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Paul & the question of sexuality
On other posts people have been making references to the bible stating that homosexual people are sinning if they show their love for each other through physical contact. In my book I researched the history behind who Paul was to get to the heart of where his anti gay statements in Romans 1 actually come from. Again, this is long but you need to do some digging to get to the truth.
Extract from 'Seventy-seventh Pearl: The Maothsjesshoum'
The four Synoptic Gospels do not directly reference the moral question of homosexuality. However, we do see references appear in the New Testament, through the apostle Paul. The orthodoxy and fundamentalists have argued that Jesus did in fact disapprove of homosexuality, because of one particular section of Paul’s letters to the Romans. It is not the aim of The Maothsjesshoum to erode the integrity of the Bible authors, but it is necessary to analyse the context of the rhetoric we are presented with in these texts. Stepping back and looking at the big picture can be difficult, when we feel that it might denigrate the truth, or mystique, of something we want to be of a spiritual source. This kind of objective analysis is necessary, particularly when we know that the text in question has caused harm to individuals or groups. To begin, let us look at what Romans 1:25-29 states:
"because they exchanged God's truth for a lie and have worshipped and served the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions:
why their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices; and the men, in a similar fashion, too, giving up normal relations with women, are consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion.
In other words, since they would not consent to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to their unacceptable thoughts and indecent behaviour.
And so now they are steeped in all sorts of injustice, rottenness, greed and malice; full of envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite"
Let us now look at the context of these words. Paul was a Pharisee and initially, a persecutor of those who believed in Jesus. Being a Pharisee, he would have also been a servant of the Jewish Law. Paul was not a direct apostle of Jesus but became a champion of Jesus, as the Saviour for the gentiles, by faith. Paul argues this position through the grace (free, unmerited favour of God) Jesus afforded, by his sacrifice. We should note that, none of the New Testament is actually written by a direct apostle of Jesus. For example Mark, an apostle of Peter, wrote the first gospel, 70-90 years after Jesus’ death. Much of what we see in Paul's letters is a theological struggle - how to reconcile the Jewish Law for Jewish followers of Jesus and for gentiles, who were outside of the Law, (uncircumcised and unschooled in dietary practices and moral conduct). Galatians 2:21 "I am not setting aside God's grace as of no value; it is merely that if saving justice comes through the Law, Christ died needlessly." And in Gal 5:4 "once you seek to be reckoned as upright through the Law, then you have separated yourself from Christ, you have fallen away from grace".
If we read Galatians 4:3,"...as long as we were still under age, we were enslaved to the elemental principals of this world", we see how Paul deconstructs Jewish Law as a device that was ultimately created by ethereal beings, also known as Stoicheia. This is a Greek term that may be interpreted as demonic angels or beings that control elements within the physical realm. Paul concludes that the Stoicheia were to blame for creating the Jewish Law, that he surmised, heightened the effectiveness of sin. Galatians 3:10 "...all those who depend on the works of the Law are under a curse, since scripture says: Accursed be he who does not make what is written in the book of the Law effective, by putting it into practice." He comes to this conclusion by observing how the laws are associated to physical parameters, which are difficult to adhere to, all the while recognising the conundrum that all sin was destroyed through Jesus' sacrifice. Interestingly, the reference to malevolent, spirit beings, reflects the Gnostic thesis. In Galatians 4:9 Paul reiterates, "whereas now that you have come to recognise God -- or rather, be recognised by God -- how can you now turn back again to those powerless and bankrupt elements whose slaves you now want to be all over again? It would seem that Paul familiarised himself with these Greek myths, probably to be able to argue a position using concepts the Gentiles could understand. His discourse attempts to give the Gentiles a sense of importance, by suggesting that they are the chosen ones, just as much, if not more (in Galatians), than the Jewish people.
