Bible texts on homosexuality

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Biblical texts on homosexuality are texts of the Bible that refer to homosexual acts. The Torah forbids "to lie with a man as with a woman" (Lev 18:22) and threatens those involved with the death penalty (Lev 20:13). Three passages in Paul's letters (1 Cor 6: 9; Rom 1.26f .; 1 Tim 1:10) name male anal intercourse as one of the many characteristics of unbelieving people. In other biblical passages the reference to homosexual acts is not clear.

In Judaism , the Torah passages, and in Christianity also the quotations from Paul, were traditionally used to condemn male homosexuality as a sin . Since Lesbian sexuality in Tanach does not occur, this was not discussed or in Judaism only vaguely mitverboten.

The biblical exegesis of these texts has been discussed since around 1900, reinforced by the lesbian and gay movement since the 1970s . Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians usually continue to derive from this an unconditional current ban on practiced, especially male homosexuality. Historically-critical interpreters, on the other hand, emphasize that the Bible does not recognize homosexuality as an individual characteristic of identity, a fixed constitution or orientation and that homosexual acts only forbid as part of foreign cults, as rape , prostitution and extramarital promiscuity . It is therefore controversial whether and to what extent these texts can be used for today's sexual ethics .

Overview

In Judaism and Christianity, the Bible is recognized in various ways as an authority to be consulted and justified for ethical positions. When it comes to homosexuality, however, the selection of biblical passages is controversial, not just their interpretation. Few scriptures clearly refer to homosexual acts; their relevance for the present is highly controversial for each individual text.

The following Bible passages play an important role in the discussion:

Tanach / Old Testament (AT) Text genre content
Gen 1.27  EU / 2.18.22-24 EU Creation story God created man and woman
so that they could become a couple and be partners for one another
Lev 18.22  EU Legal proposition Prohibition of anal intercourse between men
Lev 20.13  EU Legal proposition Death penalty for anal intercourse between men
Gen 19.5  EU narrative Male group demands rape of two male guests
New Testament (NT)
1 Cor 6.9  EU Load catalog Pederasty is one of the acts of wickedness that excludes them from the kingdom of God
Rom 1 : 26-27  EU Court speech Homosexual intercourse is the result of idolatry
1 Tim 1.10  EU Load catalog Pederasty is one of the hallmarks of unbelievers

With other Bible passages it is controversial whether they also apply to homosexuality:

Dtn 23.18  EU Legal proposition Prohibition of sex with prostitutes in Israel
Ri 19.22-25  EU narrative Male group demands rape of a man
and then rapes his wife
Mk 7.20-21  EU Torah interpretation Impurity arises from bad thoughts
Mk 10.6-9  EU Torah interpretation Prohibition of divorce
Jud 7  EU Warning speech Warning against exceeding God-set limits
2 Petr 2,6-8  EU Warning speech Warning of heresy and sexual permissiveness

For some passages in the OT and NT, homoerotic connotations are considered:

Ruth 1,16-17  EU Federal treaty Letter of support from two related and widowed women
2 Sam 1.26  EU Lamentation Grief after losing a loved one
Mt 8.5-13  EU Healing miracle Healing a Roman's slave
Joh 13,23  EU Passion Report Introduction of the favorite disciple at the Lord's Supper

Tanach / Old Testament

Torah commandments

Lev 18:22: “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination. "Lev 20:13:" If anyone lies with a man as with a woman, they have done what is an abomination, and both shall die to death; Blood guilt rests on them. "

Both legal clauses are in the law of holiness (Lev 17-26). It aims at the comprehensive “ sanctification ” of the chosen Israelites as an answer and correspondence to the holiness of YHWH (Lev 20:26). According to the current state of research, this legal corpus arose in the Babylonian exile (586-539 BC) and was then supplemented by commandments for priests (Lev 1–16) as well as ritual and ethical commandments for all Israelites, which aimed at the “purity” of God's people and should join the older corpora of law. Chapters 18-20 form a unit of meaning addressed to male "laypeople", at the center of which is the commandment to love one's neighbor (Lev 19,18f.). Chapters Lev 18 and 20 deal with "impurities that cannot be removed by cult". Lev 18 lists forbidden sexual offenses, which verse 29 judges summarily as offenses worthy of death. Lev 20 threatens many of these offenses with a specific penalty, often the death penalty. The purpose of the punishment was the exclusion of the perpetrators from the people of God.

In Hebrew, the prohibition sentences are literally: "What is male should not lie like lying with a woman" or "And with a man you shouldn't lie with a woman lying down / the side of a woman". The Talmudic tract Sanhedrin 54a explains : Since “lying with a woman” in the Bible denotes sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, the plural “lying down” means vaginal and anal intercourse. Similarly, men are forbidden from anal penetration and anal reception. Lev 18:22 address the penetrating man ("You ..."), but according to Lev 20:13 the penetrated sexual partner is also worthy of death. Tract Yevamot 83b adds that any vaginal or anal intercourse with an androgynous is forbidden, because he should be defined as a man. Other forms of homosexuality were neither discussed nor prohibited. Recent philological studies have confirmed that the Hebrew verb šakab ("lie with ...", "sleep with ...") together with the subject zakar ("man, masculine") in the Tanakh clearly means "copulate" with a woman. Therefore the phrase "like lying with / the side of a woman" in Lev 18,22 prohibits penetrating men, in Lev 20,13 also the penetrated man. Rape is not meant here; homoerotic acts are not prohibited. Many Christian exegetes followed this exegesis.

The expression “abomination” ( toebah ) appears in Lev 18:22 directly after the prohibition of human sacrifices for the idol Moloch , which in the Tanakh is considered the worst abomination of foreign peoples. Similarly, the following verse 23 condemns sexual intercourse with animals ( zoophilia ) as "shameful". In the individual punishment series in Lev. 20, the expression “abomination” appears only in verse 13. Such deeds were considered particularly serious ritual offenses in Israel because they followed foreign customs in order to threaten the identity of the chosen people of God and thus conjure up the loss of the land. Therefore Lev 18-20 threatens all residents of Israel for it the death penalty. In Deuteronomic theology , the term “abomination” denotes stereotypical cult practices adopted from Canaan and from other peoples, which excluded the first of the Ten Commandments as idolatry, so that they should absolutely be abolished in Israel.

Wolfgang Stegemann (1988) and Renate Jost (2006), on the other hand, explain Lev 18,22 / 20,13 from the defense against humiliating acts of violence such as in Gen 19 and Ri 19: The "feminization" of the penetrated man, demonstrating power and superiority, is prohibited here should. Egalitarian relationships with men and a homosexual culture are not affected. Martin Stowasser explains the ban on homosexual anal intercourse out of the taboo of wasting life-giving sperm . From the point of view of the time , this threatened the patriarchal social structure , the religious identity of Israel and its continued existence. Because in ancient Israel only male sperm was considered to be life-producing, according to Rainer Stuhlmann, contact with the sperm of another man and the female role and position of the penetrated man was taboo as an "atrocity". That is why the Torah also made masturbation (Gen 38: 7-10) and the contact of semen with menstrual blood (Lev 18:19; 20:18) taboo. Because women were considered inferior and subordinate to men, a strict distinction was made between female and male behavior and travesty was also forbidden as an "abomination" (Deut 22.5). Travesty was known as the cult of the Babylonian goddess Ištar (Astarte) in Israel. This background, according to Klara Butting, is also suggested by the prohibition of mating different types of cattle, sowing different seeds and clothes woven from different threads (sorts) (Lev 19:19).

Others explain the ban on anal intercourse between men from general ancient oriental gender roles. The Persian Avesta (32.101) demanded in the 6th century BC Chr .: A man who "lies with a man like a man lies with a woman" is a Daeva (evil bringer, demon ) and should be killed by everyone even without orders from the authorities.

The verses have also long been explained with a temple prostitution in Canaan . However, this is now seen as obsolete, as scientific studies indicate that there was no temple prostitution in the entire Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The prohibitions of the Torah are not repeated or quoted anywhere in the Tanakh. The Tanakh also does not report charges and executions for this. Nevertheless, Erhard S. Gerstenberger assumed that practicing homosexuals were socially persecuted in Israel like worshipers of foreign gods according to the penalty law Dtn 17.4.

Because Lev 20:13 also threatens non-Israelites with the death penalty, conservative interpreters conclude that the prohibition applies across time and affects all homosexuality. Because incest (Lev 18.6-18; 20.11-12) and adultery (Lev 18.21; 20.10) are also forbidden in the context , Werner Führer (2003) concludes that these commandments are an “implementation provision” for the prohibition of adultery of the Decalogue, have the same rank and are also anchored in the First Commandment. The God of Israel thus apodictically excludes homosexual practice; this is under no circumstances compatible with belief in this God.

On the other hand, Stefan Alkier (2009) concludes from the findings in the Tanach: “In any case, it is not 'homosexuality' that is rejected here, but at best a small excerpt from what is now associated with the concept of 'homosexuality'.” Same-sex love, partnership, tenderness and the Bible does not forbid eroticism, nor even problematize it. Rainer Kessler sums it up: "Homosexuality is not a topic in the Hebrew Bible." The Torah bans only affect male anal intercourse, which, like other sexual practices, has been taboo as atrocities that pollute the country. The actual reason for this remains unclear, but cannot be detached from the priestly notions of order of purity and impurity. Even the plural marriages of the patriarchs of Israel would have violated Lev 18-20, so that these commandments could not claim general validity within the Bible. Otherwise, according to Lev 19:19, all textiles woven from two threads must be forbidden today.

Sodom

Gen 19: 1-29 tells how two male messengers of God (" angels ") visit Lot , Abraham's nephew , and he invites her to stay overnight. Then the male residents of the city of Sodom surround his house and threaten his guests with collective rape (v. 5): “Where are the men who came to you this evening? Out with them, we want to associate with them. ”Lot calls this plan a“ crime ”and tries to dissuade the Sodomites with an offer (v. 8):“ Look, I have two daughters who have not yet recognized a husband. I want to bring them out to you. Then do what you like with them. Only does nothing to those men; because that is why they have come under the protection of my roof. ”Thereupon they threaten him as a stranger themselves. The messengers of God protect Lot and his family by blinding the Sodomites and then help the threatened to escape from the city. This is followed by God's crushing judgment on Sodom and the neighboring city of Gomorrah.

