Sexuality & The Bible
In Genesis, the first chapter of the bible, we are confronted with sexuality. God made Man and Woman and placed them in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden, God commands them to "Be fruitful and multiply." However, after centuries of interpretation the bible has been used to devalue sex. The story of Eden has been used to make sexuality bad, and the Catholics even call it "original sin."
In the bible, the sexual lives of men and women were strictly regulated. Here are a few of the regulations compiled by Thompson:
 clipart.christiansunite.com/index.shtml |
1. Adultery was punishable by death for both
men and women 2. Polygyny (man with many wives) was acceptable 3. Divorce was only available to men, and inability of the wife to have a child was grounds for divorce 4. A woman was entitled to marry her dead husband's brother to have children 5. A man who rapes a woman is required to marry her if she is unmarried. If she is married he is to be put to death. |
Some additional laws mentioned by Klein:
1. Sexual activity is restricted to marriage
2. Both men and women were considered unclean after sex
3. During her menstrual period women were separated from the rest of the house to avoid
contaminating others.
These laws like the ancient gender roles need to be taken with a grain of salt. They were constructed in a time that was very different from ours. Many of the laws regarding premarital sex were in place because of a lack of birth control (Carr 51). Others were founded because there was no way to determine the paternity of a baby, so men had to control the number of men a woman slept with so that he was not investing his time in raising a child that was not his. Sexuality was also considered a domain in which women had some control over men, so in order to get control back, men had to impose new regulations on sexuality (Klein 5).
New Ideas
Even though we get these negative views from the bible it can also offer us some better information. We should take a deeper look and try to understand the stories in the context that they were written in and not try to extrapolate them to modern interpretations. For example, if we look closely at the biblical text, every man who practices polygny is punished for his acts (The Good Book of Love). Abraham is punished for having sexual relations with Hagar, his wife's servant. It was the tradition in Israel for an infertile wife to give her servant to her husband to produce offspring in her stead. However, a few years later Sarah, Abraham's wife, bore a child and forced Abraham to send Hagar and her child away. King David, one of the most beloved Kings of the bible has sex with the wife of another man, and as a result, his daughter gets raped by her brother and his family falls apart.
| Many modern authors go back to the book of Genesis to find the origins and meaning of sex. In his book, The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality & the Bible, David McLain Carr, has gone back to discover many surprising things. He starts at the very beginning of creation when God created both man and woman. At this time he emphasizes the fact that both Male and Female were created in the image of God and therefore both are Holy, and equal in God's sight. God is neither male nor female and as a result would not tolerate sexual discrimination. He even boldly claims, "Sexuality is a key way in which we embody God's creative power" (24). Carr also asserts that lines such as, "male and female cleave together to become one flesh," would insinuate sexual intercourse which proceeds God's commandment of "be fruitful and multiply". As a result sexuality is not solely about procreation, but also about the intimate connection between two people. He argues that our sexual urges are a natural part of our creation and a gift from God. He claims that the separation that we have in the modern world between sexuality and spirituality is not healthy. He believes that we should embrace and nurture our sexual urges instead of being ashamed of them. When we finally get our sexual lives back in order our spiritual lives will follow. |
Sarah offering
Hagar
to Abraham: gallery.euroweb.hu
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Shoni Labowitz also agrees that passion and sexuality are important parts of our spiritual lives. "Passion for God is good and passion for God is lived through our relationships on earth...the bible is our wedding contract with God, but that when we touch our bodies we touch God; when we pleasure ourselves we pleasure God; when we shed blood, we shed the blood of God; when we are in union with another we are in union with God..." (28-29). She too believes that sex is meant for more than procreation. She described it as a means for companionship and the way that we as humans come to know life (95). "...God is love in all its forms. Therefore making love is sacred." (51)
The Song of Songs, which is included in the bible, also exalts sexuality and love (The Good Book of Love). The book consists of many love poems between a woman and her lover. So, not only did people back in Ancient Israel experience sexuality, they embraced it. However, like many other things that we have laws about today the Ancient Israelites were forced to put regulations on sexuality for the benefit of all involved. The reason that men were required to marry the women they had premarital sex with was to make sure that they women and any offspring were taken care of. This would suggest that premarital sex is not wrong except for the fact that the woman could become pregnant. Sex is seen by many biblical scholars to be a gift from God that should be expressed and shared between human beings (The Good Book of Love). Carr even says that God's first commandment to us should have been to "avoid wounding the God-given eros [sexuality] of another." (37)