Ok,
you say, the Old Testament doesn’t prohibit homosexuality. The New Testament does.
Except,
of course, that it doesn’t.
Adherents
of “New Testament prohibits
homosexuality” theory argue that it derives from the LXX’s recitation of Lev
18:22 and 20:13, which, according to them prohibit homosexuality. We have noted that it does not.
Adherents of
the “New Testament does not prohibit homosexuality” theory argue from
speculative sociology that it refers to a prohibition of “alternate practices” like pedophilia/pederasty/temple
prostitute boys (?).
Neither of
these are correct.
As with Lev
18:22 and 20:13 in the LXX, it refers to a prohibition against disrupting
family lines by a male creating his own heir—either by adoption of another male
(which would result in the necessity of the other male’s family disowning him,
or of him disowning himself from them), or by the taking of a male as a hostage
(against good behavior-a practice employed in the Roman empire to ensure the
good behavior of conquered—and occasionally non-conquered—peoples).
We find the
word “arsenokoitai,” (a word created by Paul to construct a concise reference
to Lev 18:22 and 20:13) in two places in the New Testament: In 1 Corinthians 6:9, I Timothy 1:10. We find a related seeming-reference in Romans
1:27.
As we have
noted, Lev 18:22 and 20:13 not only do NOT prohibit qhomosexuality, they have
nothing to do with sexuality at all:
they are concerned with protecting ownership of the product of intercourse:
if a male impregnates a male, one of the two would have to forfeit ownership of
the progeny. That forfeiture of
ownership of offspring was offensive, because it meant that one of the two
family lines would be disrupted. We find
the same concern active in the New Testament.
If we start with
the reference in Romans, we find:
Άποκαλυπτεται γὰρ ὀργη θεοῦ ἀπ οὐρανοῦ,
ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικἰαν ἀνθρώπων, τών τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικἰᾳ διότι τὀ
γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, φανερόν έν αὐτοις, ὁ θεὸς γάρ αύτοῖς ἐγανέρωσεν.
Τὰ γἀρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως
κόσμου, τοῖς πιοήμασιν νοούμενα, καθορᾶται ; ἥ τε ἀιδιος αύτοῦ δὐναμις καὶ θειότης
εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἀναπολογήτους.
διότι γνὀντες τὸν θεὀν, οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν,
ἤ ηὐχαρίστησαν ; άλλ´ἐματαιώθησαν έν τοῖς
διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν , καὶ έσκοτἰσθη ἡ ἀσὐνετος αύτῶν καρδἰα:
φἀσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ, ἐμωπάνθησαν,
καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν δὀξαν τοῦ ἀφθἀρτου θεοῦ, έν ὁνοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ, καὶ
πετεινῶν, καὶ τετραπὀδων, καὶ ἑρπετὼν.
Διὸ παρἐδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς, ἐν ταῖς
ἐπιθυμἰας τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν, εἰς ἀκαταρσίαν, τοῦ άτιμάζεσθαι τά σώματα αὐτῶν,
έν αύτοῖς ;
οἵτινες μετἠλλαξαν τἠν άλἠθειαν τοῦ
θεοῦ έν τῶ ψεὐδει, καὶ έσεβἀσθξσαν καὶ έλἀτρεθσαν τῃ κτἰσει παρὰ τὸν κτἰσαντα, ὅς
έστιν εύλογητὸς εἰς τους αἰῶας! Άμἠν
Διὰ τοῦτο παρἐδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς
πἀθη άτιμἰας ; ἅι τε γὰρ θἠλειαι αὐτῶν, μετἠλλαξαν τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν, εἰς τὴν
παρὰ φὐσιν ;
ὁμοἰως τε καὶ οἱ ἄρσενες, άφἐντες τὴν
φυσικὴν κρῆσιν τῆς θηλεἰας, έξεκαὐθξσαν έν τῆ όρἐξει αὐτῶν είς άλλήλους, ἄρσενες
έν ἄρσεσιν, τὴν άσχημοσυνην κατεργαζὀμενοι, καὶ τὴν άτιμισθἰαν ἥν ἔδει τῆς πλἀνης
αὐτῶν, ἑαυτοῖς.
A viable translation of the Greek text
would be:
*
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven on all ungodlinesses and
injustices of humans, who suppress the truth in injustice. Because what is known about God, is evident
to them, for God has revealed it to them.
For the invisible things about him, from his creating of the world, to
the things he made, being understood, are comprehensible. Both his eternal power and divinity, for they
are without explanation.
The Greek text uses the word
“anthropos” which means “human,” rather than “man.”
