Sexual (im)morality and cultural differences

[Crazy Liz]

A lot of threads seem to focus on how various kinds of sexual norms and sexual sins are defined. In many cases, the words and even the categories are different from one culture to another. For example, there was a thread on incest, where it was pointed out that the incestuous acts forbidden in Leviticus are not the same kinds of relationships considered incestuous in the modern West. They also differ from the mores of other societies.

So, when we read Leviticus and notice that sex with certain family members was not allowed in ancient Israel, do we just consider the Bible to forbid incest, and are we OK that the exact relationships considered incestuous vary from one culture to another?

When we read, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," we generally interpret "adultery" to mean what our society calls adultery, even though it is not exactly the same as what the ancient Israelites called adultery. Is it the principle of adultery the Bible is teaching, or a particular definition of adultery?

In the GA forum there is a thread going on about rape, which is a modern word not found in the Bible, but used in some translations. One question discussed was whether what the Bible was talking about was what we call rape or not.

I see a lot of threads here about definitions of words, where it is quite evident an English word and a Hebrew or Greek word have approximately the same meaning, but not identical.

When our culture has sexual mores similar to biblical ones, should we read the definitions of our own culture into the scriptures, or should we try to find what mores were practiced by the culture that produced the scriptures and teach those mores as Christian ones?

I don't think I've ever seen a consistent answer to this question, or even a systematic study of it. Does anybody here have any ideas?

 

[dead2self]

When we read, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," we generally interpret "adultery" to mean what our society calls adultery, even though it is not exactly the same as what the ancient Israelites called adultery. Is it the principle of adultery the Bible is teaching, or a particular definition of adultery?

The only interpretation of adultery I will stand for is Jesus' interpretation.

Matthew 5:27-28 (English Standard Version)


Lust

27(A) "You have heard that it was said,(B) 'You shall not commit adultery.' 28But I say to you that(C) everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.Cross references:

1. Matthew 5:27 : Matthew 5:21
2. Matthew 5:27 : Exodus 20:14; Deut 5:18
3. Matthew 5:28 : Job 31:1; Prov 6:25; 2 Sam 11:2

 

[HuntingMan]

I think our job is to find out what Gods intent is in His written word, not try to define the intent by any cultural view.
Personally I do not believe the passage is talking about rape in Deut. 22:28-29, but is instead a repeating of the law from Exodus 22:16 about a man who entices a woman into having sex with him and his being commanded to marry her.
The other passage shows a rape situation where the woman may have been forced.

 

[Crazy Liz]

I think our job is to find out what Gods intent is in His written word, not try to define the intent by any cultural view.

How can we know God's intent? Having just yesterday taken an exam on Ecclesiastes, ISTM one of the main things that book has to say is that we can't know God's intent. It does, however, say fear God and follow the law.

 

[Joykins]

One is tempted to say one should study them all and choose the strictest, but I wonder if that doesn't send us down the rabbinical path and you end up with separate tables and dishwashers for your meat and milk dishes.

 

[Armistead]

The levitical law was given to the jewish nation. These laws really did not apply to other people or nations at the time they were given. It's a long study that we can touch more on later, but there are reasons why these laws were given to the jews and not others. The complex issue is when we try and take these laws and apply them to other cultures, when they were never given for other cultures. However, we have to differ between God's moral laws that abide for all people and levitical law. Many problems have arisen by those that try and impose the old law on other cultures.

Sexual issues are vast and complex. Many try and impose sexual commands and advice that were given to those in the bible. For instance, how we often debate fornication, is it all sex out of marriage or was it Paul dealing with the issue of mostly married men going to the pagan temple and having sex with prostitutes.

Our culture tells us to cover our sexual bodies because the sight of them causes us to sin, why other cultures and tribal systems can run around naked with no notice.

I think the best we can do is judge how behavior harms. Christ gave us one law to live by, the law of love, that is best defined by doing no harm.
Each individual must decide for himself what is sin and harmful to others. However, we have let religion dictate to us many legalisms and traditions that are created by men. We must use common sense and apply bible teachings to our current culture as best we can.

 

[HuntingMan]

How can we know God's intent? Having just yesterday taken an exam on Ecclesiastes, ISTM one of the main things that book has to say is that we can't know God's intent. It does, however, say fear God and follow the law.

huh.

"You shall not steal"

I dont know Liz, I just cant see the big problem with understanding Gods intent there.
Forgive me, but I honestly believe its just an excuse when someone says something like the bolded there (not you personally, just in general).
I think anyone who has put the time in and really tried to harmonize the scriptures as a WHOLE, lots of time in prayer, has a very good chance of nailing down the intent.