According to traditional Christian exegesis, the divine punishment of homosexuality as “unnatural fornication” (“ sodomy ”) was the subject of the text. In contrast, Derrick Sherwin Bailey saw in 1955 the violation of the ancient oriental hospitality law as his subject and excluded a reference to homosexuality. He understood the Hebrew verb yada (“to know”) in verse 5 as “to get to know”, not as “to have sexual intercourse”. He argued that yada only had a sexual meaning in a few places in the Bible and then always referred to heterosexual intercourse. Otherwise the verb šakab is used for homosexual intercourse , so that verse 5 is not about homosexuality.

Representatives of the Christian ex-gay movement such as Joe Dallas , Bob Davies and Roland Werner rejected this exegesis: Yada in verse 5 is meant sexually, because the virginity of Lot's daughters is also expressed with this verb. If it were only a question of breaking the hospitality law, neither Lot's reaction to the “evil” of the attackers (verse 7) nor God's destruction of the entire city and all of its inhabitants would be understandable. The behavior of the Sodomites was reprimanded beforehand (Gen 13:13; 18:20), so that homosexuality could have been common there. Gen 19 only describes the culmination of this perversion, which triggers the punishment. This would condemn both consensual and violent homosexual acts. Also in the NT (Jud 7, 2Petr 2,7) Sodom's sin is referred to as "fornication", that is, constant sexual behavior. Christian interpreters understood this to mean homosexuality as early as the 2nd century.

Most historical-critical exegetes, like Bailey, see the breach of hospitality, not homosexuality as such, as the intended offense of the sodomites. Unlike Bailey, however, they interpret yada in verse 5, analogous to verse 8, as sexual violence: the Sodomites would have intended mass rape, otherwise Lot's alternative offer to deflower his daughters would not make sense. Her demands on Lot, however, are not about homosexual desire, but about treating strange men like a woman and as a sexual object in order to subjugate and humiliate them. George Edwards judged the Sodomite desires in 1984 to be "phallic aggression" caused by "excessive xenophobic arrogance". The Old Testament scholar Martti Nissinen demonstrated that mass rape of men by heterosexual men was a common means of sexual humiliation of enemies in ancient times. Many contemporary exegetes therefore see the breach of hospitality through mass rape, non-sexual relationships between men, as what Gen 19 condemned as the “sin of Sodom”. Michael Brinkschröder updates the text on liberation theological terms: Gen 19 condemns violence against homosexuals if one imagines the two male angels as a homosexual couple.

The text belongs to the Abraham-Lot saga and forms a literary unit with Gen 13 and 18. After Lot's separation from Abraham (Gen.12), he settles in Sodom. Gen 13: 13ff. already mentions the wickedness of the Sodomites and heralds Sodom's destruction. The course of action of Gen 18 and 19 is partly structured in parallel. Hospitality is granted to foreign visitors, anonymous messengers of God, which they return with a divine gift: in Gen 18 with the promise of a son for the very old parents Abraham and Sarah, in Gen 19 with the rescue of Lot and his family from God's judgment. After both visits the progenitors of whole peoples are born. In addition, contrasting motifs link the texts: the visit to Mamre takes place during the day and is peaceful, the one in Sodom at night and under extremely threatening circumstances. Sara's late pregnancy is juxtaposed with sexual violence and procreation through incest (Gen 19: 30–38). The main actor in both chapters is YHWH, who sends his messengers from Abraham to Lot and subjects Sodom to a test (Gen 18: 16–33), from which Lot emerges as the only righteous person spared before God's judgment.

The motif of “knowing” pervades the text unit: Just as God “recognizes” Abraham as righteous (Gen 18:19) and therefore gives him a supernatural son, so he wants to “know” (Gen 18:21) how it is stands for the righteousness of the Sodomites, for whose protection Abraham advocates. These in turn want to “recognize” Lot's foreign guests (Gen 19.5), whereupon Lot offers them his daughters, who have not yet been “recognized” by any man (19.8). According to Michael Brinkschröder, the verb in verse 5 therefore denotes violent sexual activity directed against God's law. Just as grave injustice is Lot's offer of his daughters, with whom he surrenders them to violence and thus makes himself the judge of the life and death of his descendants. While he fails, the messengers maintain God's authority both times: in Mamre they uncover Sara's doubts about God's promise and thus God's omniscience, in Sodom they beat the Sodomites with blindness, illustrate their moral depravity and prevent their criminal plans. Thus the gracious enforcement of God's legal order is the real topic of this text unit.

According to Wolfgang Oswald, the stories of the fathers (Gen 11–34) do not presuppose the written Torah, which was later revealed in salvation history , but a kind of natural law that corresponded to the ethical standards of prophecy of the 8th century (“law and justice” in Amos , "Solidarity / Dedication" at Hosea ). Individual fathers' stories exemplify the protection of strangers, guests, the family (incest prohibition) and the human dignity of women (Gen. 34). They accuse the neighboring peoples of the Israelites to these rights, so they are based on their general awareness. Accordingly, Gen 19 should not be interpreted as a narrative execution of the prohibitions Lev 18/20 and not as an instruction to punish homosexuality.

The fall of Sodom and Gomorrhah is mentioned more often in the Tanakh than any other event in the time of the father. Homosexuality is never mentioned. Instead, Sodom's outrages were social rape (Isa. 1: 9f.), Adultery, lying, encouraging the evildoer (Jer. 23:14), presumptuousness, abundance, refused sharing with the poor and careless rest (Ez. 16:49). Claus Westermann therefore saw the judgment of God over the two cities as a constant core of the biblical tradition, the outrages as arbitrarily interchangeable. The verses Gen 19: 4-9 were not known to the scriptural prophets, so they belonged to a more recent tradition. Martin Stowasser concluded from this finding: "An implicit negative assessment of homosexuality in gene 19 therefore remains questionable and, strictly speaking, would only refer to homosexual rape."

Gibeah

Judge 19: 15–30 tells of a Levite who, after visiting his father-in-law for several days, moves with his concubine, a servant and pack animals from Bethlehem past Jerusalem to Gibeah in the tribal area of ​​the Benjaminites, where an old man welcomes him as a guest. During supper, townspeople surround the host's house and demand (v. 22): “Bring out the man who has come into your house; we want to do our mischief with him. "He refuses with reference to the right to hospitality (v. 23):" No, my brothers, you are not allowed to do such a bad thing. This man came to my house as a guest; therefore you must not commit such an outrage. ”Instead, he offers his virgin daughter and the concubine of the Levite. After he takes his concubine out, the men rape her all night long. In the morning her husband finds her lying unconscious or dead on the doorstep and transports her to his hometown. There he cuts it into twelve pieces and sends the pieces "to the whole area of ​​Israel" to encourage reflection on the deed. Thereupon the then twelve-tribe union of the Israelites decides to take revenge against the Benjaminites.

The story is closely related in literary terms to Gen 19.1–29, contains several linguistically almost identical expressions and is initially structured similarly: The arrival and reception of the stranger (s) are followed by the attack, defense against the attack and substitute offer by the host. Unlike Lot's daughters in Gen 19, the woman in Ri 19 is extradited and raped. The crime ends with the death of the victim who started the war that followed. The crime committed against the woman thus carries more weight than the attempted rape against her husband. Most exegetes assume that Ri 19 is older than Gen 19 and served as its literary model. You date both texts to the 8th century BC before the destruction of Samaria (722 BC), when the northern kingdom of Israel was threatened by disintegration and severe legal uncertainty.

In retrospect, the Levite depicts the crime against him as an attempted murder (Judge 20,5) without mentioning the attempted rape. According to Ilse Müllner (1995), the threat of “being victimized in the act of feminization” was extremely humiliating for men of the time. That's why they kept it secret from other men. The rape attempt is not to be understood as homosexual desire, but as sexual violence against strangers: "The threat posed by the stranger is warded off by the fact that this stranger is feminized." She thus dismissed an older interpretation by Hans-Winfried Jüngling (1981) back. He said that the wrongdoers wanted to rape the concubine of the Levite from the start and only demanded that the husband be raped in order to force the landlord to extradite the woman. With this, the youth overlooked the "act of violence with the weapon of sexuality" against the strange man and reduced homosexuality to sexual desire, which could only be directed at men.

The “outrage of Gibeah” is nowhere taken up in the Bible. The Evangelical Church in Germany has disregarded Ri 19 and Gen 19 in statements on homosexuality since 1992, because they are "about humiliation and an act of violence".

The Qedeschen

Some verses about the royal time of the kingdom of Judah mention qedeschen (cult servant). The Israelites would have imitated this grave "abomination" of the Canaanites under King Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:24), but Asa (15.12), Jehoshaphat (22.47) and Joschiah (2 Kings 23.7) had these people according to YHWH Will eliminated.

The Hebrew word qedeschen (plural of qadesch ) literally means “consecrated”, but in German translations of the Bible it is often translated as “ hierodules ”, “temple whores”, “consecrated harlots” (Hos 4.14) or “lust boys” (Hi 36.14) . Behind this is the thesis, which has been common since James George Frazer ( Golden Bough 1922), that these female and male staff were available at cult sites for organized temple prostitution . This was practiced in Canaan as well as in Mesopotamia as an imitation of the holy wedding of fertility deities.

The standard translation of Deut 23:18 is therefore: “There should be no sacred prostitution among the women of Israel, and there should be no sacred prostitution among the men of Israel.” This translation of Qedeschen was deduced from the parallel following verse, the “whore's wage “Prohibited as temple donation. This seems to presuppose income from labor-driven prostitution of women and men in the temple.

Since 1992, several biblical scholars have questioned these theses because there is no direct evidence for a Canaanite fertility cult or for sacred or cultic prostitution in the Israeli area. The biblical passages used for this do not give the assumed sexual connotation of the expression qedeschen and references to sexual rites. Which homosexual cult is supposedly prohibited by Deut. 23:18 is completely unclear, since homosexuality was not conceivable as a fertility rite.

It is unclear which practices of the Qedeshi were rejected because of the sole worship of YHWH in Israel. Hermann-Josef Stipp rules out that Dtn 23:18 refers to Israelite cult prostitutes, because the ban would then have permitted non-Israelite cult prostitutes in stark contradiction to the Deuteronomically imposed First Commandment. He concluded: It could only be about profane prostitution. Homosexual prostitution by men and women is only forbidden here for the Israelites, not generally. With this he confirms that there is no time-spanning ban on homosexuality in the Bible.

David and Jonathan

Hug between David and Jonathan in a 14th century illustration

1 Sam 18: 1-4: After David's conversation with Saul, Jonathan took David in his heart. And Jonathan loved David as he loved his own life. […] Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him like his own life. He took off the cloak he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his armor, sword, bow, and belt.

2 Sam 1:26: Woe to me for you, my brother Jonathan. You were very dear to me. Your love for me was more wonderful than the love of women.

