What does Leviticus say about sex

Magical pond with miniature frogs and fish

Headline material, a magical pond, spring fed with no outlet visible: miniature frogs of numerous varieties and copious fish of at least 5 types. There is this small pond about 10 miles from our house and a 1 mile hike up a dry ravine. The pond is about 10 feet by 6 feet and maybe 2 foot deep at the deepest place.

I have seen 5 varieties of small fish in the pond, do not have images of all of the different varieties. The biggest, which is about 4 inches, is a bottom fish that looks like a miniature cat fish and hides most of the time. No images of this fish yet, I always go with my dog and she wants to wade and drink the water, and the bigger fish hide. There are a hundred or more fish in this small pond. Some rather magical, with glow stripes and one variety with illuminated bellies.

apologized for the images not being super clear, taken with my Nikon and not an underwater camera. These small fish have some glow parts, generally the different types of fish swim together in groups.

these small fish have fat bulbous bodies and the underside is quite bright when they turn upside down and expose their underside

there are about 100 of these fish, small about 1 to 1.5 inches long and they stay together in the shallows of the pond.

I wonder how any fish can be in this pond, let alone so many varieties. There are also these miniature frogs; seen 4 different varieties of frogs there, only have images of 2 varieties. These frogs are tiny, none bigger than 5/8ths of an inch and some so small that they could fit on the nail of your little finger and not cover it. There is a light green frog, solid color with no markings, and another frog with red spots that I have not been able to photograph. They are all very different, with the exception that they are tiny and all in this one small area.

The frogs do not venture into the depths of the pond, stick around the edges. Reason is that one of the varieties of the fish will feast on any frog they can find. Real feeding frenzy, only seen it once, but that was something to watch.

This is a magical place and I visit it once or twice a week just to see if I can find new creatures there. It never disappoints me.

This place raises questions. How did all of these varieties get there? How did any of them get there? I can understand why everything is so small, it is a miniature world, yet very diverse. That diversity is amazing, it is where I feel you can use that word AWESOME in a proper context. It is a place of wonder and a stunning example of God’s creation. Makes me wish I was a frog and fish ologist, this looks like an ologist’s career place of discovery.

Reunion, way back when had it’s own dodo bird, extinct now, similar to the one that is famous, but also extinct on Mauritius. We even have dodo brand beer in honor of that bird. My favorite is the Dodo Metisse letchi beer.

Much has been said about the infallibility of the holy scriptures of Christianity and Judaism. Do not question what is written and do not disagree with what is taught. The book of Leviticus, one of the 1st five books of the Old Testament is a book of laws. I translated that book from the oldest copies of extant scriptures. One of the interesting things about the copies is that every time the name of God appeared the scribes had to go take a bath before continuing writing that word and every pen stroke was double checked by a master scribe. Probably everything is fairly accurate as to the original.

I found many of the laws common sense, like not mixing fibers when making cloth. This would present a problem, linen would not shrink when washed, but cotton and wool would but at different rates. So make a common sense law about it.

One law I found funny as to the way it was presented was one of the camp laws for the Israelite's while wandering in the desert. The law stated if you need to poop, go away from the camp, take a shovel and dig a pit and poop in the pit and then cover it up. The reason was the funny part; “I, the Lord your God, walk around the camp and I wear sandals and do not want to step in poop.” Just have to love that reasoning, no stinky feet for God. Only in the old Hebrew can you find this. Wow, one could make a whole sermon about not having stinky feet, or not. There are other implications evident in this funny law, which I may/probably go into in another posting. Something that I find revealing, relevant and important to understand as part of an overall picture.

Please take into consideration that these are my views and may or may not be the views of officialdom. I present them for your consideration and to provoke thoughts and hopefully ignite some critical thinking.

