Introduction
In this pamphlet we will examine briefly some of the passages of Holy Scripture which have been interpreted to be outright condemnations of homosexuality. At the same time, together we will take a look at some of the customs and cultural settings necessary to an understanding of what these Bible passages are talking about.
For many years now, Christian men and women, who know in their hearts that they are gay, who feel this is right and natural for them, and who try to live their lives in God's favor, have been troubled by certain passages of the Holy Bible which have traditionally been interpreted as anti-gay.
Until recently there have been few scholarly studies of these portions of Scripture. There has been little hope for gay Christian men and women who want to live by the Bible. As a result, gay Christians have felt forced to abandon their faith or to live a sort of double life, one facade in church, and another in other places.
Since the founding of the Metropolitan Community Church in 1968, with its strong belief in the revelation that God loves all people, there has been a concerted effort on the part of MCC theologians to deal with these passages in a thorough manner. I personally believe in the inspiration, inerrancy and literal interpretation of the Scriptures. I have done extensive graduate work at one of the leading evangelical universities in the country.
Approach
In this pamphlet it is my objective to take a look at the so called "homosexual" passages of Scripture from my own fundamental background and from the point of view of the university study I have done. I will concentrate primarily on looking at what these passages mean in the light of the original languages in which they were written and in view of the customs and social conditions under which they occurred. Since this is a preliminary glimpse of some of the ideas from a book-in-the-making, it will be an introduction rather than a complete treatise on the subject.
For those of us who still believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures, one of our basic tenets is that the Scriptures are inerrant in the original language. In order to understand the original language and the message it is trying to convey, we need to understand the context in which it was written and something about the people who wrote it and something about the people for whom it was written.
It is necessary, therefore, to investigate the language and culture of the people who wrote the original documents. Only when we understand what was meant by the author and why something was said in a particular way, can we begin to apply its meaning of today's culture and explain it in terms in use today.
Old Testament Passages
In the Old Testament there are two major "problem passages" which have traditional interpretations that have been handed down over the years. Bible scholars and theologians have offered sound explanations of these passages in recent years and I shall need to make only brief statements about them.
The first is the story of the destruction of Sodom. If we read our Bible carefully and interpret this passage literally (or any other way), it is clear that the sin for which Sodom was destroyed as recorded in Genesis 19 is not homosexuality.
First of all, we should remember that the reason Lot had visitors in Sodom was that God had sent them to remove Lot and his family from Sodom before God destroyed it. Therefore, the doom of Sodom had been sealed by God long before the men of Sodom tried to rape Lot's visitors. The attempted rape was just further proof of the basic causes of God's decision to destroy Sodom. These were inhospitality, greed, hypocrisy, etc. Future prophets attest to this. (Cf. Isaiah 1; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:48)
The other passage is the explicit command in the Mosaic Law that men should not lie with other men as with women. This is found in Leviticus 18:22; 20:13.
As Christians, our law is from Christ. Theologians, beginning with St. Paul, have aptly pointed out that the Mosaic Laws have been fulfilled by Christ and are, therefore, no longer binding on us. Traditional Christian theology has shown us that we no longer are bound by the dietary laws, such as "don't eat shellfish, don't eat pork," etc.; and other laws pertaining to relationships, such as "don't have intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period." The command in Leviticus, among the other commands of the Mosaic Law, should be interpreted in the light of the theology of St. Paul, explained in his letter to the Galatians, Chapter 3:23–25:
"But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. Wherefore the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."
Some Cultural Factors
There does seem to be some phobia of homosexuality reflected in a few passages of the Old Testament. A study of the cultures of some of the peoples surrounding Israel gives us some insights into some of their practices which may have caused or added to the Jewish phobia of what they understood to be homosexuality.
It was common practice for the eastern civilizations to go to war frequently. (Cf II Samuel 11:1.) Furthermore, it was common practice to humiliate one's conquered enemy. In II Samuel 10, David sends his ambassadors to Hanun, King of Ammon, on a mission of peace, but Hanun despised the Israelites and humiliated them by "removing their masculinity." He did this by shaving off their beards and stripping them from their buttocks down. And they were not even conquered enemies. The usual practice on the battle field was to anally rape one's conquered victim in the supreme act of de-masculinizing the enemy to his extreme humiliation. For this reason, the Jewish people came to have a particular hatred for this act, stereotyped in this way as humiliating and de-masculinizing. As a result, they substituted the act of placing a foot on a conquered enemy's neck (Joshua 10:24).
We can also observe something else about the attitude of people in Biblical times toward sexuality and the effect this had on the Chosen People. The eastern civilizations of that time were basically rural cultures. The seasonal cycle of growth, death, and new life was foremost in their agricultural orientation. Since they, unlike Israel, did not have the benefit of revelation, it was natural that they would find a system of worship based on life, death, and rebirth. They observed that a natural life always ended with death, but the species was reborn in their offspring. Therefore, for them, the reproduction of the species, whether that be crops, animals, or humans, was very important as well as mysterious. Since both importance and mystery are part of religion, procreation became the focal point of many eastern religions.
It was quite common, therefore, to find gods and goddesses receiving a gift of appreciation and worship from their adherents in the form of sexual activity. To facilitate the offering of such gifts, men and women were attached to worship places or temples to receive these gifts, and became known as temple prostitutes. Any worshipper was allowed to choose the prostitute of his or her choice, be it male or female, and proceed to offer their sacrifice of sexual love. Of course, there were homosexual as well as heterosexual choices made.