These statements are part of the ascension story of David (1 Sam 16 - 2 Sam 8), which was supposed to legitimize his kingship over all of Israel as God's providence, since he was not the son of his predecessor King Saul . She also describes David's close personal and political alliance with Jonathan , one of Saul's sons and heir to the throne.

Since 1900, some authors indicated in the Yearbook for intermediate sexual stages of Magnus Hirschfeld these bodies casually as literary evidence of homoerotic or homosexual relationship. Thomas Horner (1978) saw a sexual connotation of the word "love" (Hebrew chafez ) in those Bible passages.

Erhard Gerstenberger (1993) said: Since 2 Sam 1.26 directly compares the love of women and men, David could well have had a homosexual relationship in addition to eight main women. He concluded that the death penalty in Lev 20:13 arose after exile. For Karl Hoheisel (1994) “to love” in 1 Sam 19.1 and 2 Sam 1.26 can also mean “erotic desire”. David's lament for the dead sounds like “the shortest form of same-sex love” and does not describe this as a quasi marital union, but with an “intimacy that goes to the extreme limits of intimate friendship or political conspiracy.” At David's time, the neighboring Philistines were with to whom homosexuality presumably had nothing objectionable, influenced the sexual norms of the Israelite upper class. Their behavior deviated from the sexual norms of the Torah. The wisdom literature of the kings time did not repeat the prohibitions Lev 18,22 and 20,13. Accordingly, the final editors of the Samuel books would not have found David's homosexual partnership necessarily scandalous. The Samuel passages could indicate a "liaison between two bisexuals ". Silvia Schroer and Thomas Staubli (1996) found phrases in the Hohenlied that resembled 1 Sam 18.1.4 ("loved ... like his own life / like his soul") and 1 Sam 19.1 ("loved ... very much"): In Hld 1: 7 and 3: 1–4, a woman calls her lover “the one my soul loves” in order to express her deep erotic longing.

Markus Zehnder (1998) emphasized on the other hand: The texts on the friendship between David and Jonathan did not contain any sexual motifs and did not contain the Hebrew verbs šakab (“to lie”) and yada (“to know”) that are usual for sexual intercourse . They consistently placed their covenant in the context of political events and intentions so as not to show David as an enemy of the house of Saul. The New Testament scholar Robert AJ Gagnon (2001) ruled out a sexual relationship between David and Jonathan because both are reported in the context of sexual relationships with women, marriage, adultery and concubinates. The authors of the Samuel books would have emphasized their emotional friendship because they did not find an objectionable homosexual relationship in it. Most exegetes at most assume non-sexual homoerotic echoes of the Samuel texts.

Ruth and Noemi

In Ruth 1: 16-17 the Moabite Ruth promises to the Israelite Noemi : “Wherever you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people are my people, and your God is my God. Where you die, I will die too, that is where I want to be buried. The Lord should do this and that to me - only death will part me from you. ”This promise refers in context to the support of a daughter-in-law for her mother-in-law after her husband and sons died, so that they are now without a provider and without Protection stood there. It is formulated in a similar way to a federal contract and is traditionally quoted as a marriage vow in Christian weddings , currently also in the case of the blessing of same-sex couples .

Since the 1930s, some novelists have interpreted this passage as a declaration of love in the sense of a lesbian partnership. This continued after Ruth's remarriage. Thomas Horner admitted that the wording did not contain any sexual component. But the two women did not enter into sexual relationships with men during and because of this marriage-like promise. Noemi never met again, Ruth only attached herself much later to an older man and a father. Most Bible scholars dispute this interpretation because, according to the context, both women were married to a man before, Ruth also afterwards and the loss of their spouses is presented as the reason for their close friendship. In Ruth 3: 9 Ruth says to the Israelite Boaz: "Spread the corner of your robe over your maidservant ...". As in Ez 16.8, this phrase was a symbolic marriage proposal.

Nowhere does the Tanakh mention sexual acts between women. The ban on anal intercourse (Lev 18:22) is only addressed to men, while the ban on zoophilia (Lev 18:23) mentions women. Historical-critical exegetes explain the difference differently: Homoeroticism between women was not considered sexuality in biblical times, since no sperm is released. Women were not rated as equal to men. Biblical authors would not have known about lesbian sexuality. Others believe that the ban on male anal intercourse applies to all homosexuality and includes lesbian acts. Most historians, however, conclude that sexual acts between women were not punishable by the Israelites.

New Testament

Gospels

The attitude of Jesus of Nazareth to the Torah was decisive for all early Christians. However, 24 out of 27 NT scriptures, including the four Gospels , do not contain any statements about homosexual behavior. The Gospels point out that Jesus fulfilled the Torah and expected his disciples to do so (Mt 5: 17-19), but also show that he interpreted the Torah in a unique and sovereign way, so that it could serve the poor, needy and marginalized groups benefited. The fact that Jesus did not address homosexuality is therefore interpreted in opposite ways. Both sides recognize Jesus' concrete behavior towards certain Torah commandments as a yardstick for the ethical assessment of homosexuality.

Evangelical interpreters assume that Jesus only commented on controversial Torah commandments, i.e. that the biblical prohibitions on homosexual intercourse, such as the Palestinian Judaism of the time, assumed to be valid. Heinzpeter Hempelmann said (2001): Since the Gospels highlighted Jesus' noticeable deviation from the traditional Torah interpretation, they would have noted the tolerance of homosexuality as an enormous scandal. Jesus' silence should therefore not be interpreted as such toleration. Rather, he rejected homosexuality like all Torah-loyal Jews. Robert Gagnon said (2003): Because the Torah clearly forbids homosexuality, incest and zoophilia, there was no dispute over this in 1st century Judaism, while heterosexual infidelity and divorce were argued and deviating minority opinions were allowed.

Gender theologians and liberal moral theologians such as Valerie Hinck and Wiebke Krohn, on the other hand, assume that homosexuality had no theological significance for Jesus. If she had been a problem for him, he would have commented on it as on other issues. From Jesus' devotion to the then morally damned fringe groups, lepers, prostitutes, adulterers and Samaritans, they conclude that Jesus did not condemn homosexuals either and excluded them from God's salvation. They point out that he equated the commandment to love one's neighbor with the love of God and thus placed it above all other Torah commandments. Hedwig Porsch summarized: "For him, hypocrisy is a much greater obstacle to the kingdom of God than the observance of certain sexual forms."

Mk 7.21f.

Mk 7: 21-22: "For from within, from the hearts of men, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, cunning, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and irrationality."

This vice catalog mentions " fornication " ( porneia ) in the first place . In Judaism at that time, the term denoted all forms of sexual intercourse outside of the normative heterosexual monogamy and thus distinguished itself from Greco-Roman behavior, including, incidentally, from homosexual intercourse. For conservative exegetes this passage proves that Jesus reiterated the Torah prohibitions of adultery, incest, zoophilia and homosexuality in Lev. 18-23, so that they remained valid in Christianity. With Mk 7.19 he repealed the food and ceremonial laws, but repeated the moral commandments in Mk 7.21-23.

Exegetes oriented towards social history doubt that Jesus understood porneia like Lev 18-23. Because according to the Logienquelle Q its addressees and followers were poor poor, day laborers, fishermen and landless small farmers. They therefore belonged to the impoverished, indebted and powerless rural population of Palestine ( Amaaretz : Mt 4,23; 5,3). His opponents were many educated scribes and the urban upper class of the Sadducees , who were dependent on the Jerusalem temple cult . Their interpretation of the Torah was aimed at the unrestricted validity of the Torah and hardly considered the rural people.

Others point to the context of the job. In Mk 7.15 it says: “Nothing that enters a person from outside can make him unclean, but what comes out of a person makes him unclean.” Here Jesus abolished the Jewish purity regulations and the inner, spiritual purity emphasized instead of external purity. He also relativized the Tora ban on homosexual acts.

Both points of view consider Mk 7.1–23 as a literary unit. Historical-critical exegetes deny this and only consider Mk 7.15 to be authentic, because the statement agrees with other Jesus words: The cause of all impurity is the human heart, from which the evil thoughts come and which are followed by evil deeds. Only in the non-public teaching of the disciples (Mk 7.17ff.) Does it say: "With this Jesus declared all food to be pure." This interpretation and the following catalog of vices came from the original Christians. They no longer defined purity cultically, but socially in order to facilitate their mission among non-Jews. The fifth through seventh of the Ten Commandments are behind the series “theft, murder, adultery, greed”. According to the current state of research, Jesus did not abolish the dietary commandments of the Torah (Lev 11) in Mk 7, but reinforced it by rejecting halachic purification rites such as hand washing and denying the authority of the Torah teachers of that time.

Mk 10: 6-9

According to Mk 10.6–9 (par. Mt 19.4–6), Jesus answered a Pharisee question about the right to divorce: “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female. Therefore the man will forsake his father and mother, and the two will be one flesh. So you are no longer two, but one. But what God has connected, man must not separate. [...] Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. A woman also commits adultery when she releases her husband from marriage and marries someone else. "

Because the near kingdom of God would renew creation, Jesus currently opposed the will of the Creator against some Torah commandments and concluded from this the indissoluble monogamy as a place of legitimate sexuality, the strict prohibition of divorce and remarriage of divorced people. In doing so he rejected the Torah commandment in Deut. 24.1, which allowed an Israelite man to divorce if he testified in writing that his wife had committed a misconduct and gave her a certificate of divorce (Mk 10: 2-5). Since the first marriage remained indissoluble for Jesus, he judged a remarriage to be adultery. This strict position was also represented by the Shammai rabbinical school . It is seen as an attempt to protect Jewish women from male arbitrariness and lack of rights in the face of social uprooting processes at the time. The restriction “except in the case of fornication” (Mt 19.9) relativized the unconditional prohibition of divorce and is generally considered a Mathematic addition.

For Wolfhart Pannenberg , this Jesus word forbids viewing heterosexual marriage as one way of life among others and equating it with homosexual unions. For Ulrich Mauser, Gen 1-2 establishes all of Jesus' and the NT's statements on sexual ethics. According to this, heterosexuality, like the related difference between men and women, is an ontological determination. Sexuality is based on lifelong togetherness with a partner and serves inextricably to care for children and family and the community. The modern view of homosexuality as “orientation”, on the other hand, raises the desires and needs of the individual to the highest degree. Both views are incompatible.

