Sexual Ethics and the Hebrew Bible

Sexual Ethics and the Hebrew Bible
by Raissa Killoran

There is no shortage of individuals who, in the thick of an argument concerning sexual morality, will voice the familiar rhetoric- “It’s in the Bible.” Passages, written in periods ranging centuries apart, are cited without context and without understanding. Throughout this piece I will not be arguing the absolutism of Biblical morality—this is not a piece on whether the cited passages are “right” or not, or whether there is any validity in Biblical ethics—I will take no moral standpoint on any referenced passages. Rather, this is an analysis of the often misunderstood historical context and paradigm of Biblical writers. Particular focus will be placed upon the Hebrew Bible.
This is an issue primarily about colliding worldviews. What must initially be understood is the concept of the mutability and fluctuation of religious morality—we must not perceive this to be a static concept. Religious morality in our 21st century paradigm encapsulates several corresponding ideas which were not always a part of the religious moral framework. Morality, in previous historical contexts, did not serve as a universal ethics system derived from reason—in this thinking, we are products of the Enlightenment. Morality and reason were not always associated; indeed, morality acted as a functional means in the context of the Hebrew Bible writers. The religious morality, in particular sexual morality, described in the Hebrew Bible encapsulates morality as being the societal construction of pollution beliefs. Religion, and correspondingly sexual morality, was about hygiene.
Pollution beliefs were directly integrated with religious beliefs as part of the societal functions of the religion- it was a practical application. Morality was infused with religion, which was infused with sexual hygiene. This is best exemplified in the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible: “Do not have intercourse with another man’s wife; that would make you ritually unclean.” (Lev. 18:20) Indeed, the entire book of Leviticus is devoted to hygiene as an expression of religiosity. Leviticus 13 even goes into detail on the clean or unclean status of those with skin diseases. Sexual regulations are given specific attention in Leviticus 15 and 18, addressing bodily discharges, incest, homosexuality, adultery, and bestiality: “When any man has a discharge from his penis, the discharge is unclean… any bed on which he sits or lies is unclean.” (Lev. 15:2-4) The instructions concerning discharge, behavior and acceptable sexual conduct were largely about religious preoccupations with pollution, taboo, and the maintenance of the sacred in often uncertain and anxiety-inducing settings and societies.
Much of the Hebrew Bible follows this mode of thinking, though not necessarily all. Several laws concern fasting, idol worship and other rituals. However, a significant portion of the text is absorbed with notions of binary thinking- pure versus impure, us versus them- the text is literally swarmed with the concept of separation. This is made clear in several passages: “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt; I am set apart and you must be set apart like me.” (Leviticus XI, 46) This is the framework through which the world was organized. And to perceive the environment this way was psychologically beneficial. Our environments affect how we extend our ideas onto the world. Mary Douglas, a theorist of pollution concepts, states, “We are…positively re-ordering our environment, making it conform to an idea. There is nothing fearful or unreasoning in our dirt-avoidance: it is a creative movement, an attempt to relate form to function, to make unity of experience.” (12) Douglas explores the concept extensively in Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Pollution, and managing it, was a means of simultaneously seeking psychological control over the supernatural and organizing societies. Douglas states, “The separation and consecrated things and persons from profane ones, which is a normal part of religious cults, is basically the same as the separations which are inspired by the fear of malevolent spirits.” (21) The sexual morals outlined in the Hebrew Bible are hygiene-oriented, while being religious in nature. Religion emerged in reaction to the conditions of the world- not the other way around. And it is with this understanding that the practical application, or at least what was perceived as such, of religious ritual and practice can become clear- this was not religion as we understand it in the contemporary sense.
Religion, in our twenty-first century paradigm, is not associated with hygiene. Though in most religions pollution concepts have become ritualized, hygiene and pollution are generally understood in scientific dimensions. We live in a post-Enlightenment, post-Scientific Revolution age- we structure our beliefs empirically. We are function oriented and don’t perceive consequences as a result of obscure immorality- your roof didn’t collapse because you committed adultery and are thus unclean, but because you didn’t build it properly.
The problem arises when the pollution-oriented morality of the Hebrew Bible is understood as absolute ethics, particularly in the realm of sexual morality. We are presently so wildly detached from the circumstances of the text that referencing them as moral compass is absurd. This is a matter of being intellectually vigorous in understanding the historical context of religious texts and demanding of oneself that one’s ethics have a sturdier ground than convention or poorly quoted Biblical references.

Sexual morality in particular has been usurped by a myriad of religious groups, claiming it falls under the umbrella of religiously applicable morality. For example, in March of 2009, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated previously made statements denouncing the use of contraceptives, even in continents such as Africa, where twenty-two million are infected with the HIV virus. Homosexual behavior has also traditionally been regarded as immoral by the Roman Catholic Church, as expressed by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2008 address to Vatican senior staff, during which he condemned the “destructive blurring of gender.” This is problematic in that the justification for many of these condemnations lies in the words of a text utterly divorced from contemporary conditions. In regarding holy texts as absolute  truth, one must simultaneously dissociate them from any academic research done on contextual aspects of the text suggesting broader influences than divine inspiration. Sexual morality thus falls victim to the misunderstood passages of the Hebrew Bible. Only through the inclusion of the academic study of religious texts and religious histories in curriculums, can the present suppositions about the seemingly non-historical, absolutist nature of religious texts be challenged and effectively contested. From this, we can better understand the role that our own human fixations, motivations and psychological quirks, even our hygienic compulsions, have played in historical religiosity and how these have spiraled into religious absolutism and intense cultural confusion.