With neither the book of Leviticus nor homosexuality being one of
my specific research interests, I had not read Jerome T. Walsh’s “Leviticus
18:22 and 20:13: Who is Doing What To Whom?,” JBL 120
(2001): 201-209, when it first came out. But I did some work on
Leviticus recently and a blog post comment by Jerome T. Walsh whetted my
appetite for his contribution. In it he
draws attention to Saul M. Olyan’s essay “’And with a Male You Shall Not
Lie the Lying down of a Woman’: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus
18:22 and 20:13,” in the Journal of the History of Sexuality 5
(1994): 179-206.
The two verses in question are widely understood to condemn gay sex
but there remains disagreement as to whether the law specifically refers to
anal intercourse or to homoerotic acts generally, and if the former whether
only the penetrative role is prohibited or both the penetrative and receptive
roles.
Comparing the idiom משכבי אשה with משכב זכר in Num. 31:17-18, 35 and Judg. 21:11-12, Olyan
argues that Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 specifically refer to intercourse. Observing
that in biblical law the verb “to lie down with” always has the penetrative
partner as its subject, he concludes that Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 address the one
who penetrates. He argues further that the emphasis on the guilt of both
parties in Lev. 20:13 is the result of later editorial activity of the sort
also evident in Lev. 20:10.
Olyan then notes
“The general proscription of male-male intercourse in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 is striking in light of the evidence from Athens, Rome, and the Middle Assyrian Laws. In the classical cultural contexts, status plays a significant part in determining licit and illicit couplings between males and in the bounding of the receptive and insertive roles: a nonfreeborn male could be legitimately penetrated by any man; in contrast, a freeborn male could not be penetrated by another of equal status, nor by a male of lower status. In the Middle Assyrian Laws, , status, coercion, and repeated acts of receptivity appear to play a part in constructing the boundaries between sanctioned and prohibited behaviors among men. In contrast, Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 ban all male couplings involving anal penetration, seemingly those coerced and those voluntary; those with men of higher status, equal status, or lower status; those with men of one’s own community or another community. The comprehensive character of the prohibitions appears to antedate the activity of the final H redactors; there is no evidence that the two formulations were anything but general in scope” (pp. 194-95).
Olyan observes that “a rhetoric of inclusivity permeates much of
H’s material” (p. 195) and suggests that this emphasis on equal status before
the law “may be one reason why the prohibition of male-male intercourse…[is]
apparently unrelated to the status of the insertive and receptive partner” (p.
196). He notes the use of the general designation “male” rather than the more
specific “your neighbour” (which would point to equal status).
Walsh appreciates and accepts Olyan’s argument for reading these
two verses as specifically prohibiting anal intercourse but takes issue with
the claim that Leviticus is distinctive within the ancient world for its
general disapproval of male-male intercourse without regard to status or role.
Walsh observes that Olyan made no distinction between the verb used
in Num. 31:17-18, 35 and Judg. 21:11-12 (“to know,” i.e. “to experience”) and
the one used in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 (“to lie down,” namely with someone). Walsh
argues that we must contrast “know” (experience of someone else’s action) with
“lie down” (perform the action implied in משכב). In other words, to know משכב זכר (experience the
penetration of a male) is the same as to perform משכבי אשה (act as the receptive partner) and to
know משכבי אשה (experience a receptive partner) is the same as to perform משכב זכר (act as the male who
penetrates). On this view, the prohibition in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 could have
been phrases as “You must not know משכב זכר“ (in analogy to Num. 31:18, 35; Judg. 21:11)
or “You must not know a man למשכב זכר“ (in analogy to
Num. 31:17; Judg. 21:12).
Walsh believes that the “male” with whom the addressee of Lev.
18:22 and 20:13 is forbidden to lie down must be the penetrator and hence “the
person addressed by the laws is the receptive partner” (p. 205). In other
words, what Walsh believes to be at stake in the law is not male-male sexual
intercourse generally but the feminisation (surrender of male status and
authority) of the free, male citizen of Israel who allows himself to be
penetrated.
In fact, Olyan’s philological analysis lacked precision also in
another respect which was overlooked by Walsh. Olyan observes that when a woman
experiences משכב זכר, she can be said to
experience “male penetration.” It is easy to conclude from this that משכב זכר means “male penetration” and
therefore should be rendered along the lines of “a male having sex (with her)”
but this is a fallacy because the alternative rendering “she having sex with a
male” is also possible. The experience is the same but the grammatical
description is different.
In terms of Num. 31:17 and Judg. 21:12 where the phrase is
introduced with ל, i.e. “every woman
who has known a man with regard to having sex with a male / a male having
sex,” we could say that Olyan has failed to raise the question whether the
construct chain משכב זכר specifies the object
of the verb (knowing a man, namely knowing him as a male going
to bed [with you]) or the verb itself (knowing a man, namely knowing
a man in the sense of going to bed with a male). He apparently assumes
the former but both ways of describing the experience would seem possible. On
Olyan’s reading of the texts, it is not necessary to rule out decisively one of
the options because the law condemns both the action of penetrating a male and
a male being penetrated. But for Walsh’s argument it is absolutely critical
that the construct chain can only be understood in one way, namely with the
second noun (the postconstructus) specifying the performer of the action implied
in the first noun (the constructus).
In favour of reading the construct chain משכב זכר with the male (זכר) as the agent of the verbal act implied inמשכב is the observation that it is more
commonly a man who is said to lie down with a woman rather than the other way
round. But in Gen. 19:32-33 and 2 Sam. 13:11 women are said to lie down with a
man, so it is clear that the idiom can work both ways. In favour of the more
conventional reading “has known a man by sleeping with him” (NRSV, by way of
example) is the observation that in every single occurrence in which the verb שכב refers to sexual intercourse in the Hebrew Bible the verb has an
object, either in the form of a direct object (marked with את) or a complement, i.e. an oblique object
introduced with a preposition (את
or עם, the latter nearly always in direct speech,
maybe suggesting a different register). Therefore, given that along with the
act the agent is implied in the construct noun, we may expect the
postconstructus to offer the complement. If so, the construct chain would work
similarly to the one in 2 Sam. 4:5 which seems to be the only place other than
the ones mentioned above in which משכב carries a strong verbal notion and is
used in a construct chain.[1]
If משכב זכר can be read either way, as “bedding a male” (male = object) or “the bedding that a
male does” (male = subject), it is difficult to argue that משכבי אשה cannot mean “the beddings of a woman” (woman = object) but
must be read as “the beddings that a woman does” (woman = subject), as Walsh assumes.
In fact, the argument above in favour of reading משכב זכר as “the bedding that a male does,” namely the observation that it
is more commonly the man who is said to bed the woman, now works against reading
משכבי אשה as “the beddings of a woman” and especially so given the
surrounding legal context in which the subject of the cognate verb is always a
man. This leaves Walsh’s parsing of the construct chain without an argument in
its favour, while the argument against remains, namely that in cases where משכב refers to sexual intercourse we would
expect a complement to be specified.
In sum, Olyan’s philological analysis can be questioned but his conclusion that Lev. 18:22
and 20:13 ban all male couplings involving anal penetration appears to be
sound.
I have offered a similar line of reasoning, focused on Walsh’s
essay, in a guest blog post on Ian Paul’s blog.
[1]
Ishboshet is said to “lie down the lying-down-of-noonday.” So if משכב הצהרים is the lying down “at noonday,” it should not be difficult to
read משכב זכר as the laying down
“with a male.” Elsewhere משכב refers to a place rather than an action, e.g. in 2 Sam. 4:7, 11.
