More Reasons
Why Stacy Johnson’s A Time to Embrace Should Not Be Embraced: Part
II: Sodom, Leviticus, and More on Jesus and Paul
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New
Testament
Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
© 2008
Robert A. J. Gagnon
March 2008; posted on the
web on Sept. 30, 2008
For printing use the pdf version
here
My critical
review article on Stacy Johnson’s book A Time to Embrace for the
Scottish Journal of Theology was limited to about 8000 words.
As such it was not possible to include large amounts of additional
critique. This essay deals with a number of subjects that could not be
addressed in that review, though readers should not regard even this as
completing the critique. There are too many inaccuracies,
misrepresentations, and instances of failed logic to record them all. This
essay treats only Johnson’s mistreatment of biblical texts not covered in
the Scottish Journal of Theology article; specifically: (1) the
story of Sodom and related texts; (2) the Levitical prohibitions of
man-male intercourse; (3) the witness of Jesus (only barely touched on in
the SJT article); (4) the witness of Paul in 1 Cor 6:9 (ditto); and
(5) the witness of Paul in Rom 1:24-27 (ditto). (For discussion of issues
of science, nature, history, and logic in Johnson’s book, see “Part III”
at
http://robgagnon.net/homosexStacyJohnsonMoreReasons3.htm.)
I. Johnson on the Story of Sodom and
Related Texts
Johnson dismisses
the Sodom and Levite-at-Gibeah narratives as speaking against only
same-sex rape, the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic qedeshim texts
(feminized male cult figures serving as passive-receptive partners in
male-male intercourse) as rejecting only cultic prostitution, Ezek
16:49 as identifying only callousness toward the poor as Sodom’s
sin, and Jude 7 (cf. 2 Pet 2:6-10) condemning only the Sodomites’
“desire to force sexual relations with angelic beings” (44-45, 49, 263 n.
9, 264 n. 14).
All of these
presumptions I have already refuted extensively elsewhere.
Since Johnson gives not the slightest indication that he has read anything
that I have written on these subjects—he certainly doesn’t address a
single one of my counterarguments—there is no point here in restating at
length what he has ignored. His first task is to begin reading so that he
may become more broadly acquainted with the issues. I offer here only a
few questions to stimulate his reading.
On the Sodom
narrative: If someone told Johnson a story about a really bad town
where adults raped their parents, would Johnson conclude that the
storyteller was condemning only forcible incest? If not, why does
he conclude that the story of Sodom in a broader cultural environment that
is aware of (but still critical of) non-coercive forms of male-male
intercourse, is indicting only forcible male-male intercourse?
On the
Deuteronomistic qedeshim texts: Since ancient Near East texts
that speak of parallel figures (the assinnu, kurgarrû, and
kulu’u) hold such figures in disgust for their attempt at erasing
their masculine stamp—both through appearance and through consensual
anal-receptive intercourse—why would Johnson argue that the biblical
writers are rejecting such figures only the grounds of cult and fees?
On the
Levite-at-Gibeah story: If the Deuteronomistic Historian rejected the
qedeshim for the same reasons, then isn’t it self-evident that the
coercive dimension of the attempt at male-male rape in the
Levite-at-Gibeah story is not the only offense being condemned?
On Ezek 16:49:
If the vice list in Ezek 18:10-13 clearly distinguishes between the
offense “oppresses the poor and needy” (fifth vice) from the offense
“commits an abomination” (ninth vice), if elsewhere in Ezekiel
“abomination” in the singular is used of sexual sin, and if Ezekiel knew
and basically agreed with the Holiness Code or a precursor document (as
all Ezekiel scholars acknowledge), including presumably the Holiness
Code’s take on man-male intercourse, what grounds is there for contending
that in Ezek 16:49 “committed an abomination” does not refer to the
offense of man-male intercourse per se?
On Jude 7 and 2
Pet 2:6-10: If the entire history of interpretation of the Sodom story
agrees that the Sodomites did not realize that the visitors were angels,
how could the men of Sodom be held accountable for allegedly desiring sex
with angels? Why can’t Jude 7 be read, consistent with most early Jewish
interpretations of the Second Temple period and beyond, as: “in the course
of attempting sexual immorality [i.e. intercourse with men] they
[inadvertently] went after other flesh [i.e. angels]”?
That Johnson has not
even acknowledged to his readers any of these questions, let alone
satisfactorily answered them, is a revealing commentary on the quality and
quantity of his research and/on his active intent to conceal from his
readers information highly inconvenient to his own arguments.
II. Johnson on the Levitical
Prohibitions:
“Lying with a Male as though Lying with
a Woman”
Johnson’s treatment
of the Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse (18:22; 20:13) is
far and away his most researched discussion of scriptural texts, yet even
this effort is half-baked at best (124-29, endnotes on pp. 279-88).
Johnson’s
failed attempt at rejecting an incest analogue. Johnson argues
that because Levitical incest laws do not prohibit man-daughter and
man-sister intercourse they are “based less on biology … and more on
social organization of families.” “Thus, when contemporary polemicists
make repeated comparisons between same-gender sexuality and incest, they
are telling us more about their own [infer: bigoted, hypocritical]
agendas, than about the values of ancient Israel” (283 n. 52). Since
Johnson in the same note cites approvingly from Jacob Milgrom’s commentary
on Leviticus (pp. 1526 and 1528), he misrepresents matters by not wanting
readers to know of Milgrom’s solution to the problem of no explicit
citation of man-daughter, man-sister incest (pp. 1527-29).
