Homosexuality in the Christian Scriptures
The "clobber passages"
Meanings of the Greek word "arsenokoitai"
(1 Corinthians 6 & 1 Timothy 1)
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The word "arsenokoitai" in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy:
"Arsenokoitai"is a Greek word that appears to have been created by Paul when he was
writing 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. No record remains of any writer having using the
term before Paul. It has been translated as "abusers
of themselves with mankind" in the King James Version (KJV):
"Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind", Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of
God." (Emphasis ours)
The KJV was finished 1611 CE when there was no single
word that referred to homosexuals or homosexuality.
The translators were forced to use this awkward phrase. The term "homosexual"
was only created in the late 19th century. More recent versions of the Bible translate arsenokoitai here as:
"homosexuals," (NASB);
"homosexual perversion," (NEB);
"homosexual offenders," (NIV).
In doing this, they appear to have little respect to the actual meaning of
the original Greek verse. By using the term "homosexual" the translators changed
the scope of the verse. The original Greek refers to men only; the English
translation refers to both males and females; i.e. to gays and lesbians. We
suspect that the temptation to attack lesbians overcame the translators' desire
to be accurate.
The author of 1 Timothy also used "arsenokoitai." The KJV translated it
similarly:
"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but
for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for
unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers,
for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves
with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there
be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine."
(Emphasis ours)
Christian theologians generally agree that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians circa 55
CE. However, they differ on the authorship and date of the three Pastoral
Epistles -- 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus.
Conservative Protestants generally
believe that Paul wrote the Pastoral epistles during the interval 62 to 64 CE.
Liberals generally
believe that they were written up to 85 years after Paul's execution, circa 100
to 150 CE by an unknown person who pretended to be Paul.
What does "arsenokoitai" really mean?
Nobody knows for certain.
"Arsenokoitai" is made up of two parts:
"arsen" means "man"; "koitai"
means "beds."
Although the word in English Bibles is interpreted as referring to
homosexuals, we can be fairly certain that this is not the meaning that Paul wanted to convey. If he
had, he would have used the word "paiderasste." That was the
standard Greek term at the time for sexual behavior between males. We can conclude that he probably meant
something different than people who engaged in male-male adult sexual
behavior.
Many sources have speculated about the meaning of "arsenokoitai:"
"Homosexual offenders:" The NIV contains this phrase. Suppose for the moment that Paul had
attacked "heterosexual offenders" or "heterosexual
sexual offenders." We would not interpret this today as a
general condemnation of heterosexuality. It would be seen as an attack only on those
heterosexuals who commit sexual offences. Perhaps the appropriate
interpretation of this verse is that it does not condemn
all homosexuals. Rather it condemns only those homosexuals who engage in sexual
offences (e.g. child sexual abuse).
Male prostitutes in Pagan temples:
One source states that the Septuagint (an ancient, pre-Christian translation of
the Old Testament into Greek made between the 3rd and 1st century
BCE) translated the Hebrew "quadesh" in I
Kings 14:24, 15:12 and 22:46 into a Greek word somewhat similar to "arsenokoitai." This
passage referred to
"male temple prostitutes" - people who engaged in ritual sex in Pagan
temples. 1 Some leaders in the early Christian church also thought
1 Corinthians was referring to temple
prostitutes. Some authorities believe that it simply means male prostitutes with female
customers - a practice which appears to have been a common practice in the Roman empire.
Pimp:
Another source refers to other writings, written later than 1 Corinthians, which containe the word "arsenokoitai:"
This includes the Sibylline Oracles 2.70-77, Acts of John, and Theophilus of Antioch's Ad Autolycum. The
source suggests that the term refers "to some kind of
economic exploitation by means of sex (but not necessarily homosexual
sex)." 2 Probably "pimp" or
"man living off of the avails of prostitution" would be
the closest English translations. It is worth noting that "Much Greek
homosexual erotic literature has survived, none of it contains the
word arsenokoitai." 3
Masturbators. At the time of Martin Luther, "arsenokoitai" was universally interpreted as masturbator.
But by the 20th century, masturbation had
become a more generally accepted behavior. So, new translations abandoned references to
masturbators and switched the attack to homosexuals. The last religious writing in English
that interpreted 1 Corinthians 6:9 as referring to masturbation is
believed to be the [Roman] Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967.
