Creation and Homosexuality
The Revisionist Answer
The Creation account is concerned solely with reproduction—multiplying and filling the earth. The design of the creation of human beings does not inherently oppose homosexuality as an identity for some people.
The Biblical Answer
Genesis 1:26–30 testifies that man and woman were made complementarily for each other; together they were made for God and form the image of God. Only the couple, man and woman together, reflects the totality of this divine image. A homosexual couple mirrors only themselves, two males or two females who come together.
Does the account of the purpose and plan for marriage in Genesis 2 exclude a homosexual relationship?
The Revisionist Answer
The purpose of the account of the making of a woman for man is to empower the reproduction and preservation of the species. It does not inherently condemn homosexual unions, any more than it would condemn celibacy—a position the church has recognized and accepted throughout the ages.
The Biblical Answer
Genesis 2 gives special attention to the making of the woman, Eve, for the man, Adam. This incident is unique in the Creation account. No comparable level of attention is given to the making of female animals for male animals. This suggests that, although reproduction is the focus of the creation design for animals, human creation looks to purposes that transcend reproduction and species survival. Reproduction is important, but human beings are more than the sum of their physical and nonphysical attributes. Spiritual, emotional, and physical aspects interplay in the definition of human being.
What does Genesis 19 tell us about the sin of Sodom?
The Revisionist Answer
The sin of Sodom was inhospitality toward Lot’s guests. The context of Genesis 19 does not mention homosexuality. The meaning of know in 19:5 refers to identifying the visitors. The corresponding Hebrew word is used more than nine hundred times with the meaning of “to become acquainted”; relatively rarely does it have the meaning of “to know sexually.”
Even if homosexuality was involved at Sodom, it was rape, which had nothing to do with consensual, mutual same-gender behavior as it is now defined. Homosexual rape was an especially humiliating form of conquest over victims. Victors raped the vanquished.
The Biblical Answer
The words of the text describe the evil intent of the Sodomites. In light of Sodom’s reputation recorded earlier in Genesis (13:10, 13; 18:20–21, 23ff.), the behavior of the sodomites was known to be particularly despicable. However important hospitality was in that society, inhospitality does not fit this description.
The meaning of the terms in any text is defined by the context. The meaning of know in Genesis 19:5 must be considered by the use of the same word in 19:8, where it has an unmistakably sexual meaning: Lot said his daughters had not “known” a man. This use argues strongly that the same word has the same meaning within the scope of four verses, unless there is strong contrary indication. But all other evidence supports, rather than weighs against, a sexual connotation. “To have sexual intercourse” must be the preferred translation for know.
The literary form of the larger context, in which the incident describing Sodom occurs, argues strongly for a sexual nature to the sin of Sodom. The events at Sodom pose a threat to fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham regarding a seed and a land (Genesis 12, 15). Sodom threatens the fulfillment of God’s larger promise and plan to bless the Gentiles through Abraham and to bring about a just society (pp. 32–36).
It is correct that rape, or homosexual conquest, was the intent of the men’s actions. Yet Sodom is used frequently in Scripture as an illustration of depravity or judgment in which rape or conquest does not fit or is inadequate; the full range of homosexual thought and behavior does fit. Among the thirty-nine such applications of Sodom are Deuteronomy 29:23 (cf. vv. 19–21); 32:32–35; Isaiah 1:9–10 (cf. vv. 4–5); 13:19; Jeremiah 49:18; 50:40 (cf. vv. 31–32); Lamentations 4:5–8; Ezekiel 16:44–50; Amos 4:11 (cf. ch. 4); Zephaniah 2:8–10.
“Sodom” takes on the broader connection with homosexuality throughout the rest of Scripture, having implications of pride, in addition to violence or inhospitality. The passages mentioning Sodom never suggest the idea of homosexual rape over conquered foes.
What was the sin committed at Gibeah as recorded in Judges 19–20? In particular what is meant in 19:22?
While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” (NIV)
The Revisionist Answer
The same kind of behavior that occurred at Sodom satisfies the account of the sin of the Benjaminites at Gibeah: homosexual rape.
The Biblical Answer
The incident at Gibeah is similar to that at Sodom, except that the sin occurs within Israel. The account of Judges 19 is probably consciously modeled on that of Genesis 19. However, nothing in the biblical record differentiates nonconsensual behavior or rape from consensual behavior.
How does the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX), produced by Jewish scholars in the third century B.C., understand Genesis 19, as reflected in their translation?
The Revisionist Answer
The LXX understood the Hebrew as meaning “to become acquainted.” The simple Greek word for “know” appears in Genesis 19:5, just as in the Hebrew. Neither is a sexual meaning read into Genesis 19:8, where Lot offers his daughters, who have not “known” a man, to the sodomites. At this place the translation of the LXX is in error.
The Biblical Answer
The LXX correctly translates know of the Hebrew into the corresponding Greek know in 19:8. Sexual intercourse and acquaintance are within the range of Greek definitions for the word, just as in the Hebrew. Context demands the sexual definition.
In the LXX for Genesis 19:5, translators used a word that more often means “to become acquainted with.” This was not an error, for the word has a sexual meaning in its only other occurrences in the LXX: Genesis 39:10; Judith 12:16; and Susanna 11, 39 (cf. Susanna 37). A sexual use of the word is also found in secular writers of the LXX era. This argues strongly that the LXX translators saw a sexual meaning in Genesis 19:5—where they wanted to represent more explicitly the sexual meaning of the passage than did the Hebrew.
