Lev 18:22 does NOT prohibit homosexuality

Leviticus 18:22 does not say homosexuality is an abomination.  This statement seems to be entirely contrary to the text.  It is not. Leviticus 18: 22 is but one component of a pericope that begins with Lev 18:20 and ends with Lev 18:23.  The pericope is an inclusio that opens and closes with stipulations concerning impregnating a woman.  The opening stipulation prohibits impregnating a woman of “your people.”  The closing stipulation prohibits permitting an animal to impregnate a woman.  These two verses define what the text means by "mishkaveh ishah," the phrase in Lev 18:22 that has been used to condemn homosexuality.  If the text does not prohibit homosexuality, how did it acquire that interpretation?  To answer this, we need to examine both the Hebrew and the Greek texts.

            Paired with Lev 18:21, Lev 18:22 appears in the middle of the periscope: they are two verses that illuminate the difficulties of possessing offspring.   In Lev 18:21, we find a prohibition against giving one's offspring to a foreign god. In Lev 18:22 we find the prohibition against sleeping with a man "mishkaveh ishah."  Since the rest of the prohibitions in the pericope deal with impregnating a woman, these two prohibitions seem out of place.  They are not.  In Lev 18:22, the writers of the text identified as a problem the possibility of the impregnation of a male by a male, the subsequent dispute of ownership of the offspring, and the requirement that one of those two males would have to disown his offspring.  

            The pericope Leviticus 18:20-23 says:

            “ve el ishat ametkha lo titen shechavtekha lizroa letameh b;  ve mizarekha lo titen leheavir lemelekh;  velo techalel et shem elohekha. Ani YHVH; ve et zachar lo tishkavehmishkaveh ishah.  To’evah hu.  Uvcol behemah lo titen shecavekha letameh ba.  Ve ishah lo taamodlifne behemah lerivah, tevel hu.”

            "And on a woman of your neighbor [ishat ametkhah] you will not give your sleep to plant seed [sh'kvetekha lezroa].  You will not contaminate [tameh] yourself in this way.  And your seed [zeroa--offpsring] you will not give over to Molech and you will not desecrate the name of your god.  I am G-d.  And you will not lie with a male [zachar] in beds of a woman [mishkave ishah], this is loathsome [to'evah];  and you will not give your sleep [to plant seed] with all animals, you will not contaminate [tameh] yourself with this.  And you will not permit an animal to impregnate a woman.  It is confusion [tevel]."  

            The first thing we notice about the pericope is that all of the verbs are in the second person, masculine atid (future). They are not in the imperative.  This tells us that the “commands” are not, in fact, commands.  Rather, they are declarative statements which form a contract (you will do this to keep your part of the contract;  I will do something to keep my part of the contract).  This also tells us that the contract is addressed to each individual male  in the intended audience.

            The opening prohibition, Lev 18:20, refers to sleeping with a woman "of your neighbor" for the purpose of impregnating her.  At issue is not simply the matter of engaging in sexual intercourse.  At issue is the matter of planting zeroa, seed:  creating offspring.  The phrase ”titen sh'kvehtekha lezroa,” “give your sleep to plant seed,” gives us an idea of the ancient Hebrew understanding of conception. For the purposes of this paper, we will examine only evidence that is contained within the Hebrew canon of TaNaKh, under the presupposition that we cannot say for certain whether Hebrew communities that used the text were acquainted with or accepted the anatomical/medical knowledge possessed by other cultures of the time.  Since we lack any documentary evidence supporting a hypothesis that Hebrew communities did have acquaintance with that knowledge, it is reasonable to base our conclusions solely on the text we do know Hebrew communities made use of:  TaNaKh.

            From this, we can infer that ancient Hebrews believed that impregnation was caused by a male implanting his seed. The obligation to create offspring was placed squarely on the man, rather than on the woman.   In Gen 9:1, God tells Noah and his sons Genesis "Go forth and be many.”  From this, it is inferable that in the view of the ancient Hebrews, woman contributed nothing to the conception and growth of the fetus:  that she was merely the receptacle of the seed.  The male who implanted seed in her was the owner of the seed and of the offspring into which it developed.  

            We see this in the text concerning the daughters of Zelophahad.  Num 27:1-3 has been upheld as the prooftext for permitting women to achieve equal rights, specifically rights of inheritance, yet Num 36:6-9 makes it evident that the notion of male ownership of offspring is not limited to the immediate male parent, but extends back into the male ancestors and forward into future offspring:  "let [the daughters of Zelophahad] marry whom they think best, only it must be into a clan of their father's tribe that they are married, so that no inheritance of the Israelites will be transferred from one tribe toanother;  for all Israelites will retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes."

            The reference to "a woman of your neighbir" takes us to the heart of the matter:  the pericope is not about sleeping with any member of the general public.  It is about matters that will cause difficulties for the family.  "Ishat ametkhah," “a woman of your neighbor" is an expeditious way of including all possible female relations, including in-laws, who are outside the relationship for which sexual relations are permitted, without having to list each and every prohibited female. 

            The text says that impregnating a woman of your neighbor will result in your making yourself "tameh:" contaminated.  ""Tameh" is usually translated as "contamination," in a sense that means "ritual impurity.  “Ttameh met" is corpse contamination:  the ritual impurity of contact with a dead body.  Planting seed in a woman of “your neighbor,” a woman with whom you did not have a contract that permitted sexual intercourse, would cause contamination by causing confusion over the paternity of the result of that planting and the line that descends from it.

            The next verse, Lev 18:21, contains a prohibition against giving your seed (your offspring) to a foreign god, and desecrating G-d.   The first part of the verse is a direct prohibition.  The second part of the verse seems paradoxical:  you will not desecrate your god.  The text does NOT say "you will not praise Moloch as your god." It says "you will not desecrate your god." The statement that follows those two prohibitions is the assertion:   "I am your God." If the auditor is giving seed [offspring] to another god, thus would constitute disowning that offspring, thus desecrating God.  Hence, this verse could easily (and logically) be translated "do not disown your offspring." The act of giving offspring to Moloch and desecrating God is not designated "tevel" nor is it called "to'evah."  It is simply and directly prohibited by G-d.

