Leviticus 18:22 translation and meaning

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is a carryover from the Trump is Dying thread, to prevent a further hijack from that worthy enterprise. I am putting this in IMHO rather than Factual Questions because I’m not convinced an absolutely factual answer is possible. (Note: I am a skeptic and atheist, so I am not discussing the truth value of what is written in this verse, I am just trying to reach an accurate translation from the original text to modern English.)

As for an accurate translation of the Hebrew version of this verse, one poster offered this:

Here is one that I found. The site has an agenda, possibly like the above cite, but the analysis seems persuasive to me as a person wholly ignorant of the Hebrew language. From Leviticus 18:22 – Hope Remains (bold emphasis added by me) – this is the conclusion of that writer’s analysis.

And with a male thou shalt not lie down in a woman’s bed; it is a hateful thing. This is the correct translation of Leviticus 18:22. It can be seen that, rather than forbidding male homosexuality, it simply forbids two males to lie down in a woman’s bed, for whatever reason. Culturally, a woman’s bed was her own. Other than the woman herself, only her husband was permitted in her bed, and there were even restrictions on when he was allowed in there. Any other use of her bed would have been considered defilement. Other verses in the Law will help clarify the acceptable use of the woman’s bed (Lev. 15).

I wonder how “defilement,” a word used by this commentator, compares to “a hateful thing,” their translation from the verse.

I also wonder about other subtleties that might be behind the contents of this verse. Why mention this specific action (two men lying in a woman’s bed) if it didn’t refer to sexual activity? Was it therefore considered okay for two men to lie together in a man’s bed, no matter what they did together? Or was that so culturally unlikely (for whatever reason) to not need mentioning?

I have read that the Hebrew bible, i.e. what I was raised to call the Old Testament, has generated over the centuries shelves and shelves of commentary by Rabbis and other scholars arguing every little jot and tittle of its contents, so I suspect there is no simple or short answer. I welcome especially anyone familiar with this commentary to weigh in. Is there a Rabbi in the house?

2

As I posted in the other thread, I find it absolutely fascinating that the passage is addressed to a male reader only, but that the rule is applied to all humans. Whatever it says, how is the female reader supposed to take it, when the “you” is clearly male?

I’ve encountered the “it’s not against same-sex relations” argument before, but that seems very unlikely in the overall context of Leviticus, which is all about ritual cleanliness (in Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger sense) and seems intent on laying out proper behaviour as conforming to clearly separate categories. If sex is normatively a gender-crossing activity, then same-sex sexual behaviour would be un-normative. It may not say “lie with a woman,” but it could (if I’m understanding the commentary correctly) say “lie in the woman’s position,” i.e. the simplistic but common idea that sex involves the male, penetrative role, and the female, penetrated role. Maybe it says “you can top, but not bottom.”

Of course, I am not Jewish, and do not care what the Bible recommends for or against as regards proper behvaiour.

3

If, hypothetically, the people who wrote the book intended it to “be against same-sex relations”, and Jews today interpret it that way, then is it not reasonable to say it is a prohibition against homosexuality, as far as Jews are concerned?

I also do not see why a Jewish interpretation of this chapter, if there even be a consistent one, is any more illuminating than a modern Muslim or Christian perspective. Better to try to understand how the really old-school religions actually worked.

For those not familiar with the context, the chapter also mentions “abominations”, that you should not “lie” with, i.e., fuck beasts, sacrifice sperm to Molech, etc.

4

Ever by people that actually support same-sex relations? I have heard it many times, but usually from the “Aren’t I a clever little shit” said with a nasty smirk crowd.

5

I should point out, as the referenced poster, that I am neither a liturgical expert (atheist, although I attend church regularly as a professional vocalist for whom it is an important source of income), nor a linguist. It’s just something I’ve come across in the wild occasionally. I’ll leave it to the experts to actually hash it out.

(Also, I meant “lying”, not “lung”, which was probably obvious, but I hate my own typos.)

6

I never want us to lose sight of this critical and immutable fact.

It’s a book. Period.

7

And the US Constitution is just some paper people wrote on. What matters is that people give it power, which mrans everything. So, how it’s interpreted is a big deal and affects a lot of people in a very big way. That’s why these kinds of discussions are useful.

8

Both points can be true.

And the Constitution has been amended repeatedly. AFAIK, the Bible just has 1.0 and 2.0. Maybe a Biblical Convention is in order :wink:

9

I can tell you that homosexuality is prohibited in Islam, for instance, but this does by no means rely solely on interpretations of the Book of Leviticus or the Bible. The founders of the religion were unequivocally against it.

10

A literal translation would be something like “With a male you are not to lie as one lies with a woman”. Nothing in there that could remotely be translated as “bed” AFAICT.* I am not aware of any mainstream Jewish source that has ever interpreted this as anything other than a straightforward rule against male homosexuality (female homosexuality is forbidden only by Rabbinic decree, not by the Torah itself).

