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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Biblical interpretation of apparently anti-gay passages
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
If you're against driving walls between verses, maybe you should widen your scope beyond two verses. The first of which does NOT say "male and female he created them" in any case. That's Genesis 1:27. The verse before Genesis 2:24 is actually Genesis 2:23, which talks about Adam naming the flesh of his flesh as 'woman', and there are several relevant verses before that outlining the purpose of creating a woman - incredibly important for figuring out what "this reason" is. The words 'male' and 'female' don't appear in the passage.
You are of course absolutely right, and my brilliant rhetoric trying to use Croesos' argument against you goes down in flames.
(Thanks. I really appreciate you shooting holes without being rude about it - seriously).
I made my point badly, but you haven't convinced me that it's unreasonable to see the two being linked from the text.
Firstly, these two verses are quoted consecutively by Jesus in Matthew 19:4-5. So it would certainly seem that Jesus (or, if you prefer, whoever edited Matthew) saw them as contiguous in terms of ideas.
And secondly, they are unequivocally used in the context of marriage. If male and female had nothing to do with becoming one flesh, why didn't Jesus simply quote the second verse and not the first?
quote:
Because as far as I'm concerned I'm 100% male. Tick. Foundational requirement met.
Congratulations! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
But this makes me realise now that I overlooked something else you said (emphasis mine):
quote:
I don't think it's much less dangerous to start saying that becoming one flesh is foundational, such that if you fail to do this you're not being a full human being.
It is you who has introduced the word "requirement", not me. When I use the word "foundational", what I have in my mind is along the lines of Jesus' words, also in Matthew 19, verse 8, about "how things were in the beginning".
I don't think the fact that they aren't that way any more means that none of us are "full human beings", but that all of us are "full human beings" affected by the consequences of the Fall, and we have to deal with that as best we can.
Let me briefly return to the case of intersex people. There's absolutely no way they can fulfil a 100% male - or female - requirement. I've seen chromosomal and other analysis from one such person that were literally off the charts. If anything they were more than 50% both! Does that make them not a "full human being"? Certainly not. Does it affect their sexuality? Very definitely. Does it mean their sexuality is an abomination? I don't think so. Does it mean they cannot legitimately aspire to a sexual relationship? I don't think so either. Was that how it was in the beginning? no.
In Matthew 19 Jesus acknowledges how things were back in Eden; he also acknowledges the need to make accommodation for them no longer being that way. In struggling with this issue, that is pretty much where I stand for now.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Well, it suggests that a particular man's idea was to become one flesh with a particular woman.
I'm not convinced, because "for this reason shall a man". This obviously doesn't refer merely to Adam, if only because he had no parents to leave.
I think it makes perfect sense to see it as, as a minimum, providing a reason for generalised practice. It does not prescribe it as universal practice ("for this reason shall all men..."), but neither is it as singular a case as you seek to imply.
quote:
It is Adam's acceptance of Eve as companion that marks her out as the appropriate one flesh.
Because she is like him in a way all the other animals are not. But she is also different; she is female! That is the overriding distinction the text makes. If her sex is trivial, why not simply clone Adam? quote:
The only normative idea the text seems to put forward is that a man must live with his parents until he's married, and then the couple set up at the wife's parents.
If you really want to be that literalistic, the wife's parents don't even get invited to the wedding, let alone provide accommodation, because in the text they don't exist at all, and indeed in the text there is no wedding, just a whole lot of cleaving.
All this verse says to me is that, um, foundationally, sex is linked with a change in one's place in the social system, leaving one subsystem and establishing another.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
And secondly, they are unequivocally used in the context of marriage. If male and female had nothing to do with becoming one flesh, why didn't Jesus simply quote the second verse and not the first?
Because people would inevitably say he didn't need to because it was assumed from silence.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
Eutychus, you wrote that 'Firstly, these two verses are quoted consecutively by Jesus in Matthew 19:4-5. So it would certainly seem that Jesus (or, if you prefer, whoever edited Matthew) saw them as contiguous in terms of ideas. '
It could also be that he's behaving like an ordinary rabbi and applying the fourth of Hillel's rule (binyan av min shney ketuvim, to build a parent from two) that is to say establishing a third (overarching) ruling from two other commandments (Dt 24 and Gn 1 which Jewish exegesis generally regards as binding and commanding procreation).
As for becoming one flesh (rather than being one flesh) having a completely different meaning in Gn than in the rest of Torah, I'm really not sure I'm clutching at straws as you said. Why do you think it implies sex in this case only? and not merely kinship?
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
And of course the text has sex between man and woman in mind, it's a story about the beginnings of humankind. It does not follow that all non-procreative sex is thereby disallowed, that's Roman madness.
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
Posts: 418 | From: London | Registered: Oct 2015
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
And secondly, they are unequivocally used in the context of marriage. If male and female had nothing to do with becoming one flesh, why didn't Jesus simply quote the second verse and not the first?
Because people would inevitably say he didn't need to because it was assumed from silence.
Wait, are you trying to say an argument from silence should trump what is actually there? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
It seems to me that you're making my point for me; if what you say is true, he spelled it out for the avoidance of all doubt.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
After all the context of his reply is a rabbinical dispute, in Matthew, so our Lord answers the rabbis in their own terms, and sides with Shammai's school, only allowing divorce for very serious offence, that is to say adultery, which incidentally could only be committed by women. The text is even more degrading to women than it is problematic for gay unions, but let it not deter us.
