Posted on 02/12/2011 10:57:29 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Reputable Christian scholars are outright rejecting one author's message that the Bible gives mixed and contradictory teachings on sex and sexuality.
Earlier this week, a Newsweek article entitled, "What the Bible Really Says About Sex," brought attention to the work of Jennifer Wright Knust, author of Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire.
Knust, a religion professor at Boston University, argues that there are cases in the Bible where premarital sex, homosexuality and prostitution is permissible, according to her book and the Newsweek piece.
Evangelical scholars say she fails to demonstrate authentic scholarship and correct biblical interpretation despite teaching religion and being an ordained American Baptist pastor.
"Jennifer Knuts offers a revisionist interpretation of the biblical texts. Her interpretation departs, not only from the traditional ways those texts are interpreted, but also from the true meaning of what the texts actually say," Dr. Claude Mariottini, professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminary, told The Christian Post.
In his blog post responding to the Newsweek piece, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the Bible already presents a "clear and consistent sexual ethic" and that the issue at hand is not lack of clarity.
"The real problem here is not that the Bible is misunderstood and in need of revision," he wrote Wednesday. "To the contrary, the real problem is that the ethic revealed in the Bible is both rejected and reviled."
In an interview posted Thursday on the Huffington Post, Knust contended to Stephen Prothero, author of Religious Literacy, that the story of Ruth is an example of how premarital sex is "a source of God's blessing" in the Bible. She claimed that the Bible's record of Ruth "uncovering the feet" of Boaz and lying down at his feet is actually a scene of the great grandparents of King David having sex. "Feet" can be a euphemism for male genitals, according to Knust.
Dr. Paul Copan, a philosophy professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla., told The Christian Post that he believes Ruth's uncovering of Boaz's feet was just that and that nothing sexual took place.
"The Bible doesn't shy away from recording sexual encounters and would have recorded it if one took place," he said.
President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Copan also pointed out that the grammar in the Bible doesn’t support a sexual act. The word "lie" can be used in a sexual way, such as Potiphar's wife telling Joseph "lie with me," he noted. But in the story of Ruth, "the word is used here without sexual connotations," said Copan.
Mariottini acknowledged that "feet" can refer to "genitals" in a few passages of the Old Testament, but to say that "Ruth exposed Boaz’s genitals, is to read a sexual meaning into the text that may or may not be there," he said.
"Even if Ruth exposed Boaz’s genitals, it does not mean that they had sexual intercourse. It is possible that Ruth was tricking Boaz into thinking they had sex," offered the Old Testament professor.
Bottom line: "The case of Ruth cannot be used to give approval to premarital sex," said Mariottini.
Both Copan and Mariottini referred to Deuteronomy 22:28-29 to explain that the Bible is against premarital sex. According to the passage, sex consummates the marriage so if a man has violated a virgin woman, he must pay her father 50 pieces of silver and also take her as his wife, the scholars said.
They also cited the passage in Genesis 2:24, which states, "This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh."
Scripture affirms God's creation order of marriage between a man and a woman and sexual pleasure as taking place in the context of marriage, they said.
In another controversial claim, Knust also argues that the Bible justifies prostitution, pointing to the story of Tamar.
Tamar was left a widow after the Lord punished Er, Judah's eldest son, with death for his wickedness. Judah then asks his second eldest son, Onan, to marry Tamar and give her an offspring but he, too, is slain by the Lord after he intentionally withheld his seed from Tamar. When the third son Shelah was grown but was given to wed Tamar, she posed as a prostitute and had sex with her father-in-law.
"The Bible does not approve prostitution, but like in our society today, prostitution was very common," said Mariottini.
"The reason Tamar dressed like a prostitute was because Judah violated a societal rule and refused to provide an heir for his dead son. So, she was forcing him to fulfill his obligation," he said.
In a commentary to CNN this week, Knust takes another stab at the Bible's claims on sexuality by arguing that Scripture supports homosexuality. Again using Old Testament characters to make her point, she sets her sights on David and Jonathan, alleging that the two were same-sex partners.
"There is no evidence that David and Jonathan were gay partners," stated Mariottini. "Both of them were married and had children. They were just friends who had the kind of friendship that was common in the Ancient Near East. This type of friendship is unknown today. This is the reason people mistake this kind of friendship with a gay relationship."
Mohler had this to say about Knust's claim on homosexuality, "No Jewish or Christian interpreter of the Bible had ever suggested that the relationship between David and Jonathan was homosexual – at least not until recent decades."
"The revisionist case is equally ludicrous across the board. We are only now able to understand what Paul was talking about in Romans 1? The church was wrong for two millennia?" he asked rhetorically.
Knust acknowledged in her CNN commentary that same-sex intimacy is condemned in a "few" biblical passages, but claims that "these passages, which I can count on one hand, are addressed to specific sex acts and specific persons, not to all humanity forever, and they can be interpreted in any number of ways."
Not so, according to Copan.
Copan, who addresses the topics of homosexuality and gay marriage in his book When God Goes to Starbucks, said that homosexuality is strictly prohibited by the Bible in Leviticus 18:22 and again by Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6.
