usapegasus2007
10-25-2007, 09:42 AM
What is an Abomination?
One last consideration confirms that interpretation. The Leviticus text says that it is an "abomination" for a man to lie with a man as with a woman.
Once again, in standard English, that sounds pretty bad. As one preacher vividly described it, an abomination is something that makes God want to vomit. But what does the word mean to the ancient Hebrew mind? There it's not as bad as it sounds to us.
Leviticus 20:25-26 suggests what "abomination" means. It reads:
You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; you shall not bring abomination on yourselves by animal or by bird or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples to be mine.
Evidently, "abominable" is just another word for "unclean." An "abomination" is a violation of the purity rules that governed Israelite society and kept the Israelites different from the other peoples.
Certain animals were thought to be clean and so allowed to be eaten; and for differing reasons certain other animals-like pigs, camels, lobsters and shrimp-were thought to be unclean, not to be eaten. Likewise, certain practices that involved the mixing of kinds-like sowing a field with two different kinds of seeds or weaving a cloth from two different kinds of fibers or a man's having sex with another man as with a woman-were thought to be unclean and so were not to be done. Moreover, certain events, generally unavoidable-like menstruation in a women, seminal emission in a man, attending to a burial, giving birth-made a person unclean for a certain length of time.
It is difficult to recapture the meaning of "clean" and "unclean," "pure" and "impure," in ancient Israel. What was the rationale behind all those different instances of uncleanness? What made all those things abominations?
Some suggest that the Jewish purity rules were principles of sanitation, that certain things were forbidden because they were health hazards. But this suggestion presumes more medical knowledge than the ancients had, and the suggestion does not make complete sense of the purity laws. What is unhealthy about mixing cotton and linen in a fabric? Or cotton and polyester, for that matter?
Even in obvious matters of health, that suggestion does not pan out. For example, a person with certain skin diseases was considered "leprous"-not in today's technical sense of the termand was declared unclean. But if the disease spread and covered the whole body, the person was no longer unclean: "since it has all turned white, he is clean" (Leviticus 13: 13). Apparently completeness or consistency in a person, rather than disease or infection itself, provides some key to understanding Israel's notion of purity. But what sense does this make compared with what we now know about health and infection?
Whatever the rationale was behind the ancient Hebrew purity laws, such thinking certainly has nothing to do with ethics as we understand it. Indeed, such thinking is almost completely foreign to our own culture.
Contemporary Examples of Uncleanness
That is not to say that there is no concern for "clean" and "unclean" in our own day. We still do sometimes call things "dirty," and we mean disgusting and forbidden, just as the ancient Israelites did. But our reasoning is different. And even among ourselves, there is hardly anything that everyone would agree is "dirty" or "unclean." The following examples may at least provide a comparison with Israel's concern about cleanness and uncleanness.
Except for mixing up God in the matter, the preacher was on target when he said that an abomination, something dirty, makes you "want to vomit." What a culture considers dirty is usually something that makes its members uncomfortable. They feel funny, perhaps even feel sick. We learn what's "dirty" when we're little and people say, "Ugh! That's dirty!" "That's gross!" We learn to feel uncomfortable about things that the people around us don't like-like throwing food or soiling our pants or playing in the potty. Being "dirty" does involve uncomfortable feelings-and those feelings are learned.
Perhaps most people would agree that picking your nose and eating snot is gross and disgusting. Some might even say it's dirty, especially when talking to a child.
But just because it's dirty, just because people find it disgusting, does not mean it is wrong. In fact, eating snot is not even unhealthy. Mucus that is not removed from the nose just passes down the back of the throat and into the stomach anyway. Dirty and wrong do not necessarily go together-neither in our culture nor in ancient Israel.
In some societies people eat dogs, cats, snails, raw fish, ants or grasshoppers. To us that may be disgusting. It may seem gross or dirty. But it certainly is not wrong. It is just something with which we are uncomfortable.
In the early 1950s, styles were changing and women were just beginning to wear pants suits. Lots of women felt uncomfortable about that and even debated whether or not it was right. Should women wear pants outside the home or for shopping or even in church? From childhood they were taught how girls are supposed to behave. Though it was only custom they learned, they had never known anything else. Their custom seemed eternal decree, "the way it has always been." Some even argued, "God never meant for women to wear pants!" Custom was turned into the law of God. A matter of mere social convention was thought to be a matter of morality.
That same kind of thinking surrounded other issues as the styles changed: women smoking or driving cars, men wearing long hair or brightly colored shirts or earrings and other jewelry. What felt uncomfortable was taken to be wrong. Social taboo was turned into sin.
