The Clobber Verses: Decoded Genesis 19:1-38, Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, and Romans 1:25-27

Just a few months before leaving the priesthood, I had been transferred to a small parish in South Carolina. When our family made the big move, it was a bit of a culture shock. I had never seen so many rebel flags in my entire life as I did in our time in Columbia, the state capital. This resulted in some important conversations with my kids about race, the Confederacy, and the horrific history of slavery in America. My wife and I decided to take the kids to a plantation a couple of hours away that was owned and operated by a Black non-profit to help educate people about the realities of the Civil War and slavery.

As we strolled through the massive property, we walked through quarters where enslaved people were forced to live. As I entered one of the tiny buildings, I realized that the setup of this space was very unlike the other cabins: this was a church or meeting house. I stood there in my riassa (the Orthodox equivalent of a cassock) and surveyed the room. Next to the entrance door was a large poster board that told the story of the chapel. The placard explained that sermons were often taught, both in the main congregations in town and here at this chapel for the enslaved, the Biblical stance on slavery and subjugation. I read in horror as one of the sermons once given in this very room where I now stood. What was most alarming about these grotesque words is that each line was being justified with scripture: Exodus 21:2-6, Leviticus 25:44-46, Colossians 3:22, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, and Ephesians 6:5. I can not remember exactly which of these verses were used in the sermon, but the very fact that they exist at all in a religious text is altogether disgusting.

How is it possible that the same Bible used to justify slavery also inspired many of those who fought against it? Within the scriptures, these abolitionists found verses calling for liberation, freedom, justice, and to confront oppression.

Yet, at that moment, a revelation hit me: I was no different than these pastors of old. Someday, one of my own sermons could be plastered in some museum. I, too, had used the scripture many times to make justifications for the church's stance on the queer community. Would my words, upheld by scripture, eventually be looked upon in disgust by someone hundreds of years from now? These questions haunted me on my ride home, and when I returned, I locked myself away in study for many days as I scoured the scriptures on the subject of homosexuality. Much like slavery, there are just a few short verses within the canon of scripture that, for many, fortify the idea that being gay is a sin: Genesis 19:1-38, Leviticus 18:22; 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, and Romans 1:25-27. If Christianity had gotten it so wrong on the issue of slavery, with most churches eventually doing a complete 180 on the subject, then is it possible we might eventually see the light on this topic as well?

A few days later, I returned from my study and told my wife, “I have been wrong. I don’t know what to do, but I’ve been teaching a lie: the Bible does not condemn homosexuality.”

Unholy Sh+t

Genesis 18-19

Pride Month Special Edition

The Clobber Verses: Decoded

Shortly after leaving the priesthood, I was challenged by a young Primitive Baptist seminarian to a public debate on the subject of whether the Bible condemns homosexuality (if you’ve got a couple of hours to waste, you can watch it here). This became the first, but certainly not the last, time that I publicly refuted many of the key verses used against our community. This will be the first time I have ever put all that work into one place. You are welcome to copy, reproduce, and distribute this information as you please. Use it at Thanksgiving dinner when your weird uncle makes things starts ranting about drag shows. Copy and paste it into the comment sections when the trolls attack you. You do not need to credit me; I am more concerned about ensuring you are equipped with the tools you need to take down those you wish to cause you harm, question your personhood, or dim your light.

As we begin this journey together, I invite you to realize that the canon of scripture is a centuries-long conversation of humans attempting to understand the divine and natural order of the world. God begins as a being who frequently becomes tired, resting after creation and destruction; a God who doesn’t always know what’s going on, like when Satan sneaks into his living room. What will become increasingly apparent as we walk through these passages together is that the context in which these verses live is not about romantic or erotic, mutually beneficial, consensual sexual relationships with the same sex. These verses are, all together, condemning a particular practice within the ancient world.

Genesis 19:1-38

If you have heard the story of Sodom and Gomorrah before, in any shape or form, you were likely left with the distinct impression that these towns were destroyed because the twin cities were one massive Pride parade 24/7. The visual that most modern pastors portray is one of a big leather daddy party gone horribly wrong, but since God had yet to invent AIDS, he did things the old-fashioned way with a bit of fire and brimstone to wipe out an entire queer club. They depict them as a town entirely peopled with a bunch of wicked homosexuals running around butt f+cking each other into oblivion until God decided it was just too much for him to handle, so he went all, “Give them queers the dinosaur treatment.” KABOOM!

