More Revisionist Scholarship

Biblical Archaeology Society is marketing a lecture series with "new interpretations" of sex and gender in the Bible. These really are not new, but they are popular.

Sex, Gender and the Bible

In this compelling lecture series, new interpretations of sex and gender in the Bible confront traditional Judeo-Christian understandings of human sexuality and identity. In addition to highlighting the Bible’s often explicit celebration of sex, these lectures tackle critical questions that are still debated today, including the Bible’s views on homosexuality and the appropriate role of women in society. They even challenge our received assumptions about God’s gender and ask how and why “God the Mother” was erased from the Jewish and Christian faiths.

DISC 1:
“Sex in the Bible: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in This Legacy We Cannot Escape”
J. Harold Ellens, Theologian and Psychologist (43 minutes)

“Homosexuality in the Bible: The Case of David and Jonathan”
J. Harold Ellens, Theologian and Psychologist (48 minutes)

DISC 2:
“He Will Rule Over You: The Status of Women in Biblical Times”
Michael D. Coogan, Harvard Divinity School (47 minutes)

“What Happened to God the Mother in the Trinity”
April D. DeConick, Rice University (36 minutes)

From here.

Related reading: Bunk from BAR

Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom

"Given the traditional Orthodox understanding of the Old and New Testament scriptures as expressed in the Church's liturgical worship, sacramental rites, canonical regulations and lives and teachings of the saints, it is clear that the Orthodox Church identifies solidly with those Christians, homosexual and heterosexual, who consider homosexual orientation as a disorder and disease, and who therefore consider homosexual actions as sinful and destructive." -- Fr. Thomas Hopko


Alice C. Linsley

In the contemporary dispute over homosexuality the Bible plays a less significant role than in the past because it is viewed as a book of miracles and supernatural revelation, having nothing to do with science and the modern understanding of sexuality. This is not based on an objective assessment of what the Bible says about homosexuality. It is rooted in the Enlightenment rejection of the Bible, and especially in David Hume's dismissal of miracles. Hume argued that unless universals in religion could be ascertained, no religious truth claims can reasonably be verified. Since Hume's time, anthropologists have identified several significant universals in religion, notably burial in red ochre, serpent veneration, and water shrines.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) also contributed to a dismissal of the Hebrew Scriptures as "a collection of mere statutory laws upon which was established a political organization." In his Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone Kant argued for a "pure moral religion" based on duty as "the euthanasia of Judaism." He maintained that Judaism was later "interfused, by reason of moral doctrines gradually made public within it, with a religious faith - for this otherwise ignorant people had been able to receive much foreign (Greek) wisdom." Kant's distortion of the facts is evident in the influence of ancient Egypt on Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato.

Although Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was an oddity in his time, he perpetuated the Enlightenment disdain for the Hebrew Scriptures. He incorrectly portrayed the Hebrew Bible as derivative of what he regarded as the more ancient Vedas. His notion was repeated by Friedrich Maximilian Müeller (1823-1900) who wrote, "In the Rig-Veda we shall have before us more real antiquity than in all the inscriptions of Egypt or Ninevah....the Veda is the oldest book in existence...."

Today it is recognized that the oldest layer of the Vedas reflects the Horite religion which took root in Southern India's Harappa culture. Har-appa is a Dravidian word that means "Horus is Father". The words Kusha, Rama, Hari and the description of Krishna (Christ) as the "Ancient Man" are all found in earlier Hebrew and Aramaic texts. 

Schopenhauer also said, "Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, 'Thou shalt make no graven image.'"

Again Schopenhauer was mistaken. It was the Roman emperor Augustus who desecrated the most revered of all the ancient sacred places. In 14 BC, he had the sacred pillars of Heliopolis (Biblical On) removed to Alexandria to grace the grounds of the Caesareum.

It is also evident that polytheistic Hinduism has contributed its share of religious violence and persecutions.

These writers dismissed the Hebrew Scriptures as irrational superstition and their assessment, though false, has been accepted uncritically by many today. Even to refer to the Bible in reference to homosexuality is to risk attack from gay activists. Some claim such references as "hate speech" and thereby effectively block a way of inquiry that has proven to be empirically valid (See Biblical Anthropology). It is no surprise that the Bible does not factor significantly in the contemporary debate over homosexuality.


Beyond Sodom and Gomorrah

When the Bible is referenced in conversation about homosexuality, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is usually cited. Some argue that the destruction of the cities was an act of divine punishment on those who practiced homosex. Others argue that the sin of Sodom was not homosex, but a lack of hospitality. Both sides miss the point. These Canaanite cities represent a religion quite foreign to that of Abraham's Horite people and it is Abraham's people who tell the story.

Their repudiation of homosex proceeds logically from their doctrine of creation. God created humanity in two sexes that the human race might be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. All non-procreative acts are viewed as immoral in this context. This includes onanism, homosex and refusal to fulfill the levirate marriage law (Deut. 25:5-10). Such acts frustrate God's purpose and go against the divine order in creation.