Man-daughter and man-sister prohibitions are subsumed in the prohibition
of intercourse with one’s nearest kin in Lev 18:6: “no man shall
approach any flesh (šəēr) of his flesh (bĕśārô) to uncover
nakedness.”
Sex with one’s mother is explicitly addressed in 18:7 only in order to
establish that all other incestuous unions are a violation of one’s mother
or father. The remainder of the list in 18:8-18 shows which more distant
kin-relations beyond mother, sister, and daughter are forbidden.
By not alerting readers to Milgrom’s credible solution when otherwise
citing the same section of Milgrom’s commentary Johnson deceives his
readers.
Johnson ignores the
fact that the prohibition of adultery in Lev 18:20 uses the language of
“lying,” not “seeing the nakedness of”: literally, “and to the wife of a
community member you shall not give your lying for seed.” Surely this
prohibition implies also the wrongness of any erotic contact with one’s
neighbor’s wife, not just the penetrative act. Moreover, Johnson takes the
expression “seeing the nakedness of” far too literally (cf. Milgrom: “This
is another euphemism for ‘copulate’”).
That the expression is a metaphor for sexual intercourse is evident from
the fact that, for a number of the incest prohibitions in Lev 18, Lev 20
substitutes “see the nakedness of” with “lie with” without any apparent
difference in meaning (cf. 18:8 with 20:11; 18:15 with 20:12; 18:19 with
20:18; 18:14 with 20:20; 18:16 with 20:21). In Lev 20 there is no material
difference in meaning between the prohibitions of “lying with” one’s
stepmother, one’s daughter-in-law, or a male, on the one hand, and the
prohibitions of “seeing the nakedness of” one’s sister, one’s aunt, or
one’s brother’s wife, on the other hand. Indeed, for two prohibitions, Lev
20 combines the two phrases: “a man who lies with a sick [i.e.
menstruating] woman and uncovers her nakedness” (20:18); “a man who lies
with his uncle’s wife has uncovered the nakedness of his uncle” (20:20).
In addition, Johnson overlooks the parallel use of the expression “saw the
nakedness of” for Ham’s probable intercourse with his father Noah in Gen
9:20-27.
Finally, even if
there were a difference between the two expressions (which is unlikely),
it would by no means follow that only anal penetration of another male was
regarded as wrong. In our own culture, for example, while it is less
offensive to see naked a person of the same sex than one of the
other sex (or no offense at all), non-penetrative, erotic contact is more
offensive with a person of the same sex than a person of the other sex.
The idea that ancient Israel would have accepted oral sex or erotic
fondling by a man of another male’s genitals is preposterous, as
apparently even Johnson is forced to admit. We might presume that erotic
gestures short of penetration in the cases of incest, adultery, and
homoeroticism may have been subject to penalties less substantial than a
capital sentence, but implicitly forbidden.
Johnson’s
failed argument from the absence of an explicit indictment of lesbianism.
Johnson also argues that the fact that lesbianism is not indicted
proves that “the concern is with protecting male dignity and not … any
particular marital ideal” (126). However, this argument makes an either-or
out of a both-and. Moreover, it presumes the historically absurd scenario
that ancient Israelites would have approved of committed sexual
relationships between females (note that in the later Greco-Roman milieu
lesbian intercourse was widely thought to be far more offensive than
man-male intercourse). The absence of an explicit condemnation of
female-female intercourse is more likely due to the fact that such
relations were virtually impossible, and thus largely unknown, given the
tightly controlled sexual lives of women in the ancient Near East.
Johnson’s
failed main thesis that the prohibition is limited to exploitative forms.
Johnson’s main thesis is that “Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 do not
prohibit every form of same-gender expression imaginable; instead, they
prohibit a form of emasculating sexual behavior marked by dominance,
exploitation, and humiliation” (154). From this thesis he makes three main
arguments.
1. Why the
Levitical prohibitions cannot be confined to coercive forms of man-male
intercourse. According to Johnson, “the act in question was of the
kind that a socially superior man usually imposed on a social inferior,”
“performed on a slave or other subordinate person merely as a form of
sexual gratification” or on “prisoners of war as a form of sexual
humiliation” and “abuse” (125-26). Johnson’s mention of the examples of
sex with male slaves and sex with prisoners of war, two instances of
coercive man-male intercourse, overlooks the obvious fact that Lev 20:13
penalizes both participants on the grounds of mutual complicity: “the two
of them … shall certainly be put to death; their blood be upon them.” As
with the prohibitions of adultery and incest, Lev 20 presumes that both
parties are consenting and thus liable for participation (cf. 20:11-13,
27; Ezek 18:10-14; Deut 22:23-27). Consequently, the prohibition of
man-male intercourse in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 cannot have one-sided
exploitation of another primarily in view.
Furthermore,
evidence from both Mesopotamia and Egypt indicates that non-coercive forms
of homosexual practice were known in the ancient Near East.
For Johnson’s argument to work, he has to presuppose the historically
outlandish idea that the framers of the Holiness Code in Lev 17-26 (!)
would have blessed a committed sexual union between two men. There is
certainly no basis for such an idea in the history of interpretation of
Lev 18:22 and 20:13 found in both early Judaism and early Christianity,
which is unanimous in understanding the prohibition in an absolute sense.
