Sex in the Bible Part 4: What Does the New Testament Say About Sexuality?
Out with the old, in with the new. Let's talk about sex in the Bible.
In the last few articles, I’ve covered numerous topics about sex in the Bible:
Since the third installment ran over (I went beyond my email limit) I decided to split it into two and dedicate a whole article to Paul of the New Testament.
Without further ado.
The New Testament Chasm
A lot of people have this view that the Old Testament is somewhat barbaric and then Jesus came along and cleaned everything up. They refer to the New Testament as foolproof evidence that the Bible is compatible with LGBTQ+ sexuality. But the New Testament itself is quite mixed. We’ll dig into it a bit and see what we can find.
The New Testament is really a story of two people: Jesus and Paul. Everyone else has a supporting role. Jesus didn’t say much about sex (except that little zinger about plucking out your own eyes). He—or at least his mouthpieces writing the Gospels for him later—didn’t leave us with much concrete to go on.
There is a time when all passions are simply fatal in their action, when they wreck their victims with the weight of their folly,—and there is a later period, a very much later period, when they marry with the spirit, when they "spiritualise" themselves.
Formerly, owing to the stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: men pledged themselves to annihilate it,—all ancient moral-mongers were unanimous on this point, "il faut tuer les passions."2
The most famous formula for this stands in the New Testament, in that Sermon on the Mount, where, let it be said incidentally, things are by no means regarded from a height. It is said there, for instance, with an application to sexuality: "if thy eye offend thee, pluck it out"3: fortunately no Christian acts in obedience to this precept.
To annihilate the passions and desires, simply on account of their stupidity, and to obviate the unpleasant consequences of their stupidity, seems to us today merely an aggravated form of stupidity. We no longer admire those dentists who extract teeth simply in order that they may not ache again.
I felt this quote from Nietzsche was necessary to include because it’s one of the moments he was at his best (he definitely had his ups and downs—he was possibly bipolar). The idea that we come to the best approximation of happiness or even religiosity by suffocating our passions (and the passions of others) seems rather…joyless.
Nietzsche didn’t reserve this view only for mere Christianity, he applied it across the board to theologians and philosophers alike, ruthlessly ripping Socrates to shreds just as mercilessly as he attacked the Christian Saint Paul.
Living a passionless life isn’t the solution to the mistakes we make; the solution is to overcome them, not scribe them into laws and stone tablets (the Ancient Greeks and Romans were guilty of this too in Nietzsche’s mind, especially the Attic Greeks of Socrates’ era). And Nietzsche surely knew (as he explains in Antichrist) that the anti-passion teachings of Christianity came much later.
St. Augustine
Jesus also said nothing explicit about homosexual sex. Only the writings of Paul have digs at sexuality (and passion). It wasn’t until St. Augustine (354-430 CE) that the extremist anti-sex teachings were fused with Christianity.
St. Augustine was a convert to Christianity living in the Roman Empire. He was originally part of a religious sect from Iran, Manichaeism, a religion that disallowed sexual contact by anyone. It wasn’t just priests who were sworn to the vow of chastity—it was everyone.