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
It could also be that he's behaving like an ordinary rabbi and applying the fourth of Hillel's rule
Whatever he's doing, it seems to me that the Gospel, just like Paul in 1 Corinthians, understands "becoming one flesh" in Genesis to be referring to sex, not kinship.
quote:
As for becoming one flesh (rather than being one flesh) having a completely different meaning in Gn than in the rest of Torah, I'm really not sure I'm clutching at straws as you said. Why do you think it implies sex in this case only? and not merely kinship?
I can only try and rephrase what I posted earlier. In the Bibles I regularly use, there appear to be two distinct expressions in Gen 2:23 and Gen 2:24.
I can readily accept that the examples you cite might be the same as or similar to the first one, "flesh of my flesh" (Adam's exclamation on discovering Eve), but I'd be very surprised to learn that they were the same as or anything but vaguely similar to the "two shall become one flesh" of Gen 2:24 (especially given how Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 6:16 seem to understand the term).
I'm willing to be surprised, but I haven't been so far.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
After all the context of his reply is a rabbinical dispute, in Matthew, so our Lord answers the rabbis in their own terms, and sides with Shammai's school, only allowing divorce for very serious offence, that is to say adultery, which incidentally could only be committed by women. The text is even more degrading to women than it is problematic for gay unions, but let it not deter us.
Let it not indeed. The point at issue is whether "one flesh" here refers to sex, and if it does, whether it is safe to conclude that this is what Adam and Eve got up to "in the beginning".
Secondarily, the importance of this text to me is that Jesus points to "how things were in the beginning", notes things aren't like that any more, and acknowledges that there needs to be some sort of provision for this state of affairs.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And of course the text has sex between man and woman in mind, it's a story about the beginnings of humankind. It does not follow that all non-procreative sex is thereby disallowed, that's Roman madness.
Sorry, missed this. I don't disagree with any of this. At all.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And of course the text has sex between man and woman in mind, it's a story about the beginnings of humankind. It does not follow that all non-procreative sex is thereby disallowed, that's Roman madness.
Sorry, missed this. I don't disagree with any of this. At all.
Yes, you do! To summarize, I think: Jesus was being asked ‘whether it was lawful (Torah-compliant) to repudiate (not divorce, only men could issue a get, a repudiation) one’s wife for any reason (Hillel’s opinion). He disagreed and explained his rationale by deducing (binyan av min shney) a third commandment from two (in this case Dt 24 and Gn 1) that it is not lawful to repudiate one’s wife for trivia, since Gn 1 says that a wife shall cleave, that kinship, once established, cannot be revoked. Kinship was a matter of property, a woman belonged to her husband. She could terminate this by giving herself over illicitly to another husband, but no other deed than adultery could do this. Husbands, of course, could shag around to their heart’s content (as long as not with other men’s property) without damaging this bond, or take as many concubines or wives as they wished. That was Torah. It had little to do with divorce as we now understand it or with the male/female dyad being normative, although male on male sexual relationships were frowned upon for other reasons (cf. Milgrom for the best rationale IMO). It’s also not very useful in settling matters in the current unpleasantness.
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And of course the text has sex between man and woman in mind, it's a story about the beginnings of humankind. It does not follow that all non-procreative sex is thereby disallowed, that's Roman madness.
Sorry, missed this. I don't disagree with any of this. At all.
And the prohibition of repudiation held fast whether children were there or not, what mattered was 'cleaving', property, ownership, new kinship being established. Once acquired, a woman could not simply be returned or discarded, with or without kids; whether one had had sex with her or not.
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
Posts: 418 | From: London | Registered: Oct 2015
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I'm going to challenge my quoting and coding ability here in dazzling ways...
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I made my point badly, but you haven't convinced me that it's unreasonable to see the two being linked from the text.
I don't actually think it's unreasonable. I think that it's not inevitable, though, which I couple with the practical reality of what life is actually like for homosexual people and the psychological misery inflicted upon homosexual Christians over something that they have no control over, and resist inferences that aren't inevitable.
quote:
Firstly, these two verses are quoted consecutively by Jesus in Matthew 19:4-5. So it would certainly seem that Jesus (or, if you prefer, whoever edited Matthew) saw them as contiguous in terms of ideas.
Well, yes. However, if I spent some time looking, I could provide you with innumerable examples of people making reference to something at the core of their subject without necessarily intending to exclude everything else. That the most common kind of marriage will always be heterosexual marriage is just reality. There's a Latin expression used in law that means: "the express mention of one thing is the exclusion of the other", and it's an idea that must be used extremely carefully. It's that idea that you're using in your reasoning - that, within the topic of marriage which Jesus was undoubtedly referencing, the express mention of heterosexual marriage excludes homosexual marriage.
quote:
When I use the word "foundational", what I have in my mind is along the lines of Jesus' words, also in Matthew 19, verse 8, about "how things were in the beginning".
Okay, fine, but that still doesn't mean that homosexuality represents a change from how there was male and female in the beginning. Your notion of "foundational" still doesn't actually get you anywhere without claiming that the union of male and female is "foundational" as well.
Which then raises serious questions about people who haven't formed a union with anyone, of either gender. Do you think being single is a consequence of the Fall? How about celibacy?
quote:
Let me briefly return to the case of intersex people.
...
Was that how it was in the beginning? no.
There is a glaring problem with any kind of statement about "how it was in the beginning" and trying to apply it as general statement about "how things are meant to be". In the beginning, the population of the world was 2.
You've basically got a severe problem with sample size.
