God, Sexuality and the Bible
An Interview with Rocco A. Errico, Ph.D., Th.D., Bible authority, translator and ministerial counselor about why "sex is divine".
When I first read that Dr. Rocco Errico was going to be in the San Francisco area conducting a class on "God, Sexuality and the Bible," I tracked him down by phone. I caught him at his office in New Mexico. We talked about his study and teachings on the subject, but what struck me the most of everything he said was, "Sex is not a gateway to the divine, sex is divine!"
I attended his six-hour course sponsored by a local Unity Church. Raised Roman Catholic in an Italian-American family, Dr. Errico has been a minister with the Unity Church since 1965.
He opened with The Lord's Prayer in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. It was a beautiful reminder that we have to step into the cultural context of the Biblical writers to gain more than a superficial understanding of the Scriptures. This is what Dr. Errico spent most of his adult life studying. The extraordinary depth and breadth of his knowledge and understanding became apparent. He gave us a thumbnail sketch of the cultural context, perspective, influences and belief systems of the times when Old and New Testament stories were written, and I came out with many vivid mental pictures which he beautifully painted.
The following is the transcript of an interview with Dr. Errico, held later.
Dr. Errico, you're an expert on Biblical texts. What sparked your interest in the particular topic of God, sexuality and the Bible?
During rap sessions that I've done all over the country, people have always asked me questions about sexuality, human sexuality, and the Bible. Does the Bible condemn it? What does the Bible have to say about solo sexuality? What does the Bible have to say about this and that and the other? This is the reason why I finally had to put together a seminar for it.
In your opinion, is the Bible a true account of history?
[Laughs.] You're asking a loaded question there. It's a mixture. You have stories along with historical events; or should we say historical events that have been bent a little bit? That's another way to put it.
Well, let me put it this way: Is the Bible, as we know it today, a true reflection of the original intent of the Scriptures?
Well, again, that's another loaded question; because, you see, scribes are the ones who gave us the final copy of these books and writings. With regard to the Hebrew bible, the scribe for the king was sometimes slanted in one direction politically. And then also, when we come to what we call the New Testament, we have that same problem. You have the early church putting some sayings upon the lips of Jesus that probably did not originate with him. Now, some of it does go back to Jesus, but not exactly the way he would have put it, you see.
So, there's always that mixture there. People read the Bible mostly on a surface level. And for that reason, we have so many splits, and so many denominations. Everyone gets their own particular idea, without enough historical research into the language, customs, cultures, psychology, and background of the Scriptures; which is so needed. When you read it only on a surface level, you can come up with any odd idea you wish to come up with.
Yes, so I understand that you've been researching and studying the Biblical texts in the original Hebrew and Aramaic languages, as well as the cultural contexts, for years. Is that correct?
Oh yes, because you see, I studied with a Middle Eastern theologian. He was from northern Iraq, where the culture when he was growing up was not touched by the western world as it is today. So they maintained a lot of the ancient customs. The British scholars who went into that area, for example, Dr. Wigram, and a few American scholars that went there too, made the statement that if Abraham were to come alive - now, we're talking about someone 4,000 years old - if he were to come alive, he'd feel perfectly at home in that area there, because the customs hadn’t changed. This is the area from which my Middle Eastern theologian mentor came. And that's where those ancient customs, and ideas, and the cultural habits of the people were kept. So these scholars said that if Abraham were to come alive, he'd feel perfectly at home! And that's an amazing statement for them to make. And they said, nowhere else in the entire Middle East, were the customs kept in that ancient form, as they were in that ancient area in the mountain vastness of Kurdistan, and all that entire region.
So that gives insights into the interpretations one might make, of what the Bible says.
Yes. This is especially true of some of the things that even Jesus said, or even some of the things that we might read in the Hebrew Scriptures that sound harsh to us. You'd have to know the cultural habits of the people; to them, it wouldn't be harsh. They needed a stern hand in those ancient days. And so, too often, when we read Scripture, whether the people interpret from a literal point of view, or from a strong modernistic point of view, where everything is fable - which I do not agree with - but where they say that, both of those types of thinking do damage to Scripture.
So what's the appropriate way to think of Scripture?
The appropriate way to think of it is, in its own cultural and linguistic setting.
Good. Well, you said that Christianity is anti-body, anti-woman, and anti-sexuality. How did that become incorporated into a religion based on love?
I need to make a little correction here. What I said was, that over the centuries, the Church had become anti-body and anti-sensuality. Jesus was never anti-body. His apostles weren't. And they were not anti-sensual.
Where did we pick up our anti-body expressions? Let me tell you what goes hand in hand. The moment you're anti-body, or afraid of the body, you are naturally afraid of females. The root of misogyny, the root of the hatred of women, comes from anti-body. Why? Because the woman represents the body with all its sensuality. If you really want to show sensuality, really want to show an energy that is sensual, what image are you going to conjure up? A woman. A woman, not a man; you can't think of a man that way. But you think of a woman more as an energy that is all enveloping, and surrounding you. It's different.
So where in the Western world did we get these anti-body, anti-sensual attitudes? We got it from the Greeks. Anti-feminism, and misogyny, believe it or not, come from the Greek culture. The Bible is not anti-female. Even though people use the Bible to promote misogyny, it is not anti-female.
Gradually, over the centuries, certain philosophical notions entered the Church. Greek philosophy included an attitude of contempt for the body. When the Church began to mix with the Greeks, churches adopted some of these different philosophies until it crystallized. All these philosophies helped scar the church in the 3rd and 4th centuries. So basically, a lot of anti-women or anti-feminism, anti-body, anti-sensuality attitudes came from Greek influence and Greek philosophy.
So what would be included in a better understanding of what the body is?
The body is the sacred "'pressed out' image of God." Because the body is dense, flesh, we think of it as something solid. What is the body? In Unity we say, "The body is the expression of consciousness." I say, "Spirit has congealed, and it has congealed as your body. When you realize that your body is not just the expression, but the actual spirit as form, that's a definition of the body, the closest we can get to it." So, if you realize spirit as form, then you have a sacred attitude and respect for the human body and all of its functions.
Quit thinking God is in you, God is not in you. Christ is not in you. The being itself is the expression of the Godhood. The body is sacred. The body has the energies for healing, for love, for joy, and the emotions are the sacred channels through which spirit flows. And you need your body to express them. We are a body, and we have a body. We're both. But my body isn't some suit I put on. We've got to understand what the body is. The body is not a suit. The body is not some garment to clothe your spiritual wonderful self. The body is the expression of that self. And you know what the word expression means: expressed, pressed out. So the body is your "pressed out" self, not something that houses the self. Do you understand the fine line on that detail? We're constantly dividing ourselves, separating ourselves, when we're one whole unit.
When you're down on anything about your body, you hurt it, you absolutely hurt it, because the body is sensitive. If you have negative attitudes about your body, or try to suppress it, you hurt yourself, you're absolutely hurting yourself.
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