Immediately following this prohibition against disowning seed [offspring], we come to Lev 18:22.   This verse prohibits a male from sleeping with a male “mishkaveh ishah.” This text has been translated as "sleeping with a man as with a woman."  However, the text does not say "sleeping with a man as with a woman."  "Mishkaveh ishah" is a smichut that would be better translated as "beds of a woman.”  “Mihkaveh ishah” is a phrase that has many components to it.  It does not mean sleeping with a woman as an expression of love or as a form or of recreation.  

There are two matters of note regarding this phrase:  first, we should note that the phrase is NOT in the singular (bed of a woman), which would be “mishkav ishah.” Second, we find the word
“mishkveh” as a smichut construct appears in only one other place in TaNaKh.  We find it in Gen 49:4.  When Jacob identifies his sons by their natures, he says of Reuben: “Uncontrollable as water, you shall no longer excel.  Because you went up unto your father’s bed; then you defiled [chillalta] it—you went up onto my couch.” (For “chillal,” see also Lev 19:29, Lev 21:9, Lev 21:15:  Chillal is used in the sense of defilement by prostitution.) It is obvious that in this instance, “mishkaveh” is used in the masculine plural smichut construct.  Jacob is not accusing Reuben of having sex with his own father (Jacob).  Nor is he accusing Reuben of having sex with his male ancestors (his “fathers”); it is more likely that he is accusing Reuben of having intercourse with one or more of Jacob’s women, thus causing confusion over the paternity of the offspring.

            If we accept the evidence that the author(s) of Lev 18:22 intended the phrase to use the masculine plural smichut construct, then we have to try to understand the intended meaning of that phrase.  The phrase “beds of a woman” is a loaded one: we noted in the opening verse, that “shekaveh lizeroa” is "sleeping to plant seed."  Thus lying in "mishkaveh ishah" (beds of a woman) suggests that there is that there is the possibility of "shakev l'zroa," “sleeping with to implant seed.” "Mishkaveh ishah" also connotes the bed in which the woman lies to deliver the seed that was implanted., This explains why the smichut is in the plural rather than in the singular: it is not referring only to the bed of conception, but also to the bed of delivery.  If the author(s) had meant the phrase to mean “beddings of a woman,” in the sense of “having intercourse with a woman,”  the singular of “bedding” would be the feminine noun “mishkavah,”  rather than the masculine “mishkav.”  The plural of the feminine noun would be “mishkavot.”  The smichut construct form of the feminine plural would be “mishkavot ishah.” We should note that the word “mishkavah.,” “bedding” in the sense of having intercourse, does not appear in TaNaKh.  The only instance in which we find “mishkavah” in TaNakh is as the singular masculine noun with a third person feminine possessive suffix, “her bed.”  We find this reference in Lev 15:22, as one of the commands regarding the woman who is niddah:  “Anyone who touches her bed will wash his clothes in water and be unclean until evening.”  However, that is not what the text says. “Mishkaveh” is the smichut  masculine plural of “mishkav” [bed].   The text says “mishkaveh ishah:”  “beds of a woman. “  If we understood the phrase “mishkaveh ishah” to mean two men copulating in order to procreate, the notion seems ridiculous: we know how conception occurs.  However, the ancient world lacked our knowledge of biology.  We see in the text that they believed impregnation to be the result of a male implanting seed. 

            The act of sleeping with a man in "woman's beds" is called "to'evah," loathsome, rather than "tameh," "contaminated."  "To'evah" is another difficult word to translate.  In some instances in the text it is translated as "loathsome" or "detestable." In Gen 46:34:  the shepherds of the text are described as "to'evot mitsrayim:”  "loathsome," to the Egyptians. In other instances, “to’evah” is unequivocally translated as "abomination."  Why is there a difference in the translation?  The distinction seems to be to how closely the action is related to the ancient Hebrew community.  If the situation pertained to someone outside the ancient Hebrew community, "to'evah" meant "loathsome."  if the situation pertained to someone within the ancient Hebrew community, "to'evah" meant "abomination."  the difference seems small.  It is not.

            In the final verse of the pericope, Lev 18:23, the auditor is prohibited from sleeping with all animals [to impregnate them].  This is called "tameh:" contamination.  Sleeping with a woman of one's own people for the purpose of impregnating her is on the same level of distaste as sleeping with an animal to impregnate it:  both acts would cause perpetrator to become contaminated.  The contamination would devolve upon the result of the implanting of the seed:  in the came of implanting seed into a woman of your people to whom you are not contracted, you would be creating a problem ownership of the seed, which would, in turn, create a problem for inheritance.  That same principle would apply to the result of implanting seed into an animal: the result of that implanting would create problems for the line of descent.

            The verse also prohibits the auditor from permitting an animal to  impregnate a woman.  That, according to the text, is confusion, "tevel," (rather than "tameh" or "to'evah").  The text does not say that the woman would be “tameh” contaminated.  Rather, permitting the animal to impregnate a woman would be "tevel."  "Tevel" is a difficult word to translate:  some have translated it as "confusion."  In other instances, it has been translated as "incest."  Obviously, in this verse, it would not make sense to translate "tevel" as "incest," so the notion of a woman potentially bearing the offspring of a beast must have presented the community with something that could cause confusion.  Would the result of the implanting belong to the beast that impregnated the woman, or to the human male who owned the beast the implanted the seed? 

            We see that this periscope concerns conception and the ownership of the product of conception. At the heart of the pericope, we find a reference to prohibiting giving one's seed [offspring] over to Moloch and desecrating G-d, followed by the assertion "I am your God."  This verse seems out of place:  it contains no obvious sexual activity.   However, this verse refers to "seed."  "Seed" is the glue that binds the pericope together.   Paired with this verse at the heart of the pericope is that verse which has been used to condemn homosexuality:  the prohibition against a male lying with a male in “woman’s beds.”

            So now we have the beginnings of an answer to our question:  what does Lev 18:22 actually prohibit?  

            It should be pointed out that the ancients had to believe it was unlikely that any male would give his offspring over to a foreign god.  This would represent a conflict of beliefs:  why would a father give his offspring to a foreign god?  That is not a reasonable action.  It would suggest that the parent has disowned the offspring.  It should also be pointed out that those in the ancient world presumably possessed the usual faculties of observation, and presumably were capable of counting the number of orifices present in a woman as opposed to those present in a male.  It should also be pointed out that those in the ancient world were presumably capable of noting from which orifice the offspring emerged when the term of pregnancy ended, and that males do not possess such an orifice.  Putting two injunctions against behavior that had to be understood as unlikely (at best) together in the middle of verses that concern behavior regarding the production of that offspring constitutes a form of building a fence around the law.   