The levir's duty was to produce an heir for his deceased brother by his brother's widow. This practice insured that none of the priestly divisions would cease to exist. This was important to God's purpose since Jesus would be born of these priestly lines. The Virgin Mary's father was a priest who married a daughter of a priest, following the Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern.

The spilling of semen (onanism) is still regarded as an unrighteous deed among Afro-Arabians and most tribal peoples. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants, which spring forth from the earth. The seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth. This is the ancient wisdom which observed patterns in nature.

From the earliest days, Christians have upheld the Biblical teaching on non-procreative acts. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted” (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 A.D. 191).

The Pew Research Center's 2007 Global Attitudes Survey found that "people in Africa and the Middle East strongly object to societal acceptance of homosexuality." It should not come as a surprise that societies that value the traditions of their ancestors resist acceptance of homosexuality while societies influenced by the Enlightenment, i.e., Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, accept and even advocate for gay rights.

Blue shades represent areas where homosex is most accepted. There are groups within the blue areas which do not accept homosex. The Micmac (Ainu) of northeast Canada and the Aborigines of Australia are examples.

The Horites and sexual purity

The moral law which is associated with Moses developed out of an early moral law associated with Menes who united the peoples of the Nile. Menes is shown as the first in the procession of ancient lawgivers in the South Wall Frieze of the United States Supreme Court. His was called the Law of Tehut. Menes (c. 3200 BC) and the kings after him bore Horus names. They were Horite ruler-priests whose wisdom and skill was still remembered in the times of the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BC) and the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC).

The most ancient moral codes have many features in common. They appeal to the authority of the deity who was recognized by the ruler and they view the ruler as the deity's earthly representative. Another common feature is concern for purity among the priestly caste as they were regarded as the mediators between the deity and the ruler and his people. Often the rulers themselves were priests, but when it came to ritual purity, especially to cleanse from blood guilt, ruler-priests turned to other priests for purification of absolution rituals.

Ancient moral codes have a religious quality because religion and government were never separate in the ancient world. Among ancient peoples religious laws governed every aspect of the community’s life. Taboo is an aspect of ancient law that regularizes a community’s recognition of boundaries and supernatural power. In ancient Egypt none were permitted to touch the ruler except his queen who was usually his half-sister or his cousin. Among the ancient Polynesians, the high chief’s “mana” was such that people even avoided having his shadow fall on them. Taboo extended to objects, persons, words, and even numbers. Those who broke a taboo were punished or shamed by community.

An example of a taboo among the ancient Israelites was boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19; 34:26; Deuteronomy. 14:21). This was taboo because it blurred the boundary between life-giving and life-taking. This same boundary applied to blood. The blood shed in hunting, war and animal sacrifice could not be confused with or even physically near the blood shed by women in their monthly cycle or in birthing. The two bloods represent the binary oppositions of life-taking and life-giving. To blur the distinction between them was a serious matter as this boundary was established by the Creator.


Moses and the Horites

Moses was a Horite and the Mosaic law reflects the Horite caste's emphasis on ritual purity. The Horites (Ha-biru/O-piru) were expected to keep themselves from all impurity as the taint of impurity would render their work as intercessors and mediators ineffective. The Horites served as river shrine and temple attendants. They interceded for others and offered sacrifice. Both Abraham and righteous Job offered sacrifices and interceded for others.

There is a linguistic connection between Hr and TR. The Horite priest shaved his body before his term of service. The shaved priest was called Korah. Kor/Korah and Tor/Torah are both related to blood sacrifice and the Horite concept of purity. The Hebrew root thr = to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm toro = clean, and to the Tamil tiru = holy. All are related to the proto-Dravidian tor = blood. The Horite priest was to be purified before entering the temple. The purification ritual involved shaving their heads and bodies. Moses had two brothers who were priests: Aaron (Harun) and Korah.

Horite priests were known for their purity and devotion to the High God whose emblem was the Sun. Plutarch wrote that the “priests of the Sun at Heliopolis never carry wine into their temples, for they regard it as indecent for those who are devoted to the service of any god to indulge in the drinking of wine whilst they are under the immediate inspection of their Lord and King. The priests of the other deities are not so scrupulous in this respect, for they use it, though sparingly.”

The oldest tomb associated with the Horite priestly caste was found in Egypt. The tomb belongs to a priest named Rudj-Ka (or Rwd-Ka) and is dated to the 5th Dynasty - between 2465 and 2323 BC. The 4400-year-old tomb is located south of the cemetery of the pyramid builders at Giza. This corresponds to the time of Noah's son Ham (2438-2363) and Noah's grandson Kush (2417-2342). For other correlations between Genesis and history see A Scientific Timeline of Genesis.

The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah comes from the Horite priests who condemned Canaanite practices such as homosex and onanism. These same practices were condemned by the Biblical prophets who were their descendants.

The Horite priests were a high ranked caste in ancient Egypt. Among the ancient Egyptians homosex was regarded as shameful. To be anally penetrated was looked upon as humiliating, and the only archaeological evidence of homosex in ancient Egypt is a painting on the interior wall of a remote cave.

