Brennan Breed, “Bringing the Case before the LORD” V. SEXUAL PRACTICE

V. SEXUAL PRACTICE

We cannot uncritically accept any of these attitudes and practices: instead, we must continually discern how we are to negotiate our relationship to our cultural inheritance.

Fourth, there is the issue of sexual practice: what is it that counts as sexual contact, and where is this contact permissible? 

Some things are allowable inpublic, and some are not. Some things are only allowable between certain types of people in certain relations to one another. In North America, for example, it is common to see unmarried couples kissing in public, and this is socially permissible in all but the most strict social circles. Yet this is certainly not thecase around the globe. 

One sees more permissive and open sexual expression in much of Europe, and less open expressions in the Middle East. 

But in some more restrictive areas, kissing is not seen as inherently sexual a farewell kiss might not convey erotic overtones as it does to most North Americans. I remember the concern on girls‘ faces in my childhood neighborhood when the French foreign exchange student casually kissed them all when greeting them it was a small scandal.

In the ancient Near East, we find in general a restrictive culture, but one that nonetheless was well aware of and in rare moments strangely open about those who do not follow the cultural mores. Most North Americans are well acquainted with some of the prohibitions in the legal texts, especially those prohibitions that align with our own culture‘s taboos, such as incest, rape, and bestiality. Until recently, of course, North America‘s taboos included same-sex eroticism, and this is also found among ancient Israel‘s sexual taboos (Lev 18;20).8

Yet not all modern taboos align with the ancient Israelites. Perhaps surprisingly, premarital sex is never issued a blanket condemnation in the Old Testament. 

There were, to be sure, severe repercussions in many ancient Near Eastern societies for a woman who is discovered to have had sexual relations with a man prior to her marriage, unless that man was her husband. But the same was not true for men who engaged in sexual practice before marriage, and there were instances where the man could engage in premarital sex with little to no consequence. 

In Exodus 22:16-17, for example, a man (married already or not) who has sex with an unmarried virgin could without punishment either marry the woman or, with consent of the father, pay an amount equal to a bride price and be on his way. If the woman were married, however, this would be considered aheinous offence. This is because Old Testament legal texts presume that a wife‘ssexuality is property of the father or husband, such that a violation of the man‘s rights by another is analogous to theft. It is for this reason that a man could pay aprice to the father for sleeping with his unmarried daughter. The daughter‘ssexuality was in some sense the father‘s possession.

These practices strike many North Americans as immoral, since they presume that the father and husband own the daughters‘ and wives‘ sexuality as their property, and can sell it for a price. This gender inequality typifies patriarchal societies, which predominated in the ancient Near East. These practices would be highly illegal, punishable by lengthy imprisonment, in the United States. After two centuries of struggle, women now have roughly similarlegal protections as men in the United States. While things are certainly not equal across the board, and while many cultural and economic barriers remain, most residents of the United States would agree that gender equality is a value towards which our culture should strive. And we are certainly moving away from the idea that women‘s sexuality is the property of male relations.

This dissonance may also be felt in the laws dealing with the sexual use of betrothed female slaves by Israelite masters, such as Leviticus 19:20-22. These laws do not treat the slave woman, or the betrothed slave man for that matter, asa full person: her violation can be atoned by a mere guilt offering. In my North American context, we have thankfully progressed to the point where ethical distinctions between slaves and freed persons have no place in our discourse.(Full cultural, political and economic equality for all regardless of race, however,remains a distant goal.)

Using one‘s power to dominate another sexually was an important part of the culture of the ancient Near East, as it was in the Hellenistic world and even in early modern America, as well. Recent trends in North American sexual ethics, in contrast, emphasize that one cannot have sexual contact with another unless both parties are consenting, which implies that neither party is coercing or manipulating the other. If one party holds more power or some hierarchical position, the prevailing ethical attitude is that it would be wrong to use that power to elicit sexual contact. Of course this still happens, but at least it is frowned upon by the general public, and in many casestaking advantage of someone in this manner is against the law. 9

One finds another disconnect between modern and ancient ethics in the notion of adultery. According to Raymond Westbrook, ―The basic conception of adultery is the same throughout [the ANE]: consensual sexual intercourse by a married woman with a man other than her husband. In contrast to modern western systems, intercourse by a married man with a woman other than his wife was not regarded as adultery, unless of course that woman was married. 10

I would hope that in this case, as in many others, biblical conceptions of sexual relations are not useful to North American Christians, whether liberal or conservative.Thus, my perspective leads me to question the appropriateness of mapping ancient Israelite gender relations and sexual practices directly on to our ethical and cultural situation. We cannot uncritically accept any of these attitudes and practices: instead, we must continually discern how we are to negotiate our relationship to our cultural inheritance.


Notes:

8. Yet aside from the clinical nature of the legal texts, it is strange to some North  Americans that the Old Testament mentions love, and especially erotic love, so rarely. As Athalya Brenner  writes, ―outside of the Song of Songs (a great exception), females may love other females (Ruth loves Naomi) but not male spouses. Only Michal [is said to] love a male; David…‖ Brenner, ―Revising the Myth of the ‗Biblical Family,‖ in Foster Biblical Scholarship: Essays in Honor of  Kent Harold Richards (ed. Frank Ritchel Ames and Charles William Miller.  Atlanta: SBL, 2010) 279-94; 293.

9. One might note the massive uproar in reaction to the boys who took advantage of a girl who had passed out drunk at a party in Steubenville, Pennsylvania.


10. See Raymond Westbrook, "Adultery in Ancient Near Eastern Law," Revue  Biblique 97 (1990): 543; see also Elaine Goodfriend ("Adultery,  Anchor Bible  Dictionary ), who defines adultery as "sexual intercourse between a married or  betrothed woman and any man other than her husband. . . The infidelity of a married man is not punishable by law but is criticized (Mal 2:14-15; Prov 5:15-20)" ( ABD 1:82).