Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support independent student journalism. Support independent student journalism. Support independent student journalism.
The Dartmouth
July 18, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

The Multiplicity of the Bible

In his editorial of May 23, 2000, Professor Thomas Luxon quotes virulent rhetoric published by the Family Research Council, whose employee, Yvette Schneider, was recently brought by Voces Clamantium to speak on our campus. In its literature, the FRC -- and, by implication, Ms. Schneider -- claims that "the activist homosexual agenda and worldview are fundamentally incompatible with Christianity" and cites the Bible as proof. But what does the Bible really says about homosexuality? Let a Bible professor respond.

My first answer would have to be "not much"; there are, by even the most generous reckoning, fewer than ten passages in the entire Bible that even address the issue, and, of these, most interpreters agree that only two -- Leviticus 18:22 (repeated almost verbatim in Leviticus 20:13) and Paul's Letter to the Romans 1:26-27 -- actually address homosexuality explicitly. Other alleged mentions of homosexuality actually turn out to be about other sorts of behaviors the Bible considers sinful. For example, the famous story of Sodom seems more concerned with condemning the Sodomites for a gross failure of hospitality than for homosexual behaviors; thus the prophet Ezekiel writes, "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy." To be sure, the Sodomites' call that two male visitors to the town be given over for the Sodomites' sexual violation is a part of their gross failure of hospitality, yet a careful reading suggests that what is condemned here is not the homosexual nature of the intercourse that is demanded, but rather the very fact of the demand -- that is, the problem here is the demand for non-consensual sex or, to speak more bluntly, the Sodomites' desire to rape. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10, passages that are likewise often taken to condemn homosexuality, similarly seem only to condemn homosexual behavior that the biblical God counts as abusive or degrading to human dignity, especially homosexual prostitution and male-male pedophilia.

So what of the two passages that do seem more germane? The Leviticus 18:22 passage, upon examination, is not nearly so sweeping a condemnation of homosexuality as one might think: it prohibits only a man from lying with another man as with a woman. Lesbians, one should immediately notice, are not mentioned here at all, and many scholars agree that the only thing this passage prohibits men from doing is participating in a male-male sexual act that mirrors heterosexual intercourse; to be blunt once again, what is prohibited is only male-male anal sex. Why the Bible would want to condemn this particular sex act is probably related to concerns the ancient Israelites had about mixing bodily fluids (semen mixed with rectal discharge). But whatever the specifics, the important point to realize is that Leviticus in no way condemns all same-sex interactions.

Conversely, Paul's Letter to the Romans 1:26-27 does seem to condemn all homosexual acts, speaking out against "women who exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural" and men who, "in the same way," "gave up natural intercourse with women and were consumed with passion for one another." Nevertheless, when students of the Bible set forth to analyze this passage, it turns out they cannot agree on its proper interpretation, and I would like to take as an example a group of Dartmouth students who took REL 5, "Early Christianity: The New Testament," with me this past winter term. Every year, I ask students in REL 5 to write short papers on some ethical issue addressed in the letters of Paul; this year, the issue I asked them to address was Paul's stance toward homosexuality. Roughly one-third of the students in this class (of about 35 total) concluded Paul did indeed condemn homosexuality; another third concluded the exact opposite; and the final third argued that, while Paul may have condemned homosexuality as it was practiced in his day, Paul would not want to condemn the sorts of committed and loving homosexual relationships that characterize the lives of many gay men and lesbians in our community. The course readings, I might add, which were written by both members of the clergy and by leading biblical scholars, mirrored my students' range of opinions.

So, who is right? Yvette Schneider and FRC would tell us that the first third are -- those who see in Paul an absolute condemnation of homosexuality. But an equally or even larger group of biblical interpreters, many or most of whom also identify as Christians, would side with the other two-thirds of my students.

All of which is to say, that whenever anyone tells you, "The Bible says X," don't believe him or her. The Bible says many different things in many different places, and it says many different things in the same place depending on the skills and perspective of its interpreters. Indeed, because of this multiplicity of perspectives, the Bible often seems to me most a celebration of diversity rather than a monolith of dogma. Moreover, the Bible seems to me a model that urges us to celebrate the diversity that is in our midst -- including the diversity of sexual orientations -- instead of a document that calls upon us to condemn our gay and lesbian friends and colleagues.