The Book of the Dead, from approx. 1650-1550 BC, tells of how the one who wishes to enter the afterlife must confess before Ra/Horus and the 42 deified rulers (Horim or Houris) that "I have committed no acts of impurity nor have I had sexual intercourse with a man." [The Book of the Dead, chapter 125, by Richard Hooker.

There is textual evidence that homosexual rape was practiced in the ancient Near East against defeated warriors. This supports the view that homosex was regarded as a humiliating act. St Paul states that homosex is "contrary to nature" (Rom 1:26), that is, it violates the binary order of creation whereby God makes known His eternal power and divine nature (Rom 1:20).


An argument from silence?

A fallacy circulating these days is that no Near Eastern texts have been found that condemn homosexuality. This again points to the Enlightenment rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures which are themselves representative of Near Eastern and Afro-Arabian texts and which clearly are not silent on homosex. Both homosex and onanism bring death to their practitioners and the death is not from natural causes, but ascribed to God as an act of punishment (Gen. 19; Gen. 38:7-10).

Further, the Assyrians prohibited homosex during the time of Tukulti-apil-Eser, also known as Pileser I (1115–1077 B.C). However this prohibition and the prescribed punishment of castration can be traced back to the 15th century B.C. The Hebrew (Ha-biru/O-piru) punishment for homosex was far more severe. Leviticus 20:13 states, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

From the Old Babylonian period this image (left) was found depicting homosex in what appears to be a tavern or a place of orgy. The passive partner is seen drinking from a fountain. (Ch. Ziegler, ADFU 6 (1962), plate 10, Fig. 168 and p. 55. Whether the passive partners were castrated males is uncertain. In the 2nd century A.D. the Roman satirist Apuleius refers to Ishtar's castrated devotees as galli. In the 4th century A.D. Eusebius mentions effeminate priests attached to the moon goddess in Harran. They were said to perform homosex on Mount Lebanon.

Ruler and white bride
represent sun and moon

Worship of the moon god was criticized by the Biblical prophets. For the Horites, who were famous sky watchers, the eclipse of the moon was less significant than the eclipse of the sun because in their binary worldview the sun was regarded as superior to the moon. For this reason, it was shameful to worship the moon.

This was not an arbitrary preference, but a description of reality since the sun gives light whereas the moon merely reflects the sun's light. The sun's superiority is expressed in Genesis 1:16: "God made the two great lights: the greater to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night."
 
The sun and the moon were gendered in Horite thinking, but the two were not seen as equals. As with all the binary sets found in the Bible, one entity in the set is regarded as superior to the other. This distinguishes the Biblical worldview from the dualism of the East. The sun was associated with the masculine because solar rays inseminate the earth over which the sun has dominion. The moon was associated with the feminine because it is the sun's counterpart, reflects the sun's light, and because it influences the woman's monthly cycle. This is why the male rulers of ancient Egypt appeared with darkened skin from sun exposure while their queens appeared with whitened skin, symbolic of the moon.

Apart from the adoption of the 12 month lunar cycle, the Horites recognized the moon as the binary opposite of the sun, and regarded worship of the lesser entity as idolatry. This is why worship of a moon-goddess finds no resonance in the Hebrew Bible.

Even were it true that no ancient Near Eastern texts condemn homosex, the argument from silence is not conclusive. We might as well note that no ancient Near Eastern or Afro-Arabian texts pose homosex as good.


Related reading: Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Ancient Moral Codes; Is Opposition to Homosexual Activity "Irrational"? by Thomas Storck; Binary Distinctions and Kenosis; Levi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Distinctions; Ritual Sex and Ancient Egyptian Priests; Abraham and Job: Horite Rulers; Alice C. Linsley's Research on Genesis; Genesis and African Bishops

Rowan Williams' Confusion

Rowan Williams on the Christian Duty to the Environment

It is a rather different reading of the biblical tradition to that often (lazily) assumed to be the orthodoxy of Judeo-Christian belief. We hear regularly that this tradition authorises the exploitation of the earth through the language in Genesis about "having dominion" over the non-human creation. As has been argued elsewhere, this is a very clumsy reading of what Genesis actually says; but set alongside the Levitical code and (as Ellen Davis argues) many other aspects of the theology of Jewish Scripture, the malign interpretation that has latterly been taken for granted by critics of Judaism and Christianity appears profoundly mistaken. But what remains to be teased out is more about the nature of the human calling to further the "redemption" of persons and world. If liberating action is allowing things and persons to stand before God free from claims to possession, is the responsibility of human agents only to stand back and let natural processes unfold?

