The Bible, Sex, And Ideological Fundamentalism
A DIALOGUE WITH JACQUES ELLUL
JACQUES ELLUL AND SEXUAL "ETHICS": A CRITIQUE
Rev. Dr. Thomas Hanks

Part 3:  
Queer Theology for 14 Sexual Minorities - Controversial Sexual Areas

9. Menstruating Women: Moses vs. Moses vs. Jesus?
9. Menstruating Women (unclean?): Moses vs. Moses vs. Jesus?

"When a woman has her flow of blood, her uncleanness will last seven days, and anyone who
touches her will be unclean until evening....And if a man lies with her and her flow touches him, he
will be unclean seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean" (Lev. 15:19-30, priestly source = "P").
"Do not approach a woman during the flow of her uncleanness to expose her nakedness" (Lev.
18:19, "P").

"If a man lies with a woman during her sickness/menstruation and exposes her nakedness, he has
uncovered her flow, and she also has exposed her flow of blood; both of them will be cut off from
their people" (Lev. 20:18, "P"). Cf. Mark 5:24-34 and //s.

Feminist and anthropological studies point out that "Societies which are not strongly male
supremacist are likely not to have strong menstrual taboos" (French 1986:65) and that with the
development of oppressive patriarchal structures, cultic menstruation taboos commonly serve to
marginalize women from the political, military and religious power structures--even reducing them
from priestesses to cult prostitutes (French 1986:40-112).

More than a decade ago, Scanzoni and Mollenkott pointed out the fundamental incoherence and
arbitrariness of all who use proof texts from Leviticus 18 and 20 to condemn "homosexuals," while
ignoring so many other prohibitions in the book, especially those in the same chapter which prohibit
sexual relations with women during menstruation (1978:60-61, 112-115). Their basic point still
stands unrefuted and their argument can even be strengthened by detailed exegesis of the texts in
their contexts.

Most who continue to cite Leviticus against modern homosexuals assume that listeners will never
read the book nor note the context. For the vast majority this is a pretty safe assumption, since
anyone who reads Leviticus will recognize at once that more than 90% is never considered
applicable to modern Christians: chapters 1-8 give detailed instructions on 5 kinds of sacrifices;
chapters 9-10 describe male priestly vestments and ordination rites; chapter 11 distinguishes "clean"
from "unclean" animals; 12 female "uncleanness" resulting from childbirth; 13-14 uncleanness of
"leprosy", etc. While 19:18 unobtrusively slips in the text on love for neighbor (which both Jesus and
Paul exalted), plainly the burden of proof lies on anyone insisting that a verse in Leviticus must be
accepted as "moral law" for the Christian church. The whole chapter of radical Jubilee Year
economic provisions (Lev. 25), which Jesus made fundamental for his own proclamation of Good
News to the poor (Lk. 4:18-19; Hanks 1983; 1987; 1991?), are totally ignored by "evangelists" who
seize on 2 verses to club "homosexuals" and promote Gay bashing.

When we contemplate the exegetical jigs and hermeneutical leaps abounding in the writings of the
few conservatives who really grapple with the data, one can only wonder why social and liturgical
dance have not become more acceptable in fundamentalist churches. But before we sit back to
enjoy the spectacle we should try to understand what the texts actually say and intend in their
contexts.

Commentators of all stripes recognize that cultic taboos regarding menstruating women were
common in (patriarchal portions of) the ancient world. Significantly, Israel's earlier legal codes (Book
of the Covenant, 10 Commandments, Deuteronomy etc.) do not promote the common phobia. Only
Leviticus (representing the male priestly source ("P"), the latest in the Pentateuch, from the Exile
period ca. 586-539 B.C.) suddenly evidences major concern in this area with the 3 distinctive laws
cited above. The earliest of these priestly texts (Lev. 15:19-24; cf. vv. 25-30) qualifies the
menstruating woman as "unclean" for 7 days and stipulates that if a man has sex with her, he also
remains "unclean" for 7 days (unable to participate in the cult).

