Omosessualità. Leggendo la Bibbia con occhi nuovi

Testo della Reverenda Nancy L. Wilson tratto dal sito della Comunidad Homosexual Argentina, 1992, liberamente tradotto da Adriano C.

La maggior parte di lesbiche e gay moderni mostrano un’atteggiamento di timore verso la Bibbia o addirittura non conosce il contenuto e crede che la Bibbia contenga solo rimproveri contro di loro.
Se è vero che la Bibbia venne scritta in un contesto culturale patriarcale ed eterosessista, il messaggio dell’amore incondizionato che Dio ci dona in Cristo, può convertirsi in “potere di salvezza ” per i gay e le lesbiche, così come per gli eterosessuali.

Una lettura più decisiva e dinamica della Bibbia, colloca in una nuova prospettiva la vita di gay, di lesbiche e dei loro familiari e amici. Oggigiorno abbiamo un crescente consenso tra degni studiosi delle Sacra Scritture che indica che la Bibbia non condanna questo tipo di relazioni.
Fino a poco tempo fa, le lesbiche e i gay cristiani cercavano di dimostrare che la Bibbia non condanna l’omosessualità. E’ tempo di superare questa posizione. Non è sufficiente sostenere semplicemente che la Bibbia non condanna l’omosessualità. Dobbiamo anche proclamare che la Bibbia è la nostra storia!

Aprire le porte di antichi armadi

La teologia della liberazione e la critica femminista biblica dimostrano che, affinchè la Bibbia trasmetta efficacemente la Parola a tutti noi, dobbiamo leggerla con occhi nuovi e dal punto di vista degli oppressi.
Le storie della Bibbia si animano di nuovi riferimenti quando la leggiamo sotto l’esperienza del presente. Infatti, se ammettiamo che le lesbiche e i gay sono presenti nella Bibbia, allora accompagnano Mosè e Miriam nell’esodo ebraico e camminano uniti a Gesù in Galilea. 
Anche quando la loro sessualità è silenziosa e occultata, le lesbiche e i gay sono sempre stati dappertutto. E’ arrivato il momento di liberare le lesbiche, i gay e i bisessuali biblici, dagli armadi sove sono stati chiusi. Questa ricerca della verità  sulla sessualità deve superare secoli di silenzio di commenti o analisi Bibliche. 
Ma la Bibbia include riferimenti o storie di lesbiche e gay che concordano cn quello che gli storici e gli antropologi conoscono sulla sessualità dei tempi della Bibbia? 
La risposta è affermativa! Alcuni racconti sono indiscutibili, altri sono fortemente omosessuali e altri ancora suggeriscono relazioni sessuali tra persone dello stesso sesso. 
Per questo, la Bibbia incoraggia lesbiche e gay affinche l’abbraccino con gioia. 

Una nazione di lesbiche e gay 

The book of the Acts of the Apostles tells the vicissitudes of the first Christians in preaching and living the Gospel (AT.8: 31). In the present, we are witnessing the birth of lesbian and gay communities that want to access the Gospel fully access.
In this regard, the stories of the apostle Pietro and the Centurione Cornelio (at. 10), and of the apostle Filippo with the Eunuch Ethiopian (at. 8: 26-39) are fundamental.
Both tales have their root in the prophecy of Isaiah 56 which proclaims the coming of the day when the gentiles and eunuchs will be admitted to the people of God and their accepted sacrifices.The Greek translation of the "acceptable" Jewish word of Isaiah 56, 7 also appears in acts 10:35.

A complete and no obstacle Gospel

In history with the Centurione Cornelio, a gentle, Pietro says: “In truth I understand that God has no personal concerns; But that in any nation who fears it and work rightly they are welcome to him. " (At. 10, 34-35).
The word "nation" is the Greek word "Ethnos", from which the "ethnic" word arrives. This term refers to the race, culture or the people. With this term, Pietro expresses that all those who fear God and act with righteousness, of any race, culture or people are worthy of baptism.
Well, is the community of lesbians and gays a pressure group in favor of homosexual conduct, or is it an Ethnos? In truth, there are heterosexuals who have sexual relationships with people of their sex, and there are lesbians and gays who would never have sexual relationships with anyone.

