Male Homosexual Intercourse Is Prohibited – In One Part of the Torah

Scholars are divided on the question of whether Lev 20 continues Lev 18 organically or constitutes an originally independent list that was appropriated by the redactor. For discussion see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, (Anchor Bible 3a; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1765-68; Eve Levavi Feinstein, Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 168-69.

For an excellent analysis of תועבה see Jacob Klein and Yitschak Sefati, “The Concept of ‘Abomination’ in Mesopotamian Literature and the Bible (תועבה ותועבות בספרות המיסופוטמית ובמקרא),” Beer Sheva 3 (1988/5748): 131-148 [Hebrew], with English Abstract at 12*-13*. See also Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, 20-21 and passim.

Leviticus 18 is read during the Mincha service of Yom Kippur.

Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus: A Book of Ritual and Ethics; A Continental Commentary(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 196-97, 256. See also Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1786-1790.

Rabbi Steven Greenberg, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition (Madison Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 205-206. A more moderate version of this suggestion was put forward by Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky who argue that in the ANE, homosexual penetration of a person of equal or higher status was experienced by the receiver as a disgraceful feminization and lowering of status and was therefore prohibited. Penetration of persons of lower status, however, was not experienced by the receptive partners as a lowering of status and was therefore permitted. The Torah, shared the concern to protect men from being disgraced through feminization. Since, however, the Torah considered all men to be of equal status before God, it prohibited penetration across the board, without regard to the relative social status of the partners. See Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky, The Bible Now, (Oxford University Press, 2011), ch. 1; ibid.“Are Biblical Laws about Homosexuality Eternal?” Huffington Post (8/1/2011); Shawna Dolansky, “Regarding Azazel and Homosexuals in the Same Parasha,” TheTorah.com (2015). Following the logic of this claim, today, when homosexual penetration is no longer experienced as degrading or as a lowering in status, there is no longer a need to prohibit it.    

David Greenstein, ‘”A Great Voice Never Ending”: Reading the Torah in Light of the New Status of Gays and Lesbians in the Jewish Community,” in R. Lisa J. Grushcow ed., The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality (New York: CCAR Press, 2014), 43-56.

This applies to the reading of Friedman and Dolansky as well, since they also take “lyings of a woman” to mean more than simply a euphemism for intercourse. Moreover, even assuming their anthropological analysis for the ancient Near East is correct, is it correct for the biblical material? The text offers no hint of this explanation. I think it more likely that the act itself is considered an “abomination” and that this has nothing to do with the act’s effectsin terms of feminizing the other.      

If the issue were simply the concern to heighten procreation, as Milgrom suggests, then why does no legal text prohibit masturbation or non-procreative heterosexual sex?

For more on this claim in light of what we know about Canaanite practices, see Delbert R. Hillers, “Analyzing the Abominable: Our Understanding of Canaanite Religion,” Jewish Quarterly Review 75.3 (1975): 253-269.

Marc Brettler takes this approach as well. See, Marc Zvi Brettler, “Biblical Authority: A Jewish Pluralistic View,” in Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture (ed. William P. Brown; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 1-9, 141-143.

Editor’s note: see discussion in Baruch Schwartz, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai?” TheTorah.com (2013) and Benjamin Sommer, “The Centrality of Law,”TheTorah.com (2014). 

Editor’s note: See further, David Glatt-Gilad, “Deuteronomy: The First Torah,”TheTorah.com (2015), and Itamar Kislev, “Understanding Deuteronomy on Its Own Terms,”TheTorah.com (2015).

See Isaac Sassoon, “The Priestly Repudiation of Yibbum,” TheTorah.com (2016)

Perhaps the concern not to appear to be adding to the covenant laws explains why the Priestly authors of Gen 17 presented circumcision as belonging to an earlier covenant, one made with Abraham. In any event, Deuteronomy never acknowledges an Abrahamic covenant. The conception of circumcision as an ethnic rite rather than a religious command appears in the story of the rape of Dina in Genesis 34. The story presents marriage with uncircumcised men as a “disgrace.” There is no hint of the idea that circumcision is a sign of a covenant with God. The same ethnic conception of the significance of circumcision is reflected in the biblical references to the Philistines as ‘arelim (cf., e.g., Judges 14:3; 2 Sam. 1:20). There is no indication in these passages that circumcision indicates membership in the covenant.

The Holiness Collection repeats this law again in Lev 20:15-16, adding a punishment:

וְאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִתֵּן שְׁכָבְתּוֹ בִּבְהֵמָה מוֹת יוּמָת וְאֶת הַבְּהֵמָה תַּהֲרֹגוּ. וְאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר תִּקְרַב אֶל כָּל בְּהֵמָה לְרִבְעָה אֹתָהּ וְהָרַגְתָּ אֶת הָאִשָּׁה וְאֶת הַבְּהֵמָה מוֹת יוּמָתוּ דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם.

If a man has carnal relations with a beast, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the beast. If a woman approaches any beast to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the beast; they shall be put to death — their bloodguilt is upon them.

See G. von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953).

It must be admitted that the significance of the omission should not be overstated. After all, the list of curses-prohibitions is hardly extensive and several severe prohibitions, such as adultery, are equally left unmentioned.

See Saul Olyan, ‘”Surpassing the Love of Women”: Another Look at 2 Samuel 1:26 and the Relationship of David and Jonathan,’ in idem, Social Inequality in the World of the Text: The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 85—99. See also James E. Harding, The Love of David and Jonathan: Ideology, Text, Reception (Routledge, 2016); Susan Ackerman, When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David (Gender, Theory, and Religion; Columbia University Press, 2005).

It is worth mentioning in this context that the offense of the people of Sodom in Gen 19 and of the people of Giva in Ju 19 is not homosexuality but hospitality violation. Similarly, there is no reference to homosexuality in the list of the sins of Sodom in Ezek. 16:49-50. For a general discussion of homosexuality in the Bible, see, Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (trans. Kirsi Stjerna; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).

See most recently, Joshua Berman, “Supersessionist or Complementary? Reassessing the Nature of Legal Revision in the Pentateuchal Law Collections,” JBL 135 (2016), 201—222. Editor’s note: For an example of these two approaches as applied to the Hebrew slave law, see (complementary approach) Aaron Koller, “The Law of the Hebrew Slave: Reading the Law Collections as Complementary,” TheTorah.com (2015) and (documentary approach) Zev Farber, “The Law of the Hebrew Slave: Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy,” TheTorah.com(2015).  

See, especially, Carol A. Newsom, “The Book of Job as Polyphonic Text,” JSOT 26 (2002), 87—108. For Kohelet see Michael V. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989).