Thus, suddenly in the exilic period, menstruating women are denied normal social contact and sexual
relations one week each month--and any woman who was a prophetess (like Jeremiah's pre-exilic
contemporary Huldah, ca. 600), would have been sent home 7 days each month. Male
commentators rush to explain why this was really an act of great kindness, even "honor" to the
woman: "By placing the woman in what amounted to a state of isolation, the legislation made it
possible for her to enjoy some respite from her normal duties, and gave her an opportunity of
renewing her energy" (Harrison 1980:164)--a wise extension of the sacred Sabbath principle! Of
course the text doesn't say she doesn't have to work, just leaves her to work alone!

In addition, we must understand that "some women experience painful abdominal cramps, profuse
bleeding, migraine, low backache and associated irritability" (still Harrison)--better to isolate her than
try to get along with her when she's like that! Finally, the isolation treatment is required by medical
hygiene, since males tempted to have sex at such a time might develop "non-specific urethritis" (Dr.
Harrison explains). One can only wonder at the obtuseness of New Testament authors in not making
such wonderful laws explicitly binding on the Christian churches. However, even in the earliest Old
Testament text, having sex with a menstruating woman was not sin, it just made the man cultically
"unclean" like the woman: they had to "skip church" together one Saturday each month!

In two later texts, however (Lev. 18:19; 20:18), things get much more serious. Both stem from the
Holiness Code (Lev. 17-26), probably the latest laws in the late Priestly source. Suddenly having sex
with women is no longer a simple matter of having to skip church, take more baths, and offer more
sacrifices--we are confronted with a "Thou Shalt Not" (Lev. 18:19) that reads like the 10
commandments and is in fact immediately precedes the prohibition on adultery (Lev. 18:20), and
another prohibiting child sacrifices to Moloch (18:21).

In the latest text (Lev. 20:18) in a chapter that sounds like it might have been written by Alice in
Wonderland's Queen of Hearts ("Off with their heads!"), after imposing the death penalty for all sorts
of sins (especially sexual), Leviticus decrees that even a couple having intercourse during
menstruation are to be "cut off" from their people. Commentators continue to debate whether the
death penalty is explicitly imposed (as in 20:10-16), or excommunication/banishment (which might
have the same result), or simply an ominous threat that God's wrath would soon fall (Wenham
1979:241-243). Those who seek to make Leviticus 18 and 20 "moral" law binding on Christian
churches never seem bothered by the limited scientific horizon evident in the confidence that incest
with and aunt or sister-in-law must result in childlessness (20:20-21; we can only hope that
adolescents in Fundamentalist churches, denied more modern means of birth control, not be
tempted to try it in order to prove that "The Bible Was Right After All").

While this growing phobia regarding menstrual blood is not found in earlier strata of the Pentateuch
(or the Old Testament generally), significantly we do find a similar fierce concern in the
priest-prophet Ezekiel (18:6 and 22:10). Ezekiel, like the priestly Holiness Code (same period), puts
sex during menstruation right on par with adultery (18:6) and murder (22:6,9). The contexts in
Ezekiel also indicate a relationship with oppression of the poor and weak and with pagan idolatry
(viewed as the ideology of the Babylonian oppressors). Perhaps Ezekiel witnessed a humiliation
suffered by Israelite wives during the Exile when captors and overlords forced them to have sex
during menstruation. The prophet may also have observed such practices in the pagan fertility cults.
Since the concern surfaces suddenly in the priestly strata (Lev. 15) and fiercely only in the Holiness
Code and Ezekiel, concrete historical experiences are obviously indicated. The total absence of
such laws in Old Testament writings from all other periods makes clear that we have no "absolute
sexual ethic" but a peculiar exilic concern. After the exilic decimation of the population, the urgency
of population growth may have contributed to this priestly preoccupation (see the "be fruitful and
multiply" of Genesis 1:28, also from the exilic priestly source). Power struggles between priestly
factions and levites may also have contributed to male determination to marginalize women from
religious leadership.

