What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say: Leviticus 18 and 20
Probably the most cited passages against individuals who identify as anything other than straight are found in Leviticus, specifically the Holiness Code.
Now, I’m not going to take the time right now to discuss why it is that Leviticus is awesome, just accept that I seriously love the book of Leviticus. Put a book mark on that. I’ll discuss that later. For now, let me say, “Don’t buy the bad press.”
The Holiness Code (H) is the second half of the Leviticus and is called such because it is a call to the people of Israel to be a Holy People and we constantly see that the legislation within this section is justified with a reminder that YHWH is holy.
7 Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the LORD your God.
8 Keep my statutes, and observe them; I am the LORD; I sanctify you. (Lev 20:7-8 NRSV)Within this work there are two chapters that are preoccupied with discussing what kind of sexual unions are forbidden. Leviticus 18 is pretty much ALL about sex, whereas Leviticus 20 just deals with it about half of the time.
The verses in question are:
22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Lev 18:22 NRSV)
and
13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Lev 20:13 NRSV)
Hopefully, even though I’ve just started doing this here, you’ve already gotten this message: CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT! That is to say that context is of the utmost importance.
So what is the context of these verses?
Leviticus 18 sets the context as being differentiation, as being about the people of Israel and Judah (we’re going to short hand that from here on by saying “the Hebrews”) being different from the people around them:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
2 Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: I am the LORD your God.
3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not follow their statutes.
4 My ordinances you shall observe and my statutes you shall keep, following them: I am the LORD your God.
5 You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing so one shall live: I am the LORD. (Lev 18:1-5 NRSV)Then we get a bunch of rules against incest.
Let’s pause a second to consider one of these:
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether born at home or born abroad. (Lev 18:9 NRSV)
“Sandy,” you may ask, “how is this relevant?”
10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What were you thinking of, that you did this thing?”
11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.
12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. (Gen 20:10-12 NRSV)Just saying.
Moving on now.
After the list of incest, we get five more verses regarding forbidden sexual congress and one other issue in the middle of them. The fact that these aren’t about sex with family members, setting them apart from the other sex laws, and that the after them we have another assertion about not “defiling” the way the other nations did, make this a unit within the larger unit, and to understand one verse, we need to understand the whole set.
19 You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness.
20 You shall not have sexual relations with your kinsman’s wife, and defile yourself with her.
21 You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them1 to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
23 You shall not have sexual relations with any animal and defile yourself with it, nor shall any woman give herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it: it is perversion.
(Lev 18:19-23 NRSV)Before you say that 20 is about family relations, “kinsmen” here does not mean relative but the Hebrew עֲמִֽיתְך means “fellow, comrade” and is usually used throughout H to refer to fellow Hebrews.
So we’ve got:
- Menstrual Sex
- Adultery
- Molech Sacrifice
- Our Key Verse
- Beastiality (note this is the only verse in the entirety of 18 that addresses women as being sexual actors).
We’ll come back to 18 in a minute, let’s turn to 20 now.
Leviticus 20 starts with the prohibition against Molech worship:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
2 Say further to the people of Israel: Any of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who give any of their offspring to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone them to death.
3 I myself will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people, because they have given of their offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name.
4 And if the people of the land should ever close their eyes to them, when they give of their offspring to Molech, and do not put them to death,
5 I myself will set my face against them and against their family, and will cut them off from among their people, them and all who follow them in prostituting themselves to Molech. (Lev 20:1-5 NRSV)Anyone seeing a theme here?
Now, archaeologically, this is fascinating. We’re not entirely sure who this Molech god is, but what we do know is that H is concerned with child sacrifice.
Verse 13 is framed by laws against certain kinds of incest, and our laws against beastiality and menstrual sex are also included in 20, the structure seems far more random here than in 18 though.
So let’s turn our attention back to the more focused chapter 18.
We’ve got a series of five verses in a kinda of Chiastic structure:
(19)1a—Sex act
(20)1b—Sex act
(21)2—Molech sacrifice of child
(22)3b—Sex act
(23)3a—Sex act
As you can probably see, this highlights the middle item. In fact, verse 20 becomes the key to this whole passage, which is confirmed by the beginning of chapter 20.
What is common between child sacrifice and these sexual acts?
19—Menstruation: no conception, waste of seed. Also, we know that menstrual blood and menstruating women were considered unclean but it should not have warranted being outcast (chapter 20) unless she contaminates the sanctuary.
20—Kinsman’s wife: conception is possible, but then whose child/seed is it?!
22—Whatever it means to lie with a man as with a woman: no conception, waste of seed.
23—Sex with animal: no conception, waste of seed; Female sex with animal: contamination of seed vessel.
And the sex laws of chapter 20 are immediately proceeded by Molech child sacrifice prohibitions.
These are about the the protection of the seed, offspring.
Beyond the context, an examination of the verse themselves make it less “clearly” about homosexuality:
What does it mean for a man to lie with a man as with a woman? We noted that, except for female bestiality, women are never actors in 18 and 20. So there is also about feminizing a man, in a society in which women were very much not equal to men.
“Abomination” תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה (Where we get “taboo” from.):
In the vast majority of cases this word is a word which is related to ritual. There are other sin words that do not have a ritual connotation, but that is what is used here. It’s also used of unclean food in Deuteronomy 14:3. So, when people say that shrimp or pork is also an abomination, they’re not just being pedantic. Either everything YHWH (or those speaking for YHWH) declares to be an abomination is or isn’t. Seriously, if you want to claim that homosexuality is a forever and ever sin based on Leviticus, don’t eat shrimp cocktail or ham or bacon…or a cheeseburger…
Coming back to the context of Leviticus 18, some like to claim that of the list ONLY 22 is an abomination, but:
26 But you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances and commit none of these abominations, either the citizen or the alien who resides among you (Lev 18:26 NRSV)
Every one of these is an abomination. Abraham and Sarah were an abomination. Having sex with a menstruating woman is an abomination.
These verses in context come from a culture that was trying to define itself over against the people around them, with a high infant mortality rate, and an understanding of women as being quantitatively inferior to men.
We cannot take these two verses out of their context and make them universal condemnations against men having sex with men and remain intellectually honest.