If you knew the colour of Adam and Eve's skin, or their height, or their weight, you could make all sorts of statements about "how it was in the beginning" but it wouldn't follow that you could then draw inferences that any variation that occurred after the Fall was because of the Fall.
It's a bit like looking at the sunny weather at your holiday destination for the first few days, inferring from that that it's always sunny there, and concluding therefore that the storm that happened at the end of your second week was caused by climate change.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It is Adam's acceptance of Eve as companion that marks her out as the appropriate one flesh.
Because she is like him in a way all the other animals are not. But she is also different; she is female! That is the overriding distinction the text makes. If her sex is trivial, why not simply clone Adam?
This does rather involve different people deciding to emphasise different things in the text, and runs into more Latin expressions used in law about how to interpret things. Frankly I don't find it especially convincing to say how important it is that she's female. What actually happens is that a match can't be found, and then a match is found, and then Adam names his match "woman".
You're placing great importance on the fact that she's not a clone, to which my response is: fine, so people shouldn't pair up with someone who is their clone. But do you really think that two partners of the same sex are "clones" of each other, just because they have the same genitals? Are all men identical, and all women identical?
I don't think the fact that Eve has breasts and a vagina is an "overriding distinction" in the text. In my view her similarities are presented as more significant than her differences. I certainly don't think being different is trumpeted as being more important than finding your match. If you emphasise the difference, it's rather hard to simultaneously say that becoming "one flesh" is crucial.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
[x-post]
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And of course the text has sex between man and woman in mind, it's a story about the beginnings of humankind. It does not follow that all non-procreative sex is thereby disallowed, that's Roman madness.
Sorry, missed this. I don't disagree with any of this. At all.
Yes, you do!
Oh, no I don't! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
To clarify, I don't subscribe to the view that all sex should be procreative, or that Genesis is about procreative sex only (if it were, I would expect Genesis 2:24a to say "...become one flesh, and have lots of offspring").
I note what you're saying about Jesus' rationale for quoting these verses here - and in particular why it matters when he was having to factor in issues of kinship and property - but I do think the discussions about divorce have nothing to say as to whether "the two becoming one flesh" refers to sex between male and female, which is the point I've been trying to defend here. quote:
It’s also not very useful in settling matters in the current unpleasantness.
As stated several times, I coincidentally find this passage useful in the context of this discussion in that it combines a reference to how things were in the beginning, an acknowledgement that they aren't like that now, and an acknowledgement that provision must be made for the current state of affairs.
I appreciate that is not a welcome position for everyone, I'm just trying to explain my reasoning as honestly as I can.
[ 26. February 2016, 07:07: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
It could also be that he's behaving like an ordinary rabbi and applying the fourth of Hillel's rule
Whatever he's doing, it seems to me that the Gospel, just like Paul in 1 Corinthians, understands "becoming one flesh" in Genesis to be referring to sex, not kinship.
quote:
As for becoming one flesh (rather than being one flesh) having a completely different meaning in Gn than in the rest of Torah, I'm really not sure I'm clutching at straws as you said. Why do you think it implies sex in this case only? and not merely kinship?
I can only try and rephrase what I posted earlier. In the Bibles I regularly use, there appear to be two distinct expressions in Gen 2:23 and Gen 2:24.
I can readily accept that the examples you cite might be the same as or similar to the first one, "flesh of my flesh" (Adam's exclamation on discovering Eve), but I'd be very surprised to learn that they were the same as or anything but vaguely similar to the "two shall become one flesh" of Gen 2:24 (especially given how Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 6:16 seem to understand the term).
I'm willing to be surprised, but I haven't been so far.
Adam's exclamation is due to the fact that she is quite literally flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone because she was fashion out of his rib!
She did not 'become' one flesh with him, she already was. She was his kin in a way the animals were not... it is further down the line that a man 'becomes' one flesh with a woman.
[ 26. February 2016, 07:08: Message edited by: Joesaphat ]
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Adam's exclamation is due to the fact that she is quite literally flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone because she was fashion out of his rib!
Very probably. But unless you can show me otherwise, this (and not "become one flesh") is to my mind the expression that is echoed in all the passages you cited earlier.
quote:
it is further down the line that a man 'becomes' one flesh with a woman.
I concede that it doesn't explicitly say "Adam became one flesh with Eve" (and the first we know that for sure is, I suppose, when they do get around to procreating), but it does say, immediately after Eve emerges on the scene, that man and woman become one flesh, so I think the implication is there all the same*.
You have yet to prove that "flesh of my flesh" is the same as "becoming one flesh", and furthermore, point me to anywhere in Scripture where "man and man" or "woman and woman" "become one flesh".
Again, for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not casting stones on any such union here and now, but sticking to my guns that what there was in the beginning, as far as "becoming one flesh" goes, was "man" and "woman".
Not because I'm trying to impose that text as normative, but because that is what I find that text to be telling me and for now, any development in my thinking on this issue is going to have to take that understanding into account.
==
*Unless of course Adam and Eve followed the recommendations of some hideous Trobisch book which, as I recall, suggested couples on their wedding night discovering each other naked for the first time should simply lie side by side and chat...
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I thought, a little while after finishing my previous rather lengthy post, of an illustration of the risks of "the express mention of one thing is the exclusion of the other".
It's this little story of a girl who reasons that, because she's only ever heard of male pilots, female pilots don't exist.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm going to challenge my quoting and coding ability here in dazzling ways...
Sincere thanks for the effort you've clearly put into the post. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it justice as my work is falling behind here once again, but to pick up on a few things...
quote:
I think that it's not inevitable, though, which I couple with the practical reality of what life is actually like for homosexual people and the psychological misery inflicted upon homosexual Christians over something that they have no control over, and resist inferences that aren't inevitable.