Homosexuality "goes against the very design that God intended: marriage is between husband and wife," said Copan, reaffirming the passage in Genesis.
"Paul speaks very strongly against homosexuality," he said. "He says that these sorts of things are not to be approved in the Kingdom of God. He is also saying that people can be redeemed from this."
In his book, Copan cited the work of Richard Hays, dean of Duke Divinity School, who calls such attempts to label Ruth and Naomi as lesbians or David and Jonathan as gays "exegetical curiosities” that just aren’t taken seriously by biblical scholars.
"The Scriptures offer no indications – no stories, no metaphors – that homosexual relationships are acceptable before God," concluded Copan in When God Goes to Starbucks.
Where is your proof text?
Seems clear enough.
It is in the Bible.
Where exactly?
Fermented liquor is a depressent and we are to 'rejoice in the Lord' not be putting depressents into our body.
The pork restriction was for the Jews only, and was removed when the Church age began.
That was the message that Peter received in Acts 10, when he was shown a vision of all kinds of unclean animals from heaven and told to kill and eat.
Now, there are still certain common sense aspects to those restrictions which pertain to good health.
But there is no spiritual restrictions.
Christ would never give anyone something that would cause them to sin, since that would be a sin.
How do you explain the following: Matthew 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Why would they accuse Jesus of being a drunkard if he was only drinking grape juice?
Even if it there are two different types of "wine" in the Scriptures, one can't say that every verse that talks about wine consumption in a positive light is talking about "grape juice" and that which is talking about it in a negative light is "alcoholic" without providing textual criticism of every passage in Scripture.
Let me say this...I choose not to drink alcohol. However, I see no honest reading of all of Scripture than can ever justify the prohibition of the non-drunken consumption of alcohol.
Here it is (in the KJV):
Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!<'i>
This isn't a passage about prohibiting drinking alcohol, it is a passage about taking advantage of your neighbor.
***“It says Jesus turned water into wine but it really wasn’t wine”.****
As a Baptist Preacher here said about 14 years ago...”Jesus turned the water into Pure unfermented grape juice”!
We bit our tongues to keep from laughing in the service.
It seems clear enough to me, too. But the "Gay Christian exegetes" point out that Paul singles out women who have "changed the natural use," and men who "left the natural use of women" -- and from that, they deduce that this condemns only women who have left a man (leaving heterosexuality), or men who have left a woman (leaving heterosexuality) to try out a little same-sex action; and it makes no mention of such peopel who have always known themselves to be homosexual, and therefore have never "left" a different-sex relationship for a same-sex one.
They also argue that thPaul was writing with reference to pagan temple prostitution, which encouraged devotees (even heterosexual) to dabble in homosexual experience.
You can read about that here: http://www.gaychristian101.com/Romans-1.html
I 'm looking for somebody to engage these argumetns.
These discussions concerning alcohol here ...I have never understood the Bible as having a problem with drinking a bit of alcohol. It is drunkenness that’s the problem . As in Galatians 5:21 ‘Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ On the other hand, it was in fact stated that wine in moderation was good for you as in 1 Timothy 5:23 ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.’
Grapes in my neck of the woods are ready for picking around Sept or Oct. How long would fresh grape juice typically last in the Jerusalem metro area around 30AD? I am guessing not very long. If the Last Supper was in the spring, wouldn’t all of the grape juice be spoiled by then if it had not been fermented into wine?
I don’t claim to know that there was no possible way that the Last Supper could have used grape juice but I am not seeing how that could happen.
“Christ turned the water into non-ferminated wine”
That’s what you want to believe, not what Scripture says. The Bible says “wine” and I believe the Bible, not what some man wants to believe.
I don’t think adherance to biblical principles respects state boundaries, but I live in Virginia.
First, alcohol is a depressant for some people, not all people.
Second, millions if not billions of people imbibe alcohol and have done so for thousands of years without ill effects. Millions of people drink wine for pleasure without ill effects. Indeed, there is science that supports that drinking small amounts of alcohol once or twice a day is good for the heart.
By the way, what we know about wine and beer today is a result of monks preserving that knowledge. All the world re known wineries in France were once monasteries. Funny how alcohol wasn’t prohibited by the church for almost 2000 years until American protestants decided to turn everything upside down.
Third, fermentation is a natural process that occurs in nature without human manipulation. There is nothing evil about when yeast feeds on sugar and produces CO2 and alcohol as by-products. Is cheese evil? Is bread evil? The same process that goes into making fermented beverages also happens in bread and cheese making.
Fourth, there are plenty of foods other than wine that can make you sick, depressed or high without being processed by human beings.
Fifth, there is no biblical prohibition against imbibing fermented beverages. Like I said before, in that climate, if anybody macerated fruit to make juice, fermentation would have occurred naturally without any human intent. Go buy some grapes, mash them up, and let them sit out for a few days and you will smell the alcohol eventually. The reason why grape juice in the store doesn’t produce alcohol is because it has to be treated to kill the yeast or it would produce alcohol.
Sixth, if wine is evil, why is it part of the Holy Eucharist and Communion?
