@leahisbell - what don't you understand?

God told man what to wright thoe

nice post

Nice post :)

Ryc: Thanks.

@horse_jumping_is_so_fun - even if God told man what to write, it doesn't mean we always interpret it correctly.

@libbycatherine - @fighting_gracefully - @pukemeister - thanks.

I know that you seek an altogether different point, but your examples here suck because the strained interpretations by those limited numbers of American Christians who sought to prop up slavery on the Word of God are just that, so very strained:

*Genesis 11: 1-8 God destroyed the city of Babel because of the wickedness of different races coming together.

The scripture cited is completely devoid of any assertion that the evil was the races coming together.  In fact, race is not even mentioned.  The singularity of tongue (language) is the point.  And the precise sin was pride, exactly the same sin as caused Lucifer’s downfall.

*Deut 32: 8  When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. God divided all mankind.  Races are from Him and therefore should remain separate.

Again, a failure of simple reading.  Nothing in this passage was ever about race.  The division of the nations is geopolitical, not racial.  There may be those geopolitical unities that reflect strongly singular racial groupings, but, for example, the kingdoms of the Medes, of the Persians, and of the Egyptians were racial diverse.

*Joshua 11:12-13 “But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, 13 then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you.  Punishment comes from intermarrying with other nations, causing God to pull back blessings he had previously promised.

But the prohibition on intermarriage here has nothing to do with race.  It has to do with culture and religion.  Remember the nations of which God spoke were those in the land prior to Israel’s entry.  Nations that sacrificed their own children to idols.  That committed abominable acts of the most corrupt nature.  It was against that corruption that God forbade intermarriage.  Not because of a concern for race mixing.

*Ezra 10 This chapter begins “While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. 2 Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. 3 Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God.  It continues by listing every family that had committed the sin of intermarriage.  This was such a major issue that a full 20% of the book of Ezra is about the problem of intermarriage.

Same as with respect to the previous passage.

*Acts 17: 26 “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” God created the races and it was He who determined they should live in different places.

Again, nations does not = race.  Known nations of the day included broadly diverse people groups bound under political rule and alliance.

*Rev. 5: 9 And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”  God obviously recognizes tribes and nations as being distinct one from another.  At least one person from every race will be in heaven, but even there they have their race.  Races are meant to remain separate.

Again a failure of attentiveness.  Here the groupings are tribes and nations.  Tribes relate to races only tangentially, being at best a subgrouping of any race.  Nations, again, are geopolitical and unrelated except tangentially to race.

True there were people who believed these things.  As there were people that believe in spontaneous generation.  But it wasn’t the majority view of American Christianity.  In fact, Congregational ministers opposed Jefferson for president because his view that the African and the European, being distinct in race were also distinct in the quality of their creation, and the African, he claimed, was a lower order of creation.  Fact is, some ministers preached a racist Gospel, not because of the scriptures employment of race in the way you have suggested, but because he that would beat a dog can easily find a stick.

Good post.  I'd recommend Andy Marin's new book titled "Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community" where he also addresses what he calls the "clobber passages" on homosexuality and how we often run aground on interpreting them, specifcally in what the overall purpose of the passage is.  If I describe it correctly, he points out that the overall context of some of the passages have far greater importance with leading people to Christ or to bring greater focus to God in our lives than just pointing out a specific sin, and when we are so quick to jump on a sin and make it the central theme, we lose out so much on what the whole passage is even trying to say.  Andy's book says it so well for a new look on how the Bible should even be considered in building relationship with the LGBT community and showing the love of Christ.

@Such_Were_You - I respectfully have to disagree.  I think that a sound exegesis leaves a lot more room than most people on either side of the issue are willing to admit.  A literal translation of Lev. 18: 22, for instance, reads "And with a male, thou man shalt not lay in beds of a woman."  This can be objectively interpreted as being more of a purity thing, describing certain places where homosexual activities should not take place.  Or it can be interpreted as meaning only an already married male should not participate in homosexual behavior. Or it can be interpreted as simply prohibiting male-male-female threesomes.  (Further translations become appearant when we start looking at the broader context  -- why is the phrasing obviously different from the surrounding prohibitions? Is the previous verse about child sacrifice, or actually about masturbation during religious ceremonies -- which if you look at the hebrew is very possible?  Therefore, are we to read some of these laws as more about what is unacceptable in a temple?  Could the female bed actually mean a priestess' bed?) I'm not arguing any of these interpretations, I'm pointing out that when we translate scripture we always bring in our preconceived ideas of which of these things it could mean and which are ridiculous.

