Same Sex Sin and Old Testament Temple Homosexuals

  You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
  If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Another approach that strives to evade the clear teaching of the Leviticus passages that prohibit homosexuality focuses on the historical context and the biblical background, asserting that once these are properly understood, people will see that the Leviticus passages do not condemn homosexuality as we know it today. These passages do, according to these revisionists, condemn homosexuality of a particular kind. They claim that once we allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, the Bible simply does not condemn every form or expression of homosexuality. This claim holds that the homosexuality that is prohibited in the Leviticus context was an expression of homosexuality that was somehow linked to religious practices. The Bible does reference and thoroughly condemn those who practice homosexuality in a religious or idolatrous manner, usually in a context of religious or temple prostitution. The difficulty is that these revisionists are claiming that this type of homosexuality is the only type being prohibited by Leviticus.

Their argument typically contends that the Bible allows for heterosexual expressions of love and homosexual expression of love (which is their assumption). Just as it is defiling to practice heterosexual love in an idolatrous manner as part of one’s religious devotion or with a temple prostitute, they say, so too it is wrong to practice homosexual love in such a context. Their reasoning continues in this manner: “It is just as wrong for a heterosexual male to visit a female cult (religious) prostitute as it is for a homosexual male to visit a male cult prostitute.”


LETTING THE REVISIONISTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

L. William Countryman speaks of this religious expression of homosexuality as he refers to the writer of the book of Leviticus: “The author may well have regarded … homosexual acts … as tainted with idolatry.”1
Scanzoni and Mollenkott argue similarly in their book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? They write,

  Most scholars agree that in the fertility religions of Israel’s neighbors, male cult prostitutes were employed for homosexual acts. The people who loved and served the God of Israel were strictly forbidden to have anything to do with such idolatry, and Jewish men were commanded never to serve as temple prostitutes (Deut. 23:17–19; 1 Kings 14:24; 2 Kings 23:7).

Charles Coppinger, a former chaplain of the Arizona State Legislature, ousted when he revealed that he was homosexual, has commented, 

“The verses most people cite regarding homosexuality actually speak of sexual immorality, idolatry, inhospitality, and promiscuity. They are silent regarding monogamous, loving, committed, same-sex relationships.”

Dr. Joseph A. Pearson, in his video series Christianity and Homosexuality (Reconciled), points out this same connection between homosexuality and idolatry in Leviticus and 1 Kings. This connection is, according to these revisionists, solely a connection between idolatry and homosexuality. Pearson recognizes that Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 refer to homosexuality, and he also admits that God drove out the nations who were in the land before Israel, in part for their homosexual practices. Driven out for what kind of homosexual practice? Was it just any and every expression of homosexuality? Not according to the revisionists.

Pearson refers to 1 Kings 14 and points out that the “sodomites” (KJV), or “male cult prostitutes” (NASB), were then in the land during Rehoboam’s reign. He then cites verse 24: 

“They [the sodomites] did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD dispossessed before the sons of Israel.” The abominations included temple cult prostitution, homosexuality of an idolatrous nature. Pearson, with a peek into biblical backgrounds, has shown us that 1 Kings 14:24 is pointing back to that which is referenced by the book of Leviticus. The homosexual temple prostitutes were plying their trade “according to all the abominations of the nations, which the LORD had dispossessed before the sons of Israel.” 

Pearson explains,

Had homosexuality been the reason that the Lord had cast out the nation before the children of Israel, he would not have referred specifically to male temple cult prostitution in 1 Kings 14:24. Thus, we are provided, in 1 Kings 14:24, with an important—a very important—interpretive link to Leviticus 18:22: that God is referring to male-male sex in the context of temple cult prostitution. Further, in Leviticus 18:21–24, all four verses must be taken together: “For by these things.”

If the biblical background can be colored in accordance with the revisionists’ desires, then the prohibitions against homosexuality will look sensible in their time and context but appear ridiculous in ours. The revisionists happily declare their consonance with the biblical prohibitions, stating that they, too, are opposed to this type of homosexual expression. This approach, however, is an attempt at evading the Leviticus prohibitions. 

It gives the impression of being scholarly and of allowing the Bible to interpret the Bible. It claims to recognize and honor the Levitical prohibitions while supposedly digging just a bit deeper than others. It attempts to show that the prohibitions against homosexuality in the Bible are prohibitions that only concern the practice of same-sex intimacy as cultic, religious prostitution, which is idolatrous.


ANSWERING THIS EVASION

The first point to note in response to this attempted evasion of God’s clear Word is that the revisionists are assuming that which they are trying to prove. 

Throughout their argumentation they assume the moral acceptability of some type of homosexuality. They assume that God approves of some expression of homosexuality as a legitimate sexual preference, just so long as it is not tainted by idolatry. 

