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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Lev 18.22; 20.13 (submission)

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  • From: "rpunkboy AT netzero.com" <rpunkboy AT netzero.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Lev 18.22; 20.13 (submission)
  • Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 01:10:36 GMT


Here, is my analysis of Lev. 18.22; 20.13. I would like to recieve any
feedback or responses to it. It mainly depends on Jerome T. Walsh's assertion
that Lev. 18.22 address the passive partner (2001). Would you agree or
disagree?

Typically, Leviticus 18.22 is translated by English bibles as “You are not to
lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination,” with the
phrase mišk&#283;b&#283; iššâ being understood as a relative participle
clause referring to the active penetrator, “as one lies with a woman.”
However, as Jerome T. Walsh has rightly pointed out, mišk&#283;b&#283; is a
cognate of sâkav, “to lie,” thus, making it an internal/absolute object or
schema/figura etymologica. The cognate direct object construction “regularly
describes an action performed by the subject, not the subject’s experience of
someone else’s action” So “Let the earth produce produce (i.e. vegetation),
“they feared a fear” (Ps. 14.5), “Jerusalem has sinned a sin” (Pr. 15.27),
and “they have dreamed a dream” (Jo. 3.1) would confirm Walsh’s initial
remarks. And mišk&#283;b&#283; iššâ should be understood as having a genitive
since it is in the construct-absolute state; thus, the cognate sâkav in 2 Sam
4.5b reads w&#283;hu&#900; š&#333;kh&#283;v &#283;&#900;t miškav
has&#803;s&#803;harayim, “he was lying down the laying of noontime,” not
“with” noontime. And Genesis 49.4 states: “you went up to the lyings
(mišk&#283;b&#283;) of your father,” which conveys masculine norms of sex as
opposed to mišk&#283;b&#283; iššâ, “lyings of a woman,” feminine norms of
sex. Lev 18.22; 20.13 should be read word-for-word as “to lie the lyings of a
woman with a man” or “to lie with a man as a woman,” making the verses
subject the passive partner (i.e. pathic) and the recipient of the “lying” as
the active partner, “with a man.” And the recent Generative linguistic
analysis of the first four books of the Torah by Asya Pereltsvaig (Yale) has
demonstrated that cognate objects in Biblical Hebrew function either as
arguments or adverbials; mišk&#283;b&#283; iššâ is an adv-CO. This reading
is also supported by a tannaitic colloquy in Sipra Kodeshim 9.14
(third-century CE):
A. We heard the punishment, but we did not hear the prohibition.
B. Scripture says, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a female”
C. I only have a prohibition for the penetrator, where is there a prohibition
for the one penetrated?
D. [. . .]
E. Rabbi Akiba says, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a female,” read
it [qere]: “Do not be laid.”

R. Akiba’s niphal conjunction with its rereading of the Massoretic qal
vocalization or the more preferable syntactical reworking would make Lev.
18.22 address those who are pathics amongst the recently exiled free male
Israelite citizens (Lev. 17.1; 18.1-3, 27; 19.13, 14; 20.2, 21.1): the
recipients of the Holiness Code (Lev. 17-26).


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