Maybe this can help answer some questions about the ancient religion and culture. Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality Dennis Prager When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women. It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man's life and the life of society. Throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society. Human sexuality, especially male sexuality, is polymorphous, or utterly wild (far more so than animal sexuality). Men have had sex with women and with men; with little girls and young boys; with a single partner and in large groups; with total strangers and immediate family members; and with a variety of domesticated animals. They have achieved orgasm with inanimate objects such as leather, shoes, and other pieces of clothing, through urinating and defecating on each other (interested readers can see a photograph of the former at select art museums exhibiting the works of the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe); by dressing in women's garments; by watching other human beings being tortured; by fondling children of either sex; by listening to a woman's disembodied voice (e.g., "phone sex"); and, of course, by looking at pictures of bodies or parts of bodies. There is little, animate or inanimate, that has not excited some men to orgasm. Of course, not all of these practices have been condoned by societies — parent-child incest and seducing another's man's wife have rarely been countenanced — but many have, and all illustrate what the unchanneled, or in Freudian terms, the "un-sublimated," sex drive can lead to. http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/PragerHomosexuality.php
out of curiosity (not debate), what's your view on gay animals (other than humans)? Doesn't matter? Some of their parents nurture them to be gay? just curious.
The people who actually founded Western civilization, the ancient Greeks and Romans, would like to have a word with the author, and educate him a bit about the roots of Western civilization. When you build a thesis on completely erroneous foundations, it is easy to argue for the truth of anything.
Eh, that wasn't really the point of the article to me (even though Judaism did play big role in the development of Western culture). More: Inventing Homosexuality The revolutionary nature of Judaism's prohibiting all forms of non-marital sex was nowhere more radical, more challenging to the prevailing assumptions of mankind, than with regard to homosexuality. Indeed, Judaism may be said to have invented the notion of homosexuality, for in the ancient world sexuality was not divided between heterosexuality and homosexuality. That division was the Bible's doing. Before the Bible, the world divided sexuality between penetrator (active partner) and penetrated (passive partner). As Martha Nussbaum, professor of philosophy at Brown University, recently wrote, the ancients were no more concerned with people's gender preference than people today are with others' eating preferences: Ancient categories of sexual experience differed considerably from our own... The central distinction in sexual morality was the distinction between active and passive roles. The gender of the object... is not in itself morally problematic. Boys and women are very often treated interchangeably as objects of [male] desire. What is socially important is to penetrate rather than to be penetrated. Sex is understood fundamentally not as interaction, but as a doing of some thing to someone... Judaism changed all this. It rendered the "gender of the object" very "morally problematic"; it declared that no one is "interchangeable" sexually. And as a result, it ensured that sex would in fact be "fundamentally interaction" and not simply "a doing of something to someone". To appreciate the extent of the revolution wrought by Judaism's prohibiting homosexuality and demanding that all sexual interaction be male-female, it is first necessary to appreciate just how universally accepted, valued, and practiced homosexuality has been throughout the world. The one continuous exception was Jewish civilization — and a thousand years later, Christian civilization. Other than the Jews, "none of the archaic civilizations prohibited homosexuality per se," Dr. David E. Greenberg notes. It was Judaism alone that about 3,000 years ago declared homosexuality wrong.
In the OT...if you're quoting Leviticus and saying, "that's the law" as a Christian you've missed the boat or you're being disingenous. We do not follow the law as laid out in Leviticus. We are not stoning our children to death when they're disobedient, for example. Beyond that...remember that the Israelites were constantly fighting for their survival. The seed of the people is sacred. It was said to be a sin to spill your seed on the ground....because these are a people who are surrounded in by threatening empires and enslaved at least twice. Their culture and their survival is at stake. That context helps us understand a lot of their laws and customs, I believe. In the NT...there are but a few references to homosexuality, but none are from Jesus, himself. There are quite a few Christian scholars who will tell you that what Paul was speaking against wasn't the committed relationships amongst same-sex partners, but rather the sexual abuse of young boys who were effectively used as sex slaves in the temples to Roman gods and goddesses. We spend an inordinate amount of time on this issue (and others like it) when Jesus says the key issues are (1) loving God and (2) loving other people as ourselves.
It was harder to find because it doesn't have 'homosexual' in there for the search to hit upon. I'd also point out, to follow my earlier theme, that the 'they' discussed there is all humanity, so when he rattling off types of sinners, he's not making a distinction between righteous and unrighteous people, he's just describing our history with sin. And the larger context he's discussing is the forgiveness given for all sins. Jews haven't been able to offer sacrifices since 70 AD because the Temple was destroyed. They are only acceptable in the Temple.
Sin is separation from God. Hell is the absence of God. I don't believe "things" or "actions" are sins. The question is whether it separates you from God. I certainly believe for some that any sort of sexuality could be pursued in a way that leads to separation from God...particularly where it objectifies human beings - which sadly, I'm guilty of. Beyond that, I'm not remotely interested in projecting any of this beyond the Church...for the people who "signed up" for the whole seeking-after-God-through-the-person-of-Christ thing. Your choices are your own...and no one's house has to be in order to seek after God; otherwise none of us ever would. Ultimately, I'm thankful for Jesus...because if I find myself in the presence of God, it's gonna because of him. Do you ever go see Jay Baker in NYC? I know this was a huge issue for him.
no, but i'm aware of him. you might also be interested in: http://www.churchofthevillage.org/ my children perform in the annual christmas pageant.
been a little bit of that early on...but not much. GladiatorRowdy called out someone who did it on the first couple of pages, actually. i stay out of the threads once the bashing starts. or at least i try to stay out.
Have your read his book "Son of A Preacher Man"? It will change your opinion of his father. Very interesting read. for those who have not heard of Jay Baker..the kid is definitely NOT afraid to speak his mind... <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/s30ZKjNfRlU" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>
