Leviticus 18 deals with a number of sexual activities considered abominable, including incest, bestiality and "lying with a man as with a woman.". It is part of the Holiness Code and its sexual prohibitions are largely paralleled by, except that chapter has more emphasis on punishment.
Text
The original text of, like that of most of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Hebrew. The oldest extant versions of the text in Hebrew are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Masoretic Text. An ancient Greek translation from the third century BCE, the Septuagint, also exists. Since the addition of chapter divisions in the thirteenth century CE, this chapter is divided into 30 verses. The chapter begins with God speaking to Moses and giving him a message for the Israelites, warning them to keep God's laws rather than Canaanite or Egyptian practices. Then God is quoted as listing people with whom sex is forbidden due to family relationships. In verse 20, God prohibits sexual relations with a neighbor's wife, and in verse 21 God prohibits passing one's children through fire to Moloch. Verse 22 is the famous verse about "lying with a man," discussed below, while in verse 23 God forbids bestiality. In the final verses God warns that breaking these laws will produce defilement and that the Canaanites are about to be displaced from the land of Canaan as a result of following these practices, and warn of a similar fate for the Israelites if they fall into these practices.
Incest
The Bible lists several types of relationship which it regards as incestuous unions; one list appears in the Deuteronomic Code, and two lists occur in the Holiness Code of Leviticus. These lists only mention relationships with female relatives; excluding lesbianism, which implies that the list is addressed to men. These lists then compare as follows: : One feature of all the lists is that sexual activity between a man and his daughter is not explicitly forbidden. The Talmud argues that this is because the prohibition was obvious, especially given the proscription against a relationship with a granddaughter. The shortness of the list in Leviticus 20, and especially of that in Deuteronomy, is explained by classical Jewish scholarship as being due to the obviousness of the missing prohibitions. The explicit prohibition against engaging in sexual activity with "both a woman and her daughter", implicitly forbids sexual activity between a man and his daughter. Some biblical scholars have instead proposed that it was originally in the list but was then accidentally left out from the copy on which modern versions of the text ultimately depend, due to a mistake by the scribe. Apart from the questionable case of a man marrying his daughter, the list in Leviticus 18 roughly produces the same rules as were followed in early pre-Islamic Arabic culture. However, most tribal nations also disliked exogamous marriage—marriage to completely unrelated people. In several prominent cases in the Torah, the incest rules are ignored in favour of marriage to a close relative; Jacob is described as having married his first wife's sister, and Abraham as having a father in common with Sarah. These are not seen as illegal marriages as the incest laws were not given until Moses.
Homosexuality
Leviticus 18:22 in the Hebrew Bible: Leviticus 18:22 word-by-word text analysis:
Hebrew
English
And with
a male
not
You shall lie
as with/on a bed of†
a woman
an abomination
it
†Note: The word , in this exact form, appears only three times in the Bible – twice in Leviticus and once in Genesis. Its translation in Leviticus is "as with," while the same word is translated as "bed" in Genesis 49:4. The word comes from the root, which has to do with lying/sleeping. However, it is unclear whether this conjugation should be interpreted as or . Therefore, can mean either "as with a woman" or "on a bed of a woman." Leviticus 18:22 has been translated in common English versions as: The Hebrew wording of Leviticus 18:22 has been generally interpreted as prohibiting some or all homosexual acts, although which precise acts, and in which situations, is a matter of ongoing scholarly debate. Some authors state that verse 22 condemns "homosexuality" or "homosexual relations" and other authors maintaining that it condemns only males penetrating males. Others believe due to study of the language used in the original Hebrew, that the restriction is only relevant in specific situations. Lesbianism is not explicitly prohibited in the Torah; however, the rabbi and Jewish scholar Maimonides ruled in the twelfth century that lesbianism was prohibited nonetheless and deserving of punishment by beating. Some scholars have also suggested that the verse is misinterpreted. Leviticus 18:22 states: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Those scholars suggest that the word in greek that fits where the verse states "a male", referring to the immoral person to lie with, is arsenokoitai, and it truely translates to young boy, which suggests that this verse is meant to talk against pedophilia. This interpretation is not without faults of its own, since the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, while 'arsenokoitai' is a Greek word. Older translations of the verse in different languages, such as German, translate to say: "men should not lie with young boys, for it is an abomination."
