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Re: Lev. 18:18, 22 (LXX)
On Wed, 7 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote:
> In an earlier post, I recommended a perusal of the Hebrew underlying
> instances of the translation "wife." I said then that you will find that
> when 'ishshah has the meaning "wife," either the context clearly so
> indicates, or the use of the article and/or some pronoun points to the
> husband-wife relationship. In the case of Lev. 18:18, the context is what
> shows that GUNH (and its underlying Hebrew) is to be understood as "wife."
> The context does not so indicate in Lev. 18:22. And with neither article
> nor pronoun to show a husband-wife relationship in Lev. 18:22, GUNH (and its
> underlying Hebrew) should be most naturally understood in a general sense
> (i.e. "woman"). Make no mistake, the semantic range of both GUNH and
> 'ishshah include both "wife" and "woman." The coice between these two
> meanings is a matter of exegesis and depends entirely the kinds of indicators
> I have mentioned.
I *have* perused the Hebrew use of issha, and I can only conclude that
your criteria for an acceptable context are not the same as mine. I
assume you support the traditional interpretation, something like "you
will not lie with a man as with a woman" and interpreted as being a
general prohibition against homosexual behavior. Well, if this is so
[assuming, for the sake of argument, what I reject], then you must see
that homosexual behavior, illicit, is being contrasted to relations with
a woman, licit. Now you have insisted that issha/gune is *not* to be
interpreted as wife, so you are saying that homosexuality is being shown
to be evil as CONTRASTED with adultery or fornication between a man and a
woman, that is, sex between a man and a woman who, as you say, are NOT
married. Do you see the problem with that? We could chase issha's and
gunE's all through the Hebrew Bible, but I don't think that would do any
more to convince you that issha/gunE throughout Leviticus 18 is
sufficiently contextualized to need to be rendered "wife." So I've done
my part to present the evidence.
Greg Jordan
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
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