#118 – Human sexuality: the ancient Jewish perspective

The typical modern Christian reflex response to sexuality is to point to the Old Testament Levitical laws: so let’s look more closely at those.

The ultimate goal of this mini-series of episodes on sex and gender is to get the Christian / Evangelical perspective on why this is such an important and sensitive topic. But knowing that they will almost immediately point to passages found in the Old Testament  — especially the laws found in Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers-Deuteronomy, and the creation narratives found in Genesis — we thought we should first talk to a scholar of Jewish and Christian thinking, who was raised in a devout Jewish home, and who wrote a book entitled “Traditional Jewish Sex Guidance: A History” … Dr. Evyatar Marienberg.

There are many peculiarities around the Mosaic Law that sound more like ancient Semitic males writing their own ideas than a divine benevolent Being of cosmic proportions dictating them. For example, for the first thousand years (from “Adam and Eve in the Garden” to Israel in Egypt) God did not find it necessary to issue any kinds of law whatsoever about sexuality (other than “be fruitful and multiply”). And then during the 40-year march through the desert immediately before Israel established its nationhood, there is a sudden explosion of “613” laws of Moses. That Mosaic law pays a great deal of attention to fluids that come from the genitalia (men having wet dreams; women having periods), but absolutely nothing is said about those that come from the mouth (saliva; vomit), eyes (tears), nose (boogers), ears (wax), skin (sweat), belly buttons (dust bunnies), or digestive tract (feces). There is also a great deal of discrimination against females: they are literally worth less (as slaves, or as babies) and have much less freedom. And then there are the horrid laws around how to sell your daughter into slavery, and how to claim a young virgin who was captured in war. These are only a few of the examples that challenge the Divine origin of these laws, rather than their human origin, and call into question the universality and timelessness of these Laws.

Some of the other points/questions that we covered include:

• there are well over 600 specific laws contained in the Mosaic Law
• “is polygamy legit or not?”; the transition within Judaism toward monogamy
• the Mosaic Law does not forbid many forms of sex outside of a monogamous marriage relationship (premarital sex; multiple wives; concubines; virgin prisoners-of-war), and doesn’t describe any kind of marriage ritual
• clean versus unclean
• males and females are treated differently because, in the eyes of the Mosaic Law, males and females are simply viewed as clearly different … they are just not the same
• slavery; people being treated as mere property
• what does “males and females being created in the image of God” mean?
• what does the image of God have to do with gender and sexuality (Christians often invoke the imago Dei when they defend their views on gender/sexuality)
• divine inspiration of scripture, and incarnation of God
• what is the modern Jewish attitude towards homosexuality
• what does “the two will become one flesh” mean?
• premarital sex
• divorce
• Song of Songs (a sexually explicit book in the Bible)
• is it really God who’s so concerned about sex and gender, or is it just human males using God as the justification for their views?

As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …

Find more information about Dr. Evyatar Marienberg at his institutional profile. Also check out his book on the traditional regulations given to Jewish couples about marital sex, as well as another focusing on how Catholicism influenced the rock icon Sting.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #57, where we talk to Dr. Pete Enns about the origin and evolution of the Old Testament, or Episode #101 where we talk about divine inspiration of scripture.

Episode image: Moses with the Ten Commandments by Rembrandt, 1659 [Gemäldegalerie, Berlin].

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