I ran across this this list first via Fred Clark, tracking it back to here — a list of 76 actions proclaimed as sinful or forbidden in Leviticus.
Leviticus is a funny book for modern Christians. Along with Deuteronomy and swathes of Exodus and Numbers, it lays out the Law for the Israelites. But it’s largely ignored by modern Christians because it’s felt that Jesus replaced the Law (except where He didn’t) and that Paul said a lot of it didn’t apply (except for the parts that did). And for all of that, many are still willing to cite Leviticus for things that they think are sinful, while ignoring it for things they don’t.
In other words, people tend to cherry-pick which of the Levitican laws (or, for that matter, all of the Old Covenant, not to mention most of the Bible) they think still apply, and which don’t.
This cherry-picking is sometimes reasoned, and sometimes not. Sometimes it’s based on personal taste — I think that’s okay, so we can ignore that law. Everyone does that these days, so it must be fine. I think that’s icky, so we should cite it frequently as sinful. Sometimes it’s based on reasoning — e.g., comparing them to the Greatest Commandments as Jesus laid them out and seeing if they still seem to apply:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I prefer the latter approach.
So here are 76 things in Leviticus, with verse references, that are banned. It’s by no means exhaustive. As an extension of original list, I’m going to try to include the stated penalties for each act. Consider which of these you (if you’re of such persuasion) think still apply, and which we get a pass on, and why you believe so.
Some of the items specify the penalty or punishment. Many fall back to Leviticus 4 and 5, which lists, based on who commits the sin and whether they knew it was a sin or not, what sort of sacrificial offering animal needs to be given up.
The text except for what’s in [square brackets] is from here.
1. Burning any yeast or honey in offerings to God (2:11) [Normal penalty.]
2. Failing to include salt in offerings to God (2:13) [Normal penalty.]
3. Eating fat (3:17) [That one’s “a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.” All fat is to be saved for offerings to God. Normal penalty.]
4. Eating blood (3:17) [Normal penalty]
5. Failing to testify against any wrongdoing you’ve witnessed (5:1) [“They will be held responsible.”]
6. Failing to testify against any wrongdoing you’ve been told about (5:1) [Which sounds like hearsay. At any rate, “they shall be held responsible.”]
7. Touching an unclean animal (5:2) [NIV translates this as touching “the carcass” of an unclean animal. So if Rover dies, or you’re a worker in a pork plant, you’re in trouble here. Normal penalty.]
8. Carelessly making an oath (5:4) [Even if you don’t realize you have. Normal penalty.]
9. Deceiving a neighbour about something trusted to them (6:2) [Return the item and a 20% penalty, plus normal penalty.]
10. Finding lost property and lying about it (6:3) [Return the item and a 20% penalty, plus normal penalty.]
11. Bringing unauthorised fire before God (10:1) [God will smite you.]
12. Letting your hair become unkempt (10:6) [“You will die” and God will be angry at everyone. May only apply to the priesthood.]
13. Tearing your clothes (10:6) [“You will die” and God will be angry at everyone. May only apply to the priesthood.]
14. Drinking alcohol in holy places (bit of a problem for Catholics, this ‘un) (10:9) [“You will die.” May only apply to the priesthood.]
15. Eating an animal which doesn’t both chew cud and has a divided hoof (cf: camel, rabbit, pig) (11:4-7) [“You will be unclean.]
16. Touching the carcass of any of the above (problems here for rugby) (11:8) [“You will be unclean.”]
17. Eating – or touching the carcass of – any seafood without fins or scales (11:10-12) [“You will be unclean.”]
18. Eating – or touching the carcass of – eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. (11:13-19) [“You will be unclean.”]
19. Eating – or touching the carcass of – flying insects with four legs, unless those legs are jointed (11:20-22) [“You will be unclean.”]
20. Eating any animal which walks on all four and has paws (good news for cats) (11:27) [“You will be unclean.” Also applies to touching their carcasses.]
21. Eating – or touching the carcass of – the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon (11:29) [“You will be unclean.”]
22. Eating – or touching the carcass of – any creature which crawls on many legs, or its belly (11:41-42) [“You will be unclean.”]
23. Going to church within 33 days after giving birth to a boy (12:4) [Actually, she’s unclean a week, and then another 33 days. Then she has to offer up a sacrifice.]
24. Going to church within 66 days after giving birth to a girl (12:5) [Actually, she’s unclean a week, and then another 66 days. Then she has to offer up a sacrifice.]
25. Having sex with your mother (18:7) [The penalty for all the sexual sins in ch. 18 is that the participants are to be “cut off” from their people. Some have additional penalties mentioned below.]
26. Having sex with your father’s wife (18:8) [In 20:11, both are to be put to death.]
27. Having sex with your sister (18:9) [In 20:17, if you marry her, both are to be “publicly removed from their people”]
28. Having sex with your granddaughter (18:10)
29. Having sex with your half-sister (18:11)
30. Having sex with your biological aunt (18:12-13) [In 20:19, he will be held responsible for the dishonor.]
31. Having sex with your uncle’s wife (18:14) [In 20:20, they are held responsible for the dishonor, “they will die childless”]
32. Having sex with your daughter-in-law (18:15) [In 20:12, both are to be put to death.]
33. Having sex with your sister-in-law (18:16) [In 20:21, if you marry her, “they will be childless.”]
34. Having sex with a woman and also having sex with her daughter or granddaughter (bad news for Alan Clark) (18:17) [No specific penalty given, but per 20:14 if you marry both of them, all three of you are to be “burned in fire.”]
35. Marrying your wife’s sister while your wife still lives (18:18)
36. Having sex with a woman during her period (18:19) [15:24 simply says the man will be considered unclean for 7 days. In 20:18, “Both of them are to be cut off from their people”]
37. Having sex with your neighbour’s wife (18:20) [In 20:10, both are to be put to death.]
38. Giving your children to be sacrificed to Molek (18:21) [In 20:2, the person is to be stoned to death.]
39. Having sex with a man “as one does with a woman” (18:22) [In 20:13, both are to be put to death.]
40. Having sex with an animal (18:23) [In 20:15, both are to be killed.]
41. Making idols or “metal gods” (19:4) [No penalty given.]
42. Reaping to the very edges of a field (19:9) [To be left for the poor. No penalty given.]
43. Picking up grapes that have fallen in your vineyard (19:10) [To be left for the poor. No penalty given.]
44. Stealing (19:11) [No penalty given.]
45. Lying (19:11) [No penalty given.]
46. Swearing falsely on God’s name (19:12) [No penalty given.]
47. Defrauding your neighbour (19:13) [No penalty given.]
48. Holding back the wages of an employee overnight (not well observed these days) (19:13) [No penalty given.]
49. Cursing the deaf or abusing the blind (19:14) [No penalty given.]
50. Perverting justice, showing partiality to either the poor or the rich (19:15) [No penalty given.]
51. Spreading slander (19:16) [No penalty given.]
52. Doing anything to endanger a neighbour’s life (19:16) [No penalty given.]
53. Seeking revenge or bearing a grudge (19:18) [No penalty given.]
54. Mixing fabrics in clothing (19:19) [No penalty given.]
55. Cross-breeding animals (19:19) [No penalty given.]
56. Planting different seeds in the same field (19:19) [No penalty given.]
57. Sleeping with another man’s slave (19:20) [“Due punishment,” but not death, just a ram for sacrifice.]
58. Eating fruit from a tree within four years of planting it (19:23) [No penalty given. May only apply to fruit trees planted in Israel.]
59. Practising divination or seeking omens (tut, tut astrology) (19:26) [No penalty, but in 20:6 they will be “cut off from their people” by God. In 20:27, they are to be stoned to death.]
60. Trimming your beard (19:27) [No penalty given.]
61. Cutting your hair at the sides (19:27) [No penalty given.]
62. Getting tattoos (19:28) [No penalty given.]
63. Making your daughter prostitute herself (19:29) [“The land will turn to prostitution.” No other penalty given.]
64. Turning to mediums or spiritualists (19:31) [No penalty given.]
65. Not standing in the presence of the elderly (19:32) [No penalty given.]
66. Mistreating foreigners – “the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born” (19:33-34) [No penalty given.]
67. Using dishonest weights and scales (19:35-36) [No penalty given.]
68. Cursing your father or mother (punishable by death) (20:9) [Death, as noted.]
69. Marrying a prostitute, divorcee or widow if you are a priest (21:7,13) [No penalty given.]
70. Entering a place where there’s a dead body as a priest (21:11) [I.e., if you’re a priest. No penalty given.]
71. Slaughtering a cow/sheep and its young on the same day (22:28) [May apply only to sacrificial animals. No penalty given.]
72. Working on the Sabbath (23:3) [No penalty given.]
73. Blasphemy (punishable by stoning to death) (24:14) [Death.]
74. Inflicting an injury; killing someone else’s animal; killing a person must be punished in kind (24:17-22) [Killing someone means death. Injuring someone mean punishment in kind. Killing or injuring another’s animal means punishment in kind.]
75. Selling land permanently (25:23) [No penalty given.]
76. Selling an Israelite as a slave (foreigners are fine) (25:42) [No penalty given.]
Quite the list. Not many Christians today would go for all of those … but most would consider some of them as laudable commandments still applicable today.
And for good measure,I’ll add this little bit (Leviticus 35-37):
If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you. You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit.
Yeah, like that’s going to picked up by anyone today.
UPDATE: If you like this, consider my list of 37 (or so) Things Banned in Exodus (and their penalties).
What the heck is “a flying insect with four legs”?
Hello!
Our church family is teaching through the book of Leviticus, and we just addressed this exact topic and responded to this list of 76 things with a paradigm and explanations to each item on the list.
Here’s the talk: https://subspla.sh/yfzvq7c
The exact response to this list begins at around 16:20 but I recommend viewing the whole thing, since it addresses this book’s role in the story of the bible and more. This talk focuses pretty heavily on the food laws, but we’ll be going through Leviticus for the next two months.
And here’s the actual document that responds to these 76 things: http://www.cccomaha.org/76
Let me know if you find anything interesting or have any other questions. Would love to keep dialoguing about it!
@Joshua — Interesting and (at a glance) thoughtful list. Thanks for linking (and linking back).
A couple of immediate caveats:
1. Quite a few items depend on Paul, whom I consider something less of an authority vs. Moses or Jesus (as conveyed in the Bible).
2. A lot of the “Realized” items rely on interpretations of what Jesus, or the church of his followers, represent (“Because of Jesus, God’s people become the
temple/tabernacle”) that are not really self-evident, but more doctrinal in certain Christian sects.
3. The final section contains a lot of handwaving as to what the underlying purpose of the law was (“These were customs to distinguish the Israelites from
worshippers of other gods”), which seems a bit presumptuous, as well as not clearly “realized” — shouldn’t Christ’s followers still practice some of those things to distinguish them from worshippers of other gods?
Hey Dave-
Grateful to have this dialogue with you. You are obviously bright and thoughtful on these matters and I respect where you are coming from. My name is Mark, and I serve as the lead minister who brought the message above. I thought I might respond to your responses.
1) As for Paul, he is widely considered an authority on doctrine of the faith as many of his letters were included in the New Testament. Most Christians consider his teaching authoritative. Of course, Jesus is in a class of his own, but Paul fits side by side with Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Peter and more.
2) The references in the ‘realized’ section will demonstrate that these are not current Christian’s interpretations, but those of the first century founders of the faith (primarily Jesus who himself said he came to fulfill the law, Paul and the author of Hebrews – the ultimate ‘realized’ book).
