March 24: Inclusive Biblical Interpretation

We began our time together by lighting the red, orange, and yellow candles to invite Christ into the space and the Holy Spirit to guide us, and read the corresponding section of the Rainbow Christ Prayer: "Yellow is for self-esteem, the core of spirit. Out Christ, you are our Core. Free us from closets of secrecy and give us the guts and grace to come out. With the yellow stripe in the rainbow, build our confidence."

Our topic today was Biblical Interpretation. We started by identifying the ways we each understand the Bible, in order to develop a collective understanding of how our congregation approaches Biblical interpretation as a whole. For our congregation, the Bible is:

• An interpretation of God's Word [inspired by God and authored by humans], not verbatim God's every word.
• An historical account
• Poetic
• Storytelling with the purposes of encouraging, teaching and learning, bringing God's message to our level, and uniting [God's people together and to God].
• Contextual to the environment, author, and intended audience of the time
• Relational and covenantal between us and God, and to one another
• Multidimensional (e.g.: a hologram)—to get the full message, you need to understand the whole Bible and the themes that are woven throughout
• Christ is the final word in our interpretation of the Bible
• Interpreted by others (not necessarily us) as the literal word of God

​We then explored the cultural contexts and broader Biblical messages behind the so-called "Clobber Passages," or the six scriptures most frequently used to "clobber" or discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals and families. 

First we looked at the cultural contexts and broader Biblical messages of the Hebrew Bible. God led and protected the Israelites in their exodus out of Egypt towards freedom. The Israelites were a nomadic, shepherding tribe of the desert who traveled to a fertile, agrarian Mediterranean context to "be fruitful and multiply." When they arrived into this new fertile land, the encountered the Canaanites who had a fertility-based religion. God took care of the Israelites in their Exodus, and also, the Israelites were tempted to join in this fertility-based worship, because the land was so fertile—something foreign to them, that they thought perhaps they should also worship the Canaanite fertility gods too.

This Canaanite fertility religion included ritual sex, which reflected a magical thinking and logic that if the people engaged in ritual sex, it would encourage the goddess Asherah and god Baal (Asherah is both mother and mistress to Baal) to have sex therefore bringing fertility and fruit-fullness to the land and people. Not only was there same gendered ritual sex, there was also same gendered temple prostitution, which is why we encounter scriptures like Deuteronomy 23:17, "None of the daughters of Israel shall be a temple prostitute; none of the sons of Israel shall be a temple prostitute." In the Hebrew Bible God is giving clear guidance to the Israelites to separate them from their new religious and cultural context in which ritual sex and temple prostitution are ubiquitous. The scriptural passages in the Hebrew Bible that forbid men from lying down with men are in response to the ubiquitous ritual sex and temple prostitution of the Canaanites, and are not broad statements about mutually consenting and respectful same-gender sex or sexual relationships as we understand them today.

We also encounter an interesting translation issue with some interpretations of the Hebrew Bible around two important words that are sometimes conflated into one meaning:

• Popular Bible translations use the English word "Sodomite," in place of the original Hebrew word "Qadhech," which translates directly to "temple prostitute." This English translation misguides readers into making inaccurate connections between all uses of the word "Sodomite" in the Bible to the story of Sodom and Gomorra in which the men of the city of Sodom intended to rape the male angels who were guests in Lot's home to the more modern and popular definition of Sodomite as one who engages in sodomy. Sodomy is more commonly understood as anal sex.
• The Hebrew word for the city of Sodom is "Cedom," meaning "to scorch or burn," which is a completely different root word from "Qadhech." The connection between the city of Sodom and the word Sodomite and sodomy referring to sexual practices is a modern interpretation of the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorra, but is not the original Hebrew text or meaning.

