[net.religion.jewish] Rosen,Boswell,Moslems,Jews

barry@ames-lm.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (06/30/84)

[<+>]

> Orthodox (i.e., traditional) Judaism regards homosexuality as a sin.
> The biblical basis is in Genesis XXXVII, in the story of Onan. The
> Talmud (and doubtless the Shulchan Aruch) provide more detail in terms
> of actual halacha (religious requirement and current law), but I can't
> give you a reference offhand.

	I find this most curious; can anyone confirm that the story of
Onan is, indeed, the basis on which Orthodox Judaism condemns homosexuality?
I reread the story (Genesis XXXVIII, by the way, not XXXVII), and could
find no more than the most tenuous connection to the question of sexual
preference. There are other passages in the Bible (e.g. Leviticus) that
are much more explicit in their condemnation of homosexuality.
	It seems poor old Onan gets accused of everything. The common
Christian definition of the "sin of Onan" is masturbation. Yet when one
reads Genesis XXXVIII it seems clear that what Onan was really attempting
was a form of birth control. There is no suggestion that he was gay,
nor that he was jacking off for fun; rather, he seemed to be trying to
avoid his duty to take his dead brother's widow for his own, something
that I gather was a religious requirement for the old Hebrews. In any
case, what Onan did was to "spill his seed upon the ground". While I
can agree, in theory, that this can be taken as condemning anything that
results in semen going where no one could get pregnant from it, this
seems a very loose interpretation.

> Homosexuality is explicitly forbidden in the Bible itself.  In Leviticus
> (I think, I can look it up), it says that a man shall not lie with another
> man after the fashion of woman, i.e. male homosexuality is explicitly
> forbidden. Female homosexuality is not discussed in the Bible, but the various
> codes either strongly discourage or actually forbid it.

	Out of curiosity, I read the relevant portions of Leviticus.
Mostly I was curious if there was any hint whether the use of "man" in
the above quote refers to mankind, or to males alone. It appeared to
be referring only to males - a couple of verses later there is a
prohibition against lying with beasts, and it specifically and separately
states that "man shall not lie with beasts", and "woman shall not lie
with beasts". I infer that if woman is not to lie with woman, it would
have been so stated. Is it possible, I wonder, that the old (male) Hebrews
who wrote Leviticus had never *heard* of lesbianism? It's even harder
to imagine that they didn't disapprove of it, given the extremely strict
attitudes toward sex shown in Leviticus, generally.

	If there are any scholars of the Torah out there who are willing
to satisfy my idle curiousity, I would be most grateful.

                                                Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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