Similar ambiguities exist for Paul's words at the beginning of Romans.  For instance, it is interesting that Paul says that they "exchanged natural for unnatural relationships."  Is it possible that Paul is not speaking about specific cases of heterosexuals somehow becoming homosexual and not a general cause of homosexuality?  By the way, in Greek writings "unnatural" often simply meant "not leading to reproduction" and had no moral bent one way or another, so its not clear if Paul thinks unnatural = sinful or simply unproductive.  And through out his letters, the greek words that are translated "homosexual" ( malakoi and arsenokoitai ) literally mean "weak" and "man in a marriage bed" so it very could well mean "homosexual" but it is far from being the only reasonable translation.

The fact of the matter is that exegesis doesn't solve all the problems.  People have a tendency to come to a conclusion and then point to the other group and say "I figured it out, you must have an agenda!"  The humility I'm asking for is not about one or the other side winning, its about both sides admitting that they come to the bible with their mind full of the words and examples of those who they consider Christian leaders, and those words always color our own personal biblical interpretation -- often in imperceivable ways that just seem to us like "common sense."

@NaitoOfNarnia - I agree that there is such a thing as an out-and-out wrong interpretation of scripture.  If someone comes to a conclusion without using the proper contextual cues, ignoring the original language, and forcing his own agenda on a passage, he will certainly end up with the wrong result.  My point in using race is that in this day and age it is easy for us to shoot holes through the arguments that used to be made.  We live in a world where our culture, both in and outside of the church, is more sophisticated regarding racial issues and more able to separate race from religion.  Remember that historically, though, the two were tied very closely in people's minds (names like Jew, Moor, and Indian show how interlinked ethnicity and religion have been throughout history) so it took several generations of people living together before the church was effectively able to start understanding the difference.

Intelligent Christians have come up with differing interpretations of scripture throughout history.  A large chunk of the early church felt that the Bible clearly preached against any marriage at all.  Puritans in England believed the scriptures spoke plainly against celebrating Christmas.  Even today, there are many groups who believe women cutting their hair or wearing pants is clearly prohibited, and some of them find it easy to believe that anyone who disagrees with them about that simply has an agenda.  People on both sides of the "speaking in tongues" issue feel that they are doing proper exegesis and the other group is not.  So while sometimes things seem blatant and clear to one person, I guess I am just asking to people to not assume to know the hearts of people whose conclusions differ.

Rather we should try to have an open mind and allow the words to affect our viewpoint. 

This is the opposite of skepticism and reason.  I could explain further, but clearly, I'd be wasting my time.

@GoodbyeSickan - "I respectfully have to disagree.  I think that a sound exegesis leaves a lot more room than most people on either side of the issue are willing to admit.  A literal translation of Lev. 18: 22, for instance, reads "And with a male, thou man shalt not lay in beds of a woman."  This can be objectively interpreted as being more of a purity thing, describing certain places where homosexual activities should not take place."

You argue that Leviticus 18:22 "...can be objectively interpreted as being more of a purity thing,..."    Only if you take Leviticus 18:22 out of context, which would also serve to nullify your claim that your interpretation is "objective".   With one exception, all verses from Leviticus 18:6-23, deal with condemned sexual practices.   If you want to argue that God forbids, as a "purity thing", a boy from having sex with his mother, a father having sex with his daughter, and etc., then sure you could argue that Leviticus 18:22 is just a "purity thing".   In context you cannot successfully argue that Leviticus 18:22 is merely a "purity thing".   If you want to be believed then you're going to have to do a proper hermeneutically sound exegesis.   What you suggest in this comment is pure eisegesis (You and others who accept gay theology read into Scripture what you want to be there, not what is actually there).   So while you might take Leviticus 18:22 out of context and then Impose a subjective interpretation of  "it could be speaking of a purity issue",  that isn't something I would ever do.   I'm not drinking that kool-aid.   Nor do I drink the kool-aid of the Religious Right...

