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Homosexuality

14 Episodes

Homosexuality refers to enduring romantic or sexual attraction to people of the same sex. In the discussions collected here, it is treated less as a biblical category than as a modern orientation that later readers project onto ancient texts, which were more concerned with hierarchy, purity, and social control than with anything like a modern account of sexual identity.

Redirected from: same-sex

Why this topic matters

This topic sits at the intersection of biblical interpretation, sexual ethics, translation, and modern identity. Episodes under this topic repeatedly argue that many familiar proof texts are really debates about violence, purity, patriarchy, procreation, or status, and only become statements about homosexuality when later readers map modern categories onto ancient material.

The topic is a useful guide to one of the project’s recurring questions: what happens when contemporary culture-war arguments claim direct biblical backing. Discussions here often move from specific passages to the larger issue of how communities decide which inherited sexual norms remain binding, which ones have already been renegotiated, and why some are still used to police the lives of LGBTQ people.

Where to start

Start here for the best in-depth listening on Homosexuality: featured segments, featured episodes, and the episode with the most mentions.

Quotes from the Data

“When we look at the biblical text and we superimpose those frameworks, those interpretive lenses, if you will, that we use today, if we superimpose them on the biblical text, we are going to distort what those authors were trying to do with their text.”

Dan McClellan Episode 10

“It is the official position of the Data Over Dogma podcast that the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 is not a story or a lesson about the evils of homosexuality. It is not even about gay people.”

Dan McClellan Episode 114

“It doesn't have anything to say about homosexuality in that sense. It does have plenty to say about men having sex with men. Says nothing about women having sex with women.”

Dan Beecher Episode 114

“Paul's sexual ethic is just as outdated, outmoded, irrelevant to today.”

Dan McClellan Episode 114

Top episodes

Ranked by mentions of Homosexuality across the transcript. Start with the top mention above, then keep going here.

All episodes

Every episode currently tagged with Homosexuality.