2. Why the
expression “lie with” does not imply a specific, non-absolute application.
Johnson further contends that the expression “lie with” refers
specifically to sexual relationships that are promiscuous or coercive
(rape) rather than loving and committed. He compares “lie with” to the
vulgar English expression “get laid” and argues that its use in Lev 18:22
and 20:13 signals a condemnation only of non-committed male same-sex
relationships. Johnson’s argument fails at two levels.
First, as even
Johnson has to acknowledge, the expression “lie with” is not used in
exclusively negative contexts, which suggests to most scholars that the
expression has the neutral sense “have sexual intercourse with” (so
HALOT; cf. Lev 15:18, 24; Gen 30:15; 2 Sam 11:11; 2 Sam 12:24).
Second, even if
there were any negative connotation to the expression “lie with,” its
connection with man-male love could readily be explained by the fact that
ancient Israelites viewed man-male love as inherently immoral, not by some
attempt to distinguish between exploitative/promiscuous forms of man-male
intercourse and committed forms. This is certainly the case as regards
references to “lying with” one’s parent or step-parent, daughter-in-law,
and animals (Gen 19:32-36; 35:22; 49:4; Exod 22:19; Lev 20:11-12; Deut
27:21). None of these uses of “lie with” speak of “only one kind of sexual
act” rather than an act construed in an “absolute, sweeping, and
universal” sense, as Johnson claims for the prohibition of man-male
intercourse (128).
3. Why misogyny
is not the key that unlocks the Levitical prohibitions. Johnson claims
that the Levitical prohibitions are concerned “primarily” to “protect male
dignity” by outlawing “transgression of the proper passive and active
gender roles” (126, 128, 283 n. 53).
Penetrating a male would disgrace him by treating him as a “sexually
subservient” woman (126). Johnson utterly rejects “the possibility that
Leviticus finds male-to-male sexual intercourse objectionable merely
because it constitutes a departure from the anatomical ‘fit’ between ‘male
and female’” (286 n. 60).
Yet even Johnson’s
use of what I call a “misogyny theory” has to presuppose some notion of
gender complementarity. Otherwise, why would Lev 18:22 and 20:13 identify
the one who is penetrated as taking the place of a “woman”?
To put it bluntly, the fact that a woman’s vagina is the appropriate
receptacle for a man’s penis must have something to do with this
identification. Indeed, in a holistic sense, God has designed woman as the
“counterpart” or “complement” of a man (kĕnegdô), the missing
element of a once indivisible sexual whole (so Gen 2:18-24 [J]; J
attributes a husband’s rule over his wife to the Fall [3:16]). Even
Johnson admits that the Levitical prohibition “is possibly in support of
the command to be ‘fruitful and multiply’” (128; cf. 286 n. 60). This too
speaks to some baseline notion of male-female sexual complementarity,
certainly as regards procreative function, which in turn presupposes
anatomical fit.
The priestly notion
of creation “according to its kind” (Gen 1:11-12, 21, 24-25) also speaks
to an understanding of structural conformity, as does the Holiness Code’s
prohibition of breeding animals, sowing seed, or putting on a garment “of
two kinds” (Lev 19:19). Although the prohibitions in Lev 19:19 strike us
as quaint, the interdiction of incest and bestiality in Lev 18 and 20 does
not. The latter shows concerns both for too much structural identity in a
sexual merger (in the case of incest having intercourse with the “flesh [raev.,
šəēr] of one’s flesh [Arf'b.,
bĕśārô]”; 18:6) and for too little structural identity (in the case
of bestiality an invalid sexual “mixing” of humans and animals [lb,T,,
tebel]; 18:23; 20:15-16). Neither of these two sets of prohibitions
primarily has in view the maintenance of male hierarchical authority,
which Johnson posits as the prime motive for the prohibition of man-male
intercourse. Instead, structural considerations are primary. The same
applies to the prohibition of sex with a menstruant, construed as a
discordant mix of physiological functions (Lev 18:19; 20:18).
Thus issues of
structural congruity appear to be paramount in the prohibition of man-male
intercourse, with any misogynistic overlay subsidiary at best. Even
Johnson admits that Gen 1:27 rejects any attempt “to lessen the humanity”
of women since it affirms that women too are made fully in God’s image
(116).
If surrendering a dominant male social status were the real issue behind
the proscriptions of Lev 18:22 and 20:13, we would expect the legislators
of the Holiness Code to have made subversion of male hierarchy punishable
by death, not just the “symptom” of homosexual intercourse. If status were
the main concern rather than structure, we might wonder why the
legislators did not permit, as The Middle Assyrian Laws seem to have done,
high-status men to have sex with low-status males.
If the main concerns were the “dominance, exploitation, and humiliation”
of the penetrated partner (126), we might wonder why the legislators did
not permit consensual acts rather than condemn to death both parties. It
seems, then, that the primary motive behind prohibiting man-male
intercourse was the view that gender dimorphism was absolutely inviolable.
A male is not, and never can be, a sexual complement to a man. To pretend
otherwise is to commit sacrilege against God’s creation as “male and
female.”