Anapologes is best understood as
“without explanation, ” “apologia” in classical terms means an explanation,
rather than an “excuse” as is more commonly understood to indicate something that
accompanies the correction of an error. “Apologia”
as “explanation” does not automatically imply that any error was at issue.
*
Because having known God, they did not glorify him as God or were thankful, but
they became worthless in their reasoning, and their misunderstanding heart was
darkened.
*
Declaring themselves to be wise, they became fools, and they changed the glory
of the imperishable God into the likeness of a perishable human, and of birds,
and of beasts and creeping things.
*
Therefore God gave them up to their hearts’ lusts, to impurity, to dishonoring
their bodies among themselves, the ones who exchanged God’s truth for lies and
worshipped and served the created thing instead of the one who created it, who
is blessed for eternity. Amen.
The nature of the “dishonor” of their
bodies is not specified here. It is unlikely
that it refers to sexual activity, since that was neither honorable nor
dishonorable. It is likely that it
refers to the prostitution of self that would come with seeking adoption by
someone of greater means who lacked an heir—that form of prostitution without
sex, that type of seeking riches without laboring to earn them would be
considered both malakos (soft/weak/cowardly), and dishonorable.
*
Because of this, God handed them over to dishonorable passion, their females
exchanged the natural for that outside of nature.
We should keep in mind the fact that
the letter to Romans is a part of Paul’s communication of Jewish law and praxis
to non-Jews. The fact that the Paul’s
text uses the word theleiai, “females,” not gunai, “women,” then, is not
accidental. This is consistent with the LXX text of Leviticus 18:22, however
that text specifies that a woman should not be given to an animal for the
purpose of producing progeny. It is good to keep in mind that Paul is
addressing this to an audience whose cultural narrative includes females having
sex with animals, the progeny of which was semi-Divine. It would seem that Paul altered the Levitical
text to avoid offending or alienating the audience he was trying to persuade to
adopt Jewish law and practice.
With this text, for some reason,
scholars want to jump to homosexuality, seeming to ignore the fact that there
was an excellent example of a woman who “exchanged the natural for that outside
of nature: Messalina’s competition with
the head of the prostitute’s guild. It
is “natural” to engage in sex with a partner, especially if there is a contract
for the production of progeny (as Messalina was, with the Emperor
Claudius). It is not natural to engage
in a competition to see which woman can wear out the most men. That is just
applicable reference from within contemporaneous Roman history.
From the perspective of the period, it
was the desire of everyone to be considered “civilized.” “Civilized,” however, had a specific
reference point: Greek, both culture and
language, was “civilized.” Paul notes that he can write his name in Greek, thus
making him a “civilized” man. Greek
women, in particular Spartan women, were known for the cultural practice of
exposing infants whose survival could not be guaranteed. Since it was the “natural function” of a
female to produce progeny, a female who engaged in exposing infants, even if
that practice was “culturally accepted” (as it was within the Spartan world),
was “unnatural.”
An alternate possibility as an example
of “that outside nature” could be Livia’s reputation as a poisoner—it was not
common for women to poison males in order to place themselves near the pinnacle
of power, nor was it common for women to poison males they perceived to be
their son’s rivals for power. Livia had
a reputation for both.
*
Similarly, the males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed
in their desire for each other, males with males, producing unseemliness, and
the consequence which was what was necessary of the error to themselves.
This is more commonly translated:
* and
the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with
passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving
in themselves the due penalty for their error.
That is not actually a translation of
the Greek text, but a translation of Jerome’s Latin text retrojected onto the
Greek text.
A significant point to note: εξεκαυθησαν (translated as
“were inflamed”), κατεργαζομενη (“producing”) occur only in this
text. They do not appear anywhere else
in the New Testament. They do not appear
anywhere in the LXX. They do not exist
in modern Greek. They would seem to be
words Paul invented. As such, we have no
idea what he meant by them. The
translations “were inflamed” and “producing” are courtesy of Jerome’s rendition
of the Greek text into Latin.
Jerome
had serious issues.
Assuming that the words which we cannot
accurately translate were translated with reasonable accuracy by Jerome (which
we have no real reason to suppose, but let’s suppose it anyway) the text still
does not prohibit homosexuality. It
would seem that language of Paul’s reasoning resonates with the language of the
LXX, as it represented a literal translation of the Hebrew of Lev 18:22 and
20:13 into Greek, and again, it is because he was intending to communicate
Jewish law and practice to an audience to whom that law and practice was
foreign. This is presumably why my
colleagues have attempted to claim that the reference was to “alternate”
practices like pedereasty/pedophilia and/or temple prostitute boys. That, however, makes no sense. If Paul is referring to such “alternate” practices,
he is referring to them before an audience in which such practice had cultural
acceptance. The male, “arsen,” left the
“natural use” of the “female.” The
“natural use” of the female was the use of the female to produce progeny, not
to engage in sex. If a male uses a male
to produce progeny, it is unlikely there will be any success: so the “consequence” that was “necessary” was
a lack of progeny. The passion is not
dishonorable in and of itself, but because the result from it could only be
either a lack of progeny (which would seem to be obvious, given what we know
about conception, which was not knowledge possessed by the ancient world), or
the possible result that a male would imprenate another male, and one of the
two would have to surrender ownership of the progeny.