3) I agree that the last section is the most difficult. However, I think you would agree – based on the premise of your article – that Christians should not arbitrarily practice some and ignore others. Instead, when the other three paradigms are absent, we look for the authors intent and historical context as well as literary context for cues. One of the best clues comes from Leviticus itself in 11:44-5 which says that these laws are to distinguish the people of Israel from Egypt and the surrounding nations and give them an identity as people of a new God. A major theme of Leviticus, actually.
I hope this has been a helpful piece of the dialogue and I appreciate your curiosity on the matter! By May, we should have 12 messages from Leviticus to help this become even more clear!
-Mark Ashton
Thanks Mark.
Paul, and traditional interpretations of his message, are clearly a significant component in how the Church of the first half-millennia organized and recognized themselves. I’m less sanguine that the decisions they made, or the writings Paul produced (or that were attributed to him) are as much a match to Christ’s message as is orthodoxically asserted, or that his theological dismissal (or approval) chunks of the Law have more legitimacy than others’ conscience and consideration. Noting “Hey, Paul condemned homosexual activity” as the final word on Lev. 18:22, without looking at what the Levitical writer(s) meant, what Paul meant, and considering how that intersects with Christ’s teachings, does not satisfy me.
Ultimately, the premise of my article was, yes, that Christians should not arbitrarily practice some laws and ignore others, but also that the the decisions as to what is arbitrary and what is not, which laws need to be adhered to and which don’t, tends to come from convenience and comfort with how various laws fit into Christians’ modern views of tradition, human nature, and personal beliefs, as influenced by the formation of Christianity’s canon, and church and social history over the last two millennia — in many cases echoing the idea of “identity” you mention in Leviticus.
Put another way, the path of “This is what I believe to be true (because I want to, because I think that’s what God is telling me, because that’s how we’ve always believed, etc.), and here is how I can interpret the New Testament as a whole to confirm that belief” is most a problem when we don’t admit that’s what we, as Christians, are all doing it to some degree or another. Suggesting that Paul’s urgings to respect the elderly means that the Levitical ban on staying seated kinda-sorta stays in place seems a bit wishy-washy (are we required to stand? or do other expressions of respect suffice?). Asserting the theological/metaphysical role of Jesus as the new high priest “fulfills” the laws about priesthood, so it’s now okay for priests to marry a widow, takes some very vague passages and makes some defined interpretations of them that the text itself doesn’t seem to support. To go from that and say, “And so we can tick off all the Levitical laws and define which still apply and which don’t,” still seems to me less about what Scripture actually says, and more what you believe it says (or want to believe it says).
Locusts and grasshoppers. Their hind legs are used for jumping only. They walk with only their front four legs. Makes sense given the context.
Avocet, a Jewish poster on Fred Clark’s blog said this (in part): “If you read the actual text (at least in Jewish translations) that bit of text is more straightforward: it’s not “animals with four legs”, it’s “animals that go on all fours”, that is, animals that crawl, and the bit with the joint explicitly goes on to say “such as locusts and their ilk, and grasshoppers and their ilk”.”
(You can see a big bendy knee on the latter insects)
Someone else pointed out that a lot of what makes things clean or unclean for human consumption has to do with what those things eat (bottom feeding sea creatures, for example) and where they walk (ants will walk through almost anything). I’m not saying it makes sense to me, but often there is a lot lost when reading any Christian translation of Hebrew Scripture.
You also lose a lot of it, Ellie, if you don’t have some of the Jewish commentary on the matter from the Talmud, etc.
I find it interesting that cursing your mother or father has the same penalty as male/male sex – death.
Well the wages of all sins are death.
This is the problem with Christianity today. Everyone thinks they can interpret it and they put their own spin on it. You clearly have no place interpreting these versus. Leave it to the people that understand it, you’re doing nothing but spreading mis-information.
Would you like to be more specific, @Yikes, or just leave it at that?
Actually, the site you point at both echoes some of my own feelings and at the same time paints a much more arbitrary decision of “God said this. God didn’t say that.”
No one has any right to be judged by an old book written by hypocrites. Anyone who believes all this should not receive tax relief. And be barred from preaching it to under 18s
https://youtu.be/vZiIU3u3e6I
Dave understands it pretty well. We live under a new covenant – a new testament.
http://www.satanicverses.org/
anything with the word “satanic” is usually riddled with paranoid delusional misinformation
Guys,
Unless there are any ancient Levites among you, none of this has anything to do with us anyway. We could pick any writing from antiquity that had been approved by Constantine and King James and call them scripture, but I’m an African and an American-indian, most of you are are certainly not Levites. Jesus erased all of this anyway.
God only moves in one direction, forward.
Where does Jesus ever say that he erased all of these laws by God? Mathew 5:17 Jesus himself says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” He’s obviously talking about the laws given to Moses and other prophets before him.
Greetings,
Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or prophets: *I am not come to destroy but to fulfill*
If His purposes was to come and fulfill and today He is no longer with us on earth pursee what did He do while He was here? He fulfilled (.) That is the law and the prophets.
Verse 18 -For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one not or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, *til all be fulfilled* Christ fulfilled the law when he was crucified on the cross which was why He came! John 3:16
Verse 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these *commandments*, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but Whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
*THEN HE WENT ON TO SAY THE COMMANDMENTS HE WAS REFERRING TO*
Verse 21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Tho shall not kill: ………………..
@Prophetonfire “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19) Jesus himself said these laws were to be in existence forever.
“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17 )
also check out Matthew 5:17, 2 Timothy 3:16 , 2 Peter 20-21, Mark.7:9-13, John7:19, John 1:17 and finally “…the scripture cannot be broken.” –Jesus Christ, John 10:35
It just shows to prove that gay marriage is not permitted.
Certainly not permitted under Levitican law.
By whose authority? I don’t give a bee’s dick about what it says in Leviticus. The point is that if you are going to cherry pick a verse from the Bible, you must follow the rest of those verses you DH!
I don’t see mention of marriage being not permitted.. can you point out the verse? Also, by that logic, I do hope you avoid animal fat and shell fish 🙂
okay sure. but i expect you to never eat pig again, never touch a football (its made of pigskin!) or trim your beard hair. thx so much.
What I find most telling about the arguments I see is that the laws laid out in Leviticus are theocratic decisions regarding secular matters but no one asks what circumstances would prompt these laws. The dietary laws for example pertain to things that could make people sick. Given the fact that many of the underlying concerns no longer apply is suspect for any one argue that the laws themselves are relevant in modern times. People typically cite Leviticus as an excuse to ignore the sort of requirements Jesus put on people in the new testament. Whether the legalism of the Pharisees or the assertion that one’s own group is an Elect who can, in elitist fashion, look down on those we define as outside our group people long to revert to the behavior that as Christians they are supposed to avoid.
He that knew not corruption, took on corruption, so that we who know no righteousness, can be made righteous in him. Jesus fulfilled the law that the innocent died for the guilty. The greater became the servant for the lessor. If we follow Christ according to Acts 2-38 and truly repent then we die out to sin as He who knew no sin. With his Holy Spirit he raises us up into newness of life (biblical evidence) for repentance. Then we get water baptized in Jesus name for remission of sin, spoken about in Luke 24-47. in this all the law is fulfilled,
Hope you don’t mind I linked your blog in my blog about whether being gay was a sin.
http://christianhedonism22.blogspot.com/2013/08/is-being-gay-sin.html
It’s a nice collection of info. Saved me a lot of research. I have also called it cherry picking before…
Glad to have been of service, Brian.
Many a bible thumper that insists that the old testament no longer applies forgets that the Ten Commandments are in the O.T..
Of course, most of those folks only use the part of the bible they agree with, ignoring those parts they don’t like.
the bible exemplifies polygamy, endorsed slavery, advocates child abuse, and even lying.
Thank you for this ***Dave. I was looking for a good list. I´m a new-born Christian. So I need to comply with all the laws in Leviticus?
I don’t think so, @Danny, but not necessarily for the legal hair-splitting reasons some conservative Christians have espoused (purity laws vs morality laws vs whatever). I simply don’t take it as a given that religious laws espoused by the priesthood of a small Bronze Age kingdom in the Eastern Mediterranean are automatically binding on people in the 21st Century. I would suggest looking at the spirit of those laws, what they sought after, consider if they are worthwhile (and if the recommendation of those writings hold any weight), and then act accordingly.
Of course you must…don’t go by somebody’s advice that some laws do not apply etc. You never know where you may lad up post death and then you can’t claim any excuses. best follow all the laws as spelt out in the Bible, both old and new testaments and stay safe, albeit troubled. But that sjould be no consequence as you are only securing your after life(may be). All the best!!
As far as I can tell, if you are certain Jesus makes a compelling case as a project of moral instruction, then you absolutely must adhere to OT law if you want to remain the good graces of Yahweh. If you can find where the NT Jesus says “you may bend certain rules to suit a modern pluralistic society so that you don’t go to jail” (or anything like it), then you don’t have to kill people for working noncritical jobs on Saturday, or kill all those worshiping the wrong theology, or kill those that marry divorcees, and many other infractions. If I’m wrong, and the NT offers relief from adherence to biblical law and instruction, then I hope someone can post verses to that affect.
If you follow Moses, you must do all laws without fail, But if you follow Jesus then you are under his grace.
I understand the arguments about the Law and Grace, but that doesn’t seem to stop many Christians from pointing to some passages of the Law (or even passing comments by Paul) and saying, “This you must do, or you are consigned to the Fiery Furnace, oh, and we’ll throw you in jail, too.”
From my understanding,
You should strive to follow the Laws of Moses. However, a major focal point in the Bible is that nobody could completely fulfill the Law. That was the whole point in Jesus coming. Jesus fulfilled the Law. When He died on the Cross and was resurrected, He provided salvation to all those who believed that He was the Son of God and that He died for our sins.
Main takeaway: The Law of Moses should be strived for. However, nobody can fully follow the Law. Anyone that claims to do so is lying. (Which would be breaking the Law against lying listed above.) Having your faith in Christ is what makes salvation possible.
Several wrong assumptions there Dennis. The “bible thumpers” you so well refer to in your comment are always more keen on quoting Law from Leviticus and Deuteronomy than quoting “grace verses” from the New Testament. Also, show me where the Bible “exemplifies polygamy, endorsed slavery, advocates child abuse, and even lying”. The first, if you´re going to refer the case of Abraham, God did not want him to have Agar as a wife, but Abraham decided to disobey with the encouragment of Sarah. Unfortunately slavery was a trans-cultural in those days (and still to-day, unfortunately…), just because the Bible refers Jews being taken as slaves, for example – Daniel, that doesn´t mean it endorses it. Child abuse? Where, in the Bible? In the Koran, certainly… Lying is a fact in many book of the OT and NT. In those cases the ones that did lied never ended up well… I would like to know how do you assume so much, withouth knowing a thing of what you´re talking about…
@Danny, re polygamy – The first, if you´re going to refer the case of Abraham, God did not want him to have Agar as a wife, but Abraham decided to disobey with the encouragment of Sarah.
There are numerous examples of polygamy in the Old Testament that arouse no comment or condemnation from the writer for that state of affairs, the way other behaviors do. Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, David, and Solomon are all mentioned, among others, as having multiple wives, and Mosaic law offered rules on the behavior.
re slavery just because the Bible refers Jews being taken as slaves, for example – Daniel, that doesn´t mean it endorses it.
But it creates a legal structure around it (how slaves are to be treated, for example), and refuses to condemn it despite condemning many other behaviors. In fact, in the case of conquest, the Lord specifically dictates taking of slaves from the conquered cities (Deuteronomy 20:10-16, for example).
Dave, Don’t forget about forced genital mutilation AKA circumcision in your laundry list of deplorable practices endorsed in the OT. Actually, maybe that was in your reference to child abuse?