So, lesbians and gays constitute behavior, or are they a class of people for whom homoerotic attraction is just one of their own characteristics?
An Ethnos could be defined as a group of people who have in common a story, a language, a culture, of the institutions (schools, libraries, clubs, churches, synagogues, social organizations, businesses), heroes, political leaders, intellectuals, values and the ability of those who are part of it recognizing each other, even if it has integrated into the dominant culture.
If all these elements make up an Ethnos, gays and lesbians are included within the term "nation" used in acts 10. But what evidence are there of ethnos of lesbians and gay in the Bible? Hundreds of years of heterosexual prejudices in historical and biblical studies make it difficult to answer this interesting question.

God glorifies those who are "sterile"

We consider, first of all, the biblical concept of immortality, as the Jewish writings are not explicit or consistent on the concept of life after death. A way to achieve eternal life is through daughters and sons.
In biblical times, the greatest misfortune that could happen to someone was the exclusion from their community with the condemnation to exile, or the public execution or when you died without having had children. In fact, the material prosperity and the large descendants were signs of God's benevolence. (Psalms 127, 3-5 and 128, 3-6).

Better to have children and daughters

In this context, since the dignity of the woman is linked to the ability to give children to her husband, sterility is a curse. The Bible is full of episodes in which women pray that God give them children. (Psalm 113, 9; Jan 30, 1; 1Sam 1, 10).
The prophets of Israel use sterility as a metaphor of the pitiful condition of the people of Israel when they consider themselves abandoned or cursed by God.
But we find the most moving elaboration of the metaphor of sterility in the prophetic message of Isaiah 54 that reverses the curse and transforms Israel into a sterile wife with many children.
In Isaiah 56 the prophet uses the female image of sterility, "the dry tree", and also the expression "cut", of the eunuchi.The term "eunuch" is probably used as a general term of men and women without descent.
In Deuteronomy 23, 1 we find the main reference on the exclusion of eunuchs from the temple. In Levitico 21, 17 it is stated that only those who are free from physical defects can approach God.
This statement would exclude the eunuchs who, in ancient religions, were priests of the temple, and perhaps also children born from incestuous relationships.
Finally, the prophet (Isaia 56, 4-5), however, proclaims: “If the eunuchs will observe my Saturdays, and they will choose what I like and will land at my pact:« I will give them, in my house and inside mine walls, a place and a name, which will have more value of sons and daughters; I will give them an eternal name, which will no longer perish .. "

Some people are "eunuchi" from birth

Who were the eunuchs in the times of the Bible? "Eunuch" seems to refer to the castrated man so that he did not constitute a "danger" for female royalty. However, there are references to Eunuchi who served as real officials and who, not necessarily, were eunuchi from a physical point of view.
In fact, not all the eunuchs mentioned in Genesis, Isaiah, Geremia, Daniele and in the New Testament they were males who had suffered the castration.
The concept of "eunuch" is something more generic, to the point of including in the term also sterile women, homosexual officials of foreign courts, magicians and priests, as well as also castrated males.
From a functional point of view, castrated males were also frequently homosexual, but not constitutionally.

Heterosexual marriage is not for everyone

Jesus speaks of three types of Eunuchi: “Since there are eunuchs that are such from birth; There are eunuchs, who have been made such by men, and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchi by themselves because of the kingdom of heaven. Who can understand, understand ».." (Mt. 19, 12).
One might think that the eunuchs "made by men" are those who were castrated and that those "made by themselves" are voluntary celibates.
But then who are those who "are such from birth"? With this expression, Jesus makes it clear that heterosexual marriage is not a rule that applies to everyone.
This significant comment of Jesus, who admits lifestyles other than heterosexual marriages, applies to lesbians and gays.Two tales of black Eunuchi, both real officials, show us the redeemed action of God.
In Jeremiah 38, an Eunuch Ethiopian saves the life of Jeremiah, a celibate prophet. Geremia in turn brings to the king a message from God, in which he explains how Jerusalem can save himself.
In acts 8, the apostle Filippo baptizes another Eunuch Ethiopian. The Eunuch is reading Isaiah 53, closely linked to Isaiah 54 and 56, about the messianic prophecy of the fate of the Son of God, whose life is violently removed from the earth.
The eunuch receives the message that those who have been "cut" will be allowed. So he asks: "Could I be baptized?" And the apostle Filippo baptizes him.

