BIBLELORE
1 Leviticus 18:22
Then who did write Chapters 17-26? A zealous priest and reformer in the 6th century B.C. (a thousand years after the time of Moses) wrote or compiled a set of laws for the Israelite people which is known as the Holiness Code.
At that time in the 6th century, the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, whom they had partially conquered in battle. By then they had adapted to their new home and adopted the religious practices of the Canaanites, including sexual rituals that honored Baal, the god of fertility.
According to Canaanite mythology, Baal died and was brought back to life (a familiar theme in other tribes' mythology) by his lover and sister Anat. Their sexual union was imitated by the Canaanites through ritual sex to ensure human fertility and their future.
The zealous priest and author of the Holiness Code disapproved of ritual sex, and homosexual behavior as well, when engaged in by fellow Israelites as part of their cult worship of Baal, because such practices separated Israelites from their own god Yahweh, and defiled their relationship with Yahweh. A close relationship with Yahweh was the essence of the term "holiness," which was impaired, if not destroyed, by cult worship of Baal.
Canaanites practiced ritual sex, both heterosexual and same-sex, out of concern for survival through fertility. We have to ask what homosexual sex had to do with fertility. The Bible makes several references to cult prostitutes, most of which are to males. They, as well as female cult prostitutes, operated in temples, most likely for a price (which probably was paid as an offering to the goddess of fertility Asherah). One of the Deuteronomic laws points to that fact in Deut. 23:17,18:"There will be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both are abomination unto the Lord thy God."
The word "vow" meant devotion to the Lord God. The term "dog" in this context meant "male prostitute," which may have referred to eunuchs who, by their inability to perform actively in ritual sex, served as substitutes for females in a passive role. Thus the frequent references to them, as well as to other young Israelite males, in the King James Version of the Bible as "sodomites."
The use of the term dog by writers of Hebrew scripture is just one example of Israelite contempt and disdain for the Canaanite religion. (More examples of Israelite scorn toward the cult of Baal will be discussed later.)
It is clear from the historical time line that the God of Moses never condemned homosexuality in his real or imaginary meeting with Moses. The written word of Lev. 18:22 and Lev. 20:13, like all of Chapters 17-26 of the Book of Leviticus, appeared nearly a millenium after the time of Moses, and was not a part of the original Book of Leviticus. So present-day priests, ministers and rabbis can no longer preach with accuracy and authority that the God of Moses hates homosexuality, and they should no longer rail against homosexual persons as sinners. They will have to look to other Biblical passages that seem to bolster their contentions; those passages will be the subject of chapters 8 and 9 of Biblelore.But next, the Holiness Code will be the subject of Chapter II of Biblelore.
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