Thank you for the fast answer ***Dave!! I´ve noticed that more often than not that when atheists want to make a case and/or accusations to Christians they often refer to these in the OT, as Dennis Wendt did, as he actually did, going further and referring “child abuse” – case that I´m still to find, either in the OT, or NT… They seem to forget that Christians are not bound by what is written in these books (OT).
I’ll echo @dwasifar in noting that there is a wide variety of Christian thought as to what extent they (I should say we) are bound by the Old Testament. This runs the gamut from everything (as @Ken suggests) to nothing (“Jesus came to render the Old Covenant obsolete”), with special legalistic divisions between Ceremonial, Civil, and Moral law falling somewhere in the middle (see http://apologeticsuk.blogspot.com/2012/01/cherry-picking-bible-are-christians.html).
I think the Biblical guidance here is muddled enough that it falls to the individual to take responsibility to look at the Law from the perspective of how they understand Jesus teaching. I find anything beyond the Two Greatest Commandments to be, at best, specialized subsets, and at worst, distractions from same.
I will hazard a guess that @Dennis’ reference to child abuse refers to Proverbs 13:24 (spare the rod, spoil the child) and/or references to slaughter or enslavement or theft of children by conquering Israelite armies. The injunction to kill children who are disrespectful to parents probably plays into that as well.
Not even te Ten Commandments? Whew…that’s a relief if we don’t need to follow it any more. BTW, in case post death if I learn otherwise how can I sue you?
I believe that if Jesus of the NT was a moral maverick, he could have denounced slavery in some form – such as “slavery is bad and followers of Jesus should not have slaves”, and he could’ve done it without risk. With Paul’s admonishing slaves to “Obey and fear their earthly masters with fear and trembling” (eph 6:5) we cannot also translate that as “you should stop taking people as slaves, as it seems like owning humans like farm equipment makes them absolutely miserable”. Admonishing slaves to be better slaves grants approval to the slave master. It appears cut and dried to me.
If morals have to do with reducing needless suffering among conscious creatures, then we can be certain that slavery is worse than looking lustfully upon a woman, or saying “goddammit”, or picking up sticks on Saturday. Slavery is probably only bested by murder on the list of horrible things you can do to someone that creates needless suffering.
@Danny, re this:
We wouldn’t do it if so many Christians didn’t constantly pound on Leviticus and Deuteronomy to justify bigotry and discrimination. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a Christian insisting that homosexuality is an abomination because it says so in Leviticus.
I could also refer you to @Ken’s quotes above from Matthew, Luke, and John, repeatedly affirming that the old laws still stand. But I try to avoid that argument; it has always struck me as bible cherry-picking, which I’m happy to leave to the Christians. Still, @Ken is right.
Homosexuality isn’t a sin
Ha! How so?
Dave – I find it interesting that when you take a thoughtful and researched look at the bible, people assume that you are an atheist. For me, it boils down to this, if you believe that the bible, in its entirety, is the word of God, then you should place equal weight on all the laws and teachings. If you believe that the bible has been influence by the people who wrote and rewrote it over the years, then you are presumptuous to assume that you know what parts are God’s words and which are man’s.
I think, @Margie, that for some Christians that Scripture is so revered (if not idolized) that any questioning of it, or even disagreement in interpretation of Scripture, puts one beyond the pale of being a True Christian&tm;, or even a believer in God.
Needless to say, I disagree.
Part of the blindness that occurs there is from the idea that meaning of Scripture — and, through it, the meaning and intent of God — is transparent and obvious. This often comes about through a particular current of Biblical interpretation, but is so firmly bought into that it’s seen as part-and-parcel of Scripture itself. That’s what brings in such things as identifying the Levitical Laws in different categories, then parsing out which categories Jesus (or Paul) indicated are (or aren’t) still valid. I can understand the reasoning, but I don’t understand (or agree with) the “obviousness” of that particular tradition, vs. many other traditions in understanding Scripture, but it becomes something of a theological echo chamber, where everyone encountered just “knows” what the case is, and so, again, anyone who disagrees is not just only of a different opinion, but a heretic at best, and effectively an “atheist who hates God” at worst.
That’s all fine if you take God out of the equation. If it’s His word then why would He let it be perverted by clerical error?
Perhaps to teach people to discern, consider, judge, exercise their intellect and their free will.
I mean, to be perfectly honest, God could program us to do the right thing. God could inscribe it with fiery letters in the sky. God could put little red warning lights in our vision to warn us when we were about to do wrong. God could have provided a Bible that was clear, concise, and to the point.
God hasn’t do that. To my mind, then, if we believe there is a God, then we’re meant to figure out more about who they are and what they want us to be. That different people will come to different answers is not surprising.
***Dave — I wish I encountered more folks like you. I can get on board with your well-researched approach to christianity. I’ve witnessed too much suffering at too great a scale caused by human failings to take issue with the activities of consenting adults, rugby players, or seafood lovers. Anyhow, your site seems as good a place as any to ask a question that has bothered me for years: do people who take each of these prescriptions literally actually try to enforce the prescribed punishments with the same degree of literalness? It would seem inconsistent to do otherwise. Even if we exclude the punishments that involve death, many Rams would need to be sacrificed.
An excellent question @jp, one to which I have no real answer. You do occasionally get religious zanies suggesting that kids who disrespect their parents actually should be executed, but most conservative Christians don’t go that far. On the other hand, short of death some would still be willing to see homosexuals thrown in prison
There’s a certain amount of cherry-picking involved that has them arguing that just as some of the crimes are no longer crimes, some of the punishments (e.g., sacrifices) were also obsoleted by Jesus. It still seems to me that too often the preference precedes the interpretation, not the other way around.
Thought you would want to know that I shared your article on Sarah Palin’s Facebook post today where all of the Christians are wailing about homosexuality and free speech… within less than a minute, I was blocked. .. along with your article. I dunno, I thought your information was right in line with their conversation. ..I mean I wad only quoting scripture. .. and about that free speech thing Sarah? ?
Where did you share it, @Kathy, and by whom was it blocked?
OT laws are very good laws and make perfect sense…
… for bronze age desert nomads/small nation.
@LH – Yeah, pretty much. Even where there are some socially positive cases to be made for the ideas behind them, their absolutist tone and draconian punishments are — um — problematic at best.
Don’t eat the pork.
Why?
You’ll get ill, we live in a desert- we can’t keep it fresh.
Looks okay to me.
Um. .. God said so.
What?
God said so. God doesn’t want you to eat pork.
Oh, OK.
How about what it says in Deut 22-5 where it says that a woman shall not wear the things that pertain to a man neither should a man put on a womans skirt. Try this one in modern christianity , tell the women if you don’t dress like a child of God then you are not a child of God. So if a woman wears pants to whom does she belong
@clark – What does a Child of God dress like? As a child (and creation) of God, women (and men) should wear nothing. After that, everything else is vanity. Also, given the wide array of clothing customs around the globe, identifying anything has definitively male or female would be pretty useless.
And, of course, women don’t belong to anyone.
This passage was written after the fall of man just like any other of the law and it was written to a particular group of people Gods people as was the lev. law. The customs Around the world really don’t matter, the same here is what you are saying that people ie. modern christians and how they deal with the lev.law. the bible does say that the man was created for God and the woman for the man, …. you know the “church” also known as the “bride of christ”. Also as pertaining to the law for those of us who are gentiles, the bible says that we who have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law.
I’m having difficulty following what you’re saying, @clark, so apologies if I misunderstand. You suggest that the laws in Deut. and Lev. were written to “a particular group of people” — which, if so, tells me that customs elsewhere do, indeed, apply, in terms of understanding what men or women naturally (or through divine dictate) should be wearing.
Just a few lines down in Deut. 22:11, the law says “Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.” Is that as great an injunction as women wearing what men wear, or vice versa?
Honestly, I reject the assertion that woman was created for man. I think, at best, it reflects a particular societal structure where the passage was written; at worst, it denies the equal personhood of women and their relationship to God.
The church being the “bride of Christ” is an interesting metaphor, but I’m not sure why to take it any further than that.
Law and penalty its what you wrote about here in this artical, I did the same thing or actually the word does it , you and I are much to wise to try to debate the bible many a scholar certainly much wiser than I have done it thru the centries to no avail. I’m just pointing out …. Deut 22:5 violators here are an abomonation, and in Revelation 21:27 it says no abomonation shall enter in. Also I’ve learned to admire your personality in these short writings of yours and your comments so you may find this interesting also. As for now anyway with our current president it could be said that we live in an Obama-nation …… Abomonation, coinsidence do tell what do you think?
@clark – Frankly, I don’t think the Bible is a consistent enough bundle to take what was characterized in Deuteronomy and then judged in Revelation in a coherent fashion.
As to the linguistic coincidence, I think it’s about as meaningful as noting that my wife’s maid of honor has the same name as the mother of Jesus, and therefore thinking that my wedding reception must be as blessed as the Marriage at Cana. Though the wine did flow in both cases.
Linguistically, “abomination” comes from Latin originally meaning to abhor, to pray against an eventuality, to despise as a bad omen. It has no etymological association with “nation,” which, of course, comes from the Latin for birth (like nativity). So while there are certain conspiracy nuts who abhor the idea of Obama being born here in the US, I wouldn’t take it seriously.
I hope you read Luke 10:25-37 and realize that the only rule we should follow is to be compassionate. I mean, that’s from Jesus. Paul in Galatians rails against “Christians” like you. Seriously, read it as if Paul is yelling at you. That’s the connection to Revelation you should have made.
So one may not have sex with a man as one does with a woman….last I checked sex with a woman includes a vagina. Men do not have vaginas so there is NO WAY a man can have sex with a man in the same way he does with a woman. CASE CLOSED. Your argument is invalid.
It would seem, in approaching the interpretation of Leviticus within the Christian context, there needs to be a significant amount of care given to understanding it in a systematic way. I apologize in advance for the length of this, but no treatment of this subject can be brief and thorough.
To be certain, this law was binding in its entirety to the ancient Israelite. It was treated as such throughout the history of the ancient society, all the way through the Roman occupation, as is evidenced in numerous places throughout the Old and New Testaments. There are certain elements which are difficult for the modern reader to understand, primarily because we are so far removed from the culture of that time. One of the things we naturally assume is that being considered “unclean” for a time was always a moral thing. Consider 21, for example: yes, in a time in history where plagues tended to break out, it was necessary for someone who had come into contact with certain dead animals to be quarantined for a time. This surely helped combat the spread of various illnesses. This interpretation is implied by what is required (i.e. that they wash their clothes, and are unclean until evening). Or, 23-24: if one is in a culture where men have the right to have sex with their wives whenever they want, is there a better way to give her a chance to recover from childbirth than to consider her legally “unclean”? This would deter many men in the culture from forcing their wives into relations before she had a chance to heal. Also, the prohibition against going to the temple had the same effect; in a time when your only means of transit would either be walking or riding some animal, both of which would be very uncomfortable for a woman who had just given birth, this prohibition would allow her time to rest at home.
Regarding polygamy and slavery, yes, there were laws in the Levitical code describing how these practices were to be carried out. These seem to be roughly comparable to the laws regarding divorce; it is not that God wanted these institutions to happen, but because God knew they would do these things anyway, He set parameters to prevent further abuse (Matthew 19-3-12). Specifically, for divorce, the certificate of divorce allowed for a divorced woman to legally marry, which in that culture, meant that she would have food on the table. Slaves were to be released after 7 years, and it seems to be more like a modern apprenticeship then what we typically think of as slavery. And, for polygamy, while many people practiced this in Scripture, even a cursory reading of the stories clearly demonstrates that it was not endorsed. The first polygamist, Lamech, was clearly not someone to emulate (Genesis 4-19-24), and the others mentioned in Scripture (Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, et. al) had significant family problems, and often downfalls, associated directly with their polygamy. In fact, there is never a positive outcome in and portion of Scripture for any family with multiple wives. While there is no express verbal condemnation, there is clearly a theme present. No wonder leaders in churches in the New Testament were forbidden from having more than one wife (1 Timothy 3)!
