I'm a bit confused about Moore's relationship with scripture. His relationship seems a bit confused. On the one hand, he seems desperate to prove that the Bible doesn't really disapprove of homosexuality, but he does this by claiming that the Bible really cares about enforcing male domination, which I would hope that he finds equally unacceptable. He's said "It's OK the Bible isn't homophobic, it's misogynistic!" which is all well and god if you're a gay man but not so good if you're a woman. Presumably he's made this move because it's easier to convince people to reject the sexism of the Bible as mistaken than the homophobia, but on the face of things, if you're going to have to claim that the Bible is 'tainted' by the bigotry of its authors, why not just claim that that's why it targets homosexuality rather than going around the houses.
I've heard this a similar argument made by Jewish gay apologists. The argument goes, gay sex was forbidden because, at the time it tended to involved exploitative power relationships. This either a stupid argument or a sexist argument because surely heterosexual relationships in that time were even more exploitative than homosexual relationships, so why would G@d institute these rules to protect the men but not ban heterosexual sex to protect women.
I don't think that criticising the culture of Leviticus is necessarily antisemitic. For one thing, modern Judaism is incredibly different to the Judaism within which Leviticus was written. One could take offence at the dismissal of a book of my scripture but that would get me upset at everyone who wasn't my religion.
One thing I find annoying is the way that Moore takes an Jewish idea which may be relevant to our understanding of Leviticus 18:22, but distorts it to make it nastier than it is. Maybe the idea was originally nastier and Judaism has made it nicer over the millennia. The idea is the importance of classification and separation. This theme runs throughout the Torah. The word 'holy' in Hebrew is likely to have been derived from words for 'separation' and 'withdrawal'. Jews today still have prayers at the end of sabbath and festivals which bless G@d for separating the holy from the everyday. According to Rashi, in the story of creation G@d actually made everything on the first day and the other five days were spent putting everything in the right place. The Torah contains commands not to mix different crops in a field, not to mix different types of fibres in clothing, not to yoke different types of animals together. Different types of people have different sets of obligations: men, women, Jews, non-Jews, resident aliens, slaves, priests, first-born. There's an understanding that holiness and creation are about separating types and clear boundaries. A place for everything and everything in its place. This doesn't have to be about better and hierarchies. There are definitely Jews who interpret this idea as making Jews superior to non-Jews and men superior to women, but I don't think that there is anything inherent in the idea of separation require this interpretation.
The most thoughtful discussions of homosexuality in Judaism I have seen have been about how the prohibitions on sex between men should be seen within this framework and then the discussion becomes how much leeway is there in the halacha when this idea is balanced against the need to mitigate the harm the halacha may do to Jews who fall in love with people of the same sex. How can we balance the wish to have clear separate roles in society with the problems that might pose for Jews to live fulfilled lives.
Of course, the other avenue Jews tend to go down, which I've never seen Christians do, is to get very technical and explicit about what sexual acts Leviticus 18:22 might actually be prohibiting. This discussion can lead to a position where some sexual acts are allowed between men and others are prohibited.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-18 11:22 am (UTC)I've heard this a similar argument made by Jewish gay apologists. The argument goes, gay sex was forbidden because, at the time it tended to involved exploitative power relationships. This either a stupid argument or a sexist argument because surely heterosexual relationships in that time were even more exploitative than homosexual relationships, so why would G@d institute these rules to protect the men but not ban heterosexual sex to protect women.
I don't think that criticising the culture of Leviticus is necessarily antisemitic. For one thing, modern Judaism is incredibly different to the Judaism within which Leviticus was written. One could take offence at the dismissal of a book of my scripture but that would get me upset at everyone who wasn't my religion.
One thing I find annoying is the way that Moore takes an Jewish idea which may be relevant to our understanding of Leviticus 18:22, but distorts it to make it nastier than it is. Maybe the idea was originally nastier and Judaism has made it nicer over the millennia. The idea is the importance of classification and separation. This theme runs throughout the Torah. The word 'holy' in Hebrew is likely to have been derived from words for 'separation' and 'withdrawal'. Jews today still have prayers at the end of sabbath and festivals which bless G@d for separating the holy from the everyday. According to Rashi, in the story of creation G@d actually made everything on the first day and the other five days were spent putting everything in the right place. The Torah contains commands not to mix different crops in a field, not to mix different types of fibres in clothing, not to yoke different types of animals together. Different types of people have different sets of obligations: men, women, Jews, non-Jews, resident aliens, slaves, priests, first-born. There's an understanding that holiness and creation are about separating types and clear boundaries. A place for everything and everything in its place. This doesn't have to be about better and hierarchies. There are definitely Jews who interpret this idea as making Jews superior to non-Jews and men superior to women, but I don't think that there is anything inherent in the idea of separation require this interpretation.
The most thoughtful discussions of homosexuality in Judaism I have seen have been about how the prohibitions on sex between men should be seen within this framework and then the discussion becomes how much leeway is there in the halacha when this idea is balanced against the need to mitigate the harm the halacha may do to Jews who fall in love with people of the same sex. How can we balance the wish to have clear separate roles in society with the problems that might pose for Jews to live fulfilled lives.
Of course, the other avenue Jews tend to go down, which I've never seen Christians do, is to get very technical and explicit about what sexual acts Leviticus 18:22 might actually be prohibiting. This discussion can lead to a position where some sexual acts are allowed between men and others are prohibited.