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Ellens argues that the Bible treats sex as a normal and important part of life that connects us both to other humans and to God. Of course, it can go wrong, as in promiscuity, abuse, adultery, incest, bestiality, and rape, all of which make appearances in the Bible. But the problem is not with sex itself.
And yet, more deeply than many other "normal and important" parts of life, sex is interwoven with personhood—hence the seriousness with which the church has traditionally regarded sexual sin. That this emphasis has often clouded our appreciation of the essential goodness of sex is undeniable, just as a distorted emphasis on the reality of our fallenness has obscured the essential goodness of creation. But until the dawning of a new heaven and a new earth, our sexuality will always be a tangled affair.
The Bible reminds us of the enigmatic character of fallen sexuality again and again, in passages that can't readily be made to fit any agenda. Ellens focuses on three such stories from Genesis—one well-known and two obscure: the seduction of Eve by the serpent (Gen. 3:1-24), the sons of God mating with the daughters of men (Gen. 6:1-8), and God's slaying of Onan (Gen. 38:7-10).
Ellens reads the story of Eve, Adam, and the serpent as an allegory of human maturation—a story which, unfortunately, implies that sexual awakening unleashed evil into the world. The serpent, he notes, was a common phallic symbol in the ancient Near East, and the fruit a corresponding fertility symbol. While the point of the story is not that sex is bad, Ellens says, still it casts a negative light on the exploration required to transition from childhood to maturity. "Should we look at adolescent alienation, pain, and anxiety as difficult but inevitable stages in the evolution of persons," he asks, "or as an unfortunate aberration of a sinful or destructive behavior that makes God exceedingly disturbed?"
Here, Ellens can't help but adding what he wishes the Bible had said:
What if our loving and lovemaking, our sex and sensuality, had been cast from the beginning as the positive and beautiful thing that it is? That would have been the truth, and would have provided our sexual experimentation, exploration, achievement, and union a positive and celebrative aura, marking lovemaking as the supreme expression of the unique nature of human spirituality.
While I sympathize with Ellens, the biblical story reflects a tension that is true to human experience. Genesis holds two things in balance: there is the divine celebration of fruitfulness and multiplying, the consummate delight promised in the story of Eve's creation ("the two shall become one flesh"); and there is also the Fall. Neither aspect of sexuality can be ignored.
I grew up in a literalist church where a talking snake was a talking snake, and a forbidden fruit was a forbidden fruit. We were taught to take every biblical story at face value—which is probably why I never heard a sermon about Genesis 6, where the "sons of God" swoop down and mate with human women, giving rise to a race of supermen. (This gives new meaning to Touched by an Angel.)
According to Ellens, this troublesome tale actually runs parallel to that of Eve and the serpent, as an alternate account of the origin of evil. Here, sin enters the world through the sexual desire of angels, not human beings. Wickedness abounds among the ungodly offspring of the angels, leading directly to God's judgment with the Flood.
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