A subpoint here is
that Johnson appears not even to be aware that he has used two mutually
exclusive arguments: a non-absolute exploitation argument and an absolute
misogyny argument. In the conclusion to his book, he uses both arguments
of all biblical texts that explicitly or implicitly prohibit
homosexual practice:
The main argument made against gay
couples is that their love violates certain biblical prohibitions. But
those biblical prohibitions were addressed specifically to hedonistic or
exploitative forms of sexual conduct, such as prostitution or the sexual
exploitation of slaves, in which mutuality and concern for the other
were absent…. By and large, these biblical prohibitions were directed at
protecting male gender identity in a world in which male superiority
over women was sacrosanct; thus they are ill-suited to guide moral or
political action in the present day. (225)
If the Levitical
prohibitions and other biblical texts were, in the first instance, aimed
against subversion of male hierarchy over women, then how would a caring,
egalitarian man-male sexual relationship have made any positive
difference? Considerations of caring and commitment would be beside the
point (i.e., the caring doesn’t eradicate the problem of subverting male
hierarchy) while considerations of egalitarianism would be downright
dangerous (i.e., male superiority over women must be maintained as
“sacrosanct”). Why doesn’t Johnson notice this rather obvious
inconsistency of argumentation? Perhaps it is because Johnson is not so
much invested in making a consistent argument as in finding some reason,
any reason, to invalidate the scriptural witness against homosexual
practice.
We pointed out some
problems above for a misogyny argument in the OT context. Even more
problems arise in a NT context. Briefly: (1) Even among Greco-Roman
moralists arguments based on structural compatibility were used and not
only arguments predicated on male dominance. (2) In the Greco-Roman milieu
opposition to male homosexual practice intensified, not lessened, as
appreciation for women’s capacity for moral and intellectual discernment
grew. (3) Since opposition to homosexual practice was more intense in
early Judaism and early Christianity than anywhere else in the Greco-Roman
world, and since too the misogyny theory presupposes that the prime
motivation for such opposition was a desire to protect the sanctity of
male superiority over women, the misogyny theory requires the absurd
corollary that the NT writers and even Jesus were among the biggest
misogynists of the Greco-Roman world. This corollary flies in the face of
significant evidence that women in the first-century church were being
given more significant roles than were generally accorded them in
non-Christian society.
The fact that we
don’t find in ancient Israel, early Judaism, and early Christianity the
kind of accommodation to male homosexual practice within a broader
misogynistic bent that we find generally everywhere else in the ancient
Near East and in the Greco-Roman world—specifically the right of men to
penetrate socially inferior males such as youths, foreigners, and
slaves—indicates that for the subcultures of ancient Israel, early
Judaism, and early Christianity gender differentiation was a far greater
concern than gender stratification. The misogyny argument is, at best,
highly reductionistic.
III. Johnson on the Witness of
Jesus to Sexuality
I have already
touched on two facets of the witness of Jesus in my Scottish Journal of
Theology article. First, I noted that Jesus used the twoness of the
sexes ordained by God at creation (Gen 1:27; 2:24) to argue for a
limitation on the number of persons in a sexual union to two, whether
serially or concurrently. Since Jesus’ stance on divorce/remarriage is
predicated on the foundation of two sexes in a sexual bond, moderate
accommodation to the former does not justify radical eradication of the
latter. Second, I noted that Jesus’ saying about “eunuchs who made
themselves eunuchs because of the kingdom of heaven” presupposed both that
born-eunuchs and made-eunuchs were sexually abstinent (Matt 19:11-12) and
that, like the saying about no marriage in heaven (Mark 12:25), doing away
with a male-female prerequisite for sexual relations would spell the end
of all sexual relations, not an option to engage in homosexual relations.
Here I address four other issues raised by Johnson.
1.
Why Jesus’ encounter with the centurion provides absolutely
no support for a homosexualist ideology.
Johnson claims that
the story of Jesus’ encounter with a centurion in Matt 8:5-13 is another
example of how “Jesus pushes the envelope regarding sexual mores.”
According to Johnson, the centurion’s “boy” “may have been ... a sex
slave.” Johnson reasons that the absence of any rebuke on Jesus’ part
shows Jesus’ lack of concern for sexual conventions (141). Johnson seems
not to realize that, if indeed the centurion were having sex with his male
slave and if Jesus’ silence was an indication of approval, then Jesus
would be approving of same-sex rape and possibly forced castration (cf.
Seneca the Elder, Controversies 4.Preface.10; Seneca the Younger,
Moral Epistles 47.7). Such illogical speculations on Johnson’s part
underscores the desperate nature of his attempt to find
something—anything—that might justify a radical departure from Scripture.
As it is, there are many arguments that speak against the “possibility”
that Jesus encountered a centurion whom Jesus knew to be having a sexual
relationship with his “boy.”
2. Why the penultimate
significance that Jesus gave to sexual intimacy and to biological kinship
ties buttresses, rather than subverts, a male-female prerequisite to
marriage.
According to
Johnson, Jesus, “unlike some contemporary ‘family values’ teaching,” did
not “make an idol out of marriage.” The fact that Jesus taught that
“marriage and family are not ends in themselves but exist for the sake of
something bigger” means that “being Jesus’ follower has little to do with
… conventional patterns of family ties,” which in turn allegedly permits
the church to embrace homosexual unions (138). This gets matters
backwards. Jesus could make demands regarding sexual purity that appear
harsh to us precisely because Jesus gave only penultimate value to
the “right” of sexual intimacy and marriage. If there is no sexual
intercourse among humans in heaven it is not necessary to accommodate
innate sexual urges in this age when these urges violate formal or
structural requirements for sexual relations.