In Genesis, humanity is given the task of "cultivating" the garden of Eden: we are not left simply to observe or stand back, but are endowed with the responsibility to preserve and direct the powers of nature. In this process, we become more fully and joyfully who and what we are – as St Augustine memorably says, commenting on this passage: there is a joy, he says, in the "experiencing of the powers of nature". Our own fulfilment is bound up with the work of conserving and focusing those powers, and the exercise of this work is meant to be one of the things that holds us in Paradise and makes it possible to resist temptation. The implication is that an attitude to work which regards the powers of nature as simply a threat to be overcome is best seen as an effect of the Fall, a sign of alienation. And, as the monastic scholar Aelred Squire, points out (Asking the Fathers, p.92), this insight of Augustine, quoted by Thomas Aquinas, is echoed by Aquinas himself in another passage where he describes humanity as having a share in the working of divine Providence because it has the task of using its reasoning powers to provide for self and others (aliis, which can mean both persons and things). In other words, the human task is to draw out potential treasures in the powers of nature and so to realise the convergent process of humanity and nature discovering in collaboration what they can become. The "redemption" of people and material life in general is not a matter of resigning from the business of labour and of transformation – as if we could – but the search for a form of action that will preserve and nourish an interconnected development of humanity and its environment. In some contexts, this will be the deliberate protection of the environment from harm: in a world where exploitative and aggressive behaviour is commonplace, one of the "providential" tasks of human beings must be to limit damage and to secure space for the natural order to exist unharmed. In others, the question is rather how to use the natural order for the sake of human nourishment and security without pillaging its resources and so damaging its inner mechanisms for self-healing or self-correction. In both, the fundamental requirement is to discern enough of what the processes of nature truly are to be able to engage intelligently with them.

From here.


What I find interesting is this sentence:

in a world where exploitative and aggressive behaviour is commonplace, one of the "providential" tasks of human beings must be to limit damage and to secure space for the natural order to exist unharmed.

If we apply this to the divinely established order of male-female relations, we are faced with the providential task of defending marriage between a man and a woman and opposing homosex as against the natural order. Had Rowan Williams taken this step the Anglican Communion would have been spared a great deal of pain and suffering during his beleaguered term. However, the Archbishop fails to make this logical connection because of his consent to convergent evolution. He appears to be influenced more by Richard Dawkins (as in his The Blind Watchmaker) than by the book of Genesis. Either the Bible is right in asserting a fixed order with fixed genetic boundaries, or it is wrong.  Apparently, Rowan believes it is wrong because he makes this contrary statement:

the human task is to draw out potential treasures in the powers of nature and so to realise the convergent process of humanity and nature discovering in collaboration what they can become.

Clearly the Archbishop is spinning a "Christian" viewpoint on creation that is not a Biblical viewpoint.  He is committed to green action, but not to the divinely-established order of creation.




What does the Bible teach?


The Bible teaches a fixed binary order in creation, not a convergent process of becoming. Obviously, Rowan Williams cannot have both a fixed order and a convergent process of becoming, so which is it, Sir?

Homosex was in the same category as onanism. Both were regarded as grievous violations of the fixed boundaries in the order of creation. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants, which spring forth from the earth. The seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth.

In our pleasure-consumed society, sex has become a comodity. The more orgiastic and pornographic, the better the comodity. Sex as comodity misses the mark of God's righteousness by so far that it isn't even proper to discuss the two together.

There is much we do not understand about sexual attraction. There is also much false information about homosexuality, much of it built upon the discredited Kinsey Report. The issue is not homosexuality or even heterosexuality, but the use of the body, which is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Sex within marriage is the only approved sex in the Bible and in Holy Tradition, and both understand marriage as between a man and a woman.

Related reading:  Levi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida on Binary Oppositions; Binary Distinctions and Kenosis; How to Invite Ridicule; Biblical Anthropologists Discuss Darwin; More Questions on Sex; Ideologies Opposed to Holy Tradition

Response to Elizabeth Kaeton's Comments

Alice C. Linsley


I’ve been asked to respond to the substance of Elizabeth Kaeton’s comments. Perhaps this will clarify why the facts and the evidence do not support her distorted view of Christianity.


Women and Ordination

Elizabeth argues that women “weren't ordained because of ancient, cultural misogyny.” Actually, only those in the priestly orders were ordained by the pouring of oil over their heads. Since women were never priests, none were ordained. That doesn’t mean that women weren’t called to and confirmed in ministry. Some were prophetesses and judges in Israel. Huldah, Deborah and Anna are examples.

Further, there is no evidence of widespread misogyny in the Bible. About 70% of the women named in the Bible are the wives and daughters of ruler-priests. They were women of influence and wealth. Some women named in the New Testament were not the wives or daughters of priests, but were independently wealthy and recognized as prominent women. Lydia and Phoebe are examples.


Women and the Bible

Feminists often use the Bible to illustrate the horrors of patriarchy. They call attention to the story of the Levite who cut his defiled concubine into pieces and sent her severed parts to the 12 tribes as a call to war (Judges 19). They want us to see how horrible patriarchy is that the Levite would surrender his concubine to the sodomites. Is this not misplaced judgment? Why not instead be critical of the evil sodomites who sought to defile the Levite and killed his concubine? After all, this is the point of the story!

Feminists despise St. Paul, who they consider to be the arch oppressors of women because he teaches that women should be submission to their husbands. Katherine M. Rodgers in The Troublesome Helpmate: A History of Misogyny in Literature (1966) writes, "The foundations of early Christian misogyny - its guilt about sex, its insistence on female subjection, its dread of female seduction - are all in St. Paul's epistles. They provided a convenient supply of divinely inspired misogynistic texts for any Christian writer who chose to use them; his statements on female subjection were still being quoted in the twentieth century opponents of equality for women."

But this represents an imbalanced and intellectually dishonest approach to St. Paul's writings. It ignores Paul's qualifying statement that husbands and wives are to be in submission to one another. Feminists rail against St. Paul's statement that female chatterers need to be quiet in church and ask their husbands about the message at home. They overlook his assent to women prophesying in the assembly on the condition that they wear a head covering as a sign of modesty. They accuse Paul of limiting women's opportunities in the Church and ignore the evidence that he opened opportunities for women, even assigning them risky duties, such as having Phoebe carry his epistle to the Romans, and consenting to use Lydia's home as his base of operations in Philippi.

The claim that Christianity oppresses women and homosexuals (V. Gene Robinson’s latest argument) is not supported by historical evidence either. EK and those who think as she does rail against the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches which don’t ordain women. They see this as oppression by the Church. These churches regard Mary as the pinnacle of godly virtue and venerate her (something which Anglicans have lost). The Orthodox remember women throughout the liturgical year: Mary of Egypt, the Samaritan woman Photini, who was the first evangelist and called “equal to the Apostles” among the Orthodox. Then there is Lydia, the first European convert to Christianity.


Misogyny in the Church

Is the Church misogynistic? It should be easy to test the Feminist thesis that the Church is an institution that enshrines "guilt about sex," "insistence on female subjection" and "dread of female seduction". If this is indeed the case, we would see evidence of misogyny at the time of Christianity's legal establishment under Emperor Justinian. Let us consider whether the Justinian Law Code increased the oppression of women in the Byzantine Empire. With the implementation of the Justinian Code the following practices quickly disappeared:

* Infanticide
* Polygyny (multiple wives)
* Incest
* Cultic prostitution
* The 3-tiered caste system that limited women's marriage options
* The practice of fathers selling their daughters into slavery.


The Code also made it legal for:

* Slave owners to grant liberty to as many slaves as they wanted.
* Families to retain the estate in cases where the father died intestate.
* Noble women to exercise political power.

While it is evident that Christianity has not solved all societal problems, it has largely improved the conditions of women. Where, then, is the evidence that women have been oppressed under Church rule? Not much of a case can be made based on historical evidence.


Related reading:  Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; The Daughters of Priests; Passing Conversation with Priestess Kaeton; "Women Priests: History and Theology" by Patrick Henry Reardon

Some Thoughts on Sex

Alice C. Linsley


Seraph, a reader of Just Genesis has written: "I would love hearing more about your thoughts on homosexuality, Alice. I am intellectually moved by your 'binary distinctions' argument. But I also know devout same-sex couples who have fallen in love with people of the same sex from childhood, and have gone through attempts at 'orientation change' for years, but to no avail. This subject cuts me to the quick. What are your thoughts as to folk who love the Lord Jesus, but who...despite all attempts...are just not drawn to people of the opposite sex?"

Here are some of my thoughts.

There is much we do not understand about sexual attraction. There is also much false information about homosexuality, much of it built upon the discredited Kinsey Report.  It seems to me the issue isn't homosexuality or even heterosexuality, by the use of the body, which is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Sex within marriage is the only approved sex in the Bible and in Holy Tradition. Both understand marriage as between a man and a woman.

My heart is cut to watch homosexual people suffering also. Family members struggle with this. My cousin died of AIDS 15 years ago. His life of multiple partners and alcoholism left him physically and spiritually destitute. My mother prayed for him for years and on his deathbed he asked for and received God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ and died in peace.

One of my own daughters left a 10-year lesbian relationship the same month that I left ECUSA and is now married with two children. Her same-sex attraction was formed while she was at an all-girl boarding school in New England.

I was the chaplain at an all-boy boarding school for 4 years and know that same-sex attraction is experienced in same-gender boarding schools, but for most boys and girls this is experimentation, not orientation.  However, it is experimentation that can leave deep scars, just as traumatic as rape, abortion, incest and sexual abuse.

In a nearby town, a 4th grader decided that he wanted to be a girl and threatened to commit suicide if his parents and the school system didn't agree to call him by a girl's name and allow him to dress like a girl.  He has made himself the center of attention. His teacher is a Christian and has been told that she must comply with the boy's wishes, though she explains that "God is not the author of confusion."  The teacher will probably have to leave the school because she is not willing to cause the other children to be confused about gender.

When I write about the binary worldview of the Bible, I do so as an anthropologist. The binary sets of Abraham's people are fixed. There is no confusion here. The Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. There is night and day. There is heaven and earth. People are born male or female. In the ancient Afro-Asiatic world, homosex was regarded as a violation of the divine order in creation. That is why the only evidence of homosex in ancient Egypt is a drawing on the wall of an isolated cave.

Homosex was in the same category as onanism. Both were regarded as grievous violations of the boundaries found in the order of creation. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants, which spring forth from the earth. The seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth.

In our pleasure-consumed society, sex has become a comodity. The more orgiastic and pornographic, the better the comodity.  Sex as comodity misses the mark of God's righteousness by so far that it isn't even proper to discuss the two together.

