Minimalist

Yeah, a dilemma...but one that they don't let slow them down for long. Most theists pick and choose what they want their god to have said.

Ben C Smith

Surely to call such activities dishonorable passions is to implicitly forbid the activity, right, even if only indirectly and not with especial force?

Ben.

Toto

I have no particular opinion on this. I am just reporting what Walker claims.

I gather that he would see this as analogous to saying that if you sin, you will come down with a bad cold. Having the disease is not the sin - the sin produces the disease.

I would not try to claim that the NT passages are either coherent or a reliable guide to much of anything.

Ben C Smith

I certainly realize that.

Walker makes me nervous. He seems to want to find modern sensibilities in the ancient texts; maybe that is an illusion, and maybe he is right, but it does make me raise my eyebrows when, for example, most of the interpolations he finds in the Pauline epistles make Paul seem modern and enlightened. And now he seems to be trying to rid the NT of its bias against homosexuals.

That may be. But I certainly do not see such a blasé attitude in Romans 1.26-27. Dishonorable passions, against nature, shameless deeds. This does not sound like a mere head cold; it sounds like a perversion of the natural order.

Ben.

Toto

I don't think Walker strains to find that most of the interpolations he find make Paul seem modern and enlightened - it's just that some later misogynist and anti-Semitic passages were added. But Paul is still not a modern secular humanist or materialist.

But I do agree that he is straining a bit on homosexuality, especially Romans. He seems to go back and forth between what the original text means and whether it is a guide to morality for modern Christians, and it is the second part that seems more important to him.

Diogenes the Cynic

Well Paul thought virtually all sex -- especially purely recreational sex -- was "dishonorable." He didn't even like marital sex. Anyway, in the Romans passage, it's God (in Paul's mind) who made these people go gay as a punishment for idolotry. If he gave them acne, would that make having pimples sinful?

Part of the problem with this question of the Bible's view of homosexuality is that in ancient times, people did not have a concept or understanding of sexuality as a fixed orientation. There were no understood categories of "straight" and "gay." It was all just behavior -- particular acts -- and the same act could be seen as either shameful or not depending on who was the passive partner and who was the active -- i.e. it seems it was considered shameful to be a "bottom," but not a "top."

Another part of the problem is trying to nail down exactly what Paul meant by malakoi and arsenokoitai. Malakos meant "soft," and while a lot of modern readers interpret that as referring to effeminate homosexuals, in reality referred to a much more general moral "softness," a lack of moral or sexual discipline, and, from what I've read, was more likely to refer to masturbation than homosexuality (I've been told the word means "jerk off" in modern Greek).

The other controversial word is arsenokoitai. Literally, arsenos means "male" and koites means "bed." Put together thet word literally means "male-bedder." While the compound arsenokoites is not found in any Greek literature before Paul (and he may have coined the word himself), the suffix koites is fairly common and is attached derisively to prefixes meaning things like "whore," "mother," "horse" and the like. The general tone and use of the koites in compounds was fairly analogous to "fucker." When used in those compounds it always referred to the penetrative partner in a sexual act, never the passive.

Outside of Paul, arsenokoites is found mainly on vice lists which give little context. There are 42 known lists which follow one of two formulations: The most common is Pornoi, moixoi, malakoi, arsenokoitai, kleptai, pleonektai, methusoi, loidoroi. "Prostitutes, adulterers, the (morally) soft, arsenokoitai, thieves, greedy ones, drunkards, (verbal) abusers/profaners." Less commonly arsenokoitai is followed by andrapodistais kai epiorkrois, "slave traders and perjurers."

These lists aren't especially helpful but there are a few instances in greek literature where a more specific context is given. Unfortunately, those contexts are not exactly consistent.

Twice in Greek literature, arsenokoites is used to indicate homosexual rape. Once in Aristede's Apology where it refers to the rape of Ganymede by Zeus and once in Hippolytus' Refutatio, where it refers to the rape of Adam by an evil angel named Naas.

There are also two instances where it refers to heterosexual sex...once where it's used to refer to male prostitutes who service women, and once (by John the Faster) to refer to men who "commit the sin of arsenokoitai with their wives."

Speculation varies, the late Yale historian John Boswell thought that it may have indicated exploitive acts...either rape, or sexually mercenary acts. Many believe it referred to male prostitutes, or to the practice of pederasty (which involved teenage male prostitutes). Some of course, will argue that it means "homosexual." For a number of reasons, it is unlikely that it meant "homosexual" in a modern sense but it is not a question that can be definitively settled from the available evidence other than to say that no proposed definition is certain.

Personally, I think it probably referred to pederasty in general and the practice of patronizing young male prostitutes (something Paul would have seen in cities like Corinth) in particular.

Ben C Smith

Paul recommended sex for married couples, and discouraged abstinence between them except for a short period of time. He makes clear that his own preference in that area was a product of living in the last days.

Ben.

Diogenes the Cynic

Paul said he would prefer it if no one got married at all but that, if they must rut like animals, they should make it legal first.

Ben C Smith

In 1 Corinthians 7.28 Paul explicitly says that it is not a sin to marry.

Is marriage, then, really a good comparison to what Paul calls dishonorable passions, acts against nature, and shameless deeds? In fact, when Paul says in Romans 1 that these men have abandoned the natural function of the female, is this not an explicit contrast with married sex?

Ben.

Toto

It was the gnostics who preached celibacy, wasn't it? I get the impression that Paul thought of sex as a distraction more than a sin. I think the church fathers are the source of the opposition to sex in general.