Conservative authors emphasize that in all of Jesus' specific statements regarding sexual purity, his expectations go well beyond what was customary in the OT and in Palestinian Judaism of his time. Jesus radicalizes the prohibition of adultery ( Mt 5 : 27–30  EU ) and forbids divorce in the three synoptic gospels and in Paul on the grounds that remarriage is adultery ( Mt 5:23  EU ) ( Mk 10 : 11–12  EU) ) ( Lk 16.18  EU ) ( 1 Cor 7.11-12  EU ). In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus justified the prohibition of divorce with the creation story and the inseparable heterosexual marriage instituted by God ( Mk 10: 2–12  EU ), which conservative authors interpret as an implicit rejection of same-sex sexual relationships.

They also point out that Jesus turned to sinners and included them in his community, not to encourage them in their behavior, but to encourage them to repent. In the three examples of dealing with women who had sexually missed each other, there was no sign that he approved of their wrongdoing. He did not condemn the adulteress, but asked her to live according to God's command (“no longer sin”), which is to be understood in terms of sexual ethics and not ontologically. According to Robert Gagnon, the woman in Luke 7 is forgiven for sins, they will not be tolerated. The Samaritan woman at the well ( Joh 4  EU ) becomes an evangelist.

According to Andreas Mohr, according to the testimony of the Gospels, Jesus sharpens the Jewish-Hellenistic understanding of marriage in accordance with his concept of human or divine philanthropy ( Mt 5 : 27–30  EU ); whereby in all three synoptic gospels the divorce on the grounds that remarriage would be adultery ( Mt 5.23  EU ) ( Mk 10.11-12  EU ) ( Lk 16.18  EU ) ( 1 Cor 7.11-12  EU ) , is banned. The break in marriage also represented the break in a human community, which above all brought the divorced women in the patriarchal society of that time into a precarious social situation and inflicted heartache on the divorced spouse, mostly the divorced wife. Liberal interpreters argue that a mere positive portrayal of heterosexual marriage in and of itself does not necessarily mean that all other forms of interpersonal partnership are to be rejected in parallel, since the appreciation of a phenomenon is usually methodical according to the principles of philosophical and theological logic It should not automatically be inferred that all other conceivable manifestations and phenomena of a topic are negated that goes along with it. In the descriptions of the Gospels, Jesus appears as a clear "nonconformist" with a view to the moral and social ideas of his time. B. in his dealings with prostitutes who were not involved in legally compliant heterosexual marriages - as rather mild in the philanthropic sense and clearly deviating from the strictness of Pharisaic circles ( Lk 7.36-50  EU ). This circumstance suggests that it cannot simply be assumed that Jesus automatically agreed with the traditional Pharisaic or Saduzzaean interpretation of the gate of his time with regard to all phenomena and topics not directly mentioned by him.

Mt 8.5-13

Mt 8,5-13: “But when Jesus was going into Capernaum, a centurion came to him; He begged him and said, Lord, my servant is at home and is paralyzed and in great agony. Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy of you going under my roof, but just speak one word and my servant will be healed. […] And Jesus said to the centurion: Go; happen to you as you believed. And his servant was made well at the same hour. "

The Greek for “servant” is pais (“boy, child”). In the synoptic parallel Luke 7.1–10  EU stands the adjective entimos (“intimate, loved”). This is how superior Romans referred to younger slaves , also available for pederasty . Roman military leaders working abroad often took their slaves with them. Following Thomas Horner (1978), some exegetes therefore argue that the pais was a pleasure slave of the centurion . The intense request of the officer who is accustomed to command for his healing shows a homosexual love. Since Jesus vowed this emotional request and healed the pais without reservation, he apparently approved this love affair.

Robert Gagnon rejected this interpretation: pais denotes here a biological son of the Centurion, as suggested by the source of the Logia and Jn 4,46–54. According to Lk 7.5, the Roman founded a synagogue and was therefore a “godly” non-Jew. The Jewish elders, who, according to Lk 7.4, brought Jesus' request, would have strictly rejected pederasty like all Torah-loyal Jews of the time. Mt 5:19 emphasizes the validity of all Torah commandments for Christians. Jesus has tightened the sexual ethics of the Torah and abolished exceptional rules (Mt 5: 27-32). Had he approved a sexual relationship here, he would also have approved coercion and rape, which Roman slave owners saw themselves entitled to. William Loader added: Even if a sexual relationship with slaves was common among Romans, no approval can be derived from Jesus' reaction. It is extremely unlikely that he would not have objected to the pederastic exploitation of slaves.

Current historical-critical comments ignore this debate. Matthias Konradt explains the pericope as a miracle designed by the evangelist of Jesus for a non-Jew, which contrasts his trust with the unbelief in Israel in order to prepare the post-Easter commission of Jesus for a mission to the people (Mt 28:19). According to Gerd Theißen , who narrated the scene, Jews knew "that these pagan officers are mostly homosexual", so that Jesus' healing caused offense.

Mt 5.22

Mt 5:22: “But I say to you: Everyone who is even angry with his brother shall be subject to judgment; and whoever says to his brother: You fool! is said to have fallen for the verdict of the high council; but whoever says to him: You (ungodly) fool! shall be addicted to the fire of hell. "

The word raka , translated as “ stupid ”, is a transliteration of the Aramaic word rekah (“empty, hollow”) and is mostly interpreted as a swear word (“hollow head, brainless fool / fool”). However, the Aramaicist Friedrich Schulthess (1922) derived it from rakkah ("tender, soft, weak"). This Aramaic adjective also denotes a man with feminine qualities in a feminine form in order to belittle him. Following this, some exegetes assumed that the word, like the Greek malakos (1 Cor 6: 9), had a homosexual connotation and was a grave insult to Jewish men. In Mt 5:22, Jesus condemned the public despising of homosexuals.

Robert Gagnon objected: If raka insults men as "effeminate" in Mt 5:22, Jesus' prohibition meant that he saw it as an unlawful, existence-destroying slander, precisely because homosexuality was not socially accepted. Gagnon referred to Joachim Jeremias , who saw no evidence for the interpretation of raka as "effeminate".

John 13:23

Jn 13:23: “One of the disciples was at Jesus' side; it was the one Jesus loved. "

This unnamed disciple appears in other passages of the Gospel of John : The dying Jesus entrusts his mother to him (19.26), he testifies to the empty tomb (20.2) and the risen Christ (21.7) as the first disciple before Simon Peter. . Jesus said of him that he would survive the end of Peter (21:20). Finally, he is identified with the author of the Gospel (21:24).

Christian iconography has often depicted him androgynous since the early Middle Ages and stimulated speculation about a homoerotic friendship with Jesus. For the literary scholar George Steiner (1996), the intimacy presented in Jn 13:23 resembles ancient texts about homoerotic friendships between teacher and student, for example in Plato . The theologian Theodore Jennings (2003) described the favorite disciple as a “gay friend” of Jesus.

This interpretation does not play a role in historical-critical exegesis. Martti Nissinen (1998) pointed out that ancient texts also spoke of a student lying at the side of his teacher when both were of different sexes. It is a general convention that does not indicate an erotic or sexual relationship. The favorite disciple is a symbolic literary figure who represents the testimony of all post-Easter apostles. Klaus Wengst rejects as a misinterpretation that Jesus loved him especially and more than the other disciples .

Letters

In the NT, only three places in Paul's letters refer explicitly to homosexual behavior. They characterize it as one of several forms of sexual and social misconduct that are part and parcel of the unbelief of heterosexual non-Christians. Social conditions at the time are also taken into account.

1 Cor 6,9f.

1 Cor 6.9 to 10: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate , nor homosexuals , nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, not revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The highlighted words are in the Greek original malakoi ("sissies") and arsenokoites (" lying with men"). The second word only appears in 1 Timothy 1:10 and in a few extra-biblical reactions to these NT passages. The combination with malakoi occurs only here. The standard translation of these expressions follows the Luther Bible and relates them to pederasty, which was common in society at the time. The Greek Septuagint generally referred to homosexually active men as paidophthoros ("boy abusers").

Malakoi had long been translated as "womanish". It was not until around 1960 that it was translated as “pleasure boy” or “male prostitute” or summarized as “sodomy” or “perversion” with arsenokoites . Since then, arsenokoites has been translated as "sexual perverts", "male homosexuals", "homosexual perpetrators" or "practicing homosexuals". Dale Martin rejects these translations as ideological interpretations, since "lying with men" in antiquity was neither limited to homosexuals nor generally regarded as an abnormality. Malakos described many different male characteristics that were devalued as feminine without defining their sexuality.

Paul names the words in the context of a vices catalog, so he presupposed that the behavior of these two types of people was just as known to the addressees as the other vices and did not need to be explained. Therefore, many exegetes assume that he alluded to Lev 18.22  EU , where the anal intercourse between men in Hebrew is described as "lying with a male as with a woman". Arsenokoites refer to actively penetrating men, Malakoi refer to men who allow themselves to be penetrated.

The catalog lists the behavior of “godless” or “unjust” people in the environment. Paul emphasizes that they have no part in the kingdom of God, so they fell into God's judgment. With this he confirms his demand in 1 Cor 6: 1-6: Christians should settle internal conflicts through mediation and renunciation of rights within their community and not litigate each other in pagan courts. This corresponds to 1 Cor 5,9–13  EU : Christians would have to exclude the sexually licentious ( pornei ), greedy, idol worshipers, blasphemers, robbers or drunkards among their fellow Christians from the congregation. But you should not break off all contact with the “fornicators of this world”, but leave the judgment of them to God. Paul uses the generic term porneia to denote extramarital sexuality, especially those practiced by heterosexual men at the time: for example with strange wives, concubines, prostitutes, slaves, as incest or pederasty.

Against the historical background that the manifestations of same-sex sexual behavior within the Roman-pagan world, which are not threatened with social ostracism or punishment, mainly took place between masters or slave owners on the one hand and slaves or slave boys on the other, and were often closely interwoven with the field of prostitution or appeared directly in the form of prostitution, it becomes clear why μαλακός and ἀρσενοκοίτης in 1 Corinthians each refer to the passive (μαλακός, i.e. the pleasure boy) and active (ἀρσενοκοίτης, i.e. the adult, Roman citizen as a slave owner or as someone who mostly using the services of enslaved male prostitutes for money) partner within the framework of a configuration of the “Roman-priapic” structured, ancient and therefore premodern, integrated into the context of “master” and “slave” or “customer” and “prostitute” Relating to sexuality: On the one hand it was about sexual connotations Relationships between free Romans and slaves, i.e. a clear legal and social power imbalance between the parties involved; on the other hand, these contacts were often integrated into the framework of same-sex prostitution, and in the east of the Roman Empire possibly also connected with the phenomenon of cultic prostitution in the context of polytheistic Customs. The monogamous coexistence of two adult men of the present, who live together voluntarily with mutual consent and on equal social eye level, cannot be attributed to either Rom. 1, 27 or 1 Cor. 6.9 or 1. Tim. 1, 9/10 apply.