So the question, then, is how much of the Levitical law is applicable to a Christian. On one hand, there are the Scriptures which are pointed out prior which seem to indicate that the Levitical law is still applicable. Other verses, such as Acts 15 and the entire boom of Galatians, seem to argue that they are not, in truth, still applicable. So, which is it? There seem to be three primary ways to handle this question.
First, one could say that this is a contradiction, and leave it at that. Certainly, many have argued this, but I don’t think it is required here. A second option is Dispensationalism, which teaches that Christ fulfilled, not did away with, the law, and therefore, if we are in Him, we are no longer bound to it, via imputed righteousness and the new dispensation. Third, one could go with Covenant Theology, which teaches that the purpose of the law was to point to Christ, and therefore, the law is never done away for that purpose, though we are free from the confines of the law. I don’t necessarily think option 2 and 3 are mutually exclusive, but either alone or a combination of the two resolves the tension pretty well.
Again, I apologize for the length, but this is a subject which rarely receives a thorough treatment in most popular circles. I hope this proves helpful!
I thoroughly appreciated your thoughtful analysis- thank you!
These laws were for Jewish people only. When the early gentile church asked the apostles for guidance as far as which laws to adhere to, they were told only these: To abstain from sexual immorality, eating strangulated animals, and partaking in blood. That’s it. Period.
Sexual immorality is still a sin, even if most of the Levitical laws don’t apply.
@Anita – It’s certainly an arguable point, but hardly definitive. Jesus is recorded as having made it clear that he was not doing away with any of the old laws — just the legalism and misaligned spirit behind them. I think it makes a fair amount of sense to have restricted the laundry list of thou shallt nots, but you can find plenty of people who will make equally impassioned assertions as to which other ones still apply.
As for sexual immorality being a sin, that’s almost axiomatic. The question is, what constitutes sexual immorality?
Paul thought that even sex with your wife was immoral, but if you are married, you should do it anyways so as not to be tempted by the Devil.
1 Corinthians 7
1 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
Paul had … some hang-ups. At a minimum, his Greek-informed ideas of a split between spirit and body, and thus between the next world and this, have had an inordinate effect on Christianity and Christian-influenced cultures’ ideas around sex. Of course, he also believed that the world was coming to an end in the last judgment Real Soon Now, so the idea of people giving up sex until that happened wasn’t quite as heavy a lift as it looks like on first glance.
Ummm, it did say do not have incestuous sex in the bible…also, the thing about the tattoo as far as I know, is in the bible. And to say that blasphemy is not there is just ridiculous, I’m calling foul on all of these being “banned” from Leviticus. It is clearly rubbish
@Dave:
I’m impressed with your persistance in responding to these comments after ~8 months, kudos to you!
As to what constitutes sexual immorality, well isn’t it defined in Leviticus? (#’s 25-37, according to your list.) Sexual sins have always been as they were defined in Leviticus. Jesus never changed them, although he might have added to them (sermon on the mount, lusting and divorce). Nowhere in the bible (to my limited, incomplete knowledge) is sexual immorality ever redefined; so going by the “law of first mention” (which I am pretty sure is an appropo law to use in this case) the sexual immorality that is referred to in the Bible is that which is defined in Leviticus.
I am sorry if you had meant for that question to be rhetorical; but I actually have been talking/inquiring about the subject recently and thought to share my two cents. I also apologize if my comment appears choppy or repetitive.
@P – You forgot 39, 40, and 57.
The problem is that it’s a laundry list, rather than definition on what constitutes sexual immorality. Is it an exhaustive list, or just examples? What are the principles involved in these rules? Is having sex with a woman on her period really as serious as sleeping with your mother? Is sleeping with your mother really as significant a sin as sleeping with your father’s wife? Adultery, part of the Decalogue, is not mentioned, but sleeping with your neighbor’s wife is; why the distinction?
And are any of these (or the category as a whole) obsoleted by the same principles as now allow us to eat shellfish or wear clothing of mixed fibers or touching an unclean animal? Are we rendered sinful by those acts specifically, or by violating those “Greatest Commandments”? Are we obliged, as Galatians puts it, to follow “works under the Law” or to be faithful (and what follows from faithfulness)?
So, no, I don’t think sexual immorality is defined per se by Levitical Law.
How the fuck does one say, “lets just forget over half of the bible, that part gives our religion a bad image”? Are you fucking kidding me? All of you stupid, selfish, theists need to accept that your fucking religion is a selfish ideology created by man in order to make people feel better about the fucked up shit they do.
Ignorance is a sad situation and even more so when used as a means to discredit and undermine Christianity or any other entity, and then utilized to propagate atheist rhetoric. The laws that you refer to, were not established by Christianity nor any of the Apostles, but, by the authorities of the time and over a long period. They served to control a barbaric and ignorant people, and not unlike what happened in our own societies during the past few hundred years. Please do your research before displaying any further ignorance for propaganda sake.
Hi, @Joseph.
1. I’m not an atheist.
2. You are correct that Levitican laws were not established by “Christianity” or the Apostles. However, as the discussion here has indicated, there are an awful lot of Christians who seem to think that they (or some subset of them) are, in fact, applicable under Christ and the teachings of the Apostles to modern followers of Jesus. You appear to disagree with that.
Hi ***Dave,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I’ve enjoyed your spirited debate with those posting here.
What constitutes sexual immorality?
I’ll start with just the definition from Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary:
“Interpersonal activity involving sex organs that does not conform to God’s revealed laws governing sexuality.”
The whole reason for creating humans to be sexual beings is for man to “not be alone.” God’s original design for us was to function within the family atmosphere. Procreation and intimacy being the result. But did you know that God also created the sexual act between a committed husband and wife to be a mirror-image of His own relationship with the believer and church? I will explain, trying to be as brief as possible.
Here are the similarities of a man and wife’s sexual act to the act of becoming a Spirit-filled believer:
The husband does not want to be alone, so he pursues a wife. God also, wants fellowship with us, and pursues us by His Holy Spirit. The man woos her, courts her, makes himself known to her, shows her his love, giving her the perogative to accept or reject him. When Christ is presented to a new believer, he or she also has the decision to accept Him as their personal Savior, or to reject Him. If she decides to accept the man, they make vows to each other, committing the rest of their lives to love each other, (and in Christendom) the man vows to take care of her and sacrifice his own selfish desires for the new goal of always doing what is best for her and the family. The woman vows to love, respect, and to submit to her husband “as to the Lord.” (People don’t stone me, debate about what submission is and entails is a debate for another day.) Likewise, when the believer accepts Christ as their personal Savior, God becomes their protector, provider, and heavenly guide, and the believer vows to honor, respect, and submit to Him. After lifetime commitment has taken place (marriage), the woman allows the man to enter her, making them one, physically. Likewise, after the believer pledges his / her faith in Christ, the believer asks the Holy Spirit to enter their heart, making the two one, or becoming “one with Christ”. The experience of being one together physically creates deep joy culminating in copulation, and eventually, procreation. Likewise, the experience of being filled with God’s Holy Spirit creates deep joy, spiritually, which culminates in a new life. It is meant to be a beautiful, holy expression of intimacy, both spiritually with God, and physically between a husband and wife.
Any aberration of this original plan is sexual immorality. Just as we worship God by allowing His Holy Spirit to enter us, so we would be committing idolatry by allowing another foreign spirit to enter us (demonic spirits, etc). Fornication is sex without the commitment by either party, and mirrors the sin of idol worship, in that the woman is essentially mirroring the act of letting a foreign spirit enter her. Homosexuality is sex with a partner that is not intended to bring about new life, nor does it mirror the original design. Therefore homosexuality is outside of God’s plan. Any form of sex that is outside of God’s plan is sin.
The term “The Bride of Christ”, referring to the church, is not far-fetched. God’s Holy Spirit lives in a committed relationship with the church. He cares for her, has pledged His love to her, and receives her respect, devotion, and obedience as acts of worship. Having respect for, being devoted to, and obeying another entity in the place of God is idolatry. Therefore, sex between a believing husband and wife is, in essence, an act of worship. It is holy, and perfectly acceptable in God’s eyes. Sex outside of this plan, is in essence, idolatry.
Sorry, I tried to be brief, but I also tried to be as clear in my explanation as possible.
God bless you.
Anita
@Anita:
That’s certainly Mr. Baker’s interpretation. I don’t know as that constitutes God’s will.
It also seems a fairly limited interpretation. Certainly some groups within Christianity consider masturbation to be sexual immorality, though it is not “interpersonal”.
It also doesn’t really provide a lot of help. It basically says, If it’s not what God dictates, then it’s wrong, but it doesn’t actually explore the principles behind that which might be applicable in understanding and extending those principles into cases which are not directly addressed in the Bible. Further, God’s dictates in this realm are fairly scanty, even if you take the position that the Bible is all a literal transcript of God’s dictation.
God’s creation of Man and of Woman is not explicitly as sexual beings. In Genesis 1, the creation of humanity is for rulership/stewardship over the world. Saying “go forth and multiply” is a blessing, not a command. In Genesis 2, the creation of the woman is to be a help and company to the man, not specifically as a sexual partner. Indeed, there’s no specific sign of sexuality, even indirectly, until after the pair have been ejected from Eden.
(Again, I’m arguing from the literal text, a conglomeration of at least two different Biblical creation stories. I’m not a Biblical literalist, and consider the Creation stories to be, at best, allegorical.)
Though that’s not mentioned in Genesis. Nor do I think it’s raised in the context of the laws in Leviticus, et al. It’s a metaphor dating from the early Christian church (and only a metaphor, in my opinion; I don’t see it as the metaphysical reality you portray it).
Here are the similarities of a man and wife’s sexual act to the act of becoming a Spirit-filled believer:
But wives (rightfully) also pursue husbands, for much the same reason. Does that represent humanity pursuing God as well, or should we simply use the term “spouse” to remove the gender part of this.
Similarly (though it may come up later), it doesn’t seem to me that this establishes a particular heterosexual spin to such relationships, or in terms of what’s proper/moral.
But I think it’s a key part of the model you’re trying to establish. “God pursues us as a man pursues a woman. The woman submits to the husband as we must submit to God.” It tries to use a metaphor of God and Humanity as Husband and Wife, then justifies an ideal of Husband and Wife as imitating how God and Humanity relate.
While I’m more inclined to go along with your description of how God and Humanity relate (in an intrinsically asymmetrical relationship), I reject that is a necessary or even desirable model for human relationships. My wife and I protect, provide for, and guide each other, as well as honoring, respecting, and, as appropriate in love, submitting to each other. I don’t want her treating me (literally, or even metaphorically) as a god over her, nor do I want her as a subject.
Again, it’s an arguably lovely metaphor, but as such hardly encompasses the whole gamut of human relationships and sexuality (even of healthy and constructive ones).
And suddenly your metaphorical becomes the literal. Marriage/sex/procreation are a mirror of Salvation/worship, therefore anything that violates that model is a violation of the relationship between Humanity and God. I don’t buy it. I don’t believe that sex prior to marriage is not idol worship, literally or figuratively. (And if it is, is that true only for women, not for men, or is there a different metaphor to use for them?) Nor do I believe that intentionally non-procreative sex (between two people of the same gender or two people of different genders) is inherently sinful; to think so raises sexuality and procreation to a far higher significance (even an idolatrous one) than seems warranted in Biblical or commonsensical frameworks.
It is not far-fetched if you see the role of a wife in a marriage to be respectful, devoted, and obedient. That sounds more like a parent-child relationship than that between two spouses.
