This is part two of a response to a post by Jeremy Myers. In that post, Myers summarizes the view of Ron Goetz, which proposes that Luke 17:34–35 is about saved non-celibate homosexuals. While I believe that there are saved non-celibate homosexuals, I disagree with the process of forcing a gay reading into this text (especially by using Document Q and Pagan mythology).
See Myers’s original post here. Part I has an introduction and some word studies. Part II talks about the context of Luke 17:34–35 and the Pagan myth Goetz bring into the discussion. Part III talks about the gospel, why saved people can be non-celibate homosexuals, and what saved people lose when we sin.
-Paul
The Sodom Context
In the immediate context, Jesus says:
Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; (Luke 17:28 NKJV)
Notice what was happening in Sodom in Luke 17:28 and what will be happening in Luke 17:34–36:
In Sodom: They ate, they drank, (vs. 28 NKJV)
In the future: …there shall be two men at one table (vs. 34 my trans)
In Sodom: they bought, they sold, (vs. 28 NKJV)
In the future: …two women will be milling flour together (vs. 35 my trans)
In Sodom: they planted, they built; (vs. 28 NKJV)
In the future: …two men shall be in the field (vs. 36 NKJV)
Jesus is not at all describing homosexual relations or sin of any sort, but rather the normal activities of eating, drinking, and working.
A Bit About Document “Q”
In Myers’s summary, something comes up in Goetz’s view that hopefully Myers disagrees with. Myers holds that Jesus did not talk about homosexuality (for example, here), but Goetz holds that Luke 17:34–35, a quote attributed to Jesus, is about homosexuality. This does not actually mean that Goetz believes that Jesus said the words, though, because he appeals an imaginary document called “Document Q.” The conservative apologist, Phil Fernandez, explains what Q is and where it came from:
…liberal New Testament scholars assume that there had to be an original non-supernatural collection of the original sayings of Jesus. They call this imaginary document “Q” from the German word quelle which means source. “Q” consists of the sayings of Jesus found in both Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel, but are absent in Mark’s Gospel. The belief in “Q” is not so widespread that even many conservative scholars accept the existence of “Q.” Liberal critics assume the existence of this ancient sayings document merely because they assume that Jesus was primarily a teacher and a speaker who did not really perform miracles. These critics believe that the gospel was originally the sayings of Jesus, and that, years later, fictional events were added to these sayings. However, this is circular reasoning. These scholars assume that the miraculous works of Christ are not in the original manuscripts in their attempt to prove that Jesus was not a miracle-worker.1
In short, whenever a liberal theologian has something in the Gospels that he does not agree with, he can avoid it by saying something like, “This was not in the original Q source, so Luke just added it for his purposes” or “The original Q context said the same thing I’m saying, so we should read Matthew with this presupposition” or “Mark’s editor removed this from the Q document, so it should not carry much weight elsewhere.” See how easy that was to overthrow the Biblical text? It happens all the time in biblical scholarship without a shred of evidence that this imaginary document exists, much less that it says what the theologians wants it to say.
A similar tactic is applied in the Pentateuch (Genesis–Deuteronomy) and it is called the JEDP Hypothesis (or Documentary Theory), which supposes that there were four actual authors. Scholars use JEPD to write off the books of Moses as not actually being Moses’ work. In a rather vague post on JEPD, Myers says that he rejects Q, but holds a view of the Gospels that is similar to JEPD, though he rejects JEPD…
Part of the reason that it is difficult to pin down Myers’s beliefs is that they are constantly evolving. All of us should be growing in our knowledge of the Bible, so it is right for our views to change. I’m sure that if you look around my blog, then you will find things that I no longer agree with. I am not criticizing Myers for changing his views; however, if a Bible teacher is quick to adapt views that are heretical, then we should be wary even if he has recently returned to orthodoxy. Just so that we know what’s going on in the background, perhaps it is noteworthy that Myers’s view on inspiration was going through a shift around the time that he was exploring Goetz, who calls himself a “Bible Thumping Liberal.”
In 2011, Jeremy Myers wrote a blog post in which he says that he held to inspiration of Scriptures ten years prior, but currently disagreed. He also predicted that his opinion would change in seven years, then, in 2018 (three years after the post in question), he piped in the comments section to affirm his prior views from 2001 (source). Then in the following year of 2019, Myers did some research on hell. He concluded, among other things. that in Luke 16, when Jesus talks of Lazarus and the Rich Man, that Jesus was essentially borrowing from pagan myths and did not actually endorse what He was saying (source). Has Myers returned to liberal thinking or did he never really leave liberalism? That rabbit trail is not worth following today, but it is worth noting that Myers had slipped out of the doctrine of inspiration, which is a core to orthodox Christianity, somewhat recently before his post on the so-called “Gay Apocalypse.”