Onto Leviticus chapter 18, the sex chapter. You should also be aware that there is a whole book of the Old Testament devoted to sex, The Song of Solomon, read it in the Old Hebrew and your brain fries. I will note before continuing that prior to there actually being a King of Israel that there were laws for Kings, yet God was not keen on Israel having a king, but had the laws in place before there was even any talk of a king. One of those laws that stand out was a king could only have 1 wife and no concubines. Yet Solomon had over 740 wives and concubines combined. How could you ever develop a favorite? One a night and it takes you 2 plus years to get through them. Not cool for the wives and concubines.

The common dogma of both Judaism and Christianity is only sex between a man and a woman after they are married. Nice neat statement, but found no where that I discovered in the Bible. There are several places that state if you are married that having sex with a person that you are not married to leads to death. It also states that the reason for a woman to leave her mother and father’s home was to get married. This usually happened around the age of 13, both for guys and gals. Could be one of the reasons there is no record of Jesus in the New Testament between the age of 12 and the age of 30. 18 year gap. I briefly looked at this gap in a previous posting, recorded in manuscripts in Tibet with a different account of his crucifixion than there is in the redacted early 4th century New Testament. The reason is obvious when you look at who did the redacting.

Here it is, the sex laws, lots of them. All from Leviticus chapter 18 NIV version

18 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

6 “‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.

7 “‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

8 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.

9 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

10 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.

11 “‘Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

12 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.

13 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.

14 “‘Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

15 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.

16 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

17 “‘Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

18 “‘Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

19 “‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

20 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.

21 “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

23 “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

24 “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

Here in Leviticus we have 18 different laws in the 18th chapter. What struck me when I got to the end of this list, was we have the no man or woman sex with animals, but only no man sex with another man, nothing about a woman with a woman. Why? I had to think about this for a while, but not too long. It has to do with penetration. The no man and woman sex with animals; man can penetrate an animal and a woman can be penetrated by an animal. Man can penetrate another man, but with woman, no penetration other than a finger or tongue. Read the Song of Solomon for all the details.

Does this mean no homosexual or lesbian love? My take is no, it means no penetrating the butt, the sodomy laws. If you want to have oral sex, I see no prohibition in these laws. See Song of Solomon for details. If you are married, stay faithful.

For some reference to Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, when the angel of the Lord went to tell Lot and family to leave and also to check to see if there were any righteous people in those two towns before ordering up the fire and brimstone (a condition of the order being processed). A group of men came to Lot’s door and demanded that Lot turn over the good looking dude that just arrived for some forced sex. Not nice. Lot declined the demand, offering one of his daughters instead (what??) and the good looking dude struck those at the door blind and all made an exit. My take is the forced sex was the major problem. Some where in the books of Kings or Samuel there is a small story about an enclave of homosexuals that comes to the aid of some important travelers that had been set upon by bad guys. They severely spanked the attackers and nursed those injured travelers back to health, a good story. No bad connotations about this enclave of homosexuals. Makes for curiosity.

Mull all of this and make of it what you will. I am only offering my reading of these laws coupled with some other paraphrased bible stories of interest.

I do think that our current world has gone upside down with sexual identity (schools getting involved) and this is wrong and leads to no good outcomes.

I could talk about Paul of New Testament fame and that thorn in his side that he asked God to remove. It makes for some interesting thoughts and discussion. In the Greek in the oldest manuscripts I could find he reveals what that thorn was in a most direct manner. He resisted his temptations.

Just a last thought not about anything I have written here. The turn the other cheek thing. Which I agree with to a point. When the Europeans came to the new world the Jesuits were very active in converting the native tribes. One tribe that lived on the northern shores of one of the great lakes was totally converted and totally signed on to the turn the other cheek dogma. As was the custom of Indian tribes a raiding party came upon that tribe, looking for some women to capture so there would not be inbreeding within the tribe. The turn the other cheek tribe did not resist, turned the other cheek. The attacking tribe was stunned by this, looking for a good fight and some stories of conquest for later, were denied these stories. They decided that this turn the other cheek tribe was mentally deficient and took no prisoners at all, instead killing the entire tribe so this mental deficiency would not propagate.