BHP journal: Judges 19:22-25: The Rape of the Levite's Concubine

Interesting. I'd forgotten about this story. Basically, it seems just the same as Sodom, only the (nameless) concubine actually gets thrown out the door and is barely alive in the morning, then thrown on a horse and chopped up in pieces once they got home.

Gagnon asks the question:

Was the owner of the house willing to sacrifice his daughter and the Levite's concubine to the mom, rather than let them have the Levite, because of the inferior social status of the women? Or was it because male rape of a female was considered less heinous than homosexual intercourse?

And quotes someone named Susan Niditch:

In Judges 19, the unwelcome attack has the additional negative feature of homosexuality. . . . The threat of homosexual rape is thus a doubly potent symbol of acultural, non-civilized behavior from the Israelite point of view. . . . homosexual rape is not merely an attack against an individual. It threatens proper family-concepts and . . . the greater community of Israelites. . . . the Benjamites' rape of a female is hypothetically less of an abomination than the homosexual attack.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the value is of asking such questions and theorizing which type of rape is worse. I think Gagnon appreciates this, and I realize that his intent here is to address every instance of same-sex sex acts in scripture, but I just don't at all see how this connects with the idea of modern-day consensual, committed relationships between members of the same sex.

He does raise this interesting point:

The fact that the men of the city proceeded to rape the concubine raises doubts that the original demand to have sex with the Levite stemmed in part from exclusive homosexual passions, for some or all of the perpetrators.

And he concludes with,

Rather than argue that the narrators of the twin stories of Sodom and Gibeah would have change their perspective on homosexual intercourse had they only had a modern understanding of sexual orientation, it is more plausible to say that it probably would not have made any difference to them.

Well, to start, how about we say, "modern scientifically accurate understanding of sexual orientation"? But then, let's question the usefulness of speculating what the effect would be of traveling through time and trying to explain this to the biblical authors. And further, of course it wouldn't have made any difference to them, because this is a story about extreme perverse violence.

I continue to wonder where Gagnon is going with all of this, it would be nice if he actually said what he was planning to argue using these passages, but I think it's kind of coming together for me. Obviously Sodom is a story about a city so bad - is it even worth saving? And Gagnon points out this is also a story with the bookends having to do with people being left to their own devices because they were without a king to guide them.

This seems to be the pattern: When sinful man rejects God, and trades truth for lies, everything goes completely off the rails, and sexual perversion of all kinds results, particularly violent homosexuality (fundamentally due to rejection of God's design).

I think Gagnon would agree with this. I'm just saying, one, based on these stories, let's acknowledge the severely messed up ideas of gender and sexuality that were going on then. And two - related - let's not try to pull modern moral lessons out of these stories. If there is a lesson to be applied by these stories, I think it's, "life outside of God's care goes horribly wrong."

But what I think and hope he's doing here is trying to provide some understanding of how Old Testament authors understood same-sex sex acts to provide light on what the New Testament authors would have understood. And also simply to address each possible occurrence of same-sex sex acts in scripture. Fine. But I will say, just because an Old Testament author had certain views of sexuality that may have informed the views of New Testament authors who then had their own views, doesn't mean that what they believed is what scripture reflects and, more importantly, prescribes.

According to what I understand as the mainstream conservative view of the inspiration of scripture, God used flawed humans to write a perfect book. Understanding what they believed will help us understand their intent, and what their audience would have understood, which is an important element proper interpretation of scripture, but just because Paul may have been personally disgusted by what he understood as same-sex sexual relationships, does not mean that's what they bible says and means, and further, it does not mean that we also need to be disgusted by what we understand as healthy relationships between members of the same sex.

So all I'm saying is, Gagnon has a loooong way to go here to connect the dots (and he won't) but he has about 400 more pages to do so.