Does the bible denounce homosexuality

Bostonia: The Alumni Magazine of Boston University

Biblical Sexuality

Author Jennifer Knust on what the Bible says about homosexuality

| From Commonwealth | By Kimberly Cornuelle

In the video above, Jennifer Knust speaks about the Bible and homosexuality.Photo by Frank Curran

Even for nonbelievers, the Blessed Bible can offer timeless inspiration, guidance, and drama. But, says Jennifer Knust, a School of Theology assistant professor of Brand-new Testament and Christian origins, it’s far too ambiguous to work for as a guide to sexual behavior, despite U.S. courts’ history of using it to justify sodomy laws that have only recently been struck down. In , when Virginia’s sodomy statute was challenged, a federal court upheld the statute, arguing that it was rooted in Judaic and Christian law — and quoted Leviticus as justification. It took twenty-eight years before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated sodomy laws, including Virginia’s — in , a year after Massachusetts had struck down its sodomy laws.

Knust’s book, Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity(Colu

This article is part of the What Did Jesus Teach? series.

Silence Equals Support?

In a article for Slate online, Will Oremus asked a provocative question: Was Jesus a homophobe?¹

The article was occasioned by a story about a same-sex attracted teenager in Ohio who was suing his tall school after school officials prohibited him from wearing a T-shirt that said, “Jesus Is Not a Homophobe.”

Oremus was less concerned about the legal issues of the story than he was about the accuracy of the utterance on the shirt. Oremus suggests that Jesus’s views on homosexuality were more inclusive than Paul’s. He writes,

While it’s reasonable to assume that Jesus and his fellow Jews in first-century Palestine would possess disapproved of gay sex, there is no tape of his ever having mentioned homosexuality, let alone expressed particular revulsion about it. . . . Never in the Bible does Jesus himself suggest an explicit prohibition of homosexuality.

Oremus seems to propose that since Jesus never explicitly mentioned homosexuality, he must not have been very concerned about it.

There are at least two reas

What does the Brand-new Testament say about homosexuality?

Answer

The Bible is consistent through both Old and Recent Testaments in confirming that homosexuality is sin (Genesis –13; Leviticus ; ; Romans –27; 1 Corinthians ; 1 Timothy ; Jude ). In this matter, the Recent Testament reinforces what the Old Testament had declared since the Law was given to Moses (Leviticus ). The difference between the Old and Novel Testaments is that the New Testament offers hope and restoration to those caught up in the sin of homosexualitythrough the redeeming power of Jesus. It is the same hope that is offered to anyone who chooses to accept it (John ; –18).

God’s standards of holiness did not transform with the coming of Jesus, because God does not change (Malachi ; Hebrews ). The New Testament is a continuing truth of God’s interaction with humanity. God hated idolatry in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy ), and He still hates it in the New (1 John ). What was immoral in the Old Testament is still immoral in the New.

The Novel Testament says that homosexuality is a “shameful lust” (Rom

The Bible on Homosexual Behavior

One way to argue against these passages is to make what I summon the “shellfish objection.” Keith Sharpe puts it this way: “Until Christian fundamentalists boycott shellfish restaurants, terminate wearing poly-cotton T-shirts, and stone to death their wayward offspring, there is no obligation to attend to their diatribes about homosexuality being a sin” (The Gay Gospels, 21).

In other words, if we can disregard rules appreciate the ban on eating shellfish in Leviticus , then we should be allowed to disobey other prohibitions from the Antique Testament. But this argument confuses the Old Testament’s temporary ceremonial laws with its permanent moral laws.

Here’s an analogy to aid understand this distinction.

I keep in mind two rules my mom gave me when I was young: hold her hand when I cross the street and don’t drink what’s under the sink. Today, I possess to follow only the latter rule, since the former is no longer needed to protect me. In fact, it would now do me more harm than good.

Old Testament ritual/ceremonial laws were favor mom’s handholding rule. The rea