James Talarico

We're not sure exactly what it means.

And and if we're taking it just literally, does that mean that we're also we're prohibiting same sex relationships between women?

Right, because that's not prohibited in that particular scripture.

I mean, that's the one I just gave to you about men.

What is the punishment?

I mean, I think in most of these violations of the law, you know, the punishment, if it's, you know, called an abomination, the punishment can sometimes be death.

And this is true of eating certain foods, of planting two crops, different crops next to each other.

Wearing two different types of cloth.

Sure, sure.

And again—

Again, I'm not a rabbi, so I hesitate to be able to speak with authority on the Jewish scriptures.

But, you know, this was a people who had found freedom from slavery in Egypt.

And they were trying to be able to set themselves apart from the Jews.

that domination that they knew in Egypt.

They wanted a completely new world where God was in charge, not some Pharaoh, not some emperor.

So this was a radical community they were trying to build.

And so they put rules in place to remind themselves that while it may only take a few weeks to get out of an empire, it takes a lifetime to get the empire out of you.

So we now, 2,000, 3,000 years later in terms of the Jewish scriptures, we're now reading it with modern eyes, trying to interpret what they mean and then apply it to our modern context.

One, I think that's sloppy theology.

Two, I think it's disrespectful to the Jewish people.