Homosexuality Archives - Reading Acts

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.

One of the most controversial elements of Paul’s description of sin is his statement that “God gave them over to dishonorable passions” (1:26-27). These dishonorable passions are sexual relations which are “contrary to nature.” “Relations” (χρῆσις) is a rare word, used only here in the New Testament but regularly used for sexual relations in non-biblical literature. The consensus view is that Romans 1:26-27 refers to homosexuality. Fitzmyer, for example, says to deny Paul means homosexuality here is to deny the plain meaning of the text (Fitzmyer, Romans, 286).

Since this text is extremely controversial in contemporary western culture, many have sought to find a way to explain Paul’s statement without equating homosexuality and idolatry. There are several options for understanding what Paul means by “giving up natural relations.” Some argue Paul has in mind heterosexuals who have homosexual relations (John Boswell, 109). Homosexual sexual activity is therefore the natural thing for a homosexual to do and not sinful. Others have argued Paul is condemning pederasty, adult males who sexual exploit boys (See Miller). However, Paul does not use different nouns, he says “men and men” not “men and boys.”

But it is critically important to read this text in Paul’s context, now ours. This includes both Second Temple Judaism and the Greco-Roman world. Homosexuality is routinely condemned in both the Old Testament (Lev 18:22; 20:13; Deut 23:17). Leviticus 18:22 calls homosexual practices an abomination (תּוֹעֵבָה), “abominable actions which are considered to transgress the basic commandments” (HALOT). Tikva Frymer-Kensky lists both homosexuality and bestiality as sexual sins of “commingling,” and improper mixing. God designed things to “go together,” and if things intended to be separate are put together, it is “not right.” Certain mixed breeding of animals are forbidden, not because “God hates mules,” but because the result is a sterile animal.

Second Temple period Jewish views on homosexuality were equally clear (For additional Jewish examples, see Dunn, Romans 1-8, 65-66). Test.Naphtali 3:3-5 cite Sodom as an example of people who have “departed from the natural order,” as did the Watchers, the angels who left heaven to have sex with the daughters of men (1 Enoch 6-36).

Testament of Naphtali, 3:3-5 The gentiles, because they wandered astray and forsook the Lord, have changed the order, and have devoted themselves to stones and sticks, patterning themselves after wandering spirits. 4 But you, my children, shall not be like that: In the firmament, in the earth, and in the sea, in all the products of his workmanship discern the Lord who made all things, so that you do not become like Sodom, which departed from the order of nature. 5 Likewise the Watchers departed from nature’s order; the Lord pronounced a curse on them at the Flood. On their account he ordered that the earth be without dweller or produce.

Wisdom 14:26 includes “a change of nature (γενέσεως ἐναλλαγή, NRSV “sexual perversion,” see the vice list cited below). The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo refers to homosexuality in his description of Sodom as “a country full of innumerable iniquities, and especially of gluttony and debauchery, and all the great and numerous pleasures” (Abr. 135-136).

Philo, On Abraham (135) As men, being unable to bear discreetly a satiety of these things, get restive like cattle, and become stiff-necked, and discard the laws of nature, pursuing a great and intemperate indulgence of gluttony, and drinking, and unlawful connections; for not only did they go mad after women, and defile the marriage bed of others, but also those who were men lusted after one another, doing unseemly things, and not regarding or respecting their common nature, and though eager for children, they were convicted by having only an abortive offspring; but the conviction produced no advantage, since they were overcome by violent desire; (136) and so, by degrees, the men became accustomed to be treated like women, and in this way engendered among themselves the disease of females, and intolerable evil; for they not only, as to effeminacy and delicacy, became like women in their persons, but they made also their souls most ignoble, corrupting in this way the whole race of man, as far as depended on them. At all events, if the Greeks and barbarians were to have agreed together, and to have adopted the commerce of the citizens of this city, their cities one after another would have become desolate, as if they had been emptied by a pestilence.”

The Greco-Roman world in the first century was open to homosexual sex, although long-term homosexual relations were not accepted as normative. Jewett refers to Rome as “a culture marked by aggressive bisexuality” (Romans, 180-1). Plato, Laws, 636a-b: “The gymnasia and common meals corrupt the pleasures of love which are natural not to man only but also natural to beasts” and 636c: “Pleasure in mating is due to nature (kata physin) when male unites with female, but contrary to nature (para physin) when male unites with male (arrenōn) or female with female (thēleiōn)” (Cited by Kruse, Romans, 101, note 67). Seneca condemned homosexual exploitation (Ep. 47.7–8), referring to abuse of slaves. Plutarch regarded homosexual practice as “contrary to nature” (The Dialogue on Love 751c-e; 752b-c).

Within Paul’s Jewish world, homosexuality was a practice that was associated with uncontrolled lust and living outside of the natural design of creation.

But this is not exactly what contemporary culture might say about homosexuality. How do we take Paul’s clear language in Romans 1 and use it in contemporary discussions on sexuality? It does not seem appropriate to ignore Paul or only accept the parts we agree with already, but it is also problematic if we let contemporary definitions of sexuality change our understanding of the Gospel.

Bibliography: John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Sex and Sexuality,” in ABD 5: 1145; James E. Miller, “Pederasty and Romans 1:27: A Response to Mark Smith,” JAAR 65 (1997): 861-865.