Dave, commenting on Dan's post, wrote: "IMHO, your comment and essay are
dead on. Further, I wonder about the exercise of arguing that, since Paul
doesn't mention committed relationships, they must be OK. Has the
argument from silence somehow become valid?"
Dave -- if you look at the materials on my website, particularly my
position statement at
http://www.burgy.50megs.com/gay1.htm
you will not find any mention, even implicitly, of an "argument from
silence" that homosexual relationships are "OK." The claim I make is a
neutral one, that the silence of scripture on this issue can not be made
to support either of my positions 1 or 2 (in my position statement).
Dave continues: "As I see it, in the Jewish tradition within which Paul
lived, there could never be a committed homosexual relationship for, the
instant contact was discovered, the participants would be very dead."
Whether or not the death penalty prescribe in Lev was carried out or not
is problematical at best. But you are correct in noting that the Lev laws
were expected of the Jewish [people at the time Paul wrote Romans.
Dave finished by saying "This was clearly not the case in the pagan
world, but that was what Paul was explicitly condemning in Romans 1."
In the absence of an antecedent, I'm not sure to what this sentence is
referring. The issue is, of course, whether (or not) Paul (and therefore
our Lord) is referring to ALL homosexual activity or only that of a
specified kind as generated by people clearly into other sins.
John Burgeson (Burgy)
http://www.burgy.50megs.com
(science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
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