A life of abstinance requires a pure heart and an almost monastic obedience. We fall, but God's forgiveness is always there for those who repent and stand upright again. Then there is another falling, and another, because a pure heart is a spiritual gift that comes after much seeking and a great desire for God, but it will come in the end. Holiness is God's will for us and God brings us on that path as we are willing to be led. 


Related reading:  Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; Binary Sets in the Ancient World; Understanding Binary Distinctions; Blood and Binary Distinctions; How to Invite Ridicule; More Thoughts About Sex

How to Invite Ridicule

Alice C. Linsley


To understand the biblical worldview we must grasp the supplementary nature of the binary opposites. This involves understanding of what is meant by binary opposites and supplementary.

Supplementary is about meaning.  It is not an egalitarian principle. That is to say that meaning is derived from the relationship of the binary opposites. I experience hateful acts as evil because I have experience of loving acts and know them to be good. The reverse is also true. The male-female relationship has meaning because of the supplementary nature of male-female.

Supplementary doesn’t mean equal, since one of the opposites is perceived as greater in some way. This is how the biblical worldview avoids dualism.

Supplementary is what makes a relationship meaningful. In fact, meaning is derived from the supplementary nature of two things.

Consider Law and Grace. St. Paul presents these as binary oppositions, and their meaning is found in the supplementary relationship of the oppositions. One is greater, stronger, brighter, etc. than the other in its attributes. Grace is superior to the Law, but makes no sense without the Law. For as St. Paul says, the Law was our "school teacher" until grace should be revealed in the Incarnate Son.

The Sun is brighter than the Moon and the Moon's light is a reflection of the Sun's light. The western Afro-Asiatics thought the Chaldeans and Babylonians were confused because they venerated the Moon. Since the Moon merely reflects the Sun's light, it is a lesser entity. Why would anyone want to venerate a lesser entity? Abraham's father was accused of being an idol worshiper (Joshua 24:2) because he lived in the region of Ur and Haran where people worshipped the moon god.

Binary distinctions are not figments of the ancient imagination. They are observed in the order of creation. Men are physically larger and stronger than women.

Among Abraham's people it was taboo to allow distinct entities to become confused. This is why both men and women were circumcised, a custom that continues in many parts of Africa. Male circumcision is seen as an enhancement of maleness and the complement to the circumcised male could only be a circumcised female.  Circumcision in its original context derives meaning only when considered in this supplementary way.

Many examples of supplementary binary distinctions are found in Scripture. Consider the distinction between heat and cool. Abraham was visited “in the heat of the day” by God in 3 Persons (Gen. 18:1). Compare this to the binary opposite of “in the cool of the day”, the time of God’s visitation to Adam and Eve in Paradise (Gen. 3:8). Why are the two accounts posed as hot and cool encounters with God? Because in the first God has come to punish the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the second God has come to enjoy fellowship with the Man and the Woman.

Bible verses which forbid sowing two types of seed in the same field, weaving two types of fabric in the same garment, and boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk - are about NOT blurring the distinctions God has created in nature. The last is especially troublesome because the offspring meets death in the life-giving mother's milk.

The prohibition against mixing types, be they fibers, seeds or blood, is like the prohibition against confusing the holy with the unholy, or blurring the distinction between life and death, such as happens when a baby goat is boiled in its mother's milk (forbidden 3 places in Scripture). That is why each seed is to go to its own kind. As plants are born from the earth, so the seeds of plants return to the earth. As the man is born from the woman, so the seed/semen of man is to return to woman. The spilling of seed called 'onanism' was regarded as an evil deed, a violation of the order of creation and therefore an affront to the Creator. So obviously was homosex.

Bloods were never permitted to mix or even to be present in the same space. For example, men were not permitted in the birthing hut. Women (and many men also) were not permitted where animals were sacrificed. This is why women were never priests and why in church tradition they waited 40 days to return to church, following the ancient custom requiring purification after shedding blood.

Ancient peoples recognized a fixed order in creation. The male is larger and generally stronger than the female. The male is equipped for war and hunting while the female is equipped for cultivation and childbirth. This leads us to the distinction between the blood shed by men and the blood shed by women. Male "blood work" was expressed in hunting, war, execution of lawbreakers, and in animal sacrifice by the rulers, priests or prophets.

The blood work of women is supplementary to the blood work of men. Women sacrifice blood in first marital intercourse. They bleed in their monthly cycle and in childbirth. The blood shed of women represents life and is distinct yet supplementary to the blood shed by men in hunting, war and animal sacrifice.

I’ve found that speaking about the binary distinctions draws fire. Suggesting that they are important invites ridicule. Yet this is how the ancient Afro-Asiatics made sense of the world and their thinking informs us today through the Bible, Law and Ethics. Abraham's ancestors were not spinning an illusion that we moderns in our superior knowledge may set aside, they were describing a cross-shaped reality.


