The Queering of Leviticus, Or How a Rabbi Permits Gay Sex

[Shana A]

The queering of Leviticus, or how a rabbi permits gay sex
The national LGBTQI group Nehirim is hosting a three-day conference in San Francisco on how to 'queer the text'
By Greg Tepper December 4, 2014, 1:01 pm

http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-queering-of-leviticus-or-how-a-rabbi-permits-gay-sex/

That whole thing about Leviticus clearly forbidding sexual relations between two men? Open to interpretation.

At least that's what Oregon-based Rabbi Debra Kolodny, Executive Director of Nehirim, the national LGBTQI group, says, based on the idea of "queering the text."

"Queering the text," Kolodny says, "looks for the chidush [a new idea or way of understanding a text], the innovation, the insight that's never been imagined before because the lens we're looking for today never existed before."

Kolodny says contemporary liberal Judaism is at an historical moment in which it can combine its knowledge of history, sociology and sexuality to thousands of years of Jewish tradition to reveal "something that couldn't be revealed even 20 years ago because we didn't have the experience under our belt."

[Clhoe G]

I herd from a Catholic and pagan scholar that, that passage never even existed until the modernization of religion and that there's a lot of things that have even been removed from the Bible, because the Catholic church disagreed with it and they still to this day have them in the Vatican libraries restricted text housing, dating from as far back as the 8th century. 


I don't trust a thing that any church says, because they do something I call Bible bashing, they take things out, put things in, miss translate everything to fit there ideals, like have you seen how big the older Bibles where compared to the new ones and how rich the Catholic church has been and is today, Mega rich n have a guess how much money they have put in to try n prevent marriage equality of the hole LGBTQI community, seriously your guess would probably be just as good as mine.

like seriously if you've ever been to church n gave them money, they've probably turned around n used it against you. They are hypocrites n now the Pope is trying to do a back flip on it all, why because there losing members of the church and to much money.

[Susan]

I have unlocked this topic. You may discuss the issues but launching into any attacks for any reason will result in a 3 day ban.

1.  Matthew 16:19 gives man the authority to modify the strictures of the old testament. "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

Humanity is demonstrating that it no longer holds this to be true, it has loosed it.

2. Too many people pick and choose clobber verses while ignoring all the other clobber verses they disagree with or don't care about.

3. The Jewish laws in the old testament are meant for the Jewish tribes and not to the Gentiles we are covered by the new testament which does not mention the subject at all.

Lastly here's what it really all means.:

The text most often quoted by in defense of biblical homophobia is Leviticus 18:22. In Hebrew, it reads, "V'et-zachar lo tishkav mish'k'vei ishah." It is usually translated as, "Do not lie with a male as you would lie with women," an apparent universal condemnation of sex between men.

The words "et-zachar lo tishkav" clearly mean "don't lie with a male" or "don't bed a male." In a chapter that's seemingly addressed to men, that directive would make perfect sense all by itself. But Jewish tradition, best expressed by Talmudic sage Rabbi Akiva, teaches that there are no superfluous words in Torah. Why, then, would the Torah add the peculiar phrase "mish'k'vei ishah"?

That "mish'k'vei ishah" means "as you would lie with women" is far from obvious. The word "mish'k'vei" itself appears only three times in all of scripture: in the two supposed prohibitions of gay sex in Leviticus, and at the end of the book of Genesis.

"Jewish tradition teaches that when Torah uses a similar phrase in two places, there's a connection, such that information about one case may be applied to the other. It's called a "gezera shava." Taking the meaning from Genesis and applying it to Leviticus 18:22, the result is this translation: "Don't bed a male in the bed of a woman," or perhaps, "Don't bed a male in the sexual domain of a woman."

This is not a text prohibiting homosexuality. It is a text about respecting our relationships."- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-rothbaum/the-problem-of-homophobia-in-leviticus_b_3563972.html

If you believe in a omnipotent and living god, then how can you believe that all that there is and ever will be about god is contained in a book written 2000 years ago. That would be a truly sad existence.