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God and Sex by Michael Coogan- A Book Review

 God and Sex

What the Bible Really Says  

By

   Michael Coogan  2010

Reviewed by

   Geoffrey W. Sutton




Coogan sets the stage for a biblical view of sex by citing the popularity of the Bible in US society--over 90% of us have "The Book." He challenges readers who believe the Bible is simply "God's Word" rather than a collection of works by multiple authors to consider some obvious inconsistencies easily recognized by anyone who has taken the time to read the text. Coogan want readers to see the unfolding of the biblical message in ways that allows a nuanced approach to modern life. Thus, he will write about women as equals, sexual prohibitions, and the stories of rape.

Chapter 1

We begin with an invitation to see the biblical past as life in a foreign country with a different language, culture and values. He quickly shows readers love and sex through the eyes of the Song of Solomon. Then opens readers' eyes to biblical sex by lifting the veil of euphemisms. Soon, sex is everywhere. And we begin to hear women's voices.

Chapter 2

It is still common in Christianity to find only male leaders in Christian churches and organizations. Coogan provides several examples of the subordinate role of women in the Bible. He even shows us what a woman was worth by age. The highest value was 30 shekels of silver compared to 50 for men in the age group 20 to 60. This is based on the redemption vows. There's more here. We learn about widows, virgins, and the roles of women in public and the home.

Chapter 3

In this chapter, Coogan looks at marriage and divorce. Abortion and polygamy fit here. There are no comments on abortion and birth control in a culture where children are valuable assets. Infant mortality is a horrific 50% based on some estimates. Coogan explains the familiar pro-choice argument about ending pregnancies and shows the problem with the poets recognition of life in the womb. Following comments on polygamy, Coogan looks at the restrictions on divorce explained in the context of Jewish culture and law.

Chapter 4

Here we learn about forbidden relationships like adultery, incest, and rape. An important reminder to moderns is an understanding of women as a man's property. Incest is of course part of the list of forbidden relationships. The value of a virgin daughter to her father is a noteworthy point of ancient culture. Next Coogan offers his take on same-sex sexuality. He offers the cultural context for the disapproval and challenges modern moralists to consider their views about same sex-sex prohibitions in view of culture and their inconsistent stance on other moral matters.

Chapter 5

This essay is about rape and prostitution. The familiar Bible stories are revisited. We learn the oft told stories of righteous prostitutes like Tamar and Rahab, but we also see how they were marginalized.

Chapter 6

Coogan introduces ideas about God and his wives and the problem of polytheism in ancient Israel. We know Israel was warned by the biblical writers of metaphorical adultery in their pursuit of other Gods. Coogan reminds readers that ancient cultures told stories about gods having relations with humans. And he finds evidence for these beliefs in the Scriptures.

**********

I quoted Coogan's work in A House Divided: Sexuality, Morality, and Christian Cultures to help readers appreciate various interpretations of scriptures dealing with contemporary issues like sexual abuse, abortion, and the role of women.

Coogan's work overlaps with other similar books aimed at helping Christians be careful with their moral proclamations. Frankly, I doubt many Christians will take the time to peruse alternative interpretations of their firm beliefs about biblical marriage and sex as presented by their clergy and in books by evangelicals. Nevertheless, Coogan's work is well documented and offers a cautionary message to modern zealots even as it helps readers appreciate an ancient culture so distant in time from our own.

Sex Topics: adultery, marriage, divorce, homoeroticism, pregnancy and abortion, women, biblical language about sex

Religious focus: The Hebrew Bible / Christian Old Testament

References

Coogan, M.D. (2010). God and sex: What the bible really says.  New York: Twelve.

Sutton, G. W. (2016). A House Divided: Sexuality, morality, and Christian cultures. Eugene, OR: Pickwick. ISBN: 9781498224888

Notable Quotes from God and Sex by Coogan

Bible

“…the Bible is an anthology, a selection of texts from ancient Israel, early Judaism, and, for Christians, from the first hundred years or so of Christianity.” (p. xii).

Clearly, different writers had different views. Inconsistencies like these require first that readers of the Bible who consider it authoritative read all of it, not blithely picking only passages that coincide with their own views. Second, such inconsistencies invite, even demand interpretation: if scripture itself reflects developing or at least differing views, then its readers must scrutinize them carefully, critically. This is especially true given the profound influence the Bible enjoys. (pp. xiv-xv)

Women

In the biblical world, as in antiquity more generally (and in some respects today as well), society was overwhelmingly patriarchal. The basic unit was the “house of the father,” an extended nuclear family over which the patriarch presided. (p. 22)

 Not only were women subordinates in the family structure, they were also considered essentially inferior.  (p. 23)

Not only were women subordinates in the family structure, they were also considered essentially inferior.  (p. 23)

Husbands and fathers had virtually absolute control over their wives and daughters. Sarah refers to her husband as her “lord,” and later Abraham is referred to as her “master.” (p. 24)

Fathers could also dispose of their daughters. (p. 25). 

In the Hebrew Bible, virginity is an attribute only of women. We find frequent references to women who have not known a man, but never to a man who has not known a woman. In all the laws concerning marriage and rape, a man’s previous sexual history is never an issue, only a woman’s. (p. 33)


Chapter 3

I am sometimes asked by relatives and students to suggest biblical passages for use at their weddings, but few are appropriate. The Song of Solomon is too erotic—not to mention that the lovers are not married. Most texts concerning married couples are permeated with patriarchalism. Many major biblical characters had more than one wife. Because biblical views on marriage originated in societies whose mores were in many ways different from ours, biblical models do not necessarily inform either our practice or our theory of marriage. As a result, couples seeking my advice usually end up choosing Paul’s vague if eloquent catalog of the qualities of love—“love is patient, love is kind,” and so on1—which is not about marriage at all but about the greatest of spiritual gifts. (p. 63).

