So unjustifiable is the claim that Lev 18:22 and 20:13 reject only idolatrous forms of homosexual practice that even a Bible scholar who is strongly supportive of homosexual relationships and who has written more on the issue of sexuality in ancient Judaism and Christianity than any other scholar acknowledges that the Levitical prohibitions are absolute.

When the biblical argument is made that human sexuality was designed for male and female, and the Bible condemns homosexual relations, one of the responses for the defense is that those portions of the Bible that appear to condemn homosexual relations are not really condemning homosexual relations in general but only a particular kind of gay sex — say, gay rape or gay sex associated with idol worship.  Robert Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, responds to this argument in part in the guest post below, responding to Justin Lee, executive director of the Gay Christian Network and author of Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate.

An Open Letter to Justin Lee, Author of Torn: I Do Not Believe Lev 18:22 and 20:13 Indict Only Idolatrous Forms of Homosexual Practice

Dear Justin,

I would like to bring to your attention a matter that has come to my attention.

In your book Torn, you make a grand total of one reference to my work on the Bible and homosexual practice (unfortunately ignoring all the other arguments and evidence that I bring forward). In that one reference I believe that you are misleading. You write on p. 177:

Some scholars, arguing that the Bible doesn’t condemn modern-day gay relationships, maintained that this passage was actually intended to condemn ritual cult prostitution, a form of idolatry in that culture that involved male-male sex. But hey, they were arguing in favor of accepting gay relationships, so they might be biased. What did the other side say? Pretty much the same thing, it turned out.

You then cite me as allegedly agreeing with this point:

On Leviticus, Gagnon writes: “I do not doubt that the circles out of which Leviticus 18:22 was produced had in view homosexual cult prostitution, at least partly. Homosexual cult prostitution appears to have been the primary form in which homosexual intercourse was practiced in Israel” [The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 130].

To this you add: “So scholars on both sides of the argument agreed that this probably had something to do with cult prostitution. That made sense to me….”

Where you mislead readers is in not letting them know that this remark of mine comes in the context of a three-page section entitled, “The Connection with Idolatry” (pp. 129-32), whose whole purpose is to make the case that the Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse are NOT limited in their indictment to cultic prostitution. Indeed, the very next set of sentences (same paragraph, no less), which you fail to mention to readers, is (emphasis added):

However, male cult prostitution was not the only context in which homosexual intercourse manifested itself in the ancient Near East generally. It was merely the most acceptable context for homosexual intercourse to be practiced in Mesopotamia, certainly for those who played the role of the receptive partner. In our own cultural context we think that the banning of male cult prostitution does not take into account consensual, non-cultic, loving homosexual relationships. In the cultural context of the ancient Near East the reasoning has to be reversed: to ban homosexual cult prostitutes was to ban all homosexual intercourse. In any case, the authors of Lev 18:22 could have formulated the law more precisely by making specific reference to the qedeshim [= ‘the consecrated ones,’ an ironic reference to these cult figures] (as in Deut 23:17-18), if it had been their intent to limit the law’s application. That they did not do so suggests that they had a broader application in mind. Moreover, the Levitical rejection of same-sex intercourse depends on Canaanite practices for its validity about as much as the rejection of incest, adultery, and bestiality.

Prior to my remarks that you quote, I state (emphasis again added):

Few today give this argument [i.e. that the Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse were prohibiting only cultic or idolatrous forms of male homosexual practice] much credence and for good reason. The repetition of the prohibition against homosexual intercourse in 20:13 does not follow immediately upon the references to child sacrifice in 20:2-5, but rather is sandwiched in between prohibitions of adultery and incest (20:10-12) and prohibitions of incest and bestiality (20:14-16). The link with child sacrifice in Lev 18:21 probably involves nothing more than threats to the sanctity of the Israelite family….

I continue:

There is also the inconsistency in the application of 18:21 on the part of those who use it to limit 18:22 to cultic contexts. Those who contend that the broadly worded proscription against same-sex intercourse should be confined to cultic prostitution do not contend that the narrowly worded proscription of child sacrifice to Molech had no implications for other forms of child sacrifice. It is not likely that 18:21 was formulated as narrowly as it was in order to leave the door open for child sacrifice to other pagan gods besides Molech, or even to Yahweh. Clearly the authors and framers had in mind all kinds of child sacrifice—indeed infanticide of any sort. By what rationale, then, is a narrow proscription to be taken broadly but a broad proscription only narrowly?

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Blessings,

Rob

Prof. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., Pittsburgh Theological Seminary