If you are interested, you can read Goetz’s longer article wherein he advocates for Q here. For now, suffice to say that Goetz pushes Jesus’ words in Matt 24 and Luke 17 into two categories: 1) original, pro-gay, Q material and 2) additional non-Q material that takes away from the original pro-gay intentions. This resort to the imaginary Q text is nothing short of an intentional perversion of Holy Writ.
The Lightning and the Eagle
I mentioned how Myers uses Paganism to reinterpret the Bible. He does so with hell, appealing to the Greek god, Hades, as a myth that Jesus adopts but does not endorse. Myers also appeals to Pagan myths of the sea god to bring Pagan deities into biblical texts (here). He uses Pagan creation myths to reinterpret the Biblical creation story, which he apparently believes is a flat earth text. That Myers is a flat earth theologian does not mean that he is in the current fad of believing that the earth is indeed flat, rather, he believes that God “is using their [the biblical authors’] incorrect cosmology to teach them something about Himself” (here).
Returning to the article under consideration, Myers’s post quotes Goetz:
A major piece of evidence supporting the thesis of a deliberate gay theme in Luke’s Small Apocalypse (which I call “Luke’s Gay Apocalypse”) is found in the two primary symbols of Zeus, the supreme god in Roman religion. The symbols of Zeus are the lightning bolt and the eagle, and they appear in Luke 17:24, 37.
From there, the post builds the case from Luke 17:24, 37 that Jesus’s words (though, not actually Jesus’ but the scribe who wrote Document Q), were actually a reference to Zeus. Once again, here is what the Bible says:
For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day… Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” (Luke 17:24, 37b NKJV)
Most false gods have symbols attached to them. When an interpreter searches out two objects separated by over ten verses that are somehow related to some Greek god that has something gay about him, then it should be obvious that he is resorting to eisegetical tactics to support his cause.
So, how does Goetz make the lightning and eagles into a gay thing? He does it selectively through Zeus’s relationship with Ganymede. By selectively, I mean that he does not discuss the actual cultural implications of the Pagan myth. The story of Zeus and Ganymede does not just promote homosexual relationships, but rather is an apologetic for pederasty, which is the romantic relationship between an adult male and an adolescent male. Ganymede was Zeus’s eromenos, that is, his young sexual partner. Ganymede was very beautiful, so Zeus came in the form of an eagle to abduct him and take him away to be his cup bearer and sexual partner. The kidnapping and statutory rape aspect of the relationship did not occur in Myers’s article. Since the Ganymede tale is actually about pederasty, would Goetz and Myers be willing to modify this view, so that Luke is advocating for child abduction and rape? I certainly hope not.
(Rembrandt, The Abduction of Ganymede or The Rape of Ganymede, in 1635)
Setting aside what the Ganymede story actually is, let’s consider what Goetz brings into the bible from the Greek myth. The Myers summary has:
Zeus had numerous liaisons with mortal women, but only one same-sex relationship, and the eagle is vividly associated with his romantic relationship with Ganymede. Just as the donkey reminds Christians of the Nativity and the Triumphal Entry, so also the eagle reminded Romans and Roman subjects of Zeus’ sexual relationship with his cup bearer and servant, Ganymede. The story of Zeus and Ganymede adds a layer of sexual meaning and interest to the eagle’s image which is missing from its common use as a symbol of power.
I like that he mentions the donkey. There is indeed a context in which the donkey would be reminiscent of Christmas. If there is a picture of a donkey by a stable, some wise men, maybe some sheep and it happens to be December, then you are probably looking at a depiction of the nativity. If a Jesus-looking person is riding the donkey and people are waving palm branches and putting coats on the ground, then it is the Triumphal Entry. But, just a lone donkey could be anything from Shrek’s friend to the Democrat Party, or, perhaps most commonly, just a four-legged beast of burden.
It is the same thing with Ganymede. If there is an eagle carrying off a boy, then it could be a depiction of Zeus kidnapping his sexual prey. But Luke 17: 37 has several eagles (not just one Zeus eagle, mind you) that will gather around a “body” (not even described as a boy, mind you) and there happens to be an earlier mention of lightning (which is not really part of the Ganymede story, mind you)… this is a very weak argument for the gay interpretation and as mentioned earlier, proponents admit that this is a major piece of evidence for them.
That was Part II. Part I has an introduction and some word studies. Part III talks about the gospel, why saved people can be non-celibate homosexuals, and what saved people lose when we sin.
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