I'm an agnostic (in that I believe there's something larger than us out there, but that it's not necessarily connected/concerned with human affairs).
I'm also a preacher's kid and have done a lot of reading on theology. There's a tremendous amount of mistranslation/ cultural misunderstanding in the Bible. So much of the Old Testament requires understanding of thousands year old Jewish traditions, yet most Christians completely ignore this necessity.
Awhile back, I read Genesis in a translation of the Torah. 1/3 of the page was in Hebrew, 1/3 in English, and the bottom footnoted, included commentary on words whose meaning has been lost in time. That was helpful in remembering what we read is only a reflection of what was originally written. And what was originally written was compiled over centuries by a lot of different people, all of whom assumed their readers would have all the same cultural background.
As an editor, I found Genesis fascinating. In the Noah story, it looked like someone had edited together two different traditions of the same story, and mostly they did a fine job. On the other hand, they included two contradictory stories of how Jacob got the name Israel, and ran them one right after the other with no attempt to reconcile the two.
As an example of cultural misunderstanding, the "sin of Onan" was thought by Christians for centuries to be masturbation. Onan's actual sin was that he refused to make a good faith effort to get Tamar pregnant, something he was obligated to do. After Onan's death, Tamar had to disguise herself as a prostitute and get pregnant by her father-in-law in order to be declared by God as a righteous woman. This isn't explained in the Bible because Jews at that time (and it's my understanding Orthodox Jews now) already know what a Levirate marriage is. (And the version I read pointed to coitus interruptus as the sexual act Onan performed.)
Regarding homosexuality, there are only a small handful of passages in the Bible. The Sodom story is clearly discussing a planned gang rape; I've yet to find a fundamentalist explain what this has to do with two people in a consenting relationship. I've also been astonished by the sheer hypocrisy of Christians cherrypicking the "abomination" quote from Leviticus while merrily ignoring all of the dietary laws (which clearly state eating bacon or shrimp is also abomination).
There's another mistranslation in the New Testament of a Greek word meaning male prostitute, and yet another mistranslation of a word generally accepted to mean coward.
IMO, if God exists, we cannot possibly understand it any more than an ant can understand us.
Isn't that more the definition of "deist" rather than "agnostic"? (Not saying you can't be agnostic too, of course. But a deist is someone who believes, like Aristotle, that God isn't interested in human affairs. An agnostic is simply someone who thinks we cannot really knew whether a God exists or not.)
Genesis is one of the major places where the early polytheism within Judaism is still evident. I think the Noah stories are pretty inconsistent in that one says two of every animal, while the other says seven of each kosher animal. (There're some pretty specific details in that story considering how implausible it is.)
Are the two stories about Israel's name the angel/god-wrestling and the ladder story? Or is it something else? I'd never really thought of that bit as two separate stories before.
I can't help but feel sorry for Onan. He didn't want to raise another blooming child, lol!
Anyway, the main thing I wanted to point out is that the cherry-picking of Leviticus isn't so surprising. There's a verse in Mark that states clearly that the dietary laws no longer apply for Christians. And of course, laws about sex aren't dietary laws. I find it quite astonishing how explicit the "no more dietary laws" thing is though. It's in Mark 7 (verses 18-19):
"“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)"
I mean seriously, we barely see any instances of brackets in the Bible! What does that section really look like in the original texts? What Jesus says is pretty ambiguous, yet that bit in brackets is extremely specific!
But yeah, the Leviticus quote would only refer to free Israelites. They didn't have a concept of sexuality, so acts like kissing and petting and the like would be irrelevant. It would be solely about penetration. What's more, the sex acts you can perform with slaves would not be covered by that either. This doesn't exactly make it much better, of course.
Religions often have a very strict codified understanding of what God is like. Failing that, believers will still often make some pretty strong assumptions about the nature of God. It's been said before that if you want to know what someone is like, the way they describe their God can sometimes be quite revealing...
I'm also a preacher's kid and have done a lot of reading on theology. There's a tremendous amount of mistranslation/ cultural misunderstanding in the Bible. So much of the Old Testament requires understanding of thousands year old Jewish traditions, yet most Christians completely ignore this necessity.
Awhile back, I read Genesis in a translation of the Torah. 1/3 of the page was in Hebrew, 1/3 in English, and the bottom footnoted, included commentary on words whose meaning has been lost in time. That was helpful in remembering what we read is only a reflection of what was originally written. And what was originally written was compiled over centuries by a lot of different people, all of whom assumed their readers would have all the same cultural background.
As an editor, I found Genesis fascinating. In the Noah story, it looked like someone had edited together two different traditions of the same story, and mostly they did a fine job. On the other hand, they included two contradictory stories of how Jacob got the name Israel, and ran them one right after the other with no attempt to reconcile the two.
As an example of cultural misunderstanding, the "sin of Onan" was thought by Christians for centuries to be masturbation. Onan's actual sin was that he refused to make a good faith effort to get Tamar pregnant, something he was obligated to do. After Onan's death, Tamar had to disguise herself as a prostitute and get pregnant by her father-in-law in order to be declared by God as a righteous woman. This isn't explained in the Bible because Jews at that time (and it's my understanding Orthodox Jews now) already know what a Levirate marriage is. (And the version I read pointed to coitus interruptus as the sexual act Onan performed.)
Regarding homosexuality, there are only a small handful of passages in the Bible. The Sodom story is clearly discussing a planned gang rape; I've yet to find a fundamentalist explain what this has to do with two people in a consenting relationship. I've also been astonished by the sheer hypocrisy of Christians cherrypicking the "abomination" quote from Leviticus while merrily ignoring all of the dietary laws (which clearly state eating bacon or shrimp is also abomination).
There's another mistranslation in the New Testament of a Greek word meaning male prostitute, and yet another mistranslation of a word generally accepted to mean coward.
IMO, if God exists, we cannot possibly understand it any more than an ant can understand us.
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Genesis is one of the major places where the early polytheism within Judaism is still evident. I think the Noah stories are pretty inconsistent in that one says two of every animal, while the other says seven of each kosher animal. (There're some pretty specific details in that story considering how implausible it is.)
Are the two stories about Israel's name the angel/god-wrestling and the ladder story? Or is it something else? I'd never really thought of that bit as two separate stories before.
I can't help but feel sorry for Onan. He didn't want to raise another blooming child, lol!
Anyway, the main thing I wanted to point out is that the cherry-picking of Leviticus isn't so surprising. There's a verse in Mark that states clearly that the dietary laws no longer apply for Christians. And of course, laws about sex aren't dietary laws. I find it quite astonishing how explicit the "no more dietary laws" thing is though. It's in Mark 7 (verses 18-19):
"“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)"
I mean seriously, we barely see any instances of brackets in the Bible! What does that section really look like in the original texts? What Jesus says is pretty ambiguous, yet that bit in brackets is extremely specific!
But yeah, the Leviticus quote would only refer to free Israelites. They didn't have a concept of sexuality, so acts like kissing and petting and the like would be irrelevant. It would be solely about penetration. What's more, the sex acts you can perform with slaves would not be covered by that either. This doesn't exactly make it much better, of course.
Religions often have a very strict codified understanding of what God is like. Failing that, believers will still often make some pretty strong assumptions about the nature of God. It's been said before that if you want to know what someone is like, the way they describe their God can sometimes be quite revealing...
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