That same uncomfortable feeling and descriptions like "disgusting" and "gross" often also surround sexual matters. But talking about sex may be the one time when we still use the words "dirty" or "impure."
Supposedly, certain sexual words are dirty, and some people really are upset by them. But others just shrug all this off. With more frequent usage, the emotional impact of "dirty words" has worn off.
Similarly, many people are uncomfortable with sex, so children "pick up" from them that sex is "dirty." Many never get beyond the influence of those powerful feelings, learned early in life. They never appreciate the difference between what is supposed to be dirty and what is wrong. Especially where sex is concerned, for them "wrong" means that they feel funny about it.
Most people's attitude toward homosexuality is just like that.
They feel funny about it, so they say it's wrong. Pressed to explain why it's wrong, they cannot come up with good reasons. They just squirm and screw up their face, seeming to say, "It disgusts me" or "I just don't like it." But "dirty" has to do with custom and feelings, not with well-reasoned ethical judgments.
The book of Leviticus calls male homo genital acts an abomination. That means it was considered unclean. The early Israelites thought it was dirty. It was prohibited not because it was wrong in itself but because it offended sensitivities. The Book of Leviticus associated those sensitivities with Israelite religion and made homogenital acts a ritual violation. So according to Leviticus male male sex was abominable because it offended religious sensitivities. Homogenitality made a man like a Canaanite. And to the Israelites, God's chosen people, that was unacceptable.
A Hebrew and Greek Word Study
The very Hebrew term used in Leviticus conveys the meaning just explained. "Abomination" is a translation of the word toevah. This term could also be translated "uncleanness" or "impurity" or "dirtiness." "Taboo," what is culturally or ritually forbidden, would be another accurate translation.
The significance of the term toevah becomes clear when you realize that another Hebrew term, zimah, could have been used-if that was what the authors intended. Zimah means, not what is objectionable for religious or cultural reasons, but what is wrong in itself. It means an injustice, a sin.
Clearly, then, Leviticus does not say that for man to lie with man is wrong or a sin. Leviticus says it is a ritual violation, an uncleanness; it is something "dirty."
The conclusion of this little word study is no accident. It finds further confirmation in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Testament.
In the centuries before Christ, more and more Jews were living outside of Palestine. Many of them no longer understood Hebrew, but they did speak Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire at that time. So sometime between 300 and 150 B.C.E., a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was prepared so that Greek-speaking Jews could still read and study their Sacred Scriptures.
One last consideration confirms that interpretation. The Leviticus text says that it is an "abomination" for a man to lie with a man as with a woman.
Once again, in standard English, that sounds pretty bad. As one preacher vividly described it, an abomination is something that makes God want to vomit. But what does the word mean to the ancient Hebrew mind? There it's not as bad as it sounds to us.
Leviticus 20:25-26 suggests what "abomination" means. It reads:
You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; you shall not bring abomination on yourselves by animal or by bird or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples to be mine.
Evidently, "abominable" is just another word for "unclean." An "abomination" is a violation of the purity rules that governed Israelite society and kept the Israelites different from the other peoples.
Certain animals were thought to be clean and so allowed to be eaten; and for differing reasons certain other animals-like pigs, camels, lobsters and shrimp-were thought to be unclean, not to be eaten. Likewise, certain practices that involved the mixing of kinds-like sowing a field with two different kinds of seeds or weaving a cloth from two different kinds of fibers or a man's having sex with another man as with a woman-were thought to be unclean and so were not to be done. Moreover, certain events, generally unavoidable-like menstruation in a women, seminal emission in a man, attending to a burial, giving birth-made a person unclean for a certain length of time.
It is difficult to recapture the meaning of "clean" and "unclean," "pure" and "impure," in ancient Israel. What was the rationale behind all those different instances of uncleanness? What made all those things abominations?
Some suggest that the Jewish purity rules were principles of sanitation, that certain things were forbidden because they were health hazards. But this suggestion presumes more medical knowledge than the ancients had, and the suggestion does not make complete sense of the purity laws. What is unhealthy about mixing cotton and linen in a fabric? Or cotton and polyester, for that matter?
Even in obvious matters of health, that suggestion does not pan out. For example, a person with certain skin diseases was considered "leprous"-not in today's technical sense of the termand was declared unclean. But if the disease spread and covered the whole body, the person was no longer unclean: "since it has all turned white, he is clean" (Leviticus 13: 13). Apparently completeness or consistency in a person, rather than disease or infection itself, provides some key to understanding Israel's notion of purity. But what sense does this make compared with what we now know about health and infection?
Whatever the rationale was behind the ancient Hebrew purity laws, such thinking certainly has nothing to do with ethics as we understand it. Indeed, such thinking is almost completely foreign to our own culture.
