The Grammar of Leviticus 18.22
Final yr, I wrote a Grove booklet on the text relating to same-sex unions; some of this cloth has also contributed to the resources for the 'facilitated conversations' in the Church of England. I posted on the web log an extract on the texts from Leviticus 18 and 22, which generated quite a bit of discussion. Some of the about meaning comments came from Jerome T Walsh, who taught Old Testament at Botswana Academy and the University of Dallas, and has published several books on OT narrative. He has questioned the 'traditional' understanding of these texts based on philological insights in the work of Saul Olyan.
In response, the Revd Dr Thomas Renz, an OT scholar who is now an incumbent in London Diocese, argues that the translation Jerome Walsh offers for Lev. eighteen:22, "you must non lie with a male as a adult female would," while not impossible, is less likely than the traditional agreement forth the lines of "yous must non prevarication with a male as one lies with a adult female." Walsh's determination that Lev. 18:22 does not prohibit all male person-male sexual intercourse but only those in which a free, male denizen of Israel is penetrated is therefore not warranted. Thomas has published on the volume of Ezekiel (which he talks nearly in this video) as well as technical aspects of Hebrew poetry, and is writing a commentary on Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah.
His statement (beneath) is quite technical. Only for me the exchange demonstrates:
- that serious debate is still possible, given the right context;
- that there are some important issues at stake in biblical interpretation; and
- that it is possible to come up to a reasonable conviction in the 'traditional' reading.
Saul Chiliad. Olyan's essay "'And with a Male person Y'all Shall Not Prevarication the Lying down of a Woman': On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and xx:13," in the Periodical of the History of Sexuality v (1994): 179-206, is not readily accessible to most biblical interpreters. I myself have just seen the starting time page.
Jerome T. Walsh therefore did us a proficient service in drawing our attention to Olyan's contribution in an essay published in the Journal of Biblical Literature. Both Olyan's and Walsh'due south article focus on the precise understanding of the phrase mishkebey isha in Lev. xviii:22 and twenty:13.
The phrase mishkebey isha consists of two nouns in a construct relationship. A construct chain has a head noun, the governing noun, at the beginning which is followed by a governed noun. The caput noun is in the construct state, the governed substantive is the postconstructus. (Construct chains may be longer than ii words but this demand not business organisation u.s.a. here.) Strictly speaking, Biblical Hebrew does not have cases but the postconstructus is usually spoken of every bit a genitive.
A construct concatenation can limited various relationships between caput noun and postconstructus. In cases where the head noun includes a verbal notion, the genitive tin be a subjective genitive (expressing agency or authorship), as in "the blessing of the Lord" where the Lord is the one who blesses, or an objective genitive (pointing to the one who receives the action) as in "the fear of the Lord" where the Lord is the 1 who is feared. Just the genitive can besides be i of, eastward.g., means or instrument as in "called-for of burn down" where nosotros would accept to use a preposition "called-for with fire" (Isa. ane:vii). Where no verbal notion is present farther possibilities sally such as genitive of material ("vessels of silver") or result ("sheep of slaughtering" = "sheep for slaughtering") and various forms of specification ("fair of form" or "people of hard cervix"). Williams' Hebrew Syntax (3rd. ed.; University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 13-eighteen, offers a convenient summary.
The head noun mishkebey is the construct plural form of mishkab. The word mishkab commonly refers to a lodging place or a bed. Only it can also express the verbal notion of lying down on a bed, as in 2 Sam. 4:5 "he was lying down the bed of noontime" whereby "the bed of noontime" must refer to the residue typically enjoyed in the heat of day, the "lying down at noontime."
In Lev. eighteen:22 and 20:13 the postconstructus is not "noontime" but "a woman". Hence the going to bed is not specified here to be "at noontime" simply "with a woman". This at whatever rate is how the phrase has been understood traditionally. Olyan, as reported past Walsh, succeeds in demonstrating that Lev. 18:22 and xx:xiii refer specifically to male person-male anal intercourse on the grounds that "going to bed" or "lying down" with a adult female refers to sexual intercourse.
This can be argued on the basis of the correlative phrase mishkab zachar (zachar = male) in Num. 31:17-18, 35, and Judg. 21:11-12. Num. 31:17 refers to "every woman knowing a human being with regard to going-to-bed-of-male person". The NRSV translation reflects the usual understanding of the phrase as referring to "every woman who has known a human by sleeping with him." Judg. 21:eleven uses the shorter "every woman knowing going-to-bed-of-male person" which again is unremarkably understood every bit "every woman who has had sexual relations with a male person."
