carterhawk wrote:
Now if it had been beamed down in an aura of holy light straight from God to Man, that would be a different story.
Good point there. I think the reason God didn't do it that way (not that I really know or anything) is because it would negate the whole faith element. If God came down here physically (which ain't gonna happen, as Lil Loco correctly pointed out IMO), that would likewise change everything.
Did God write the Bible? Apart from him coming down here and saying "Yes I did," I think there has to be a faith element. No archaeological find has ever contradicted the Bible (a couple hundred years ago, folks were convinced that a city like Nineveh could ever have existed--the Bible said it was some really huge place, especially for ancient times. But a farmer found the city buried, and it turns out the Bible was correct about how big Nineveh really was. Anyway....)
But that fact doesn't make the Bible true. You have to have faith. There's no way to prove it. If there was a way to prove that God wrote the Bible (or anything else, such as the very existence of God in the first place), it wouldn't be faith anymore.
Anywayz, going back to the original topic--this made me think of a Op-Ed piece written by well-known novelist James Michener during the "gays in the military debate" in the early 1990s. A lot of those supporting the expulsion of homosexuals in the military used that verse from Leviticus about killing homosexuals as support for their views. Here's what he wrote:
One must read all of Leviticus to understand the condition of the ancient Hebrews when this harsh judgment was being promulgated. They lived in a rude, brutal, almost uncivilized place where abominations abounded. To read the list of the things the Jews were enjoined to stop doing is to realize that God had to be unusually strict with such an undisciplined mob….
Two…verses from [Leviticus chapter 20] bring into question the relevance of these edicts today. Verse 9 warns: “or every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.” Would we be willing to require the death sentence for boys who in a fit of rage oppose their parents? How many of us would have been guilty of that act at some point in our upbringing?
Just as perplexing is Verse 10: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife…the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Can you imagine the holocaust that would ensue if that law were enforced today?…
So when zealots remind us that the Bible says male homosexuals should be put to death rather than be admitted to the armed forces, it is proper to reply: “You are correct that Leviticus says that. But it also has an enormous number of edicts, which have had to be modified as we become civilized.”
Whether we agree with his specific points or not, Michener makes some great points. And as other posters have previously pointed out here, Leviticus also makes the same statements about other groups of people as well. But nobody said anything about
them (e.g., adulterers) during the gays-in-the-military debate!
I think we have to look at societal attitudes towards gays and lesbians to better understand this contradiction.
Sorry for the long post! I don't have a chance to drop by everyday, so I'm a frequent late-comer to these great debates. :blush:
