Re: And some comic relief from me too.
Submitted by Karen Hart on 2003-03-3 15:08:58, Monday
In reply to And some comic relief from me too. submitted by Daze on 2003-02-27 16:44:20, Thursday
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DEar friends at CBLF, I had an interesting discussion with an Orthodox Jew on the text in Leviticus to which you refer. He told me that the word "abomination" is a very poor translation which Jews and Christians alike have been burdened since the King James Bible was written. (My husband is a Lutheran minister and says the the KJB is a very poor translation which is riddled with errors, yet I realize there are Christians who would never dream of ever using a different translation.) He went on to say that the Hebrew word that is commonly translated "abomination" is considered by Talmudic scholars to be an acronym for the Hebrew words "you have been led astray by this co-habitation". In other words, the word "abomination", which is very strong, has led people to believe that this sin is worse than any other. But to the Talmudic scholars, homosexuality was just one of many ways by which a person could get off the path that God created them to be on, and the solution was to get on the right path. And for us Christians, the right path is through Jesus' atonement. (Here is where the Orthodox Jew and I parted company.) This explanation was given by a famous rabbis over 2000 years ago at a wedding in Israel. A bunch of rabbis were sitting around having a discussion and the subject of homosexuality came up. The fact this took place at a wedding is significant: the Jewish scholar explaned to me that getting back on the right path involves marriage. (I didn't quite agree with him there, but in the Orthodox Jewish community, marriage is considered everyone's obligation and they have not much room for the choice of being single and celibate.) But the point if still well taken. So to sum up, don't let people get away with the overuse of the term "abomination". It's a lousy translation and any exegesis based upon that translation is bound to have flaws and often has. In Christ, Karen Hart |
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