What the Law and the Bible say about Homosexuality.

[Clete]

Which would be fine, of course, if the court system could be trusted.

So your solution is to propose (or defend) a less trustworthy court system?

Death for perjury in a capital case would be very serious to someone who told the truth and then three people were bribed to testify he was not telling the truth. No lie detector is infallible, and death penalty cases should only exist for cases proven beyond all shadow of a doubt...not just one witness' sworn testimony.

The biblical standard is not reasonable doubt but reasonable evidence. The reasonable doubt standard, along with trial by committee, is what has given us tens of thousands of murder victims every year for the last several decades (in the U.S. alone).

And no one is convicted on the testimony of a single witness. The very same chapter (one single verse prior actually) that gives the law which you are arguing against gives a direct answer to your exact argument.

Deuteronomy 19:15 “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.​

As I've said before, the biblical criminal justice system would not create a panacea but rather it is simply the best possible system.

That's why these calls for the death penalty for moral crimes are so beyond the pale.

Beyond the pale?

Do you know where that expression comes from? It is a shortened version of, "Beyond the pale of orthodoxy." and it was used to refer to heresy - doctrinal heresy.

I have proposed nothing here that doesn't come straight out of God's own mouth via the pages of His word as written down by Moses.

There are those who are too quick to call for vengeance for offenses that have no business being decided by the criminal justice system.

No business? According to who, you?

Is it your position that when God said to execute murderers, adulterers, rapists, kidnappers and sexual perverts that He was unjust for doing so?

Is that really what you are suggesting?

"Will you profane Me among My people...., killing people who should not die, and keeping people alive who should not live..." Ezekiel 13:19

Clete

 

[Clete]

Yeah, a DREAM WORLD.

You've quit simply misunderstood my point. We do not live in a perfect world where Jesus Christ sits on the throne....nor where godly judges dispense justice. We live in a world where Judges and witnesses can be bribed, where officers of the court do the lying, and where the innocent are often "proven" guilty.

It's all well and good to preach godly justice, and it's quite another to see it taking place while satan is the god of this world. I'm not so naive as to pretend that man can adequately carry out justice as intended by God. Nor am I so naive as to believe that those who count themselves as godly men should be given the power to enforce the same penalties as the Law of Moses enforced.

I've heard it being preached that children who disobey their parents should be put to death. People who have sex outside of marriage should be put to death. At that rate, few would live long enough to be saved by the Gospel of Grace.

Why do people who take this side of the debate seem gravitationally pulled toward portraying God as unjust?!

God DID NOT say to execute disobedient children. The law there is referring to adults who are drunkards and who publicly dishonor their parents. And, not only that, but there's good reason to believe that this law applied to Israel and only to Israel due to their particular relationship with God the Father and would have no application outside that context.

And there is absolutely no law whatsoever that even suggests that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for fornication! The "punishment", if you can even call it that, for fornication is that the two are to get married. Wow! How amazingly and unspeakably cruel is that?! What a horrible tyrant God is! What sort of monster would force two people who are sexually attracted to each other to get married?!



There's another error you are making here. You are trying to judge a completley different paradigm from within the paradigm that you currently exist in. In other words, our society would not be the sess pool of sexual promesquity and perversion that it is today. You would not be assaulted by sexual images and enuendo every time you turn around in a society governed by just laws, the way you are here in America. It would most likely never occur to you to have sex outside of marriage and if it did, you'd know that it was wrong and sinful and shameful. After all, the law is the great teacher.


Clete

 

[Jacob]

Yeah, a DREAM WORLD.

You've quit simply misunderstood my point. We do not live in a perfect world where Jesus Christ sits on the throne....nor where godly judges dispense justice. We live in a world where Judges and witnesses can be bribed, where officers of the court do the lying, and where the innocent are often "proven" guilty.

It's all well and good to preach godly justice, and it's quite another to see it taking place while satan is the god of this world. I'm not so naive as to pretend that man can adequately carry out justice as intended by God. Nor am I so naive as to believe that those who count themselves as godly men should be given the power to enforce the same penalties as the Law of Moses enforced.

I've heard it being preached that children who disobey their parents should be put to death. People who have sex outside of marriage should be put to death. At that rate, few would live long enough to be saved by the Gospel of Grace.

Disobedient children would have to be a particular way. The Torah allows for sex outside of marriage with penalty unto marriage so long as the man and woman are not married or engaged and it is consensual. You are right that people need to be saved by grace. They should be given the opportunity before they die, should it be that the Law of Moses should be enforced. The difficulty is not strict sentencing, but if the Law of Moses has been abolished.