"You will not lie with a male ‘mishkaveh ishah.’" In the opening verse, we noted that “shekaveh lizeroa” is "sleeping to impregnate."  Thus lying in "mishkaveh ishah"(a woman's bed) suggests "shakev l'zroa:" to sleeping with male in order to impregnate him.   From this, we can deduce the "abomination" of Lev 18:  the notion of a male implanting seed into a male with the likelihood that the male.  The male who is the receptacle might then produce offspring the ownership of which could be disputed, because zeroa [seed/ offspring] was owned by the male.  From a legal standpoint, that problem was horrifying: if a male impregnated another male, one of those two males, either the one impregnating or the one impregnated, would have to relinquish rights to the offspring and to the line of descendants that offspring would produce [cf Num 36:6-9].  As we have seen, the text has declared that disowning one's offspring is prohibited by God. 

The text does not prohibit homosexuality. It does not say "God hates gays."  It says the situation that would arise from a male impregnating a male was "to'evah"--a situation that would be outside the parameters of anything the community could accept. because of the situation that could result from that impregnation:  God forbids disowning offspring, Yet if a male impregnated another male, one of those two males would have to disown the resulting offspring.  That was the abomination.

            So how, then, do we arrive at the understanding that the text prohibits homosexuality?  The Hebrew text clearly does not do so.  We find the answer the LXX.  The LXX is a Greek translation of a Hebrew document, which means that the translator(s) rendered the text according to their understanding of what the text said.  The pericope, in Greek reads:  

            20καὶ πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ πλησίον σου οὐ δώσεις κοίτην σπέρματός σου ἐκμιανθῆναι πρὸς αὐτήν 21καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ σπέρματός σου οὐ δώσεις λατρεύειν ἄρχοντι καὶ οὐ βεβηλώσεις τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ἅγιον ἐγὼ κύριος 22καὶ μετὰ ἄρσενος οὐ κοιμηθήσῃ κοίτην γυναικός βδέλυγμα γάρ ἐστιν 23καὶ πρὸς πᾶν τετράπουν οὐ δώσεις τὴν κοίτην σου εἰς σπερματισμὸν ἐκμιανθῆναι πρὸς αὐτό καὶ γυνὴ οὐ στήσεται πρὸς πᾶν τετράπουν βιβασθῆναι μυσερὸν γάρ ἐστιν

(and with the wife of your neighbor you will not give a [marriage] bed of your seed you will not defile yourself with her.  And of your seed you will not give to serve a ruler;  and you will not profane the holy name;  I am the Lord.  And with a male you will not sleep [marriage] bed of a female for it is an abomination.  And with any quadruped you will not give your [marriage] bed in seed, to be polluted with it, a woman will not present herself before any quadruped to have connection with it;  for it is an abomination.)

            The LXX offers us a clue:  the text is a nearly verbatim translation of Hebrew into Greek. However. There are some differences in the text.  In 18:20, we notice that the LXX text is an accurate translation of the verse “ametkha” (your people) is rendered “plesion sou”:  (your neighbor).   This would lead us to believe the rest of the pericope will be similarly faithful to the Hebrew text.  That is not the case.

            In the second verse of the pericope, we find “mem lamed kaf” translated as “ruler” (archon), rather than as “king” (basileus), which would have been a more reasonable, more literal translation.  It is arguable that this translational choice was made because at the time of the translation (under Ptolemy Philadelphus, according the Letter to Aristeas), the Judeans did not have a king—so to translate “mem lamed kaf” as “basileus” could make confusion to a Greek-speaking audience whose acquaintance with Hebrew-speaking people included the knowledge that those Hebrew-speaking people lacked a king.  However, we also find that translational choice aside the import of the verse has not been reduced:  the goal of the command is directed at cautioning against giving one’s seed to serve another leader, and a caution against profaning G-d, and concludes with the statement, “I am Lord (Kurios)”  The translational choice of “Lord” for the Tetragrammaton is an interesting one, indicating that the translator(s) recognized that the Tetragrammaton was used as a representation of the Name, but also recognized that the nikud used with the Tetragrammaton were those for “Adonay.”  Between the choice of “archon” for “mem lamed kaf,” and “Kurios” for the Tetragrammaton, we see that the translator(s) had an intimate understanding of Hebrew traditioning, but not necessarily an understanding of how to best present it to a non-Hebrew-literate audience.

            In the third verse, we come to a problematic translation.  The translation is problematic because Greek has no equivalent of the Hebrew smichut construction.  The Greek translation is “And with a male you will not sleep [marriage] bed of a female for it is an abomination.”  The Greek text preserves the noun “arsen” for zachar, and uses “gunaikos” (genitive, singular feminine)  as an attempt to create the smichut construction.  The problem with the Greek translation is that it is inaccurate.  Greek has no equivalent for masculine/feminine nouns which convey different ideas similar to “mishkav/mishkevah.”  Presumably because of this, the translator(s) chose to use a simpler Greek translation, making the noun “mishkav” singular and using the genitive case as an equivalent for the smichut construct.  In using the Greek word κοίτην, the complexity of the verse has been removed.   Rather than translating the verse as “the beds of a woman,” the translator(s), opted to make a plural noun singular thus changing the reading of the text.

            It would seem then, that the matter of the negative interpretation of the text derives from the Greek content, rather than from the Hebrew.  It would seem that in an attempt to reconcile different ideas represented in the Greek and Hebrew texts, commentators and exegetes opted to use the simpler, Greek version, and to redact that into the more complex Hebrew text.  The Hebrew text is quite clear:  the text does not prohibit homosexuality.  It does prohibit disowning offspring.

