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Homosexuality and the Bible
207
Genesis 1—3 .” Because of this creation order for gender, Maxie D. Dunnam correctly
asserts that “Even if the Bible made no reference to homosexual acts, the biblical
view [creation/covenant design] of marriage would exclude them” (“The Creation/
Covenant Design for Marriage and Sexuality,” in
Staying the Course: Supporting the
Church’s Position on Homosexuality
, ed. Maxie D. Dunnam and H. Newton Malony
[Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2003], 104). For a proposed theoretical framework
providing a Scriptural criterion grounded in creation for transcultural analysis
of biblical passages, see Alexandru Breja, “A Biblical Approach to Transcultural
Analysis” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological
Society, Atlanta, GA, November 2003), 1-19 . The Creation criterion of permanence
for biblical material is specifically related to homosexuality in William J. Webb, in
his book
Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics o f Cultural
Analysis
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 123-145 (and esp. 131-133).
12. JPS (Jewish Publication Society),
Tanakh
translation (1985, 1999).
13. Gagnon,
Homosexual Practice,
135-136. Cf. David T. Stewart, “Ancient Sexual
Laws: Text and Intertext of the Biblical Holiness Code and Hittite Laws” (PhD diss.,
University of California, Berkeley, 2000), 378, who concludes regarding all the laws
of Leviticus 18: “All these possible sexual violations hark back to the beginning, to
the era when God set in motion the ongoing re-creation of humankind.”
14. Gagnon,
Homosexual Practice
, 142.
15. B. S. Childs,
Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context
(Philadelphia,
PA: Fortress, 1985), 194.
16. See discussion in Richard M. Davidson,
Flame o f Yahweh: Sexuality in the
Old Testament
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Press, 2007), 43 -48 .
17. See Robert B. Lawton, “Genesis 2:24: Trite or Tragic?”
JBL
105 (1986): 97 -98 ,
for evidence that this is not just an etiological insertion to explain the common legal
custom. Lawton points out that it was
not
the normal custom for the man to leave
his father and mother, but rather for the woman. Therefore, the Hebrew imperfect
yaazab
in this context is best taken not as a frequentative imperfect “he [typically]
leaves” but as a potential imperfect “he
should
leave.” The verse thus expresses “a
description of divine intention rather than of habitually observed fact” (Lawton,
“Genesis 2 :24 ,” 98). See also Deborah F. Sawyer,
God, Gender and the Bible,
Biblical
Limits (London: Routledge, 2002), 24: “The first couple provide the blueprint for
normative citizenship in the theocracy proposed in the Bible’s first story.”
18. See especially Job 31:1; Proverbs 6:25; Ezekiel 23:11; Matthew 5:28; Romans
1:27; 13:13; 1 Corinthians 10:6; Galatians 5:16; 1 Thessalonians 4:5; 1 Peter 1:4; 2:10;
and 1 John 2 :16-17 .
19. As I state in my other chapter, “Homosexuality in the Old Testament,” 7n:
“But just as some people quit smoking and never again have the urge to smoke while
others quit smoking yel battle the urge all their lives, so some homosexuals have
a miraculous change of orientation, while others may have to battle homosexual