Rom 1.26f.

The Epistle to the Romans was 56 in Corinth and is aimed at a non-founded by Paul, predominantly Gentile and persecuted church in Rome. In it Paul unfolds his understanding of Jesus Christ as a saving righteousness of faith that leads to life for all peoples (Rom. 1:17). In the first main part (Rom. 1.18-3.20) he wants to show the inexcusability of Gentiles and Jews in view of the will of God revealed in his creation . The “prophetic judgment speech” against the Gentiles (Rom 1: 18–32) states first of all: God's anger exposes all wickedness and injustice of men. Reason could always know God from his creation. In spite of this, the non-Jews did not honor God and did not thank him, but instead "fell for nothing" and exchanged his imperishable glory for images of imperishable people and animals. As a result, God delivered them to their desires, so that they fell into "uncleanness" and "desecrated" their own bodies. As a first example, he gives in Rom 1.26f. EU :

That is why God delivered them up to dishonorable passions: their wives exchanged natural intercourse with unnatural; in the same way men gave up natural intercourse with women and became passionate about one another; Men fornicated men and received their due reward for their aberration.

This is followed by a catalog of vices for social “doing what is wrong”, which ends with the conclusion: “They know that those who do such things deserve death according to God's law”, but they like other wrongdoers (1.28–32 ). This closes the line of argument: just as people decided against God, although he was recognizable to them, so they decided against his known right and so inevitably draw his judgment upon themselves.

The phrase "That is why God delivered them ..." refers to the biblical principle of the doing-doing-connection : Because people exchanged the Creator for the creatures, God left them to exchange their natural for unnatural passions. Impurity and fornication are self-chosen, God-permitted consequences of the rejection of the Creator, whom everyone could recognize from his creation. Accordingly, Paul saw homosexual practices among Greeks and Romans as a direct effect of denial of God and idol - or image cults. That is why he only mentioned these practices in the descriptive part of Romans, not in the pareneese for his addressees. So he did not write against homosexual Christians or think about homosexual relationships.

Wherein the intercourse of women "against nature" ( para physin ) in v. 26 exists is unclear, as the object “with men” and the phrase “burned with lust for each other” are missing and no other object is given. Ancient Jewish texts understood “unnatural” sexual intercourse by women to be the strictly forbidden zoophilia (Lev 18:23; 20:16); they did not treat female homosexuality. According to Martin Stowasser, v. 26 Men's anal intercourse with women as contraception . As with male homosexuality in v. 27 Paul considered all sexuality that is not for procreation to be unnatural. Even Michael Theobald doubts that Paul in v. 26 condemned lesbian love because it was not problematized either in the OT or in the Jewish tradition. Behind the court speech stands the argument of the created polarity of man and woman to increase (Gen 1,26-28). As "natural" ( kata physin ) in Judaism as in Hellenism since Plato's " Timaeus " only sexuality aimed at procreation counted. However, Paul had consciously spoken of "people", not just of "Gentiles", in order to attach the Jews to their judgments about non-Jews in Rom.

The choice of words in v. 27 theleiai ("feminine") for women, arsenes ("masculine") for men is often interpreted as an allusion to Gen 1.27. The Septuagint translated this verse from the creation story in the same words. The word physis in the Stoa of that time meant the harmoniously ordered “nature”, which Paul equated with “creation” ( ktisis , Rom 1: 20, 25). Marlis Gielen concludes from this that Paul condemned homosexuality as a blatant departure from man and woman in the image of God . For only in monogamy had sexuality for him its place according to creation (1 Cor 7: 2-5). That is why he could only imagine homosexuality as a conscious departure from “natural” heterosexuality. For him it was a form of "fornication" that threatens everyone who does not practice sexuality within marriage.

However, Gielen v. 26 on female homosexuality because v. 27, emphasized, begins with “likewise”, sees the unnatural in the exchange of heterosexual for homosexual intercourse and Paul does not argue in the context with the creation of new life. She referred to 1 Cor 7: 2-5, according to which sexuality in the context of marriage also serves to satisfy instincts. Then Rom 1:26 would be the only passage in the Bible that explicitly mentions female homosexuality. Gielen explains this with the fact that Paul always discussed sexual-ethical issues from a female and male perspective.

1 Tim 1:10

1 Timothy 1.10: The law is ... not for the righteous but kill for lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for people without faith and reverence for those who are father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites , Traffickers, for people who lie and swear perjury and do anything that goes against sound doctrine.

Here Paul taught the meaning of the Torah for Christians around 68, as in 48 in Galatians : The “law” is intended for lawless people to expose their sins. In doing so, he distinguished himself from Jewish Christian “false teachers” in his communities, who continued to make adherence to ritual Torah commandments a condition of salvation for Gentile Christians as well . Paul assumed that the Decalogue would continue to apply to all Christians. Analogous to the "horrors" in the Torah, his catalog of vices compiles various behaviors that are unacceptable for Christians. The list is based on the first, fourth and eighth commandments of the Decalogue (honor God alone, honor father and mother, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not testify wrongly).

The arsenokoites denote like in 1 Cor 6.9 pederasts as an example of former homosexuals. For Paul they violated the prohibition of adultery like heterosexual "fornicators". For him, practiced homosexuality was a breach of God's will on an equal footing with adultery, murder and robbery. For him, all of the offenses listed violated “healthy teaching”, namely the Torah, which is assigned and subordinated to the Gospel, finally fulfilled and authoritatively interpreted by Jesus Christ. Accordingly, the same offer of salvation was valid for homosexuals as for all other "outlaws": The compilation excludes a final damnation of homosexuals.

Jud 7

The author of Jude's epistle warns his addressees against “godless” (false teachers) in their own church (verse 4). With examples from the biblical past (verses 5–7) he illustrates the connection between moral wrongdoing and God's judgment (verse 7): “So are Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, like them, have committed fornication and pursued other flesh are set, for example, and suffer the torment of the eternal fire. "With these sodomites he compares the false teachers of his presence, who are threatened with the same judgment (verse 8):" Likewise are these dreamers, who defile their flesh, despise and despise every rule blaspheme the heavenly powers. "

The phrase "pursue other meat" (literally, "pursue another meat") has often been interpreted as homosexual behavior. Some editions of the Bible translate it to this day as “un-” or “contrary-natural pleasure” and thus enter an interpretation that is not contained in the wording. Experts such as Bailey, John McNeill and William Countryman have rejected this interpretation: The phrase could not denote homosexual intercourse, as it emphasizes the differences between the parties involved. What is meant in the context is a sexual incompatibility between humans and angels. Even outside of the NT, homosexual behavior in Greek was not described as dealing with “different kinds of meat”.

Since “like them” grammatically refers back to the subject of the preceding verse, the intended behavior from Jude 6  EU is inferred: “Even the angels, who did not keep their heavenly rank but left their dwelling, he has for the judgment of the great Day held with eternal bonds in the darkness. ”Just as these angels would have left their assigned domain, so would Sodom and Gomorrah have committed fornication: namely, tried to offend the angels who visited Lot. The author of the letter did not see the comparable sin in homosexuality, but in a crossing of boundaries between human beings and God's being. Behind this is the mythical story of Gen 6: 1-4, according to which heavenly sons of God fathered children with human women who grew up to be giants and heroes of the past.

The connection between divine and human beings was judged by the Jewish tradition of interpretation, such as the Ethiopian Enoch , at the same time as early Christianity as a grave, unforgivable offense for which God eternally punished the fallen angels. The designation "eternal fire" corresponded to the Jewish interpretation of Gen 19, which assumed that the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah would continue to work underground. Therefore, many Jewish and early Christian texts updated Gen 19, but mostly with reference to the breach of hospitality, not to homosexuality (including Mk 6:11; Mt 10:15; 11:24; Lk 10:12; 17:29). So “pursue other flesh” here means sexual assault on different , non-identical beings. Correspondingly, verse 8 accuses heretics among those addressed of having crossed the line between God and man by despising divine authority.

2 Petr 2,6-8

2 Pet 2,6–8: “He also cremated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and condemned them to perish, as an example for all wicked in later times. But he saved the righteous Lot, who suffered from the dissolute life of those who despised God; for this righteous man, who lived among them, had to see and hear their illegal actions day after day, and this tormented the righteous man day after day. The Lord can save the upright from trial; but with the unrighteous he can wait to punish them on the day of judgment, especially those who allow themselves to be ruled by the filthy lust of their bodies and who despise the power of the Lord. These cheeky and presumptuous people do not shy away from blaspheming the unearthly powers ... "

The exhortation is similar to that in the letter of Jude, on which 2 Petr depends in literary terms. The choice of words, which is based on the contrast between “wicked” and “righteous”, is similar to Romans 1, so that the author is considered a student of Paul. He also warns his readers against false teachers in his own circle (v. 1), reminds of the imprisonment of the fallen angels (v. 4), the flood (v. 5), the fall of Sodom (v. 6) and the denial of heavenly authority by the false teachers ( Verse 10). He describes them as people who "had known the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ", but then turned away from the "path of righteousness" and returned to the "filth of this world" (verses 20f.). These former Christians set the "dissolute life" of the Sodomites as "lavish life", "indulgence", "gossip and indulge", "have eyes for the adulteress", attracting unstable people, "greed", false prophecy based on the model of Balaam , "Puffy and meaningless speeches" continued. The mention of an "adulteress" indicates heterosexual promiscuity with prostitutes. The phrase "let the filthy lust of your body dominate your body" in Greek translations of the Bible stood for libertinage , not homosexuality.

