The NIV states it thusly:
If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Pretty clear, right? Gay sex is detestable and anybody getting involved in it should be put to death – and whoever kills them should not worry about the bloodguilt, which is on their own heads for doing that which is detestable in the eyes of the Lord God.
But which fictional character in the Bible (heck, that’s pretty much all characters in the Bible) is supposed to have said it? That’d be Lord Yahweh. Yup… the “word of God” (the Bible) says that Leviticus 20:13 is the literal word of God, as spoken unto Moses (another fictional character).
A poster here recently suggested to me that this verse was really talking about child rapists… they even had the gall to suggest that this was from “the original Hebrew”, feigning knowledge of ancient Hebrew and how words could mean different things in different contexts (a feature of pretty much every language that has ever existed) – but they never gave specifics… although they did go on to suggest that you needed to take into account a wider context to get there… they also voiced the opinion that the English translators of the Bible were raging homophobes who deliberately mistranslated the text.
So, I had a little chat with ChatGPT, which anybody interested can see here.
So… what do we have… broad agreement between:
1. The Septuagint (Greek – 3rd-2nd century BCE)
2. The Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew, Aramaic and some paleo-Hebrew – 3rd-1st century BCE)
3. The Samaritan Pentateuch (Samaritan – 2nd-1st century BCE)
4. The Targum Onkelos (Aramaic – 1st-2nd century CE)
5. The Masoretic Text (Hebrew – 2nd-10th century CE)
6. Modern English translations
And, of course, we all know that the vast majority of folk who have read the words throughout history have understood them to not be talking about child rapists but rather about those who engage in homosexual sex.
Questions for discussion:
1. Is it a lie to claim that the text is actually talking about child rape?
2. Is it a lie to claim that English translators introduced any inherent homophobia?