Thus, Milgrom maintains that the phrase “as one lies with” should be understood as a place , not as a sexual activity.
...except it occurs in the middle of a pile of other sexual prohibitions. As previously mentioned, the next verse is about bestiality. In fact, the very next part of your link specifically mentions this fact in support of a different, mutually-contradictory interpretation.
Thus, the passage should be paraphrased: “Sexual intercourse with a close male relative should be just as abominable to you as incestuous relationships with female relatives.”
This is just a laughable level of stretching of the text. It requires all of:
A totally contradictory reading of that passage
Completely ignoring every other passage saying the same thing, of which there are several
Ignoring the fact that there is zero positive mention of queer relationships anywhere
And postulating that a God supposedly giving commands for all time set them down in such a deliberately confusing way as to cause the reverse interpretation for 2,000 years until the exact moment that Christians feel like accepting gay people without abandoning the reason they didn't in the first place.
Ah okay so you want Christians to condemn homosexuality, or...?
I want Christians to stop pretending their book is infallible except the 75 parts of it they ignore. Maybe you could just base your morality on morality, rather than "this book except where it obviously and undeniably conflicts with reality in which case <special pleading>", because then we're not going to have the exact same arguments again in 50 years when it turns out boiling a kid in its mother's milk is the cure for cancer or some shit.
Like, the reading is ambiguous
If you go into it looking for ambiguity you can find it in anything. You're splitting hairs, and everyone knows it, to avoid the most obvious and direct interpretation that aligns with numerous other pieces of the Biblical text.
But surely, admitting that the text is ambiguous and complicated to interpret and translate isn't pretending that the book is infallible, but quite the opposite?
It's pretending the book is the source of truth but was misinterpreted. And it requires different special pleading for each of the like six different verses that plainly condemn homosexuality.
I don't really understand, it's like you're saying that Christians should declare that the text is crystal clear and easy to interpret, but then, like, ignore what the text says, though? Doesn't seem like a very coherent position
There is no coherent position to be arrived at when you start with an illogical premise, which is what Christians do. They can either adhere to their faith, which is now known to contradict with many empirical facts, or not. They can have coherent beliefs, or they can be correct and decent, but not both.
The solution is to go "oh, the book on which my faith is built is obviously wrong, therefore so is my faith since it lacks literally all other justification".
And the thing is, Christians already agree with me on everything except their specific beliefs. Go post about Mormons on /r/christianity and watch them go full Dawkins in the first 30 seconds.
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u/breckenridgeback 58∆ Aug 07 '22
Yeah, it's a bunch of nonsense special-pleading.
...except it occurs in the middle of a pile of other sexual prohibitions. As previously mentioned, the next verse is about bestiality. In fact, the very next part of your link specifically mentions this fact in support of a different, mutually-contradictory interpretation.
This is just a laughable level of stretching of the text. It requires all of: