Spam is a REAL problem, so I have to moderate the first comment to catch the ads for Viagra, casinos and other junk. (In fact, I will probably have to rescue this comment from moderation, since I used the V-word).

I still don’t understand what is so “bizarre” about the idea that if God is going to send to hell homosexuals who are involved in a life long, committed, monogamous relationship then why didn’t he bother to mention it specifically in the ten commandments and why did Jesus not bother to mention it while he was walking the Earth? I’m looking for an answer other than “find a pastor or elder with lots of church credentials and just blindly believe what he tells you”

Also I would like to clarify an important point. I’m not saying that homosexual practice is “congruent with the kingdom”. I’m saying that Christians need to instead be worrying about much more important sins such as lying, cheating, stealing, murdering, divorce, adultery and coveting. Once a Christian has conquered all those planks in his own eyes should he put any time or effort into worrying about the life long, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships of other Christians.

You might notice that I use the term “logical quagmire” quite often. I selected the word “quagmire” carefully. It does not imply logical error. The logical thinking you guys use to dig down into scripture is fine but it often leads to strange results that, in my view, conflict with Jesus’ instructions. Paul’s logical hermeneutics lead him down a murderous path until God had to intervene to straighten him out.

The logical quagmire I’m most interested in discussing at this moment is why did God give us the long and gritty details in Leviticus 18 (although sex with daughters and sex with slaves is conspicuously absent) when all those prohibitions are clearly already forbidden by the simple rules that you can’t have sex until you are married and then after marriage you can only have sex with your own wife? Is there something else going on in Leviticus 18 that the currently popular hermeneutics is ignoring?

My apologies for pointing this out, but you’ve demonstrated that you have no biblical hermeneutic, at all. The basis of all biblical hermeneutics is an acceptance that the Bible, in its original language, is the inspired Word of God. Without this assumption, then you’re merely engaging in textual criticism of a religious book, and you might as well not even pretend to believe parts of it.

It has seriously been a long time, perhaps never, since I’ve seen such a demonstration of brazen ignorance.

Leviticus is, literally, dictated from God – it says so. You’ve said that you only accept “the words of God” as authoritative, and Lev. 18:1 reaffirms that everything in that chapter is dictated from Him. So, in reality, you even refuse your own definition!

The reason for the lengthy lists in Lev 18 is because of the high mortality rate (and the availability of divorce) – preventing inbreeding, disease and perversion. As I’ve already demonstrated, there is no need to separate out having sex with your daughter (or your wife’s daughter from another marriage), and marrying your slave is not prohibited, unless you are already married (in which case, it would be adultery).

Let me explain it once again. Your hermeneutic of referencing all of Leviticus 18 in Jesus’ words “sexual immorality” above requires Jesus to condone and approve of having sex with your daughters and your slaves. It’s just another logical quagmire in your favored hermeneutic that you refuse to deal with because its not convenient for you to do so.

There is no logical quagmire to unravel, because Lev 18 does not condone or approve incest.

In my hermeneutic it is very important to understand why the ten commandments were etched in stone tablets and the rest of Torah was not.

I’ve already explained it to you, and most any Christian pastor or elder could explain it to you, as well. The Ten Commandments is the high-level summary of the law.

I need to head out here, but I will continue later, preferably on my other blog.

I will be out for a bit this evening and much of tomorrow, so if you want to keep discussing, I’d suggest going to my post about our conversation on my other blog here, where folks have already been commenting on it.

thanks

No, he is not, but if you do not believe what he wrote is inspired, then you basically have no basis for hermeneutics, as you’ve denied the basic inspiration of the Bible. If that’s the case, then we really have no place for discussion, because you believe that the Bible is optional.

The Bible is not optional. It is fundamental. Your mistake is to believe that I have “no basis for hermeneutics” just because you are having difficulty understanding my basis. You should be honest and humble and admit that there are ideas in this world that you don’t understand.

> “I’m only interested in what God thinks.”

He’s told you what He thinks through Paul, but it’s inconvenient to your opinions.

Actually its only your interpretations of the words of God and the words of Paul with which I take issue.

Unfortunately, God’s opinions happen to matter more, and He’s expressed them in ALL of scripture.

Actually, for me, God’s opinions are the only opinions that matter. Thus again is my point. Paul’s opinions and your opinions are much less important to me because you and he are not God.

ALL of the Law (Torah) came from God on Mount Sinai, not just the written portion on the tablets. The Law was passed on orally by Moses initially…

In my hermeneutic it is very important to understand why the ten commandments were etched in stone tablets and the rest of Torah was not. Why did God go to all that extra trouble? This is a key question that all of your hermeneutics ignore. This is a flaw in your hermeneutics. I’ll try to not to be so bold and arrogant as to say you don’t have any hermeneutics just because I disagree with some of your techniques.

It has nothing to do with my like or dislike for homosexual relationships…

I believe that it does indeed have much to do with your likes and dislikes but you have cleverly covered your tracks with historically complicated and cleverly legalistic hermeneutics. My hermeneutics are much more simple and straightforward that don’t dead end into logical quagmires.