I think you take a huge leap here, unless you mean to say that any act (sexual or non-) that is in accord with God’s will is an act of worship (drawing closer, not necessarily intentional paeans) to God. Laborare est orarare (to work is to pray), as they say in the monastery. I think that’s legit, but it begs the issue of discerning God’s will.
And I appreciate your doing so, and the spirit in which you gave this explanation. So it’s probably fair to give my own interpretation.
I take my rules of sexual morality (and, thus, immorality) on the basis of both the Greatest Commandments (in particular that of love of others) and, ironically, Genesis 2 (“It is not good for the man to be alone” — meant in the general sense of humanity, not as a gender-role diktat). Sexual relations are a gift, if you will, to let us not be alone, and are meant to be pursued in a positive, constructive, fashion that builds relationships, nurtures and supports one another — in love, in other words — just as all our other interactions with our fellow humans should be. Potentially procreative sex is fraught with consequence beyond the relationship in question, in terms of the potential for creation of a new life, and as such should not be entered into lightly or without commitment (even a contingent commitment), but outside of that (and regardless of the genders involved), if done in a loving fashion (agape, not just eros), as with all human relationships, I cannot see it as sinful but as in keeping with God’s design for us.
If we were to accept thee laws on Sexual morality as stringent and unbreakable laws, I would really like to know how the earth was populated after God created Adam and Eve? How were further children/Generations born? Or do these laws have ‘a date from which effective’?
How do you know these laws are handed down by God, and not just a man claiming they were?
How does contraception fit in here? Is my vasectomy covered by mirroring the original plan?
Hi **Dave,
This is why whenever the children of Israel practiced idolatry, she is likened to an adulterous wife, or a prostitute.
I didn’t make the rules, God did.
@Last….as long as you are married and heterosexual, you mirror the original design. The new life created is the two becoming one flesh.
Thanks again **Dave, for your spirited response.
Anita
@Anita –
But is the “crime” to be behaving counter to the convoluted metaphor of man-woman-sex-equals-God-church/Israel-orthodoxy, where acting sexually outside of (some understanding of) God’s laws is the same as idolatry? Or is it much more simply that breaking the covenant between Israel and God was akin to one of the most fundamental infidelities (enough to make the Decalogue), that of breaking the marriage covenant?
(That the imagery used is that of woman breaking the rules is in keeping with the harsher punishments elsewhere in the Bible for women acting in a sexually impure fashion. Which has less to do with women playing the nation/church role in the metaphor as with a patriarchal bronze age culture.)
More correctly, you are asserting what you believe God’s rules to be based on your belief in and interpretation of Scripture. You may be correct, but defending rules that don’t make sense, for example, with the answer that they’re God’s rules doesn’t resolve their sensibility or their suitability to address different or changing circumstances than what faced the Tribes of Israel. A better question might be on what basis you think they are God’s rules, even if they don’t seem to make sense?
It seems you have a very flexible idea of what constitutes “original design.” Adam and Eve, for example, were not “married” in any formally recognizable fashion. Heck, their union seems to be as much a matter of necessity as anything else. There’s no particular love shown, nor any spiritual aspect to their relationship. The only reason they seem to be together is that, at first, there was nobody else to be with. One might as easily say that any male and female couple are “married” by simply having sex and making babies.
(I’m framing this in terms of a literal Adam and Eve, though I don’t believe in such. The mishmosh of allegories in the Creation sequences in Genesis are informative but not a literal truth.)
As to the “original design,” you’re now defining “the new life” as the two becoming one flesh under the “the original design”. Previously you’d said “Homosexuality is sex with a partner that is not intended to bring about new life, nor does it mirror the original design.” It now sounds like the procreative element is secondary (from a moral/God’s-will perspective), since @LH’s case is still an okay thing even if any sex he engages in with his spouse “is not intended to bring about new life.”
But that said, while I don’t mean to take away anything from my own conjugal acts with my wife, any magic about them is emotional and symbolic. I don’t ascribe a particular, literal, spiritual “becoming one flesh” about their physicality, as enjoyable and enriching as they are — certainly nothing that I can find any basis in excluding homosexuals from.
Let’s get this straight, THE WHOLE BIBLE is gods word. God says he is infallible, without error, his word is holy.
So we if we condemn homosexuality as it says in the bible, we also must kill all disobedient children, kill women pregnant out of wedlock, punish people for working on the seventh day of the week, and kill all unbelievers.
It also says prophets who make false prophesies are condemned to death, along with all of their followers. This means all mormons are condemned to death and hell fire, because Joseph smith prophesied that the civil war would involve all the nations of the earth(among his too numerous to name, false prophesies)
Also if we are to defend the 6000 year old earth theory, we also have to defend flat earth theory, and that the earth is the center of the solar system. If we can’t prove these things to be true, then the bible is not true, gods word is not true, and the only position left in support of the bible is blind faith, which cannot be argued using logic, an endless cycle of
Just wondering about reconciling killing women who become pregnant out of wedlock with the fact that Mary became pregnant out of wedlock to bear Jesus?
@DP:
To say the Bible is the divinely inspired, inerrant Word of God which should be interpreted literally does not mean it should all be interpreted in the exact same way. I understand this may be confusing, but you should realize that no serious Biblical scholar (whether Christian, Jewish, Atheist/Agnostic, etc.) interprets the entire Bible in the exact same way.
This is not knowledge readily accessible to the layman (not out of secrecy, but rather out of lack of interest on the part of the average layman), but there is an entire discipline within textual scholarship called Hermeneutics, which is more or less only studied by lawyers and Biblical scholars. To borrow the definition from one of my classes, it is “The science and art of [textual] interpretation”, and one fills in whatever text is appropriate to their art (e.g. legal text, Biblical text, etc.). Within this art, one of the key things to consider is textual interpretation is context, and unless one spends some significant time thinking about it or studying Hermeneutics, one does not realize just how much context influences things. And, context is not a singular thing; rather, there are dozens of contexts to consider. Just to name a few, there is the historical context, Biblical context (as in, where it falls within the larger body of Scripture), authorial context (as in, where the text falls within the corpus of the author’s work), literary context, textual context (what does the verse mean in light of the surrounding verses, chapters, etc.), cultural context, and several others. If any of these are flawed, it can skew the meaning significantly.
To put this another way, one would not interpret Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Raven” in the same way as President Bill Clinton’s autobiography, and neither would be interpreted the same way as “The Uniform Code of Military Justice” or Stephen King’s “The Shining”. These are different literary genres, and should be interpreted in different manners. Likewise, if someone were to say “There is a snake in the grass” they could be referring to a literal serpent among the vegetation, or to someone who is a shady individual, depending on context. The meaning may be literally true, but it is not expressed in the same senses.
Likewise, the Bible is not a single book, but a collection of 66 books, including several genres common to their respective cultural climates. Just within the creation story, there is the genre of creation myth (this is not to say it should or should not be interpreted literally or mythological, but rather to say that the way it is told bears similarities to other creation myths from the ANE), poetry (the wording of the days of creation in Chapter 1, the first reaction of Adam to Eve [2:23}), and prophecy (2:16-17). All of these things need to be taking into account when seeking to understand Scripture.
Further, I want to emphasize that the Bible is inspired, NOT the worldview of the writers or their presuppositions. NO WHERE does the Bible endorse a geo-centric view of the solar system, nor a flat Earth, even though the authors may have believed accordingly. The only arguments that the Bible endorses flat earth I am aware of are from a couple places in Revelation (e.g. Christ’s return being visible to everyone on Earth, the mention of the winds from the four corners of the Earth, etc.), but no honest scholar thinks these require the Earth is flat. Even assuming the entire book is not a metaphor for the ongoing battle between good and evil, which will ultimately be resolved when Christ returns (which many solid Christians believe), this is an apocalyptic vision being reported, so it is quite possible that God catered the vision to what John would be able to understand so that the main points would be communicated. But, even to interpret it as a literal flow of events, there s no reason to affirm flat Earth. The point of the winds is that all wind on earth will stop during these events, and the “four corners” emphasizes this in a way the original reader would understand. Further, with our communication grid, the internet, news media, etc. it is quite plausible that nearly everyone on Earth would see Christ’s return if it were to happen today. But, of course, a first century Jew living on Patmos would not have understood this level of connectivity, so God communicated it to him in a way that he would understand.
Lastly, I want to address your charge about the Levitical law. IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, PLEASE READ THIS SECTION! In its cultural context, this law was the legal code of the nation of Israel, individual portions of which may or may not be applicable to a modern reader. Further, in the Biblical context, it is at a point in history where God is demonstrating to humanity that no external motivators can fix the problem of sin. God created humanity in a perfect condition; they sinned (so, being in a perfect place will not prevent the problem). God wiped out most of humanity and started over with one family; they sinned (so the problem is not the wicked “out there” but the wickedness inside of us). God set apart a family to be the ancestors of a chosen people; they sinned (both the ancestors and the people). God provided their every need after he delivered them from oppression, and custom created a culture for them; they sinned (so, God miraculously intervening in our lives will not prevent sin). God instructed them to remove any influences from their territory that may cause them to sin; they refused and sinned (so, isolation from the outside world doesn’t work). God gave them judges, prophets, kings; they still sinned (so, government and consistent revelation doesn’t fix the problem). God punished them for their rebellion, had them conquered by other nations, and brought back a remnant; they still sinned (so, punishing them as a nation doesn’t fix the problem). The only option remaining to fix the problem is individual transformation, which is the whole point of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and redemption. Christ died for sinners like us, so that we could, eventually, be made holy before God. But, and this needs to be emphasized, God already knew all this; He went through all of this to show us that only Christ can work to solve the problem of sin.
So, interpreted in this context, there is no reason to suspect that God still expects us to do everything the Levitical law commands. Instead, it is intended to remind us that we cannot keep God’s standards ourselves, but rather we need Christ.
ACTS 10:9-16
READ THIS IT WILL LET U KNOW ALL THINGS WHERE MADE NEW.
GOD SAID TO PETER “STOP CALLING THINGS DEFILED THAT HE HAS MADE NEW.”
LEVITICUS OLD TESTAMENT
ACTS NEW TESTAMENT
JEHOVAH SHALOM
Some of the laws in Leviticus were told to the Jews to either protect their health, or make sure that they set themselves apart from the heathen cultures around them. The rest are a set of moral laws of things that put people and their relationships in jeopardy. I don’t see why people can say that just because we eat fat nowadays, or tear clothing, or get ear piercings, we are not following Leviticus. Some parts of Leviticus can, and still are followed in spirit. For example, we still try to keep our bodies healthy, as they are temples of the Lord. We still pray in a distinct fashion to separate ourselves from non-Christians. We dress modestly, and make sure that our outward appearance does not misrepresent Christianity. We also avoid the more entrenched sins, like incest, murder, lying, etc.
Side Note: Catholics do not believe they are drinking wine, therefore, if they are correct, then there would be neither direct nor indirect violation of Leviticus. If they are wrong, then they have other problems, but drinking wine would not be one, because the believe it is the blood of Christ.
Also, just because there are some laws that are no longer directly followed in modern times, it does not mean that all should not be followed. We still say it is not good to steal, lie, or commit incest. In spite of this, we have people claiming that all of Leviticus is wrong, or being largely ignored. Even if there were parts of Leviticus (diet and worship) that we no longer follow in modern times, that does not mean that all of Leviticus cannot be used as basis for moral behavior. You should take each group of laws as a whole. If any of the sexual sins sounds like it still applies, then I purport that all still do.
@Henry – I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that because some Levitical laws are no longer worthwhile that all of them are no longer worthwhile. Instead, it is argued that because some are no longer worthwhile, we cannot assume that any given one is still worthwhile.