Johnson argues that,
because Jesus appears to supplant biological kinship ties in favor of a
new family of God predicated on doing God’s will, “being Jesus’ follower
has little to do with … follow[ing] conventional patterns of family ties”
or with maintaining “the conventions of the biological family” (138). When
it comes to homosexual relationships Johnson is willing to argue that,
since “male and female” “no longer defines the identity of people who are
in Christ” or constitutes “ultimate reality” in the Christian life (152),
“ethical distinctions” based on male-female differentiation are no longer
possible within sexual relationships. Yet Johnson shows an unwillingness
to apply the same logic to incestuous relationships. If kinship, like
gender, has lost its redemptive significance in Christ, then doesn’t it
stand to reason that “ethical distinctions” based on the proximity of
blood relatedness are no longer possible within sexual relationships?
Johnson fails to see the perils of making the leap from statements that
have to do with social relationships, even intimate social relationships,
to conclusions that involve sexual relationships.
3.
Why “love of neighbor” does not invalidate formal
prerequisites for sexual unions.
Johnson similarly
argues that Jesus would not have condemned loving and committed homosexual
relationships inasmuch as Jesus admonished his followers “to bring the law
to completion in their own lives by loving their neighbors (Matt.
5:43-45)” (143). Following this line of reasoning, Jesus would have
praised a faithful polyamorous bond since Jesus made a point of redefining
“neighbor” to include everyone with whom one might come into contact,
including one’s enemy. The counter-argument that a person can truly love
only one other person at the same time will not do on Johnson’s premise
since Jesus throws off any limitations to the meaning of “love of
neighbor” and Johnson applies the love commandment to homosexual
relationships without any regard for the continuing legitimacy of
structural prerequisites. The only way to avoid such absurdities is to do
something that Johnson never does in his book; namely, to acknowledge that
the love commandment is an insufficient (even if necessary) basis
for legitimizing sexual bonds.
4.
Why “we really do believe” that Jesus of Nazareth opposed
homosexual practice absolutely.
In one of his many
shaming statements, Johnson asks readers: “Do we really believe
that Jesus would condemn gay couples who are sincerely seeking to live a
life committed to one another?” (143, my emphasis). If we reword the
question a bit more faithfully we can see how historically absurd
Johnson’s question is:
Is it historically likely that
Jesus, a Jewish Messiah sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
operating in a first-century Palestinian context that abhorred homosexual
practice and himself tightening sexual ethics based on the male-female
prerequisite in Gen 1:27 and 2:24, would have given his blessing to any
sexual union between two of his male disciples, including one of a
committed sort?
The answer can only be:
Obviously not. Would Jesus not rather have warned them of the coming
judgment if they did not repent and urged them to “no longer be sinning”?
Jesus’ view on homosexual practice, committed or otherwise, is not that
difficult to figure out from an historical standpoint. In addition to
arguments already brought forward are the following ten points:
Thus there is every
reason to believe that Jesus was at least as opposed to homosexual
practice as anyone else in early Judaism or earliest Christianity and,
given his stringent sexual ethic, probably more so.
IV. Johnson on 1 Corinthians 6:9
and 1 Timothy 1:10: “Men Who Lie with a Male”
Johnson simply
asserts, without providing much in the way of supporting evidence, that
malakoi (literally, “soft men”) and arsenokoitai (literally,
“men who lie with a male”) in 1 Cor 6:9 refer to “male prostitutes” and
the men who have sex with them, respectively; and that arsenokoitai
in 1 Tim 1:10 (and also 1 Cor 6:9?) refers to men who have sex with their
male slaves (131-33, 154). As with his work on Sodom and related texts and
in spite of having written a “review” of my first book, Johnson informs
readers of none of the counterarguments that I have put forward in
extensive published work against such assumptions.
Once more, Johnson’s first task, if he hasn’t already done so, is to read
more widely. His second task is to exercise the integrity of disclosing
information to his readers that is inconvenient to his own position.
We have already
demonstrated: (1) that the Levitical prohibitions from which
arsenokoitēs was formed (LXX) were both framed absolutely by the
legislators of the Holiness Code and interpreted as such in Second Temple
Judaism and beyond (see II above); (2) that the Greco-Roman milieu already
had a conception of caring homoerotic unions (see the SJT article);
and (3) that Paul set Rom 1:26-27 and 1 Cor 6:9 against the backdrop of a
male-female / man-woman prerequisite in Gen 1:27 and 2:24 respectively
(ditto). We now add a few more points.
(4) Johnson
surprisingly gives readers no indication from the literature that various
ancient writers (e.g., pseudo-Aristotle, Philo, Soranus, Ptolemy, Vettius
Valens) applied malakoi and related terms (cf. also Latin molles)
chiefly to effeminate adult males who are biologically and/or
psychologically disposed to desire penetration by men; moreover, that
these writers centered their critique on the latter’s attempted erasure of
the masculine stamp given them by God/nature, not on exploitation of
others, age difference, or acts of prostitution.
(5) Johnson takes no
account of my discussion of the use of arsenokoit- words in Jewish
and Christian texts after Paul, which provides no basis for limiting the
reference to sex between men and male prostitutes.
