Sodomy and Gomorrah

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE?

Part 3

Sodom and Gomorrah are known for two things: homosexuality and destruction. Many Christians today directly relate the two in their minds; they believe that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because their society accepted homosexuality. Indeed, references to Sodom and Gomorrah are frequent in the Christian debate over gay marriage. The argument goes that if God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for practicing homosexuality, certainly he is not pleased with the Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage, and is horrified that some Christians are openly embracing homosexuality in their churches.

So the question we must ask ourselves is this: does the Bible really say that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for accepting homosexuality? While Sodom and Gomorrah are frequently used in the Bible as a symbol of God's wrath against wickedness in general, only two books provide us with an explanation for why God destroyed them: Ezekiel and Jude. For this article, we will analyze the story of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction found in Genesis, and then see how both Ezekiel and Jude understood God's reasoning for destroying them.

Adam and Steve

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE?
Part 2

One of the most common slogans thrown out by Christians who believe homosexuality is still a sin is this: "God made Adam and Eve, NOT Adam and Steve."

This is a reference to the first chapters in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Few Christians would disagree with it: Genesis does indeed say that God made Adam and Eve, and there quite literally is no mention of a man named "Steve." So why do those Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin say it? To answer this, we need to understand the nature of religious myths.

Unlike how most of us use the term "myth" in our everyday conversations, myth as a category for understanding religion DOES NOT imply that a story is false. Nor does it imply that a story is true. A myth is simply a story that is held as sacred or important by a religious community.^[1] Since the Bible contains many stories Christians continue to read today, the Bible can be understood to be a compilation of many myths. Frequently myths are used as a way of understanding why people of a certain religion/culture do the things that they do. For instance, if you asked a random Protestant why Christians take Communion, they would probably answer that this practice was performed by Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. Here, the Last Supper is acting as a myth, which provides meaning and explanation to the modern Christian practice of Communion. Myths, while describing the past, are very often tied to the present. They help us understand why we do the things we do, or why things are the way they are.

So what Christians are really implying when they point out that God did not make Adam and Steve is that the creation story in Genesis is the myth that they use to understand their own marriage norms, as well as to explain why they think those norms should be practiced by everyone else. In other words, they believe that God originally made one man to be with one woman, and therefore that is how marriage ought to be today, no exceptions.

For this article, we will be analyzing the first two chapters in Genesis to see if they indeed were meant to set God's standard for marriage through the creation myth of Adam and Eve. So we will be looking for these two things within the text:

1. References to marriage or sex to show a connection between Adam and Eve's creation and marriage/sexual practices

2. Evidence that the author(s) of Genesis meant us to take Adam and Eve's creation literally 

Without both of these elements, pointing out that God did not make Adam and Steve makes little sense. Before we begin our investigation of the text, it first must be pointed out that there is not one creation myth in the first two chapters of Genesis; there are actually TWO! Like many Old Testament books, Genesis was not written by one author, but rather is a combination of many sources all compiled by various editors over centuries. The first written edition of Genesis probably originated around the 11th century BCE, and it's final round of editing probably occurred around the end of the 6th century BCE. That's about 500 years of editing!^[2]

While this makes things complicated, we are not studying the entirety of Genesis, just the first two chapters that contain the two creation myths. We really just need to understand the intentions of the Genesis editor(s) who chose to include these two myths. To keep things easy to read, let's say that there was one editor of Genesis responsible for pairing the two creation myths who lived some time between 1000 BCE and 500 BCE, and let's call that editor "Ed" (his full name is Editor, obviously).

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE?

Part 1

With the recent Supreme Court ruling which legalized gay marriage in all fifty states, Facebook blew up with people citing the Bible to support their views on the issue. What's weird is that both Christians who support AND Christians who oppose gay marriage quoted the same Bible. Why? How can two groups use the same text to argue two opposing positions? To better understand the nature of religious arguments such as this, we first need to explore the concepts of canon and exegesis.