What was the point of the Bible texts if not to condemn homosexuality?
It is not easy to summarize the body of research on homosexuality in the Bible, but these are the interpretations that some scholars are proposing: • The story of Sodom in Genesis 19 is about offense against the sacred duty of hospitality. That is how Ezekiel 16:48-49, Wisdom 9:13-14, and Ecclesiasticus 16:8 unequivocally interpret this text. The attempted male rape only heightens the atrocity of this offense against charity, the paradigmatic biblical sin. • Leviticus 18:22 does forbid male-male sex as an “abomination.” But the word simply means an impurity or a religious taboo—like eating pork—and it only applies to penetrative anal sex, not other male or female same-sex acts. Such religious requirements were to maintain and strengthen Jewish identity. As in the case of Catholics who used to be forbidden under pain of mortal sin to eat meat on Friday, the offense was not in the act itself but in the betrayal of one’s religion. • Romans 1:27 mentions men having sex with men. But the t
