Readers Reply
002
A Prude Approves
I am as much of a prude as anyone, but I don’t think you print “dirty” pictures. Keep printing ’em!
Wilmette, Illinois
Yet Another Acronym
After receiving the first issue of BR, I realized that your magazine sets out to undermine and discredit the Bible. I’ve decided to spare myself the aggravation of reading your irreverent and obviously uninspired drivel, and not to subscribe after all. I suggest you change the name of your publication to, say, “The pagan view of the Bible” or maybe change the abbreviation from BR to BS.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Homosexuality
The Triumph of Legalism Over Love
Regarding your plan to publish different perspectives on the subject of homosexuality (Readers Reply, BR 17:01), be prepared to fasten your seat belts. I know of no other subject that can generate more heat (and hopefully some light) than this one.
I am a heterosexual Presbyterian elder who has led several adult education classes on this topic over the past 20 years. Included in these classes have been Bible study, current psychological understandings, the conservative viewpoint and presentations by gays. These classes were driven by the proposal to bar the ordination of practicing homosexuals, which sadly has now been included in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order. Currently there are movements under way to formally bar same-sex unions. A majority of my denomination seems to favor legalism over love.
The message I hear over and over from Christian homosexuals is simply this: I am a gay person who never chose my sexual orientation but am satisfied with who I am. I seek no special treatment but only to be treated equally with others and be accepted. I want to have the same intimate loving relationships as heterosexuals, except that my passions are with members of the same sex. I believe that a committed monogamous relationship, as opposed to a promiscuous one, is not hurtful to me or others and is acceptable to God—especially since He created me as I am.
I have accepted that there are statements in the Bible that speak against homosexuality; however, many, if not all, pertain to sexual promiscuity, including the proscription against heterosexuals performing homosexual acts. I also believe that God in His wisdom speaks to us in our own time and that virtually all Christians, whether conservative or liberal, no longer accept certain biblical passages as valid in the context of what we today know scientifically or accept culturally. For example, many do not accept that God created the world as described in the Bible, that adulterers and gays should be put to death and that women should be silent in church and be subordinate. We now consider slavery immoral, and many accept divorce as preferable to an irreparably bad marriage. Few of us are willing to sell all we have and give the money to the poor as directed by Jesus.
I predict that BR will receive many letters incompatible with the core message of the New Testament; that message, I believe, is the radical refocusing on God’s love and grace for all of His children as embodied in the life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Pittsford, New York
Interpreting the Biblical Ban
The Jewish scriptural prohibition against homosexuality appears in the context of laws concerning cultic rites performed by seven specifically named nations whose religious worship rites we were being instructed not to emulate in our worship of God (Leviticus 18:3, 22, 20:13, 23; 004Deuteronomy 23:18). Therefore the wording is “to lay with a man as with a woman,” something a true homosexual man does not do. The sin is about a horny heterosexual man using another man for sex, which occurred in ancient religious worship among some of those very same nations that our ancestors were warned against emulating. To translate that prohibition, therefore, as applying to any homosexual relationship is to exit the realm of divine ordination and enter instead the realm of subjective, mortal homophobia. The ancient rabbis must have had some sense of this problem when they ruled two thousand years ago that any homosexual sexual activity short of anal intercourse is not included in the biblical prohibition (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 54a–56a; Sotah 26b; Niddah 13a; Maimonides, Perush L’Mishnayot on Sanhedrin 54a). Why did they bother to offer that qualification if it was so clear to them that homosexuality was forbidden? Also, lesbianism, according to Jewish law, was never prohibited; Maimonides—who personally abhorred such behavior—ruled that “it is neither a biblical nor a rabbinic prohibition” (Perush L’Mishnayot on Sanhedrin 54a).
Cuba, New Mexico
Why Take Leviticus Seriously?
