Does the Bible Really Call Homosexuality an “Abomination”?

July 4, 2010

Homosexuality is abomination. The Christian Right says so all the time, and non-religious LGBT activists say it too, to relegate religion to humanity’s dustheap. After all, isn’t that what it says in the Bible?

No—and progressive religionists should not use the word. It’s a mistranslation and a misconception, doing harm to LGBT people and religious people alike.

The word “abomination” is found, of course, in the King James translation of Leviticus 18:22, a translation which reads, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it [is] abomination.” Yet this is a thoroughly misleading rendition of the word toevah, which, while we may not know exactly what it means, definitely does not mean “abomination.” An “abomination” conjures up images of things which should not exist on the face of the earth: three-legged babies, oceans choked with oil, or Cheez-Whiz. And indeed, this is how many religious people regard gays and lesbians. It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.Homosexuality is unnatural, a perversion, a disease, an abomination.

Yet a close reading of the term toevah suggests an entirely different meaning: something permitted to one group, and forbidden to another. Though there is (probably) no etymological relationship, toevah means taboo.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what the bible actually says. Many Christians believe the KJV to be the only “real” bible, so they read the “abomination” version. Many Christians don’t even know what the bible says, since they’ve not read it—they only know that gay is bad “because the bible says so.” The sad fact of the matter is that in terms of biblical knowledge, hermeneutics, apologetics, and church history, the atheists that I know are almost without exception more informed than most Christians that I know. Most Christians seem to get their bible-learnin’ from a couple church services every month and whatever the “pundits” on Fox News say.

Additionally, I don’t think there’s any reason to try and argue that “well, the bible doesn’t really say it’s an abomination.” I’ve read and talked to plenty of people who don’t think the bible is really sexist either. Or who have all kinds of ways to rationalize the awful shit that god does in the bible. “It’s not mass murder when god kills the entire world with a flood, and they deserved it anyway.” Oh, really.

The bible is outdated as anything more than a historical and literary curiosity. We need to throw it all out as any kind of source for morality. The only person in there who said much that was worthwhile was that Jesus guy, and no one listens to what he said, anyway.

9:10am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZOglYyjs4U8
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(Notes: 33)