What Does the Bible Really Say About Sexuality? Part 1: The Forbidden Fruit.
Teasing out fact from fiction regarding biblical sexuality
A lot of people wonder about the Bible and sex. According to Pew Research, 80% of Americans are self-professed Christians who believe in God, as described in the Bible. Needless to say, a lot of people have a lot of questions about the nature of religion and sex.
But there’s a dark side to that.
In recent decades, religion once again has become a weapon of oppression, frequently wielded in the exercise of oppressing women and minority groups with a newfound fervor.
Anti-LGBTQ sentiment is alive and well in the United States, and just last year, we saw right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court and in statehouses across America engage in what can only be described as an all-out assault on women’s rights.
Yet, for a book that’s so often used as the basis for our most consequential decisions, few people actually read it, and even fewer understand what it says. Those who do, need to rely on translators, and they’re totally at the mercy of their respective biases.
That’s why I felt it was important to analyze the texts themselves in the wider context of what we know about ancient sexuality in order to analyze it with the knowledge of all of my years of study on the subject of sexuality itself. I also know a good amount of Greek, at least enough to read Greek texts, so I’m able to go straight to the source in a way many people can’t.
With that, and prioritizing sex above any particular system of beliefs, I can present to you an honest appraisal of what the Bible says—and does not say—about sex.
Η γλώσσα της Βίβλου—The Language of the Bible
It’s no secret that people twist the Bible’s words with their own interpretations that often conveniently coincide with their personal or political ambitions. Americans regularly ignore the commandments to take care of the poor and castigate LGBTQ folks with the verse in Leviticus that says that gay men should be killed.
They justify doing so because they don’t speak the original language and are forced to rely on translations. Unable to access the original texts, they shrug and pick from all the interpretations the ones they like best. I’m not going to do that here. 1
I’ll state clearly what is up for interpretation, what’s inarguably clear in the Bible, as well as which metaphorical euphemisms are supported by evidence. If we find the same phrase elsewhere in the Bible in the same context, that’s a hint that it was a common euphemism for sex in those days.
Now, let’s talk about sex in the Bible.
Background: Sex and the Ancients
Sex in the ancient world was very different than it is today.
Today, we tend to view the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Israelis as being very different groups with different customs. But the cultures weren't as far apart as we assume. Greek, Hebrew, Roman and most cultures around the ancient Mediterranean adhered to similarly strict sexual codes, especially pertaining to oral sex.
As I discussed in my history of oral sex in the ancient world, the mouth was considered sacred, and defiling it by using it as a sexual instrument was socially ruinous. This is true of all three ancient cultures.
The Roman poet Catullus is probably my favorite example of this. Whenever he’d get pissed at someone, he’d vent his anger at them in his poetry. He was particularly fond of the Latin word irrumo, which means to fuck someone in the mouth. As the penetrator, it was a threat of epic proportions.
The Ancients were obsessed with sexual hierarchies. Today, we’re more concerned with the sexual identities and orientations of the people involved in sex. In the ancient world, they were more concerned with social status and explicitly defined rank. Today, we care more about the sexual activity itself(anal, oral, BDSM, etc.), but the ancients cared more about the giver-receiver relationship.
The receiver was always considered feminine regardless of their sex. This was enough to give you a bad reputation, which just goes to show you how the ancients felt about women. Thank the gods times have changed!
Sexy, Sexy Bible
This anti-oral-sex, socially-hierarchical attitude was also evident in Judaism, where cunnilingus was considered among the most grievous sins and socially ruinous. Cunnilingus may have been so ruinous that it was the catalyst of the Christian fall, which we’ll get to soon.
Sex is written on page after page in the Christian and Hebrew Bibles, a book that often considers women property. It’s no surprise then that cunnilingus would be so frowned upon. And though fellatio was okay according to the Ancient Jews because it respected the sexual hierarchy of man above woman, by the Middle Ages, Christianity met it with open hostility.
In the 900s CE, Burchard writes:
Have you tasted your husband’s semen in order to make his love for you burn greater through your diabolical deeds? If you have, you should do seven years of penance on the appointed fast days.
The Bible is full of sex, and most people don’t know it. It’s either couched in the inaccessible, archaic English of the King James Bible or, in the newer version, much of its meaning lost in translation—literally.
Naughty Euphemisms
Whether it’s written in Greek, Roman, or Hebrew, we can’t understand ancient sexuality without understanding ancient euphemisms.
