatives from Fuller, but they were in for Bachelor's Degree, and the later alumnus are very very liberal, example: Rob Bell, Tony Jones, etc. (so let's just ignore this education background for a moment and actually look at his understanding of the Bible.)

Premise 1: Most people have not carefully and prayerfully researched the biblical texts often used to condemn God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children.

He was talking about biblical illiteracy among Americans. When reading the statistics that he shared in the beginning, I did not know if I should laugh or cry. I would agree with him about Biblical ignorance. There are so many people (and I may add atheists too) who do not take the Bible seriously and do not read for themselves what the Bible actually says. However, I would disagree with him that all those who are against homosexuality do not read the Bible and take it seriously. (but we will have to go to his other premises for that comment.)

Premise 2: Historically, people's misinterpretation of the Bible has left a trail of suffering, bloodshed, and death.

Again, I would agree with Rev. White. There are those who misinterpret the Bible and just cause some much error and suffering. The stories that he suggested would sadden Christians, because the people that caused this sufferings totally misinterpret the Bible. However, that still does not mean that homosexuality is ok.

Premise 3: We must be open to new truth from scripture."

Even though this section is similar to the last one, I want to comment his opening statement. We need to be careful when some say that we need to "be open to NEW truth from scripture." The examples that he listed were not NEW truths from scripture. When people claim that they have new truths about scripture, it's basically taken outside from scripture. I especially dislike the book "The Secret message of Jesus" by Brian McLaren, who claims that after 2000 years of humans study about Jesus, and now he has the secret, when in fact the book just distorts the gospel. (but I digress)

Premise 4: The Bible is a book about God -- not a book about human sexuality.

I would to note that Christians do believe that divorce is a sin. There is no point of someone to decide to divorce their spouse unless it is through unfaithfulness and that is where the source of the sin is: You become unfaithful, you don't want to be with the one that you made vows with and "became one" and you go with someone else.

As for the verse that he listed, if someone really wants me to explain it to them, message me. I'm not going to spend time going through individual verses, but the verses Leviticus 18:19 and Mark 12:18-27 that he suggested with his descriptions, notice that he adds the words "married couple" and "in turn" respectively, when in fact that description is not in the verse.

I will comment about the application of the Jewish laws in his other premise, but he ends this premise by saying that homosexuality should be totally fine, because health professionals say that it is fine and normal and contributing that knowledge as the work of the Holy Spirit. (and I thought we are here talking about the Bible)

Premise 5: We miss what these passages say about God when we spend so much time debating what they say about sex.

This was his first statement: "If the Bible is the story of God's love for the world and not a handbook about sex, then that should shape how we read the scriptures."

OOOOOOKKK.....we are going to learn a new word today. Repeat after me: "Central Interpretive Motif" (ok, that's 3 words, but just pretend). What does this word mean? Whenever someone interprets something, everyone has a certain motif stuck in their brain that influences their way of interpretation. For the Bible, everyone has a C.I.M. about God, which in itself is not a bad thing (unless the view of God is also wrong). The problem is knowing your C.I.M, and reject the other possible motifs about God, like just, sovereignty, kindness, Grace, etc. When someone ignores the other motifs and focus on your own motif, you are bound to interpret scripture wrong.

Now look what he demands before addressing these Bible verses. He wants us to ask the questions: "what does the text say about God that we need to hear but might be missing?" and "what might the text be saying about homosexuality?" With his C.I.M. that the Bible is the story of God's love, he is focusing on that viewpoint. Instead, we should be asking, "what does the Bible SAY?" The Bible is not just about God's love, it is about God's story and His relation to mankind. It's about God's STORY. PERIOD.

Now, I'll look into his list of verses in detail:

GENESIS 2:21-25
THE CREATION STORY

He got the point of the verse just fine, but he adds on his understand about unnatural and natural. Remember that when God made Adam and Eve to be together, he called it to be good. You can also see this verse to be a pro-male/female marriage: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

GENESIS 19:1-14
THE STORY OF SODOM

This does not reject homosexuality as a sin. His cross-referencing to Ezekiel does not mean that the sins of Sodom were ONLY what Ezekiel says about rejecting the poor. The actions in Sodom shows how evil the cities are. As for his theory about gang-raping a fallen enemy...the angels were not fallen, so why targeting them? He is right that this verse is not about sex, but it does show how terrible a city is when controlled by sinful desires.

I find it interesting that Rev. White did not reference Jude 1:7: "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."

LEVITICUS 18:22 AND 20:13
THE HOLINESS CODE

WHY?!? Why is it always coming to Leviticus?!? (Sigh, I expect this type of argument from a nonbeliever) And he was bragging about his Bible knowledge earlier...it almost sounds like he failed his OT Exegesis exam on this section.

I'm just going to copy what I wrote before about OT laws.
"Here are 3 paths you can approach Old Testament Laws:
1. The law is separated into three categories: Moral, civil, and ceremonial. (Only follow the moral laws, because the civil and ceremonial laws apply to that culture at that time period)
2. Follow all of the Mosaic Laws except for the laws the New Testament repeals. (We live under the new covenant)
3. None of the OT laws apply. We only follow the laws the New Testament gives. (same as 2)

If you follow any these paths, you would end up at about the same conclusion, which I can easily tell you after rereading Leviticus 20, no we don't follow it. Because it is for them at that time at that culture in that period. These paths can also be applied on the argument about food laws. They do not apply anymore, especially in the new testament, when it wrote in Acts 11: "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

Which leads me to this, do you know why these laws were established at that time? At that time, there were many pagan practices. To show the world the uniqueness of God's chosen people, these acts were against those pagan practices. Since they are not deemed pagan practices anymore, those laws do not apply anymore. However, I do not take them out either, because there are principles that can be taken from these verses. Christians should not take things out from the Bible. These verses may not apply now, but there is something learned about them. There are principles and we still read the whole thing."