I think I get this. It's why I've come to think that as a minimum, that needs to be accommodated. "Accommodated" sounds terribly miserly in the face of what you're talking about (and might potentially sound patronising too, which I really don't want it to, and am casting around for a better word) but clearly a lot of the Church isn't even managing to get that far, so maybe it's a start?
quote:
There's a Latin expression used in law that means: "the express mention of one thing is the exclusion of the other", and it's an idea that must be used extremely carefully. It's that idea that you're using in your reasoning - that, within the topic of marriage which Jesus was undoubtedly referencing, the express mention of heterosexual marriage excludes homosexual marriage.
Thanks for the analysis of my thinking, which I will need to think about. Perhaps you're right, perhaps that is my reasoning... I would find it even more in line with my reasoning if I could add "...in the beginning" at the end of it.
quote:
Your notion of "foundational" still doesn't actually get you anywhere without claiming that the union of male and female is "foundational" as well.
Okay, good point. I think "male and female" is foundational in the sense that "that is how it was in the beginning"; God made two sexes. [deleted huge tangent on intersex people here] That seems to imply, but does not require, heterosexual sex.
quote:
Which then raises serious questions about people who haven't formed a union with anyone, of either gender. Do you think being single is a consequence of the Fall? How about celibacy?
Great question; I honestly don't know. It seems to me that Jesus makes provision for them, too, though. quote:
There is a glaring problem with any kind of statement about "how it was in the beginning" and trying to apply it as general statement about "how things are meant to be". In the beginning, the population of the world was 2.
I'm not sure I believe in a literal Adam and Eve; I incline more to a "federal head" view.
[my coding is not as good as your coding]
[ 26. February 2016, 07:54: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Your coding is fine, and I can live with "accommodated".
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
it seems more likely to me that the link is between two things which the writer and his first readers would have agreed were wrong.
Whereas I would argue the link is things that the writer knew his first readers would agree were wrong.
Which is not the same thing. And I think the difference is crucial because of how Romans 2 starts. It talks about "you" who have just indulged in judging others. Not "we".
The point, as I've long understood it, is to have readers feeling self-satisfied right before springing on them.
I agree that the two things are not the same, and that what you propose is a plausible reading: of all the more-or-less revisionist readings, the one that says that Paul is not passing judgment on homosexuality at all, but solely playing on anti-pagan stereotypes before turning the tables on the equally-fallible Jews is the one that seems most likely to me, as being true to the argument being advanced. But I'm not convinced that there's no judgment on homosexuality* intended - the irony and the impact would still work if there was a common understanding that homosexual sex was obviously wrong.
My real point, though, is that I wouldn't entertain any revisionist reading UNLESS I was believed that the letter was both authoritative and (on its surface reading) mistaken. I am consciously acknowledging that it is my unwillingness to accept what (in my best judgment) I would take the letter to mean using my ordinary faculties for comprehension that makes me wish that you are right that it doesn't really mean that.
As an example - Steve L's post that led to the Hell call looks pretty strongly anti-gay. Some of us are trying to read the post as fairly as we can, but no one is trying to interpret it as if Steve L is actually neutral or affirming on the gay issue. Why? Because the surface reading fits all the known facts, and we are all free to disagree with it. Thinking that a poster on the Ship believes gay relationships to be unethical for Christians, and that they are mistaken to think so, is an easy conclusion to reach. If I believed Steve L to be a prophet of God, whose words were inspired for my guidance, it would be different - I would consider all sorts of interpretations that I wouldn't otherwise give a second thought to, because the conclusion that he's anti-gay, and right, and authoritative, would be very hard to accept.
I think my position differs from yours in that you are persuaded that the Bible (on its plain reading) doesn't actually condemn homosexual relationships equivalent to the permitted sort of heterosexual ones - please correct me if I'm wrong. I entirely agree with you that that is the morally right conclusion, but less certain that the reading of the text to get there is right.
I'm therefore sort of wavering between saying "The Bible is just wrong on that point, and it's OK, even required, for Christians to say so, because we are more certain that God is good than that the text is perfect", and "We are under scriptural authority, but that means we have to read the Bible according to the best judgment of our conscience and believe the morally right interpretation, even if less obviously plausible, is the true meaning of the text".
(*I am convinced that there's nothing actually wrong with homosexuality, to be clear. I just wouldn't wager on Paul agreeing with that).
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think "male and female" is foundational in the sense that "that is how it was in the beginning"; God made two sexes. [deleted huge tangent on intersex people here] That seems to imply, but does not require, heterosexual sex.
Well, it at the very least makes possible heterosexual sex. In the beginning of course, God only made one sex, because he made Adam first and only made Eve later. Therefore it follows that the foundational sexual act is masturbation.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Well, it at the very least makes possible heterosexual sex. In the beginning of course, God only made one sex, because he made Adam first and only made Eve later. Therefore it follows that the foundational sexual act is masturbation.
Not necessarily, there presumably was no need to have genitals if there was nobody else around.
I think we may be reading rather a lot into this story FWIW.
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arse
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Well, it at the very least makes possible heterosexual sex. In the beginning of course, God only made one sex, because he made Adam first and only made Eve later. Therefore it follows that the foundational sexual act is masturbation.
Not necessarily, there presumably was no need to have genitals if there was nobody else around.
