PhilosopherJay

It seems from his own words, that Paul or the writer of Corinthians was gay.

In examining 1:Corinthians 7, we find the writer saying, "it is good for a man not to touch a woman." and later "Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am".

This implies that he is a man who does not have sex with women. Yet, Paul never says that he is celibate. The only reasonable conclusion is that he is gay.

He does come out in favor of man marrying if he cannot control himself, "But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband". To the gay male of his time, "immoralities" would have referred to men's desire for women. Notice that he is reducing man's role to equality with that of women. For the Greek/Jew of that time, this would have been to degrade the role of marriage, to make it a less than "manly" virtue.

He admits that he only is encouraging marriage "by way of concession, not command". In other words, he cannot command all Christians to be gay like him, so he concedes that they may marry.

He says, "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does". This again suggests a lose of control over your own body in marriage. This has to be contrasted with the Platonic ideal of gay sex at the time, where the male remains in control of his own body.

Likewise, we may interpret his line "Do not withhold yourselves from each other unless you agree to do so just for a set time, in order to devote yourselves to prayer. Then you should come together again so that Satan does not tempt you through your lack of self-control." The heterosexual male and female would have been tempted by Satan to have sex with a lot of men and women. Paul wants to restrict men and women to a single sex act within marriage. This is his "concession" to Christian men who are not gay like himself.

There is no need to mention that his style throughout his writings is very "poor, poor, pitiful me," whiney and melodramatic, very "Queenly" and "feminine".

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

jakejonesiv

Hi Jay,

The starting point is the theological differences in the Marcionite and Catholic layers of the Pauline epistles.

According to Dr. Detering, these are two different concepts of natural revelation in Romans. The earlier, the Marcionite concept is "Natural Law." This natural law is revealed in the consciouness. Romans 2:12-16.

The catholic layer contains the "Revelatio generalis", a previous natural God revealed by the creation. Romans 1:19-2:1. This section is gladly cited to this day for the voucher of general revelation. It was missing in the original version of the letter.

The presumed catholic interpolation (1:19-2:1) also contains the polemic against the homosexual practices of the heathen world, 1:26. This is common in Jewish literature of that time. How the original author of the letter stood on the homosexual question, we do not know. Possibly it was regarded as the lesser of two evils compared with marriage, the work of the Demiurge.

Jake Jones IV

Susan2

From the perspective of homosexuality, maybe he was telling them to go in the closet?

But I don't see homosexuality as the issue.


How are you coming to that conclusion? Is it because he said that it is good for a man not to touch a woman? Does he mean sexually, or simply physically such as in hitting, abusing?

He then says, that he wishes that all men were like him but does that mean sexually, as in homosexuality, or that Paul believes in physical abuse, corporal punishment, as is laid out in the Torah, and in Hebrews 12.

Does Paul speak out both sides of his mouth. Is Paul attempting to sound pious, but is actually giving a wink and a nod to violence?



Again, of what immoralities is Paul speaking? Is he speaking of the presumed immoralities of men and women, or actual immoralities of men and women?


Maybe Paul is telling men to secretly/privately abuse their wives, vs publicly?



How is a wife to prove that Paul is correct, that she has power over her husbands body?

How is a man to prove that Paul is correct, that he has power over his wifes body. Authority is power.

A woman has no power over her husbands body. She can't make her husband do what she wants him to do. She does not have the physical power. Is she then to be intellectually cunning? And should that intellectual cunning be to the debasement of herself, because Paul and the religion that followed, ordains that she must submit herself to him?

On the contrary, a man can make his wife do what he wants her to do, because he has the physical power, and the religious authority as per Paul and the ensuing religion. A woman cannot divorce her husband according to Paul and the ensuing religion, because she might win him over to Christ. Is she then to tolerate his debasement of her? Is she to endanger her own life?

I see these passages as violence against women, not about homosexuality.

I do think Paul was a sick man, a very sick man, as is the ensuing religion; which has nothing to do with homosexuality, which doesn't mean that sickness doesn't exist in homosexual people, as it does in heterosexual people.

I think Paul was a tyrant, no, worse, a terrorist.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Jakejonesiv,

Thanks for this. It does seem to be from a different writer then Corinthians, but it is hard to tell.

In the relevant passage Romans 1:19-2:1, the author sees a group of people who have denied God. Is this the whole human race or only a section of it?

Regardless if he is talking about a group of people or the whole human race, these people embraced sex and consequentially they were punished with bad personalities. The writer's attack is either against sex generally or specific sexual practices both heterosexual and homosexual:

line 26 may refer to lesbianism generally, but more likely it refers to women acting manly or aggressively with men, for example getting on top during sexual acts with men.

line 27 may refer to male homosexuality, but more likely it refers to men acting femininely in sexual acts with other men. Because of women acting like men (unnaturally) in sex, men starting acting like women (unnaturally) in sex with other men.

So the writer is really complaining that when people don't worship the correct (Hebrew) God, the women act unnaturally like men and the men act unnaturally, like women, and they both develop bad personalities and habits deserving of death.

As we know, the Platonists favored a masculine form of homosexuality. So this passage would not necessarily subvert the idea that Paul was gay. It would simply suggest that he was a gay who disliked women so much that he hated men acting like women.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Keith&Co.

I always thought Paul was against sex because he was against children.

Believing that doomsday was just ahead, and not believing in any sort of 'grace period' for children, no age of accountability, it would be heartbreaking to think of the little children that couldn't qualify for salvation. Or to imagine being in Paradise, knowing little Paul, Jr. or Paulette would never join you.

Better to keep your bags packed and your calendar clear, as it were.

But if you're going to indulge, at least get married and limit your sensual urges to one other person.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Susan2,

Yes, I do find the idea of having authority over bodies troubling. The husband has authority over his wife's body and the wife over her husband's body. Does he mean this sequentially? First the husband plays the master and the wife the slave role, where he has control over her body, and then there is role reversal where she has control over his body? Is Paul, like the Marquis De Sade, advocating equality of sado-masochism in marriage?

Or perhaps it is more innocent. The wife must make her body available for sexual activity at any moment of the day and the husband is available to the wife at any moment of the day.

The widows who were paying Paul's salary may have appreciated this. This may be his concession to them.

Paul certainly does not show any particular sensitivity to the real problems of women and men in marriage. Rather than saying that Paul advocates violence towards women, it seems that he simply ignores the issue and does not care about women, except occasionally to hypocritically advocate a formal equality to entice the shekels from his widow listeners. Many of these women probably thought they had a chance of going home with Paul, not realizing how Paul was taking their money only to satisfy his desires with members of his own sex. That too may be considered a form of abuse of women.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Susan2

Obviously.

bacht

Yes, I don't know why people get into heated discussions about this aspect of Paul's teachings when he says clearly that the end is near and social arrangements are only temporary. He isn't writing a new torah for normal life, though I guess the church has been forced to use him that way.

Toto

If Paul was really Simon Magus, how does this affect the question?

Susan2

It doesn’t fly.