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The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Gagnon 2001)

BHP journal: Genesis 19:4-11: The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah

BHP journal: Genesis 19:4-11: The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah
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Traditionally, Gen 19:4-11 has been regarded as the classic Bible story about homosexuality. However, to the extent that the story does not deal directly with consensual homosexual relationships, it is not an "ideal" text to guide contemporary Christian sexual ethics.

Exactly.

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Note: This is a series of posts with my unvarnished thoughts as I read through The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics by Robert A. J. Gagnon, published in 2001 by Abingdon Press. It's described in a book I highly recommend, Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible and the Church (edited by Preston Sprinkle, published in 2016 by Zondervan), as "the largest and most in-depth biblical study of the topic from a conservative position" . . . so I really ought to read it! I truly want to approach the book with an open mind, and I'll do my best to engage in good faith, but the reason I've chosen this type of stream-of-consciousness response is I'm lazy and I don't have time to write a proper review of the book. So I may lash out in anger, get sarcastic, or make claims without backing them up. This is just my unfiltered perspective - I'd love to hear your take in the comments! If you'd like my more refined opinion on the subject matter, please enjoy my post, It's Time to Affirm.

Gagnon does a fine job with this passage as far as I can tell. It sounds like his main point is that even though the story involves several kinds of "grave sin" the same-sex element is relevant and makes it a degree more egregious. I don't disagree with this.

Then he goes into examining the other biblical references to Sodom - Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jude. These passages refer to the sin of Sodom, but none of them refer explicitly to the homosexual nature of the immorality of Sodom. Interestingly, he doesn't have much to say about Isaiah, he goes into Jude a bit more, but he really dives in on Ezekiel because of similarity between the vocabulary there with the prohibitions in the law. Which is indeed interesting...

In that case, an important literary nexus would be created between the Holiness Code (or the circles out of which the Holiness Code grew) and the Yahwist's epic (or an independent tradition similar to Gen 19:1-11), by way of the sixth-century exilic prophet-priest Ezekiel.

I believe what he's going for here (correct me if I'm wrong) is to make the connection that because there is a clear condemnation of consensual same-sex sex activity (at least between men) in the law, and Ezekiel uses this vocabulary to describe the sin of Sodom, then the sin of Sodom (generally) must have included consensual sex between men. Ok. Sure. But the other thing this "literary nexus" is doing is connecting an element of non-consensual violent sex (and independent of homosexual desire) to the Law.

So that's fine. Let's go with that.

Finally, I'm beginning to wonder if he's going to offer any framework for how Old Testament narrative is to be viewed by modern Christians. In my presentation, I refer to Gordon and Fee who say that the Old Testament is not "our" testament, and we're not to look for moral queues from Old Testament narrative. And so far, he hasn't offered his own. (I have noticed skimming the table of contents that at least for the law, he does offer one, and he may yet offer one for Old Testament narrative as well.)

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