Kazen, Thomas. Dirt, Shame, Status: Perspectives on Same-Sex Sexuality in the Bible and the Ancient World. Foreword by William Loader. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024. xvii+208 pp.; Pb.; $24.99. Link to Eerdmans.
Since 2002, Thomas Kazen has taught at the School of Theology at University College Stockholm (since 2010, as a professor of Biblical Studies). Dirt, Shame, Status was first published in Swedish (Smuts skam, status, Makadam, 2018). Although not a comprehensive survey of biblical and Greco-Roman attitudes toward homoerotic behavior, Kazen offers a stimulating study of the data used in the often heated of homosexuality today.
Chapter 1, “Homoeroticism and Human Sexuality,” introduces the problems associated with studying ancient cultural attitudes towards homosexuality. “The way in which we understand sexual identity and sexual orientation today has no obvious counterpart in the ancient world “ (4). To oversimplify matters, people engaged in same-sex acts were not considered a “special category” with a different sexual orientation or as belonging to a different gender. They were men and women who transgressed certain boundaries. (5). Kazen explains throughout the book that modern discussions about homosexuality ask questions that would never have arisen in the ancient world.
Kazen then surveys the biblical texts on homosexuality (Chapter 2). Beginning with the holiness code in Leviticus, lying with a man the way one would lie with a woman is prohibited. This activity is described as “low sum “or “abominable” (Lev 18:22-30; 20:13). Kazen traces the interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah through the rest of the Old Testament and Second Temple literature. He points out that the issue is more about sexual violence than homoeroticism. It is not until Wisdom 19:14–17, the Book of Jubilees, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs that Sodom’s sin becomes sexual. In the Testament of Naphtali, Sodom “departed from the natural order of things.” In the New Testament, Paul’s attitudes towards homoerotic behavior (1 Cor 6:9-10; Rom 1:18-32; 1 Tim 1:8-10) are easy to explain in the context of Hellenistic Judaism. Of course, he draws on the holiness code, but he does so within the context of the Greco-Roman world (41).
Chapters 3-5 discuss that context. In this section, Kazen discusses various cultural factors pertaining to homosexual acts in the Roman world. He begins with “Impurity, Disgust, and Sex” (ch. 3). To understand impurity, he begins by outlining Jewish concepts of purity in the holiness code. Impurity is something that causes “disgust.” An impure thing is a trigger or an elicitor that causes feelings of disgust. This might be caused by some foods, corpse contact, poor hygiene, or some sexual activity. In the Holiness Code, male homosexual activity was “unclean,” so it provoked disgust. Alternatively, it was disgusting and considered “unclean” (53). For Jewish Hellenistic writers like Paul or the Wisdom of Solomon, connecting illicit sex with impurity was a rhetorical strategy. Greeks and Romans would understand.
The key to understanding sexual activity in the Greek and Roman world is the concepts of power and subordination (ch. 4). “Very little of the pressing issues of our time – sexual orientation, discrimination, same-sex marriage, and so on – would have made any sense at all in Paul’s day (95). Sex was an exercise of power, so Greek and Roman literature often condemns the passive man. The Greco-Roman ideals of masculinity and femininity relate to what is honorable or shameful (ch. 5). It is disgraceful for a man to play a passive role in sex, but a passive role is expected of a woman (125). Kazen argues that Paul shares the Hellenistic Jewish interpretation of a Stoic-Platonic view of reason, emotion, and self-control (121). For the Jewish philosopher Philo, the law provides a framework for self-control. The difference is that Paul the Holy Spirit is the solution, rather than the law (Gal 5:22-23, the Fruit of the Spirit).
In his final chapter, “Homoeroticism Then and Now,” Kazen draws a few implications from his survey of the cultural data he has gathered. He begins with the observation that we can never fully understand the behavioral values of the ancient world. He suggests that “In the ancient world, sexual acts were not expected to take place in equal relationships” (127). A man expressed his power over a subordinate through a sexual act, whether this was a slave, a prostitute, or even a wife. For Kazen, the significant difference between the ancient and modern world is a better understanding of biology concerning sexual preference or sexual orientation, even if there is no consensus on biological or social factors (128). The modern world is interested in human rights in a way the ancient world never was, explaining why the modern world rejects pederasty, human trafficking, etc., that was common in the ancient world
Kazen frequently refers to images in the book. Enskilda Högskolan Stockholm is hosting a PDF with links to the artifacts mentioned in the footnotes. Aside from these links to images, the book has no footnotes. The book concludes with “notes on sources (pages 137-46). This method of documentation is standard in popular history. A bibliography includes all primary sources used in the book (pages147-52). The bibliography of secondary literature is annotated by Ida Simonsson (pages 152-92). This annotated bibliography is an excellent guide for further study on this topic.
Conclusion. Kazen provides an excellent foundation for understanding what ancient Greek and Roman writers thought about homoerotic behavior as a background for reading Hellenistic Jewish writers (like the New Testament) in the correct context. Readers on either side of modern arguments may not appreciate the implication that these ancient texts do not (always) answer modern questions. No one, for example, considered gay marriage a possibility even if they regularly engaged in homoerotic behavior.
NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.