Were sex during menstruation always a sin like murder or adultery (calling for the death penalty), we
might expect the New Testament to take up the concern. But to the contrary not a word in the New
Testament supports such a notion. Flaunting the cultic cleanness concerns of Leviticus, Jesus allows
a woman with the worst sort of blood flow (permanent; Lev. 15:25-30) to touch the hem of his
garment--but instead of becoming unclean himself, she is miraculously healed (Mark 5:25 and //s).
Mark makes clear that the woman, isolated and shunned for 12 years, had also become
impoverished by seeking healing from various physicians. He sandwiches this episode into the
narrative about the trip to the home of the prosperous Jairus, making clear that Jesus' love for all
included a "preferential option" for the poor. No doubt is left about Jesus' flaunting of Levitical laws
concerning cultic uncleanness, because he then proceeds to touch the corpse of Jairus' daughter
and raise her from the dead. Whatever legitimate hygienic or benevolent concerns male
commentators may think to find in Leviticus and Ezekiel, Jesus clearly sets forth a radical change in
the concept of uncleanness, making it a matter of the heart (Myers 1988 passim).

How, then, has the Christian church managed to hang homosexuals with texts from Leviticus 18 and
20 (almost literally, with 1000 years of "burning faggots" and death penalty for "sodomy"), while
forgetting all about "cutting off" couples who have sex during menstruation? Although ideological
Fundamentalists like to forget about it, for centuries the church did not forget about sex during
menstruation. Both Church Fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Jerome) and Medieval
theologians (Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus) condemned sex during menstruation
as mortal sin that produced deformed children: leprous, hydrocephalic, hunchbacked, one-eyed,
epileptic, lame and possessed by the Devil. In addition, during the Middle Ages menstruating women
often were discouraged from taking communion (Ranke-Heinemann 1988/90:12-17). While this view
may seem cruel and ridiculous, it had the virtue of consistency (singularly lacking modern
substitutes), and wonderfully exemplified the Augustinian concern that all sex be procreative (in
obedience to the "universal absolute" divine command in Genesis 1:28). But once the marvelous
consistency of the Augustinian system was abandoned, homophobic theologians found themselves
on the very kind of "slippery slope" they most dread. Their hermeneutical antics in the course of their
downward slide are hardly convincing but do manage to make for entertaining reading on a subject
most males prefer not to think about.

The Reformation offered a secure toe hold for centuries with by stressing the "obvious" distinction
between "moral" and "ceremonial" laws in the Pentateuch. Almost everyone found this "perfectly
obvious," and it was also thus clear that sex during menstruation was a purely ceremonial cultic
concern, while "sodomy" was a moral matter so grave as to merit the wrath of God and legal death
penalty (well into the 19th century in Britain and the USA). Even after a century of Biblical theology
objecting that the distinction between moral and ceremonial law is foreign to Biblical thought, this
"obvious" explanation still reigns in ideological fundamentalism (where it easily passes for "taking the
Bible seriously"). More careful conservative scholars now reject both gruesome medieval
"consistency" and the "obvious" unbiblical distinctions of classical Protestant systematicians
(Wenham 1979:261, 32-37), but they find themselves skidding pell mell toward the bottom of their
slippery slope.

With both Medieval and Reformation approaches discredited, can theologians find a way to shelve
discreetly the clubs prohibiting sex during menstruation while still hanging on to 2 verses from
Leviticus for Gay bashing? In traditional Catholic and conservative Protestant circles (where
theological creativity is considered a vice and homophobia maintained as a Cardinal Virtue) a
growing awareness of crisis is evident. In his (usually excellent) commentary on Leviticus, Gordon
Wenham's heroic efforts represent a kind of "Custer's Last Stand" (1979). Wenham first sets out to
build his case by a simple, direct appeal to New Testament texts and to establish the coherence of
Leviticus and "New Testament" (=Paul) in condemning "homosexuality."