            It would not be the first, or the only, time that such a misunderstanding occurred in a situation where two different Judaic cultures misunderstood one another, because it is reasonable to presume that the Greek text was understood by a Greek-literate and encultured audience, while the Hebrew text was understood by a Hebrew-literate and encultured audience.  It is possible that the Hebrew-literate audience, was aware of the substitution of the feminine singular Greek word and presumed that if the Greek text used this, there had to have been a “lost” feminine-noun interpretation of “mishkaveh.”  It would not be the first time this type of inter-and intracultural misunderstanding has occurred.  Ashkenazim pronounce “tav” as an “s,”  under the mistaken impression that Sephardim pronounce the letter “tav” as an “s.”  Sephardim, however do not pronounce “tav” as an “s.”  Sephardim pronounce “tav” as a hard “t” similar to the phoneme used for “c” and “z” in the Castillian lisp..  When Sephardim transliterated Hebrew words into Spanish, rather than translating “tav” as a “t,” or even as a “th,” they translated “tav as a “z” which they pronounced as “th” according to the Castilian rules of the phoneme.  Thus “tallit” was transliterated as “talliz,” but pronounced as “tallith.”  Ashkenazim, reading Sephardic texts and lacking knowledge of Castilian phonetics, read “talliz” and decided that Sephardim pronounced “tav” as an “s.”  It is very probable that a similar misunderstanding occurred with the use of the feminine singular noun in the Greek text as a replacement for the masculine plural in the Hebrew text:  Hebrew-encultured Judeans knew there was an alternate usage in the Greek text, but lacking any understanding of why the  texts differed, redacted their interpretation to include an otherwise non-existent interpretation of the word “mishakveh” to reconcile the Hebrew and Greek texts.

Contemporary scholarship opines that the text referred to an ancient Judean distaste for the Greek practice of pederasty.  This is an interesting argument, which the text, unfortunately, does not support.  The contention is that the use of “zachar” (a word that is not age-specific) was meant to warn older men from intercourse with younger men, and vice versa.   However, the word “zachar” is also not species-specific, and there is no indication that the ancient Greeks had a practice of encouraging men to engage in intercourse with animals.  There is, however, a verse that prohibits women from such intercourse, and there are Greek and Roman myths that feature such interactions. 

Greco-Roman mythology that features a hero as a product of divine-but-disguised-as-animal males impregnating a human females seems to be an explanation of how certain humans acquire what seemed to be superhuman abilities—the paternity of the hero was, obviously, divine and the divine father impregnated the mother while in the form of another species.  The verse enjoining women from intercourse with animals would seem to be an effort to discourage ancient Judean women from behaving as their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts.   This seems to support the notion that the prohibition against male/male intercourse was a reaction to Greco-Roman pederastic practices.  However, the significant feature of the Greco-Roman disguised-divine paternity was not a matter of inter-species intercourse, but a matter of paternity:  the narratives explained, not that the hero was superhumanly gifted because his father was a swan, but that his father was a god who had the power to disguise his true nature and present himself as a swan.  Therefore, at issue was not a matter of distaste for interspecies intercourse, but a concern for protecting paternal rights:  the presumed disguised-divine entity who impregnated the woman was the “real” father,  not the human male to whom she was contracted.  The injunction against female-beast intercourse seems more likely to have been aimed at preventing just such an eventuality.

If this is the case, the male-male verse may not then have anything to do with reacting against Greco-Roman practice, and may, in fact, be  an attempt at avoiding a matter of dispute that even Solomon would be unable to resolve:  two males both of whom have legitimate claims to a single infant, one by reason of impregnating, the other by reason of being impregnated.   The notion of a male producing offspring also appears in Greco-Roman literature, in the form of Athena/Minerva springing fully formed from the head of Zeus/Jupiter.  The fact that the Greco-Roman narrative presents Athena/Minerva as emerging from the head of Zeus/Jupiter, rather than another part of his anatomy, seems to indicate that Greco-Romans were acquainted with basic reproductive structures, and were attempting to create a narrative whereby a woman of intelligence was produced by a man without the assistance of a female receptacle.  However, the Greco-Roman narrative was implicitly aware of the fact that the seed from which Athena/Diana grew had to be solely the property of Zeus/Jupiter, hence her emergence from his head (an anatomical structure that is not usually associated with producing infants).  If we were seeking a model defending a male producing an infant, without the assistance of a female, we would find it in the Athena/Diana narrative., a narrative which contrived the birth in such a way as to ensure that there could be no claim that Zeus/Jupiter had been impregnated by another male.

The notion that Lev 18:22 is affected by Greek is not without merit, but not in the way that scholars have proposed.  The text was affected by reception of the Septuagint text, which used the feminie plural noun, rather than a masculine plural one.  To rectify the matter, to avoid the messy implications that are already present in the text, and to reconcile the use of the Greek feminine plural noun with the Hebrew masculine plural noun, exegetes simply conflated the two, creating a new interpretation of “mishkavim” (beds) as a feminine plural “beddings.”  However, that understanding of the translation is unique to this text:  there is no other text that makes that such a use of “mishkavim.”

To achieve an understanding of the text as an injunction against homosexuality, the text has traditionally been presented as isolated, individual verses.   It is apparent, though, that the verses are a cohesive whole, all of which revolve around paternity.  The most telling of these is the injunction against giving seed to “Moloch” (which the Septuagint renders as “archon,” an indication that at the time of its inception, the ancient Judean world did not have a king).  The verse enjoining the giving of offspring to Moloch is a clear prohibition against disowning offspring.  The verse prohibiting disowning offspring precedes the verse enjoining a male from lying in the beds (mishkavim) of a woman.  The ordering of the verses was not accidental, nor was it coincidental.  The intent of the pericope was to enjoin males from engaging in behavior that could cause confusion over the ownership of the offspring, confusion which by its nature, could cause discord, and possibly even conflict, within the community.

Proto-Christians, would-be Jews, ultra-observant Jews or something else?

Christian scholarship posits that there was a group of proto-Christians who called themselves "θεοσεβιοι" God-fearers.  According to Christian scholarship, these proto-Christians were in the early trajectory of Christian development--Jews ⇒ Jewish Christians/Christian Jews ⇒ Christians.  Jewish scholarship opines that θεοσεβιοι were a sect of Jews who were dedicated to the "most high G-d" (as opposed to the ordinary G-d).

These are interesting hypotheses.  They are, however...inaccurate.

We know of θεοσεβιοι from inscriptional evidence:  specifically, from inscriptions found in the amphitheatre at Miletus, where seating sections were designated ιυοδαιοι και θεοσεβιοι--Judeans and theosebioi.