This stance is question-begging in the extreme and is the very substance of the controversy before us. Imagine someone assuming the moral acceptability of bestiality. The argument is precisely parallel to this one offered for homosexuality. The argument would contend for the acceptability of bestiality because it would not be practiced in a “religious” manner, and every time bestiality is mentioned in the Bible, it is prohibited in a context of religious, idolatrous practices (as it is in Exodus 22:19–20 and Deuteronomy 27:15–21). 

The problem with this line of argumentation is obvious: it assumes the moral acceptability of bestiality and would declare it to be immoral only when it is performed “religiously,” thus making it idolatrous and, therefore, sinful.

Let us take the same approach with the sacrificing of children. Is this ever acceptable? Most of the biblical references to the sacrificing of children are connected with false, idolatrous worship. What is the moral conclusion that is to be drawn when we remove Molech, or any other false deity, from the situation of child sacrifice? If someone were to murder his children for the sake of convenience—doing so in a non-religious way, that is, not in a temple—would the practice be morally acceptable? Can any moral approval be gained when we restrict the practice of child sacrifice to a non-religious type (Deuteronomy 28:54–55; 1 Kings 3:26; 2 Kings 6:25–31; Matthew 2:16)? Certainly not! 

This obvious point further illustrates the shaky position of those who are contending that the Leviticus passages refer only to the pagan religious exercise of homosexual prostitution: they are assuming the moral acceptability of that which they are trying to prove.

One more example: Dr. Pearson’s citation of Scripture is rather selective. He cited Leviticus 18:21–24, mentioning that “all four verses must be taken together.” Why did he stop at these four verses? Why did he exclude verse 20 of chapter 18? Interestingly, Leviticus 18:20 refers to adultery, and if Pearson’s contention is correct, that this is a context of “temple cult prostitution,” adultery would obviously be in view as well. 

Surely Pearson knows, however, that such a slope is slippery and dangerous to navigate. Adultery, as with child sacrifice, bestiality, and homosexuality, is not acceptable if one merely removes the religious prostitution aspect. Adultery is prohibited in the temple (Hophni and Phineas, for example, in 1 Samuel 2:22) and in the town (David with Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 11).

For all persons everywhere, not just the people that follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, adultery is wrong because it is a violation of God’s moral law as articulated in the Seventh Commandment. Just as it is wrong for those who are following the God of the Bible, so too it is wrong for those “outside of Israel.” 

Dr. Greg Bahnsen is correct in his comment: “The Bible condemns the sex life of the heathen town as well as the sexual idolatry of the heathen temple.”

Adultery is prohibited whether it is practiced in private or in public, in a chamber or in a temple. Pearson’s citation of Leviticus 18 is selective; consistency is too revealing for the revisionist position. It is obvious that those who are trying to re-work the context of Leviticus to fit their sexual preferences stand guilty before the very same passages.

This particular approach to evading the Leviticus prohibitions actually becomes a bit more complicated when those who espouse it also cite the Hebrew language in support of their agenda. They are correct in pointing out that the word translated “sodomite” (KJV) or “male cult prostitute” (NASB) in 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; and 2 Kings 23:7 is the word qadesh and refers to something, or someone, who is consecrated, set apart for special (dedicated) service. These persons were religiously committed prostitutes, practicing their craft in the name of their faith.

Persons on both sides of this same-sex controversy are generally agreed that these persons in First and Second Kings are homosexual temple prostitutes who are designated by the term qadesh; however, this work with the word qadesh does nothing to prove that the homosexual behavior referred to in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 is homosexual temple prostitution. The word qadesh is not even used in Leviticus 18:22 or 20:13. 

This fact is significant because the word qadesh was known and used by Moses in the Pentateuch in Deuteronomy 23:17: “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute (qadesh), nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute (qadesh).” Moses could have used the word in Leviticus; it was known by him and available, yet he did not use it.

Finally, the attempt to reconstruct the biblical backgrounds to fit into the mold of a false understanding of the Leviticus passages fails when one considers the descriptive phraseology employed by Moses. He did not use a single word or term to refer to the homosexuality. 

Rather, he describes the behavior as those “who lie with [so as to go to bed with] a male as one lies with [so as to go to bed with] a female” (18:22). The word that is used to describe this “lying with” in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 is the very same Hebrew word that is used for a bed and for sexual intercourse.6 The word refers to male intercourse. The Leviticus passages are not unclear; they are very clear and stand convincingly relevant in our present day.


White, J. R., & Niell, J. D. (2002). The Same Sex Controversy: Defending and Clarifying the Bible’s Message about Homosexuality (pp. 97–105). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.