Friday 25 April 2008

Why Jude 7 Ain't About Queers

Jude 7 is one of the verses in the Bible used by fundamentalists to condemn gays(less commonly, than, say Leviticus 18.22 but still used). However I aim to demonstrate that this interpretation fails by the fundamentalist's own logic - because it leads to a Biblical contradiction.

Jude 7 in the KJV: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (emphasis added)

The highlighted bit seems to be the key to most fundamentalists' use of this verse. However, to interpret it to mean "they lusted after other men" directly contradicts with Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.39: "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds."

So in other words, the men were going after strange flesh meaning gay sex(according to the fundamentalist interpretation of Jude) by going after flesh the same as theirs(according to Paul). As you can see, this makes no sense at all. It is in fact contradictory. Thus Jude 7 cannot be a reference to homosexuality, because as we all know, there are no contradictions in the Bible. ;)
A more consistent explanation would be that Jude is condemning the potential bestiality of the men of Sodom because this is consistent with Paul: angels could have different flesh to men, hence, "strange flesh".

NB. I read somewhere and corroborated that the Greek word translated "strange" in Jude is actually "(h)eteros" - yep, that sounds like a reference to gay action ;).

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