Male Homosexuality in the (Written) Torah
One of the most contentious subjects in the entire corpus that we know as the Bible and that the jews known in reduced form as the Tanakh (aka ‘the Jewish Bible’) is that of homosexuality. How it is presented in the Tanakh and what can we understand from the text in relation to it. The interesting thing about this debate is that it has led to both sides studying the Biblical text in great detail and a lot of additional less obvious mentions of homosexuality have actually been discovered because of this renewed focus.
Here I wish to discuss the attitude of the (Written) Torah towards homosexuals and what it tells us about the ancient Israelites. This is because while the debate tends to rage around what the Bible suggests about homosexuality in relation to the current socio-political debates about whether homosexuality should be considered ‘normal’ or not. The findings of this renewed research interest are not generally being applied retroactively to the Israelites and the jews more broadly (who are - after all - their descendants and whom honour them as their ancestors) as would otherwise be the case.
To begin with let us start with the most famous two mentions of homosexuality in the book of Leviticus.
These state as follows:
‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.’ (1)
And:
‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.’ (2)
This is also reinforced by a less a famous prohibition against male prostitution in the book of Deuteronomy:
‘There shall be no cult prostitute of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a cult prostitute of the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the hire of a harlot, or the wages of a dog, into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow; for both of these are an abomination.’ (3)
I have discussed this passage elsewhere in relation to the issue of ritual prostitution among the ancient Israelites (4) and as I pointed out in that article: the term ‘dog’ has an alternative translation - according to the Revised Standard Edition - of ‘male cult prostitute’.
Now this passage from Deuteronomy is notable for two things: the first is the necessary implication that jews used to prostitute themselves to others for cash or religious purposes (male or female is unstated, but it is reasonable to assume that some of this prostitution was of a homosexual nature).
The second is that the prohibition given by the (Written) Torah is not actually a blanket one, but rather is very specific in its nature. We can see this in that it doesn't say that nobody shall be a cult prostitute or prostitute themselves, but rather that no ‘son or daughter of Israel’ shall be a cult prostitute or prostitute themselves. It isn’t forbidding or suggesting that non-jews should not be made cult prostitutes or prostitutes, but rather that jews specifically should not because it is an offense to Yahweh.
The blanket nature of this prohibition in common belief comes from Christian theology which focuses on the gentile supersession to the status of Israel in the place of the jews. Thus in Christian theology ‘Israel’ are the Christian believers as opposed to the ancient Israelites (aka the jews), but without assuming Christian interpretations of the (Written) Torah are ipso facto accurate: it can easily be seen that this prohibition is meant specifically for jews and for no one else.
This means in effect that the jews are quite at liberty to sleep with cult prostitutes and prostitutes as such as long as they are non-jewish and not of the same sex (since it forbids jews being such not sleeping with such). This can also be suggested to be the root of jewish indifference to (and sometimes active promotion of) homosexuality among gentiles: precisely because there is a differential assigned within Judaism between the gentiles (among whom Judaism believes such practices to be innate and non-jews to unable to control their urges in this direction) and jews (among whom Judaism believes such practices to be alien and demands that they should control themselves so as not be seduced by those more inclined to ‘evil inclinations’ aka non-jews).
The statements in the book of Leviticus are also specific to the jews if we but think about it a moment.
This is because the book of Leviticus is stating laws that refer to Israel: it is not making rules for those who are not of Israel. Again it is through the idea of supersession in Christian theology (where Israel equates Christians as opposed to its original meaning of the Israelites) that this has become conflated and confused as a blanket prohibition rather than a very specific one. It thus worth mentioning that when Yahweh states that he hates every abomination: (5) it has be filtered through the statement in Leviticus 18:22 that homosexuality is an abomination among the jews.
Nowhere are gentiles mentioned in that statement and nowhere is it prohibited among them by Yahweh.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the book of Genesis probably comes to the mind of the reader at this point. If we think about that for a moment are told in Genesis that: ‘the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.’ (6)
This is traditionally interpreted in a rather - if you’ll forgive the tone - half-arsed way in the light of New Testament refers to the ‘crime of Sodom’ being homosexuality. However the text itself doesn't directly suggest homosexuality at all: it merely states that the men of Sodom were ‘wicked’ and ‘great sinners’.