 

[Arthur Brain]

Not quite the same equivocation. There are inherent problems, by example, for interracial marriages: The kids have a very hard time in school, they get looks, yet. In my area, I smiled as a mixed couple crossed the street. I don't know why such a thing would bring a huge smile to the girl's face except that she must still feel the stigmas. Here is the point: Our actions, even if right, carry consequences. Counseling a young couple I simple told them not to 'allow' those problems to become theirs or their childrens'. With homosexuality, because of the way it was thrust upon society, there are much starker problems. Worse? statistics don't go away overnight. I've posted many times on TOL, statistics that reveal serious problems with homosexuality by Canada and the U.S. The consensus of both of those reports was "harmful." Just statistics, no interpretation of them. Ask them. Most of them are very aware of them. For me, I feel bad. I pretty much know why my relatives are this way and it is always related to some sort of abuse. To date? I know of no exceptions. My nieces friend, she thought had not been, but I've since learned she was incorrect. I do have sympathy for people whose lives are ruined this way. -Lon

The only "inherent problems" with interracial marriages are ignorant and prejudicial attitudes towards them, something which thankfully is lessening and there's more stigma attached to mindless ignorance and prejudice nowadays which is a good thing. Not to be funny Lon, but a child often gives a warm smile back when smiled at and you were likely reading a lot more into that situation than was actually there. Homosexuality has not been "thrust" onto society, it's always been there, it's nothing new. It's nothing unobservable in nature in general either. Problems occur with unprotected sexual activity that goes across the board and it's obvious that not all homosexuals or bisexuals have been the victims of some sort of abuse. There's plenty who would tell you that if you'd listen. On the flip side there have been cases where parents have been mortified at their kids being gay that they've forced them into quack therapy centres to "cure" them so do you have sympathy for that sort of abuse?

 

[Arthur Brain]

Why do people who take this side of the debate seem gravitationally pulled toward portraying God as unjust?!

God DID NOT say to execute disobedient children. The law there is referring to adults who are drunkards and who publicly dishonor their parents. And, not only that, but there's good reason to believe that this law applied to Israel and only to Israel due to their particular relationship with God the Father and would have no application outside that context.

And there is absolutely no law whatsoever that even suggests that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for fornication! The "punishment", if you can even call it that, for fornication is that the two are to get married. Wow! How amazingly and unspeakably cruel is that?! What a horrible tyrant God is! What sort of monster would force two people who are sexually attracted to each other to get married?!



There's another error you are making here. You are trying to judge a completley different paradigm from within the paradigm that you currently exist in. In other words, our society would not be the sess pool of sexual promesquity and perversion that it is today. You would not be assaulted by sexual images and enuendo every time you turn around in a society governed by just laws, the way you are here in America. It would most likely never occur to you to have sex outside of marriage and if it did, you'd know that it was wrong and sinful and shameful. After all, the law is the great teacher.


Clete

Clete

According to JR, two people who are found fornicating outside of marriage are to be forced into wedlock with no possibility of divorce no matter what. How is that not a punishment? Two 18 year olds who have sex are forced into a marriage with no escape even if they aren't compatible?

Realistically, people are going to have sex outside of marriage even if such laws were enforced. It's not a new thing, it didn't come about with the advent of television, billboards or the internet...

 

[Jacob]

According to JR, two people who are found fornicating outside of marriage are to be forced into wedlock with no possibility of divorce no matter what. How is that not a punishment? Two 18 year olds who have sex are forced into a marriage with no escape even if they aren't compatible?

Realistically, people are going to have sex outside of marriage even if such laws were enforced. It's not a new thing, it didn't come about with the advent of television, billboards or the internet...

Here is relevant scripture for a more complete picture.

Exodus 22:16-17 NASB - 16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her [to be] his wife. 17 "If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.

Deuteronomy 22:13-30 NASB - 13 "If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and [then] turns against her, 14 and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, 'I took this woman, [but] when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,' 15 then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the [evidence] of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 "The girl's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; 17 and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18 "So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred [shekels] of silver and give it to the girl's father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. 20 "But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, 21 then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you. 22 "If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and [another] man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. 25 "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26 "But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27 "When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. 30 "A man shall not take his father's wife so that he will not uncover his father's skirt.​

 

[Jacob]

Disobedient children would have to be a particular way. The Torah allows for sex outside of marriage with penalty unto marriage so long as the man and woman are not married or engaged and it is consensual. You are right that people need to be saved by grace. They should be given the opportunity before they die, should it be that the Law of Moses should be enforced. The difficulty is not strict sentencing, but if the Law of Moses has been abolished.

