copied it into plaintext + my own info below from study groups i’ve attended:
Okay, so, strictly speaking, the infamous Leviticus 18:22 does say “forbidden.” Here’s the thing:
1) The word translated as “forbidden” is “toevah.” While that translation isn’t… wrong, it’s sort of like saying “McMansion” means “really big house.” There are a lot of connotations in that word. The specific issue with toevah is that we … sort of ….. don’t know anymore exactly what it meant. Based on context, it seems likely that the word referred to something ritually forbidden. This part of Torah was written not only as a guide for future generations, but also to say “so, look around, see your neighbors? DON’T DO THAT.” Thus, if we interpret “toevah” to mean something that’s forbidden to do as a ritual before G-d, then the verse says nothing whatsoever about Adam and Steve and their two kids and their dog-it’s saying you shouldn’t have sex with another man in the Temple as a sacrifice.
2) Following the same “this is ritually forbidden” logic of toevah, this verse may also be interpreted as “don’t do sex magic,” which was a thing in. Like. A lot of fucking cultures at the time.
3) Hebrew is a highly gendered language, and the grammatical gender in this verse is really really weird. One of the “men” in this verse is given female grammar. Why? Who fucking knows, man, this isn’t the only grammatical oddity in Torah. (There are also places where G-d is referred to as plural, and also as female.) One suggestion is that this is a way of creating a diminutive-that is, that the verse should be read as “a man should not lie with a boy.” Now, it’s worth noting that modern secular scholarship has concluded the written Torah was written down around the 6th century BCE, and most non-Orthodox Jewish scholars are like “yeah, all things considered, that sounds pretty legit.”
Do you know what else was happening around the 6th century BCE? What laypeople tend to mean when they say “ancient Greece” was happening.
Do you know what happened a lot in that time period in Greece? Dudes forming relationships with younger boys, like ages 10-15, and using them for sex in exchange for financial gifts, mentorship, etc. While we don’t know just how young some of these younger boys may have been, we do know some were prepubescent. In light of this, and also something I mentioned under the first point-“see your neighbors? DON’T DO THAT,” if this verse is interpreted to say “a man should not lie with a boy,” then it’s pretty clearly “my dudes, my fellows, my lads, don’t be fucking pedophiles.”
4) Because of the grammar I mentioned in #3, it’s also possible that “should not lie with a man as with a woman” is actually referring to a place, not an abstract personhood: a man shouldn’t have sex with another man in a woman’s bed. In the time period, a woman’s bed was sort of like-that was her place, her safe sanctuary. It was also a ritually holy place where babies were made. By having sex in her bed, you’re violating her safe space (and also introducing a man who may not be a male relative, thus forcing her into breaking the laws of modesty). If this verse is read this way, then it should be taken to mean “don’t sexually violate a woman’s safety and modesty.”
5) And as an offshoot of #4, this may be a second verse relating to infidelity. Which woman’s bed is any random dude in 600 BCE most likely to have access to? His wife’s. But laws were administered differently based on whether the person they pertained to was slave or free, male or female, and so on-thus, a man committing adultery with a woman would be treated differently than man committing adultery with a man (especially because the latter would carry no chance of an illegitimate pregnancy).
So you’ll note, there are a lot of ways to read this verse, and only a one-to-one translation with no cultural awareness produces “being gay is wrong, all of the time”.
(You’ll also notice the word “abomination” is nowhere to be found. That’s like… a straight-up fiction created for who only knows what reason.)
the grammar of the sentence is really interesting.
(note: i have not marked grammatical gender bc im really bad at that. someone fluent in Hebrew feel free to swoop in and correct me. additional note: the nikkudot and trope symbols in the sentence below are not in the Torah, so it’s possible the phrase has been corrupted (more on that later).)
״וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא׃״
לא תשכב - do not lie with [him]
משכבי - lying (down), from lying down, from the bed of, my bed [typically translated: as (you) lie with; there is ambiguity in the phrase though]
אשה - woman [usually spelled אישה esp in modern hebrew; the spelling אשה can also mean a sacrifice/offering (different vowels but those aren’t written in the torah so we get to fill it in!)]
תועבה הוא - it is toevah [literal meaning unknown; typically translated: illegal, forbidden, abomination]
you can see from the ambiguity of the translation where a lot of @prismatic-bell’s interpretation notes are based in. without vowels or punctuation, or clarifying words that would be added in modern hebrew, the intent of the phrase is unclear.
one interesting point is the use of “male” זכר rather than “man” איש. an interpretation ive heard is that this is a prohibition against anal sex, in which case the translation would be: you aren’t allowed to penetrate a man (as you would penetrate a woman) because that would cause ritual impurity.
this interpretation could come down to a number of related reasons including that it’s easier to get STIs from anal sex (and you’re doing it with someone other than your wife) and thus you need to be considered a health risk. semen and bodily discharge in general are ritually impure, as are infectious diseases, or contact with things that could cause disease (eg dead animals).
or that according to the torah you’re not supposed to masturbate either bc you should only cum in your wife. the latter especially doesn’t make it particularly modern-view-of-sexuality-friendly but again it was written a pretty long time ago. our understanding of sex and sexuality has changed since then.
it could be a prohibition against cheating on your spouse, and as @prismatic-bell mentioned treated differently when you’re cheating with a man as compared to a woman.
i personally like #4 the best– it takes the interpretation of משכבי אשה to mean “in the bed of a woman/wife” and is a prohibition against taking action that would sexually violate another.
and to discuss one more common anti-gay misquoted torah section, the story of sodom and gomorrah (origin of sodomy) is about gang rape.
but above all, judaism allows almost every law to be broken if it protects a person’s dignity and security, and there is precedent for this in the torah. so next time someone tells you “the bible says being gay is a sin” you can respond that the bible also tells you to be nice to other people, asshat.
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