Nevertheless, some conservative interpreters equate the heresy against which 2 Petr warns with homosexuality or the gay and lesbian movement of the present. Homosexual Christians, on the other hand, refer to 1 Petr 3, 8-10  EU : “Finally: be all of one mind, full of compassion and brotherly love, be merciful and humble! Do not retaliate for evil for evil, nor for offense for offense! Instead, bless; for you are called to receive blessings. ”Accordingly, God's blessing is due to homosexual as well as heterosexual couples.

literature

Bible
German-language publications
  • Thomas Hieke: Does the Old Testament know and condemn homosexuality? In: Stephan Goertz (Ed.): “Who am I to condemn him?” Homosexuality and the Catholic Church (Catholicism in transition 3). Freiburg i.Br .: Herder, 2015, 19-52. Available online .
  • Hedwig Porsch: Sexual Moral Conditions of Understanding: Same-Sex Partnerships in Discourse. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 3-17-020439-4 (pp. 282–289: Biblical foundation ; pp. 360–368: Consensual biblical statements )
  • Valeria Hinck: Love dispute. Biblical pleading against the exclusion of homosexual people. New edition Dortmund-Verlag.de 2012 ISBN 978-3-943262-26-1 ( review )
  • Alexander Desečar : The Bible and Homosexuality: Critique of Revisionist Exegesis. Writings of the Initiativkreis kath. Lay people and priests in the Diocese of Augsburg eV, volume 43, 2001
  • Heinzpeter Hempelmann: Does God love gays and lesbians? Viewpoints for Discussing the Bible and Homosexuality. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 2001, ISBN 3-417-24709-8
  • Larry Hogan: Homosexuality in the Old and New Testament. In: Andreas Laun (Ed.): Homosexuality from a Catholic perspective. Franz Sales, 2001, ISBN 3-7721-0239-5
  • Helmut Dopffel: About God- deniers, molesters and same-sex partnerships. The Bible in the Church's dispute over homosexuality. Pastoraltheologie 87 (1998), pp. 132-154
  • Elke Hartmann : Article Homosexuality. In: The New Pauly. Encyclopedia of Antiquity, Volume 5. Stuttgart / Weimar 1998, ISBN 978-3-476-01470-2 , columns 703-707
  • Martin Stowasser: Homosexuality and the Bible: Exegetical and hermeneutical considerations on a difficult topic. In: New Testament Studies 43, 1997, pp. 503-526
  • Karl Hoheisel: Article homosexuality. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum Volume 16, Stuttgart 1994, columns 289–364
  • Willy Schottroff: Same-sex love. In: Luise and Willy Schottroff: The power of the resurrection: Social historical interpretations of the Bible. Christian Kaiser, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-459-01725-2 , pp. 126-132
  • Horst Balz: Biblical statements on homosexuality. Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 31 (1987), pp. 60–71
  • Jürgen Becker: On the problem of homosexuality in the Bible. Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 31 (1987), pp. 36–59
  • Eckart Otto : Article Homosexuality, II. Biblical. In: Religion Past and Present . Concise dictionary for theology and religious studies Volume 3. Berlin / New York 1986, column 1884.
  • Hans Georg Wiedemann: Homosexuality and the Bible. In: Helmut Kentler (ed.): The humanity of sexuality. Reports - analyzes - comments triggered by the question: How homosexual can pastors be? Christian Kaiser, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-459-01479-2 , pp. 89-106.
  • Georg Strecker: Homosexuality in a Biblical View. KuD 18 (1982), pp. 127-141
  • Else Kähler: Exegesis of two New Testament passages (Romans 1.18–32; 1. Corinthians 6.9–11). In: Theodore Bovet (ed.): Problems of homophilia from a medical, theological and legal point of view. Katzmann, Tübingen 1965, pp. 12-43
  • Simon Jan Ridderbos: Bible and Homosexuality. In: Hermanus Bianchi and others (ed.): The homosexual next: A symposium. Furche, Hamburg 1963, pp. 50-73
  • Hans-Joachim Schoeps : Homosexuality and the Bible. ZEE 6 (1962), pp. 369-374
  • Anonymous: Homosexuality and the Bible, by a Catholic clergyman. In: Magnus Hirschfeld : Yearbook for sexual intermediate stages 4 (1902), pp. 199–243
English language publications
  • Justin R. Cannon: The Bible, Christianity, & Homosexuality. Createspace, 2012, ISBN 1-4382-4961-6
  • Anthony Heacock: Jonathan Loved David: Manly Love in the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Sex. Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011, ISBN 1-906055-50-5
  • Andreas J. Köstenberger, David Jones: God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. 2nd edition, Crossway Books, 2010, ISBN 1-4335-0364-6 ( pp. 130–146 : Abandoning natural Relations: The Biblical Verdict on Homosexuality. )
  • Donald J. Wold: Out of Order: Homosexuality in the Bible and the Ancient Near East. Cedar Leaf Press, 2009, ISBN 0-9820413-1-4
  • Thomas E. Schmidt: Straight & Narrow? Compassion & Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate. InterVarsity Press, 2009, ISBN 0-8308-1858-8 (contains extensive Bible exegesis)
  • Kerby Anderson: A Biblical Point of View on Homosexuality. Harvest House Publishers, Oregon 2008, ISBN 0-7369-2118-3
  • Joe Dallas: The Gay Gospel? How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible. Harvest House Publishers, Oregon 2007, ISBN 0-7369-1834-5
  • Deryn Guest, Robert E. Goss, Mona West (Eds.): The Queer Bible Commentary. SCM Press, London 2006, ISBN 0-334-04021-3
  • Theodore W. Jennings : Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel. Continuum, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8264-1712-4
  • Tom Allen: Over the Wall: What the Bible does not say about homosexuality. AuthorHouse, 2005, ISBN 1-4208-2666-2
  • Steven Greenberg: Wrestling with God and Men. Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-299-19090-3
  • Martti Nissinen: Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2004, ISBN 0-8006-3645-7
  • Philo Thelos: God Is Not a Homophobe: An Unbiased Look at Homosexuality in the Bible. Trafford Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-4120-2030-1
  • Dan O. Via, Robert AJ Gagnon: Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views. Fortress Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8006-3618-X
  • Raymond J. Frontain: Reclaiming the Sacred: The Bible in Gay and Lesbian Culture. 2nd edition, Routledge, 2003, ISBN 1-56023-355-9
  • Robert AJ Gagnon: The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. Abingdon Press, 2001, ISBN 0-687-02279-7
  • Daniel Helminiak : What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality. Alamo Square Press, 2000, ISBN 1-886360-09-X
  • James B. DeYoung: Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law. Kregel Publications, 2000, ISBN 0-8254-2492-5
  • Mona West , Robert Goss : Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible. Pilgrim Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8298-1397-7
  • Stanley J. Grenz: Homosexuality and Biblical Authority. In: Stanley J. Grenz: Welcoming but Not Affirming: An Evangelical Response to Homosexuality. Westminster John Knox Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-664-25776-7 , pp. 81-100
  • Robert L. Brawley: Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality. Listening to scripture. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, ISBN 0-664-25638-4
  • Robert AJ Gagnon: Sexuality. In: Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Baker Academic, 1995, ISBN 978-0-8010-2694-2 , pp. 739-748
  • Marion L. Soards: Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the Church Today. Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, ISBN 0-664-25595-7
  • Victor Paul Furnish: The Bible and Homosexuality: Reading the Texts in Context. In: Jeffrey S. Siker (Ed.): Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-664-25545-9 , pp. 18-38
  • Thomas Marland Horner: Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times. Westminster John Knox Press, 1978, ISBN 0-664-24185-9
New Testament
  • Michael Theobald: Paul and same sex. Plea for a sensible use of scripture In: Stephan Goertz (ed.): “Who am I to condemn him?” Homosexuality and the Catholic Church (Catholicism in transition 3). Freiburg i.Br .: Herder, 2015, 53-88.
  • Keith Sharpe: The Gay Gospels: Good News for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People. John Hunt Publishing, 2011, ISBN 1-84694-548-8
  • William Loader: Sexuality in the New Testament: Understanding the Key Texts. Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, ISBN 0-664-23161-6 (pp. 7-34: With a Man as with a Woman )
  • Monja Elisabeth Art : "Love one another!" The compatibility of homosexuality and Christian faith. Lit Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3-8258-1735-0 (NT exegesis: pp. 134–182)
  • Rainer Stuhlmann, M. Hasitschka, Wolfgang Stegemann: Homosexuality in the New Testament? In: Journal for New Testament Theology 2 (1998), pp. 53–68
  • Richard B. Hays : The Moral Vision of the New Testament. A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. (1996) HarperOne, 2013, ISBN 0-06-231344-4 (pp. 376-400: Homosexuality )
  • Ulrich W. Mauser: Creation, Sexuality, and Homosexuality in the New Testament. In: Choon-Leong Seow (Ed.): Homosexuality and Christian Community. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-664-25664-7 , pp. 39-52
  • Robin Scroggs: The New Testament and Homosexuality. Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate. Fortress Press, New York 1984, ISBN 0-8006-1854-8
  • John Boswell: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. (1980) University of Chicago Press, 2009, ISBN 0-226-06714-9
Paul
  • Marlis Gielen: But the body is not for fornication ... (1Cor. 6, 13). Possibilities and limits of today's reception of sexual ethical statements by Paul from an exegetical perspective. In: Marlis Gielen (Hrsg.): Paulus in conversation - topics Pauline theology. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 3-17-020966-3 , pp. 223-246
  • Angelika Winterer: Wrong sexuality - a controversial Pauline word. An exegetical study on Rom 1.26f. in the argumentation structure of Romans and in the cultural-historical-social-historical context. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-631-53766-2
  • Ekkehard W. Stegemann : Antihomosexuality in Paul. In: Ekkehard W. Stegemann: Paulus and the world. Essays. Theological Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-290-17364-X , pp. 291–301
  • Michael Theobald: Rom. 1.26f .: A Pauline directive on homosexuality? A plea for a sensible use of the font. In: Michael Theobald: Studies on Romans. 2nd edition, Tübingen 2003, pp. 511-518
  • Holger Tiedemann: Paul and desire. Love, lust and ultimate goals, or: the law in the limbs. Radius, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-87173-251-6
  • Holger Tiedemann: The experience of the flesh: Paul and the burden of lust. Radius, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-87173-162-5
  • Klaus Wengst : Paul and homosexuality. Reflections on Rom. 1, 26 f. In: Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 31 (1987), pp. 72–81
  • Peter von der Osten-Sacken : Pauline Gospel and Homosexuality. (1985) In: Peter von der Osten Sacken: The God of Hope. Collected essays on the theology of Paul. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2014, ISBN 978-3-374-03086-6 , pp. 425–455
Jesus