Abortion

Because children were a valuable economic asset, and because infant mortality was high—as much as fifty percent—the ancient Israelites did not usually practice birth control.4 In particular, abortion as a means of birth control is not mentioned anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, or in the New Testament.5 That absence of evidence has not prevented both sides in the ongoing debate about abortion from citing the Bible in support of their respective positions. (pp. 64-65)

Polygyny

Polygyny continued to be practiced well into the biblical period, and it is attested among Jews as late as the second century CE. (p. 78)

Opponents of same-sex marriage often assert that from the beginning marriage has been between one man and one woman. Well, yes and no: in the beginning, according to Genesis, there was only the original couple in the Garden of Eden, no one else with whom either could have any sort of relationship;52 but Genesis never reports a marriage ceremony. Not long after Eden, however, the biblical writers tell us, men began to have more than one wife, beginning with Cain’s descendant Lamech, who had two wives, Adah and Zillah.53 So, with the authority of the Bible behind them, early Mormons argued for “plural marriage,” and some Mormon fundamentalist sects continue to practice polygyny. They were and are right: if the Bible provides authoritative models, then a man should be allowed to have more than one wife, as did Abraham, Jacob, David, and other biblical heroes, with no hint of divine disapproval. Polygyny had a payoff: it increased the number of offspring, who were valuable in their own right as sources of labor. It also was a status symbol, showing that a man or his family had the assets to come up with bride-prices for and to support several wives. Moreover, polygyny is presumed in biblical law. (pp. 78-79).

Chapter 4

Not all of these prohibitions concern what we would call incest, sex between close relatives. As with the seventh commandment, they have to do with property: one man in an extended family expropriating the property of another man in the same family, a woman under the latter’s control. That is why the list is incomplete according to our definition of incest: sex between a father and his daughter is not mentioned, because the daughter was the father’s property, as the law permitting a man to sell his daughter as a slave shows.25 If a man had sex with his daughter, there was no one he could prosecute for her loss of value.26 (p. 109)

The juxtaposition of bestiality and male homoerotic relationships is revealing. Bestiality is prohibited because it entails a mixing of natural categories as the ancients understood them. Similarly, if a man was penetrated, he was feminized—his natural category was changed, so both he and the penetrator were guilty of “category confusion.”

 The Bible may contain another interpretation of the sin of Sodom, as sodomy.80 That possible interpretation is found in the short letter of Jude in the New Testament.81 Its author reminds his audience of divine punishment of sinners in the past: (p. 130)

“Going after other flesh” could refer to the homoerotic proclivities of Sodom and Gomorrah; if so, it is the only biblical text that does so explicitly.83 But here the context suggests an alternate interpretation. The line about angels refers to the myth of how the “sons of God” had intercourse with human women,84 (p. 131)

Contemporary moralists who argue that the Bible is opposed to homosexuality (or, better, homoeroticism) are correct, but when they appeal to the Bible’s authority as a timeless and absolute moral code, they ignore the cultural contexts in which the Bible was written. Moreover, such moralists are selective in their use of biblical authority. (p. 140)

Chapter 5

For biblical writers, then, rape was like adultery: it violated the rights of the men under whose control the victims were—their fathers, brothers, fiancés, or husbands. What had happened to the raped women themselves was of minor significance. (p. 150)

Chapter 6

In the Bible, God is a king, a shepherd, a warrior—all elements of human experience and society projected onto the deity. Likewise, metaphorically at least, God has body parts: eyes, ears, heart, nose, arms, feet, even a backside, a rear end.9 And, despite assertions that the god of Israel is not a sexual being, there are hints that he has reproductive organs as well, as in Ezekiel’s vision. This is hardly surprising. In mythology, which I would define briefly as the elaboration of metaphors concerning the divine, often in narrative and art, other gods and goddesses of the ancient world were sexually active. (p. 165)

Many biblical writers frequently used polytheistic concepts, depicting Yahweh as the head of a large pantheon whose members advised him and celebrated his accomplishments. (pp. 171-172)

  Imago Dei (Image of God)

Worship of other gods and goddesses is repeatedly attested, and polytheism pervades biblical language. We find an example in the opening chapter of Genesis, in the account of the creation of humans. Each preceding creation is introduced by the formula “Let there be” or the like, but this time, to mark the importance of the occasion, God addresses his pantheon, his divine council: “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” The narrator then goes on to say: So God [elohim] created humans in his image, in the image of elohim he created them, male and female he created them.21 The general principle here is that humans are modeled on God, almost genetically—just as later in Genesis, “Adam fathered [a son] in his likeness, according to his image.”22 (p. 175). 

***

The Bible is an artifact of the distant past that has shaped our culture in myriad ways, and it continues to do so for better and for worse. That past—that foreign country—is no longer our home, yet our ties to it are many. (p. 189)

A related book

A House Divided: Sexuality, Morality, and Christian Cultures

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Related Posts

 Sex Texts by Hornsby

The Moral Teaching of Paul by Furnish

Sex God by Bell





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