Leviticus: What's still relevant?

[Stattick]

I thought that most modernly accepted non-fundamentalist theology considered Leviticus to only apply to the Levi Tribe of ancient Jews. The Levites were the fanatical and xenophobic priests in those days.

[Oniya]

Key word there is non-fundamentalist.  It gets trotted out by fundamentalists for everything that they can find a reference to being an 'abomination'.

[HairyHeretic]

I don't see them attacking shellfish with the same fervor as they do homosexuality though, and both of those are listed as abominations.

[Sabby]

Gay Prawns = Super Abominations

[MasterMischief]

I don't see them attacking shellfish with the same fervor as they do homosexuality though, and both of those are listed as abominations.

That is what irritates me as well.  It screams hypocrisy.  Jesus preached love.  At least that was the message I got out of the gospels.  He stopped the stoning of an adulteress...you know...which is one of the Big Ten™.  I do not think he would be for stoning homosexuals either.

[Zakharra]

That is what irritates me as well.  It screams hypocrisy.  Jesus preached love.  At least that was the message I got out of the gospels.  He stopped the stoning of an adulteress...you know...which is one of the Big Ten™.  I do not think he would be for stoning homosexuals either.

You can always ask them what would Jesus do to a homosexual? Hit them or embrace them? If they say hit, you can ask then how can he be the Prince of Peace if he's beating people up.

[Stattick]

You can always ask them what would Jesus do to a homosexual? Hit them or embrace them? If they say hit, you can ask then how can he be the Prince of Peace if he's beating people up.

Bah. He'd hit them. He'd hurt them. He'd make them beg for mercy. Eventually, he'd get them to beg to accept Him into their "heart". Then, finally, he'd give them a big release. He'd untie them, everyone would take a bath and have some wine, and then He'd do it again with someone else the next day.

I mean, come on, he surrounded Himself with male disciples, right, when every other cult leader always surrounded himself with women. Says something, dontcha think?

(If Christianity turns out to be right, I'm SO going to hell for that bit...  >:))

[MasterMischief]

I know you are trying to have a bit of fun there, but honestly, I think there were women followers.  I think the early Christian fathers just conveniently wrote them out.

[Oniya]

There were - and a couple even made it into the Bible (Mary Magdalene, and the sisters Martha and Mary - the one that washed Jesus's feet and anointed him with precious oil).  Dammit - every woman in the New Testament was named Mary.  What's with that?  (Kidding.)

Considering that Jesus reportedly prevented the stoning of an adulteress, I imagine that hitting a homosexual wouldn't be his choice of action either.

[MasterMischief]

Convenient that the ones that got to stay were so subservient.

I am way off on a tangent here.

[Oniya]

Subservient - that depends on your sources.  The Dead Sea Scrolls contain bits of a 'Gospel of Mary', in which the Magdalene appears to be placed at about the same level as the other disciples.  (Yet another reason that my parents should have known I'd be trouble.  ;D)

[Sure]

One of the big reasons a lot of female disciples were excluded was because the main accounts we get from the male disciples are about Jesus and the Gospels by women tended to focus on other things. There are male disciples excluded for the same reason. In part, this was a function of their society: A female could not be around a male as easily as a male could be around a male without raising suspicion.

There have been female Saints as long as there have been Saints, though. They weren't necessarily subservient, either. One of them was basically a stalker who kept following St Peter regardless of his constant commands to stop following him (following does not mean 'obeying', it means physically following him around). A lot of them disobeyed their husbands or parents to become Christians as well.

As much as people like to portray Christians as anti-feminists, the advent of the Christianity (specifically I know about the Catholic Church) was actually a big step forward for Women's Rights. Possibly bigger than the Feminist movement was simply by virtue of the fact the Catholic Church basically gave women rights in the first place.

As to Leviticus, one does have to remember that Christians believe there is a New Covenant so that we don't have to, say, not eat Prawns. I don't know the theological justification for the hating of Homosexuals (I do know it came about in the 11th century), though I suspect a goodly number of the people who use the Bible to justify such things don't either.

[Stattick]

Bah. He'd hit them. He'd hurt them. He'd make them beg for mercy. Eventually, he'd get them to beg to accept Him into their "heart". Then, finally, he'd give them a big release. He'd untie them, everyone would take a bath and have some wine, and then He'd do it again with someone else the next day.

I mean, come on, he surrounded Himself with male disciples, right, when every other cult leader always surrounded himself with women. Says something, dontcha think?

(If Christianity turns out to be right, I'm SO going to hell for that bit...  >:))

Wait. I posted that. On Christmas? What the hell was I thinking? Talk about posting in bad taste. Sorry to any Christians who took offense.

[RubySlippers]

If one reads the bible literally and do believe its true then why would you worship God at all he is for all practical terms a monster? If they are stories then again God supports highly immoral conduct in them as examples so why use them in any way?

[After I restudied the Bible myself I came to that conclusion since he being good itself should pale to modern applications of moral good which is not the case at all.]

[Oniya]

You'll find that most of the 'fire and brimstone' shows up in the Old Testament - which is admittedly quite savage in places.

Try going through and just reading the red words.

(Note - I'm not Christian, haven't been for years, but the existence of flaws is not the same as an absence of merits.)

[MasterMischief]

... but the existence of flaws is not the same as an absence of merits.)

A fair point, however, it is equally true of nearly any book.  If you want to put it next to the Iliad and the Odyssey, no problem.  If you want to claim it is the book, then it has to stand up to a little more scrutiny.

[Oniya]

This was in response to the '[God] is for all practical terms a monster' comment.  There is a decided shift in attitude between the Old and New Testaments that seemed to have been overlooked.

[MasterMischief]

The apparent change in the unchangeable brings up questions in my mind. 

[Oniya]

Culturally, the people that it referenced had moved from a nomadic life to a somewhat less hazardous 'urban/agricultural' (for the day) life.  Many of the 'laws' in Leviticus were far more appropriate to a society where scarcity and poor hygiene was the norm.  Somewhat more, it was described that the area was under Roman rule, which would have meant more advanced plumbing at a bare minimum. The sewage systems are still in used today.

On a practical level, many of those old laws wouldn't be necessary at that point.  (There's even a bit where Paul is confronted in a vision with a banquet of food that would be considered 'tref' or non-kosher, and is told that 'if God says it's clean, who are you to say it's unclean?')  One could assume that an all-knowing deity would recognize that, and would convey that to his followers.

[Lilias]

(There's even a bit where Paul is confronted in a vision with a banquet of food that would be considered 'tref' or non-kosher, and is told that 'if God says it's clean, who are you to say it's unclean?')

Peter, actually ;) And, at least in Eastern commentary, the vision is taken to signify the gentiles that were taken into the early Christian church without circumcision and relevant Jewish paraphernalia.

As an extension of that, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition where I grew up, Leviticus (and Deuteronomy, for that matter) have always been considered pretty much irrelevant throwbacks, studied for the sake of context. They are both canons of Jewish law, and Greeks, being neither religious nor ethnic Jews, were not bound by it.

[Oniya]

Thanks on that - the one time I don't double-check the story, I mess it up.  ;D

And technically, the Roman Catholics (the branch I grew up with) being neither ethnically nor religiously Jewish shouldn't put as much weight on Leviticus as they do.