Tackling Tradition 50: Obscenity & The Bible

There are those who criticize the Bible for its honest depictions of violence, slavery, & sexual activity. 


Obscenity is not protected by the written Word of God (ie graphe); nor is it a protected form of speech/expression according to the spoken Word of God.


Legally, in secular law, obscenity is defined as a narrow category of unprotected expression that meets all of the following criteria: (a) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.


Does the Bible, when correctly exegeted, exposited, understood, & applied agree? 

Yes! It does!  We need look no further than Leviticus 18 & Romans 1:18 - 32. 


Leviticus 18:


Shema/Prologue (Lev. 18:1 - 5)


General & Specific Prohibitions (Lev.18: 6 -23) 


Document Clause, Witnesses, & Victory (Lev. 18: 24 - 30), which refers to statutes & rules & charges the people as witnesses & proclaims victory over the nations (& Israel should they behave like the nations)


Romans interprets Lev. 18 & vice versa.


Romans 1:18 - 32:


Paul is following the outline of Leviticus 18, following the form of a Hebraic lawsuit.


Shema and Decalogue (1:18 - 21) God’s Image testifies to His attributes & Law.


God created people. His temple bears His Image & runs according to His Law & Gospel.


Historical Prologue (1:22 - 23)


They suppressed God’s image & authority substituting their own, & made idols that looked & behaved like themselves.


Stipulations/Prohibitions (1:24 - 28)  In Canaan & Rome, people did heterosexual & homosexual sex for their gods.  At times they deployed animals too.  (Lev. 18: 6 - 23).  


Document Clause, Covenant Sanctions/Renewal & Witnesses, Victory (Q: 29 - 32)


Kitchen sink immorality will lead to Rome’s burning, just as it did to Sodom, Egypt, Israel, Babylon, &tc.


The text is about how we are supposed to think.  God’s created order testifies to His image & authority.   God indicts us for suppressing His image & authority & supplanting it with our own & other created images & reasoning accordingly.  When you teach that human anatomy, physiology, &/or psychology is a proper warrant for sexual ethics, you are teaching the opposite of what the Bible teaches, which is why so many like Chris Yuan run to Genesis as an interpretive grid to impose on the text.   Well, yeah that’s what Romans teaches — but 2nd Temple Tradition taught this, & Matthew 19 & Genesis say this…all the while doing sexual ethics out of the human image itself.  


Obscenity in the Bible is defined as a narrow category of unprotected expression that meets all of the following criteria: 


  1. A moral agent, applying Sola Scriptura (especially Scripture correctly exegeted, exposited, understood & applied) would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
  2. This work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way in the eyes of God Almighty, violence &/or sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable Law & Gospel, &…
  3. The work, taken as a whole, lacks (serious) non-invidious moral, literary, artistic, political scientific, &/or academic/historical value.

How so? 

  1. In the mind of God, any sort of sexually immoral activity done in the service of one or more pagan pseudodeities is forbidden as matter of morality as well as wisdom.   In relation to God’s image & authority, nothing He does is designed to tempt us to sin.  
  2. Neither does God fail to abide by His own legal, moral, & wisdom standards.  Nor is God in the business of communicating with His own being (as well as to us) in an ill-defined manner as time goes on.    
  3. & He expects us to express ourselves in a manner that isn’t void of (serious) non-invidious moral, literary, artistic, political scientific, &/or academic/historical value.


We are SWOLE!  O LORD, Hear our prayer(s)…

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