Lev 18:22 reads "with a male yous shall non go to bed (or: lie downwards) mishkebey isha." Going to bed with someone, as in English language, usually has sexual connotations in Hebrew. The Hebrew verb shakhab ("to prevarication down") seems to bear like the English language "to sleep" in this respect. We cannot really apply "to sleep" on its ain to refer to sexual intercourse, any the context. "John had more sex activity than anyone I know. In fact he slept every solar day several times" would not be normal English, if the second sentence was meant to say that he had lots of sexual intercourse. We would have to say "several times a twenty-four hours he slept with someone." In the same way there are no instances in Hebrew where a sentence "ten lies down" or "x and y go to bed" refers to sexual intercourse; it is always "x lies down / goes to bed with y" whereby x is usually a man just occasionally a woman.
In sum, the prohibition in Lev. eighteen:22 is commonly read "with a male you shall not become to bed as ane goes to bed with a adult female" or "with a male person you shall not lie down as one lies down with a woman." The genitive is understood to express an adverbial relationship similar to the complement "at noontime" in 2 Sam. 4:five.
In "Leviticus eighteen:22 and 20:13: Who is Doing What To Whom?," JBL 120 (2001): 201-209, Jerome T. Walsh argues that the traditional understanding of the construct concatenation, nonetheless followed by Olyan, is incorrect.
Walsh notes the difference of verbs used in the passages cited by Olyan: the women are said to "know" (experience) mishkab zachar, while the men are said to "prevarication down (with a male)" the mishkebey isha.[1]
The difference is that in Lev. 18:22 and xx:xiii mishkebey isha is a cognate accusative. In other words, information technology has the same root as the verb. Walsh compares Hebrew idioms such every bit "to dream a dream" or "to sin a sin" and observes that "this construction regularly describes an action performed by the subject, not the discipline's experience of someone else." He concludes from this that "the homo to whom the laws of Lev 18:22 and 20:xiii are addressed, so, is the one who performs the 'lyings down of a adult female'" then assumes that the one who performs the lying down must be "the one who acts every bit the receptive partner" (all citations from p. 205). This is not warranted. When "x lies downwardly with y," x may be described as "the 1 who performs" and may indeed be "the receptive partner" but this is past no ways certain and in fact more commonly it is the other way round.
From the observation that in the case of cognitive accusatives the construct regularly describes the i performing rather than suffering the action, he jumps to the conclusion that the postconstructus must further qualify the subject field.[2] And then while nosotros may all hold that the ane who lies down with a male person is the one who "performs" the lying downward, this does non notwithstanding decide whether he does so "as a adult female" or whether his lying downward is every bit if "with a adult female".
Given the diverseness of relationships that tin be indicated by a construct concatenation, how does one make up one's mind? Walsh appeals to the use of "male" rather than "man" to suggest that "male" here must mean "the penetrator." Just because "human being" tin exist used in Hebrew impersonally without regard for gender (due east.g., Gen. 13:16) or to refer generally human being beings, again without regard to gender (due east.k. Job 38:26), the employ of "male" may simply draw attention to the sex activity of the people involved without on its own establishing who does what to whom.
My preference remains for the traditional understanding of the postconstructus every bit a complement, non different to two Sam. 4:5 ("at noontime", here: "with a woman").[3] This is based on the ascertainment that the verbal sentence to which the construct concatenation is a shortcut in all attested cases has a complement. (As pointed out above, "x lies down" only refers to sex when it has a complement "with y".) The subject of the exact judgement implied (the x who performs the lying down) is implied in the verbal idea expressed in the construct substantive. This makes it more than likely, in my view, that the postconstructus provides the complement ("with a adult female") rather than a specification of the subject ("[as] a woman").
[1] In Num 31:35 and the other parallels referenced above the women feel the "the lying down of a male." Because "x lies downwards with y" tin can work either style, with the male being the ten or the y, "the lying down of a male" could refer either to the adult female "going to bed with a male person" or "a male person going to bed with them." In Num 31:17-xviii the question is in issue whether the phrase introduced with lamed (every bit to) qualifies the object (knowing a homo, namely knowing him as a male going to bed with you) or the verb (knowing a man, namely knowing every bit in going to bed with a male person). Both seems possible. If it were unambiguously the quondam, Lev. 18:22 could have been phrased analogously , "you shall non know a homo mishkab zachar – knowing him as a male going to bed with you lot." I owe this insight to my old colleague James Robson.
[two] Cognate accusatives are also used in sentences like "he offered burnt offerings" (Gen. eight:20), "he built the stones into an chantry (1 Ki. 18:32), "if you vow a vow" (Deut. 23:22), in which it seems to make less sense to debate whether the accusative qualifies the person doing it or the thing experiencing it. Examples from Williams' Hebrew Syntax (tertiary. ed.; University of Toronto Press, 2007), p. nineteen.
[3] Strictly speaking, it would be possible to speak of the genitive here as objective because the Masoretic text allows for the cognate verb to have the direct object, equally in fact does English when "bed" is used as a verb. But because the verb is regularly used with a preposition when information technology refers to having sex, it may exist better to avert the designation "objective genitive" here.
You can see the more detailed exchange on the previous mail service here.
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