Those who argue that the “males” who
“left the “natural use of females” by contending that this refers to
homosexuality, or (for those attempting to make that argument that it was not
homosexuality, per se, but “alternate” practices like pederasty, pedophilia,
temple boy prostitutes) are overlooking a more easily found, more obvious, and
considerably higher-profile practice, which had contributed to a degeneration of culture: that of adopting males to perpetuate the
family line. This was done because men
“became inflamed with desire for [men], i.e. rather than continuing their
family lines by contracting for production of progeny with another female
(divorce was known and practiced in both Judean and Greco-Roman society), men,
seeking immediate gratification in the possibility of possessing an heir to perpetuate
their family line, simply adopted another adult male. ” In terms of “higher-profile,” we find a
young man named Octavian, who was adopted by an older man named Julius. Octavian is better known as Augustus. Augustus adopted the adult male known as
Tiberius. Tiberius adopted the young man
known as Caligula. Now knowing Tiberius’
and Caligula’s personal tastes, it is easy to conflate the practice of one or
two individuals into a commentary on an entire population, but this
extrapolation from a minority to a majority is not a viable form of
argumentation. Caligula adopted his very
senior uncle Claudius as his heir.
Claudius was not known to have been interested in sexual interaction
with other males. Caligula was, however,
“inflamed in his desire” for a male heir which, obviously, he did not produce
himself with female assistance. Claudius
adopted Nero.
Appearing after Paul, we find Josephus,
who had himself adopted into the Flavian family (Josephus, who wrote of the
Jewish War of 66070, was post-Paul but fits the paradigm).
Paul, as a resident in a territory that
was a Roman protectorate, would have had access to information about the
various adoptions that occurred within the Roman Imperial family—some of them
(Claudius’ adoption of Nero, for example) would have occurred within recent
memory.
Speculative sociology is fun, but a
little actual history is more useful.
The ancient world was not obsessed with sexuality. The ancient world was obsessed with
ownership, and with protecting that ownership, of property including but not
limited to: territory, money, and humans
(both slaves and progeny). The Roman
world in particular, had disrupted the natural order of inheritance with the
practice of adoption of adult men to ensure dynastic continuitys
The “unseemliness” and the
“consequence” Paul refers to is the natural result of the adoption of an adult
male for the purpose of continuing a family line; it is impossible to produce spares because an
adult male who has been adopted to perpetuate a family line is unlikely to
happily accept the notion that he might have a rival for that position. Thus it
is likely that only a single heir will be adopted, which means that the family
line then depends on that sole individual.
Should that sole individual be unable to produce an heir, he would be
obliged to do what was done to him:
adopt an adult male as his heir, as was the case with Tiberius, Caligula
and Claudius.
As a side note: my colleagues’ insistence on temple
prostitutes as an explanation for any non-marital sexual interaction is rather
bizarre, particularly when referencing Greco-Roman society: we know there was a prostitutes’ guild. It is likely that my colleagues, in their
earnest desire to separate “religious” history from “secular” (or classical)
history, feel that referencing a prostitutes’ guild, which, after all, was a
labor union, introduces too much of the secular world into their “religious”
histories.
Now we turn to 1 Corinthinans 6:9-10:
η ουκ οιδατε οτι
αδικοι θεου βασιλειαν ου κληρονομησουσιν;
Μη πλανασθε : ουτε πορνοι, ουτε ειδολολατραι, ουτε μαλακοι, ουτε
αρσενοκοιται, ουτε κλεπται, ουτε πλεονεκται, ουτε μεθυσαι ου λοιδοροι, ουχ αρπαγες, βασιλειαν θεου
κλερονομησουσιν.
Do you not know that the unrighteous of God will not inherit
the kingdom? Do not be mislead. The fornicators (those who corrupt family
lines by having sex with someone who is outside of their contract for producing
offspring), the idolators, the soft ones (cowards) and the men who fabricate their
own progeny thereby causing another family to lose its heir, nor thieves nor
the covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the
kingdom of God.
In this instance, Paul has
constructed a word that directly references Lev 18:22 and 20:13: arsenonokoitai. His meaning is clear. He is NOT referring to homosexual activity,
but to the practice of men creating their own heirs, which means the concurrent
disowning of an heir by another family.