The Jewish people would have to reject this cultic sexuality in both forms of expression, as being in violation of their covenant with the one true God Jehovah or Yahweh.
New Testament Greek
Fertility worship of this type and similar expressions continued for at least the first 100 years into the Christian era in such places as the temple of Diana at Ephesus. In the Greek language the word used for the temple prostitutes at these places of pagan worship was arsenokoites (ar-sen-o koy-tas). This is the word that Paul used which has been translated "homosexual" in many versions of the Holy Bible, such as the Revised Standard Version, in I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10.
At the time of Christ the word in common usage which meant "homosexuality" was Homophilia (ho-mo-fi-le-a). This is the source of the English word "homophile" which means love for a person of the same gender.
That word was used in the Greek language until well after the time of Paul's death. But this word is never used in Scripture. None of the so-called condemnations of "homosexuality" use this word or a derivative of it. In fact, history seems to indicate a general acceptance of homosexual love by first century Christians. Christian writings from the first and second century tend to show an acceptance of homosexual relationships along with heterosexual relationships. Both were governed by the same set of guidelines which forbade the turning of wholesome love into lust. An example of such guidelines is found in Romans 1.
It was not until around 200–250 A.D. that marked homophobia, which is fear of expressing love for persons of the same gender, began creeping into theology. By this time, the cultic sex worship had begun to die down and the word used by Paul to describe temple prostitutes was beginning to be obsolete.
Since the word arsenokdites itself is a compound word made up of two Greek words meaning "bed" and "man," a new definition became attached to the word. And that was "homosexual." Even though this is a meaning unknown in first century Greek, it became the common way of looking at the word later on. Homophobic theologians jumped at this opportunity to prove that Paul was anti- homosexual, even though in his own time his language would never have indicated this attitude.
As time went on, homophobic teachers tried to pervert the meaning of still another Greek word found in the Scriptures. This word is malakos. They tried to give it a "homosexual" meaning with almost the same success they had with arsenokoites.
This word is used four times in Scripture: twice in Matthew 11:8, once in Luke 7:25, and once by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. In translating this word in Matthew and Luke, the Bible translators remain true to the first century meaning of the word which is "soft." But, for homophobic reasons which are not justified by the language itself, they twist the meaning of the same word when it is used by Paul in I Corinthians 6:9. There they assign to it the meaning of "effeminate." Some commentators even go so far as to use third century definitions making malakos and arsenokoites the passive and active partners in a homosexual relationship.
These unjustified interpretations came from early church theologians who wrote after 200 A.D. They were looking at a cultural setting as they saw it in their century when the practice of temple prostitution had more or less ceased, and the usage of the words had started to take on meanings not known by the Biblical writers.
Comparing Translations
When studied in their first century context, these words would be acceptably translated only as follows:
malakos: a person without the backbone to stand up for what (s)he knows is right (spineless).
arsenokoites: temple prostitute (I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10).
Now let us look at the context of Paul's statement in I Corinthians 6:9 in the light of the first century word usage he knew. We would find the list of undesirables in God's kingdom as follows:
| King James Version | Revised Standard Version | First Century Meaning |
| fornicators | immoral | immoral |
| idolators | idolators | idolators |
| adulterers | adulterers | adulterers |
| effeminate | homosexuals | spineless |
| abusers of themselves with mankind | homosexuals | temple prostitutes |
| thieves | thieves | thieves |
| covetous | greedy | greedy |
| drunkards | drunkards | drunkards |
| revilers | revilers | revilers |
| extortioners | robbers | extortioners |
Does not this list point out some inconsistencies of the translators? Paul seems to be listing broad categories of undesirable types. Yet the usual translations show general categories being interrupted with two specific modes of one form of sexuality, which furthermore, I have shown, were improper translations in the first place.
Love vs. Lust
We can, therefore, see that the whole of New Testament sexual teaching centers not on prohibition of homosexual love, but rather on condemnation of lust, both homosexual and heterosexual. In fact, nowhere in the New Testament, either in the teachings of Jesus or anywhere else, is homosexual love discussed. Nowhere, that is, except in the command of Jesus to love, reiterated by Paul and John and all the New Testament writers.
Conclusion
Many homosexually oriented people believe that they are homosexual because God made them that way and that it is God's will for them to be that way. Whether we accept this theory or the one that says people are homosexual because of something in their childhood or environment, it really makes no difference for the Bible-believing Christian.
God nowhere condemns people for the way they were created, nor for things over which they have no control. God does judge each person according to what that person does with what he or she has been given.
I hope this short pamphlet has made it clear that Bible translators and commentators have sometimes given us an incorrect idea of what the Biblical author was really saying in a passage. Translators and commentators have made it appear that Holy Scripture says things about "homosexulity" that it does not say. There is no reason to believe the sacred writers were condemning the homosexual lifestyle as it can be lived in a Christian context.
The Bible condemns the turning of the God-given gift of sexuality, the great gift of life, Love, into a lustful or idolatrous existence. Nowhere does the Bible condemn the life of love of a God-fearing, Bible-believing Christian who happens to love a person of the same sex.
Copyright © 1977 by the Universal Fellowship Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and L. Robert Arthur.