What if it’s possible that nothing you’ve been told about Sodom and Gomorrah is even remotely correct? Well, uh, it’s not.

The narrative begins with the conversation between Abraham and the Lord on his ways to destroy Sodom. God has decided to appear in the form of a human along with two angels who also look like people but also very, very hot; these are not the eyeballs all over their body, kinda angels, but super f+cking sexy angels, apparently. At some point during the conversation, God says something like, “Okay, you caught me! I am heading to Sodom to go blow them all!”

“Blow them all up, sir.” One of the angels whispers.

“Right, blow them all up.”

This particular story has brought about a tremendous amount of harm to the queer community throughout the centuries. As a result, I have devoted an entire essay exclusively to taking down this particular clobber verse. If you are interested in delving deeper into what is actually happening in the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative and how to combat the ways it has been distorted, you can read the full essay here. However, if you don’t have the time, here are some key takeaways:

The sin of Sodom was not homosexuality; that is never stated or implied. Thankfully, we know precisely why Sodom was destroyed, and it is plainly stated in the scripture:

“Now, this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” - Ezekiel 16:49-50

Note the pronouns: she/her. If this was about homosexual men, why would they choose to gender the town as feminine? That doesn’t make sense. But more importantly, homosexuality isn’t mentioned. Even the argument that homosexuality might be amongst the “detestable things” doesn’t hit the mark. The word used in Hebrew, which is translated as “detestable” in this verse, is tôʿēḇâ which means “abominations” and is a generic term that encompasses all types of wrongdoing and lawbreaking. In other words, there is nothing about this story that, in any way, shape, or form, has to do with being gay. The clear text of Ezekiel makes it without dispute that the reason that Sodom was destroyed is because they had excess, that they didn’t care for the oppressed, and they were just plain awful. The historian Josephus noted this, “About this time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, in so much that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers.” He does make reference to the attempted rape of the angels but he describes them as “beautiful young boys” and makes a point to say that these men were obsessed with both men and women and didn’t care where they placed their lust. Joe implies that God blew up a bunch of pedophiles, and regardless of political affiliation or sexual orientation, I think we can all agree the world is a better place whenever there are fewer creeps in it.

Josephus is also possibly one of the first people to use the word Sodomite but when he uses it, it is within the context not of butt f+cking but that they become so wealthy as a nation that they forgot where those blessings came from. Instead, they become paranoid about strangers. The real Sodomites are not the queer community but all of those who reject the immigrant, despise the poor, and are more concerned about wealth than goodness… who does that sound like?

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13

There are two condemnations within the law found in Leviticus that have been weaponized against gay men specifically, and the entire queer community generally. It states in Leviticus 18:22 that “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Oh, well, when you put it that way, I guess the scripture does condemn homosexuality. I guess everyone should go home and repent! If only things were that easy. Not so quick, homophobes. It turns out that, like many verses in the Bible, when you translate ancient texts into a modern context, much is lost in the process. Let's break down a few of them.

Some scholars have argued that placing the verses within what is known as the “holiness code” of the Israelites does not mean that they are universally binding to all people and contexts. For example, K. Renato Lings argues in their work The Lyings' of a Woman: Male-Male Incest in Leviticus 18.22 that by adding modern grammar to the translated text, we miss that this verse is actually about incest. Considering the surrounding verses, and their prohibitions on other forms of incest, this would fit within the logical flow of the abominations being listed.

However, another parallel exists between Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; they both mention pagan worship, or sacrificing children to Moloch, sex with animals (Moloch was an anthropomorphic deity), and much of the surrounding texts deal with these practices. One of the prevailing thoughts is that these verses were condemning temple sex practices amongst the Egyptian and Canaanite peoples. These laws were written to set the Israelites apart, urging them to continue to follow God and his laws, not the customs of the lands they were fleeing from or the lands they were heading to.