I have a number of gay friends who I pray for on a regular basis.

I don’t even keep track of which of my friends are “gay” and which ones are not. I notice instead, which of my friends struggle with promiscuity and which ones celebrate life long, committed, monogamous relationships. Some of my promiscuous friends have died from AIDS. None of my monogamous friends have any issues with sexually transmitted diseases. Imagine that?

>”Quoting the Torah is always a tricky business. Leviticus is
>especially interesting. Did you notice that Leviticus 18 does
>not forbid having sexual relations with one’s own daughter or
>one’s own slave?”

Actually, it does. 1) It forbids having sex with a woman and her daughter. If the woman’s daughter is your daughter, then you had to have sex with her mother, by definition. 2) If you are married, it forbids adultery. Having sex with your slave would be adultery. 3) Sexual relations outside of marriage are forbidden in Torah, as well, so having sex with your slave would not be allowed.

Hey, that’s quite a clever set of logical hoops you have jumped through. So tell me, why is Leviticus 18 even required since you have just pointed out that one is not allowed to have sex with anyone but their own wife? Are the prophets who passed down Leviticus 18 a bunch of morons for not being able to remember that its already been forbidden??? If they were inspired by God (as your hermeneutic claims) then you must be saying that God himself is a moron for repeating himself yet forgetting about sex with daughters and slaves. Does your God not care about the raping of daughters and slaves? You see, this is one of those dead end logical quagmires caused by the currently popular but deeply flawed hermeneutics that you subscribe to and that I was talking about earlier.

>”To restate my point. God was indeed silent in the Ten Commandments
>and Jesus was also silent on the issue of life long, committed,
>monogamous homosexual relationships.”

Jesus was not silent on the subject – he said For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ‘Sexual Immorality’ for EVERY first century Jew – including Jesus – is based upon where it is defined, that being Torah. Therefore, homosexual practice of any kind is included.

Let me explain it once again. Your hermeneutic of referencing all of Leviticus 18 in Jesus’ words “sexual immorality” above requires Jesus to condone and approve of having sex with your daughters and your slaves. It’s just another logical quagmire in your favored hermeneutic that you refuse to deal with because its not convenient for you to do so.

>”My point is that I’m only interested in what God
>has to say in the matter.”

And you’ve also made it clear that you don’t wish to hear what He has to say on the subject.

I humbly suggest that you are confusing my interest in understanding God’s true and uncluttered words with my hesitation over blindly accepting your own personal interpretations which as I have pointed out above contain significant logical quagmires.

You will notice that I did not bring this subject up, BtW, so please don’t accuse me of holding this stance – because I don’t.

Actually, this homosexuality discussion is just one example of my hermeneutic of separating the words of God from the words of men and giving a priority to God’s words. Another example that we can discuss later is Paul’s obnoxious and violent attitude that I believe is completely contradictory to Jesus’ instructions for how Christians should behave. But then again, Paul is a reformed murderer so it is understandable that in the soul of a cold blooded killer there would be lingering violent tendencies.

I wonder how many Christians would not have suffered at the hands of Paul if he had followed his God given “soul” instead of blindly following his flawed Jewish hermeneutic that required him to murder Christians.

You will notice that one of the writers on my other blog made this same observation earlier today. However, just because some churches are poor-to-awful witnesses when it comes to their treatment of homosexual practice does not justify an opposite reaction, making homosexual practice a lesser sin – or no sin at all…

Here’s an excerpt:

Let’s be clear, first, as this is an easy mistake to make (I did in the first article back in January). The Bible does not show that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible shows that committing homosexual acts is a sin. We in the church do a pretty good job separating temptation to sin from acting upon that temptation – except for the glaring inconsistency with homosexuality and homosexual practice.

[A fundamentalist commenter] was rather insistent that we must not treat homosexual sin differently than other sins, and I would suggest that we are forced to because we already treat the sinner differently. We don’t call someone who is tempted to steal a thief. We don’t call a man who is tempted to have oral sex with a woman but does not, a fornicator or an adulterer. However, we do call someone who is tempted with an attraction to the same sex a homosexual, whether or not they ever fall to that temptation.

As for your interpretation, you might as well be honest and say that you don’t care what God has to say about homosexual sex if it doesn’t jibe with your opinion. It’s more honest as you’re concerned, and it avoids lying about God, as well…

Paul is not God.

No, he is not, but if you do not believe what he wrote is inspired, then you basically have no basis for hermeneutics, as you’ve denied the basic inspiration of the Bible. If that’s the case, then we really have no place for discussion, because you believe that the Bible is optional. However, if you believe the Bible is inspired by God and written by men being directed by the Holy Spirit, then it doesn’t matter if it came literally from God’s mouth (which all of the Torah did) or from Paul’s pen directed by God.

I’m only interested in what God thinks.

He’s told you what He things through Paul, but it’s inconvenient to your opinions. Unfortunately, God’s opinions happen to matter more, and He’s expressed them in ALL of scripture.

Have we read the same Bible? I thought the ten commandments were instructions from God etched in stone and brought down by Moses from a mountain. Thus the Ten Commandments in my view are much more than a “preamble”.

