Upon my many readings of the Bible, I have only found a select few verses that made me really stop and think, as I imagine they should for any respecting individual and Christian. I must say that Paul was a brilliant man, especially for the times he wrote in. Perhaps most shocking in all of my readings would have to be the profound wisdom these men had, considering much of the material was written (as biblical scholars tend to agree) around 50-100 CE. Part of me thought that there was no way that a book of such age could still maintain its relevance today, and while I’ll admit that some of it does not (I think sorceresses have either vanished or found their proper place in society, and therefore, no longer is there a need to kill them as Exodus 22:18 would have us believe), some of it withstands the test of time remarkably well. For example, this excerpt from the New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1st Corinthians 13:2-8;
“And if I…understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing… I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
I’ll be the first to admit that this excerpt sounds like a line from a tattered and tornsome poetry notebook, and most of that is because of a few creative edits on my part. This particular passage is based on the love found for God, your fellow man, and faith. I cut out the parts about speaking in tongue and prophesizing, but with good reason. Is the love Paul talks about (since this is among the “solid seven” letters in the New Testament which scholars agree he wrote) not universal? Can it not relate to the love shared between two people, romantically or otherwise? If one attends a religiously focused wedding ceremony, odds are, you’ll hear some of this excerpt read. Why? Because it does stand the test of time, and while it may relate to a different kind of love, it does not have to be limited to it.That being said, some things are not quite as universal.
I don’t know for sure what gets you into hell, and I’m not all that concerned, however, I have my doubts that bestiality (Exodus 22:19) is a sure bet. Immoral? Odd? Sure, but not necessarily a hell-worthy offense. It could easily be considered a good rule to live by, that much is easy to agree upon. Other, more relevant passages such as 1 Corinthians14:33-36 seem to also have been deemed completely outdated throughout the course of time. Scholars have tried to rationalize it by saying women of the time were not allowed to speak in churches because they were married (i.e. 1 Corinthians 14:35 “If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church”), and since it is somewhat common knowledge that throughout the course of time, marriage gets increasingly more strict the further back you go on the timeline. Also an oversimplified logic regarding the church the letter is addressed to having problems with the women speaking in their church and Paul simply suggesting that they forbid women from speaking as a solution.
Others believe it was simply added later for the sake of another man’s agenda (a theory I subscribe to, personally. The intrinsic evidence is too much to ignore: the passage has no logical place where it’s located, and when removed, the coherence of the letter remains not only in tact, but better off. Also, the writing style does not seem to match with Paul’s throughout the letter, something many New Testament scholars allege and I agree with completely). This passage has been deemed irrelevant by modern society, due to the historical context in which it was written. The idea of women being explicitly picked out and silenced seems archaic, and in all reality, it is. The movement for equal rights in America has made such a notion a complete (no pun intended) sacrilege. Why, then, is it that when passages like this are deemed out of date, out of touch, and completely irrelevant (I doubt a church anywhere in America, regardless to their steadfast faith, would forbid women from speaking within it simply because Paul said so), whereas other passages like the easily malleable words of Paul still ring true? Because they can be reinterpreted today and still have a meaning relevant to modern society, and in the case of Paul, they can be inspirational. Some passages from the Bible don’t receive the same fair treatment, however. In particular, those relating to homosexuals.
Let us consider Leviticus 20:13 and the tales of Sodom and Gomorrah. Leviticus states, quite clearly, that “If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.” Seems air-tight, no? God hates gays, and that’s all there is to it. Not to mention the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for engaging in homosexuality. This is all, however, when considered in our own context, and not only that, when interpreted by someone with an agenda. As Miguel A. De La Torre points out in his book Reading the Bible from the Margins, the words of the bible can be used to take on any group and turn them in sinners and abominations. Take his example of football players. According to Deuteronomy 14:8, “The pig, because of its hoof is divided and it does not chew its cud, is unclean. You shall not eat its flesh nor touch its dead skin.” As De La Torre says about the football team, “most of the team members were bullies who would ambush and beat [him] up.” Using his reading of the Bible, football players are condemned to an “eternity in hell” for playing “Satan’s game” with the skin of a pig. Suddenly, his “hatred for football becomes the Bible’s condemnation of the sport.” I don’t think I need to make a big stretch to show the parallel between the two.