There is a group of Orthodox nutters -- sorry, amateur theologians -- who believed Adam and Eve never had sex until after the Fall. Your claim is even more radical. You seem to be implying that after the creation of Eve, God changed the human genome to include genitals. Man was sexless, and when God created his helpmeet, He decided (for whatever reason) to make the species capable of reproduction by making them sexual in the same way that every other vertebrate was sexual already, albeit as something of an afterthought.
Which is okay if one is a young-earth Creationist. But if one has any time for evolution at all, it is a real stretch.
quote:
I think we may be reading rather a lot into this story FWIW.
With this I cannot disagree at all.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Which is okay if one is a young-earth Creationist. But if one has any time for evolution at all, it is a real stretch.
I have a lot of time for evolution, I have very limited time for those who seem intent on trying to stretch a myth to fit their own preconceptions. It's a story, dammit. It doesn't have to explain everything nor do we have to cross-examine it to find answers to difficult questions. That's not what it is there for.
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arse
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
And secondly, they are unequivocally used in the context of marriage. If male and female had nothing to do with becoming one flesh, why didn't Jesus simply quote the second verse and not the first?
Because people would inevitably say he didn't need to because it was assumed from silence.
Wait, are you trying to say an argument from silence should trump what is actually there?
It seems to me that you're making my point for me; if what you say is true, he spelled it out for the avoidance of all doubt.
My point is that the reader will bend to fit whatever is or is not there.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think we may be reading rather a lot into this story FWIW.
I blame the author. Skips between allegory, history, grocery lists, action stories and morality plays. Changes direction and tone with no proper transition, no consistant voice. It's crap for continuity. As a collection of related works, it struggles, as a cohesive structure it utterly fails. Should have added extensive footnotes at the very least and the publisher should have hired a competent editor.
No modern critic would deign to print a review, much less praise it. It's almost as if it were cobbled together by loads of different authors with different understandings and agendas rather than as the single, coherent narrative that many seen to ascribe.
It does have some lovely bits which could be extracted, though.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Well, one thing's for sure, neither Adam or Eve would have had a belly-button ... unless God had put one there to make them look like regular folks ...
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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St Deird
Shipmate
# 7631
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If I wasn't bothered about having to obey Paul's teachings, I'd have no serious doubt that he was anti-gay. And I'd be glad that human understanding of morality had advanced since his day to the point where I could be sure that he was mistaken.
Alternative explanations commend themselves to me only as a way out of the moral quandary of there otherwise being a clear ethical failure in the plain text of what I believe is sacred scripture. If the "temple prostitution" angle is all Paul meant to talk about, then he can still be right - so it's very tempting to believe that that is all he was talking about. And it is plausible enough to be a possible reading. But I also know that I wouldn't read the text that way if I didn't feel, in some way, that it was inspired by God.
My argument is that it is right to read less likely meanings into scripture, if the most likely reading would be immoral - whereas with any other historic document, we'd simply take the most likely reading, and decide that the author was wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
My thought would be to evaluate against his overall message. And it is difficult, for me, to see any way Jesus would condemn SSM.
Well, that's where we get into the arguments about what Paul meant.
As for Jesus, he might not condemn it, but he might not champion it either. We just don't immediately know either way.
Why does it matter what Paul thought, exactly?
I mean...
If I am having a discussion about ethics, and I say "Kidnapping small children, like fairies do, is wrong." - then surely my error in thinking that fairies exist and kidnap people doesn't negate my ethical point that we should kidnap people. Likewise, if I say "We should treat changelings well and honourably - even those that the fairies have not given the power of speech." then my ethical point about treating severely disabled people well shouldn't be lost under my weird beliefs that they're changelings left by the fairies.
I do not see why we should believe Paul to be correct in every point of theology. And, especially in Romans, I don't think he's going "Hey, here's a list of things that are wrong." His belief that homosexuality is sinful is tangential to his main point - and, I think, somewhat irrelevant to what we're supposed to be hearing from this passage of inspired scripture.
If inspired scripture said "Every day, as the sun's rotation around the earth causes the light to dim, we should pray." then we'd be pretty dumb to miss the point about daily prayer, and get caught up in the writer's incorrect understanding of astronomy - that's all I'm saying.
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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.
Posts: 319 | From: the other side of nowhere | Registered: Jun 2004
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by St Deird:
I mean...
If I am having a discussion about ethics, and I say "Kidnapping small children, like fairies do, is wrong." - then surely my error in thinking that fairies exist and kidnap people doesn't negate my ethical point that we should kidnap people. Likewise, if I say "We should treat changelings well and honourably - even those that the fairies have not given the power of speech." then my ethical point about treating severely disabled people well shouldn't be lost under my weird beliefs that they're changelings left by the fairies.
I do not see why we should believe Paul to be correct in every point of theology. And, especially in Romans, I don't think he's going "Hey, here's a list of things that are wrong." His belief that homosexuality is sinful is tangential to his main point - and, I think, somewhat irrelevant to what we're supposed to be hearing from this passage of inspired scripture.
If inspired scripture said "Every day, as the sun's rotation around the earth causes the light to dim, we should pray." then we'd be pretty dumb to miss the point about daily prayer, and get caught up in the writer's incorrect understanding of astronomy - that's all I'm saying. [/QB]
I'm with you, I think. To believe a commandment or prohibition inspired when we have no natural or rational means of determining whether it's good (indeed when there's evidence that it causes harm) is a wicked, wicked thing to do. It's what animates people who detonate shrapnel bombs and kill little children because 'God says.' The pronouncements on gay stuff are but a less violent example of the same logic at work.