I do not believe God wasted His time given us the WRITTEN word so that we would know His 'intent' and will for man and what we are to abstain from.

Sure there are a few details that are cloudy...is it ok to have sex during menstruation since that was a cleaness issue.....dont know that one for sure, but you can bet your buttons that we all can pretty much figure out that having sex with our mother or father is dead wrong.

 

[HuntingMan]

Each individual must decide for himself what is sin and harmful to others.

Goodness.
So if I decide myself that something isnt harmful to others and isnt sin, then that makes it so ?

Sorry, but that sort of subjective truth is part of what is sending many in the church straight into hell.
WE dont determine what is right or wrong.
Im VERY sure we could go just thru the NT and compile a list of things meant as INSTRUCTION to the church to REFRAIN from.
Heck, Ill just toss out ONE passage here;

I wrote to you in my epistle not to associate with fornicators.
Yet I certainly did not mean with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world!

But now I write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, who is a
fornicator, or
covetous person, or an
idolater, or
abusive person, or a
drunkard, or a
swindler--
not even to eat with such a person.

For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside?
Do you not judge those who are inside?
But those who are outside God will judge.
Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person."
(1Co 5:9-13 EMTV)
​

That list covers a ton of things and its only a handful of verses.
Are some here actually claiming we CANT understand Paul here?
Are we saying that it no longer applies ?
It was given under THIS covenant..it DOES apply and its written simply to cover some sin in the church....and not of it is so alien that we cant figure out the intent.

Sorry, but Ill keep to my bible and the INSTRUCTION therein as closely as possible.
If God has a problem with it, He can deal with me later and explain to me WHY He felt to INSPIRE the instruction to begin with

​

 

[Crazy Liz]

One is tempted to say one should study them all and choose the strictest, but I wonder if that doesn't send us down the rabbinical path and you end up with separate tables and dishwashers for your meat and milk dishes.

When my grandmother was a teenager, she cooked for an Orthodox Jewish family. They had two separate kitchens.

But apparently it didn't stick because what I most remember seeing her cook was cheese-filled vareniky with ham and cream gravy.

 

[Crazy Liz]

huh.

"You shall not steal"

I dont know Liz, I just cant see the big problem with understanding Gods intent there.

I'm glad you changed the example from sexual matters to matters of property. I think I can explain what I mean using this example with less emotional difficulty. Then, perhaps by analogy, the question I proposed for discussion will become more clear.

Stealing is taking away someone else's property, right?

Different cultures have different ideas of what is or can be an individual's or a group's property. Did the Europeans "steal" the land of the Native Americans? Native American culture did not treat land as property, just as we moderns generally do not treat air as property. So when the Europeans took control of the land and began treating it as property, what was God's intent in light of this commandment?

Culture plays a part in each of the second-table commandments. They seem aimed at living in harmony with one's neighbors. But there are differences in what it means to live harmoniously within different cultures.

So when God says, "Thou shalt not steal," did God intend to fix the concept of property implicit in the word "steal" according to the culture in which the command was given, or did God intend that humans respect other people's property rights according to the concept of whatever society they might find themselves in?

In today's global business environment, one of the biggest cross-cultural issues is intellectual property. The West had developed the concept that one person can own an idea, and that another person using it without the owner's consent is stealing. The cultures of India and China have no such concept. Does "Thou shalt not steal" have anything at all to do with copyright infringement? How can we know whether God's intent was to include or exclude intellectual property in this commandment?

Just as there are different conceptions of property, and thus different conceptions of theft, there are underlying cultural assumptions behind all the violations mentioned in the Second Table, and probably in all the other moral principles of life in society we find in the Bible. When we realize such differences exist, how should we interpret these scriptures?

 

[Joykins]

Is it time to break out The Abolition of Man again?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Is it time to break out The Abolition of Man again?

Sure.

And I'll break out Moore v. Regents?

Question: Did Dr. Golde and his partners violate the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal?"

(Sorry I can't post a link to it, but you can look it up for free from here. There are also a lot of summaries and excerpts you can easily google.)

 

[Texas Lynn]

In the GA forum there is a thread going on about rape, which is a modern word not found in the Bible, but used in some translations. One question discussed was whether what the Bible was talking about was what we call rape or not.

Back then rape was a property crime as it damaged the property (a wife or daughter) of another man (the husband or father of the woman).

 

[Joykins]

Sure.