Related reading:  Levi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida on Binary Oppositions; The Origins of Circumcision; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Genesis and Genetics; Biblical Anthropologists Discuss Darwin; More Questions About Sex

Gene Robinson on the Bible

Alice C. Linsley


The gay activist and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson has been making the circuit of universities and seminaries. He delivered a speech on March 30 at Emory University titled “Why Religion Matters in the Quest for Gay Civil Rights.” In an interview about that speech, Robinson made these claims:

1. "..beliefs about homosexuality amongst Jews and Muslims and Christians are actually affecting the secular debate over gay civil rights. If you factored out the religious opposition to our civil rights, I think we would be there..."

2. "..what I perceive in the secular movement towards equal rights for gay folk is that we have an instance where the state is impinging on the secular society."

Robinson insists that progressive Christians need to "rescue" the Bible from the religious right. He is quoted here as saying, "It will take religious people and religious voices to undo the harm that has been done by religious institutions … It’s time to start demanding separation of church and state."

Now there's clear thinking! The religious right holds the Bible captive and the solution is to separate church and state. Could someone clarify this for me?

Robinson attacked anti-gay arguments based on the Bible, citing the example of eating pork and wearing two types of cloth as also being classed as "abominations". He obviously does not understand that the first restriction pertains to ritual purity and the second pertains to the binary reasoning of the biblical Hebrew from whom we receive belief in God Father and God Son. 

Eating pork is a dietary restriction of the first order for devout Jews and Muslims, most of whom consider homosex an abomination. Could someone explain Robinson's reasoning to me?

The prohibition against mixing types, be they fibers or blood, is like the prohibition against confusing the holy with the unholy, or blurring the distinction between life and death, such as happens when a baby goat is boiled in its mother's milk (also forbidden in Scripture). Robinson obviously doesn't understand the binary distinctions that frame the biblical worldview. Or if he does, he rejects them, whereby necessarily rejecting the whole of biblical revelation.

Gene and other activists seem not to recognize that the biblical consideration of homosex is not restricted to a few verses in Genesis and Romans. It is fundamentally part of the binary framework of the entire Bible.He said: "You can’t take a 20th century word, stick it back into an ancient text, and expect it to mean something entirely unknown to the authors of the text. These verses are quoted as if our world has never changed."

The Anglican Primates don't agree. Last month, the Archbishop of Sudan, Dr Daniel Deng Bul, said "we cannot have a different Bible for the 21st century. We can’t change our Bible because of changes in human rights."

Gene, you might note that Archbishop Deng Bul, for whom you have so little respect, is actually a century ahead of you!

Beside that, the world hasn't changed in any essential way. Nothing ever really changes. That is what Plato understood and why he is still the greatest of the philosophers! There is one Reality and all people, in all times and places, exist in that one cross-shaped Reality. Things can only become more what they were created. They can't become less what they were created without rebelling against God's design.

You may say that the ancients didn't "understand homosexuality", but that's a deception and contrary to the evidence. They understood it all too well and tried to keep it hidden. The only verified evidence of homosex in ancient Egypt is a painting hidden on the wall of a cave in the mountains.

Robinson has said, “Although I believe the New and Old Testaments to be the word of God, I do not believe it is the words of God."

Gene, why don't you just admit it? You don't believe that the Bible is the authoritative written word from God. You reject the Bible as an authority for your life and you encourage others to foolishly do the same.

Robinson also cited verses in the Book of Genesis that are used to argue against homosex, saying they should be taken in the context of their time.

I fully agree with that statement. When we consider Genesis in historical and cultural context, we see clearly why homosex was considered an abomination. It blurs the binary distinctions by which God orders our thinking to preserve our lives and souls.

According to Gene Robinson, the verses which forbid the spilling of a man's seed (onanism) should be considered in light of the ancient Hebrews, who as a minority struggling to multiply, saw the waste of semen as murder.

Wrong. The spilling of seed should be considered in the context of the binary reasoning of the Bible. Onanism is a violation of the order of creation. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants, which spring forth from the earth. The seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted” (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 A.D. 191).

Further, Abraham's Hebrew people were quite fruitful. They took the divine command to multiply and fill the earth seriously. The ruler-priests among his people had two wives and concubines as well. Abraham had eight sons. Jacob had twelve and Jesse had eight. And the Bible doesn't list their daughters. So, the struggling minority interpretation does not fit the facts.

Evaluation of Robinson's crusade "to take back the church" makes it apparent that it is driven by ignorance and misrepresentation of the Church and of the Bible.

He said, "I am doing everything I can to undo the harm that has been done by churches... " Indeed, he will do everything he can to undermine the authority of the Scriptures, Church Tradition, and the divine order evident in creation.

Vicky Gene reduces the Gospel to social activism.

"I have tried to bring God's voice to the struggle we are all in. God's voice has been abused in the name of hatred and bigotry for far too long and it is time we took Scripture and the Church back from those that would use it to hurt us."

Gene, it would be easier to start your own church. Oh! You and Louie Crew already did that. It's called "The Episcopal Church."

And were your ego to permit you to work with others, you could help Max Mitchell write his gay bible. Yes, that's the logical thing to do, and ultimately much safer than messing with God's Book.

