The Same-Sex Couples In Luke's Gospel and The Question of Biblical Inspiration

In his little apocalypse, evangelist Luke used the image of “two” who will be on the same bed and “two” who will grind together in the days, when the Kingdom of God will appearing on the Earth. Within every pair, one is taken, the other forsaken. Traditional exegesis interprets the passage as the sovereign decision of God to permit entry into His Kingdom to whomsoever He wills. The other conventional possibility understands it as a final judgment in which internal purposes precedes the nature of a person's actions. However, those are not the only explanations available. We can see the “two” as same-sex couples. In his interpretation, Ronald Goetz highlights historical circumstances in Galilee of Jesus' contemporaries. The orthodox Pharisees wanted to purge the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Galilee from all pagan influences, among which same-sex couples were previously undesirable. The record in Luke is thus supposed to point out a concrete historical danger in an apocalyptic way. The question arises as to what extent such LGBTIQ inclusive exegesis can be read as part of an inspired text. The paper draws attention to three crucial levels that speak in favour of such understanding: the very emergence of the biblical canon, the importance of the inspiration by Holy Spirit as a decisive distinguishing element within the various local Churches, and the traditional use of hermeneutics and the hermeneutic circle to interpret sacred texts.