Web links


Single texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nicholas de Lange (Ed.): Penguin Dictionary of Judaism. 2008, p. 587
  2. ^ Victor Paul Furnish: The Bible and Homosexuality: Reading the Texts in Context. In: Jeffrey S. Siker (Ed.): Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate. Westminster 1994, p. 19
  3. ^ Rainer Stuhlmann: Wedding and Blessing. Biblical-theological points of view for the discussion of current questions. Practical Theologie 84 (1995), pp. 487-503
  4. ↑ Udo Rauchfleisch: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals: Lifestyles, Prejudices, Insights. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 3-525-40415-8 , p. 230
  5. ↑ Hedwig Porsch: Sexual-Moral Understanding Conditions: Same-Sex Partnerships in Discourse. Stuttgart 2008, p. 284
  6. ↑ Wiebke Krohn: The problem of church official acts on same-sex couples. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 3-89971-851-8 , p. 114
  7. ↑ Eckart Otto: The Torah, studies on the Pentateuch. Harrassowitz, 2009, ISBN 3-447-05901-X , p. 68
  8. ↑ Renate Jost: Women's power and men's love: egalitarian utopias from the early days of Israel. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-019511-5 , p. 158 and fn. 91
  9. ↑ Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom: Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - an anamnesis from the history of religion. De Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-11-020079-1 , pp. 259f.
  10. ^ Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins, Avram I. Reisner: Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah. In: Walter Homolka: The Jewish marriage law. De Gruyter, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-89949-661-2 , pp. 195f.
  11. ↑ Saul M. Olyan: “And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman”: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. In: Journal of the History of Sexuality, 1994, pp. 179-206.
  12. ↑ Klaus Haacker : Homosexuality in a biblical perspective. In: Hellmut Zschoch (ed.): Love - Life - Church Doctrine. Contributions to the discussion about sexuality and ways of life, marriage and blessing. Foedus, Wuppertal 1998, pp. 37-50; Renate Jost: Frauenmacht und Männerliebe , Stuttgart 2006, p. 159, fn. 92
  13. ↑ Roland Deines : The Apostle Decree. In: Jörg Frey, Daniel R. Schwartz, Stephanie Gripentrog (eds.): Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Brill, Leiden 2007, ISBN 90-04-15838-3 , p. 381
  14. ↑ Christine Stark: “Cult prostitution” in the Old Testament? Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-53021-8 , p. 131 .
  15. ↑ Renate Jost: Women's power and men's love: egalitarian utopias from the early days of Israel. Stuttgart 2006, p. 159 and fn. 93
  16. ↑ a b Martin Stowasser: Homosexualität und Bibel , 1997, p. 507
  17. ↑ Rainer Stuhlmann: The homosexual love and the Bible. Everyone has their own gift from God - one so the other. In: Hans-Georg Wiedemann (Ed.): Homosexual. The book for gay lovers, their loved ones and their opponents. Kreuz-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-7831-1376-8 , p. 110f.
  18. ↑ Christine Stark: “Cult prostitution” in the Old Testament? Göttingen 2006, p. 64, fn. 289
  19. ↑ Klara Butting: Can love be a sin? Same-sex love, the biblical image of man and the passing on of life. In: Ute Sauerbrey (Ed.): Be a meat. Materials on homosexuality and the church. Wichern, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-88981-137-X , pp. 11-23
  20. ↑ Thomas Römer: Homosexuality in the Hebrew Bible? Some reflections on Leviticus 18 and 20, Genesis 19 and the David-Jonathan story. In: Michaela Bauks, Kathrin Liess, Peter Riede (eds.): What is a person that you remember? (Psalm 8,5) Aspects of a theological anthropology. Festschrift for Bernd Janowski on his 65th birthday. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2008, ISBN 3-7887-2285-1 , p. 440
  21. ↑ Thomas M. Horner: Jonathan Loved David , 1978, p. 78
  22. ↑ LGBTQ's and Christian Faith Theological findings (from: Equal Opportunities Application of the Konvent KonsulT to the KL of the NEK, September 15, 2009, Text PN Christiansen)
  23. ↑ “Cult prostitution in the Old Testament”: The Qedeschen of the Hebrew Bible and the motif of fornication from 2016 by Christine Stark
  24. ↑ Hure / Hurerei (AT) Text from bibelwissenschaft.de which also deals with temple prostitution in section 3. Qedeschen
  25. ↑ Book "Temple Prostitution in Antiquity. Facts and Fictions." von Scheer, Tanja S .; with the collaboration of Martin Lindner (Ed.) Berlin 2009. ISBN 978-3-938032-26-8
  26. ↑ Erhard S. Gerstenberger: The Old Testament German (ATD), Volume 6: The third book of Mose (Leviticus). 1993, p. 272
  27. ^ Stanley Grenz: The Prohibitions of the Holiness Code. In: Welcoming but not affirming , 1998, pp. 40-47; Robert AJ Gagnon: Leviticus 18:13, 20:13 Laws. In: The Bible and Homosexual Practice , 2001, pp. 111-146
  28. ↑ Werner Führer: Misguided Church: an exegetical-theological review of the synodal resolutions on the blessing of homosexual partnerships in member churches of the EKD. Idea eV, Wetzlar 2003, p. 8
  29. ↑ Stefan Alkier: Can love be a sin? In: Stefan Alkier, Kristina Dronsch (Eds.): HIV / Aids - Ethical Perspectives. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-11-021266-8 , pp. 341–358, here: p. 355
  30. ↑ Rainer Kessler: Homosexuality in the Hebrew Bible. In Rainer Kessler: The way to life: Ethics of the Old Testament. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2017, ISBN 978-3-579-08135-9 , pp. 230-232
  31. ^ Derrick Sherwin Bailey: Homosexuality and the Western Christian tradition. Longmans / Green, 1955. Referred to by Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom. Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - a history of religion. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-11-020079-1 , pp. 183-185
  32. ↑ Hedwig Porsch: Sexual-Moral Understanding Conditions: Same-Sex Partnerships in Discourse. Stuttgart 2008, p. 147
  33. ↑ Christa Spilling-Nöker : We won't let you, you bless us: For the discussion about blessing and coexistence of same-sex couples in the rectory. 2006, p. 41
  34. ↑ George Edwards: Gay / lesbian Liberation. A Biblical Perspective. Pilgrim Press, New York 1984, p. 46
  35. ^ Martti Nissinen: Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Minneapolis 2004, p. 48
  36. ↑ Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom. Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - a history of religion. Berlin 2006, p. 187 and note 27
  37. ↑ Robert Ignatius Letellier: Day in Mamre, Night in Sodom: Abraham and Lot in Genesis 18 and 19. Brill Academic Publications, Leiden 1995, ISBN 90-04-10250-7 (literary analysis: pp. 39-66)
  38. ↑ Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom. Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - a history of religion. Berlin 2006, pp. 188-190
  39. ^ Wolfgang Oswald: State theory in ancient Israel. The political discourse in the Pentateuch and in the history books of the Old Testament. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 3-17-020435-1 , p. 167
  40. ↑ Claus Westermann: Biblical Commentary Old Testament, Volume 1/2: Genesis chap. 12-36. 2nd edition, Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1981, ISBN 3-7887-0544-2 , p. 363f.
  41. ↑ Martin Stowasser: Homosexualität und Bibel , 1997, p. 504
  42. ↑ Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom: Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - an anamnesis from the history of religion. Berlin 2006, pp. 192-195
  43. ↑ Hans-Winfried Jüngling: Judges 19 - A plea for royalty. Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1981, ISBN 88-7653-084-3 , pp. 204-211
  44. ↑ Ilse Müllner: Deadly differences. Sexual violence as violence against others in Ri 19. In: Marie-Theres Wacker, Luise Schottroff (Hrsg.): Born from the roots: Christian-Feminist Exegesis dealing with anti-Judaism. Brill, Leiden 1995, ISBN 90-04-10336-8 , pp. 81-102, here: p. 89
  45. ↑ Christa Spilling-Nöker: We won't let you, you bless us: For the discussion about blessing and coexistence of same-sex couples in the rectory. 2006, p. 42
  46. ^ Marie-Theres Wacker: Cult prostitution in ancient Israel? Research myths, traces, theses. In: Tanja Susanne Scheer: Temple prostitution in antiquity: facts and fictions. Verlag Antike, 2009, ISBN 3-938032-26-X , pp. 57-61
  47. ↑ Christine Stark: “Cult prostitution” in the Old Testament? Göttingen 2006, p. 148ff.
  48. ↑ Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom: Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - an anamnesis from the history of religion. Berlin 2006, p. 252
  49. ↑ Christine Stark: “Cult prostitution” in the Old Testament? Göttingen 2006, p. 2
  50. ^ Hermann-Josef Stipp: The Qedešen in the Old Testament. In: Hermann-Josef Stipp: Old Testament Studies. Work on priestly scriptures, Deuteronomic history and prophecy. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 3-11-030541-0 , pp. 357-388, here: p. 373
  51. ^ Walter Dietrich, Thomas Naumann: The Samuel books. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1995, ISBN 3-534-10027-1 , p. 25
  52. ↑ Manfred Herzer: Magnus Hirschfeld: Life and work of a Jewish, gay and socialist sexologist. MännerschwarmSkript Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-935596-28-6 , p. 96
  53. ↑ Thomas M. Horner: Jonathan Loved David , 1978, pp. 26-39
  54. ↑ Erhard S. Gerstenberger: The Old Testament German (ATD), Volume 6: The third book of Mose (Leviticus). 1993, pp. 271f.
  55. ↑ Karl Hoheisel: Article homosexuality. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum Volume 16 , Stuttgart 1994, columns 331–332
  56. ↑ Silvia Schroer, Thomas Staubli: Saul, David and Jonathan - a love triangle? BiKi 51 (1996), pp. 15-22
  57. ↑ Markus Zehnder: Exegetical observations on the David-Jonathan stories. Biblica 79/1998, pp. 153-179
  58. ^ Robert AJ Gagnon: David and Jonathan. In: The Bible and Homosexual Practice , 2001, pp. 93–99, here: p. 98
  59. ↑ Saul M. Olyan: Social Inequalitiy in the World of the Text: The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 3-525-55024-3 , p. 85, fn. 1
  60. ↑ Terry Castle (Ed.): The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-231-12511-9 , p. 108
  61. ↑ Thomas M. Horner: Jonathan loved David , 1978, p. 20
  62. ↑ Monicque Sharman: The Bible, Sex, and This Generation: How God's Word Applies Today. iUniverse, 2003, ISBN 1-4697-2973-3 , p. 148
  63. ↑ Innocent Himbaza, Adrian Schenker, Jean-Baptiste Edart (Ed.): The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality. Catholic University of America Press, 2012, p. 30
  64. ^ Rebecca T. Alpert: Judaism. In: Bonnie Zimmerman (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures. Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-76373-8 , p. 422
