God does not Consider Homosexuality a Sin

II. "Do not be deceived; neither... homosexuals... will inherit the kingdom of God." It should be known that the KJB, ASV, DBT, ERV, WBT bibles use "abusers of themselves with mankind [or men]" instead of "homosexuals." The YLT bible uses "sodomites," which I argue doesn't mean "homosexuals." To support this, let's review the original Greek word, "arsenokoites." ""...abusers of themselves with mankind." A similar phrase appears in a list of sins in I Timothy 1:10. Both phrases are derived from a single Greek word, arsenokoitai, which is quite rare. In fact, these two biblical references may be the first examples we have of this word being used in the literature of the time... Because the word is so rare, its exact meaning is probably lost forever... One translation technique is to look at the root words alone. Arsenokoitai is a combination of two existing words, one meaning "bed" and referring to sex, and another meaning "male."... Thus, some scholars surmise the term has something to do with male sexual expression - perhaps exclusive male sexual expression, since no woman is mentioned... A better way to understand what Paul may have meant by arsenokoitai is to look for other instances of the word in the subsequent writings of his time... First, two early church writers who dealt with the subject of homosexual behavior extensively... never used the word in their discussions of same-sex behavior. The word shows up in their writing, but only in places where they appear to be quoting the list of sins found in 1 Corinthians 6, not in places where they discuss homosexuality... A similar pattern is found in other writings of the time. There are hundreds of Greek writings from this period that refer to homosexual activity using terms other than arsenokoitai... If Paul had intended to refer generally to homosexual sex, or to one of the partners in gay-male sex, he had other commonly-used, well-known words at his disposal... Apparently Paul was trying to refer to some more obscure type of behavior. This conclusion is reinforced by a survey of the actual uses of arsenokoitai in Greek literature. Scholars have identified only 73 times this term is used in the six centuries after Paul... (There are no known instances before Paul.)... In one instance, a Greek author uses the term when cataloguing the sins of the Greek gods... In this context, the term is probably intended to refer to the time Zeus abducted and raped a young boy, Ganymede. Arsenokoitai is also used in an ancient legend in which the snake in the Garden of Eden is said to have become a Satanic figure named Naas. Naas uses a variety of means (including sleeping with both Adam and Eve) to gain power over and destroy them. In this story, Naas is said to have gone to Adam and had him like a boy. Naas' sin is called arsenokoitai... These examples suggest that arsenokoitai refers to instances when one male uses his superior power or position to take sexual advantage of another." "Common experience tells us list-makers tend to group similar items together... In I Timothy 1:10, the word appears between "fornication" and "slave traders." This is consistent with the meaning suggested above - that arsenokoitai describes a male who aggressively takes sexual advantage of another male. Examples of this type of behavior would include a man who rapes another (as in the Sodom story...) or a man who uses economic power to buy sex from a male prostitute... This latter example is an especially neat fit if malakoi is understood to be a reference to the prostitute, in which case Paul's list would include a reference both to the male prostitute (malakoi) and the man who takes advantage of the prostitute (arsenokoitai). This type of person is a close kin to the thief and the greedy - the two Greek words that most often follow arsenokoitai in the lists of sins." "Thus, we conclude that aresenokoitai is best understood as a reference to men who force themselves sexually on others. This conclusion is consistent with the New Revised Standard Version, the English translation of the Bible often regarded as most scholarly. The New Revised Standard Version translates arsenokoitai as "sodomite." ...the men of Sodom were the ultimate example of sexual aggression and oppression. Even the New International Version, a more conservative English translation... they translate the term as "homosexual offender," suggesting that to commit the sin referred to here one must use homosexuality in an aggressive or offensive way." [1] (I apologize that all of that wasn't in my own words.) III. "...God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another..." Note that the words "exchanged" and "abandoned" are used here. This suggests that the people in question have already had sexual relations. They "burned in their desire." This is more of an indicator of excessive sex and infidelity than it is of homosexuality. Let's look at the word "natural" too. The original Greek word is "phusis," which means, "the sum of innate properties and powers by which one person differs from others, distinctive native peculiarities." [2] Given this, straying from one's sexual orientation out of excessive desire is what's sinful. "John Boswell: "The point of the passage is not to stigmatize sexual behavior of any sort but to condemn the Gentiles for their general infidelity."" [3] IV. God is not so concerned with gender, as evidenced by Galatians 3:26-28: "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (NIV) REBUTTALS: 1. "Hebrew "shakab" is noted for being used to refer to sexual intercourse." - I don't disagree. "..."Mishkab"" is used to refer to having sex with whoever is on the bed." Con implies that both of these words are used to mean roughly the same thing (while corresponding to the same subject) in Leviticus 18:22. That would produce a translation similar to "You shall not lie with lie with..." It's more likely that the first word means one thing and the second word means another. Since "shakab" is *only* listed as a verb, [4] and can't imply anything but an action, it must mean "lie with" here. So "mishkab" must mean "bed". We can eliminate "lie with" because shakab already claims that meaning; it would be redundant if mishkab was also "lie with". This is the process of elimination. We do it in English too. Ex: "He had had supper." Obviously we aren't using two "had"s to convey the same meaning. We can use the process of elimination, like I just did for the Leviticus verse, to accurately determine what they each mean. (Had: past tense term indicating distant past; or term indicating possession) We aren't saying, "He possessed had supper." That's incoherent, so it must be, "He had possessed dinner." 2. "Toevah" - Three of the verses con quoted are Levitical verses, only of relevance to Israelites. Not only does Leviticus 18 specifically address the Israelites, but Leviticus 20 does as well. [5] Deuteronomy 7:25 too is only addressing the Israelites. Deuteronomy 7:6-8... "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession... he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt." Chosen people? Slavery? Sounds like the Israelites. We can confirm this by reading Exodus 6:6, which is God talking about saving the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Proverbs 15:9 - the verse says that the ways of wicked are detestable, not that any sins are detestable. Just because the wicked may be sinful, this doesn't mean their ways are sins themselves. In any matter, the toevah point isn't at the heart of my argument. 3. "All love does not fall in the same spectrum. You are to love God above all else..." And I liken the strongest love to the hottest temperature. Of which falls on a spectrum. 4. "...it doesn't say "thus shall a mean leave his father and mother and be joined to his man and they shall be one flesh."" Here's a narrative to help me argue my point: Linda stood in line at the grocery store with her three daughters. As items scanned and beeped, she glanced around for her husband. Finally, he appeared behind her. "I"m back." "Did you get the newspaper?" "Oops, no." When Linda's husband ran off to get it, she faced her daughters and said, "You girls better marry rich. Men can't remember anything!" (above narrative does not reflect my views) Linda assumed her daughters want to marry men. Is this incorrect? In terms of probability, probably not. Society is accustomed to accurately guessing what gender people are attracted to. For the most part, people are straight! So the bible talks about men marrying women, but just as mothers talk about their daughters marrying men, this doesn't automatically forbid homosexuality. Furthermore, if God condemns homosexuality, it's reasonable to expect Him to explicitly say so. e.g. Authors write books with exclusively heterosexual characters, but this doesn't imply an author is against homosexuality. 5. Nature vs. Nurture: I agree with con here, but will emphasize that this point was not part of my main argument. [1] http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org... [2] http://www.biblestudytools.com... [3] http://www.philosophyandscripture.org... [4] http://www.biblestudytools.com... [5] http://biblehub.com...