From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: Homsexuality and the Bible #2
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 00:20:55 GMT
Summary: don't trust your translators TOO much

In article <1307@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, corvette@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Jeff Cox) writes:

> is that if you are a christian then I ask you to recall this verse:
> 
>   "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall
>    not inherit the kingdom of God? Do no be decieved;
>    neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
>    nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves,
>    nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
>    nor swindlers, shall not inherit the kingdom
>    of God." 1 cor. 6 9-10

> This verse tells us as christians that homsexuality is wrong. You cannot

Your *translation* tells you homosexuality is wrong.  Unfortunately, the
translators are guessing.  The Greek is obscure, if only because there
is no Greek word that is even remotely similar in meaning to the modern
coinage "homsexuality."

I am hoping in the next few months to get an opportunity to look at the
recent rounds of discussion of this (including an article from the
conservative side that one of the discussants here has promised to send
me).  Everything I have read so far suggests to me very strongly that the
meaning you are trying to get out of this verse simply does not exist in
it without your projecting it there (or the translators projecting it
there for you.)

The fundamental problem is that the word used by Paul is not a common
word, and its denotations and connotations are NOT easy to determine.
That makes it rather difficult to know what, exactly, Paul is objecting
to (and whether or not the objection would include the sorts of behavior
which some of us wish to defend.)

To illustrate the difficulty, you have only to look at the OTHER words
in Paul's list.  He says that neither drunkards nor the covetous will
inherit the kingdom.  This is apparently given in parallel to the word
in dispute which your translation wants to use "homosexual" for.  But
tell me:  Does drinking wine with dinner constitute drunkenness?  and
is it forbidden to desire and work for good things we do not posses?

It is easy to see reasons to forbid an obsession with drink that destroys
the drinker and those around him; equally easy to find problems with those
who live to despoil others of their goods and gloat about "the one who
dies with the most toys wins."  Both conditions are destructive abberations
of "natural" human behavior (i.e., that in which we bear our created image.)

The question arises whether Paul's more obscure cases are ALSO of this
nature -- an objection to the destructive use of human faculties.  If so,
it becomes impossible to take his words as a rejection of the *proper*
use of these faculties under the rule of our Lord and his command to love
God and neighbor.  ANd then one has the problem of determining the proper
use. 

> In fact I have said nothing, I have simply typed in the word of God.

Well, no; not really.  You have typed in a particular English translation
of a Greek original which is obscure at best, and may in fact be beyond
our ability to GIVE a good translation to, becuase we DON'T know what
Paul meant -- let alone what God might conceivably mean "behind" Paul.

I wouldn't mind discussing these things calmly with my accusers if they
every showed the SLIGHTEST trace of humility in these matters (some do;
with these I have had good, if not terribly productive, conversations.)
But no -- what THEY manage to decipher from a text they can barely read
in English is somehow identified with the very Word of God.  All of this
with NO acknowledgment that translation between cultures is hard, and 
we may just possibly NOT KNOW what is meant.  Oh, no; these people ALWAYS
know exactly what God meant to Paul and what God "must" mean to me.  How
they know this is totally beyond my comprehension. They exhibit no OTHER
signs of great prophetic insight or knowledge.

> If you are a christian than you should know that God is alive
> and walking the earth.

And if I tell you that it is through the conversation I have had with
the Living God that I know your reading of the text is bound by traditions
of men, and a burden you would bind to exclude me from the gift of Heaven
that my Lord is directly offering me, what then?

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses -- and some of them speak
to me of that which you evidently have never seen.  That love, when open
to and not fearful of the inclusion of God within the love, is the very
nature of reality underpinning the Incarnation, Sacrifice and Resurrection
of our Lord.  That this love is celebrated EQUALLY by those redeemed out
of despair through the love of God, whether they are celibate in calling
or their spouses are of the same or of opposite sex.

> For reading the Bible is diff. for reading all other books. When one

I said something about this last week. To set the Bible off this way is
to make it unreadable, the mere repository of the prejudices of those
whom you have decided to listen to in your "deciphering" of it.  Reading
is reading.  And anything "different" you intrude into the reading of
scripture is a likely source of bias that you are unwilling to face in
the open.

> One must make Jesus your lord.

What YOU have to deal with is those of us who HAVE taken Jesus as Lord,
and live in godly love with spouses of the same sex.  You may blind
yourself to the existence of such people -- but God knows them, and
they are a witness to the truth of the gospel even against those who
would misread the gospel against them.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."