Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 92 No. 2, 2022.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.92.2.2
Clear Condemnation of Homosexuality? Critical Review of the Article by Božidar Mrakovčić »Homosexuality in the Document of the Papal Biblical Commission What is a Man?«
Nenad Polgar
; Catholic Faculty of the University of Graz, Graz, Austria
Abstract
In the hope of stirring a further theological discussion on the topic of homosexuality, the author offers in this article a critical response to a recently published analysis of a relevant part (nn. 185-195) of the document What is Man? of the Pontifical Biblical Commission that has been published by Božidar Mrakovčić. In these numbers, the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission offers its view of how homosexuality has been evaluated in biblical texts, which is partially confirmed and partially disputed by Mrakovčić on the basis of a very wide insight into the current literature on the topic. The thesis of this article is that Mrakovčić, nevertheless, misses some crucial determinants of the biblical-moral-theological dealing with the topic of homosexuality, which is most clearly reflected in the conclusion of his analysis that one can read a clear condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible. This article will, therefore, dispute the aforementioned conclusion by, first, pointing out the need to specify the object of discussion more precisely; second, by indicating short-comings of Mrakovčić’s analysis of the relevant biblical texts; and, finally, by arguing that the implications Mrakovčić draws from his analysis for the contemporary moral-theological evaluation of homosexuality are unwarranted.
Keywords
homosexuality; document What is Man?; Bible; moral-theological evaluation; terminology
Hrčak ID:
289202
URI
Publication date:
27.12.2022.
Visits: 862 *