Try as you like, I'm one of those who has taken the time to do a careful, hermeneutically sound exegesis.   I didn't read anyone else's opinion or commentary until I'd carefully studied the texts on my own.   Not being a Seminary trained theologian, I did read many commentaries, papers, books, and the like, after I did my own personal study.   I certainly made some mistakes in my study.   However, when I compared my independent conclusions with those of many other, and better educated theologians,  I discovered they agreed with the conclusions I'd reached.    When I later studied gay theology, in a deeper way,  the faulty, bad, and sometimes total lack of exegesis showed like a light bulb would in a black dark cave.    

Another thing, you have to remember, the OT was translated into Greek centuries before the birth of Christ...The Greek version, The LXX, was the only Bible for the New Testament Church, long past the first century AD.   And you seem to be unaware that Greek, unlike Latin or Sanskrit, is and has always been a living spoken language.   There have been changes to that language, but those changes have been documented.   These arguments about ambiguities, and meanings of words are red herring.   We know what the Bible says about indisputable matters.   There are places in Scripture where there are and have always been the possibility for fairly wide interpretation, NOT, about indisputable matters, like whether homosexuality is a sin or not.    The Bible text is very narrow, and clear when it comes to what it says about all kinds of sexual immorality.   Disagree as you like, but opinions matter little where the facts are clear. 

I return to the question I put to those who trust in gay theology:  "But if I were a Christian homosexual, I think one question would disturb me most: Am I trying to interpret Scripture in the light of my proclivity; or should I interpret my proclivity in the light of Scripture?" ~Paul Morris

Now if you want to argue that Christians have misused, and wrongly interpreted Scripture to beat gay people up, and push them away from God....NOW THAT I'LL AGREE WITH 100%.   If you want to know how to make creepy religious people leave you alone then pay attention to my next blog.  

I cannot in good conscience and intellectual honesty accept what you say about gay theology.   I can accept you where you are as you are, I can love you with the love of Jesus Christ.    But if you want to combine Christ with homosexuality, that I can never do.   

Lonnie  

@GoodbyeSickan - I appreciate your intent.  The problem is we're talking about the Bible, which claims to be God's word.  If it is God's word then how is it open to personal interpretation?  This is why it is important to do a proper hermeneutically sound exegesis:  so the Bible speaks for itself.  

"I'm arguing that people who are absolutely sure that they are correct in their interpretation of the bible need to take a humility pill and realize that while strict dogmatism seems to be a tradition of the church, the doctrines themselves have not been as unchangeable as people like to believe."

You are not arguing humility you are arguing that what God says is open to personal interpretation, that what you or I think is worth anything to God.  This is something that the Bible condemns.  If the Bible is God breathed then interpretation must serve God not you, me, or anyone else.   The people who need to take a humility chill pill are those who think they know better than God, who breathed the Bible.   The Bible is the objective source, it is we who have to bring our personal interpretations into submission to God's objective standard.  

@GoodbyeSickan - I have no problem with what you say here...to a point.   We are not talking about whether or not the gift of tongues is still for today, or Calvinism vs. Arminianism.   You, or I, and countless other may differ greatly on our beliefs as pertains matters which are not central to salvation, the nature of the God Head, or Christ's work of salvation on a Roman cross, just to name a few.   Where the Bible is direct then that's all she wrote.  

Where the Bible says, "If you do this, or that thing, you shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but will be condemned then you'd better ditch your interpretation and discover what God says.   Where God says, "If you do this thing you will not inherit eternal life, but be condemned, then there is no room for your, or my, or Brother Joe's interpretation.   The Bible tells us that homosexuality is condemned.   That's serious, and it's not a matter open to interpretation.   I don't care if you like it, that's the way it is.  I didn't write the book, I didn't set the standards, God did.  

And if you'd pray, keeping and open mind toward God, then do a hermeneutically  sound exegesis,  you'd fast find your interpretation going out the window.   The only people who have doubts about what Romans 1 says, or 1 Corinthians 6 says are people who don't like what those verses have to say.   Having a "different" interpretation doesn't change what the Bible says, it's self deluding.   The only persons who will be harmed are those who refuse to accept what the Bible clearly says about sexual immorality....all forms of sexual immorality.    I've said it before and I'll say it again....There are parts of the Bible open to wide interpretation, and there are parts of the Bible which simply are not.    When you want to discuss a part of Scripture, which is open to interpretation I'll give you lots of room to believe as you like.    So far you've only been talking about parts of Scripture which are NOT open to interpretation.   Either take it or leave it.   Those are the only two choices God gives us.    Well there is a third choice:   self-delusion.

You're call!