(6) Johnson borrows
from Robin Scroggs’s argument that in 1 Tim 1:10 the entire meaning of
arsenokoitai is subsumed under the next group of offenders
andrapodistai (slave traders, kidnappers, men-stealers). Yet Johnson
neglects to acknowledge my counterpoint. The last half of the vice list in
1 Tim 1:9-10, at least, corresponds to the order of the Decalogue’s fifth
to ninth commandments. The mention of pornoi (sexually immoral
people) in 1 Tim 1:10 clearly aligns with the seventh commandment against
adultery, while the reference to andrapodistai clearly aligns with
the eighth commandment against stealing. The only question is whether
arsenokoitai belongs more with the latter (as Johnson thinks) than the
former. The question is not hard to resolve once one realizes that several
early Jewish and Christian discussions make a distinction between men who
have sex with males, placed under the rubric of the seventh commandment
against adultery, and “men-stealers,” classified under the eighth
commandment against stealing.
Moreover, is Johnson arguing that Paul included male slaves who were
coerced into effacing their masculinity by lascivious masters among the
malakoi that are condemned in 1 Cor 6:9 and with whom, presumably, at
least some of the arsenokoitai are having sex? If the issue is
exploitation, why would Paul be asserting that such coerced figures run
the risk of exclusion from God’s kingdom?
Even Dan O. Via and
Walter Wink, two NT scholars strongly supportive of homosexual unions,
have acknowledged that arsenokoitai would have included for Paul
men who initiated a caring and committed homosexual relationship.
The idea that Paul would have told two men in a committed sexual
relationship that the term did not include them is historically
preposterous.
(7) There is no
cognizance on Johnson’s part of the pivotal role that Plato’s Laws
636B-D (cf. 836B-842A) plays for all subsequent discussion of why man-male
intercourse is “contrary to nature,” including discussions in early
Judaism. Here the Athenian criticizes intercourse between males (and
between females) as “contrary to nature” (para phusin), not
for any alleged promiscuity or coercion but rather for behavior that makes
a male into a female, can never result in procreation, and is not found in
animals.
The first argument has primacy, at least in subsequent Jewish
appropriation. Critiquing any of these individual arguments would miss the
point. As with a modern-day difficulties in explaining why adult committed
incest is wrong, these stated arguments get around, without actually
hitting directly, the main problem with the behavior; namely, that there
is something fundamentally asymmetrical about one attempting to merge
sexually with what one already is as a sexual being. A remark in
pseudo-Lucian’s Affairs of the Heart comes closest to stating this
point explicitly: “One nature came together in one bed. But seeing
themselves in one another they were ashamed neither of what they were
doing nor of what they were having done to them” (19-20; my emphasis).
V. Johnson on Romans 1:24-27:
“Use” of a Same Sex Person “Contrary to Nature”
Despite claiming to
“have treated Romans [1:24-27] in detail throughout” the first chapters of
his book (135), Johnson actually does surprisingly little with this
important text and shows surprisingly little knowledge of the obvious (and
already published) counterarguments to his own arguments.
1. Why Johnson’s
claim that Paul in Rom 1:24-27 condemned only those forms of sexual
behavior that were hedonistic and coercive won’t work.
Johnson claims that
Paul’s remarks in Rom 1:24-27 could not have anything to do with committed
homoerotic unions because Paul supposedly elsewhere condemns only sexual
relationships that are hedonistic or exploitative, involving sexual
promiscuity, prostitution, unfaithfulness, or coercion. A “covenantal”
homosexual relationship cannot possibly be what Paul had in mind when he
referred to sexual “impurity” (akatharsia), “immorality” (porneia),
“licentiousness” (aselgeia), “lust” (epithumia), and
“debauchery” (koitai, literally “lyings” or “beds”), Johnson
alleges.
The reader will not
find in Johnson’s book any mention of Paul’s handling of the case of a
sexual relationship between a man and his stepmother in 1 Cor 5.
Why? I suggest that the omission is due to the fact that this type of
immoral relationship, like a homoerotic union, has the potential of being
conducted by consenting adults in a non-promiscuous and non-coercive
manner and yet is still justly subject to Paul’s condemnation. Indeed,
since (as we have seen) Johnson parades the relationship of Ruth and her
mother-in-law Naomi as a paradigm for a “one bone, one flesh, one family”
same-sex sexual bond deserving of the blessing of the people of God
(145-47), one might wonder whether Johnson would like to hold up the
incestuous relationship in 1 Cor 5 as another such paradigm—of course,
presuming the mutual commitment of the parties involved.
Johnson also ignores
the obvious fact that nothing in the wording of Rom 1:24-27 indicates any
limitation on the indictment of male and female homoerotic practice. The
wording of “exchanging” and “leaving behind” the other sex for the same
sex is absolute. The text does not say or even infer that men and
women exchanged or left behind committed relationships with either sex for
exploitative relationships with either sex. As we have seen,
committed homosexual relationships were widely known in antiquity;
moreover, some Greco-Roman moralists condemned even these. Paul himself
stresses the mutuality of the homoerotic desires by mentioning that males
were “inflamed
with their yearning for one another” and that “their bodies [were]
dishonored among them(selves)”—dishonored not by mutual promiscuity or
coercion but rather by the compromise of their gendered existences in
attempting to merge with “one another” as though with their sexual
complement. The injury done is an injury to sexual identity. The Stoic
philosopher Epictetus (d. 135 C.E.) framed the matter more in
active/passive terms than did Paul in Rom 1:24-27 but his views are
nonetheless helpful for doing away with Johnson’s exploitation-hedonism
argument: “What does the one who undergoes (ho paschōn) the things
of the anal-receptive male (ho kinaidos)
lose? His manhood. And the one who performs the act? In addition to many
other things, he too (loses) his manhood, no less” than the passive
partner (Discourses 2.10.17).