From his description of what the purpose of the law is for and his experiences with holiness codes makes wonder if he really understood what the gospel really is, that no one is holy enough to please God, which is why we have a savior.

I find it interesting that he would talk about abomination as if it is not a sin, when we go back to his last passage with his cross-reference, about the description of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, that those acts are an abomination.

I would like to add about his comment about masturbation being a sin is not because of their "pre-scientific understanding of the male semen contained the whole of life." If you read Genesis 3:15 ("And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.") You would notice that it said HER SEED. So biblical understanding would tell that both the male and the female have their "seeds." Masturbation is not sin because it is "considered murder," but because it is sexual immorality, with motivation of gaining pleasure from the act.

ROMANS 1:26-27
NATURAL AND UNNATURAL

It's funny how he only focused on these 2 verse, and not the ENTIRE section as a whole to look at its context.

The section is talking God's wrath being revealed to those who suppress His truth. That they are without excuse. Now look at the verse BEFORE (Romans 1:26-27): "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen."

Now if we look at the verses AFTER (Romans 1:26-27), we would see a list of sins: "...every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ..." Now I reread it, I don't see anything about pleasure taking control of lives, but the sins from the foolish hearts who suppress the truth. And the last verse really describes it about those who suppress the truth: "...they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

He made a comment about Romans 2 that whoever Paul was addressing should not judge those who do these things...DID HE READ VERSE 3 OF CHPT 2??? "So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and YET DO THE SAME THINGS, do you think you will escape God's judgment?" He is addressing those who also do it, but judge others (those who are hypocrites).

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9 AND 1 TIMOTHY 1:10
THE MYSTERY OF "MALOKOIS" AND "ARSENOKOITAI"

He gave a background about 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy...sadly he was only partially correct. Corinth is the church with the divisions inside the church, Ephesus was a strong church. Also, the verses listed were not talking about division, but about immorality (division of the church is addressed in the first 4 chapters of 1 Corinthians).

He again made the mistake of what the purpose of the moral law is (not plainly Jewish Law, these lists are addressing moral laws). All this discussion about not judging others, we forget that we are suppose to judge what sin is, to be discerning, to wisely address what is right and what is wrong. We can't judge people, but we can distinct what is sin and what is not.

As for his description about the two Greek words, I'm looking through some footnotes for those verses, and it states that: "The two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts" (ESV) Even if he is disputing whether the words mean homosexuals or not (which many of the versions use homosexuals, acts of homosexuality, etc), the acts is still looked down upon. Even the qualifiers of being a deacon, overseer/bishop/elder of the church requires them to be "man of one woman"

Premise 6: The biblical authors are silent about homosexual orientation as we know it today. They neither approve it nor condemn it.

"Old Testament authors and Paul assumed all people were created heterosexual, just as they believed the earth was flat, that there were heavens above and hell below, and that the sun moved up and down."

ummm, no. They did not believe that the earth was flat. (Job 26:7,10; Isaiah 40:21-22; Proverbs 8:27; Luke 17:31), and with this understanding, they know that the sun does not go up and down. As for the heavens above and hell below comment, umm, is he denying heaven and hell or the location of heaven and hell, either way, I don't recall a reference that assumes it.

So to refer to the suggestion that the people just think that it "looks unnatural" does not cut it. It should not even matter what people think if it's natural or not. The real question is, what does God think, and it should be clear, it's sin.

Premise 7: Although the prophets, Jesus, and other biblical authors say nothing about homosexual orientation as we understand it today, they are clear about one thing: As we search for truth, we are to "love one another."

There is that "love" language again. We need to understand that God is love, but because God is love, He hates sin. It is true that we should love one another, which I agree with him that those who persecute homosexuals are not doing what Christians should be. However, loving them does not mean condone what they are doing. And the Bible makes it clear that if you are LIVING in sin, you are not loving God, in fact you are an enemy of God instead of a child of God (people keep saying that everyone is a child of God, when in reality we all start of as children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), but when we turn to God, we would be children of God.)

Again with references of attacks on Galileo and Copernicus when the reformers at that time did not look through all of scripture to know that it is supported. That is a human error, not scripture error.

Premise 8: Whatever some people believe the Bible says about homosexuality, they must not use that belief to deny homosexuals their basic civil rights. To discriminate against sexual or gender minorities is unjust and un-American.

Hopefully he would understand that since Christians believe that homosexuality is wrong, they would not want it to be condoned. It's not a matter of discrimination, but with their understand, they are against rights that promotes this type of lifestyle. So one must go back to the question, is it sin?

Again, I know there are some churches that raise a campaign against homosexuals and I would quickly question their motive and their understanding of God's love, but these experiences should not be used to question whether interpretation of homosexuality in the Bible is wrong. Christians should continue to love homosexuals, without discrimination or aggression against them.

But scripture makes it clear, those who practices a homosexual lifestyle are not Christians, and those who say that they have "tried" to leave homosexuality are not getting the big picture of the Gospel, is that when they are truly saved, they are a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come, and they would not willfully want to sin. One may stumble into temptation and sin, but they would not willfully want to sin and dive into sin. God would destroy their "heart of stone" and turn into "heart of flesh" which they would hate the things that God hates and love the things that God loves.