I’m not sure that you can so easily assume that “if any of the sexual sins sounds like it still applies … all still do.” The sins are not themselves Biblically grouped into clear classes; those are after-the-fact interpretations, subject (even if the Bible is not) to human fallibility. Further, there’s nothing to state that the classes are internally sacrosanct. Once you have established that some of the laws no longer apply, then it’s important to have some set of principles in looking at the other individual laws to determine for yourself which ones still do — and that can only be a personal interpretation, not something that you’d expect everyone else to agree to.
@Last Hussar
I believe that any form of sex that removes all potential for human life to spring up is against chastity. The only form of contraception that can be used then, is Natural Family Planning. It is 96% effective, and unlike the pill, it does not poison the body, or the mind. Instead of having sex and trying not to get pregnant, you simply don’t have sex when you could get pregnant. Abstinence is not blocking out God’s will, but proactively trying to prevent conception IS.
I think that the most important thing to remember is that the laws written by the Levites were written during the 40 years roaming in the desert. They had escaped from Egypt and had lost all of their male infants at the Egyptians hands. The law was put into place because they were trying to ‘rebuild the herd’. The rest of the laws and why they were created was based on whatever was happening that the Levites deemed ‘unlawful’. One of the laws that the creator of this list did not include was the one that stated that unruly children should be stoned to death. I think that one in itself should tell you something about where the Levites were coming from. Anytime someone did not act in a way that the Levites felt appropriate, a new law would be written. Jesus simplified everything when he said ‘Love the lord thy God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself’.
Here is my challenge; if anyone can find one thing that Jesus said about homosexuality, let me know. I am not talking about Paul’s views on the subject, I am talking about in Jesus own words.
@Mary – The “unruly children” bit is actually from Deuteronomy 21:18-21, which is why it’s not on this list.
I’ve not heard the explanation for Levitical bans on homosexuality tied to repopulation. An interesting thought.
As to your challenge, about as close as Jesus gets to it that I can find is Matthew 19:4-6, which discusses divorce, and has the God-made-them-man-and-woman thing. That implies heteronormality, but is far, far short of a moral condemnation of homosexuality.
@Dave
Thank you for calling me out on my BS. I probably wouldn’t have noticed that had you not pointed it out. I would also have to say that while you are correct, that was not the primary point of my comment.
Perhaps the categories are not internally sacrosanct, but that does not change the fact that to some degree or another the laws are still followed today. For example, I would cite Leviticus if my child wanted to get a tattoo. I would tell them that Leviticus forbids such body modifications. I would then tell them that Leviticus was written within a cultural context, but in spite of that, it holds true today. While it is not inherently sinful to get a tattoo, doing it for pride or lust could be. It also could send a wrong message. It is our job as Christians to be witnesses to Christ, and thus we should set ourselves apart from the pitfalls of modern society. So yes, Leviticus is not necessarily a be-all end-all reason not to follow certain practices, I think it is a good source for citation, along with a little philosophy.
@Henry, thanks for the gracious note back.
I would say that, to some degree or another, some of the laws are still followed by some people today. I’ll confess I don’t hear a lot of objections to tattoos based on Leviticus (I see it more often called out as an example of hypocrisy among some ostensibly devout Christians who point to Leviticus for their own ends, usually in opposition to homosexuality, but ignore the tats they’re sporting). If my daughter were to consider a tattoo, my objections to her would more likely be practical (how do you think it will look in fifty years? and is that image something you think you’ll be interested in identifying with then?) than how it’s at variance with the tribal affiliation aesthetics of the Israelites, finding nothing discernibly sinful about tattooing itself. Agreed that it could represent more fundamental issues of pride, but I think that topic is better addressed more broadly.
(My suspicion about the tattoo injunction in Leviticus is not that it is a condemnation of pride or lust, per se, but a way to set the Israelites apart from others — the Egyptians, for example, or various peoples of the Holy Land — who used them.)
Henry – I have a large “sleeve” tattoo on my left arm. The design is a brighly-coloured clockwork mechanism. It is there because I suffer from anxiety and depression, and in the past I used to cut my arm as a primitive coping / release mechanism. Now, when I look at my arm, I see something bright and cheerful, which lifts the gloom and panic and prevents me from cutting myself. I also see the clockwork mechanism, which reminds me that time is precious and I should try to live life to the full. Is that so wrong? It is a positive thing that works for me. I do not consider it vanity, merely a way of raising my spirits back to roughly where they should be, when times are hard.
@Dave
Oh yes, I wholeheartedly agree. That is why I said that as Christians, we need to be careful of what we represent. If anything could be taken as contrary to Christ, then we should be wary of that thing. Corinthians 8:13
Also, my point is clearly not that All people follow Leviticus. Nor all Christians. Merely that idealy, to some degree, Leviticus would still be followed by Christians of today. But yes, I would agree that Leviticus is not good support on it’s own for moral reservations. But then again, it shouldn’t need to be. I would hope that anyone with strong moral beliefs would have rational, philosophical reasons for those beliefs. As a strong proponent of Thomas Aquinas, I would say that the laws in Leviticus fall in line with the ideas of Natural Law Morality.
@Henry – I agree that it’s unwise to do stuff that might cause others to stumble. I’m not sure getting a tattoo does that (depending on the nature of the tattoo, of course).
I tend to agree as well the precepts of Natural Law Morality, though more as personal guidelines, since they remain subject to a fair amount of subjective interpretation.
Isn’t the tattoos issue specifically in regards to ritual worship? Bc the pagans would cut and mark themselves in fervor desperately trying to invoke their gods. Modern people aren’t trying to invoke gods by having art on their bodies.
Though if you can give me a good explanation as to why we should not then I’m all ears
@mekadiyah – That sounds possible, but I don’t know if we have anthropoligical / archaeological support for that, vs simply “This is something they did, so we, to set ourselves apart, will do differently” (cf. circumcision).
That said, the tribal aspects of body art seem to be significantly diminished, and quite plausibly not even of concern for setting a bad example.
Our bodies are made in God’s image, and we are supposed to protect them and keep them sacred. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I would think that tattoos and other major body modifications could violate the respect of the body. God gave us our bodies, and he expects us to respect them and be happy with them.
@Henry – Certainly your prerogative to interpret things that way. I think tattoos can be respectful of the body, or even be seen to enhancing it (some are pretty awful, too, but something similar might be said for a lot of other body decor of a less permanent nature).
Remember this was in OT which is applicable to Jews also. Now as per your argument the body given by God shouldn’t be tampered with then how do you explain circumcision?
I will start with a Thank-you Dave as I was googleling for a list of the laws in Leviticus to show the kids how impossible it is to live by a list of do’s and don’t. In Matt 5, Jesus states that he came to fulfill the law. In verse 17 of that same chapter it reads “..unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven”. In the remainder of that chapter, Christ goes on to expound upon the Levitican law. He starts with , ” Your have heard that it was said to those of old that You shall not murder and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…… This chapter goes on and touch on adultery, marriage, treatment of enemies, etc…. Jesus was translating the written law from stone and/or scroll to our heart. There is no way to remember all of these laws. In fact this list does not even touch on some of the sins that we (man) have since imagined in our hearts and invented. Christ summed up the Law as “Love God with all our hearts, mind and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves” (Matt 22:37-39). If this is our focus and “whether we eat our drink or whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God” (1Cor 10:31), we will be OK.
In Matt 19:16, there is a story of legalism. This young man wanted to do just enough to get into heaven. By man’s standard, he was a “good” kid. But God wants our heart. He want us to be able to hear his voice and say, “Yes Lord”. Romans 2:14-15 reads, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them”. If we truly love and trust God, we will be lead by Him and his love and not by a list of laws. Phil 2:5 ” Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. Jesus death on the cross replaces all of the blood sacrifices called for in the law. His death was for all of us. His love does not discriminate for we are all born in sin. Salvation is for all who will believe and accept his gift. This is the good news that we are commissioned to share. We are free from the LAW of sin and death by the LAW of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:2)
@Sunday School Teacher: Not that the Greatest Commandments are by any means easy to live up to, but they seem more realistic and more of the heart than the legalism of adherence to the Levitican (et al.) laws. They engage us to think and feel about what we are doing and, more importantly, why, rather than obeying a set of programmed responses.
Well we can nit pick the verses or it can fall to do we live by the law or grace ?
@Will – The current orthodoxy would have it that we live (or are saved) by grace, which causes us to adhere to the the spirit of the Law — in particular, the Greatest Commandments — because it is impossible to live / be saved through strict adherence to the Law.
Which would make you think that all the kerfuffle over Leviticus (etc.) is meaningless, but humans like to know what the rules are, the more specific the better.
I can only say… please read Hebrews 10, the context is a letter to Jewish-Christians.
So, yes, I’m reading it, @clayton, and it says to me that sacrifices at the temple are no good any more because Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice. And …?
All too often I come across Christians and Atheists alike that will pick out a specific verse and use it as their “proof” without looking at that verse’s context or the Bible as a whole. While there are a few Christians and Atheists, that I personally know, who can have astute, thoughtful discussions about the Bible, many simply quote it to fit their needs or to prove their point. No one wants to take the time to actual think; who does that? I suppose all debates have this problem when dealing with “evidence”, it’s not really bound to religion.
Thanks Dave, for your insightful article and levelheaded comments.
@Peter – Thanks. Leviticus (and all the Mosaic law books and chapters in the Old Testament) are a fascinating insight into both Bronze Age Israel (one group of tribes in particular) and into the origins of later traditions that come into play with Christianity. While it’s tempting to simply grab items at random, that’s a great way to get things wrong, even setting aside the question of how applicable such laws are to us today (Christian or not).
@Henry
“Side Note: Catholics do not believe they are drinking wine, therefore, if they are correct, then there would be neither direct nor indirect violation of Leviticus. If they are wrong, then they have other problems, but drinking wine would not be one, because the believe it is the blood of Christ.”
But at least one of the laws forbids eating blood. ?
@mmabq: http://www.gotquestions.org/eating-drinking-blood.html has a good summary of Biblical restrictions on blood, and how those have been overridden by the New Testament (or weaseled around, if you prefer) to be, like other dietary restrictions, removed. (Unless you’re eating with someone who feels that eating blood is immoral, in which case you shouldn’t do it while around them so as not to be tempting them to do something they think is wrong.)
Thanks for the informative list, and for keeping up with the responses. This came up as the top Google hit for “best sins in Leviticus.” ‘Bout as close as I get to Bible study these days. Between touchdowns as my gold diggers beat on the Saints.
@E – Thanks!
“Best sins in Leviticus” … not sure that’s how I’d characterize it, but, hey, whatever path brings you to the door.
I notice that fathers seem to be allowed to have sex with daughters… did you miss one or is that ok according to the bible? Just curious to the omission.
@GoddessBless – I think that’s covered in #34 (having sex with your daughter perforce implies sex with her mother). It would also presumably be sex outside of marriage (fornication), which I think is referenced outside of Leviticus (if you married your daughter, #34 applies again as well).
50. Perverting justice, showing partiality to either the poor or the rich (19:15)
Seems to me (in idle contemplation) that many people, organizations and social structures (private and governmental) might possibly have an issue with this.
Just sayin’…
Psalm 1 Good News Translation (GNT)
BOOK ONE
True Happiness
1 Happy are those
who reject the advice of evil people,
who do not follow the example of sinners
or join those who have no use for God.
2 Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord,
and they study it day and night.
3 They are like trees that grow beside a stream,
that bear fruit at the right time,
and whose leaves do not dry up.
They succeed in everything they do.
4 But evil people are not like this at all;
they are like straw that the wind blows away.
5 Sinners will be condemned by God
and kept apart from God’s own people.
6 The righteous are guided and protected by the Lord,
but the evil are on the way to their doom.