Indeed the book of Ezekiel later lists the crimes of Sodom as: ‘pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me.’ (7)
The ‘abominable things’ could be homosexuality, but there were many other more likely things that were abominations (as Yahweh did like to abominate much [including hair oil weirdly enough]) in the Torah such as the worship of other gods. Equally: if we wish to focus on sexually-based abominations then why not bestiality which is also an abomination according to the book of Leviticus? (8)
That the crime of the Sodom that caused them to be destroyed was homosexuality is indicated indirectly in the story when the angels come to visit Lot to tell him to leave Sodom post haste.
We are told thus:
‘The two angels came to Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed himself with his face to the earth, and said “My Lords, turn aside, I pray you, to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the street.” But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them what you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”’ (9)
In the story of the visit of the two angels to Lot: we need to notice the action of the men of Sodom to word of the presence of foreign men (who are - in fact - angels) in the house of Lot and Lot’s response to satisfy them. The men of Sodom demand that Lot bring out the angels to them (i.e., who they believe to foreign men) so that they ‘may know them’.
The phrasing is interesting here since ‘knowing’ someone in the Biblical text is a common euphemism for sexual intercourse. This is also exemplified in the above text when Lot tells the men of Sodom that he has two daughters who have ‘not known man’: in other words his daughters are virgins. This suggests that the men of Sodom are incorrigible homosexuals who want to have sex with everything and anything male that moves. If you want to put it in somewhat vulgar terms: the Bible is suggesting that the men of Sodom wanted to gang-rape - or have a homosexual gang-bang with - the two angels in the street.
This is further suggested by the reaction of Lot to the angels: since he believes them to be foreign men and they are obviously either beautiful to look upon (hence the connection of angels with physical beauty often related in the Biblical text as well as popular culture) or richly attired due to the fact that he refers to them as ‘My Lords’ (i.e., they are obviously not common men because of something related to their appearance). This in turn necessitates that the men of Sodom had noticed the two angels when they had come to the gate of the city (as otherwise how did they know they were in Lot’s house?) and believed that Lot had taken them into his house to have homosexual intercourse with them.
Not wanting to be left out of the opportunity to have their ‘fun’ with attractive foreign men (or perhaps being a bit bored of each other): the men of Sodom decided to turn up at Lot’s house and demand he bring out the men so that he couldn't monopolize the ‘fun’ himself.
This is then further evidenced by Lot trying to bribe the men of Sodom with his two virgin daughters instead.
After all: if the men of Sodom just wanted to know who the angels were. Then why did Lot refer to what they wanted to do as ‘being wicked’ and offer them his two daughters to have sex with?
We can thus see that the men of Sodom (who are held to be non-jewish) were rampant and predatory homosexuals. This is not itself the reason that Yahweh destroyed Sodom however since the abomination of homosexuality is set to specific criteria outlined by Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the men of Sodom were not of Israel. It means that according to Yahweh’s declarations: they were not guilty of any crime against him because they were not of Israel.
The presence of an Israelite - Lot - among them is due to his being captured by the King of Sodom (10) and as such Lot as the only Israelite among the men of Sodom is going to be highly vulnerable to being forced to have sexual intercourse with other men. Indeed Lot hints that he may well have already been involved in homosexual affairs considering that he knows precisely what the men of Sodom want when they turn up at his house and demand to see the two angels (i.e., ‘I beg you my brothers, do not act so wickedly’). To know this so implicitly Lot must have had experience in such a situation before himself and his pleading with the men of Sodom suggests that it is more desperation bore of experience than a belief that pleading is actually going to do something. Lot’s desperation is suggested by his sacrificing his two virgin daughters (who were viewed as an important commodity [of which their virginity was an integral part] in the ancient world) to the mob if they would but leave the two angels alone and unmolested.
This then means that Lot was under constant threat of being either seduced or raped by the men of Sodom (and he probably had been already if we note the behaviour of the men of Sodom in relation to the two angels). This would have been regarded - in the light of the strict but specific prohibitions related to the Israelites alone in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy - as a direct infringement of the prohibition of homosexuality in relation to the Israelites and thus Yahweh considers that Sodom has committed a truly terrible crime against him and thus ordains its destruction.
This then informs us that the crime of Sodom was not homosexuality per se, but rather homosexuality of non-jews towards jews. We can see in this the double standard that runs throughout the (Written) Torah when non-jews are generally considered to be inherently evil and prone to seeking to injure the interests, spiritual health and/or bodily health of the chosen and otherwise good Israelites.