Exodus 22:16-17 NASB - 16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her [to be] his wife. 17 "If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.

Deuteronomy 22:13-30 NASB - 13 "If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and [then] turns against her, 14 and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, 'I took this woman, [but] when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,' 15 then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the [evidence] of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 "The girl's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; 17 and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18 "So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred [shekels] of silver and give it to the girl's father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. 20 "But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, 21 then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you. 22 "If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and [another] man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. 25 "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26 "But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27 "When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. 30 "A man shall not take his father's wife so that he will not uncover his father's skirt.​

 

[ok doser]

incredibly, the following exchange drew an infraction :dizzy:

"For she loved much..." Precious little of that going on with those who want to enact certain laws on here. i love my kids, the kids i taught, all the kids in my extended family and i'm disgusted that perverts like you have been allowed to teach them that perversion is "normal" btw artie, still waiting for you to share your "love" and "compassion" for rapists and child molesters

the infraction:

You have received an infraction at Theology Online. Reason: Provoking other members ------- Okay, this is over the top. Dial down on the nasty comments. Instead try refuting his ideas.

so i'll modify it to suit the tender sensibilities of the easily offended whiners:

"For she loved much..." Precious little of that going on with those who want to enact certain laws on here. i love my kids, the kids i taught, all the kids in my extended family and i'm disgusted that perverted leftists have been allowed to teach them that perversion is "normal" btw artie, still waiting for you to share your "love" and "compassion" for rapists and child molesters

i apologize for making the nasty suggestion that artie's stated belief that homosexuality should be accepted as normal is perverted

and i welcome suggestions from the staff about how to better characterize it

 

[Arthur Brain]

incredibly, the following exchange drew an infraction :dizzy:



the infraction:

You have received an infraction at Theology Online. Reason: Provoking other members ------- Okay, this is over the top. Dial down on the nasty comments. Instead try refuting his ideas.

so i'll modify it to suit the tender sensibilities of the easily offended whiners:





i apologize for making the nasty suggestion that artie's stated belief that homosexuality should be accepted as normal is perverted

and i welcome suggestions from the staff about how to better characterize it

Well, now that you've got your own little whine out of the way a couple of things: I sure had nothing to do with your little time out and after this you're going straight back on ignore. If you want to waste your time following me about then go right ahead as weird as that is. Further, I'm not a "leftist", I'm just not a religious extremist who advocates for the likes of stoning homosexuals to death or pushing them off cliffs or turning the Western world into some nightmarish state.

:e4e:

 

[ok doser]

Well, that final letter. "Oh my Good grief" may not be assumed. I just try to avoid it lest one accuses me of blasphemy/taking His Name in vain. :e4e:

obviously, i was referring to the Order of Mapungubwe, Gold :carryon:

although I was tempted to be referring to the Oligodendrocyte-myelin glycoprotein :banana:

 

[ok doser]

.... after this you're going straight back on ignore....

"after i read what you wrote and respond to it, i'm going back to pretending i have you on ignore!"


:darwinsm:

:mock:artie

 

[Jacob]

Well, now that you've got your own little whine out of the way a couple of things: I sure had nothing to do with your little time out and after this you're going straight back on ignore. If you want to waste your time following me about then go right ahead as weird as that is. Further, I'm not a "leftist", I'm just not a religious extremist who advocates for the likes of stoning homosexuals to death or pushing them off cliffs or turning the Western world into some nightmarish state.

:e4e:

Are you in support of the Law though?

 

[Arthur Brain]

Are you in support of the Law though?

Which "law"?

 

[Jacob]

Which "law"?

Good question.

I was thinking the Law of Moses. The law of the land might be secular law but I believe that we have a Christian nation. However, with the new covenant for the house of Israel and the house of Judah it is not like the old and yet we still have a God's law statement in Jeremiah.

A specific law or a law code?

What is the law meaning a specific law or which kind of law?

You can answer how you want to according to how you see it. But now you know what I mean, meant, with some explanation.

 

[Jacob]

Basically God's Law or would it be something else the types of things that you are describing.

 

[Jacob]

Memri TV has a clip and a transcript of a modern scholar asserting that homosexuals should be thrown off a cliff. And now we know where he got his opinion—from early Islam and Ibn Abbas, Muhammad’s cousin.