MATTHEW 5:48
You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
MATTHEW 5;17-20
Teaching about the Law
17 “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true. 18 Remember that as long as heaven and earth last, not the least point nor the smallest detail of the Law will be done away with—not until the end of all things. 19 So then, whoever disobeys even the least important of the commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be least in the Kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, whoever obeys the Law and teaches others to do the same, will be great in the Kingdom of heaven. 20 I tell you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven only if you are more faithful than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires.
MATTHEW 10:34-39
Not Peace, but a Sword
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the world. No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 I came to set sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers, daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law; 36 your worst enemies will be the members of your own family.
37 “Those who love their father or mother more than me are not fit to be my disciples; those who love their son or daughter more than me are not fit to be my disciples. 38 Those who do not take up their cross and follow in my steps are not fit to be my disciples. 39 Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.
MATTHEW 7:21-23
True Disciples
21 “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 22 On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23 But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’
2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5
The Dangers of the Last Days
3 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!
—————————————————————–
Since we as Americans have the right to practice our religion, in the freedom of our religion so long as we are not breaking the public laws of America, we have the right to do as our God says and stay away from the people He says to stay away from.
Why do you attack religion? Don’t you complain that people attack gays? Then why reciprocate the action? If you don’t want people criticizing your beliefs then you shouldn’t criticize others for theirs.
You can say we are wrong for not wanting to be around certain individuals, and equally we as Christians can say sexual immorality is wrong and we don’t want ourselves or our children around it… Do you have any children? If you do then you know it’s your job to protect them from harmful environments.
I have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I have the right to do business with whom I choose.
Do you have the right to do that on the basis of skin color?
Its funny because bible thumpers use these laws against everyone and probably don’t even know that they are breaking half of them. I’m pretty sure those church clothes are mixing fabric, that they drink communion in a holy place, that they eat more than beef, and probably lie in every other sentences.
“I have the right to do business with whom I choose.”
Sure, James – but you’ll have to admit you’re basically a outright segregationist to do so, and that garbage has absolutely zilch to do with Christianity.
@DKS – Agreed. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” as Paul put it (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203:28). And, of course, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12%3A30-31). Segregation, prejudice, bigotry, all have no place in the Kingdom of Heaven as Jesus preached it.
Interesting… but pointless. Christians follow NONE of the laws in the old testament.
@John – There seem to be quite a few Christians who disagree with you, in whole or in part (and others, to be sure, who agree). I would think obedience to the Greatest Commandments (which, themselves, come from the Old Testament, though singled out by Jesus) would produce the effect of much of the moral aspects of the Law.
This post, and the way in which you have kept up with and regarded most of the comments, is commendable. I was raised Catholic and, to be honest, never quite connected with the Bible. I appreciate the mythology and I do believe that my moral compass and capacity for compassion were positively influenced by my Church experiences. But so were my feelings of inferiority, my struggles with self-worth, and my anxiety about imperfection.
I left the Church when I was 9, so by no means do I consider myself a religious expert or any sort of authority over what methods (or texts) others should use on their path to the Divine. Simply put, I personally believe that there are many paths to the same Source, and that living compassionately and with a kind heart is the ultimate show of devotion to that Source. I don’t have a proper name for it (and certainly don’t assign it a gender.) I will come right out and say that I currently contemplate parts of many different religions/philosophies based on what resonates with my personal values and sense of morality. I do not consider myself Atheist, nor do I necessarily consider myself a theist. I am a confused human being who chooses not to compromise my ability to think critically and live a life of love in the present for an outdated codebook that has been edited, revised, and manipulated countless times to serve the desires of a ruling authority (not a focused jab at only the Bible, but I do think that has happened more than is commonly accepted.)
The nature of this essay, and the comments to follow, are where my disconnect with Christianity really comes in. The Bible is an interesting moral scaffolding, but not all of its messages are currently relevant, and even those who interpret it literally are either unable or unwilling to follow it literally in all cases. The Bible is a useful spiritual tool for connecting with God, but if you are a woman I’ve been left with the impression that your spiritual experience is expected to be filtered through the authority of your husband. For a religion whose founder literally preached the word of love, forgiveness, and equality, there is a lot in the Bible that is used institutionally to contradict those ideals. I don’t have specific passages, and the goal of my comment is not to select a few passages out of context in order to attack the entire work.
I think that most people who “attack” the Bible are those who feel that their personal authority and autonomy are stifled not by the book itself, but by those who espouse the passages therein. Ceding personal authority and autonomy to the Divine is a very different experience than having it shamed or coerced from you by Men. Not all men (and certainly not all Christian men) use their religion to deny humanity and integrity to others, but it seems that those who are most vocal about it in our society are seeking to do just that.
I’m not sure if you are keeping up with the comments **Dave, but I just wanted to thank you for your perspective and for seeming to promote difficult questions, love, and compassion through your religious beliefs.
@Mae – Thanks for your comments. It is certainly true that a lot of people have used the Bible to ends other than what I seem to read out of it. Given, though, that Jesus preached directly to women, had women among his followers, and women played a key role in the early church (based on Acts and the Epistles of Paul), the idea that a woman’s spiritual experience is meant to be filtered through the authority of a husband sounds like someone bringing their own biases to the Biblical table, not what the Bible / New Testament itself says. People who use the Bible to exert control over others, physical or spiritual, do not seem to be heeding Jesus teachings in the Beatitudes or in the greatest commandments he gave.
Very interesting…Many seem to be your usual age-old prohibition…But doesn’t #55 seems to imply that Generically-Modified Organisms are a sin? (And isn’t GMO, ‘Oh My God’ cyphered backwards?) Of course, in that case, #56 could mean that growing organic foods or, at least, permaculture, is also a big ‘no-no’.
@John – Interesting reads of those two prohibitions. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone claiming a Christian (or Jewish) argument against GMOs on that basis.
Actually, you are wrong. The Old Testament (Leviticus being OT) is foreshadowing the coming of Christ and prophesies. The laws were there to show that we could not keep the law and be kept pure no matter what. There was no way without the blood of Christ covering our sin. The blood represents life and the life in a covenant is to be protracted and respected. We are now free from the law. Read this part of the bible that is clear on what I’m saying.
Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ. In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God. What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith. But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.” But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith. Dear brothers and sisters, here’s an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or amend an irrevocable agreement, so it is in this case. God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn’t say “to his children, ” as if it meant many descendants. Rather, it says “to his child”—and that, of course, means Christ. This is what I am trying to say: The agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise. For if the inheritance could be received by keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God’s promise. But God graciously gave it to Abraham as a promise. Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. God gave his law through angels to Moses, who was the mediator between God and the people. Now a mediator is helpful if more than one party must reach an agreement. But God, who is one, did not use a mediator when he gave his promise to Abraham. Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. (Galatians 3:1-29 NLT)
@Summer – Though it seems to me that setting up the laws just to prove that nobody can obey the law (and the heartbreak, pain, punishment, and death that ensued) seems a rather heartless way to teach a lesson.
Ha Ha Ha!
I think an insect with four legs is either exterminated long ago, or maybe referring to praying mantis’s.
This is a quick video related to the topic worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lgzrnv9Pc
@Clay – Except that it doesn’t follow what the guest apologist suggests. Leviticus 18 doesn’t start off by saying “Here are things that are wrong for everyone.” It starts off with “Don’t do this stuff that they do in Egypt and in Canaan” [18:1-3] and then goes on to list various types of incest, sexual relation taboos, sexual impurity taboos (sex during a woman’s period, bestiality), and, mixed in there, are prohibitions on (male) homosexuality and giving your kids to Moloch (which would be a “disgrace” upon God). All of this is wrapped up as purity laws to separate the Israelites out. “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for by all these practices the nations I am casting out before you have defiled themselves … otherwise the land will vomit you out for defiling it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.” [18:24-29]
I’ve often wondered, how do the commandments to not make graven images (something many Christians do) and to observe the Sabbath (many religions can’t even agree if the correct day is being used or not) are summed up in Jesus’ two commandments? The commandment to love God above all else does not explicitly spell out the prohibition to make graven images, nor does it indicate a Sabbath day or what day it is and what should or should not be done on that day.
@Brooke – Both of those commandments (from the Decalogue) are particular instances of behavior associated with loving God with all one’s heart, etc. If one loves God, then they won’t set up competing gods (graven images) and will respect the day that the Lord has set aside for rest. Similarly, they will no other god before the Lord, nor will they take the Lord’s name in vain.
(Both the ones you mention are also subject to interpretation. What does it mean to respect the Sabbath and keep it holy? To do no work, even to the extent of causing a light bulb to go on in the fridge when you open the door? Certain traditions in Islam take the graven images injunction very seriously, not only forbidding representations of other deities, but of God, or the Prophet, or any others, to avoid any veneration or idolatry of the objects themselves.)
Why only give credit to our ancestors because we for a simple argument have advanced not only scientifically but also spiritually. So most of the so called rules and regulations of old times are For Me ridiculous and baised Among Other Things.
Well, I think you kind of took them out of their groupings. Being unclean modernly meant easily spreading disease… and there’s a lot of ways to spread disease that Leviticus bans. There’s also some troublesome parasites in animals that were banned. Additionally, I’m fairly certain that the girls birth totaled an even number… so 66 + 7 wouldn’t do it, but 66 + 7 + 7 or 66 + 14 would do it… it was probably 80 days for girls being born. Also, the priests were also lawgivers because of the three cities of refuge. The penalties to them were not all that different than holding a person that acts as a judge and a teacher to a higher standard.
The two greatest commandments are amazingly shown in a clear and direct way within Leviticus. Don’t get other people sick, help those in poverty, don’t mess up the gene pool, and give some respect for God who made you.
@brian’s “The two greatest commandments”
Matthew 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
YMMV based on your adherence to New Testament scripture. But what you say was “shown in a clear and direct way within Leviticus” was later retconned by the source into broad and vague terms which effectively nullify using Leviticus as a basis for law.
Totally agree with you. Grace desires more than the law, as Jesus directly asked for more than was required by the law in His speaking of what we should do in many places. Nevertheless, Leviticus has a lot of basics to learn in how we should treat others and what is wrong and right.
For E. I’m certain you’d like to visit, and this way I could hear your opinions that I might iron out my mistakes.
I had alot more to say, because usually what I say does not convey well what I mean. Idolatry, for a beleiver, is not wrong because they make a statue. It is wrong because the statue reperesents the force they call God. a bird might represent their worship of teh wind, and so on. One might get away witha cross, as it represents our deliverance from death, but I am niotsure he would approve of that.he was always consistant in pointing to his father.
The Sabbath foir a beleiver needs to be the 7th. If you wishto honor the creator that is. If you are going to honor the church over thefather, keep 1st day. Keep any say youlike. but do not claim it is a day observed unto theCreator. He rested on the7th not the1st. not the 5th. the7th.
A final thought.In studying the nams od God, I have learned that the tense of asentence is determined by the woel points.So th name Moses was give, in hebrew would look in english like this=hvh, though in strongs it is ehveh.
It is very close to the hebrew name for eve. Thr root, hvh means life, basically.adding the ‘y’ makes it third person,singulat,male. thats a hebrew thing though. Rvery thingin hebrew that is anoun has a gender, male or female. like lamp or sock theyalso are male or femalw
The vowel ‘I” changes the tense to is. So yehivah ould mean God is of is doing.
The work for praise, gift, worsip,and bless , in its varied forms, is Barraka.Reveal is gallah.I can never remember the word of you meaning all.Bue If I say At,ata, it would or could meam all of you men and women.. Why all this ? so I can blees in my awkward way with hebrew
Yehivah Barraka ,at,ata,and Gallah CHockma and binah.