To these arguments
many others can be added. Early Judaism was certainly unanimous in its
absolute opposition to all homosexual practice.
I noted in the SJT article, in the discussion of Brooten’s work,
that the referent in 1:26 is clearly to female-female intercourse, which
in turn demolishes any argument that Paul was thinking only of hedonistic
or exploitative forms of homosexual practice. I also showed in the same
article that Paul clearly echoed Gen 1:27 in Rom 1:26-27, indicating that
Paul rejected male-male and female-female intercourse not in the first
instance because of any exploitation or hedonism but rather because of it
violated a male-female prerequisite ordained by God at creation. Finally,
as we indicated at the end of our discussion of 1 Cor 6:9 (above), the
absolute nature argument against homosexual practice, used in Plato’s
Laws and subsequent reflection, has little to do with distinctions
based on hedonism and coercion. Philo’s comment in Contemplative Life
59 clearly distinguishes the unnatural error of homosexual practice
even from heterosexual promiscuity and exploitation: “Nearly the whole of
Plato’s Symposium is about love, not merely about men mad after
[i.e. madly in love with] men—for these desires pay tribute to the laws
of nature—but about men (mad) after males, differing from them only in
age” (Contemplative Life 59; my emphasis).
2.
Johnson’s various failed attempts at dismissing Paul’s
nature argument.
The “contrary to
nature” argument used by Paul also cuts through any distinctions based on
hedonism and exploitation. Johnson tries a number of different ways to
discount Paul’s appeal to nature, none of them well thought out.
(a) Nature
argument as anti-Hebraic? Johnson argues: “There is no word
for ‘nature’ in Hebrew, which means that Paul is not drawing directly on
the Old Testament as his background source” (82). Yet the concept
of natural theology is not foreign to the Old Testament.
Genesis 2:21-24 certainly images woman as man’s sexual “counterpart” or
“complement,” with its trifold emphasis on woman being taken from
one of ’ādām’s sides/ribs and with its implicit image of marriage
as the rejoining of man and woman. Likewise the priestly notion of “kinds”
both in Gen 1 and in Lev 19, along with the prohibitions of improper
sexual “mixing” in Lev 18 and 20, indicate a concern with congruence in
natural structures.
(b) “Nature”
as only the conventional? Johnson contends (through the
celebrationist persona) that Paul’s “thinking reflects the view that
something is unnatural if it is unconventional” (82). Actually, a careful
study of Paul’s use of the term reveals otherwise. “Nature” in Paul
corresponds to the essential material, inherent, biological, or organic
constitution of things as created and set in motion by God (Gal 2:15; 4:8;
Rom 2:14; 2:27; 11:21, 24). This includes even the reference to nature in
1 Cor 11:14-15 where the hair argument is similar to the Stoic argument
for beards for men, based on natural endowment. Specifically, nature gives
an indication that scalp hair is more indispensable for women than for men
by making major hair loss there much rarer for women.
Obviously, the conclusion drawn from an observation of nature is more
convincing in some cases than others, which is probably why the nature
argument is only one of multiple arguments used in 1 Cor 11:2-16, whereas
it is the argument, along with the echo to Gen 1:27, that Paul uses
to reject homosexual practice in Rom 1:26-27. That Paul means in Rom
1:26-27 the embodied complementarity of maleness and femaleness still
transparent in nature from original creation structures is apparent from
Paul’s parallel observation in Rom 1:19-20 about the attributes of God
being “transparent … from the creation of the world, … being mentally
apprehended by means of the things made.”
We have already noted that nature arguments used in the Greco-Roman world
included an awareness of complementary male-female structures (sec. II.6.1
above).
(c) Nature
argument as misogyny? Johnson, in the “liberationist”
persona, claims that the expression “natural use” in Rom 1:26-27 indicates
that “sex is something that men are supposed to do, not so much with
women as to them” (90). However, as I have noted elsewhere, (1)
the word chrēsis (“use”) can be employed in sexual contexts that
speak of the enjoyment of both partners; (2) the context for the use of
the term in Rom 1:27 is clearly that of mutual desire; and (3) Paul also
employs the term for a woman’s natural “use” of a man in Rom 1:26,
suggesting as he does elsewhere that sexual pleasure is a two-way street
in marriage (cf. 1 Cor 7:3).
(d) A valid
link to Rom 11:24? Citing Eugene Rogers, Johnson compares
Paul’s description of homosexual practice as “contrary to nature” in Rom
1:26 with the description of God’s grafting of Gentiles as an act
“contrary to nature” later in Rom 11:24. For Johnson the connection means
that “God defies our ordinary religious categories” and “acts contrary to
what seems natural,” welcoming “gentile people whom Jews considered
ritually and morally—indeed sexually—unclean” (99-100). Clearly, however,
Paul would have rejected vehemently any attempt to link these two uses of
para phusin in Rom 1:26 and 11:24 as a means of justifying
homosexual behavior among converts. Paul accepted ethnicity as a benign
condition but, as with Luke’s description of the Apostolic Decree (Acts
15:20, 29), adamantly rejected any link between ethnicity or
circumcision/diet on the one hand and sexual intercourse on the other as
matters of indifference (cf. 1 Cor 6:12-20; Rom 13:13 with 14:1-23).