We do however find a mention that Noah was possibly raped by his son Ham in the book of Genesis for which Ham and his descendants are then eternally cursed. To wit:
‘Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Ja’pheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”’ (11)
Now while the above doesn’t explicitly talk about homosexual rape: it is quite obvious that some crime or action is unsaid here. This is because Noah was drunk and stretched out naked in his tent, but his son Ham saw him naked and then told his brothers who covered him up without starring at Noah’s naked body. Noah’s vicious curse makes absolutely no sense unless Ham had in fact done something to do with his father’s nakedness.
There are also very few variant readings of this text, because it is quite specific about the behaviour of Shem and Ja’pheth, but non-specific about the behaviour of Ham. The simplest reading; that Noah was angry because Ham starred at his naked body and didn't cover him up, while Shem and Ja’pheth did not stare at their father’s naked body while somehow covering him up, is simply unsatisfactory as it fails to account for the extremely harsh curse that Noah pronounces on Ham.
Suggesting that Ham saw his father lying naked in a drunken stupor in his tent and then took advantage to have homosexual intercourse with him (which is incest and rape as well as homosexuality) makes an awful lot more sense in the context of this curse. This is due to the fact that homosexuality (as well as incest and rape) among the Israelites is labelled an abomination in the (Written) Torah and is regarded as a great sin. This would fit with the depiction of Ham being the origin of the Canaanites (i.e., non-jews) who are destined to be the slaves of the Israelites and whom are vested with the urges towards endorsing abominations to Yahweh.
Reading the text as being an unwritten account of homosexual rape also makes sense of non-specific nature of the actions of Ham. As so hallowed an ancestor of the jews as Noah being raped by his own son would imply that Noah was a lesser man: since after being so wise as to worship Yahweh. Noah then gets blind drunk, lies around his tent naked and allows his own son to perform an abomination unto Yahweh to him.
It would also make sense of why Shem and Ja’pheth walk backwards to their father so that they shall not see his nakedness. The logic the (Written) Torah is using is that homosexual desire (i.e., one of the ‘evil inclinations’ [roughly akin to Yahweh’s abominations] in Judaism) is triggered by seeing uncovered flesh broadly speaking (thus the need for male and female modesty encouraged by the [Written] Torah) and thus in order for Shem and Ja’pheth not to rape their father as their brother has done: then they need to walk backwards together so they can cover up their father.
Thus we can see that the curse of Ham actually refers to Ham homosexual rape of his father Noah rather than merely having the temerity to notice that Noah was sprawled out naked in his tent in a drunken stupor.
Having now dealt with and analysed all the instances in the (Written) Torah relating to male homosexuality: we should recap and once again point out the specific nature of the injunctions against its practice by Israelites (i.e., jews) not against its practice by non-Israelites (i.e., gentiles). This is shown by Lot who was taken prisoner by the rapaciously homosexual inhabitants of Sodom and Yahweh decreed that Sodom would be exterminated for crimes of homosexuality relating to Lot (an Israelite) as well as by Ham when he raped his father Noah and was thus subject to the infamous curse that bears his name.
We should further point out that this focus on homosexuality and outlawing it in regards to Israelites very strongly suggests - as I have pointed out several times in other articles - that we should view the ancient Israelites much as we would currently view the tribal groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan - as well as the Middle East more broadly - as having a culture of encouraging homosexuality as a ‘pleasurable pursuit’ while sleeping with women was to beget children (specifically sons). This is also suggested by the outlawing of transvestism in the book of Deuteronomy (12) that necessarily implies that ancient Israelites engaged in the sort of tacit homosexual culture of having boys or men dress up as girls and then treating them as such, which is so common in the region to this day.
Therefore we can see that the (Written) Torah is desperate to suppress male homosexuality among the jews, but tacitly encourages it among gentiles while recommending death for all those gentiles who are believed to want to engage in homosexual relations with jews. All the time while tacitly acknowledging that jews are constantly having to fight against their desire to be homosexuals (even though it is thought to be alien to them: it can be brought on by male nakedness apparently) and as such should they see other jews (or possibly even gentiles) naked then their desires will be inflamed and they will commit sexual abominations before the lord.
References
(1) Lev. 18:22 (RSV)
(2) Ibid. 20:13 (RSV)
(3) Deut. 23:17-18 (RSV)
(4) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-sacred-prostitution-in-ancient
(5) Deut. 12:31 (RSV)
(6) Gen. 13:13 (RSV)
(7) Ezek. 16:49-50 (RSV)
(8) Lev. 18:23 (RSV)
(9) Gen. 19:1-9 (RSV)
(10) Ibid. 14:12 (RSV)
(11) Ibid. 9:20-25 (RSV)
(12) Deut. 22:5 (RSV)