I am constantly amazed at how the Bible, a book that is thousands of years old, continues to be so relevant in our modern world. One case in point of that relevancy involves the grotesque act of bestiality. Yes, I’m talking about a human being having sex with an animal. If you think this kind of behavior died out thousands of years ago, please keep reading.

Believe it or not, in recent years Germany has been embroiled in a controversy over bestiality, which Germans call “zoophilia.” Zoophilia is defined as being the sexual attraction of a human toward a non-human animal, which may involve the experience of sexual fantasies about the animal or the pursuit of real sexual contact with it. No, I’m not making this up. I wish I was.

The controversy in Germany all started in 1969 when zoophilia ceased being a crime in that country. At that time, there were only a couple of restrictions placed upon the practice by the German government. First, the human sexual activity with an animal could not be used to create pornographic material. Second, the sexual activity could not do “significant harm” to the animal.

Well, you would think that the German people would have been outraged enough by the legalizing of zoophilia to raise a fuss, but it was actually animal rights groups who took on that assignment. They began pushing to make zoophilia a crime in Germany, and finally, in 2012, the Bundestag (the lower house of the German parliament) passed a law that did just that. The ruling made zoophilia a misdemeanor crime and attached a maximum fine of 25,000 euros ($32,400 U.S. dollars) to it.

And do you know why Germany’s government was finally compelled to officially outlaw zoophilia? It was because of “animal pimping.” That was the term given to the practice of animals being born and raised for the purpose of being sold into zoophilia. There were even reports of “exotic zoos” in Germany where tourists from countries that had made zoophilia (bestiality) illegal could come to Germany and engage in sexual relations with animals.

While the Bundestag making zoophilia illegal seemed perfectly logical and acceptable to most Germans, it immediately threw all of the Germans who were involved in the practice into an uproar. You say, “Oh, c’mon, how many such Germans could there have been? Five? Twenty? Fifty?” One estimate from 2012 put the number at over 100,000!

In response to the Bundestag ruling, some of those 100,000+ formed a group to take up the charge to make zoophilia legal again. The group’s chairman, Michael Kiok, who was at the time living with his Alsatian dog named Cessie — and I do mean LIVING with the dog in every sense of the word — said he’d had special feelings for animals since he was four or five and those feelings took on erotic elements in his teens. In regards to his group, he was quoted as saying, “We see animals as partners and not as a means of gratification. We don’t force them to do anything.” (I guess the fact that the animals couldn’t speak helped with that.)

Finally, in 2016, the German courts had to revisit the 2012 Bundestag law when a man and a woman — identified in the court case as “Mr. F” and “Mrs. S” — put forth a legal bid to have that law overturned. The basis for their proposed overturning was the couple’s contention that the law violated their right to “sexual self-determination.” Fortunately, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany opted to throw out that legal challenge and zoophilia remains illegal in Germany.

This brings us back to the Bible. Here in this modern age, we don’t have to wonder about God’s opinion of zoophilia (bestiality) because it’s right there in the book. You see, such sexual perversion was common practice among the inhabitants of Canaan, the land that God gave to Israel, and that left God with a perfect opening to address the sin in that body of law He imparted to Israel. In Leviticus 18:23, we read:

Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. (N.K.J.V.)

Under Israelite law, the deviant act was even a capital punishment offense. As Exodus 22:19 says:

Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. (N.K.J.V.)

Furthermore, according to Leviticus 20:15-16, the animal itself was also supposed to be put to death:

If a man mates with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. (N.K.J.V.)

And then there is Deuteronomy 27:21, which says:

Cursed is the one who lies with any kind of animal. And all the people shall say, “Amen!” (N.K.J.V.)

Now, admittedly, the Old Testament law was given to a specific people (the Jews) who lived in a specific dispensation of centuries (after the Exodus from Egypt and before the coming of Jesus). So, please don’t accuse me of advocating the killing of those who engage in bestiality (zoophilia) today. I’m simply pointing out that by studying God’s law we can get His verdict on certain topics. One of those topics is bestiality (zoophilia), and He is clearly opposed to it.

But isn’t it sad how, even after all these years of human history have passed, mankind still loves to commit history’s same old sins? It reminds me of another Bible passage, Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, and that’s the passage I’ll use for the closing of this bit of bizarre news from modern times. Those verses say:

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. (N.K.J.V.)