Some modern rabbis have suggested that it means gay men should proudly embrace their own sexuality (i.e. “lying with a man as one lies with a woman” means telling yourself and/or others that you’re not really gay, you’re only doing it because no women are available). Nice try, guys.

*(OK, now I’ve actually read the article linked in the OP, and my Hebrew is not nearly good enough to say whether the linguistic argument makes sense or not. Maybe someone else can comment)

11

It is interesting to know what the passage would have meant to contemporary readers of Hebrew, as an academic discussion. The academic discussion has a different meaning for observant Jews (not me) and interested people (me).

Separately, it’s certainly relevant to the modern world, if only because Christians cite it, and have secular power.

Very clearly, for contemporary Christians, it mostly means “God hates gays,” and the actual Hebrew is irrelevant to its contemporary majority sociological interpretation.

After my mother outed me without my permission, my grandparents sat me down and made me read Paul, whose anti-gay stance is much clearer (as is his misogyny). I think it was Romans.

I’ve only ever heard the “it’s not anti-gay” argument from people who are both gay and Christian, and clearly what they are doing is reading their sacred text as they need it to read. Which is fine: you do you.

12

This is not the case, though: “משכב” can absolutely mean “bed”

I looked it up here: Microsoft Word - sin.doc

13

OK, clearly I am in over my head here.

14

While this may be true for a few contemporary Christians, I think this is a story put forward by those that are pro homosexuality as a reason to claim any criticism on homosexuality is homophobia.

For the majority of contemporary Christian the text means that homosexual acts are sins but the bible is clear that “all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) and that God loves us sinners so much that Jesus died on the cross to take the penalty for our sins “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

15

It would be especially strange to have some non-sexual meaning in a chapter that discusses prohibitions on incest and bestiality.

16

Not to derail the thread, but I’ve always wondered why some people (not the OP, but some LGBT people or allies) try to make the Bible seem like it’s not anti-LGBT instead of just taking the direct reading of the book and saying “Well, a book written by people thousands of years ago would of course be homophobic - but we reject that book because there’s no reason we should let an ancient book dictate the way we live.” It would be like someone trying to say that Islam is pro-pork, instead of just saying, “Sure, Islam is anti-pork but don’t tell me what to eat because I’m not Muslim.”

17

Are you saying that same-sex sexual behaviour is sinful, but so are lots of things and we’re all sinners so it’s not that big a deal? Because that may be theologically correct, but it’s not how the religion works on the ground. At the moment, there are congregations and sects who are actively supportive of LGB folks, some who are tolerant and neutral, as I think you’re suggesting, and an awful lot who seem to have a cultural aversion to gays and use the Bible in order to justify that.

Ancient Text ≠ theology based on that text ≠ lived religion in the community based on that theology.

18

FWIW, I’ve been following a lot of Dan McClellan videos recently, and he goes into a fair bit of detail on the topics of what the original text of these passage mean, and how the people who wrote it would have thought about it (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlfUHJnoOhg, but there are plenty of others).

My big take-aways are that (1) the authors of Leviticus were most likely against male same sex sex acts (2) they did’t really think of “homosexual” as a personal identity, just a set of acts that guys might or might not get up to, and (3) they made a moral distinction between “topping” and “bottoming”.

19

One way Leviticus can be read is a way to separate us from them. Those Greeks & Romans might eat shellfish and pork, they might wear clothing made from blended cloth, and they might be pederast, but we don’t do that because we’re Jews. These are rules to establish and maintaintain Jewish identity.

When I was an undergraduate, my class had to read a series of essays from the 19th century by various individuals making biblical arguements in favor of or against slavery. I found the pro-slavery side to be more persuasive. The anti-slavery side seemed to take various passage that didn’t have anything to do with slavery and interpret them as being anti-slavery. The pro-slavery side was able to make much more concrete arguments for their position based on the bible.

This looks to me like an attempt to reinterpret Levitcus as something other than a prohibition on men having sex with one another as wishful thinking. i.e. They’re interpreting verses to mean what they want it to mean just as abolitionist did in the 19th century.

20

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you’re a part of a nomadic, desert-dwelling, pre-industrial society, where the very continued existence of your people requires a steady and replenishable supply of more tribespeople (to farm the fields, to go to battle, to surive infancy and reach adulthood), then doesn’t it behoove those who would control that society - by telling them than an Invisible Man In The Sky demands this and forbids that - to prevent men having sex with each other? Or at least, inasmuch as they should be having sex with women, to fulfill the need for babies.

Certainly makes sense. Not saying it’s morally right, but it makes sense in the context of why the oral traditions were handed down in the first place.