Homosexuality in the Torah
“Leviticus 20:13 prescribes death for male same-sex relations. How do Christians apply this text today, if at all?”
"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." — Leviticus 20:13 (NIV)
Leviticus 20:13 is among the most contested passages in contemporary Christian ethics. The text prescribes capital punishment for male same-sex intercourse, raising at least two distinct questions: what the ancient text meant in its original context, and how it applies (if at all) to contemporary same-sex relationships. The debate involves questions of hermeneutics, cultural context, the relationship between the Testaments, and human dignity.
Hard verses are where our biases and assumptions do the most damage. Before diving into scholarly perspectives, consider which thinking patterns might be shaping how you read this passage.
This view holds that Leviticus 20:13, together with Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and 1 Timothy 1:10, constitutes a consistent biblical witness against same-sex sexual activity. While the death penalty no longer applies under the New Covenant, the moral category ("detestable," Hebrew toevah) carries forward as a permanent ethical norm. Scholars like Robert Gagnon argue the prohibition is not limited to cultic prostitution or pederasty but covers the category comprehensively.
The creation pattern of male and female union (Genesis 2:24) grounds the norm anthropologically, not merely culturally.
Many revisionist scholars (John Boswell, Dale Martin, Matthew Vines) argue the Levitical prohibition targeted either cultic prostitution connected to Canaanite fertility worship or exploitative pederastic relationships, not covenantal same-sex partnerships between equals. The word toevah in Leviticus frequently marks ritual impurity associated with foreign worship rather than absolute moral wrong (compare its use for eating shellfish and wearing mixed fabrics in the same chapters). Modern committed same-sex relationships have no ancient counterpart, so the text does not address them directly.
The Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26) is structured around the concept of distinction and order, particularly maintaining the boundaries that define Israel's identity against surrounding nations. Ancient Mediterranean society generally condemned the passive male role in same-sex relations as a violation of masculine status rather than because same-sex attraction was problematic per se. Bernadette Brooten's work shows that ancient sources categorized same-sex acts primarily through a lens of gender hierarchy rather than orientation, making direct application to modern categories of sexual identity anachronistic.
A significant hermeneutical question is whether Leviticus 20:13 belongs to the moral law (binding in all ages), the civil law (specific to Israel's theocracy), or the ceremonial law (fulfilled in Christ). Most Protestant traditions divide the Torah into these categories, applying the moral law universally while setting aside civil and ceremonial components. Critics of this framework (including many Old Testament scholars) note the tripartite division has no basis in the Torah itself and imposes a later theological grid on an undivided body of instruction.
The Hebrew toevah ("abomination" or "detestable thing") appears 117 times in the Old Testament and covers a wide semantic range: idolatry, unjust business practices, eating unclean animals, mixing fabrics, and remarrying a divorced wife, among others. Its use does not uniformly signal an absolute moral prohibition; context determines severity. The word zakar ("male") specifies the prohibition covers biological males.
The verb shakab ("to lie with") in the construction mishkevey ishah ("lyings of a woman") is a euphemism for sexual intercourse, cognate with similar expressions in ancient Near Eastern texts.
Leviticus 20:13 sits within the Holiness Code (chapters 17-26), a section emphasizing Israel's distinctiveness from Egypt and Canaan (18:3). The surrounding laws address a range of sexual and social prohibitions, and the Canaanite practices explicitly cited as the reason for expulsion (18:24-30) provide the polemical frame. Rabbinic interpretation later noted that the death penalty required the testimony of two witnesses and formal warning before the act, making actual executions extremely rare; Maimonides treated many capital statutes as having deterrent rather than executable intent.
The New Testament never cites Leviticus 20:13 directly.
Sources: Published scholarship View all →
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