Because the ancients were so shy about sex, and because sex was so destructive to one’s reputation, writers often had to perform circumlocution, dancing around what they were really trying to say (unless they were verbally assassinating a political opponent, in which case, all is fair in love and war).
Galen, the Greek physician living under the Roman Empire, couldn’t even use the Latin words for “cunnilingus” and “fellatio” when writing about sex. He used φοινικίζειν (fee-nee-kIE-zien) for cunnilingus and λεσβιάζειν (les-via-zien) for fellatio, which aren’t merely Greek equivalents, but were then-archaic references only understood by highly educated readers of poetry.
Φοινικίζειν means to “act like a Phoenician,” as the Greeks believed the Phoenicians were rabid pussyeaters, while λεσβιάζειν (the verb form of “lesbian”) oddly means to fellate. Even when he was calling both forms of oral sex “revolting,” he had to couch it in euphemistic language. This makes interpreting sexual discussion from ancient texts a daunting task.
Knowing Knees and the Feet You Eat
Some of the most common sexual euphemisms in the Bible are knowing, between the knees, between the feet, and to eat. Further complicating things, sometimes between the knees and between the feet are shortened to just say knees or feet.2
A few of these are still alive and well today, and others are only slightly different from the way we use them. We might say, “he eats pussy,” when we mean performing cunnilingus. Its technical inaccuracy is unimportant. We know that people giving oral sex don’t literally eat anything, and the act doesn’t look like eating so much as licking, but we don’t care.
The authors of the Bible were very much the same. Obviously, feet aren’t a penis. It didn’t matter to them. But eating wasn’t restricted to just cunnilingus in those days. Like “lesbianing” was to the Ancient Greeks, “eating” applied to fellatio as well as cunnilingus (because giving oral sex was always seen as feminine).
They might also say “between the knees” or “between the feet” and sometimes even “on his/her knees” or “in his/her lap,” implying sex. This is present in other cultures as well. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Siduri, a Sumerian bartender in Babylon, tells Gilgamesh not to waste life but to enjoy its pleasures:
So, Gilgamesh, let your stomach be full,
day and night enjoy yourself in every way,
every day arrange for pleasures.
Day and night, dance and play,
wear fresh clothes.
Keep your head washed, bathe in water,
appreciate the child who holds your hand,
let your wife enjoy herself in your lap.
This last line is obviously referring to oral sex or (reverse) cowgirl.
“To know” is one of the most commonly known euphemisms for sex in the Bible (Cain knew his wife), but it’s not the only one. Most of the time, when you read the Bible and you read “lie with” in the sexual sense, the original word used by the Hebrew authors was knew, the “lie with” euphemism being introduced by later translators (i.e., the King James Bible).
Complicating things, “know” is also used in its traditional sense, as we would know an acquaintance. The euphemism is short for “to know her carnally,” which implies carnal knowledge (of sexuality, of someone’s body, etc.).
When Israelites slaughter their neighbors, they’re instructed to keep the virgins and kill everyone else. Yeah, Jehovah wasn’t a very nice guy.
Numbers 31:18, King James Version:
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
The euphemism is not an introduction by translators, it’s in the original Hebrew text. That means it was an ancient but not modern euphemism for sex.
Modern Hebrew speakers can read the word ידע, but they would not likely be familiar with the euphemism in the same way modern Greek speakers would be confused with 3,000-year-old Homeric references or a contemporary English speaker is often lost with Shakespeare’s euphemisms.
Samson & Delilah
Take the story of Samson and Delilah. Most people think the story means that Sampson fell asleep and allowed Delilah to cut his hair, and thus, he lost his power. That's not quite it. Look up that passage again sometime and see what it says.
It was a slang term then as it is now to say "between the legs" instead of "having sex," only they would also often refer to it as "between the feet," "between her knees," or "in her lap/knees" The word "feet" is often used to refer to genitalia.
King James Version, Judges 16:19:
And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.
I added the emphasis so you could see this breathtaking story with new eyes. Didn’t it seem odd to you that there was a story about this dude who had magical powers in his hair that, when cut, would lead to his destruction?
“Don’t let women cut your hair when you’re asleep” isn’t much of a moral tale, is it?
Because it wasn’t about hair. Most of the stories in the Bible are allegorical tales teaching people how to behave. The lesson here is pretty clearly not to lose yourself in your desire for a woman…because we all know how the ancients felt about women. And Jehovah forbid, you lose yourself in a woman so much that you lesbianize her by giving her cunnilingus, and you’re in big, big trouble.