The Christian theory derives from a desire to locate early Christianity within ancient Judaism.  The Jewish theory derives from a desire to reflect ancient Jewish denominationalism (in which case, the θεοσεβιοι would be a sort of ancient world-חסדים).

There is a possibility that is neither of these theories.  It is possible that the θεοσεβιοι were non-Judeans Greeks who became enamoured of Judean "philosophy" (via the LXX), who wanted to participate in the Judean philosophical "cult," but who did not want to submit to the surgery necessary to become fully-participating members of that cult.

It should be noted that throughout history, the sole sign of Jewishness (in the ancient world, of being a fully-participating member of Temple worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, and the other Temples that operated according to the rules of the Temple in Jerusalem) was the possession of a circumcised penis.  For this reason, women, in the ancient world, were not considered "Judean" in the sense in which we now understand Jewishness--for the simple reason that women lack penises to circumsize.  This is also the reason that Ezra/Nechemia inveigh against marrying "foreign women"--foreign women might (would probably) bring their foreign gods and the worship of those foreign god into the marital home. A non-foreign woman (a woman born into a family where the sole worship was of the G-d worshipped at the Temple in Jerusalem or one of its affiliates) would not present such a difficulty.

We know the Greco-Roman world interested itself in "foreign philosophies," a in foreign cults.  We also know that the Greco-Roman world prized the body, specifically the male body, and valued it in its whole state.  This means that circumcision would present a problem to Greco-Roman males who read the LXX and who wanted to participate in the Judean "philosophy" cult.  The Greco-Roman aversion to surgical interference with the male body would mean that those males who wanted to participate in the Judean cult would not be permitted to do so.  However, those who read the LXX and wanted to follow its "philosophy" without undergoing the surgery necessary to be a fully-participating member of the cult could do so under the designation of θεοσεβιοι--those who "fear" the G-d of the Judeans, but who are not fully-participating members of  Judean Temple cultic worship.

The transmission and reinterpretation of The Name

It was not the case that the consonants of the Name were interspersed with the vowels for "Adonay."  Because it is not possible to pronounce the Name, it was cultural practice to articulate something else when the Name appeared in text/prayer:  "Adonay" was not just an acceptable substitution, it was consistent with ancient practice, which posited the Supreme Being as Lord, Master, King (cf Zeus/Jupiter/Baal, etc)

When the Hebrew text was translated into Greek (the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX), the translator(s), rather than attempting to transliterate the Tetragrammaton (which would not be possible, since Greek lacks a letter consonant approximate to ה) rendered the Name as κυριος, "kurios" the Greek word "Lord."

The early Church, attempting to accommodate both the unpronounceability of the Name called the Deity κυριος (Lord), θεος (God, with no other name appended), and πατερας (father) identifying the Supreme Being by attributes rather than by a Name.  It also attempted to anthropomorphize the Supreme Being, and accommodate Its tripartite nature by representing It as three distinct entities, each of which represented an a form of the Verb encompassed in the Tetragrammaton.  Thus the Father represents the Past היה, the Son represents the Present הוה, and the Holy Spirit represents the Future יהיה.  The three entities were combined into the tripartite hentheistic Being which was further identified at the Trinity (another way of constructing a means by which the Unpronounceable Name could be spoken).

The Greek personification of the Name was entirely masculine.  The use of י as the future prefix was conflated with the Greek/Roman cultural representation of male gods as chief god.

God is a complex verb

It makes a good title.  Yet it is true:  the unpronounceable name of god is not only one verb, it is three tenses of one verb conflated into a single, unpronounceable word, represented by the consonents YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton.

Christian scholarship contends that the name is unpronounceable because ancient Jews "lost" or "forgot" the pronunciation.  Christian scholars claim they "reconstructed" that pronunciation, and came up with Yaweh.  Which is...wrong.  They base this "reconstructed" pronunciation on a small fund of knowledge--that  Hebrew consonants take a vowel--but that is where they stop.  Unfortunately, they stop too soon.

They translate the Name as "I AM." which is also...not accurate.  But the difficulty in translating the NAME is that there no accurate translation is possible, because of the complexity of the Name.

The Name is all three forms of the third person masculine of the Hebrew verb "to be," past, present and future, combined into a single form.

Hebrew verbs are based on a three consonant base, called the shoresh.  (There are exceptions to this--verbs that are based on two consonents, verbs based on four consonants--but there are not many of those.)  Each consonant has a vowel.  Occasionally, a consonant will have a sheva as its vowel.  There are two types of sheva: "sheva nach," (essentially a "silent e," which is intended to either to end one syllable and begin another or create and elision of consonants, and "sheva na" which is pronounced as a short "e."

The verb "to be" is part of a class of verbs called "hollow verbs" because the middle consonant ו (vav) can change into a י (yod). The shoresh of the verb "to be" is היה, HYH.

The third person present masculine is written  הֹוֶה.  The middle consonant ו "vav" is pronounced "v."  The consonants are HVH.  The vowels are ֹ "o" and ֶ  short "e." The third person masculine present tense is pronounced "hoveh."  

The consonant ו was transliterated into the letter "w" by German scholars who pronounce "w" as a "v".  This is how the Tetragrammaton came to be transliterated as YHWH, rather than as YHVH, which would be the correct transliteration.

The future form of Hebrew verbs is distinguished by a prefix and a change in the vowels of the verb. יְהִיֶה in the case of the third person masculine, the prefix is י "yod," the vowels change from ֹ "o" and ֶ  short "e"  to ְְ short "e," ִ "i," and ֶ  longer short "e."  It is pronounced "yehiyeh." (The first short "e" is somewhere between an "e" and an "i.")

The past tense of Hebrew verbs is the three consonants which form the shoresh.  The vowels change to "a."  In the case of the verb "to be," the consonants are היה and the vowel for both consonants is ַ ָ  which is pronounced as "a."  The third person masculine of the past tense is הַיַה.

The NAME, written in Hebrew, combines the י "yod" prefix used in the third person masculine, future, the ו "vav" consonant used in the third person masculine present and the two ה which are the constant consonants of the shoresh (the root which is  determined by  the consonants of the past tense).  It uses the vowels of the different tenses:  the sheva of the future and the "a" of the past tenses.  Thus, the Name combines all three tenses, past, present and future, in a single form.