Jesus chooses a new family

Jesus Christ, completing the prophecy of Isaiah 53, is cut by his people when they treat him as a criminal and dies without leaving descent.
Jesus Christ was an eunuch, although not physical, functional, and his death and resurrection redefine eternal life, separating it from the need to generate daughters and children.
Once, claimed by his mother and his brothers, Jesus Christ, seeing the disciples as a new family, replies: "Anyone who will have the will of God, is my brother, sister and my mother". (MC 3, 35)

Jesus had a marginal lifestyle

Jesus established relationships with groups very different from those who currently recognize as families. Jesus loved Lazzaro, Mary and Marta.
What Jesus tied to a family made up of a brother and two sisters, is all three without spouses? Two sterile women and an eunuch is the family who chooses Jesus.
Should we assume that they were heterosexual celibates? And if Maria and Marta were not sisters, but were called "sister" among them, how did it happen with most of the lesbian couples throughout history?
John's Gospel cites more than eight times "that Jesus loved", he himself is called "the beloved disciple".
Scholars rarely stop to study the obvious intimate relationship that Jesus kept with another man.
If Jesus had been gay or not, the theme is still covered by homophobia.

In reality, the Bible is almost totally disconnected the ideal of the post reform that speaks about heterosexual weddings, monogamous, romantic and for life.
The Bible shows us marriage as a union based on commercial transactions, on polygamy, on the extended family, on tribal groups, levirate and other lifestyles.
The anti-pastrimonial prejudice in the New Testament and the negative emphasis towards the sex of the first theologians are themes well known to historians and scholars of human sexuality.
The new Christian community witnessed in the documents, welcomes widows without children, prostitutes who stopped being, marginalized social, bachelors, married, eunuchi, black, Jews and Gentiles.
Those who had been excluded before then, were now seeing the promise of Isaiah 56 to carry out: "My house will be called prayer house for all peoples".

Homosexual relationships in the Bible

The Bible provides models to lesbians and gays by telling two stories of pairs of the same sex which, in the mutual commitment of love, face and exceed difficult situations.

Ruth and Noemi

Ruth's book is a love story, but not between Ruth and Boaz. Indeed, all Noemi is the protagonist and Ruth the Redenta heroine, the relationship between Ruth and Boaz, far from being loving, is more a matter of conservation of descent and the land of the family.
But the story contains the most moving promise of personal loyalty of the whole Bible: "But Ruth replied:« Don't pray to leave you, to leave you away from you; Because where you go, I will go too; And where you are, I will also be; Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. '"(Ruth 1, 16)
Although this promise is used in marriage ceremonies between a man and a woman, it is a promise between two women!
Ruth made this statement to Noemi, his mother -in -law, when his bridegroom lost his life on the war field. Ruth later marries Boaz, a close relative, and redeem the place of Noemi in his own family, also having a son for Noemi.
Noemi and Ruth had a lesbian relationship? We will never be able to know, but it is clear that the two women had a passionate and committed relationship, praised by the Holy Scriptures, which lasted throughout their lives.

United in a love pact ... Davide and Gionata

Another biblical story, that of Davide and Gionata, occurs in the era in which the virile relationship between warrior and lover was common and, moreover, noble. The triangle of passion, jealousy and political intrigues between Saul, Gionata and Davide, is a true expression of love between people of the same sex: I am in anguish because of you, Gionata, my brother; You were very dear to me, and your love for me was more wonderful than women's love! ". (2sam 1, 26).

The biblical author is undoubtedly aware of Davide's virile classical beauty (1Sam 16, 12) in this story of loving loyalty (1Sam 18, 1-5), with stealthy encounters (1Sam 20, 1-23, 35-42) , kisses and tears (1Sam 20, 41), refusal to food (1Sam 28, 32-34) and the pact between warrior and lover that Davide keeps up When Gionata's death (1Sam 20, 12-17, 42).
We cannot read this story without deducing that Gionata was the love of Davide's life.The many centuries of homophobic interpretations of the Bible have kept him hidden in the closet for too long! (2)

