From: hedrick@dumas.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & the Bible
Date: 15 Apr 92 05:18:23 GMT
Distribution: talk.religion.misc
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

corvette@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Jeff Cox) writes:


>     I am just curious as to the nature of your translations. I ask this out of
>pure curiosity and the will to research the translations my self. I mean, all
>bibles that I have read say the same thing. What I am curious about as is it
>that you know that those who have translated the bible don't( I say this as
>respectfull in nature). I would like to have more that what you have written
>as a basis for the bible to be wrong.....:)

All the translations I've looked at use some variant of "homosexual"
in translating Paul's lists of sins, though they don't all use it to
translate the same word.  (This is consistent with the claim that we
really don't know what the words mean, and people are basically just
guessing.)  I'm going to include a summary of the discussion in
Boswell.  I don't claim to be a scholar of early Greek myself, so I
have no independent opinion, but the argument sounds plausible, and I
haven't seen any substantial objections to it.  This is an canned
posting, so it deals with issues beyond just these passages.

The full reference is John Boswell: "Christianity, Social Tolerance,
and Homosexuality", U Chicago Press, 1980.  Here's what he says: The
two Greek words that appear in the lists (i.e. I Cor 6:9 and I Tim
1:10) are /malakos/ and /arsenokoitai/.  Unfortunately it is not
entirely clear what the words actually mean.  /malakos/, with a basic
meaning of soft, has a variety of metaphorical meanings in ethical
writing.  Boswell suggests "wanton" as a likely equivalent.  He also
reports that the unanimous interpretation of the Church, including
Greek-speaking Christians, was that in this passage it referred to
masturbation, a meaning that has vanished only in the 20th Cent., as
that practice has come to be less frowned-upon.  (He cites references
as late as the 1967 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia that identify
it as masturbation.)  He translates /arsenokotai/ as male prostitute,
giving impressive evidence that none of the church fathers understood
the term as referring to homosexuality in general.  A more technical
meaning, suggested by the early Latin translations, would be "active
mode homosexual male prostitute", but in his view Paul did not intend
it so technically.

I have yet to see any convincing arguments against his analysis.
Typically people simply ignore it.  They say malakos is "soft", and
this obviously means homosexual, ignoring the analysis of how it was
actually used.  Or they observe that the roots in the word
arsenokoitai are "male" and "sleep with", and thus say it has to mean
homosexuality in general.  Again, this ignores evidence of how the
word and related words were actually used.  It's equivalent to
claiming the "goodbye" is a religious expression because it's derived
from "God be with ye".  Whatever it's derivation, what you have to
look at is how people actually use it.

In my opinion, the only clear reference to homosexuality in the NT is
Romans 1.  Boswell points out that Rom 1 speaks of homosexuality as
something that happened to people who were naturally heterosexual, as
a result of their corruption due to worshipping false gods.  One could
argue that this is simply an example: that if a homosexual worshipped
false gods, he would also fall into degradation and perhaps become
heterosexual.  I find Boswell's attempt to dismiss Rom 1 far less
convincing than his discussions of the other passages.  I think the
implication in Rom 1 is pretty clear that homosexuality is a deviation
from God's original plan, caused by sin.

However if you even there the consequences are less obvious than you
might expect.  The entry of pain, death, and even work are portrayed
in Gen. as being a deviation from God's plan, caused by sin.  This
does not mean that we can avoid them.  My own view, which I fear is
acceptable to neither side in this rather polarized debate, is that we
should make a distinction between theological and pastoral issues.
Paul's theological view on human sexuality is pretty clearly based on
God creating people as male and female.  Anything other than faithful
marriage is a departure from God's plan.

However the question of how to counsel homosexual Christians is not a
theological issue, but a pastoral one.  Paul's tendency, as we can see
in issues such as eating meat and celebrating holidays, is to be
uncompromising on principle but in pastoral issues to look very
carefully at the good of the people involved, and to avoid insisting
on perfection when it would be personally damaging.  For example,
while Paul clearly believed that it was acceptable to eat meat, he
wanted us to avoid pushing people into doing an action about which
they had personal qualms.  For another example, Paul obviously would
have preferred to see people (at least in some circumstances) remain
unmarried.  Yet if they were unable to do so, he certainly would
rather see them married than in a state where they might be tempted to
fornication.

I don't know what Paul would say to today's homosexual Christians.  As
other have pointed out, Paul was not dealing with people who wanted a
homosexual relationship that was equivalent (except in gender) to a
Christian marriage.  There are enough differences in social context
that what he was judging is not identical to what Christian
homosexuals are talking about now.  Yet Paul's reliance on Gen. as an
ideal for the sexual relations makes me sceptical that he he would
agree that God created homosexuality as an equal alternative.  However
it is certainly possible using Paul's principles to support an
acceptance of homosexual relationships within the church.  Even if you
acknowledge that homosexuality entered as a result of idolatry, that
does not make it different than death, suffering, or working by the
sweat of our brow -- it is a departure from God's original intention,
introduced by sin.  But as death and work, it's here and we have to
help people cope with it.

In the course of discussing this over the last decade or so, we've
heard a lot of personal testimony from fellow Christians who are in
this situation.  I've also seen summaries of various research and the
results of various efforts for "conversion".  (Here I'm relying
primarily in the minority report generated by the report on human
sexuality of the Presbyterian Church (USA) -- NB: I'm referring here
not to the notorious report you all read about in the newspapers, but
to the minority who recommended against acceptance of homosexual
ordination.)  The evidence is that long-term success in changing
orientation is rare enough to be on a par with healing miracles.
Furthermore, the danger in advising Christians to depend upon such a
change is very high.  When "conversion" doesn't happen, which is
almost always, the people are left in despair, excluded from a Church
that has nothing more to say but a requirement of life-long celibacy.
Paul recognized that such a demand is not practical for most people,
and I think the history of clerical celibacy has strongly reinforced
that judgement.  The practical result is that homosexuals end up in
the gay sex clubs and the rest of the sordid side of homosexuality.
Maybe homosexuality isn't God's original ideal, but I think Paul would
far rather see people in long-term, committed Christian relationships
than promiscuity.  As with work -- which Genesis suggests wasn't part of
God's original ideal either -- I think such relationships can still be
a vehicle for people sharing God's love with each other.

This issue is a matter of life and death.  I think AIDS and many other
problems within the homosexual community exist in part because society
as whole -- and the Church is surely a large part of this -- has acted
to discourage homosexuals from living in ways that would avoid these
problems.  It's very difficult for arrangements like marriage to
survive if society as a whole is hostile.  Simply observe the
difficulties today with heterosexual marriage, and how important
Christians (rightly) believe it is for us to do everything we can to
help support the Christian family.  Is it any surprise that our
typical image of homosexuals is of promiscuous and "unsafe" behavior?
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