And I'll break out Moore v. Regents?

Question: Did Dr. Golde and his partners violate the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal?"

(Sorry I can't post a link to it, but you can look it up for free from here. There are also a lot of summaries and excerpts you can easily google.)

All I have to say is that they should have refunded that guy his medical bills. At the very least.

 

[Crazy Liz]

Back then rape was a property crime as it damaged the property (a wife or daughter) of another man (the husband or father of the woman).

True.

 

[Thekla]

Back then rape was a property crime as it damaged the property (a wife or daughter) of another man (the husband or father of the woman).

this example is interesting to consider; at least in some theologies, the OC Law is understood to, in part, bring mankind from the "law of the jungle" (if I need/want it, its mine) to the "law of man" (equality/equal rights). The example you give may reflect an 'instructive' step in the development from "jungle" to "human law". The NC introduces the "spiritual" or God-like "law"; not self-fulfillment, but self-sacrifice.

 

[Crazy Liz]

this example is interesting to consider; at least in some theologies, the OC Law is understood to, in part, bring mankind from the "law of the jungle" (if I need/want it, its mine) to the "law of man" (equality/equal rights). The example you give may reflect an 'instructive' step in the development from "jungle" to "human law". The NC introduces the "spiritual" or God-like "law"; not self-fulfillment, but self-sacrifice.

I tend to agree that the biblical history seems to indicate a moral progression, still without denying cultural and social realities that are less than ideal. For example, while ownership of people is assumed (both slavery and treating women and children as men's property) many of the OT laws seem aimed at mitigating the oppression inherent in these systems, and NT ideals positively undermine oppressive systems of all kinds.

The Haustafeln in Ephesians, Colossians and 1 Peter deal with how to practice Christian love within a context of oppressive power relationships. That this idea would be found in 3 different books of the NT seems to indicate an acknowledgment of the reality of oppressive structures in culture, and a cluster of counter-cultural responses that undermine or redirect them without directly attacking them. The Sermon on the Mount demonstrates a similar awareness and similar responses in different contexts. IOW, the NT seems to recommend cultural jujitsu, rather than cultural revolution.

I wonder if cultural jujitsu would be a more helpful metaphor than rule-based morality?

 

[Thekla]

I tend to agree that the biblical history seems to indicate a moral progression, still without denying cultural and social realities that are less than ideal. For example, while ownership of people is assumed (both slavery and treating women and children as men's property) many of the OT laws seem aimed at mitigating the oppression inherent in these systems, and NT ideals positively undermine oppressive systems of all kinds.

yes, and in fact it seems this - introducing "human law" and the OT laws 'aimed at mitigating oppression' - are developmental in that they are towards the "law of God" (NT).

The Haustfeln in Ephesians, Colossians and 1 Peter deal with how to practice Christian love within a context of oppressive power relationships. That this idea would be found in 3 different books of the NT seems to indicate an acknowledgment of the reality of oppressive structures in culture, and a cluster of counter-cultural responses that undermine or redirect them without directly attacking them. The Sermon on the Mount demonstrates a similar awareness and similar responses in different contexts. IOW, the NT seems to recommend cultural jujitsu, rather than cultural revolution.

yes, and this seems to support the development towards this 'law' of God-like self-sacrifice (as in the Pauline passages on marriage). The human person "belongs" to its creator, not to another person. And in Christ's example, we see that God-like includes self-sacrifice - to God and other. This self-sacrifice must, like Christ's, be fully voluntary. So the instruction is aimed at both sides of the human relationship. The revolution, if you will, is aimed at self; is the overturning of selfishness. It is in the transformation of the heart.

The Beatitudes are to some extent the steps of this transformation - the strategy to be applied to effect the "revolution"

I wonder if cultural jujitsu would be a more helpful metaphor than rule-based morality?

perhaps - depending on the aim and the cause. If St. Maximos is correct - that the OT is the body, and the NT the mind/spirit, the OT law applied assists both for the beginner and later as 'guide posts'. In this sense, the rules/morals are tools in attaining to the freedom found in being God-like.

 

[Crazy Liz]

I think I get from John Howard Yoder much of what you get from St. Maximos.

(And they tried to tell me Anabaptism and Eastern Orthodoxy are theological opposites. )

 

[Thekla]

I think I get from John Howard Yoder much of what you get from St. Maximos.

(And they tried to tell me Anabaptism and Eastern Orthodoxy are theological opposites. )

I don't know JH Yoder, but an EO priest did once comment to me, "I know something of Mennonite spirituality, and it seems close ..."