Paul affirms the Gentiles importance by proposing that Sarah, Abraham's very old wife, allegorically represents the mother of the lineage that would have claim over the Jerusalem that is not of this world, (Galatians 4:21-27). In this way the servant of Abraham – Hagar, gave rise to the nation who claims the Jerusalem on Earth; her child's conception was purely physical. Since Sarah's child was conceived in her old age, through Gods help, it follows that the Gentiles would be brought into grace through Jesus' intervention in this world. Galatians 3:16-17 "Now the promises were addressed to Abraham and his progeny. The words were not and to his progenies in the plural, but in the singular; and to your progeny, which means Christ. What I am saying is this: once a will had been long ago ratified by God, the Law, coming four hundred and thirty years later, could not abolish it and nullify its promise." In this way, Paul makes a strong case for the Gentiles being the chosen people ("and to your progeny, which means Christ"), rather than the Jews, who saw themselves as the chosen progenies. Here, Paul suggests that the promise was made for one, not many, by pointing out the use of the singular - progeny. Of course, most contemporary scholars accept that Jesus was not the lineage of David since He was known as Jesus of Nazareth. It was the author of Luke that engineered the story of a census to have Jesus born in Bethlehem, fulfilling the prophecy of the chosen one. As mentioned previously, there is no evidence of such a census happening. The question also arises, would it even be feasible for a heavily pregnant woman to travel such a distance on a donkey? This should not denigrate the importance of the man Jesus, but it does show us how the gospel authors tried to place Him into the Old Testament prophesies. Indeed, it was Jesus himself who used the prophecies to gather a following, but his definition of the Saviour was very different to that of the Jewish community. This thread is discussed more, later in The Maothsjesshoum.
The letters to the Galatians by Paul were attempting to curb the influence of the Jewish apostles of Jesus, preaching a Jewish form of Christianity. The Jewish followers of Jesus would have suggested that one had to become Jewish, circumcised and follow dietary and moral laws to be saved. Paul constructs a strong argument against this position in Galatians. In doing so, Paul puts himself in a position where the Jewish Christians start to resent him. Being aware of the negative feelings toward his discourse with the Galatians, scholars have suggested that Paul focuses his attention away from Jerusalem to Rome. It is generally believed now, that the apostle Peter was not necessarily the instigator of the Christian movement in Rome but that it started in small, independent groups. It was these groups that Paul wanted to embrace, since they were gentiles and at that point, were free of a patriarch. At the same time, Paul needed to demonstrate that he was not antinomian therefore, we see his contractions regarding his own erroneous rhetoric, about the Law, in Romans 3:30-31. This was achieved by restating the importance of the Jewish moral laws, in the letters to the Romans, but this is not what we see in Romans 1:25-29. Here, we see an opening observation about the people in Rome, who were not believers of the Christ.
It needs to be recognised that the Jewish Law had much to do with moral codes of conduct. Since Paul was seen as arguing that this created a place for sin to breed, we can presume that some people were suggesting that Paul implied, a way to combat this would be to give-in to sinful urges and this is evident in the text. Romans 3:8 "...slanderous report..., that we teach one should do evil that good may come of it. In fact such people are justly condemned". In the letters to the Romans, particularly after Chapter 1, we see Paul restate the importance of moral laws. In Romans Chapter 1:25-29, we see how Paul talks about the Romans, who did not believe in the one, true God. Indeed, we do know that the Romans of this period were polytheist and experimental in their sexual practices, to say the least. What is written in Romans 1:25-29 is not an intentional condemnation of the gay community, but rather a warning about loose morals and practices that lead to disease and social corruptibility. Paul is saying that if one follows a hedonistic lifestyle, without moral codes of conduct, one will endure physical and mental anguish. This is not anything we do not know to be true in the twenty-first century. We have seen how sexually transmitted diseases can destroy many lives, if unhealthy behaviours are not curbed through responsible practices. This caution can be extrapolated to all activities in the physical world, when we consider how over-indulging in food, alcohol or even wealth accumulation, can cause us to become physically and or, mentally unwell.
Ultimately, Paul needed to mesh together the necessity of the Jewish Law and the concept of grace given to all, through Jesus' sacrifice. This necessity, as shown here in a very brief and general commentary, came from a need for diplomacy, in order to maintain a tenuous position within the seminal, Jewish and Gentile Christian communities. It is important to look at Paul in this light, since he is considered the reason for Christianity being what it is at the infancy of the twenty-first century. Protestant reformers, Calvin and Luther, saw Paul's letters as evidence for why dogma is damaging to the truth of Jesus' message - love of God, above all else. If we take the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, as the only real intentions of Jesus, we can understand how Paul's letters could be seen as damaging, to the truth Jesus wanted the world to embrace. The Gospel of Thomas is free of narrative or political influences and this makes it reliable. For the reader, it is important to examine these things for oneself as it is not possible to do this in the context of these commentaries, beyond what is absolutely necessary, to illustrate a point. In this instance, we see that words, which are put into context, suddenly have layers of new meaning, which disarm seemingly toxic verses.
End of extract.
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