letters to surfers
Does Leviticus prohibit Gay and Lesbian behavior?
By Robert Brow (www.brow.on.ca)
Leviticus 20:10-16 was a guide for judges, and it lists twelve
kinds of sexual behavior for which the death penalty could be assigned
: the sexual penetration of another man's wife, a married woman allowing
herself to be penetrated by a man other than her husband, three kinds of
incestuous sexual penetration by men, and the corresponding allowing this
to happen by women, a man using another man for sexual penetration, a man
allowing himself to be used for sexual penetration, a man using an animal
of either sex for sexual penetration, and a woman allowing a male animal
to penetrate her.
Sexual penetration was involved in all of these twelve cases, which
is why other forms of intimacy between men, or between women, or between
humans and animals as pets, were not listed.
There is no mention of intimacy between women being prohibited in the
Old Testament, and there is no case in the Bible of a Jewish man being
convicted of sexual penetration of another man. In each case a conviction
would require two male witnesses, which explains why so few executions
or stonings were ever carried out among the Jewish people. (In John
8:2-11 no witnesses were produced and only the woman was about to be
stoned for adultery).
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