Priestly Celibacy: Explicit and Undeniable Biblical Proof
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[This is a portion of my book, Inspired!: 198 Supposed Biblical Contradictions Resolved (available for free online). All Bible passages RSV]
Dancing, according to the Bible, is permissible and morally neutral in and of itself, though like anything else (alcohol being a prime example), it can be perverted and warped, and become a conduit to sinful behavior (such as a striptease, or otherwise overtly sexual, vulgar dancing, deliberately intended to incite lust or immoral sexual activity). And that’s what happened in the three counter-examples above.
The first had to do with rebellious Israelites dancing around the golden calf, which was a forbidden idol, that they worshiped over against the true God. Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and “saw the calf and the dancing” and his “anger burned hot” (Ex 32:19). But this is no proof that dancing itself is wrong. They were dancing around an idol that they offered worship and sacrifice to: that was what was wrong: idolatry: not merely moving bodies.
The second example is Salome’s dance, that brought about John the Baptist being killed. It “pleased Herod”: with the implication that he was lusting after her (and the dance likely encouraged such lust, and is always portrayed as such in movies about Jesus). Again, this is the wrong kind of dance, which doesn’t prove that all dancing is wrong.
The third example is really a stretch. Paul condemns a long list of behaviors, none of which is dancing. The atheist who came up with this simply concluded without adequate reason that Paul had dancing in his head, as if he can read his mind. The Bible is quite blunt about behaviors that it condemns. If dancing in and of itself was always sinful, certainly this would have been made clear in the Bible, beyond dispute. But it never is, and instead, we have several passages presenting it in a good light, and even some that virtually command us to dance in praise of God (Ps 150:4). Hence, our atheist skeptic has to come up with three desperate, pathetic, special pleading attempts to create a pseudo-“contradiction.”
Dave Armstrong (see Facebook & Twitter pages) has been an apologist since 1981 & has defended Catholicism since 1991, when he was received into the Church. He has written for the Catholic periodicals, National Catholic Register (regular columnist since 2016; over 300 articles), Catholic Answers Magazine, Envoy Magazine, The Catholic Answer, Seton Magazine, The Michigan Catholic, The Catholic World Report, & others. Dave has written over 4,500 articles & 53 books (see book and purchase information), including A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (Sophia Institute Press, 2003), The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants (Sophia, 2004; published also in Portugese), The One-Minute Apologist (Sophia, 2007), 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura (Catholic Answers Press, 2012; also in Portugese), & The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023). He has been happily married to his wife Judy since 1984, with four children & three grandchildren.<