Hospitality is a recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible and for good reason. The Israelites knew from experience what it felt like to not be welcomed as strangers as they were despised in Egypt. This is why we encounter passages such as, Exodus 22:21, "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" and Exodus 23:9 "You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." God intended for the Israelites to rise above their experience to extend hospitality to others, such that they did not experience themselves. In addition, the cultural context of the time was that travelers stayed with strangers as the moved across desolate landscapes where there were no inns. It was expected that you would take in and protect strangers, and that you could then expect others to do the same for you. This is why so many scholars interpret the primary message of the story of Sodom and Gomorra to be about God's expectation of hospitality. Lot had a responsibility to protect and care for the strangers—the two male angels who were guests in his home. This story is not about mutually consenting and respectful same-gendered sex, it is about the wickedness of a mob of men intent on violently raping two angels just because they are strangers—foreigners from outside of their city.

Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, the sexual and relational standards at the time of the Hebrew Bible are not comparable to modern standards. In the context of the Hebrew Bible:

• Same gendered sex was often violent, abusive, and about power over others—not mutually consenting or respectful. This included pederasty in which an adult man of wealth would become patron to a poor young boy, paying for the boy's schooling and food in exchange for sex. In addition the practice of male-to-male rape to emasculate another and to submit enemies.
• Women were understood as property, not equals, and therefore marriage was transactional, again not mutually consenting or respectful. Fathers arranged the matching of early youths (man and woman) for marriage, and a dowry, or bride price, was paid by the man to the family of the woman in exchange for his bride.
  
  

In the Gospel Cultural Context, we explored the continuation of ritual sex practices and temple prostitution under new names, in which the Canaanites of the Hebrew Bible are replaced by the practices of Corinth in the Gospel. the Greek/Roman gods have new names for the comparable gods of the Canaanite fertility religion. Artemis the goddess of childbirth and fertility and Aphrodite the goddess of love replace Asherah goddess of fertility, while Zeus replaces Baal. Again, this ritual sex and temple prostitution would have been ubiquitous to in the time of Jesus and the disciples, and is something the disciples preached and taught against in their evangelism.

We also explored the class of gender fluid people known as "Saris" in Hebrew, which included both castrated and physically intact gender fluid male and female identified individuals, intersex, and a variety of other non-binary gender attributes. according to Ancient Jewish halachic (legal) proscriptions, eunuchs were allowed to marry and have sex, although they couldn't produce children due to their infertility. These Saris or eunuchs occupy a unique space in the Bible which otherwise generally portrays gender as binary, except for this group of people. When present in Biblical stories, eunuchs have important roles. In Jeremiah 38:1-12, a eunuch saves Jeremiah, and in Esther 4:5, a eunuch helps Esther. Then there is the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:26-40, who represents one of the first gentiles to follow Jesus and is baptized by Philip. The Ethiopian Eunuch was a person of power, in charge of the entire treasury of the Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. What does it mean that a eunuch was on of the first gentiles to follow Jesus? What does this mean for how wide we should make the circle of inclusion for followers of Christ?

Finally, Jesus speaks about and affirms eunuchs in Matthew 19:12, "For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” Some interpret this passage to be about celibacy, yet would the ancient Jewish halachic (legal) proscriptions apply in which eunuchs were allowed to marry and have sex? How would our reading of this passage change? Would we understand Jesus as saying: For there are gender fluid people who have been born so from birth? And can we imagine someone making themselves [living authentically as] gender fluid for the sake of the kin-dom of God?

Here is what those "Clobber Passages" look like through these contextual lenses and in a wider context of the primary messages of the Bible:

1. Sodom & Gomorra, Genesis 19:1-38, is about the importance of hospitality
2. Levitical Laws, Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, is about Canaanite temple prostitutes
3. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, is about pederasty in Corinth and temple prostitutes
4. 1 Timothy 1:9-10, is about pederasty in Ephesus and temple prostitutes
5. Strange Flesh, Jude 6-7, is about humans having sex with angels—the magical thinking and desire for super-human children
6. Romans 1:24-27, is about temple prostitution

Our modern concept of mutually consenting, respectful, and loving sexual and romantic relationship whether they be same-gendered or different gendered is simply not comparable to the sexuality and relationally of the cultural contexts of the Hebrew Bible or Gospel.