I wrote to the three men. I was unequivocal in the message, and I was surprised that Scott Lively responded to the call.
Over the ensuing days, I immersed myself in the Scriptures--having never seen the Bible so closely before. In that journey, I finally discovered that the Bible may not really do any homosexuality bashing at all! And the 'clobbering' passages so regularly cited: excerpts from Leviticus, Genesis (the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in particular does not need to be about what I was told so many many times at all! Possibly, just a parable about the cities' departure from the then Hebrew law of welcoming strangers! Or--that the then culture had elements that used rape of their defeated enemies in ritualised humiliations! And that the Sin was about sex without consent! And possibly a commentary on Greed!)
I have discovered I was deceived! Biblical literalism and the translated versions of the Bible, with the incumbent translation errors (I will present more on that) taken out of the then context, culture, language and rituals traditions.
"Abomination" in Leviticus referred to a ritual wrong, in the context of the the then Holiness Code, and not an innately immoral act. Eating rabbit was an abomination! As was combining linen with wool, planting two seed types in the same hole! Where, what the Bible reads and says are really different.
I discovered that it was not a Sin at all, to go looking for Biblical principles--love, inclusion, God's Mercy, acceptance, implicit in the parables.
That has emerged in my writings to the 'minister', Scott Lively, who engaged me in an animated, multi-thousand word series of exchanges and my understanding of the Bible went through the roof.
In particular.....
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