Posts: 418 | From: London | Registered: Oct 2015
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by St Deird:
especially in Romans, I don't think he's going "Hey, here's a list of things that are wrong." His belief that homosexuality is sinful is tangential to his main point - and, I think, somewhat irrelevant to what we're supposed to be hearing from this passage of inspired scripture.
Except that he condemns homosexuality more directly in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy - though the Greek is arguably obscure as to what it is that he is condemning.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You seem to be implying that after the creation of Eve, God changed the human genome to include genitals. Man was sexless, and when God created his helpmeet, He decided (for whatever reason) to make the species capable of reproduction by making them sexual in the same way that every other vertebrate was sexual already, albeit as something of an afterthought.
I believe there was a line of thought, possibly Kabbalistic, that had it that Adam was originally a hermaphrodite (which is the perfect state).
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
It goes back to the Greeks. Aristotle? When humans were created they were four-legged, four-armed, and two-headed. Some were male/male, some male/female, and some female/female. Zeus divided them down the middle and ran a thread around the loose edge, drawing it tight and tying a knot -- the belly button. We now spend all our time running around trying to find our matching half.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It goes back to the Greeks. Aristotle? When humans were created they were four-legged, four-armed, and two-headed. Some were male/male, some male/female, and some female/female. Zeus divided them down the middle and ran a thread around the loose edge, drawing it tight and tying a knot -- the belly button. We now spend all our time running around trying to find our matching half.
And here we see the dangers of overindulgence in Ouzo.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Well, it suggests that a particular man's idea was to become one flesh with a particular woman.
I'm not convinced, because "for this reason shall a man". This obviously doesn't refer merely to Adam, if only because he had no parents to leave.
For that reason it obviously doesn't refer at all to Adam. The logic is that here is something (A) Adam did, because Adam did that, other men shall do something (B). A and B are obviously not exactly the same (B explicitly mentions father and mother.) How many features A and B share in common and which features they are and why A is a justification for B are left by the text for the reader to spell out.
quote:
quote:
It is Adam's acceptance of Eve as companion that marks her out as the appropriate one flesh.
Because she is like him in a way all the other animals are not. But she is also different; she is female! That is the overriding distinction the text makes. If her sex is trivial, why not simply clone Adam?
If there is an overriding distinction that the text makes, it is between humans and animals.
As this is a story about the first two human beings, it has to be about a man and a woman because they have to have children together. However, the text doesn't mention that as a consideration. No normative weight is placed on the fact that Adam and Eve can reproduce together.
quote:
quote:
The only normative idea the text seems to put forward is that a man must live with his parents until he's married, and then the couple set up at the wife's parents.
If you really want to be that literalistic, the wife's parents don't even get invited to the wedding, let alone provide accommodation, because in the text they don't exist at all, and indeed in the text there is no wedding, just a whole lot of cleaving.
I don't think you can say we must be just this literalistic and no more literalistic.
quote:
All this verse says to me is that, um, foundationally, sex is linked with a change in one's place in the social system, leaving one subsystem and establishing another.
I'll just note that you maintain that in all of the verses leading up to this verse, the difference in sex is the overriding distinction the text makes - and now, suddenly when the text says that a man must leave his father and motehr, the overriding distinction is of no importance whatsoever and when the text says 'a man leaves and cleaves to his wife' it applies without distinction to a man and wife and to a woman and husband. I think the interpretation inconsistently applies layers of literalism.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It goes back to the Greeks. Aristotle?
Plato says that Aristophanes told that story at a dinner party. It's in The Symposium.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Possibly just me, but my impression of the vast majority of the OT is that if Adam had been offered a male buddy, he'd have taken that over Eve.
It is obviously true that for the vast majority of human existence, male and females were needed for reproduction. But equally clearly close male relationships were needed and were reflected in the OT as in many ancient texts.
If we really want to be literal about the Genesis story, then at some point Adam or his sons would have had to reproduce with Eve or their (unnamed) daughters. I don't think many would see this as a healthy form of behaviour to model!
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It is not coincidental that Christianity is less science friendly than Buddhism.
Without wanting to denigrate the achievements of Indian and Chinese mathematics, I point out that the experimental empirical scientific revolution took place in Latin Christendom.
I was speaking of Modernity, but ...
quote:
Thus, clear unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, to medieval Muslim philosophers and scientists, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the secular sciences of the modern day.
As I said, the Chinese and Indians made mathematical and technical advances. As indeed did the Christian West in the late Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the reason we consider those technical advances particularly worthy of note is that between 1500 and 1700 AD the Christian West innovated a new type of activity. It had antecedents in the Islamic World: Ibn Al-Haytham's work on optics is I think the earliest experimental work that has established conclusions that are still held valid, but for some reason it didn't become a systematic cultural thing in the way it did in Europe.
quote:
I was reading an article speaking of scientific literacy in Christian countries like the US vs Buddhist countries. I will look try to find the article.
I suspect that the US is for reasons of nineteenth and twentieth century political history an outlier.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Re Plato / Aristophanes:
As I recall, there were three races of men, although all of them were eight-limbed spheres. The offspring of the sun had only male parts, the offspring of the moon had only female parts, and the offspring of the earth had both.
After they were split in half, each of the male halves of the earth-children runs round looking for his female other half - but each half of the sun-children is looking for a male other half, mutatis mutandis for the female moon-children.
