Incest, Sodomy and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East

[ikhet_sekhmet]

With a title like that, how could I resist? :D

• There's only one known mention of homosexuality in Mesopotamian law, in two of the Middle Assyrian Laws. (Scholars disagree over their exact meaning.)
  
  
• Hittite laws forbad incest and bestiality, terming them hurkel, but homosexuality was not hurkel, and there's no known evidence it was illegal.
  
  
• In the Hebrew Bible, bestiality is defined as tebel, which gets translated as "perversion", "unnatural" etc but literally means "confusion", from a root meaning "mix". I had a look at those laws about not mixing things from Deuteronomy, but they don't use the term - crossdressing is a toebah, "something morally disgusting", and the stuff about seeds, animals, and fabrics etc isn't defined, only prohibited. The only other place tebel appears is in Lev 20.12 where it defines incest between father and daughter.
  
  
• There's no known mention of bestiality in Mesopotamian laws. Hittite law made it a crime to have sex with a cow, a sheep, a pig, or a dog, but not - to scholarly puzzlement - with a horse or a mule. A purification ritual essentially makes the animal the offender's wife - he has to "veil her like a bride", and pay her "dowry", perhaps as a fine. (I wonder if this was a form of public mockery, something like a charivari.)
  
  
• Perhaps, before encountering their first women, Adam and/or Enkidu mated with animals. Blimey.

Questions!

• Do we have evidence of whether the death penalty was actually carried out for sexual crimes by the Hebrews? I've got a hazy memory of someone saying the harsher penalties of the Code of Hammurabi weren't always applied, which presumably would be based on court documents.
  
  
• How about the use of keleb, Hebrew for "dog", to indicate a male sex worker? Is that a scholarly guess about Deut 23.19, or is there other evidence for it?

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Hoffner, Harry A. Incest, Sodomy and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East. in Hoffner, Harry A. (ed.) Orient and Occident: Essays presented to Cyrus H. Gordon on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. Kevelaer, Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn, Neukirchener Verlag, 1973.

Comments

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

*grins* I love getting more ammo to use against bigots - thanks :)

[ikhet-sekhmet.livejournal.com]

Quote one verse, quote 'em all! ;)

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

These posts make me happy. My not-at-all inner nerd is delighted. Plus, as another commenter pointed out, useful info!

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

Hang onto your hat - there are literally piles of books and photocopies on sex 'n' gender in the ANE lying around here, waiting for me to take notes from them. (And turn them into stories. :)

Scholarly Biblical investigations are just on another planet entirely to literalism. The scholars are often people of profound faith, but they see very clearly the human element in the scriptures. I suppose it's hard not to when you compare the writings of the Hebrews with the writings of their neighbours.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

The Reverend Robert M Price teaches Bible Scholarship - and totally blows his literalist students minds. He's also a huge fan of the Cthulhu Mythos - his introductions and side-notes in the anthologies he edits are things of beauty :D

The parallels between Necronomicon & New Testament, for example, or gnostic themes in the Simon of Gitta stories

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ta! (What a hilarious combination. :D)

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

he writes Mythos shorts too - including one that explicitly uses the New Testament/Dunwich Horror parallels - Wilbur as the Second Coming :D