gay

What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Nothing – at least, nothing at all directly. Keep reading to find out why.

You’re going to learn why the Bible doesn’t say anything directly about homosexuality, why that’s not obvious to us today, and what that means for us using the Bible when talking about homosexuality.

The plain meaning of scripture?

Most of the time, our problem with the Bible isn’t trying to understand it, but trying to follow it in our daily lives. ‘Love God’ and ‘love your neighbour’ are simple and straightforward. But we keep on trying to obey, and keep on failing, and keep on throwing ourselves on God’s mercy. 

Understanding is straightforward, doing is hard – so hard we need grace.

Everyone, not just priests or academics, can read the Bible

There’s the grand protestant tradition of expecting everyone, not just priests or academics, to read scripture, relying on its plain meaning. And most of the time, that is right.

Most of the time… but not every time.

If we apply our modern, cultural understanding of sexuality when we read the Bible it will mislead us.

Occasionally, we can get tripped up, and not even realise that how we understand the ‘plain meaning’ of a passage is utterly different from what people in the first century would have understood to be the plain meaning. 

How come?

When the ‘plain meaning of scripture’ can trip us up

In many areas, the past is like the present. Humans haven’t changed much in 2,000 years. We still get angry, fall in love, like to play, show off, gossip, tell jokes and so on. 

But in some areas the changes from ancient Roman culture to today’s western cultures have been immense, and the cultural understanding of sexuality is one of them.

When we think about sexuality, we usually think about who you’re attracted to: someone of the opposite gender, or your own.

We have terms for this. We talk about orientation, and have terms like heterosexual or straight for those attracted to the other gender; homosexual, or gay or lesbian for those attracted to the same gender (or same-sex attracted for some Christians who prefer this label), and bisexual or pansexual for those attracted to both.  

So, if I tell you, ‘Keith is homosexual’, you expect him to be attracted to other men, perhaps to be in relationship with one of them, perhaps to have a man as a partner.

And so you open your Bible, and read 1 Corinthians 6:9, and see a reference to ‘homosexual offenders’ (NIV) or ‘homosexual perverts (GNB). You read Romans 1:27, and note the reference to men committing indecent acts with other men. And it seems that the plain meaning of scripture is staring you in the face.

Maybe you’d like it to be otherwise. Maybe you don’t understand what’s so wrong with homosexuality. But it’s there, in black and white. The plain meaning of scripture. The Bible appears to say that being homosexual – gay or lesbian – is not OK.

But you’re not comparing like with like. 

How different was the ancient Roman approach to understanding sexuality from ours? Completely. 

The ancient Roman understanding of sexuality

Take a typical, happily married man, who is a master of his household (happily married from his point of view). 

Relief of Roman family
© Mary Herrsch, Flickr. Original in Legion of Honor, Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco

This man could, and often would, besides having intercourse with his wife, also rape his male and female slaves, rape boys, and sleep with prostitutes, and neither his masculinity nor his sexuality, nor his honour, would be in question at all.

In ancient Rome, sexuality wasn’t defined by which gender you had sex with, or who you were attracted to, but whether you were the dominant, active, penetrating partner, or the submissive, passive one. 

So long as a freeborn man was the dominant partner, little else mattered so long as you weren’t sleeping with someone else’s wife or daughter – slaves and prostitutes didn’t count. 

Sexuality was not tied to orientation or gender, but to action and power. Not who you were with but what you were doing. 

To be the active, penetrating partner was to be virile and manly. To be a passive partner was to be weak and effeminate – irrespective of gender.

In particular, and most alien to our culture, pederasty – that’s intercourse with boys by men – was commonplace and not sanctioned either legally or socially – it was simply part of everyday life. 

An ancient Roman’s masculinity could be demonstrated to others by aggressive sex with a slave, whether a boy or a woman. Boys were seen as equally as desirable as women – until the boys started to grow a beard, when they became off-limits (so the boys involved would typically be aged from about ten to eighteen years old).

Same-sex activity at the time of the New Testament was abusive

What this means is that same-sex activity by an adult male was practically always abusive. As an example, the Roman poet Martial uses the term ‘cut to pieces’ for the passive partner. The passive partner was seen as ‘used, humiliated, and physically and morally damaged’ (Ruden, 2010, 49). The active partner could carry on, his honour intact, using boys and discarding them as they grew older.

It is telling that the Romans have no word for ‘homosexual’, but two for the boy slave who was kept precisely for this purpose and abused in this way by his master (deliciae and concubinus). 

Let’s be clear. If, in the ancient Roman empire, you talk about men having sex with males, everyone would assume you meant men raping and abusing boys, usually slaves. 

Were there same-sex couples at the time of the New Testament?