Why is it a central part of the Jewish holidays of Passover, the Sabbath, Purim?
There are far more religious and cultural traditions in support of wine than against it.
All Wine is a miracle. Man can not make wine or there would be no difference in Chateau LaTour and Boone’s Farm. God provides the Sunshine and the Rain and the Soil, to make the difference. During my sojurn in Israel, wine was served at every meal. To Serve Grape Juice to a bunch of drunks would have caused a riot and certainly wouldn’t have garnered any praise from the Guests. I admit Fermented and “unfermented wine’ (Grape Juice) were both drank in the near East, and if you want to choose the one that conforms to your religious beliefs, That is your Choice. When I go into my arbor and pick a bunch of grapes and even trod them with my feet, can the juice be called wine?
Bibical proscription of wine:
Wine is a Mocker, strong drink is raging : and whosoever is deceived therebyis not wise. Prov 20:1 (KJV)
Also in Prov 21:7, 31.
But he said in his final word on the subject: Give strong drink to them that are ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts. Let him dring and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Prov 31:6-7 (KJV)
The idea of ‘always knowing themselves to be homosexual’ is not a concept that is found in scripture and in fact, it shouldn’t be a concept that exists today. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as homosexuality... or heterosexuality either for that matter. There is only sexuality... and sexuality manifests itself in many ways i.e. healthy, unhealthy, perverted, forms that sanctioned by God, forms that are totally abhorred by God etc. When people use words such as homosexual and heterosexual, they are speaking strictly about something that doesn’t exist in any tangible way....it is just something that is conjured up in one’s own mind and as such, it is nothing more than being a self-identification or self-declarative statement of something that is perceived but can’t be known. Since there is no means test that can act as a repeatable and consistent methodology for providing proof, the terms are meaningless. Thus if a person was to say “I’m a homosexual”, how could this be verified to be a true statement? It can’t and even those who champion so-called homosexual rights (I refuse to use the word ‘gay’) will often say things like “we are no different than you are ”. Whenever scripture deals with issues like this, it never addresses it in terms of ‘what you are’... it addresses it in terms of ‘what you are doing’. As in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (King James Version) ‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.’ Note that for each of the parties on this list, the word used is referring to something that they are doing i.e. a fornicator is one who is fornicating, an idolater is one who is practising the worshipping of idols, a thief is one who is thieving etc. A thief isn’t a thief because he thinks of himself as a thief, he is a thief because he stole something. Similarly, it is not simply the thought of thinking about one’s predispositions or even contemplating a sexual act with one who is the same sex that is the problem... it is the act of doing it. By the same token, one gets into a bit of mental gymnastics with this if the question is posed “is a person who has self-identified him or herself as a homosexual but never acted on their feelings, really a homosexual?” If a person said yes to this question, how would they prove it?? There is a very important aspect to a person’s thought life that Jesus talks about but with respect to this subject, it is the act that’s the problem. Incidentally, the Bible verse above uses the word ‘effeminate’ as quoted in the King James Version. It probably wasn’t the best choice of word and other translations use the word ‘sodomite’ and ‘men who lie with men’.....both of which are consistent with the point that it’s the act carried out by the individual(s) as opposed to some characteristic of the individual.
They heated the juice to 140F for 20 minutes; sterilized the winskins, then filled them with the hot juice; bubbled sulpher dioxide into it; sealed them with melted beeswax, and then immediately stored them in a very cold cave...? /sarc
Underlying the logic of these people is the belief that their proclivities are "natural". Their argument is that because God made them this way then clearly God didn't mean to prohibit their behavior. Surely God must mean something other than what He said.
The problems with this are multiple. As already noted, God has clearly condemned sex between men in Leviticus. Even if there is some biological imperative (which I happen to deny) leading these people to the homosexual lifestyle, God has commanded them not to engage in the behavior. Just as heterosexual people are commanded not to engage in sexual immorality (i.e. premarital sex) these people, even if bent that way are commanded to deny their "urges". Think of it in these terms, my sinful flesh desires the worldly pleasures of a woman before I'm married...just because this is something I feel "naturally" doesn't make it right in the eyes of God. I can't make it acceptable to God no matter how much I may wish to share myself with a woman not my wife. If people are indeed innately homosexual, God's clear command is that they abstain from their sinful desires. Each of us must deny our flesh in some way to remain true to God's Holy Word. Our desires have been corrupted by the Fall and our earthly flesh is a powerful liar.
These folks also wish to twist Pauline teaching by proposing historically unsupportable theories. There is not one shred of evidence that the Jewish people or early Christians ever accepted homosexual behavior as anything other than an abomination.
Where do you see in Scripture that our will is free? Our wills are bound by sin if we are not Christians. Our wills are bound to Christ if we are. Free will is a mantra that doesn’t exist. Sounds nice to man’s pride, but I would ask that anyone really study the will in Scripture and see what Scripture teaches. There is NONE who seek after God. NOBODY will come to the Father unless the Spirit draws them. Etc., Yes, we are told to choose at times. But short of the Spirit’s agency, we will choose evil.
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