There’s nothing like the mention of homosexuality to bring out the hypocrites in Readers Reply, BR 17:01! The proscription against it is in Leviticus, which calls for a death sentence. A few verses before, however, death is imposed for cursing one’s father or mother. The term “hypocrite” is fitting, since it is obvious that those people [who oppose homosexuality based on the Bible—Ed.] have not read all of Leviticus. If they did, they would realize that its proscriptions go far beyond the rational. Not only are we forbidden to crossbreed cattle, but we may not wear clothes of linen and wool together.
Leviticus is the work of an ignorant, superstitious author whose prescribed cure for leprosy, for example, is plain witchery (Leviticus 14:33–57).
I’m amazed that those anti-gay zealots don’t take the evangelist John to task, since his references to “the disciple whom Jesus loved” who “leaned on his bosom at supper” are of such significance as to be mentioned seven times. While this doesn’t necessarily imply that Jesus is gay, it seems to emphasize his understanding and tolerance of a disciple who was.
North Bend, Oregon
005
David in Genesis
Genesis Criticizes David
The article by Gary Rendsburg (“Reading David in Genesis,” BR 17:01) ascribing the authorship of the narratives in Genesis to someone in the court of King David is surely interesting but seems to be fatally flawed. Genesis is permeated with references to events not only occurring during the times of David and Solomon but also during those of others, including Ahab, Elijah, Elisha, Amaziah and Jehoash, as well as during the days of the Judges who preceded these monarchs, including Samson and Jephthah. The fact that Genesis alludes to protagonists who come after the division of the monarchy is a strong argument against any ascription of its authorship to a contemporary of King David.
For example, in the Joseph narrative the Torah says: “And he [Joseph] carried mas’ot [portions] from his presence to them and mas’eyt [the portion] of Benjamin was five times more than the mas’ot of all the rest” (Genesis 43:34).
The word mas’eyt characteristically denotes an offering to God or to a king (2 Samuel 11:8; Ezekiel 20:40; Psalm 141:2; 2 Chronicles 24:6, 9), so that its use in this verse shows that Joseph is honoring his brothers as rulers in their own right.
The word mas’eyt also appears in the narrative in which David deceives Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba: “And David said to Uriah: Go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah left the king’s house and after him followed mas’eyt [a portion] from the king” (2 Samuel 11:8).
When Joseph gives Benjamin an extra portion before setting a trap for him and potentially condemning him to ifelong slavery on a trumped-up charge of theft, he acts in contrast to the way that David gives Uriah a portion before arranging for him to be killed on the battlefield.
David conspires with Joab to have Uriah killed: “And in the morning David wrote a note to Joab and sent it by Uriah’s hand, and he wrote in the note saying: Place Uriah in front of the fierce battle and withdraw behind him so that he shall be struck and die” (2 Samuel 11:15).
052
David’s tactics ominously echo those of Joseph, who instructs his steward to plant the royal goblet in Benjamin’s sack, which might have led to Benjamin’s enslavement. Joseph, unlike David, does not intend to carry out fully his cruel game.
By linking the narrative describing Joseph’s feigned and unsuccessful attempt to enslave Benjamin with David’s unfeigned and successful attempt to kill Uriah, the author of Genesis contrasts the compassion of the ancestor of Jeroboam, the Ephraimite descendant of Joseph who was first king of the northern kingdom of Israel after the division of the united monarchy ruled by David and Solomon, with the cynical heartlessness of David. Such an oblique criticism of David in combination with a favorable view of the 053Josephite ruler of the northern kingdom shows a bias towards the northern kingdom. Such a story would hardly have been written before the division of the monarchy.