Gd is blessing you all,and may he reveal to you all wisdom and knowledge.
is it true a priest could marry a prostitute i thought they were stoned to death
#72 is punished by death [Exodus 35:2]
Complains about cherry picking, writes an article full of cherry picked statements to prove his point. Eaayone to blow appar with out needed tongo to source material in the Leviticus 10:6. The messy hair and torn clothes is in reference to not mourning for a group of people that had been consumed by holy fire. If you are going to be mad at people for not reading, the maybe you should spend a little time reading. Otherwise you just look like an idiot.
What was meant by “Normal penalty”?
I have been asking how fair is it to compete in a world where Christians and those of Jewish faith must compete given Deuteronomy 18:10? It’s almost like fighting blindfolded or with your hands tied on you back. This is especially true in environments such as IT when a certain group of people of a certain faith (non christian or Jewish faith who would not buy a house unless it has a door facing the East,) have found a niche for sustenance in these difficult times.
I can and do understand not making sacrifices to Molek or Baal or any other false gods.
I could understand divination though I have never experienced it.
But astrology appears to be a science and so does palm reading.
Don’t these teaching pout us at a disadvantage?
Avocet,
A flying insect with four legs is an insect that is missing two legs
Thankfully, anyone can and does interpret a bible in whatever way they want, and do often because it’s chock full of direct contradictions. See this video (with references) https://youtu.be/RB3g6mXLEKk The bible was a collection of writings directly from men as an instruction for men. It is not useful as a text book, science book, (some of the history such as the Exodus story is complete myth) or useful for instructions in morals as we can see, only a few of laws work to reduce suffering among humans and animals. This is why Christians and Muslims are morally confused, and Orthodox Jews do not believe in a creator god that sends anyone to a “heaven or a hell”. The book Leviticus, the third of five books of the Pentateuch, was written by Jews for Jews… so why Protestants, Catholics and Muslims pay any attention to it is a full blown mystery.
Law #7: Don’t touch the carcass of an unclean animal. This could also apply to touching a FOOTBALL (the American kind) which is pig skin.
The Bible is a book that can only be understood if one is born again (one that has receive Jesus as their Savior) and anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Bible in the infallible word of God. The Bible says when it comes to some people who have gained much knowledge but without knowing the truth; they are considered educated fools and they will never understand the thing of God. It would be to anyone’s advantage to accept God for who He really is. If God does not exist and you die, you have lost nothing, but if He is who He says He is and you round up rising from the dead without Him; you’ll find that now that you have risen from the dead you will wake up in Hell a devastating place to be. So don’t take a chance on missing God. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and search out the Scripture for yourself. You talked about the Rabbis like they had correct knowledge of the Scripture. You need to seek God for yourself if you want Him to reveal Himself to you.
What a reply! I think one doesn’t ‘develop’a faith as a hedge against possible punishment post death. That is not what faith is supposed to be – a safe guard. If that is the reason for having faith then one doesn’t have actual faith…it’s just a conditional faith, a kind of barter. As for your opening statement, of being unable to understand the Bible without first accepting Jesus, it is so flawed. Any Theory or explanation has to be able to be convincing to make people accept it not the other way around.
What is the normal penalty?
@Sam, @Laraine – As I mention at the top, most of the fall back to Leviticus 4 and 5, which list, based on who commits the sin and whether they knew it was a sin or not, what sort of sacrificial offering animal needs to be given up.
That’s what I’m referring to as the “Normal penalty.”
@slowlane — Except that American footballs aren’t actually made of pigskin (they are sometimes cowhide, more often rubber). http://gizmodo.com/were-footballs-ever-really-made-of-pigskin-1513061556 has more details.
@Ouida — But if there’s no understanding of the Bible without accepting Jesus as savior (not something I believe, but let’s posit that), then there is no reason, only the proverbial leap of faith, to do so, and people who use the Bible to “prove” something are literally using incomprehensible gibberish to make an argument.
Your recommendation of Pascal’s Wager as a reason to believe in God (if God is real, you win; if God is false, you’ve lost nothing) carries with it the assumption that it’s a binary choice (do I believe in God as Thomas Aquinas knew Him? Martin Luther? Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Jerry Falwell?) (and why limit the question to a Christian God — why not make the same argument regarding Krishna, or Allah, or Elohim, or Odin?).
Have we not heard, “For I am the Most High, [I do not change]; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Yaakov.” That would mean everything He’s given us to obey. Not even the Ritualistic Laws changed; if anything they were fulfilled and carried all the way out when the Messiah came as the Lamb of lambs. Hebrews 8-10, confirms which sacrifice still remains holy and kept to this day, because this One sacrifice does more than what the lamb’s blood that was painted around the door post of each door belonging to the Israelites. “And according to the Law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die [once], but after this the judgement, so Mashiach was offered [once] to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold the days are coming says the Most High, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Y’hudah—” not according to that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; [BECAUSE] they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Most High. I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their Elohim and they shall be My people.”
We must keep contextually sound the words of the Almighty and not veer in the slightest away from what He has had written, and that means not add to them or take from them with our opinions, views, and whatever sounds acceptable and reasonable to us or maybe agrees with our pet peeves.
I much prefer His voice than the voice of men, and I much prefer His words (of trustworthiness), then those said by man. All the more, we need to respect that He knows best and knows what He’s doing; after all He is the Creator and the Designer of everything and everyone that is. Who are we to determine how it should go?
Each and everytime I read His word, the clarity is given. He wants us to rightly divided His word. Having said that, “It’s imperative to hear what He says about those things He gave to men to write down for us who are still here to know them as much as the others were given the same to obey and keep hidden in their hearts and written on the tablets of their mind for living life the correct way. And that way would be in honor of the Most High and Great Elohim.
Shalom!
It kills me with laughter when Christians start making up new dogma like how “oh, the Old Testament no longer applies.”
The Ten Commandments are in the Old Testament.
Think about that.
Not only are you overruling and correcting your god, you’re saying the most famous list of rules in the entirety of Christianity no longer applies.
Either it all applies or none of it does. Your god wasn’t messing around when he handed this stuff down to you from his fluffy cloud beanbag chair.
“The Bible is a book that can only be understood if one is born again.”
Wait. So, how do you propose that anyone understand it in order to join your little club? You have to buy a full, lifetime membership, sight-unseen, before you ever get to tour the grounds and the clubhouse and find out anything else about it? Do you get like a secret decoder ring or something once you sign up?
And where did you make that up out of? It’s translated into English, not Magical English. It’s either comprehensible or it’s not. And if it’s not, weeelll…
Cards on the table here: it’s obviously an attempt to proactively discredit and dismiss any analysis or criticism by anyone who isn’t already drinking the KoolAid. It comes across as a surprisingly secretive (cult-like, even) approach to your beliefs. I’m sure there’s something in your book about your beliefs being able to stand up to any test. Sounds like the sort of thing that would be in there. So, why do you not welcome criticism? Is your faith that shaky? The scripture that violent? The verses that troubling?
If it’s the Absolute Truth™, then what is it that you fear?
Science welcomes analysis and criticism – it thrives on it. It’s the entire reason science has progressed so far so quickly after being held back so long by superstition. And science, analysis and criticism is the entire reason the Internet and websites now exist enabling you to post a comment discouraging thought and critical discourse.
Like all your posts!
Nicely compiled list.
My favourite comment to people who are adamant about their christian faith, that I can tell have been spoon fed the bible and read very little if any of it is, “Lets talk about Leviticus”.
Pretty retarded. You don’t have to accept every word of the classical-Rabbinical interpretation to see that the interpretation here is misleading at best.
For example, (3) eating fat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelev
For example 23-24 – going to church after giving birth. The prohibition was against going to the Temple, with a capital T and the definite article, not a synagogue (also called “temple” with a lowercase t in American English) and therefore also not a church. It’s pretty obvious that churches are more similar to synagogues rather then to THE Jewish Temple.
For example, 60 – there’s no prohibition against TRIMMING. Once again, a retarded translation or simply a lie.
ESV says: “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.”
KJV says: “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.”
Jewish translations such as the JPS publication also say:
“Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.”
Moreover, your comments don’t even make the slightest attempt at consistency. On one hand you say:
66. Mistreating foreigners – “the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born” (19:33-34) [No penalty given.]
But then you also say:
76. Selling an Israelite as a slave (foreigners are fine) (25:42) [No penalty given.]
Well riddle me this Mr. Hill: How is selling foreigners as slave fine and selling Israelites as slaves is forbidden simultaneously with having to treat foreigners “as your native-born”.
Is it possible that one of those commandments doesn’t say what you claim it to say?
@Das
Well, that’s a charming (and ableist) way of starting a conversation.
I make no claim to rabbinical or any sort of knowledge as to how these phrases appear in Jewish texts and teachings, and was aiming no criticism as how they are interpreted by Jews in general or by various Jewish denominations. I was quite clear that I was approaching it from a Christian perspective, based on Christian translations, and pointing out Christian hypocrisy in picking which prohibitions to pay attention to and which to ignore.
I don’t get your objection here. As the Wiki article you provided notes, eating fat is forbidden, whether from an allowed/kosher animal, or otherwise. Christians, by and large, ignore that.
The KJV phrases it as “she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary.”
While I understand, or think I do, the distinction between the Temple and a synagogue, from a Christian perspective, there is no difference, and again I’m focusing on how Christians understand (or don’t) the Scripture here and how they adhere to it (or not).
There’s that word again.
I’m not sure what the meaning of “corners” are regarding beards, but there are plenty of English Christian translations that refer to trimming. (https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Leviticus%2019:27)
Is it possible there’s an inconsistency in the Levitican laws?
Because the way I read 25:39-42, if a fellow Israelite can’t pay their debts, you can make them a hired servant to pay off the debt, until the Jubilee year, but you can’t make them a slave (bondsman). But 25:44-46 makes it clear you *can* make a slave (bondsman) of someone and their children, as a possession, if they are from the “heathen about you”. 25:46 again draws the distinction.
I’m not sure how to square that with 19:33-34, though I’m sure it can be argued about. Christians, by and large, sort of ignored the whole thing when it came to the subject of slavery (or of how to treat strangers / foreigners in their lands) which was more my point.
I will confess that, were I doing this post today, I would have both provided an actual English/Christian translation, with links, rather than relying upon the summaries from another site. But I don’t think those summaries, at least as you’ve called them out, are in error or misleading.
the selling of slaves was voluntary to pay off debts or as employment under those who could provide for their families when a foreigner had no trade to earn income from. We should not assume that selling of slaves was always by force, which would indeed create a contradiction. Hebrew rules for slavery were more like contracts of employment, while the Hebrews were to be set free from debt every 7 years, the foreigner was not given the same rights, yet should be “treated” fairly like all Hebrews were to treat each other.
Numbers 12 and 13 were commands to Aaron for him to not show grief publicly when God struck his two sons for bringing their own fire to light the incense instead of the fire that God sent to first light the lamps of the Temple. So these were not prohibitions to ALL priests for ALL times. Nothing in the context indicates it was meant for more than Aaron at that time… (no, for all generations like normally it was said for priests). Jesus tore his garments once if I remember correctly, and so did MANY priests, kings or prophets when they were saddened at sin.
11. Bringing unauthorized fire before God (10:1) [God will smite you.]
12. Letting your hair become unkempt (10:6) [“You will die” and God will be angry at everyone. May only apply to the priesthood.]
13. Tearing your clothes (10:6) [“You will die” and God will be angry at everyone. May only apply to the priesthood.]
On reading, yes, this seems focused on a particular (and rather odd) punishment for breaking a strange set of rules (there’s no particular ill motivation given to Aaron’s sons, they just broke the rules and got burned to death), instructing Aaron to not publicly grieve their deaths. And, for whatever reason, this is seen fit to record for all time.