Abstract:
This paper reflects about homosexuality based on the pericope of Leviticus 18:19-23. The choice of this pericope is because it is emphatic about sexual practices considered impure, among which is the relationship between people of the same sex. The theme of homosexuality, which is gaining ever more space in the debates of contemporaneity, is faced with fundamentalist positions. In the Evangelical-Christian environment one also perceives literal interpretations of the Bible about the theme, without a historical-critical knowledge of this writing. Thus, through the historical-critical method, through hermeneutics and bibliographic research – having as references Ivo Storniolo, Daniel Helminiak, André Chouraqui, Robert Di Vito, among others – one investigates the Jewish historical-social-cultural reality of the time in which the pericope was written so as to understand its content and message. The study, however, initially contextualizes the theme in the light of the contemporary debates, to then use the exegetical-historical-critical tool for interpreting the pericope in the context of the 21st century. In this way, this study contextualizes the pericope in contemporaneity, emphasizing that the book of Leviticus needs to be understood in its context of the Old Testament and be applied in the light of the New Testament.