Los Angeles, California
Gary Rendsburg responds:
To some extent, Mr. Hepner’s method and mine are consonant with one another. We both look to events from the monarchic period to serve as the background for the stories in Genesis. The difference is that I see the tenth century B.C.E. as the background for Genesis, while Mr. Hepner sees a later period for its setting. He believes that the positive portrayal of Joseph in Genesis “shows a bias towards the northern kingdom.” Such a bias, I must assume, would come from the pen of a northern author. But the linguistic evidence does not reflect this. My studies in regional dialects of ancient Hebrew reveal a dichotomy between Israelite, or northern, Hebrew, and Judahite, or southern, Hebrew. The Joseph story lacks a concentration of Israelite Hebrew lexical and grammatical elements; rather, it is written in standard biblical Hebrew (= Judahite Hebrew) and therefore must be considered a Judahite composition. It is hard to imagine a Judahite author presenting Joseph in such a positive light after the split in the kingdom.
I would argue that the positive portrayal of Joseph in a story composed in Judahite Hebrew demonstrates that the story also must date to the tenth century B.C.E. Note that Judah is portrayed in a noble fashion within the Joseph story, in particular in his long speech in Genesis 44:18–34 (17 verses—the longest in the book of Genesis), which moves Joseph to tears and leads him to reveal himself to his brothers.
Was Bathsheba Behind It?
Thank you for the
Rendsburg argues that the Torah was written at the time of David and may have been commissioned by his court. For Rendsburg, Judah and Tamar are stand-ins for David and Bathsheba. The theme of the Judah and Tamar story is not especially flattering towards Judah/David. Who might have written this section of Genesis and why? Tamar was a woman who dressed like a whore and acted like a whore but was not really a whore. She was a woman accused of adultery and condemned to death by Judah, but in the end Judah admitted that she was more righteous than he. Who had the most to gain from this version of media spin? At the time of David, who was it that dressed (or rather undressed) like a whore and, like Tamar, became pregnant while apart from her husband? None other than Bathsheba. Genesis 38 could be Bathsheba’s response to the accusation of being an adulterous whore.
Tenafly, New Jersey
Gary Rendsburg responds:
It is noteworthy that 2 Samuel 11–12 never points the finger at Bathsheba. She serves in the story as an agent, an individual necessary for the plot, but not as a full-fledged character. Note that we are given very little, if any, information about Bathsheba’s emotions and that only David is accused of adultery. She is given only two words (in the Hebrew) to speak, “I am pregnant” (2 Samuel 11:5); and she is not called by her name from the time she is introduced until the entire affair is over. All of this means that the author of 2 Samuel 11–12 was not concerned with Bathsheba but rather sought to focus the reader’s attention on David.
Now in real life Bathsheba may have been viewed negatively by people in the city of Jerusalem—we have no way of knowing—but the biblical account gives no indication whatsoever that she was accused of being “an adulterous whore” (Mr. Errick’s words).
In general I am opposed to the effort to attribute a particular composition in the Bible to a specific character, named or unnamed, in the Bible. With the exception of the literary prophets, for whom we have names, the biblical books are anonymous. Scholars in recent times have attempted to ascribe the book of Deuteronomy to Jeremiah, the so-called Yahwist source to a royal lady in the court of Rehoboam, and so on. But such efforts can never be proved and should, I believe, be avoided.
Avercius Inscription
A Mere Braggart?
Bishop Avercius’s tombstone inscription fascinated me because of the variety of ways it can be understood, but it also left me curious (“Earliest Christian Inscription,” BR 17:01). I wonder how much the bishop’s grandiosity, which clearly affected the style and content of his self aggranizing epitahph, needs to be taken into account. He describes himself as a “citizen of a favored city” who wants his body placed in a “prominent place.” One thinks of Ozymandias, who fantasized that his monumental works could outlast death adn guarantee his memory forever.
Many people, in demanding that their importance be noted, have a tendency to overstate therie accomplishments. Surely, as a bishop, Avercius must have accomplished many important things, yet he wanted to be remembered for his trip to Rome. Odd. Old Avercius is wonderfully human-my thanks to Laurence Kant for telling us about him.
Aurora, Colorado
A Prude Approves
I am as much of a prude as anyone, but I don’t think you print “dirty” pictures. Keep printing ’em!
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