Homosexuality and the Bible ... relevant questions

Is this everything? Any prophecies on sterility and eunuchi and two tales of couple of the same sex? There are other stories that biblists should analyze. Were the Eunuchi di Giuseppe (Gen 39-45) and the book of Ester who, while living in the royal courtyards, saved the rulers of God?
In the parable of the woman who had ten drams and had lost one (Lk 15), the coin happily recovered and the metaphor of lesbians and gays of our day?
At present, admitting that lesbians and gays are ten percent of the population, are therefore the tenth of humanity? Are they the yeast of the bread of culture?
A centurion implores Jesus who saves his servant to whom he kept a lot (lk 7). The Greek word used in Mt. 8 is "Pais", which means "slave boy" and who usually refers to a homosexual relationship.
Why does Jesus praise the faith of the centurion but does not condemn his lifestyle?
The apostle Paul expresses an antipathy for heterosexuals unable to dominate sexual desires.At the same time, his turbulent life revolves around men: Timoteo, Barnaba and Sila. Are the diatribes against his collaborators and the Church and his tireless missionary zeal, are an attempt to repress his homosexuality?
The song of the rich young man (Mc. 10, 21), says: "Jesus, looked at him, loved him". What is the relationship between embodied spirituality and this "love" for a stranger who needs?
What studies have been done about eight times that Jesus expresses "love" to someone? How does this special "love" of Jesus relate to his sexuality?
What happened in Lidia (Acts 16), the independent and pagan entrepreneur, sellers of Porpora and first Christian in Europe?
Although the biblical text reports that Lidia directs a group of women to whom Paolo Preaci, he does not mention nor of spouses nor of children. Was Lidia lesbian?
Often, purple color is used in relation to royalty, suffering and passion, or transformation and magic. The purple is the color that Jesus brings to the cross. The purple color also has lesbian and gay connotations in the Bible and in the Christian liturgical tradition? (3)

And how does this change things?

How does things change the fact that lesbians and gays can see yourself in the Bible? What does it allow you to see the biblical characters how they really are, without mandatory, wrong, that they are all heterosexuals.
In these references to lesbians and gays, we have not found nor convictions nor confirmation of the homophobic interpretations of the history of Sodom and Gomorrah or in the rules of the Levitician.
Instead, we invite the communities of lesbians and gays to read the Bible without fear and apply its message of healing and choice in their lives.

Notes

¹ Consultación of the National Council of Churches of Christ (consultation of the Council of the Churches of Christ), USA, Selle "Biblical themes and homosexuality", unpublished, 1987. Search for the six biblical passages that, mentioned outside their context, are used against lesbians and gays. See the booklet “Homosexualidad: ni pecado, ni infirmadad"(Homosexuality: nor sin, nor illness) by Rev. Donald Eastman (1990).
² This paragraph, "homosexual relationships", is based on the work of Tom Horner, "Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times" (Gionata loved Davide: homosexuality at the time of the Bible) Philadelphia-Westminster, 1978.
³ This paragraph, "relevant questions", is based on the work of Judy Graham, Another Mother Tongue (the language of another mother) Boston-Beacon, 1984).

Recommended readings:

- Boswell John, Christianism, Tolerancia Social Y Homosexualidad. Barcelona, ​​Munchnik Editores, 1992
- Boyd, Malcom and Wilson, Nancy L., Amazing Grace: Stories of Lesbian and Gay Faith, Freedom, Crossing Press, 1991
- Eastman Donald: Homosexualidad, ni pecado ni enfemedad, los Ángeles, Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, 1990.
- Hilton Bruce, in Homophobia (Medo Ou hatred in Homossexuais) TEME? , Rio de Janeiro, Ediouro, 1992
- McNeill John J. Iglesia ante La Homosexualidad. Barcelona, ​​Grijalbo, 1979 Mirabet y Mullol, Antoni, Homosexualidad Hoy, Barcelona, ​​Herder, 1985
- Schussler Fiorenza Elizabeth, in Memory of Her, New York, Crossroads Publishing Company
- Schiter Jacobo, The Formación de a contracture, San José, Guayacán, 1989.
- Steiner, George Y Boyers, Robert, ed. Homosexualidad: Literature y Política, Madrid, Alianza, 1985

* La Pastora Nancy Wilson is Minister of the Fraternidad Universal de Iglesias de la Comunidad Metropolitan, Fuicm (universal fraternity of the churches of the metropolitan community)

Original text: Lenando the Biblia with Nuevos Ojos