Aristophanes is a comic poet who has, as mousethief suggests, imbibed copious alcohol at this point in the dinner party. It isn't to be taken seriously - however the story does suggest a distinction being made between gay men, lesbians and heterosexuals, which gives the lie to the claim that the Ancient Greeks had no concept of orientation.
[ 29. February 2016, 14:09: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Possibly just me, but my impression of the vast majority of the OT is that if Adam had been offered a male buddy, he'd have taken that over Eve.
It is obviously true that for the vast majority of human existence, male and females were needed for reproduction. But equally clearly close male relationships were needed and were reflected in the OT as in many ancient texts.
If we really want to be literal about the Genesis story, then at some point Adam or his sons would have had to reproduce with Eve or their (unnamed) daughters. I don't think many would see this as a healthy form of behaviour to model!
You'd be surprised. The question was asked on a more fundy forum (it's a regular, "who was Cain's wife?") and got told that for my answer, which was that the stories weren't literal, could only go in "unconventional theology", and the only acceptable mainstream Christian answer was "his sister".
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
And that was OK because 1) so close to the Creation, there were no faulty genes to damage the offspring of incestuous relationships - and that goes for Seth as well, and the unnamed other offspring of Adam and Eve; and 2) God hadn't forbidden incest yet.
So I've read.
Don't these people realise the tortuous world they are creating?
No, of course they don't, they just paint themselves further and further into the corner of one of those distorted rooms that viewed from a particular point outside makes them look smaller and smaller like something out of Alice. They don't realise what they look like from outside, and how unlikely they are to convince anyone of their rightness.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
1) as I've pointed out a few times on the Ship in various contexts, the original 'Fundamentals' were not as 'dumb wooden literal' as subsequent 'fundamentalists' have insisted on being - indeed many of those later 'fundies' would consider the 'Creation' article to be appallingly 'liberal'....
2) Even the strongest 'fundies' must at some point recognise 'non-literal' elements - I don't know anybody who thinks that "Jesus is the Lamb of God" should be interpreted that he was a four-legged infant sheep!
3) Even before Darwin there was recognition that the Genesis stories were not necessarily dumb wooden literal - apparently the early Anglican Colet suggested they were 'after the manner of a popular poet' or words to that effect. Modern thinking about 'primitive people' in general tends to the view that they would actually know that they were dealing with 'stories' rather than 'history as we understand it'. They wouldn't be bothered by questions like "Who did Cain marry?" or how, after murdering his brother, he managed to get the people together to found even the small settlement that would be called a city in those days.
In effect, this is an issue of 'genre' and of what genre the early Genesis stories are. I'd incline to the view that an appropriate, though not exact, parallel would be something like Orwell's "Animal Farm"; which is far from an exact or detailed account of the history of the Russian Revolution, but by telling the basic story in a different genre, points up and emphasises the key ideas; and also, by such devices as calling one of the pigs 'Napoleon', points to wider applicability.
Having said that, telling the story in such a genre means that while the historic details are simplified or otherwise adapted, the ideas/principles/morals of the story are emphasised and to be taken very seriously - in the current case, the teaching on God 'making them male and female' and the implications of that on the meaning of marriage and the proper use of sexuality....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Having said that, telling the story in such a genre means that while the historic details are simplified or otherwise adapted, the ideas/principles/morals of the story are emphasised and to be taken very seriously - in the current case, the teaching on God 'making them male and female' and the implications of that on the meaning of marriage and the proper use of sexuality....
That is just begging the question. One can agree that the ideas/principles/morals are important without immediately declaring what the principles are, as you have just done.
What if someone draws different principles from the passage, eh? Is that not precisely what many posters have been doing on this thread? Have I not been specifically challenging the notion that "male and female" is actually what the passage is most interested in?
Have I not, for example, specifically pointed out that "male and female" appears in Chapter 1 and not in Chapter 2 in the bit about marriage?
However much you just want to sweep to the conclusion, you don't have that right.
[ 01. March 2016, 20:47: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I mean, what's the name of the method of Biblical interpretation that allows you to take "male and female he created them" (a fact that no-one is denying, by the way, we all agree that both male humans and female humans exist) and combine it with something else a whole chapter away?
Is there another name for this approach to interpretation besides "selective reading" or "picking and choosing"?
I'm not saying everyone has to agree with my interpretation, but when people blithely skate over the fact that they're combining separate passages and act as if they're directly quoting the Bible, it's incredibly frustrating.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
That is just begging the question. One can agree that the ideas/principles/morals are important without immediately declaring what the principles are, as you have just done.
What orfeo says.
For example, the passage about male and female could be directed against ideas that the creation of women was in some sense a fall or part of the fall, as with the myth of Pandora or some gnostic ideas.
The idea that it's laying down the only true way to lay is not to be found in the text.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I'm away at a conference right now, which is why I haven't been all over this thread, and I'm not sure I can do the intervening contrubutions (well some of them) the justice they deserve with my current mental availability, but let me see if I can address some things.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
For that reason it obviously doesn't refer at all to Adam.
I don't follow this, particularly your words "at all".
The words "for this reason" mean that what follows is explained by what immediately goes before. The issue is about the ways in which what follows is justified by what goes before, and the ways in which it is not (or need not be).
Am I misrepresenting you (and/or orfeo) if I say your position is that what goes before is about Adam choosing a human mate (who just happens to be female) in preference to the animals (and, incidentally, not choosing a female in preference to a male), and what goes after explains that this is why (some) humans go on to find a mate (who, in the example cited, just happens to be of the opposite sex)?
quote:
[you say] suddenly when the text says that a man must leave his father and motehr, the overriding distinction is of no importance whatsoever and when the text says 'a man leaves and cleaves to his wife' it applies without distinction to a man and wife and to a woman and husband. I think the interpretation inconsistently applies layers of literalism.