Contemporary Examples of Uncleanness
That is not to say that there is no concern for "clean" and "unclean" in our own day. We still do sometimes call things "dirty," and we mean disgusting and forbidden, just as the ancient Israelites did. But our reasoning is different. And even among ourselves, there is hardly anything that everyone would agree is "dirty" or "unclean." The following examples may at least provide a comparison with Israel's concern about cleanness and uncleanness.
Except for mixing up God in the matter, the preacher was on target when he said that an abomination, something dirty, makes you "want to vomit." What a culture considers dirty is usually something that makes its members uncomfortable. They feel funny, perhaps even feel sick. We learn what's "dirty" when we're little and people say, "Ugh! That's dirty!" "That's gross!" We learn to feel uncomfortable about things that the people around us don't like-like throwing food or soiling our pants or playing in the potty. Being "dirty" does involve uncomfortable feelings-and those feelings are learned.
Perhaps most people would agree that picking your nose and eating snot is gross and disgusting. Some might even say it's dirty, especially when talking to a child.
But just because it's dirty, just because people find it disgusting, does not mean it is wrong. In fact, eating snot is not even unhealthy. Mucus that is not removed from the nose just passes down the back of the throat and into the stomach anyway. Dirty and wrong do not necessarily go together-neither in our culture nor in ancient Israel.
In some societies people eat dogs, cats, snails, raw fish, ants or grasshoppers. To us that may be disgusting. It may seem gross or dirty. But it certainly is not wrong. It is just something with which we are uncomfortable.
In the early 1950s, styles were changing and women were just beginning to wear pants suits. Lots of women felt uncomfortable about that and even debated whether or not it was right. Should women wear pants outside the home or for shopping or even in church? From childhood they were taught how girls are supposed to behave. Though it was only custom they learned, they had never known anything else. Their custom seemed eternal decree, "the way it has always been." Some even argued, "God never meant for women to wear pants!" Custom was turned into the law of God. A matter of mere social convention was thought to be a matter of morality.
That same kind of thinking surrounded other issues as the styles changed: women smoking or driving cars, men wearing long hair or brightly colored shirts or earrings and other jewelry. What felt uncomfortable was taken to be wrong. Social taboo was turned into sin.
That same uncomfortable feeling and descriptions like "disgusting" and "gross" often also surround sexual matters. But talking about sex may be the one time when we still use the words "dirty" or "impure."
Supposedly, certain sexual words are dirty, and some people really are upset by them. But others just shrug all this off. With more frequent usage, the emotional impact of "dirty words" has worn off.
Similarly, many people are uncomfortable with sex, so children "pick up" from them that sex is "dirty." Many never get beyond the influence of those powerful feelings, learned early in life. They never appreciate the difference between what is supposed to be dirty and what is wrong. Especially where sex is concerned, for them "wrong" means that they feel funny about it.
Most people's attitude toward homosexuality is just like that.
They feel funny about it, so they say it's wrong. Pressed to explain why it's wrong, they cannot come up with good reasons. They just squirm and screw up their face, seeming to say, "It disgusts me" or "I just don't like it." But "dirty" has to do with custom and feelings, not with well-reasoned ethical judgments.
The book of Leviticus calls male homo genital acts an abomination. That means it was considered unclean. The early Israelites thought it was dirty. It was prohibited not because it was wrong in itself but because it offended sensitivities. The Book of Leviticus associated those sensitivities with Israelite religion and made homogenital acts a ritual violation. So according to Leviticus male male sex was abominable because it offended religious sensitivities. Homogenitality made a man like a Canaanite. And to the Israelites, God's chosen people, that was unacceptable.
A Hebrew and Greek Word Study
The very Hebrew term used in Leviticus conveys the meaning just explained. "Abomination" is a translation of the word toevah. This term could also be translated "uncleanness" or "impurity" or "dirtiness." "Taboo," what is culturally or ritually forbidden, would be another accurate translation.
The significance of the term toevah becomes clear when you realize that another Hebrew term, zimah, could have been used-if that was what the authors intended. Zimah means, not what is objectionable for religious or cultural reasons, but what is wrong in itself. It means an injustice, a sin.
Clearly, then, Leviticus does not say that for man to lie with man is wrong or a sin. Leviticus says it is a ritual violation, an uncleanness; it is something "dirty."
The conclusion of this little word study is no accident. It finds further confirmation in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Testament.
In the centuries before Christ, more and more Jews were living outside of Palestine. Many of them no longer understood Hebrew, but they did speak Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire at that time. So sometime between 300 and 150 B.C.E., a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was prepared so that Greek-speaking Jews could still read and study their Sacred Scriptures.