It should be noted that there is no universal consensus amongst Jewish or Christian scholars on the subject of these two verses. Some fervently argue that they are discussing temple sex (or temple prostitutes). In contrast, others see these as cases of incest, and the majority opinion has now become the minority one, that these verses condemn homosexuality. The problem with the latter opinion is that it neglects to account for the fact that lesbianism is not included in the list of prohibitions. There is no law concerning the subject of female-to-female attraction or intercourse. If these verses condemned homosexuality, why would lesbianism be excluded? This omission almost certainly points towards the other views concerning these scriptures as being correct. Thankfully, Paul later seems to uphold the opinion that these condemnations of sexual activity are about abusing others with cultist-forced sex in temple rituals.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, and Romans 1:25-27

Before we dive right into the verses, let's have a quick convention about the epistles. For lack of a better way to explain this, reading Paul's letters is like skipping the meme and only reading the comments. You might eventually figure out what’s going on, but you are only seeing one part of the story. Paul wrote these letters as responses, and they are being sent to specific church communities that are under his authority in some way. What we lack in these letters is the original correspondence. Were these questions posed orally or by written communication? We don’t always know. The letters are Paul’s attempt to respond to specific conflicts or discernments from within Christian communities during the infancy of the church. Paul is writing assuming that the people reading will understand the context because they asked for his opinion. We are missing those questions and, therefore, a great deal of context. We are reading the replies, not the original tweet that started the kerfuffle.

The word used by Paul in this verse is arsenokoitai. Over the course of time, this word has been translated into short forms like effeminate and homosexual to more long-form versions like “men who have sex with men.” If you haven’t noticed, that’s a massive discrepancy because being effeminate is not necessarily homosexuality, and “men who have sex with men” is a sentence, not just a word, but we have a word. How did we get to this problem?

Because no one knows what the word arsenokoitai means and that is because it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. Paul made it up. Like, quite literally pulled it out of his ass and created it. More accurately, it is a composite word. He has taken two words from the Old Testament, or Torah, and smooshed them together to make a whole new word. Some have even argued that it is akin to slang. A direct translation of the word is “man bed.” That’s it. This has left the translators of the scripture the ability to leave it up to wild interpretation because they have nothing else in antiquity to pull from to figure out what is going on. However, later research has helped us discover that there was something deeper going on here and the real reasons why Paul was condemning the actions of what he called arsenokoitai.

The root of the word Paul invented is found in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. He attempts to recall the law and the condemnation of “abusers of men.” However, even translating the words into “men” is not an accurate retelling of the events. Many scholars today agree that the real issue here is not men sleeping with men but adult men raping young boys.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10, Paul uses the word arsenokoitai to describe the type of sex that he is condemning. The original readers of these letters would have understood the word's connection to the Torah and realized that this was referencing temple sex. Interestingly, Paul does not use his made-up word in Romans 1:25-27; instead, he opts to describe more vividly what he is offended by. He begins in Romans with a lengthy condemnation of humans who abandoned the trueness of God for worshiping idols. He goes into a long rant about how humans have failed to acknowledge or worship God, choosing to worship the likeness of other humans and even animals. He condemns idolatry, and then, right smack dab in the middle of his frustration about what he views as pagan practices, he mentions again the types of sexual practices he sees as abhorrent: forced ritualistic sex.

Sure, I suppose if you lift these verses out of their original context, it sounds like a blanket condemnation of same-sex relationships. However, it's clear to see, if you pull the scope back just a bit, that what he was condemning is his perception of the rituals and practices of other religions: idolatry, animal abuse, sacrifices, and the ritual raping of underage boys by adult men. That is what this whole thing is about, always has been, from Genesis to Leviticus to the later writings of Paul. These verses aren’t targeted at the gay community; they are simply saying, “You don’t have to rape people to get close to God; you can just, I don’t f+cking know, pray or something like a not horrible person.”

***

No matter where you fall under the beautiful colors of the rainbow, whether you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, genderqueer, transgender, nonbinary, or still just figuring it all out for yourself as you go. What I hope you understand is that even though these verses have been weaponized against you, they are not about you. These verses are condemning something that, I would hope, we can all agree is horrific: young boys being forced to be repeatedly raped as enslaved temple prostitutes by adult men. In that sense, understanding their context, I imagine most of us would just shrug it off if we read a headline about how a pedophile who burns their children alive to honor a half-man/half-animal ancient deity was stoned to death by a crowd. Now, understand that I am not justifying violence. I just think that none of us would particularly shed a tear about that scenario in the grand scheme of things.

That is what these verses condemn.

I am so sorry that you have become the target, and these verses have been weaponized against you. I hope that reading this brings you some healing and that you realize, as cruel as it is, they twisted this so that you would become the scapegoat. You are perfect just as you are, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, however it is you choose to understand the divine. You are enough, you are cherished, and you are loved. I am glad you are here. I am so happy you were born just as you are. You are loved, honored, and cherished in this space. You are not an abomination; you are beautiful.