Repenting of theology.

J. Harold Ellens

Sex in the Bible: A New Consideration

Praeger 2006, 216 pp. $44.95

Sex in the Bible is a refreshingly contemporary consideration of a cluster of themes that are usually treated quite separately. We are used to learning about the history of the text of the Old and New Testaments from modern Bible scholars; about the nature of human sexuality from psychologists and anthropologists; about the history of laws and proscriptions against various kinds of sexual behavior such as adultery, homosexuality, sodomy, incest, and rape from legal scholars or older-fashioned Bible scholars. And we usually expect to be taught about "healthy sexuality" by psychologists or pastors who interact with us in therapeutic settings or by card-carrying preachers who speak to us mainly from pulpits.

But Dr. J. Harold Ellens, who is at once a scholar, psychologist, and pastor, has brought all these points of view together in this very readable book and has woven them together with great skill, warmth, and charm. Here you will learn something about the history of the text of the Old and New Testaments, and about the evolution of the sex laws from Deuteronomy to Leviticus to the New Testament and into later Christian thought. Here you will find a refreshingly clear-headed view of sexuality as an essential part of God's design for the world, as an inseparable aspect of God as Love. The author moves with great ease from considerations of what the Biblical texts must have meant to the people who wrote them down and to their contemporaries for whom they were intended, to considerations of what the texts should mean for us today. His writing is full of information and learning but it is informed always by the warmth and healing intention he has developed as a practicing pastor and psychologist.

Starting with Genesis 1:27, "And God created man in His image, in the very image of God He created him; male and female created He them," Ellens asserts that the Bible sees human gender and sexuality as an aspect of God's own likeness. He debunks various common prejudices about the Bible's view of sexual matters: he argues that the Bible sees lovemaking as joyful and natural and positive [Chapter 5]; and that it is not only for procreation [Chap. 6]. He corrects the misconception that the Bible vilifies homosexuality and he argues convincingly that such vilification would be out of keeping with fundamental doctrinal views of the Bible [Chapters 11 and 12]. He includes a very clear-headed treatment of Biblical laws about adultery and the status of women [Chapters 8 and 9], monogamy [Chapter 10], and various kinds of "bad sex" such as incest, sodomy, bestiality, pedophilia, necrophilia, and rape [Chapter 13]. He concludes with a discussion of the Bible's view of God as Love, and of love and healthy sexual expression as part of God's design for the world. It is an aspect of the Old Testament notion of "Shalom" which, Ellens writes, is "the full-orbed and total peace and prosperity in body, mind, and soul that God intends every human being to achieve and enjoy for all of life."

By the time most of us are able to begin thinking about the interface between religion, psychology, and spirituality, we are already weighted down with an enormous amount of doctrinal baggage. The Bible is part of that baggage, and so is the liturgy in which we were raised; and of course most of us have internalized the norms of our contemporary society so completely that we can no longer even recognize them as baggage. So to think about these things clearly is difficult, but Dr. Ellens does it here. He helps us to unpack all the baggage and sort the contents. He explains clearly and convincingly why many of the ideas about sex and human relations which we read in the Bible are no longer relevant and may therefore be discarded. But he also shows us how the most important things packed into the baggage are still useful and will help us in our journey through life.

The book includes a bibliography and index and so can serve well both as a highly readable introductory text on the topics covered and as a useful starting point for further research.