Samson ate pussy; therefore, he became a weakling in the eyes of his friends and enemies. That he was the giver, not the receiver of oral sex, was all the worse. Imagine hating women so much that you think eating pussy is emasculating.
It’s pathetic, and it’s sad this idea still persists today in many men. Many Mediterranean cultures still believe this.
In the first season of The Sopranos, they reference this, with Tony Soprano busting Junior’s balls over the fact that he eats pussy. Junior is afraid it will make him look weak as the formal boss of the crime family.
The Fruit of Eden
This revelation of “to eat,” “to know,” and “between the feet/knees” and “on/in the lap” euphemisms puts a whole new spin on the story of Adam and Eve.
Adam giving Eve cunnilingus likely caused the Fall of Man and all the subsequent misery found in Christian literature, the misery that 17th-century poet John Milton described with “Man’s first disobedience, and the Fruit of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste brought Death into the World, and all our woe.”
Milton took it to mean literally a tree with fruit—it wasn’t.
Silly poet.
If you’ve always had a hunch that Eve tempting Adam with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge sounds like a metaphor for oral sex, you might not be too far off. There’s actually quite a lot of evidence for this interpretation (as far as I can tell, there’s more evidence for this than any other interpretation). Taken in context with the rest of the sex in the Bible, it fits right in.
First, the tree of knowledge relates to the euphemism to know, which is the most well-understood euphemism for sex in the Bible (“carnal knowledge,” as we’ve discussed).
The fruit reference is obvious (hint: it’s not an apple). Anyone who’s used the peach emoji knows what the fruit represents. And to eat it, well, that’s a euphemism still alive and well today, isn’t it?
What most people don’t pick up on is the fact that trees are also an ancient fertility symbol. The Bible was heavily edited after the Ancient Israelites were taken into captivity in Babylon. We have no idea what all was in the original text, but there were a lot more powerful women that were scrubbed out of the Bible.
If you’re skeptical of this claim, I’d suggest the book When God Had a Wife: The Fall and Rise of the Sacred Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition and ask yourself why of all the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern religions of the ancient world, the Bible of the Hebrews is the only one without powerful women. Greeks, Romans, Persians, Babylonians, Sumerians, etc., all have powerful women and goddesses, but the Hebrew Bible does not, even in the sections that were polytheistic.
Because they were scrubbed by a very patriarchal editor after their return from captivity in the 6th century BCE, probably out of shame. They blamed women for their fall, so the Bible is replete with nefarious female characters but entirely devoid of strong, helpful female characters.
Unfortunately, it’s been so heavily edited we don’t know everything that was written before in the old period, but we do know enough to say that each component of the idea of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a representation of sex—from the eating to the fruit to the tree to the knowledge and even the nakedness afterward.
The story of The Fall of Man in Genesis isn’t the only time “to eat” is used as a sexual euphemism, either.
Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
The Tree of Knowledge caused them to know two things: good and evil. This is a frequently used euphemism throughout the Bible that, I suspect, is rooted in self-licensing. Self-licensing, or, as it’s not-so-coincidentally-and-ephemistically called, “license to sin,” is a psychological process whereby people allow themselves a certain amount of vice with their virtue.
Someone trying to lose weight might allow themselves a piece of delicious chocolate cake to celebrate how good they’ve been on their diet for the past month.
To know good and evil is to know a little bit of evil with your good. Note: this is my hypothesis, but what’s inarguable is the fact that to know good and evil is a euphemism for sex that’s used elsewhere in the Bible.
When David invites an ally back to his Kingdom where he’ll be well taken care of, implying sex and festivities, the ally replies that he’s in his elder years and cannot appreciate the sound of music, dance, nor know good or evil as he once could in his youth.
And what happens when Eve convinces Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge? They realize their nakedness. It’s the first thing that happens. Most people don’t make the connection, but this euphemism is used elsewhere in the Bible, and it means “to have sex with.”
In Leviticus, when Jehovah is laying down the long list of often-times-silly rules the Israelites must follow, he’s telling them incest is a great big no-no. And the euphemism “uncover nakedness” is used over and over.
Leviticus, 18.6-19 (get ready, this is a long one):
None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.
The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness.
The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
The nakedness of thy son's daughter, or of thy daughter's daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
The nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister: she is thy father's near kinswoman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister: for she is thy mother's near kinswoman.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son's wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.
Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time. Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness.
I feel like most of this could’ve been one commandment: don’t fuck your family members.
All in all, it’s pretty clear that when Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge and uncovered one another’s nakedness, what the Bible authors are really saying is that he ate pussy, and they fucked.