The Name is commonly written as יְהוָה.  While it would seem reasonable to pronounce this as "YeVah," it would not be so pronounced because the second consonant lacks a vowel entirely.  And, in Hebrew, each consonant has a vowel.

To those who are familiar with Hebrew, the lack of a vowel accompanying the second consonant indicates that it is not possible to pronounce the name, because the omission of a vowel for the second consonant says that it is not possible to know which  vowel ִ( for the future tense, ֹ for the present tense, or  ָ   for the past tense) should accompany the consonant.

If English operated on the same principle, that each consonant had to be accompanied by a vowel, the translation of the Name would be "willbeiswas." This is less than accurate, but it gives an idea of why it is not possible to pronounce the Name.  This is also why translating the Name as "I AM" is...not accurate.  Because "am" is solely present tense, yet the Name encompasses all tenses in a single unit.

Arguably, those who formulated the Name used the third person masculine less because their image of a Supreme Being was male than because י is the inclusive prefix for the 3rd person masculine and feminine plural.  ת, the prefix for the 3rd person feminine singular future, is also used for the third person feminine plural future, but only when the plurality of persons is exclusively female. The use of  י as the future verb prefix is consistent with "Elohim," a plural form used inclusively for a group comprising both males and females.

Tamar really was more righteous than Judah

The story of Judah and Tamar is one that causes cringing and apologies:  we know this is a Patriarch/Matriarch narrative, but how do we cope with a Matriarch who poses as a prostitute to get her father-in-law to impregnate her, who then blackmails her father-in-law?   Why, on being blackmailed, does her father-in-law then say she is more righteous than he? The answer is simple:  because she was.  A lot of scholarly ink has been spilled on this odd tale, which appears ex nihilo in the Joseph narrative.  It has been incorrectly identified as a story of Levirate marriage.  The marriage in the narrative is not Levirate: it is a contract the exact nature of which has been misidentified.  Discussion redeeming Tamar has focused incorrectly on the matters of the zona and the qedesha, as if specifics of prostitution would redeem theoretically wanton behavior.  Attention has been paid to specifics of prostitution in the ancient world.  None of that is relevant to the narrative. The story of Judah and Tamar is not a story of a Levirate marriage, nor is it a story outlining the difference between religiously sanctioned prostitution and whoredom.  It is a story of abuse of power.

            The traditional synopsis of the Tamar/Judah narrative would be:  Judah had three sons:  Er, Onan and Shelah.  Er marries Tamar.  Er dies.  Onan marries Tamar in a Levirate marriage.  Onan refuses to have sex with Tamar.  God kills Onan.  Judah does not want to give Shelah to Tamar.  Instead, he sends her back to her father’s house.  Tamar hears that Judah is shearing sheep.  She goes out and poses as a prostitute. Judah, believing she is a prostitute, has sex with her.  She demands a payment, and asks for something to keep until he can send payment.  She demands his ring, his cord and the staff in his hand.  He gives them to her.  He has sex with her. She goes back to her father’s house.  A short while later, Judah is told she is pregnant. Judah wants her burned.  She sends him the ring, the cord and the staff to prove he is the father of her.  He says she is more righteous than he because he would not give her his youngest son.  

            That is the story we know.  That is neither the whole story, nor is it the real story.  

The story as it appears in the text is this:  

Gen 38:1 And it happened in this time when Judah went down from his brothers, and turned in to a man of the Adullamites, his name was Hirah.

Gen 38:2 And there Judah saw the daughter of a man of the Caananites, his name was Shua.  And he took her and he went to her. 

(The daughter of Shua is so unimportant to the story that she is not named.  The verb ויקחה [he took her] tells us that Judah made the contract to take the daughter of Shua for himself.  The phrase אליה ויבא tells us that Judah consummated that contract himself.)

Gen 38:3 And she was pure and gave birth to a son, and he called him Er.

(The phrase ותהר  is usually translated “and she conceived.”  However, the phrase  ותהר means “and she was pure.”  Num 5:28 says, “and if the woman is not contaminated and is pure, she will be free and will conceive and will bear seed.”  From this, we are to infer that because she was pure, the daughter of Shua got pregnant.

While the daughter of Shua produced the child, Judah named him.  The yod prefix of the verb קרא [called] used for naming the son, indicates that the verb is in the third person masculine singular atid (imperfect):  “And he called,” which indicates that Judah named this first son.  If the nikudot for ער  were other than they are, this first son’s name would be “light.”)

Gen 38:4 And she was pure again and gave birth to a son and she called him Onan.

(The daughter of Shua produced an heir and a spare.  From the verse, we infer that “pure” does not mean virginal.  While the verse describes her as “pure,” because the daughter of Shua had already produced a child, we know she was not a virgin.  However, the daughter of Shua had more involvement with this second son than just producing him.   The verb for his naming is קרא   The tav prefix tells us that the verb is in the third person feminine atid (imperfect): “she called.” The daughter of Shua named this second son. Judah is absent in this verse.   In the prceding verse, he was only present for the naming as we discern from the yod prefix to the verb קרא.  If the nikud for אונן were other than they are, the second son’s name could be translated as “complaint,” or “lamentation.”  It is possible to understand from these two verses that Judah saw his first son as a light, and the daughter of Shua saw her situation with Judah as a lamentation.)

Gen 38:5 And she added another, and she gave birth to a son and she called his name Shelah.  And he was in Chezib when she gave birth to him.

(The verse tells us that she “added” a son.  Having produced an heir and a spare, her purity is no longer an issue.  We are also told, “she named him.”  As with the second son, Judah is not present for this birth. This suggests to us that the first son was the most important to Judah.  Neither of the other two sons was accorded the honor of being named by their father.  The verse also tells us that “he was in Chezib” at the time she gave birth.  The daughter of Shua names her third son Shelah.  The word “shelah” means “calm, tranquil, at ease.”  It is conjecturable that Shelah’s mother feels calm and tranquil because Judah was in Chezib at the time of the birth.)

Gen 38:6 And Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.  

(Judah took the daughter of Shua as his own wife.  He took [יקח] Tamar as the wife of his firstborn son.  The noun בכור “firstborn” is from the verb רבכ which means “choose.”  Er was his father’s chosen son.  Judah took a wife for this chosen firstborn son.  The son did not take his own wife.)