As often happens, Wenham imports the modern scientific term and concept of "homosexuality" into
Leviticus, failing to note that the Leviticus texts (1) say not a word about women/lesbians; (2)
describe euphemistically only one kind of male same-sex act (anal penetration); (3) are totally
unaware of modern scientific understanding of homosexual orientation. Such highly ideological
eisegesis avoids raising impossible-to-answer questions about Paul's suddenly "inventing" a new sin
of lesbianism in Romans 1;26. Then Paul's condemnation of "male-beds" in 1 Cor. 6:9 (male
prostitutes? pedophilia?) is added for good measure (Wenham 1979:259-261). Both the diversity
and difficulties in the 3 pauline texts are ignored, and the absence of any related teaching from
Jesus or other sources covered up by referring continually to Paul as "the New Testament."

However, regarding sex during menstruation, Wenham boldly brings to bear the most modern
insights regarding cultic uncleanness (Mary Douglas etc.) and even recognizes that Jesus "attitude
to the laws about bodily uncleanness was of a piece with his attitude to the food laws ....According to
Jesus, uncleanness was more a matter of the mind than the body" (Wenham 1979:224-225). How
near to the bottom of the slippery slope Wenham plunges becomes clear when we note that a
decade later William Countryman would point out that even in Romans 1:24-27 Paul treats same-sex
acts under the category of gentile "uncleanness" that cannot simply be equated with "sin."

Wenham manages to equate Paul with Leviticus on "incest" by failing to note that Paul treats only
one such case (1 Cor. 5; the son offending against patriarchal dignity by taking the father's wife) and
that Paul calls such behavior "porneia not "incest" (Leviticus has no such general term either, but
the English word is more justified by the general principle set forth in 18:6, "close relative" and the
multiplicity of types prohibited; see above III.6).

Finally, Wenham's hermeneutical slight of hand may be detected when he flatly maintains Leviticus'
condemnation of sex with animals (1979:260) as an "unnatural" kind of "mixture," but without the
slightest support from any New Testament text. While Gay bashing with Leviticus texts can be
defended only because the New Testament (=Paul) also requires it, sex with animals must be
prohibited in the church with no New Testament basis, and sex during menstruation can now be
applauded despite Leviticus prohibitions. Perhaps sensing that he has become incoherent and
contradictory, the unbiblical distinction between moral and ceremonial rules earlier rejected is
reintroduced (1979:260, 280), and final obeisance made to something like situational ethics: "The
reason why these laws apply to us and others do not, lies in our situation" (1979:26l)! Custer's Last
Stand has become Custer's last cartwheels and we can only wish Wenham a soft landing at the
bottom of his slippery slope.

Dismissing Leviticus' prohibitions of sex during menstruation, fundamentalists Tim and Beverly La
Haye give us a wonderful lesson in hermeneutics: "Those laws were given 3,500 years ago before
showers and baths were so convenient, before tampons, disinfectants, and other improved means of
sanitation had been invented" (cited in Scanzoni and Mollenkott 1978:114-115). Since this makes
heterosexuals happy, evidently it passes muster for "taking the Bible seriously." The La Hayes have
no hesitation about invoking superficial hermeneutical considerations to make life more pleasurable
for modern heterosexual couples during menstruation (see also birth control). However, more basic
hermeneutical considerations regarding homosexuality (ancient ignorance of modern scientific
perspectives) cannot even be contemplated, much less applied. And this is still commonly the case,
even though informed evangelical scholarship repeatedly points out that Romans 1 as well as
Leviticus must pass through the fire of hermeneutical criteria: "The question is whether Paul
condemns all homosexual behavior or only that which is freely chosen, because of their insatiable
lust, by people with a heterosexual orientation" (Bandra and Verhey in Bromiley 1988:437).
 
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