Leviticus 18

Leviticus 18 (the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Leviticus) deals with a number of sexual activities considered abominable, including incest and bestiality. The chapter also condemns Moloch worship. It is part of the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), and its sexual prohibitions are largely paralleled by Leviticus 20, except that chapter 20 has more emphasis on punishment.

Leviticus 18:22 has traditionally been interpreted as prohibiting homosexual acts, but its meaning is debated, with some scholars suggesting it applies only to specific contexts like adultery, rape, or incest and others arguing it evolved over time.

The original text of Leviticus 18, like that of most of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Hebrew. The oldest extant versions of the text in Hebrew are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Masoretic Text. An ancient Greek translation from the third century BCE, the Septuagint, also exists. Since the addition of chapter divisions in the thirteenth century CE, this chapter is divided into 30 verses.^{[citation needed]}

The chapter begins with God speaking to Moses (verse 1) and giving him a message for the Israelites (2), warning them to keep God's laws rather than Canaanite or Egyptian practices (3–5). Then God is quoted as listing people with whom sex is forbidden due to family relationships (6–19). In verse 20, God prohibits sexual relations with a neighbor's wife, and in verse 21 God prohibits passing one's children through fire to Moloch. Verse 22 is the famous verse about "lie with a man," discussed below, while in verse 23 God forbids bestiality, and, according to some translations, pedophilia. In the final verses (24–30), God warns that breaking these laws will produce defilement and that the Canaanites are about to be displaced from the land of Canaan as a result of following these practices, and warn of a similar fate for the Israelites if they fall into these practices.^{[original research?]}

The Bible lists several types of relationship which it regards as incestuous unions; one list appears in the Deuteronomic Code, and two lists occur in the Holiness Code of Leviticus. These lists only mention relationships with female relatives; excluding lesbianism, which implies that the list is addressed to men.^{[citation needed]} These lists then compare as follows:

One feature of all the lists is that sexual activity between a man and his daughter is not explicitly forbidden. The Talmud argues that this is because the prohibition was obvious, especially given the proscription against a relationship with a granddaughter. The shortness of the list in Leviticus 20, and especially of that in Deuteronomy, is explained by classical Jewish scholarship as being due to the obviousness of the missing prohibitions. The explicit prohibition against engaging in sexual activity with "both a woman and her daughter" implicitly forbids sexual activity between a man and his daughter, as does the prohibition against engaging in sexual activity with "any that is near of kin". Some biblical scholars have instead proposed that it was originally in the list but was then accidentally left out from the copy on which modern versions of the text ultimately depend, due to a mistake by the scribe.

However, most tribal nations also disliked exogamous marriage to completely unrelated people. In several prominent cases in the Torah, incestuous relationships are described. In the biblical narrative, each of these occurred chronologically prior to the establishment of Levitical law. Abraham married his half-sister Sarah, Jacob married his first wife's sister (albeit without his knowledge), and Amram married his paternal aunt Jochebed.

Apart from the questionable case of a man marrying his daughter, the list in Leviticus 18 roughly produces the same rules as were followed in early pre-Islamic Arabic culture.