Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[Bucky Ball]

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That's quite incorrect. In the OT there were levels of "abomination". Abomination to god, certain people/cultures, and just in general. 
A perfect being cannot "experience" offense.

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That's totally wrong. 
Hebrews believed all the dead went to Sheol ... both the good and the bad. 
Heaven was where Yahweh lived with the other divine beings. 
The dead did not go to heaven, nor were they "punished".


There is no agreement among archaeologists on which of the various candidates they've found of settlements along the Southwest shore of the Dead Sea, in Southern Canaan, on the Jordan River plain, that might be either one of the two settlements, used as the location for the myth in Genesis, (and it WAS a myth). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bab_edh-Dhra Bab Edh-Drah, is thought by some to be Sodom. It's like the search for Noah's Ark. It misses the point.

The archaeological evidence is not the interesting part. The myth of the "raining of fire and brimstone" was probably taken from a well known Sumerian, (or "Accadian", (Akkadian),/Assyrian-Babylonian myth), written in Cuneiform, which served as their creation myth. Part of that was the "raining" of fire and brimstone, and was written during the Akkadian Empire period, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire (--2330 BCE). There actually are large Brimstone, (Sulfur) and Lyme deposits in the area. They stink to high heaven.

Anyhow...so the myth most likely got imported/appropriated by the editors of of Genesis, when they were creating the National Story, and they used a common conventional myth from the time to make their point about hospitality, or rather IN-hospitality. The myth of Lot, in Genesis 19, about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, follows upon the story in Genesis 18 of Abraham, and his hospitality towards wandering strangers , (who turned out, in the myth, to be angels). So the ONLY way to understand Sodom and Gomorrah, is to keep it in context. It has NOTHING to do with sex. It all about the treatment of strangers, and stands as an example if IN-hospitality toward strangers, juxtaposed with the Abrahamic example of hospitality towards wandering strangers in the desert environment, which, of course could present a fatal danger.

There's stuff about it here, one of my favorite places : http://sabbathrock.com/tablets.aspx

Homosexuality as an "orientation" was unknown in the history of human ideas until the late Nineteenth Century.
There was no, (supposed), "lifestyle" until the Twentieth Century. The idea of "orientation" arose when Psychology began to develop as a science. All men were assumed to be straight, and only straight, all women straight, and only straight. There was also no notion of a continuum of sexual behaviors, (bisexuality), as science recognizes today.
Any "different" behavior was seen as "deviancy" from an absolute inherent norm, which the person was assumed to inherently possess, completely by virtue of birth gender.

In Ancient Israel class and status distinctions were extremely important.

The injunction in Biblical times, (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13), was against (assumed), STRAIGHT men, (and only men), (as they ALL were assumed to be straight), engaging in same-sex behaviors. (There is a mistaken use of the Sodom and Gomorrah myth in this context also, which is misguided, and I'll deal with that last).

Why ?
It had to do with class structure, and male status. A male, who held the highest position in society, and held the highest class status, was seen to be "feminized" by penetration, and designated as a social inferior, (female), by a male of lower class status, and thus his status was lowered, to that of a woman.
THAT is the reason the culture forbade it. It had NOTHING to do with sex. It was status, and only status. This concept remains very much, (subliminally and overtly), in place today. This law code, in Leviticus, (the latest law code to be written), is the ONLY place this appears in the Old Testament. The author of Leviticus was very interested in the "equality of all" before God. It was that author's agenda. He also said strangers, and others from outside Israel were all to be treated with equal rights and dignity, which was a departure, from other texts and codes. It is ironic, indeed, this equality has been turned on it's head, to treat gay people, less equality. The author of Leviticus WANTED all people treated equally, and that is why he wrote the injunction into the text, in the first place, to PREVENT inequality. The ideal society for this author was classless, and that could not happen if a male penetrates a male, and makes him thereby, a lower class. It's about class, not sex.

This cultural origin was true in the Old Testament culture, as well as the New. That is the reason it ended up in the Bible, and the ONLY reason it was there.

The law in the Old Testament : "You shall not lay a male as with the laying of a woman, it is an offensive thing". (note: the correct translation is NOT, "it is an abomination"). (The word "toi-va" is used, and in archaic Hebrew, EVERYWHERE else is translated, "an offensive thing").

Why is this important ? Because there are levels of "offensive things", and levels of meanings of "offensive things".

There were a number of levels of offensive things in the Old Testament.

#1. was something which was offensive to God, and this was the worst.
#2. was something which was offensive to other peoples and cultures, (for example the same word is used with reference to some foods being "offensive" to other cultures, (as hagas might be to Americans), or for example the Egyptians didn't eat, with non-Egyptians, as that was "offensive", or in today's language, "bad manners".
#3. was something which was just generally "offensive", with no further relational attribution.

So it can be "offensive" to some people, but not everyone, and is relative to the situation, or to god, or just in general.

The injunction against male same sex behavior is the third kind of offensive. It's not related to either God or anything, or anyone else.
(There are other verses around it that are stated to be offensive to God, but not this one).
So in this text, it is offensive to the authors of the text, and that specific culture, (only).

Same-sex behaviors (upper class man penetrated by same class or lower class men), was forbidden, for class reasons.
Equal class men, doing non-penetrating activity, or women together was not forbidden.
( Woman with woman, in general, was not addressed, and the class issue was not important.)

So what does this tell us ?
It tells us the laws were written into the Bible by HUMANS, for human culturally relative, and internally referenced reasons.
The laws in the Bible REFLECTED their OWN culture, of the times, and did not "inform" the culture.
The direction of information flow is crucial. Every Biblical scholar knows this. The Bible was informed by the culture, NOT the other way around.
There are no "ultimate" claims possible from culturally relative, historically rooted, human local customs.