Gen 38:7 And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in God’s eyes, and God killed him.

(God kills Er because Er “was evil in God’s eyes.”  If Er had not been evil in God’s eyes, God would not have killed him, and we would have no narrative.  God extinguished Judah’s light.)

Gen 38:8 And Judah said to Onan, “Go onto your brother’s wife and יבם  her, and raise seed for your brother.

(This verse has caused a lot of trouble. This makes Tamar’s second marriage seem like a Levirate marriage.  It is not.  We know of Levirate marriage from Deut 25:5-6: 

When brothers live together and one of them dies, and he has no son, to ensure that the dead man’s wife will not belong to a foreigner who will impregnate her, one of his brothers will go and take her as a wife and impregnate her, and that offspring will be the firstborn who is born and who will raise the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be erased from Israel.”

Part of the reason for the misunderstanding is that the Deuteronomic verse is the only other place where we see the verb בםי.   Because it is the only other place we find that verb, we do not have sufficient contextual evidence to deduce its exact meaning. The traditional translation of this verb is “do a brother-in-law’s duty.”  But in truth, we don’t know what this verb means. 

The other reason Tamar’s second marriage is presumed to be a Levirate marriage is the fact that both her story and the Deuteronomic verse involve the marriage of one woman to multiple brothers.  However, Deuteronomy 25:5-6 says, “one of the brothers will go…” It does not say, “and the father of the dead man will command one of the dead man’s brothers to go.” Judah married [took] the daughter of Shua as his wife.  However, Er did not marry Tamar.  Judah took Tamar as a wife for Er. That is a subtle but significant distinction.  Tamar’s contract to provide offspring for Er was not with Er, but with Judah. Because Tamar’s contract was with Judah, she was subject to Judah’s command.  Because Onan was Judah’s son, he was also subject to Judah’s command.)

Gen 38:9-10 But Onan knew that the seed was not his if he went on his brother’s wife so he spilled [his seed] on the ground lest he give seed to his brother’s wife.  What he did was evil in the eyes of God, so God killed him, too.

(This verse has been used to prohibit masturbation, on the erroneous supposition that Onan had been playing with himself, rather than refusing to fulfill a command of his father’s, a command which would result in the creation of a line of heredity that would be attributed to his brother, rather than to him.  Onan knew that the child would not be his, so he refused to make it.  It was for this refusal that God kills Onan.  Onan was not killed for playing with himself.  He was killed for refusing to honor a command given to him by his father:  he was killed for refusal to perform cavod av.  The complaint is silenced.)

 Gen 38:11 Then Judah said to his bride Tamar, “Return to your father’s house a widow, until my son Shelah has grown up.  Because,” he said, “he might die too, like his brothers.”  And Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

(If we were assuming that this was a Levirate marriage, there is no provision in Deuteronomy for the wife of a dead man to return to her father’s house as a widow as long as there is a brother around who could impregnate her on behalf of his dead brother.  But the text gives us a clue that this is not a Levirate marriage.  The word כלתו “his bride.”  The “his” refers to Judah, not to Er, the dead son.  How was Tamar Judah’s bride?  Judah was the one who “took” her as a wife.  Therefore, she was his bride, not his son’s bride.  Her contract to produce offspring was with him.  That contract called for her to be given to Judah’s son to produce offspring for Judah’s line through his “chosen,” his firstborn son, Er.  Tamar was Judah’s property to command.  So when Judah “asked” Tamar to return to her father’s house and pretend to be a widow until Shelah had grown up, that “asking” had the force of command, because Judah owned Tamar.)

Gen 38:12   Many days passed and Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died, and he was comforted.  Then Judah went up to Timnah with his friend Hirah the Adullamite to shear his flock.

             
(The text tells us that Judah’s wife died:  Judah had no one with whom to produce more offspring.  The text also tells us, “he was comforted.”  It does not tell us how he was comforted, or by whom.  The text then tells us that Judah went with his friend Hirah to Timnah to shear his flock.  His wife was dead.   The woman with whom he had contracted to produce offspring for himself was gone.  Judah went off to shear his flock. He did not summon Tamar back to give her to Shelah, to ensure that his line would continue.)

Gen 38:13 It was told to Tamar:  “Look, your חמיך is going up to Timnah to sheer his sheep.”

(The text does not tell us who gave this news to Tamar.  The person gave her the news is not important.  What is important is that the news did not come from Judah himself.

  
We do not know what the word חמיך means.  There are only two places we find the word חמיך: this text and 1 Sam 4:19.  In that 1 Sam 4:19, the word refers to Eli, the father-in-law of Pinehas’ wife.  With only two references, we cannot know for sure exactly what the word means.   It could mean “father-in-law.”  It could also mean “the one who holds your contract to produce offspring,” which is not quite the same thing as a father-in-law.  There is another word for “father-in-law,” חתן, which is used to describe Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law.  The word has the same shoresh as התן, the word for “bridegroom.”  Presumably, the difference in those words relate to the different statuses of the participation in the contract to provide offspring.)

Gen 38:14   She removed the widow’s clothing from herself, and went up there and covered her face with a veil and wrapped herself up, and sat in plain view which is on the way to Timnah, for she saw that Shelah had grown and she had not been given to him as a wife. 

(Judah had commanded her to return to her father’s house as a widow, when she was still “his bride,” under contract to him to produce offspring for his son Er.  He told her to remain there until his son Shelah was grown.  She did what she was told:  she returned to her father’s house.  Shelah had grown.   But Judah did not keep his word and give her to Shelah.  Tamar’s life was on hold because Judah refused to honor the contract he had entered into:  he was free as he pleased; she was required to wait for him to summon her to complete that contract.)

Gen 38:15 Judah saw her and thought she was a whore because she covered her face. 

(There is debate over the distinction between זונה and קדשה, all of which is irrelevant to the story.  What is relevant is that Judah, who did not give her to his youngest son when that son had grown, whose wife is dead, noticed a whore.)

Gen 38:16 He turned to her on the road and said “Come, please, I will come onto you.”  Because he did not know she was his bride.  She said, “What will you give me so you can come onto me?”