Where Johnson gets
confused—no doubt because he is not a Greek scholar—is over the
preposition para with an accusative object. Its meaning can vary
from the basic neutral sense of “beyond,” as in its use in a horticultural
metaphor in Rom 11:24, to the specific negative sense of “in transgression
or violation of,” “contrary to,” and “against,” as in its use in ethical
matters in Rom 1:26.
Context is decisive. There can be no doubt that Paul used para phusin
in Rom 1:26 in the second, morally negative sense since the specific
context refers to same-sex intercourse as “sexual impurity,” “dishonoring
their bodies,” “dishonorable passions,” and “indecency” or “shamelessness”
(1:24, 26-27)—all in a broader context referring to “impiety,”
“unrighteousness,” “sin,” and practices “deserving death” (1:18-32;
3:9-20, 23).
Johnson’s attempt to link Rom 11:24 to 1:26 is ironic in view of the fact
that only two pages later he complains that the “non-affirming” side
engages in “a selective quoting of Scripture” (101). If Johnson wants to
extol the acceptance of unnatural sexual practices as God’s work, I see no
reason why he should stint himself by withholding approval of committed
adult incest or even the most unnatural sexual practice of all,
bestiality.
3.
The error in Johnson’s claim that Rom 1:24-27 provides no
clear rule, certainly not for “gay Christians,” and does not describe
homosexual practice as a God-provoking act.
Citing Richard Hays,
Johnson insists that Rom 1:24-27 does not “articulate a clear ‘rule’ about
how to handle homoerotic conduct” (64). Yet this makes about as much sense
as saying that one can’t derive a clear rule against idolatry (1:19-23,
25) or murder (1:29) from the extended vice list in Rom 1:18-32. Clearly
(and as oft noted in my writings), Paul in 6:19-21 returns in part to his
discussion of homosexual practice in 1:24-27 when he exhorts the believers
at Rome not to put their bodily members any longer at the disposal of
akatharsia, “uncleanness” or “impurity,” a word used elsewhere in
Romans only in 1:24 to describe, first and foremost, homosexual practice.
This and other forms of lawlessness Paul describes as “things of which we
are now ashamed,” another intratextual echo back to Rom 1:24-27, here to
the shame language of homosexual practice as a “dishonoring” of the
gendered self and as an “indecency” or “disgrace.”
Paul’s remarks in
6:19-21 also show the error of Johnson’s argument that “Paul does not
provide a specific word for contemporary gays and lesbians who do
know God” (135). Certainly none of the other vices enumerated in 1:29-31
require prior worship of statues, even though here too Paul treats such
vices as the consequence of worshipping idols and God’s handing over
(1:28). Paul repeatedly warns believers in his letters, people who do know
God, not to return to their former pagan sexual practices lest they be
excluded from God’s kingdom.
Also misguided is
Johnson’s contention that “it is a misreading of [Rom 1:24-27] to see
homoerotic conduct as something that particularly provokes God’s wrath”
(64-65). Johnson fails to see (though I have made the point elsewhere)
that the vices in 1:24-31 are both the product of God’s
initial wrath, in the sense that God steps back and allows those who want
to run their own lives to be ruled by preexisting sinful desires
(1:24-31), and the provocation for God’s ultimate wrath, in the
sense that the continual heaping of up sins leads to cataclysmic
destruction on the Day of Judgment (1:32-2:5). Same-sex intercourse is
highlighted immediately after idolatry precisely for the reason that Paul
viewed it as a particularly egregious example, on the horizontal plane of
inter-human behavior, of humans suppressing the truth about themselves,
accessible through observation of the material structures of creation that
are still intact in nature.
Conclusion
Our discussion of
Johnson’s treatment of the story of Sodom and related texts, the Levitical
prohibitions, the witness of Jesus, and the witness of Paul in 1 Cor 6:9
and Rom 1:24-27 shows that Johnson either doesn’t want to know the
secondary literature well or he sometimes knows it but does not want his
readers to be aware of the counterarguments. He shows very little
first-hand ability to work with primary sources. Logical missteps abound.
Only his work on the Levitical prohibitions can be rated even marginal in
terms of research (though still full of logical missteps and occasional
misrepresentations). The rest of his work on Sodom and related texts,
Jesus, and Paul on 1 Cor 6:9 and Rom 1:24-27 is so badly done at every
level that it is a wonder anyone would publish it.
To go to “More Reasons Why Stacy
Johnson’s A Time to Embrace Should Not Be Embraced: Part III:
Science, Nature, History, and Logic,” click:
pdf:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonMoreReasons3.pdf
html:
http://robgagnon.net/homosexStacyJohnsonMoreReasons3.htm
To go to “A Book Not to Be
Embraced: A Critical Review Essay on Stacy Johnson’s A Time to Embrace”
[Part 1: the Scottish Journal of Theology article], click:
pdf:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf
html:
http://robgagnon.net/Critical%20Review%20of%20Stacy%20Johnson's%20Time%20to%20Embrace.htm
Endnotes
A
similar connection can be made with Rom 13:13, which forbids
Christians from engaging in koitai, “immoral sexual activities”
or, more literally, “lyings” or “beds,” a term that obviously links up
with arsenokoitai, “men lying with a male,” in 1 Cor 6:9
as a particular instance of an immoral “lying.”