Sharia sure ain’t gay
Muhammad and the homosexual

James M. Arlandson

Is this the original source? That is not Torah.

 

[Jacob]

Memri TV has a clip and a transcript of a modern scholar asserting that homosexuals should be thrown off a cliff. And now we know where he got his opinion—from early Islam and Ibn Abbas, Muhammad’s cousin.

Sharia sure ain’t gay
Muhammad and the homosexual

James M. Arlandson

Is this the original source? That is not Torah.

Finally, Muhammad Aashiq Illahi Muhajir Madani, a modern-day Mufti (jurist), wrote Illuminating Discourses on the Noble Quran, 2nd ed. trans. and ed. Mufti A. H. Elias, (Karachi: Pakistan, Zam Zam, 2003). In his commentary on Sura 4:15-16, he is open to the interpretation that the two verses speak of homosexuality, so he provides two hadith that he considers reliable, which deal with punishing homosexuals (vol. 2, pp. 365-69).

This early ruling repeats the one that homosexuals must be burned:

With regard to the method in which these people [homosexuals] are to executed, Abu Bakr after consulting with Ali and other Sahaaba [companions of Muhammad], ruled that they be burnt.

Mufti Madani’s next citation says that convicted homosexuals should undergo this terrible punishment (cf. Maududi vol. 2, p. 52, note 68):

. . . Ibn Abbas ruled that they be thrown headlong from the highest summit.

Memri TV has a clip and a transcript of a modern scholar asserting that homosexuals should be thrown off a cliff. And now we know where he got his opinion—from early Islam and Ibn Abbas, Muhammad’s cousin.

 

[Jacob]

Finally, Muhammad Aashiq Illahi Muhajir Madani, a modern-day Mufti (jurist), wrote Illuminating Discourses on the Noble Quran, 2nd ed. trans. and ed. Mufti A. H. Elias, (Karachi: Pakistan, Zam Zam, 2003). In his commentary on Sura 4:15-16, he is open to the interpretation that the two verses speak of homosexuality, so he provides two hadith that he considers reliable, which deal with punishing homosexuals (vol. 2, pp. 365-69).

This early ruling repeats the one that homosexuals must be burned:

With regard to the method in which these people [homosexuals] are to executed, Abu Bakr after consulting with Ali and other Sahaaba [companions of Muhammad], ruled that they be burnt.

Mufti Madani’s next citation says that convicted homosexuals should undergo this terrible punishment (cf. Maududi vol. 2, p. 52, note 68):

. . . Ibn Abbas ruled that they be thrown headlong from the highest summit.

Memri TV has a clip and a transcript of a modern scholar asserting that homosexuals should be thrown off a cliff. And now we know where he got his opinion—from early Islam and Ibn Abbas, Muhammad’s cousin.

To conclude this section, these hadith demonstrate that sexual non-conformists (effeminate men and masculine women) and homosexuals are not only unwelcome in the Islamic community (that is a religion’s prerogative), but they must also be criminally punished. The hadith punishments range from rejection and banishment to execution by terrible methods, such as being stoning, burned alive, or thrown off a high point. It should be reiterated here that if later Islamic judges follow the punishment meted out in Sura 24:2 for zina generally, then they may flog the convicted homosexuals with a hundred lashes. In fact, they will impose some or all of these penalties, depending on the circumstances, as we now see in the next section.

 

[Jacob]

So what does the Torah say? And has the Law been abolished?

 

[Clete]

So what does the Torah say? And has the Law been abolished?

It is not the simple "yes" or "no" question that you seem to want to think it is. In fact, there is no definitive way to answer without rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Otherwise, any answer is mere opinion, released from the moorings of sound hermeneutical principles.

View attachment 26776
(Click on image for larger version.)

The Dispensation of Human Government (yellow in the above graph) is the key one to focus on for the purposes of this discussion. Notice how it is running concurrently with the current dispensation of Grace.

The nutshell version is simply that while the Law has been abolished for righteousness sake (i.e. for salvation's sake), it has not been abolished in terms of criminal justice.

We must, therefore, be careful to discern which laws are religious in nature, which only applied to Israel vs. those that are moral (i.e. criminal) in nature and apply to the entire human race.

Clete

P.S. I happen to believe that the Dispensation of Human government was stopped one dispensation too early in the graph posted above. The just laws in the Bible with be enforced during the Mellenial Kingdom and it will be a human government with a Human King, His name is Jesus.