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Abusive pedophiles: Many would consider "malakoi" --
the word preceding "arsenokoitai," in 1 Corinthians -- to refer to a boy or young male who engaged in sexual
activities with men. Such boys were often slaves, kept by rich men as sex partners. The second term might then refer to
the men who engaged in sex with the catamites. That is, they were abusive pedophiles or hebephiles. TheNew American Bible contains a footnote which reads:
"The Greek word translated as 'boy prostitutes' [in 1 Cor. 6:9] designated
catamites, i.e. boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice
not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world....The term translated 'practicing homosexuals'
refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys."
In their footnote, the translators recognize that the term refers to abusive
male pedophiles, but apparently cannot resist the
temptation to attack all homosexuals -- both gays and lesbians, non-abusive and
abusive.
Harper's Bible Commentary (1998) states that the passage refers to:
"... both
the effeminate male prostitute and his partner who hires him to satisfy sexual needs. The
two terms used here for homosexuality... specify a special form of pederasty that was
generally disapproved of in Greco-Roman and Jewish Literature."
Many religious liberals might agree that the center portion of 6:9 might be accurately
translated as: "male child abusers and the boys that they sexually abuse."
i.e. the two behaviors probably relate to male pedophiles who are also child
rapists, and the male children that they victimize. The verse would then refer to the
crime of child sexual abuse and has no relation to homosexuality in the normal sense of
the term: i.e. to consensual sexual relations between adults of the same
gender.
Male prostitutes: Justin Cannon has provided an interesting analysis of
1 Corinthians. 4 He
noticed a pattern in verse 9 and 10. They are composed up of pairs or triads of related groups
of people:
The lawless & disobedient: two near synonyms
The ungodly & sinners: also two near synonyms
The unholy & profane: two synonyms
The murderers of fathers & murderers of mothers & manslayers:
three kinds of murderers
Whoremongers & "arsenokoitai" & menstealers
Liars & perjurers etc.: again, two near synonyms.
From the repeated pairs or triads made up of synonyms or near synonyms,
one might
expect that whoremongers, "malakoi arsenokoitai" and meanstealers
are interconnected with a common theme.
In the original Greek, the first of the three words is "pornov."
An online Greek lexicon 5
notes that this is Strong's Number 4205, and was derived from the Greek word
"pernemi" which means to sell. Its meanings are:
A man who prostitutes his body to another's lust for hire.
A male prostitute.
A man who indulges in unlawful sexual intercourse, a fornicator.
The second term is "arsenokoitai" which has not been given a
Strong Number because it is a made-up word not found in the Greek
language other than in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians.
The last of the three words is "andrapodistes," the stem of the
word andrapodistai. It is Strong's Number 405 which means:
A slave-dealer, kidnapper, man-stealer -- one who unjustly reduces
free men to slavery or who steals the slaves of others and sells them.
If we assume that the three words are linked together, as the other five
groups are, then we have to look for some sense in which the words refer to a
common theme. Cannon suggests:
"pornoi" refers to an enslaved male prostitute.
"arsenokoitai" refers to a man who sleeps with an enslaved male
prostitute
"andrapodistes" refers to a person who enslaves others.
The common theme is slavery. Cannon suggests a translation: "It is as if
Paul were saying, 'male prostitutes, men who sleep with them, and slave dealers
who procure them'." 1
That is, all three words deal with slavery. They are unrelated to homosexual
behavior in the modern sense of the term i.e. consensual sex between persons of
the same sex.
A boy sex slave: An alternative interpretation, following Canon's analysis, could be:
"pornoi" refers to an enslaved male prostitute.
"arsenokoitai" refers to a boy, generally a slave, who is kept by
an adult male for sexual purposes.
"andrapodistes" refers to a person who enslaves others.
Again, the common theme is slavery.
Translating "arsenokoitai" as a boy who is kept as a sex slave has some
support in at least two Bible translations:
As noted above, a footnote in the New American Bible (NAB),
interprets "arsenokoitai" as a " boy prostitute."
The Jerusalem Bible translates the triad in 1 Timothy as: "those who are
immoral
with women or with boys or with men." (Emphasis ours). In 1
Corinthians 6:9 the same word "arsenokoitai" is translated as
"catamite."
A possible translation of 1 Timothy 1:10 would be: "...male prostitutes, boys
who have sex with men, and slave dealers who enslave them both."
Jesus and homosexuality:
It is worthwhile to check the words attributed to Jesus by the author of the Gospel of Matthew. He also had a list of sins that
could bring doom on a person:
Matt 15:18-20: "...those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man..." It is worth noting that homosexual behavior is not
one of the behaviors that is mentioned in this passage. One might conclude that Jesus did not consider it a sin, or that he viewed
it as a minor sin not worth mentioning, or that the author of Matthew did not fully record all of Jesus' categories.