Also, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is said they were destroyed on the basis of homosexuality, which many biblical scholars believe to be completely untrue. Given the context of the story, the basis for their destruction was not homosexuality, but rather, the breaking of scripture regarding kindness to your fellow man. The king forbade allowing others into your home, and this was the true violation that caused the destruction. The guards in the tales of Sodom and Gomorrah say they will anally rape the man in question for having broken the law, and while it seems foreign to us, in that time period (and I suppose in some ways still to this day), it was considered the ultimate form of embarrassment. Triumph over others in battle would result in such humiliation as well. I suppose it may have been part of the cause for the destruction, to be fair, but it certainly was not the exclusive reason why. Not everything in the Bible is so simple or clean cut as religious leaders would have you (or hope you) believe.
Let us not also forget the oft quoted Leviticus 11:12: “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” There is no additional difference between the two besides the mention of blood in Leviticus 20:13. So, if we’re to believe those who claim God hates homosexuals, that it’s an abomination, and they are doomed to an eternity of damnation for their acts, let us also consider that the same designation is given to eating shrimp. For every shrimp those people have eaten (and depending on their taste in seafood and level of devotion, it may well be none) they are just as condemned as a homosexual is for having committed an “abomination.” That is, unless we’re picking and choosing which abominations we think count.
If that is the case, suddenly, the words of De La Torre hold a lot more weight. Let us consider 1 Corinthians' comments on women again. Someone (presumably) had an agenda when it was added in later (again, presumably). This may have been a case of one man (not Paul) trying to assert his own beliefs that women should be silent in church. Who says the justification for the hatred of homosexuals found in Leviticus is not just one man’s manipulation of, or perhaps, misinterpretation of the Bible? In ancient times, only honored members of the church had access to the Bible, and even though some of them may have had an agenda of their own, and in the modern day we see many people spreading their own agendas, I tend to agree with the idea that perhaps letting it fall into the hands of the common man who does not know how to interpret it properly was a mistake.
The historical rationale to consider when contemplating God’s alleged hatred of homosexuals was that in the time period, spreading and increasing the numbers of the nation of Israel was a key duty of mankind. It was considered a sin to not ejaculate in a woman and impregnate her. It may sound crazy, but take the case of Onan found in Genesis. God struck him dead for ejaculating on the ground because he did not attempt to impregnate his wife. This had nothing to do with him being gay, but surely it was enough for him to be both killed and condemned. Given this, let us think about homosexuality during that time period. In essence, two men “lying together as with a woman” is an equal abomination, and has the same punishment. They are the same offense: not spreading the nation of Israel. Homosexuality is completely irrelevant.
Some of the Bible’s words can be changed with time to do what I believe the Bible and Christianity should do, spread a message of love and acceptance. If we’re to believe the key themes of Luke’s gospel, God cares for everyone, the outcasts, the poor, anyone God can reach and enlighten. Paul’s excerpt regarding love is a prime example of the unifying and loving power of Christianity. However, from there, some of the passages of the Bible have been given an unequal treatment. Shrimp is okay to eat, women can speak in church, but still, God hates homosexuals. Anyone with a true devotion to their faith should challenge the thinking of those around them, particularly anyone who preaches the words of the Bible at face value without considering their context. As Bart Ehrman, a scholar of the Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College (alma mater of Christian evangelist Billy Graham), and Princeton Theological Seminary, points out, if you take words out of their context, they can mean anything. The example he gives is saying “I love this course.” While it could very well refer to breaking under par on the 18th green, it could also refer to “the most boring class from the most boring teacher.” Remove the context around it, and you have two completely different meanings to the same statement.
I, for one, believe that the Bible, like everything in life, should be taken in stride and for what it is. As Bart Ehrman says in his book Misquoting Jesus, and I wholeheartedly agree, “Occasionally I see a bumper sticker that reads: ‘God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.’ My response is always, what if God didn’t say it? What if the book you take as giving you God’s words instead contains human words? What if the Bible doesn’t give you a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age; abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, religious supremacy, Western-style democracy, and the like? What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol- or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty?”
Something as pivotal as one’s faith should be taken seriously, but not in a sense of blind faith, but rather, as a search for truth. To know the truth about what the Bible says in no way means to simply follow what others say, but to question for yourself and find the truth. Also, consider everything you see above and be sure to stop and think the next time, in terms of religion or otherwise, you are simply told something and don’t take the time to make your own decisions regarding it. There are many people out there with agendas that have nobody’s best interests at heart except for their own, and before you buy into them, even if you agree with them, stop and think about whether or not they’re telling the whole truth, and not just telling you what they want you to hear.
