Homosexuality in the Hebrew Bible

There are a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible that have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual acts, desires, and relationships.

[1] The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and its traditional interpretations in Judaism and Christianity have historically affirmed and endorsed a patriarchal and heteronormative approach towards human sexuality,[5][6] favouring exclusively penetrative vaginal intercourse between men and women within the boundaries of marriage over all other forms of human sexual activity,[5][6] including autoeroticism, masturbation, oral sex, non-penetrative and non-heterosexual sexual intercourse (all of which have been labeled as "sodomy" at various times),[7] believing and teaching that such behaviors are forbidden because they're considered sinful,[5][6] and further compared to or derived from the alleged behavior of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Most traditional commentators interpret this to refer to the homosexual nature of the people in the crowd, especially in the light of the parallel story in Judges 19.

Conversely, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo (20 BC – 50 AD) described the inhabitants of Sodom in an extra-biblical account: As men, being unable to bear discreetly a satiety of these things, get restive like cattle, and become stiff-necked, and discard the laws of nature, pursuing a great and intemperate indulgence of gluttony, and drinking, and unlawful connections; for not only did they go mad after other women, and defile the marriage bed of others, but also those who were men lusted after one another, doing unseemly things, and not regarding or respecting their common nature, and though eager for children, they were convicted by having only an abortive offspring; but the conviction produced no advantage, since they were overcome by violent desire; and so by degrees, the men became accustomed to be treated like women, and in this way engendered among themselves the disease of females, and intolerable evil; for they not only, as to effeminacy and delicacy, became like women in their persons, but they also made their souls most ignoble, corrupting in this way the whole race of men, as far as depended on them.

[16] Additionally, the Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37 – c. 100) used the term “Sodomites” in summarizing the Genesis narrative: About this time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, in so much that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers, and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices” "Now when the Sodomites saw the young men to be of beautiful countenances, and this to an extraordinary degree, and that they took up their lodgings with Lot, they resolved themselves to enjoy these beautiful boys by force and violence; and when Lot exhorted them to sobriety, and not to offer any thing immodest to the strangers, but to have regard to their lodging in his house; and promised that if their inclinations could not be governed, he would expose his daughters to their lust, instead of these strangers; neither thus were they made ashamed.

I.909) It is argued that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah had never been interpreted as relating to one single particular sin, until Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great instituted two law novelizations, in the 6th century.

Justinian's interpretation of the story of Sodom would be forgotten today (as it had been along with his law novelizations regarding homosexual behavior immediately after his death) had it not been made use of in fake Charlemagnian capitularies, fabricated by a Frankish monk using the pseudonym Benedictus Levita ("Benedict the Levite") around 850 CE, as part of the Pseudo-Isidore where Benedictus utilized Justinian's interpretation as a justification for ecclesiastical supremacy over mundane institutions, thereby demanding burning at the stake for carnal sins in the name of Charlemagne himself (burning had been part of the standard penalty for homosexual behavior particularly common in Germanic antiquity, note that Benedictus most probably was Frankish), especially homosexuality, for the first time in ecclesiastical history in order to protect all Christianity from divine punishments such as natural disasters for carnal sins committed by individuals, but also for heresy, superstition and heathenry.

According to Benedictus, this was why all mundane institutions had to be subjected to ecclesiastical power in order to prevent moral as well as religious laxity causing divine wrath.

Those who committed a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn male minor were penalized by death or a fine, depending on the circumstances.

Letters written to Cicero suggest that the law was used primarily to harass political opponents, and may have been applied also to citizens who willingly took the passive role in sex acts (see Sexuality in ancient Rome and Lex Scantinia).

(Romans 13:9; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10) [25][26][27][28] Such theologians have said that this abrogation does not extend to homosexuality, which remains in their interpretation as one of the few sins unconditionally condemned.

The Hebrew Bible consistently parallels the female equivalent, a kedeshah, with zanah, the word for a common prostitute.

At 1 Kings 15:12 the Septuagint hellenises them as teletai – personifications of the presiding spirits at the initiation rites of the Bacchic orgies.

Various classical authors assert this of male initiates of Eastern goddess cults, and in the Vulgate for all four of these references St. Jerome renders the kadeshim as "effeminati".

This relationship has therefore long been commended as an example of self-sacrificing love and close friendship (e.g. Issues in Human Sexuality para.