“You shall not lie with a male as with a
woman; it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22, NRSV)
In his contribution to the Pilling Report David Runcorn attempts to show that “it
is at least questionable whether the concern here is with homosexuality at all.”
This is part of an argument that seeks to
demonstrate that what is condemned in Scripture has no relationship to the “contemporary
phenomenon” of faithful, committed, and we may now add egalitarian,
relationships.
DR postulates that “the setting” of Leviticus
18 is “a culture in which male role, status and behaviour is the sole, driving
concern.” Even overlooking the unwarranted use of the qualifiers “sole” and
“driving,” we should ask whether this is the only factor of its setting which
is relevant here. The justification for the limits on sexual activity given in
Lev 18 itself, in the frame in verses 1-5 and 24-30. These limits were meant
to differentiate Israel from the Canaanites whose behaviour in this realm is
judged abominable.
This raises, possibly unanswerable,
historical questions but certainly should caution us against painting the whole
of antiquity with the same brush of obsession with “male ownership and
possession” – attitudes to homosexuality in ancient
Canaanite, Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts need to be compared with what we find in
Scripture.
What is, however, even more remarkable is
that DR then makes it sound as if “the controlling belief in male dominance and
superiority” is not only the setting but also the intent of this biblical
law. Is a prior conviction that all strictures on homosexual activity express a
concern with male status the reason for thinking such a concern lies behind Lev
18? Or is there anything in Lev 18 itself which would point us in this
direction?
DR appeals to difficulties in
translating Lev 18:22 but believes that “the concern here seems to be men
behaving ‘like women’ (ie passive/submissive) in same sex intercourse.” In
fact, it seems to be reasonably uncontroversial to say that the text condemns “a
man treating another man sexually as he would treat a woman.” DR
interprets “the insertion of the penis” as an “act of male possession” and
suggests that it would have been considered inappropriate for a man to
take possession of another male in this way.
DR offers no evidence for the claim that
penetration equals possession in biblical law but an argument to that
effect can be found in Gareth Moore, A Question of
Truth: Christianity and Homosexuality (London: Continuum, 2003). Given that
biblical laws concerning slavery allow for men becoming the possession of
another man, it might have been useful to explain what exactly –in this view– was
abominable about a sexual act of possession in the cultural context postulated.
The view also fails to explain the
rationale of the next half-verse. If sexual penetration is all about
possession, it makes sense to prohibit the penetration of a woman by an animal
(Lev 18:23b) but it is less clear why the penetration of an animal by a man
(Lev 18:23a) is condemned. This suggests that maybe there is more here than a
concern with property and hierarchy.
The concern with penetration does,
however, explain the absence of condemnation of lesbian sex in Lev 18 and
Garteh Moore is right to point out that Lev 18 does not prohibit, e.g., men kissing
each other.
Seeking to understand the logic behind a
condemnation is a good thing. Moore offers a helpful illustration (Question
of Truth, pp 63-65).
But we should not dismiss the relevance of a text on the assumption that it was
driven by a concern which is no longer ours. We have not yet fully understood and
heeded Scripture, if we content ourselves with ignoring a text because we know ourselves more enlightened today.
As a self-professed evangelical, DR needs to face the question whether
God’s instructions for Israel were indeed concerned with strengthening male
status and on what grounds this was appropriate then but is not appropriate
now. Why did God apparently reveal laws which were not merely designed to function
in a male-dominated society but actually shaped to further strengthen male status?
Given the rationale for the condemnations
in Lev 18 offered in the passage itself, should we conclude that
Canaanite culture was insufficiently androcentric in God’s eyes? Maybe reducing this text to a concern for male status is ill advised in the light of textual features which are thereby ignored.
