LEVITICUS 18:22 = TOEVAH (TABOO)
LEVITICUS 19:29 = ZIMAH (SIN)
A
zealous priest-reformer of the 6th century B.C. had his own agenda when he wrote the Holiness Code. His fellow Israelites worshiped Baal, god of fertility, along with their own god Yahweh, so they adopted practices common to the Canaanites, including homosexual activity, as part of the cult worship of Baal. He found this practice to be ritually impure for Jews, therefore prohibited for Jews, and Jews only.
For that priest, and fellow priests who agreed with him, homosexual behavior represented an impurity that detracted from their special relationship with Yahweh. Therefore he sanctioned the practice in verse 22 of Lev. 18, where he wrote: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination;" and again in Lev. 20:13, where he stressed his opposition with a warning (purely his own concoction): "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them."
The use of the word "abomination" by translators of the King James Version , and other versions, of the Bible has come under scrutiny by modern scholars. The original Hebrew word "toevah" (here transliterated and) translated in Lev. 18:22 and Lev. 20:13 means "something impure or unclean" for Jews, therefore prohibited for Jews only.
Abomination means something loathsome, detestable, disgusting or hateful. KJV translators of the Bible chose that word to interpret "toevah." Homosexual behavior was linked by Israelite priests to cult worship of the god of fertility, which was idolatry in their view. Idolatry, which means worship of idols that represent gods, was the first commandment from Moses' god Yahweh: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Ex. 20:3 (KJV).
The import of the word abomination is not as serious as present-day clergy would have us believe. The Hebrew word "toevah" is less condemnable than another word "zimah" which the author of the Holiness Code could have used if he regarded same-sex behavior as a grave sin, as he did in Lev. 19:29 which condemns adultery, or prostitution in general. "Zimah" applies to something intrinsically wrong, evil and was translated by KJV translators as "wickedness" and by Moffatt (q.v.) as "foul vice."
Yet the Holiness Code author used the less condemnable term "toevah," signifying same-sex activity as ritually unclean, such as eating pork or other meat of clovenfooted animals (Lev. 11:7), crustacean seafood that have no fins or scales (11:10-12), certain fowls (11:13-19), and certain fowls that creep on all four (11:20-23). All are considered abominations, i.e. ritually unclean, but nothing more.
The Septuagint, Greek version of the Old Testament, reveals the same distinction between "toevah" and "zimah." The Greek word "bdelugma" (transliterated) means a detestable thing, i.e. idolatry; the Greek word "anomia" (transliterated) means transgression of law. Bdelugma translates the Hebrew toevah; anomia translates the Hebrew zimah.
The Septuagint was requested by Greek-speaking members of the Jewish community in second century A.D. Alexandria; it is regarded as the most accurate source to the original Hebrew text for Christendom, without which the Old Testament would have been inaccessible to Christians today.
Present-day prejudice against homosexuality dwells on the question of sin. Clearly sex between males was thought by the zealous priest to be abominable, abhorrent, especially idolatrous, because it was linked to the cult of the god of fertility. But homosexuality in Lev. 18:22, an abomination (toevah), was not in the same category as heterosexual prostitution and adultery, described in Lev. 19:29 as wickedness (zimah). (N.B. French and Spanish editions of the Bible make the same distinction: abomination/ crime [French]; abominacion/ maldad [Spanish].)
The difference between toevah and zimah can be likened to the difference between "sin" and "taboo." Sin is a violation of God's law; sin is synonymous with crime. Taboo is a restriction imposed by tradition, social or religious custom, to protect a cultural group.
Thus toevah designates a taboo, a prohibition established for the protection of a cultural group, in this case the Israelites who embraced the cult practices of their Canaanite neighbors. Temple prostitution was classified by the zealous priest as an abomination, idolatry - in short, taboo, but not a sin, because it was not a violation of religious law, it was not an offense against Yahweh. This temple ritual gave the zealous priest a feeling of loathing, of hatred, just as it does present-day Christian denominations and Orthodox Jews. But to the followers of Baal, ritual sex was a form of worship to ensure human fertility.
Our Judeo-Christian history reveals that the zealous priest won out in the end as religious leaders have, over the centuries, pursued his agenda of making Yahweh supreme over Baal. During the early Middle Ages homosexual behavior came to be linked with crimes and other acts considered to be sins under Jewish law.
Boswell attributes the placing of homosexual relations under the same category as adultery to the emperor Justinian, who in 533 A.D. subjected them for the first time to civil sanctions (
CSTH, p. 171.) And around 650 A.D. the ruler of the Spanish Visigoths passed legislation against homosexual acts (ibid., p.174).Confusion over the interpretation of toevah has been disastrous for more than 2,500 years for persons of homosexual, and indeed of homosocial , orientation. It has justified religious persecution of homosexual persons, and of persons perceived to be homosexual. Sanctions against such persons were eventually codified into ecclesiastical law, followed by civil law in most nations of Europe and Western society. Evidence of anti-homosexual sentiment based on those laws remains with us every day in the United States and the Western world in the form of discriminatory practices against gays, ranging from verbal harassment to physical harm, even murder.
What was intended by one zealous Israelite reformer-priest to protect and control a small minority of Jewish people in their special relationship with their god Yahweh has extended to control of the non-Jewish peoples of the Western world, and divides every denomination of the Christian community today.
Next, Chapter 3 of Biblelore will look at sacred prostitution in the cult of Baal.
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