But that’s not the end of it…
Immediately after Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden, the term to know is used again in a sexual context. “Adam knew Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.”
So it’s obvious the very author of Genesis who tells the story of The Fall of Man is clearly using to know and knowledge in the sexual sense, meaning to know carnally, as they’re using fruit to imply a vulva, and nakedness to imply that they’re fucking each other.
The story is clearly a warning not to eat pussy, like countless sexual stories from the ancient world. But it’s also a warning that sexual indiscretion can lead to shame, something Adam and Eve felt when they “realized their nakedness.”
If we take Christianity’s story at face value3, the plot is this:
Everything from sin to hellfire and damnation came about because Adam dared to give women equal sexual share by pleasing Eve with his tongue. We die and experience terror, cold, hate, warfare, and disease, and thousands of years would need to go by, with senseless slaughter and countless rules, up to and including the death and crucifixion of the son of God himself, all because the first man eat the pussy of the woman when God told him not to.
I told you the ancients hated cunnilingus.
It’s incredible to me how pervasive sexism is throughout history. Yes, I understand, these were iron-age people afraid of the rain and the thunder, people who had zero conception of disease and why bad things happened.
But it wasn’t always this way. Humankind once revered women for their fecundity, their live-giving abilities, and giving birth being something no man could do.
Anthropologists have long noted the link between patriarchal domination and anti-sexual attitudes. Sex and war seem to be two opposites themes, roles that humanity can take. We possess a tremendous ability to be either like the peaceful bonobo, solving social problems with sex, love, and affection, or the combative chimpanzee, tormenting one another at every turn.
Most people who discuss this subject seem to think we must commit ourselves to either one or the other. Humans are either supposed to be like the peaceful bonobo, or they must be like the troublemaking chimpanzee.
I think humans are uniquely capable of a much wider range of dispositions and abilities than all other animals, including other primates. We can write symphonies of love that inspire millions to tears, or we can exterminate them in the gas chambers.
It is perpetually our choice what we will do and how we will approach the world. As the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said, we are even responsible for our own epoch, our own point in history, where we must choose to either go along or resist the tides that turn away from what we truly believe.
I can understand a moderate amount of the Greek (Modern/Demotic, Ancient, Koine [Biblical], and Homeric), as well as Latin, languages. But I know nothing of Hebrew, meaning I have to rely on others and cross-reference those claims with others and still others to bring you an accurate appraisal of the Old Testament. How I do this is by referencing multiple scholars who are capable of pointing out when a sexual term is used in several places in the Bible. I also confirm that each rendering isn’t an artifact of a later translation and is, in fact, in the original Hebrew.
Big thanks to David DePierre and his work They Stoop to Conquer: A Brief History of Oral Sex, Michael D. Coogan and his work God & Sex: What the Bible Really Says, Jennifer Larson and her work Greek and Roman Sexualities: A Sourcebook, Marylin Skinner and her work Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture, and unrelated to this particular project, Dagmar Herzog and all of her writings. Also, I’ve got to thank the creators of BibleHub for making a super easy tool to view texts side by side.
These euphemisms (between the knees, between the feet, in the lap, on the lap, feet, and knees, etc.) are so universal they’re not up for much interpretation. Even Bible translators include these euphemisms in their translations. These ones usually didn't get mistranslated, but for most of them, we’ve abandoned them as sexual slang.
The Bible is a collection of books that continue to be used as a guide and justification for all sorts of behaviors and prejudices.
It’s often wielded as a political tool, an instrument to oppress minority groups and people who don’t fit the traditional patriarchal, heteronormative mold. In the eyes of many, it’s become a symbol of intolerance. Yet, few people understand its contents.
I write this through the lens of biblical scholarship, not Christianity. Biblical scholarship involves academic study and analysis of the Bible from a critical and historical perspective while being a Christian refers to a personal religious belief and faith in the teachings and principles of Christianity based on the Bible (and subsequent thinkers). I make no claims about Christianity.
Loved this article. It's not what I expected. But it included really good information. You're argument about the "forbidden" fruit makes sense. It's so tasty I guess they had to make up a justification for banning it. Weird how people try to police other people's sexuality and lives. You see it on Twitter with men tweeting advice to other men like: You must do this and act like this and blah blah to be a man...
That's probably the best post I've ever read about sex in the Bible. The original sin being eating pussy makes so much sense, and also it's both hilarious and frightening they're still on that after literally thousand of years.
(And even though I theoretically know about 80% of Americans being Christian, seen from France it's a crazy number, and such a fundamental difference.)