Christian marchers in the Philippines | Photo: Twitter @AcetylKohlin
Whether you were raised with Christian beliefs or not, you know the Bible quote that has tortured many LGBTI people.
The verse, Leviticus 18:22, states: ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination’.
But now, a Harvard biblical scholar has suggested this line was not in the original text.
Was the Bible originally fine with homosexuality?
Idan Dershowitz believes, like many ancient texts, the Bible had more than one writer.
The line that calls homosexuality an ‘abomination’ was possibly written more than a century after the original chapter was written.
‘Like many ancient texts, Leviticus was created gradually over a long period and includes the words of more than one writer,’ Dershowitz wrote.
‘Many scholars believe that the section in which Leviticus 18 appears was added by a comparatively late editor, perhaps one who worked more than a century after the oldest material in the book was composed.’
He argued the older version of Leviticus did not mention homosexuality at all.
Dershowitz says his evidence is the line appears strange in context.
Leviticus 18 is mostly about a ban on incest and bestiality. It also bans having sex with a woman while she is on her period.
‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord,’ it begins.
Anti-homosexuality line added a ‘century later’
Dershowitz says: ‘The key to understanding this editorial decision is the concept of “the exception proves the rule.”
‘According to this principle, the presence of an exception indicates the existence of a broader rule.’
‘Many of the rules presented in Leviticus have ‘glosses’ attached at the end of the sentence, or clauses that repeat the rule.’
There are only two glosses in Leviticus 18 that change the rule found in the first part of the sentence. Those two lines are the ones that ban incest between two men. Evidence, Dershowitz writes, that a later author touched them up.
‘This editor’s decision to neutralize old laws by writing new glosses, instead of deleting the laws altogether, is serendipitous: He left behind just enough clues for his handiwork to be perceptible,’ he wrote.
‘Using these few bits of text to justify bigotry is irresponsible’
John Pavlovitz, a Christian preacher, believes religious people should not use the Bible to attack LGBTI people.
‘Using these few bits of text to justify discrimination and bigotry is reckless and irresponsible,’ he wrote in an op-ed for Gay Star News.
‘We don’t rely on the Bible to understand gender identity and sexual orientation for the same reason we don’t rely on a 2,000 year old medical text to understand the circulatory system, or use ancient hieroglyphics to understand the Cosmos.’
