<p>One of my professors - who died of aids, so he had a bias - wrote a book about how homosexuality became sinful. There are other books on the topic. And there is an irony: they trace much of the reason to the actions of priests and lesser clergy 1000 or so years ago, meaning the church then was trying to stamp out behavior that drove away adherents same as today. The saying is the more things change …</p>
<p>My point is that doctrines develop over time, that they aren’t fixed from some point in the past. Most “fundamentalists” of today would be surprised to learn how their movement developed in the 19thC because they firmly believe that what they think today is what was meant thousands of years ago. I find that amusing.</p>
<p>To give a specific, the fundamental prohibitions against homosexuality - and as disclosure, I’m not gay - from Levitticus are almost always ripped out of context. They occur in a specific context of Canaanite rituals, with the other two being ritual sex with animals and child sacrifice. We today have trouble believing these things can even be real and that makes taking the bit about sex between men more powerful because it survives. But we know child sacrifice was real. It’s fairly astounding but even sites like Carthage show significant evidence of large scale child sacrifice. (The new world is well documented because the Spanish saw it happen.) </p>
<p>The order is no child sacrifice, no gay sex, no sex with animals. The first and last are clearly references to ritual so it makes sense the middle one is too. In other words, what makes sense is the prohibition was against ritual gay sex. There would be 2 solid reasons for that. First of course is the Torah is clear about the nature of acceptable sacrifices, meaning animal slaughter only. Second, we know from the story of Sodom that male on male rape is bad so forced ritual sex is bad. (There really is no such statement about male rape of women.) The reasons for that are also clear: since men are referred to as the “sons of God” who bring forth life from the “daughters of the earth”, the image is that a man is like God in creating life from many sources. Don’t take that to mean more than what it exactly says; it is a metaphor. This is expressed in the long lists of who begat whom and in the Hebrew, now Jewish recitations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because life comes into you, flows through you and then continues, with the male “creating” that life through women. (I’m not being sexist; this is old male written stuff.) This even enacts in the Passover service because we are all the middle matzah, the one which sits in the middle of the pile of 3, so when it is broken and shared we all partake of this life now as a family and community. </p>
<p>Anyway, from a series of relatively simple pronouncements about Canaanite ritual practice no-no’s, it becomes possible to build an entire doctrine about God’s sexual intent and so on. People make doctrines. And as much as we believe that beliefs are constant they are not. I could give many examples from Judaism. An easy one is the continuing development of what is acceptable Kashrut. You’d think it would be just the rules as laid out but the largest kosher category now is Glatt. An example is that when the lungs are examined, older tradition is that any adhesion which can be flicked off is ok. The newer "fundamental’ belief is the lungs should not have an adhesion at all. Rules pile on rules all through Jewish belief. There is an idea - totally silly to me - about “fencing in the Torah” so new rules become added to the old and then more rules and each stage becomes a test of belief that this is God’s intent. All religions are just as weird.</p>
<p>I like to point out that Judah has sex with Tamar in the belief she’s a prostitute. So a patriarch can have sex with another woman outside of marriage. And that of course reflects the older idea that “adultery” was sex with a married woman because sex causes babies and other fathers wrecks inheritance and causes violence. </p>
<p>All this said, religions teach their version of truth and, almost always, try to keep adherents from realizing their version is just a version, that it has changed, that they are interpreting other religious beliefs through their lens, etc. That is why, for example, I know almost no Christians who actually know much about Judaism and vice versa.</p>