Malakoi does not mean “effeminate men,” but a coward
(from greek, malakos = soft). Given that
the Greek ideal of maleness was the athletic warrior male (strong and
fearless), the absence of strength and fearlessness was perceived as a
deficiency of maleness. Saying a man was
as soft as a woman was common insult directed at an individual or a culture.
Aristotle wrote
"Of the dispositions described above, the deliberate avoidance of pain is
rather a kind of softness (malakia); the deliberate pursuit of pleasure
is profligacy in the strict sense." Also: "One who is deficient in
resistance to pains that most men withstand with success, is soft (malakos)
or luxurious, for luxury is a kind of softness (malakia); such a man
lets his cloak trail on the ground to escape the fatigue and trouble of lifting
it, or feigns sickness, not seeing that to counterfeit misery is to be
miserable." And "People too fond of amusement are thought to be
profligate, but really they are soft (malakos); for amusement is rest,
and therefore a slackening of effort, and addiction to amusement is a form of
excessive slackness."
The word malakos appears in the gospels is in Matthew 11:8 and
Luke 7:25, where it is used to refer to expensive clothing, in contrast to John
the Baptist’s attire. "No, those who wear fine ("malakos")
clothes are in kings' palaces.”
The final verse tells us the point
that is most important:
INHERITANCE. Those who deprive
others of their inheritance by interfering with another man’s wife, thereby
possibly causing confusion over paternity; by bringing in someone from a
different faith, who could entice family members away from the family worship;
by failing to protect the family (the “soft” one, the coward), thereby creating
the possibility that the family could be harmed; the men who disown their own progeny; those who steal; those who slander (and harm the reputation of
another, causing the family to be diminished in its potential to enter into a
contract to produce progeny—the one committing slander would, if caught, be
ostracized); those who swindle (a form
of theft).
Now we turn to 1 Timothy 1:8-12:
οιδαμεν δε οτι λακος ο νομος , εαν τις αυτω νομιμως κρηται, ειδως τουτο, οτι δικαιω νομος ου
κειται ανομοις δε και ανυποτακτοις
ασεβεσι και αμαρτωλοις, ανοσιοις και βεβηλοις, πατρολωαις και μητρολωαις,
ανδροφονοις, πορνοι;, αρσενοκοιταις, ανδραποδισταις, ψευσταις, επιορκοις, και
ει τι ετερον, τη υγιαινουση διδασκαλια, αντικειται κατα το ευαγγελιον της δοξης του μακαριοθ θεου…
* And we know that the law is good, if someone lawfully uses
it, knowing this, that for the righteous [person], law is not laid out, however
for the unrighteous [person] and for the rebellious one, for the ungodly, and
the sinner, and unholy, and the profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers
of mothers, for slayers of man, for the people who disrupt their family lines
by having sex with people to whom they are not contracted to produce progeny,
for those men who disrupt their line by creating their own progeny thus causing
disruption in another’s family line by causing them to disown their progeny,
for ανδραποδισται, for liars, for perjurers,
and if there is anything other, this
being sound teaching, is opposed to according to the good news of the glory of
the blessed G-d.
In 1 Timothy, we find dialectic
pairs: father killers/mother killers
(those who end reproduction possibility by killing progenitors),juxtaposed
against those whose intercourse would complicate the family tree (pornoi),
juxtaposed against those whose family lines are disrupted by action taken while
the heir is alive: males who disown
their own offspring/males who end someone else’s family line by grafting
someone else’s offspring onto their own family tree and ανδραποδισται. This word does not appear anywhere else in
the New Testament, and does not appear anywhere in the LXX. It has variously been translated as “man-stealers”
and as “slave-traders.” Arguably, it
refers to something else: the practice
of taking hostages, for by the taking of a hostage, the hostage-taker has
disrupted the hostage’s family line by depriving the family of its heir, yet
the heir is still alive. We know that
hostage-taking was practiced in the Roman Era:
Augustus took Herod Agrippa hostage against the good behavior of
his grandfather Herod the Great. (Remember, Judea was not conquered by Rome
until 66CE; prior to that, the Judeans
had helped Augustus defeat Cleopatra, and in return were disarmed beause they
could not be assimilated into the Roman army.
Because they had not been conquered yet they had ome as a protector”,
Augustus took Herod’s grandson hostage as an additional measure of security
against the possibility of an up-rising against Rome).
Apparently, my colleagues lack experience with
classic rhetorical writing styles.
As previously noted, there were
easily demonstrable contemporary examples of men who disowned themselves from
their own line/grafted themselves onto another family line: Augustus, Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and Josephus, thus disrupting the continuation of
their own family lines.
In memoriam James "Skip" Alverson, Rev Dr Robin Scroggs, Dr Michael Patrick O'Connor z"l without whom this would not have been possible.
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