We have read the same Bible, but it’s rather apparent you have not studied it, or its origin. ALL of the Law (Torah) came from God on Mount Sinai, not just the written portion on the tablets. The Law was passed on orally by Moses initially, and the Ten Commandments (per all Middle-Eastern cultures) is what is known as a ‘preamble’ in a contract or covenant between two parties – it contains the summary of the contract/covenant, and it is to be broken if either party breaks the intent of the covenant.

If you study Torah, you will note that it is broken up into sections which correspond to each of the “Ten Commandments”, with Leviticus 18 being tied to the command dealing with sexual sin. Homosexuality is defined within the bounds of what is covered in ’sexual sin’, and there is no caveat given for “life long, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships”.

This is also well plowed ground but not having much to do with my point. I am amused every time in the news when someone cries out that if Gays are allowed to marry then we will have to also let people marry animals. It seems to me that the argument you are supporting [that the word “adultery” in the ten commandments must forbid life long, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships so that it can also logically forbid bestiality] is an attempted “reader-response” hermeneutic on your part in which there is no rule which determines the meaning of scripture other than what is felt by the reader.

Contrary to your assertion, the reason I brought up bestiality was because it was the next verse in Leviticus, not as a ’slippery slope’ argument or a ‘reader response’ hermeneutic. It has been that way in Torah since it was given to Moses.

It seems that you desire to keep your distaste for life long, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships linked to bestiality so you adjust your interpretation of scripture to levy this requirement upon God’s words.

It has nothing to do with my like or dislike for homosexual relationships – I have a number of gay friends who I pray for on a regular basis. They do not ‘creep me out’, nor are they ‘distasteful’ to me any more than other friends who sin in other ways – lying, cheating, being drunk, etc. I has nothing to do with what I want scripture to say – it is just what it says. I have no say in the matter.

There are passages in the Bible where its claimed that God gives permission for the Israelites to murder women and children in cold blood and take the land for themselves. If someone came along with a logically air tight hermeneutic that requires that I also kill women and children and take their land I will say “NO!”. I will not do that. If I am then asked to show where the Bible says I don’t have to kill women and children, I will simply say that I don’t need to turn to the Bible because its written on my soul and I will not do it no matter what the Bible says.

This is a complete red herring. God gave some specific instructions for the cleansing of Israel in the OT, but He also ended those in the text, as well. Additionally, in the “Ten Commandments” (which you seemingly choose to recognize, while ignoring pretty much everything else in scripture) include “Do not commit murder”, which would overrule whatever interpretation might be at work. Your assumption falls apart from the beginning, because there is no hermeneutic that would justify the murder you’ve described, and even if such an interpretation was attempted, is would not be writing “on your soul” which said that such a thing was wrong – it would be scripture, itself. Just because your “soul” is in-line with scripture, doesn’t mean that it superseded what was written or inspired by God.

My point is that there are “soul” issues that outrank the printed word. It is not a “reader-response” hermeneutic to refuse to kill women and children.

No, it is not a ‘reader-response’ hermeneutic to kill women and children – all of the major hermeneutics – historical-critical, historical-grammatical and historical-literal – would forbid such an act.

However, when you say that My point is that there are “soul” issues that outrank the printed word, you have just stated that your basis of hermeneutics is ‘reader response’- that is exactly what “reader-response” is!

Quoting the Torah is always a tricky business. Leviticus is especially interesting.
Did you notice that Leviticus 18 does not forbid having sexual relations with one’s own daughter or one’s own slave?

Actually, it does. 1) It forbids having sex with a woman and her daughter. If the woman’s daughter is your daughter, then you had to have sex with her mother, by definition. 2) If you are married, it forbids adultery. Having sex with your slave would be adultery. 3) Sexual relations outside of marriage are forbidden in Torah, as well, so having sex with your slave would not be allowed.

To restate my point. God was indeed silent in the Ten Commandments and Jesus was also silent on the issue of life long, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships. This tells me clearly that if its a sin then it isn’t a very important one, not as important as murder, adultry, theft, lying and greed.

Jesus was not silent on the subject – he said For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ‘Sexual Immorality’ for EVERY first century Jew – including Jesus – is based upon where it is defined, that being Torah. Therefore, homosexual practice of any kind is included.

I do not say this because I want it to be that way. For the sake of those who have such temptation and inclinations, I wish it was not a sin, but God defines what sin is – not me – so I have to accept that.

My point is that I’m only interested in what God has to say in the matter.

And you’ve also made it clear that you don’t wish to hear what He has to say on the subject. It’s not a matter of ‘reader-response’ hermeneutics on the part of modern churches that SOME tend to treat homosexual practice as having ‘higher importance’ than other sins.

You will notice that I did not bring this subject up, BtW, so please don’t accuse me of holding this stance – because I don’t. You will notice that one of the writers on my other blog made this same observation earlier today. However, just because some churches are poor-to-awful witnesses when it comes to their treatment of homosexual practice does not justify an opposite reaction, making homosexual practice a lesser sin – or no sin at all…