I'm trying to understand your criticism here. Are you saying I've explained away one part of the text (the specific detail of the man leaving his parents, not the woman) on cultural grounds (doubtless to do with the status of women at the time) and tried to uphold the other (the fact that the text mentions a man and his wife) as normative?
[ 01. March 2016, 21:28: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by St Deird:
Why does it matter what Paul thought, exactly?
I think it matters - or might matter - because if I regard the Bible as being authoritative, I want to know what it means, and in particular, what it means as a source of authority. If the Bible is to be regard as God-inspired human words, does the authority reside in the inspiration, in the words, or both? Knowing what the human thoughts were behind the human words does not seem to me to be irrelevant to what the text means.
Continuing the (to me, helpful) 'scripture reinterpreting scripture' theme, there's at least one example where the human thoughts actually run counter to their inspired meaning. John regards Caiaphas's cynical reasoning that 'it is expedient that one man should die for the people' (John 11:50) to be an inspired utterance - but in a sense clearly contrary to Caiaphas's actual opinions.
However I'm not putting that forward as a general rule for interpreting scripture. We don't usually regard it as a complete waste of time to ask about the cultural context and attitudes of the human authors of scripture, when assessing what they mean when writing about God. I also don't think that we can assume that the whole of Paul's unexpressed world-view is somehow implicitly endorsed because his written words were inspired. Paul the man doubtless believed many things which were wrong (as do we all) - if it could be proved that he would have condemned all same-sex relationships whatever, if the question had been put to him directly, that would not, in my view, mean that this opinion should be imported into what we regard as the inspired meaning, but it would inform what I think Romans 1 means - what Paul would have expected his readers to take from the text. I don't think that's enough to definitively determine the meaning, but it's not irrelevant either. I'd like to know it.
One of the things that I use, and think that I ought to use, when working out what the inspired (and therefore, authoritative) meaning of the text is, is what I judge to be true and good independent of the text. I know, as surely as I know that the Earth goes around the Sun, that most gay relationships look a lot more like most straight relationships than they look like the sort of sinful debauchery that an offended deity might inflict on man as a punishment. Therefore I find it hard to read Romans 1 as meaning (as inspired meaning) 'all gay relationships'. If I knew that Paul never intended that to be the human meaning of his words, either, my problem would vanish.
However if he did mean (because he knew less than we do) that all gay relationships are wrong and damaging, conscience compels me to reject that teaching, and say that this cannot be the proper interpretation of the text as scripture even if it would be the right interpretation of it as a purely human writing.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Am I misrepresenting you (and/or orfeo) if I say your position is that what goes before is about Adam choosing a human mate (who just happens to be female) in preference to the animals (and, incidentally, not choosing a female in preference to a male), and what goes after explains that this is why (some) humans go on to find a mate (who, in the example cited, just happens to be of the opposite sex)?
I've argued before that it is an important principle that even though the woman is (in the context of the story) quite literally made for the man, God nevertheless gives him the autonomy to recognise that fact and make the choice for himself. God didn't instruct him in who he should love. God allows him to choose (as far as any lover is free to choose) and respects his choice.
I'd argue that Genesis endorses that sense of recognition that happens when two people fall in love. Since this demonstrably occurs between two men, or two women, as well as between man and woman, I don't see an implicit condemnation of same-sex love in Genesis.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Orfeo;
quote:
I mean, what's the name of the method of Biblical interpretation that allows you to take "male and female he created them" (a fact that no-one is denying, by the way, we all agree that both male humans and female humans exist) and combine it with something else a whole chapter away?
In this case, the combination was not done by Eutychus, me, or other later Christians but by Jesus himself (in Mark 10;6-7 and its Matthaean parallel). As a Christian I tend to assume he, as God incarnate, knew what he was doing with, in effect, his own words....
Non-Christians could disagree about Jesus doing that; and in that case they are free to disregard Jesus and his interpretation. I'm not forcing them to believe in Jesus....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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St Deird
Shipmate
# 7631
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Orfeo;
quote:
I mean, what's the name of the method of Biblical interpretation that allows you to take "male and female he created them" (a fact that no-one is denying, by the way, we all agree that both male humans and female humans exist) and combine it with something else a whole chapter away?
In this case, the combination was not done by Eutychus, me, or other later Christians but by Jesus himself (in Mark 10;6-7 and its Matthaean parallel). As a Christian I tend to assume he, as God incarnate, knew what he was doing with, in effect, his own words....
Non-Christians could disagree about Jesus doing that; and in that case they are free to disregard Jesus and his interpretation. I'm not forcing them to believe in Jesus....
Christians could also disagree with you.
I find it highly arrogant for you to say "Because I am a Christian, I think xyz. Non-Christians, of course, might disagree." - thereby implying that disagreement and not-being-a-Christian are one and the same thing.
(I do, in fact, disagree with your main assumption here. I believe Jesus to be without sin - but it does not necessarily follow that he was without error. He became "fully man" - and one of the ways that humans are constrained is that we are people within time, and therefore we learn, we make mistakes (and can change to be better), and do not know all things (like the exact sequence of future events). I'm not sure how much Jesus would have made mistakes, but I see no contradiction between him potentially making mistakes and him being God Incarnate. It's part of the "incarnate" bit.)
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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.
Posts: 319 | From: the other side of nowhere | Registered: Jun 2004
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