Sexual Sin and Immorality in the Old Testament Essay

Introduction to the Hebrew Bible has provided me with a critical analysis of the Hebrew Bible and introduced a wide variety of interpretive strategies, including African American, anthropological, feminist, historical-critical, Jewish, and literary perspectives. These approaches were presented by our author’s, L. Juliana M. Claassens, Peter Enns, Walter Brueggemann, and John L. Collins. Each author provides a unique interpretation to help us comprehend how the text is an expression of one’s interpretive understanding. Having said that, the biggest influence has been how I will seek to present Old Testament scriptures more effectively while remembering the context and the audience in which I am presenting. For example, I believe the greatest lessons that I have been reminded of are, the Old Testaments Scriptures from my childhood, which have become a big part of my relationship with God and are based on a childlike faith, which must now grow in the richness of the different interpretations, it is this message that I can apply to life.

Many Christians have picked out “clobber” passages or verses in the Bible that are supposed to undoubtedly condemn homosexuality. However, these fool-proof “clobber” passages have been contested, such as Leviticus 20:13, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be put upon them.” Many conservative Christians interpret this as damning homosexuality indefinitely; many liberal Christians claim it condemns gay ritual sex in a temple and males having sex in a womans bed. Another verse, Leviticus 18:22, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Again, conservative Christians take this is as condemning evidence but progressive Christians take it as, again, a verse condemning gay ritual sex in a Pagan temple or men having sex in a woman's bed.

Leviticus 18 is an entire chapter written on unlawful sexual relations. Though the law was given, people did not always do as they were told. Men and women alike were punished for sexual relations with animals, adultery, incest, etc. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of the extreme sexual impurity, especially homosexual acts, that resided in

Romans 1:24-27; Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,

Reforming Sodom unravels the origins of homosexuality in relation to the Protestant Bible. White opens the reading by stating that the word “homosexuality” first appeared in the Revised Standard Version Bible in 1946. From this fact, we are left wondering why there was this change in verbiage and what did the Bible say prior to 1946. White seeks to answers these questions and in doing so, she challenges scholars to think critically about religious texts. Throughout, White exemplifies other works that align with her notion of sexuality and religion intertwining; Rebecca Davis’ My Homosexuality

In order to answer this question we need to establish that it is a sin to be gay and that this is what the Bible

adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death" (Leviticus 20:11). He is torn between

When studying any piece of literature there are many different methods and techniques that can be used. The Bible, in specific, is often referred to as a source of moral code, hope, and answers to social, ethical, and political questions. However, this incredibly influential book can also be read as if it were any other novel. The events, settings, and characters can all be evaluated for what they are, forgetting the notion that they are from a religious text. This approach is called narrative criticism. When regarding to the Bible in this way, we do not need to know any historical information or focus on seeking a deeper theological meaning. Instead, the stories are evaluated in terms of how

Throughout the history of the world, people have been concerned with what it is to live a moral life. Many answers have been put forth for this question, but the best by far is found in the Christian Bible. This is because the Bible is a revelation from the Creator. While people can grope in the dark to find answers to moral questions by looking at natural law, they are always frustrated because the real nature of the world we live in is fallen and corrupt. We have an adversary who tries to deceive us and minds that are easily deceived. Even at our most rational, we make mistakes in logical inference, and need to be corrected. In this paper, we will look at biblical ethics in terms of meta-ethics, deontology, virtue theory, and

Spiritual adultery occurs when a Christian falls in love with things of the world. I remembered when I was in a courtship with my wife; we deliberated on how to sustain a lifetime partnership.

The idea that is still taught in some churches today is that the Christian sexual ethic came to earth fully formed, straight from heaven, about 2,000 years ago. Throughout all that time, there was exactly one way for Christians to express their sexuality — by staying abstinent until they got married to a person of the opposite gender. And then, you could have at it all you wanted.

To speak of the Hebrew Scripture is to speak of story, a story stretching from the very beginning of time to only a few centuries before the beginning of the Common Era. It is to speak of richness of content, of purpose and of reality and to engross oneself in an overarching narrative that, depending on your personal convictions, continues to the present day. Within this richness is found a wide variety of different events and experience, told through a series of genre ranging from foundational myth to apocalypse, law giving to poetry, genealogy to wisdom and many more. Within this diversity however, three broad sections can be discerned that speak to a shared purpose and content, these are the sections of Law, Prophecy and Writings. It

Biblical writing tends to have strict laws about sex and sexuality and how it was expressed and universally accepted. The Pauline Epistles, or Paul’s views, had unique views on sex because he completely distrusted gender as a whole and because he believed that there would be an apocalypse. Many of Paul’s ideas were widely accepted back than because they explained may things that people could not, for instance it explains homosexuality. Today, the laws are seen differently and in some cases interpreted much more literally than they were back then. It is likely that ideas have changed either because people have become more understanding and accepting of others or because we no longer view sex and sexuality as a thing to be ashamed of. This new age of interpretation is seen in the way homosexuality is accepted today, submission of the wife to the husband in some religious dominations, and the ideal of marriage and its sexual implications.

Any kind of sexual expression is limited to marriage, and even, sexual relationships in marriage were only justified for procreation.

    Religious texts have been one of the main sources for laws and social customs since the conception of organized religion. Each religious text provides its followers with a code of conduct they are expected to apply to themselves, their actions, and their institutions. This code of conduct applies to the individual, as well as to the government and society to within which the people exist, and ultimately defines what a "just society" is in the context of that religion. Using stories and proverbs this code of conduct, and thus "just society", is not only set, but also shown in examples. In The Bible, the essence of a "just society" is laid out within passages that serve as "the laws", including Deuteronomy, and the Psalms,