  65. ^ Günther Gollner: Homosexuality. Criticism of ideology and demythologizing legislation. Duncker & Humblot, 1974, ISBN 3-428-03129-6 , p. 74
  66. ↑ Heinzpeter Hempelmann: Does God love gays and lesbians? To discuss the Bible and homosexuality. Wuppertal 2001, p. 26 f.
  67. ^ Dan Otto Via, Robert AJ Gagnon: Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views. 2003, pp. 69-74.
  68. ↑ Wiebke Krohn: The problem of church official acts on same-sex couples , Göttingen 2011, p. 129f.
  69. ↑ Hedwig Porsch: Sexual-Moral Understanding Conditions: Same-Sex Partnerships in Discourse. Stuttgart 2008, p. 194
  70. ↑ Renate Kirchhoff: Sin against one's own body. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 978-3-525-53372-7 , p. 27 and fn. 72
  71. ^ Bob Davies, Lori Rentzel: Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men and Women. Inter Varsity Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8308-1653-4 , p. 185
  72. ^ Andreas Mohr: Contributions to Christian Anthropology , Kassel 2007, p. 56f. and 73-75.
  73. ↑ Schalom Ben-Chorin, Verena Lenzen: Brother Jesus: the Nazarenes in a Jewish view. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 3-579-05343-4 , p. 40
  74. ↑ Stephan Leimgruber: Christian Sexual Education: An emancipatory reorientation for school, youth work and counseling. Random House, 2011, ISBN 3-641-07214-X , p. 57
  75. ↑ Peter Dulschnigg: The Gospel of Mark. Theological Commentary on the New Testament, Volume 2. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-17-019770-1 , p. 203 and fn. 19
  76. ↑ Carsten Jochum-Bortfeld: The despised stand up: contradictions and counterproposals of the Gospel of Mark to the images of man of his time. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 3-17-020162-X , pp. 219f. and fn. 119
  77. ↑ Wolfgang Stegemann: Did Jesus abolish the dietary laws of the Torah? In: Petra von Gemünden, David G. Horrell, Max Küchler (Hrsg.): Jesus - Gestalt und Gestaltungen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-647-59362-3 , pp. 29-49
  78. ↑ Martin Hengel: Jesus and the Gospels: Kleine Schriften V. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, p. 360f.
  79. ↑ Wolfgang Stegemann: Jesus and his time. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 287f.
  80. ↑ Werner Wolbert : What should we do ?: Biblical instruction and ethical reflection. Academic Press, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-7278-1534-8 , p. 134
  81. ↑ Wolfhart Pannenberg: Standards for the Church's judgment on homosexuality. (1994) In: Wolfhart Pannenberg: Contributions to Ethics. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 978-3-525-56950-4 , pp. 99-102, here: p. 99 ; Between skepticism and hope: On the situation of the churches in Germany. (1997) In: Wolfhart Pannenberg: Contributions to Systematic Theology Volume 3: Church and Ecumenism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-3-525-56197-3 , pp. 43-64, here: p. 47
  82. ^ Ulrich W. Mauser: Creation, Sexuality, and Homosexuality in the New Testament. In: Choon-Leong Seow (Ed.): Homosexuality and Christian Community. 1996, p. 48
  83. ^ Thomas E. Schmidt: Straight and Narrow? , Pp. 39-48.
  84. ^ Via and Gagnon: Homosexuality and the Bible, pp. 71f.
  85. ^ Robert AJ Gagnon: Online Notes to "Two View" N65
  86. ^ Andreas Mohr: Contributions to Christian anthropology, comments and additions , pp. 44–47.
  87. ^ Andreas Mohr: Contributions to Christian anthropology, comments and additions , pp. 27–50.
  88. ^ Andreas Mohr: Contributions to Christian anthropology, comments and additions , pp. 42–47.
  89. ↑ Michael Gray-Fow: Pederasty, the Scantinian law, and the Roman army. In: The Journal of Psychohistory, Volume 13, 4/1986, pp. 449-460.
  90. ↑ Thomas Horner: Jonathan loved David. 1978, p. 122; Donald Mader: The Entimos Pais of Matthew 8: 5-13 and Luke 7: 1-10. In: Homosexuality and Religion and Philosophy. Harland Publishing, 1998, pp. 223-235; Daniel Helminiak: What the Bible really says about Homosexuality. 2000, pp. 127-129; Theodore W. Jennings, Tat-Siong Benny Liew: Mistaken Identities but Model Faith: Rereading the Centurion, the Chap, and the Christ in Matthew 8: 5-13. In: Journal of Biblical Literature 123, 2004, pp. 467-494; Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom , Berlin 2006, p. 574
  91. ^ Robert AJ Gagnon (Pittsburgh, April 24, 2007): Did Jesus Approve of a Homosexual Couple in the Story of the Centurion at Capernaum?
  92. ^ William RG Loader: The New Testament on Sexuality. William B Eerdman, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8028-6724-7 , p. 337
  93. ↑ Matthias Konradt: Israel, Church and the Nations in the Gospel of Matthew. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 3-16-149331-1 , p. 80
  94. ↑ Gerd Theißen: The shadow of the Galilean: Jesus and his time in narrative form. 25th edition. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2015, ISBN 978-3-579-06404-8 , p. 150
  95. ^ Fritz Rienecker: Linguistic key to the Greek New Testament. 17th edition, Gießen / Basel 1984, p. 11
  96. ↑ Friedrich Schulthess: On the language of the Gospels. Appendix A: racha (raka). In: Journal for New Testament Science 21/1922, pp. 241–243
  97. ^ Warren Johansson. “Whosoever Shall Say to His Brother…” . In: The Cabirion and Gay Books Bulletin, No. 10/1984, pp. 2-10; David F. Greenberg: The Construction of Homosexuality. University Of Chicago Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-226-30628-5 , pp. 211 ; Wayne R. Dynes, Stephen Donaldson: Homosexuality and Religion and Philosophy. Garland, 1992, ISBN 0-8153-0767-5 , pp. 213f .; Byrne Fone: Homophobia. A history. Metropolitan Books, 2001, ISBN 1-4668-1707-0 , pp. 94f. L. Robert Arthur: The Sex Texts: Sexuality, Gender, and Relationships in the Bible. Dorrance Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4349-2946-4 , p. 72 ;
  98. ^ Robert AJ Gagnon: The Bible and Homosexual Practice. 2001, p. 170
  99. ↑ Andreas Krass: The Favorite Disciple and the Consequences. In: Josch Hoenes, Robin Bauer, Volker Woltersdorff (eds.): Indescribably masculine. Perspectives critical of heteronormativity. Swarm of Men, ISBN 3-86300-027-7 , pp. 43–62
  100. ↑ George Steiner: The Two Suppers . In: George Steiner: No Passions Spent: Essays 1978–1996. Faber and Faber, London 1996, pp. 390-419
  101. ↑ Theodore Jennings: The Man Jesus Loved. Pilgrim Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8298-1535-X
  102. ^ Martti Nissinen: Homoeroticism in the Biblical World. Minneapolis 1998, p. 122
  103. ↑ Klaus Wengst: The Gospel of John. Volume 2: Chapters 11–21. 2nd edition, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-17-019815-9 , p. 112, fn. 65
  104. ↑ Eckhard J. Schnabel : The first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Historical-Theological Interpretation Volume 4. SCM R. Brockhaus, 2006, ISBN 3-417-29724-9 , p. 315
  105. ↑ Dale B. Martin: Arsenokoites and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences. In: Robert L. Brawley (Ed.): Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality: Listening to Scripture. Westminster 1996, pp. 118 and 124
  106. ^ William RG Loader: The New Testament on Sexuality. William B Eerdman, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8028-6724-7 , p. 329
  107. ↑ Eckhard J. Schnabel: The first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Historical-Theological Interpretation Volume 4. 2006, pp. 291–293
  108. ↑ Robin Scroggs: The New Testament and Homosexuality , 1983, pp. 62-65, 101-109.
  109. ↑ Christa Spilling-Nöker: We won't let you, you bless us , 2006, p. 50.
  110. ↑ Marlis Gielen: But the body is not for fornication , in: Gielen (Ed.): Paulus in conversation , p. 239.
  111. ↑ Christa Spilling-Nöker: We won't let you, you bless us then , 2006, p. 51: The examination of the relevant biblical statements on homosexuality, taking into account their context and their socio-historical background, has led to the result that in the Bible only very specific forms of homosexual behavior are rejected, namely homosexual rape, cultic homosexuality, cultic prostitution, pederasty and perverted heterosexuality. Therefore, a general rejection or even condemnation of practiced homosexuality cannot be inferred from the biblical evidence.
  112. ↑ Udo Schnelle: Paulus. Life and thought. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-012856-X , pp. 334–342
  113. ^ Ekkehard W. Stegemann: Antihomosexuality in Paulus. In: Christina Tuor-Kurth, Peter Wick (ed.) Ekkehard W. Stegemann: Paulus and the world. Essays. Theologischer Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 978-3-290-17364-7 , pp. 291–302, here: p. 297ff.
  114. ↑ Klaus Wengst: Paulus und die Homosexualität , 1987, pp. 74 ff .; Michael Theobald: Rom 1.26f. , P. 513
  115. ↑ Christa Spilling-Nöker: We won't let you, you bless us , 2006, pp. 48–50.
  116. ↑ Michael Theobald: Rom 1.26f. , Tübingen 2003, pp. 513-515
  117. ↑ Marlis Gielen: Paulus in Conversation - Topics of Pauline theology. Stuttgart 2009, p. 241 and note 73-75
  118. ↑ Marlis Gielen: Paulus in Conversation - Topics of Pauline theology. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 3-17-020966-3 , p. 240 and footnote 72
  119. ↑ Heinz-Werner Neudorfer: The first letter of Paul to Timotheus. R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 2012, ISBN 3-417-29721-4 , pp. 67-81
  120. ^ Jostein Børtnes: Heresy and Sodomy. In: Tomas Hägg: Church and Heretics: Ways and ailments of Christianity. Böhlau, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20465-5 , pp. 117–148, here: p. 127
  121. ^ Andreas Mohr: Contributions to Christian Anthropology, Volume 1. Kasseler University, 2007, ISBN 3-89958-299-3 , p. 56.
  122. ↑ Henning Paulsen: The second Peter and the Jude: Critical-exegetical commentary on the New Testament, Volume 12/2. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 978-3-525-51626-3 , pp. 61-65
  123. ↑ Michael Brinkschröder: Sodom as a symptom: Same-sex sexuality in the Christian imaginary - an anamnesis from the history of religion. Berlin 2006, p. 526, fn. 117
  124. ↑ Thomas R. Schreiner: 1, 2 Peter, Jude: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture. Broadman Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8054-0137-0 p. 456, fn. 42
  125. ↑ G. Ancel Killion. A Better Understanding: Xlibris, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4415-7987-4 , p. 47 ; Ruth Ann Bruce: When Homosexuality Invades the Family. Xulon Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-59467-186-9 , p. 87
  126. ^ Gregor Schorberger: gay + catholic: a Christian worship community. epubli GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8442-4999-6 , p. 150