(He did not know who she was, but he turned to her on the road. Judah’s wife died.  Judah was without a woman.  But Tamar was his כלתו, his bride.  She was still under contract to him.   Because she had hidden her face, Judah did not recognize her.  He believed her to be a whore.  Because be believed her to be a whore, he asked for her service.  Yet Tamar was still under contract to him.  The significance of that cannot be minimized:  He was without a woman of his own.  Except that he still legally possesses Tamar, who he “took” as a wife for his chosen, his firstborn son.  Tamar was Judah’s property, not Er’s.  Yet rather than turn to Tamar as herself, as the woman he had taken to provide an heir for his line, he turned to a Tamar when he believed her to be a whore. 

Tamar asked Judah what he would give her as payment for her sexual services.  She knew that he wanted to use her for sex.  She also knew that he did not recognize her, the woman he “took” to give as a wife to two of his sons.  She knew he promised to give her to his youngest son when that youngest son had grown.  She knew that youngest son has, in fact, grown.  Judah had already “taken” her as a wife for his chosen, his firstborn son. He had already paid for her sexual services.  But, he refused to summon her to complete that contract.  However, believing her to be a whore, he was ready to pay her to perform the same service for which he has already paid her.)

Gen 38:17 He said, “I will send a kid goat from the flock.”  And she said, “Give me a pledge until you send it.”   

(He told her he would pay her for sex.   He believed that she was an unknown woman and a prostitute.  She, because he had already demonstrated to her that he could not keep his word, having failed to give her to his youngest son, distrusted him and asked for him to give her something by which he could be identified.)

Gen 38:18 He said, ‘what pledge should I give you?’  She said, ‘Your seal, and your cord and the staff that is in your hand.’  And he gave them to her and he came up to her, and she was pure to him.” 

(Believing her to be a stranger and a whore, he negotiated with her for a service for which he had already paid her.   Once he gave her the pledge she requested, items by which he could be identified, she kept her word.  And, in keeping her word, she completed the act by which her contract with him was fulfilled.  The text tells us “she was pure to him.”  We have seen this as a euphemism for  “she conceived a child.”  This child would continue his line.)

Gen 38:19 And she stood, and went, and removed her veil from around her, and put on her widow’s clothing.

(She did what she set out to do.  She proved that Judah was willing to have sex with anyone but the known and recognized Tamar.  She proved that he was even wiling to pay for it.  And she got pregnant.  Having done all of this, Tamar returned to the life to which Judah commanded her.) 

Gen 38:20 And Judah sent a kid goat by his friend the Adullamite to take the pledge from the woman’s hand, but he did not find her.”  

(Judah was willing to pay a woman he believed he did not know, a woman he believed to be a whore, for his pleasure.   He kept his word to a woman he believed he does not know, a woman he believed to be a whore.  He did not keep his word to the known Tamar.)

Gen 38:21-22 He asked the men of the place, saying, “where is the prostitute who was plain view, by the road?”  They said, “There has been no prostitute.”  And he returned to Judah, and said he could not find her and the men even said there was no prostitute.

(Focus has been given to the distinction between זונה and קדשה as if a difference in status between whoring and prostituting makes a significant difference to the understanding of this tale.  The difference in status between whore and prostitute makes no difference at all to understanding the tale, except as it indicates that Hirah and “the men of the place” chose to use the word קדשה rather than the word זִנה.  The presumed difference in status is irrelevant to the matter at hand:  that Judah the widower, was willing to pay a woman he believed he did not know for sex, while deliberately keeping the known Tamar in an unfulfilled contract for exactly the same function.)

Gen 38:23 So Judah said, ‘keep it, otherwise I will become a laughingstock.  Behold, I sent her a kid and you didn’t find her.’”  

(Judah was not concerned about recovering the items he had given the woman he believed he did not know.  He was afraid of losing face because he was willing to pay a woman whom the locals have declared did not exist for pleasure, when he already possessed a perfectly good woman, who was at her father’s house playing widow in accordance with his orders.)

Gen 38:24 Three months later, Judah was informed and told, “your bride Tamar has been whoring, and behold this also, she is pregnant by whoring.”  And Judah said “bring her and burn her.”

(It would seem from this verse that it was common knowledge that Tamar’s contract is with Judah.  Judah wanted Tamar burned, not because she had fun while she was supposed to be a grieving widow, and not because her pregnancy was an embarrassment to him.  The ancient Hebrew world saw pregnancy as the ripening of seed that was implanted by a male.  The seed was the property of the male who implanted it, not the property of the woman in whom it ripened, and who produced the offspring. Because Tamar was pregnant, and Judah knew he had not given her to Shelah for Shelah to impregnate to carry on the family name, Judah believed that the only way Tamar could have gotten pregnant was by a stranger.  In getting pregnant by someone who was not of Judah’s family (i.e. not party to the contract he had cut to acquire Tamar) her pregnancy constituted both the theft of that stranger’s seed, and the fraud of attempting to pass a stranger’s seed off as the seed of the family of Judah.  Since Judah knew he had not given Tamar to Shelah, Judah believed that Tamar was committing two very serious crimes.)

Gen 38:25 And she was brought, and she sent to her father-in-law saying, “I am pregnant by the man to whom these belong.”  And she said, “examine them please, whose are this ring and these cords and this staff.”  

(Tamar exonerated herself of the charges of committing theft of the seed of a man who is not party to the contract Judah cut to acquire her, and of fraud in attempting to pass that seed off as the property of Judah’s family.  She proved that she had not violated her contract with him to produce offspring for his line.)

Gen 38: 26 And Judah recognized them and said, “she is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again. 

(Judah admitted that he failed to comply with the contract he made to acquire Tamar to produce offspring for his family.  He admitted that in getting him to impregnate her, she completed that contract despite his attempts to circumvent it.)

Since the contract to acquire Tamar had been cut with Judah, the disposition of her sexual services was at his command.  He did not give her as a wife to Shelah, so her contract could be completed.  In failing to give her to Shelah, he kept her confined in that contract.  Her contract was to provide offspring to Judah’s line through Er.  In posing as a prostitute and getting Judah to impregnate her, Tamar was simply turning to the only person who was lawfully permitted to complete the contract:  the man who had cut it.  In creating a situation where it was Judah himself who impregnated her, she went directly to the source.  That is why he said she was more righteous than he:  he attempted to keep her confined in a contract he himself had cut.  She created a situation where he himself freed her from it, and at the same time satisfied the terms of the contract.