The other main text used to justify the fundamentalist nonsense about homosexuality, is the Sodom and Gomorrah myth in Genesis.

Hospitality of Abraham : In Genesis 18, there is a myth about the hospitality of Abraham, (he welcomes two strangers, who turn out to be angels), as that was an important cultural value, in a society where a wandering desert dweller could get lost, and die.

The myth is followed closely by it's counter example of in-hospitality in the Lot myth, (Sodom and Gomorrah). It is not about sex. It's a counter example to the hospitality story, of in-hospitality. The context is important.

The great irony is that some religious fundies use the Bible to keep gay people away from their "table", and feasts, using the very texts that the Bible intended to teach hospitality, to do the opposite.

ref : Drs. Shawna Dolansky, and Richard Elliott Friedman, "The Bible Now", and "Who Wrote the Bible"

It would really help if religionists got their facts straight, and learned about their fucking Bible.

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Oh really ? What sin have infants that die of cancer committed ?

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A. I never stated Sodom and the story of Lot was about sexual deviance.
B. The Hebrew word for any kind of sin is avera, meaning transgression (God, man, self). There is Pesha, Avon and Cheit corresponding to intentional, knowing but not against God, and unintentional. There are 3 types of sin but they are all transgressions and apply to all people and only one can be atoned for.
B1. I guess I wasn't specific enough, so I'll admit I gave a wrong impression. I am talking about Sins against God, or Pesha, that Jews seek atonement for on Yom Kippur and through sacrifice.
C. Hebrews did believe in varying punishments (In this life and the next) so I suppose you were right if you want to call that levels. To the Jew though there was one word for sin. When we get to Deuteronomy we can discuss the Talmud talking about ALL people sinning many times.
C1. Sheol is different than Ghenna, but in Jewish understanding you either repent/suffer for all your mistakes and join the righteous in Heaven, or end up in Ghenna. That is no different from the Christian concept of Heaven and Hell. They just believed in an intermediary place of the dead called Sheol where you can still work off your debt, or enjoy a party.

D. It doesn't prove that it didn't inform the culture. Greek culture was pretty ok with same-sex relations, but when translated and preached by Greeks it was still a sin. That seems like a derailment and would require things outside Genesis.

E. Jews don't believe in original sin as a doctrine. The soul we are given is pure and we contaminate it with misdeeds. If they can't knowingly do any deeds than they remain pure.

You posted no references. You need references for anything you assert. Citations. Without them, anything you claim is dismissed.
Hebrews did not believe in "souls" ... that's a Christian/Greek dualistic (unwarranted) overlay. Hebrews were not dualists. (For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return")
Anyone who has studied Hebrew culture knows that.

Unfortunately, obviously, you know nothing about Hebrew culture. The name "Gehenna" came from the valley outside Jerusalem where trash was burned .. a constant fire. 
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6558-gehenna

Hebrews (during the tribal era) did not believe in immortality. ALL the dead, ("shades") went to Sheol. They are NOTHING like "heaven" and "hell". 
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/...tradition/
The divine beings live in heaven. The dead do not go there. 
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article...existence/
Apparently someone told you the Fundy Christian version of Hebrew thought, and you bought it. 

The rise of the concept of individualism, and individual immortality in Hebrew thought is a complex LONG and detailed study.
The study of the CHANGE from tribal values in which (for a Jew) "immortality" consisted in the continuation of the family in the male line, (pre-Exile) to what it became after the Exile,
is part if the huge study of the rise of Individualism in the West.

Even Paul did not believe in immortality for everyone. Only the saved are immortal.
1 Corinthians 15:53-55
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Paul was an Apocalyptic Jew ... and as such, being "exalted" (as the Jewish heroes were said to be) was the reward. (See Ehrman's latest book "How Jesus Became a God" the EXALTATION of a Jewish Preacher etc".)
This is part of the case Dr. B B Scott, (CHRISTIAN seminary Professor of NT) makes for the fact that the resurrection has been misunderstood, and mistranslated. He says the Greek word translated as "risen" (which is the same word used in Luke by Simeon in the temple "This child shall be responsible for the "RISE" and fall  of many in Israel" refers to a status change, (which would be totally consistent with Jewish culture, and since dead shades were not recognizable, the reason they don't recognize Jesus' shade), and not because they thought he physically rose from the dead.


Psalm 39 :
"Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again,
before I depart, and am no more"

Psalm 115 :
The dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do any that go down into silence".

Psalm 6 :
"For in death there is no remembrance of you, in Sheol, who can give you praise ?"

Gehenna is also where Israel practiced child sacrifice. 

"The most extensive accounts of child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible refer to those carried out in Gehenna by two kings of Judah, Ahaz and Manasseh.
In the Book of Judges, the figure of Jephthah makes a vow to God, saying, "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering" (as worded in the New International Version). Jephthah succeeds in winning a victory, but when he returns to his home in Mizpah he sees his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels, outside. After allowing her two months preparation, Judges 11:39 states that Jephthah kept his vow. According to the commentators of the rabbinic Jewish tradition, Jepthah's daughter was not sacrificed, but was forbidden to marry and remained a spinster her entire life, fulfilling the vow that she would be devoted to the Lord.[16] The 1st-century CE Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, however, understood this to mean that Jephthah burned his daughter on Yahweh's altar,[17] whilst , late first century CE, wrote that Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering because he could find no sage in Israel who would cancel his vow. In other words, this story of human sacrifice is not an order or requirement by God, but the punishment for those who vowed to sacrifice humans."