Related reading: Male and Female are Primary in the Hebrew Scriptures; Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; Is Opposition to Homosexual Activity Irrational? by Thomas Stork; Gay Agenda Must Destroy the Priesthood; Sweeping Away Gender and the Biblical Worldview; Binary is a Bad word These Days

Genesis and African Bishops

Alice C. Linsley

Anglican Archbishop Bernard Amos Malango of Central Africa in a letter to former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold stated: "The false gospel you are promoting by your actions is not saving anyone; it is an illusion." Here an African bishop states that what the Episcopal Church claims as real is far from reality. What does Bishop Malango mean by this?

His statement referenced the Episcopal Church’s public commitment to homosex as a blessed state, created by God. Regardless of how one may feel personally about homosex, the tradition of Israel, that of the Apostles, and the biblical worldview agree that homosex is a violation of God's order in creation. The man's seed is to go to the proper place, just as the plant seeds find their proper place in the ground.

How is it that African bishops confidently insist that their reading of the Bible is authentic on this issue? Is it arrogance or a power grab on their part? Are they trying to control the Anglican Communion? Hardly. Africans grasp the worldview of Genesis because Genesis presents an African worldview, specifically a Nilotic worldview.

African Christians resonate with the book of Genesis and universally recognize its authority. It feels African to them. Indeed, Abraham’s ancestors came out of west central Africa and the palace city of Sheba, one of Abraham's ancestors, has been found in a dense jungle on the Atlantic coast of Nigeria. The oldest human fossils have been found in Africa, most recently in Cameroon, not far from the area that was once the homeland of Noah. Scholars now acknowledge the African cultural heritage behind Judaism, Christianity, Islam and some Vedic texts. (See, for examples, the work of Abraham Akong, Cora Agatucci and George Lichtblau.)

The Old Testament speaks of many cultural phenomena that are associated with traditional African religions: the priesthood, animal sacrifice, consecration of objects, sacred kings, theophanies on mountains, circumcision, sacred law, blood rituals and taboos, sacred time, gender roles, and telling history through sacred story and genealogy.

Traditional African religions revere the teachings of the fathers or elders and regard the older traditions as being more authoritative than the newer. Innovations are not the hot item in traditional African societies.

The Word, as eternal, generative and originating with God, is a common theme in African oral arts, recurring among many tribes. This concept of the eternal and generative power of the Word is expressed in the following song of the Pygmies of Africa:

In the beginning was God.
Today is God.
Tomorrow will be God.
Who can make an image of God?
He has no body.
He is as a word that comes out from your mouth.
That word! It is no more.
It is past and still it lives!
So is God.

Consider also this praise song of the Bambara of Mali:

The word is total:
It cuts, excoriates
Forms, modulates
Perturbs, maddens
Cures or directly kills
Amplifies or reduces
According to intention
It excites or calms souls.

African bishops resonate to the cultural context of Genesis and understand that Genesis orients the whole of sacred Scripture. For Africans the Bible speaks in familiar tones, from a familiar context. It is a context that maintains binary distinctions: heaven and earth, night and day, male and female, God’s way and man’s way. In this context male and female supplementarity is an expression of God’s creative power and homosexuality signals not evolutionary advance, but devolution from Paradise.

Tribal religions operate on the principal: as in heaven so on earth. So, it is not surprising that the oldest moon cycle counter, the Lebombo Bone, was found in Africa. It is between 85,000 and 100,000 years old and represents a binary calendar.

Traditional African religions are based on a binary view of reality. Likewise, Genesis assumes the binary distinctions of day-night, sun-moon, heaven-earth and male-female. These are seen as a signature in nature of the Creator who loves order (te-hut) and hates disorder, chaos and lawlessness (te-hom). The Episcopal Church has rejected this biblical worldview in favor of its own view, characterized by randomness, evolutionary theory, socialism, materialism, individualism, and western arrogance.

In Genesis, readers find the most fundamental theological assertions concerning God. These are that God is the creator, that God is sovereign over all the earth, that God cares for and interacts with his creation, that God created humans male and female in God’s image, that sin leads to separation from God and kin, that God has a redemptive plan and that God’s plan includes judgment and mercy. Judgment comes as the consequence of breaking the laws established by the Creator "in the beginning." God’s mercy is seen in the restoration of the offender to Himself and to the community. The fullest expression of this restoration is found in Christ Jesus, who reconciles the world to the Father through His blood.

One can find African bishops who reject some of these fundamental assertions. Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu is an example, but he is an anomaly and anomalies serve as exceptions to the rule. His Anglican Church of Southern Africa is an anomaly among the African churches, as it is the only one to ordain both women and non-celibate homosexuals to the priesthood.

Tutu has said, "Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?" (Interview with All Africa News)

Clearly, this bishop doesn't accept the biblical worldview as the Church has received it, and which the Church has no authority to change. Nor does the Church have the power to change the fundamental order of nature that was established by God in the beginnning. Can we reverse gravity or make the sun to rise in the West? It is arrogant to think we have such power.

It is delightfully ironic that the Lebombo bone, the oldest evidence for a binary worldview was found in Swaziland, in southern Africa. God does have a terrific sense of humor!


Related reading:  Why The Episcopal Church Leaders Hate the Nigerians; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; Avoiding Heresy