But what about ancient same-sex couples? Weren’t there loving gay and lesbian couples? After all, I said human nature hasn’t changed, and some people back then must have been gay or lesbian as we understand it today.

Lead spell tablet
Lead spell tablets can reveal hidden relationships and desires of those invoking them. 2nd/3rd century AD lead Egyptian spell tablet. Suppl. Mag. no. 54, Plate I.

I’m sure there were some people 2,000 years ago who were gay. And I’m sure that some would have formed adult, loving relationships. But they mainly remained hidden from the rest of society – a secret that if it became known would destroy the reputation and honour of at least one of the couple. 

The evidence that we have mostly comes from private material: charms, spells, graffiti, or from insults from others. There simply wasn’t the cultural space for a committed public relationship between adult males in Rome at the time of Paul. 

In today’s society, pederasty is condemned, and adult loving same-sex relationships mainly accepted. But in Roman times, pederasty was accepted, and to have intercourse with an adult male was not.

Jewish and Christian criticisms of same-sex activity

This cultural approach is alien to us, so hard to accept. But Jewish criticisms of male same-sex activity in Roman times assumed that one of the participants would be a boy – pederasty. Here’s an example from Philo, who lived about the same time as Paul, and like Paul was Jewish.

‘And let the man who is devoted to the love of boys submit to the same punishment, since he pursues that pleasure which is contrary to nature…’

Philo, Special Laws 3.39

The earliest Christians also attacked pederasty as something routinely accepted by society but rejected by the Church. The earliest interpretation of Romans 1:26-27 that we have (by Athenagoras, a second century Christian) assumes that Paul is talking about pederasty:

‘For those who have set up a market for fornication and established infamous resorts for the young for every kind of vile pleasure, who do not abstain even from males, males with males committing shocking abominations… …These adulterers and pederasts defame the eunuchs and the once-married…’

Athenagoras, Apology 34.

And this assumption carries on through the first few centuries of the church. Writer after writer condemns pederasty, calling it ‘child corruption’ (see the Didache 2:2; the Epistle of Barnabas 19.4; Justin Martyr, Dial. Trypho 95; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.12; Athanasius, Vita Antonii 74, Gregory of Nazianzus, Adv. Eunomianos (orat. 27) 6).

This, then, is the background to the world of the New Testament. It was a world where a freeborn man was expected to demonstrate his masculinity and dominance through intercourse with his wife, his slaves and prostitutes, whether the slaves or prostitutes were male or female. 

Why talking about ‘homosexuality’ is misleading

This shows how misleading using terms like ‘homosexuality’ is when talking of the New Testament. 

  1. The ancient world was generally uninterested in questions of orientation (whether you fancy males or females), but much more concerned with questions of power and action. 
  2. There was no term for ‘homosexual’. Terms used defined who was the active, dominant person and who was classed as the passive, submissive participant.
  3. If anyone referred to an adult man having intercourse with males, everyone would assume that the males were boys. Other assumptions would include that no equal relationship was involved, and that the boy would be humiliated. 

But what would not be assumed is that the adult male only had intercourse with boys or was only attracted to males; the listener would expect the man also to sleep with his wife and also have intercourse with female slaves and prostitutes.

How should this affect our reading of scripture?

How does this affect our reading of scripture? It should, at the least, stop us from what turn out to be in this particular instance misleading appeals to the ‘plain meaning of scripture’ when debating this issue.

When we look at passages about sex, the wider context was one where male same-sex activity generally meant pederasty – abusing boys. Recognising this as the background raises the question as to how we apply scripture that was written in a sexual cultural context vastly different from our own. 

But what about Romans 1:26-27 and homosexuality?

At this point some of you might be wondering about the controversial verses in Romans 1:26-27. Even if the general background was one of pederasty, surely here Paul is plainly referring to men having sex with men and women with women? 

Again, this is one of those unusual cases where a combination of translation and context means that we can be seriously misled in a number of different ways. 

There isn’t space here to unpack this in full, so check out my other post on Romans, but Paul actually writes ‘males with males’ and not ‘men with men’ (many translations mask this). 

The use of ‘males’ was a common one within the Greco-Roman culture to recognise that one of the participants would be, not a man, but a boy. This is one example of why we need to appreciate how radically different the sexual culture of Ancient Rome was from that of ours today.

Conclusion

In our modern world, ‘homosexuality’ might conjure up images of loving couples of the same gender in long term relationships. The world of the New Testament had no word for homosexuality and precious little visibility of anything like our image. 

For the ancient world, male-male sex meant pederasty, it meant abuse, it meant rape, it was something married men did, and it often involved slaves or prostitutes or slave prostitutes. 

Do condemnations of that mean that we have to condemn loving, faithful relationships now? What does the Bible say about homosexuality? As we understand homosexuality today – it says nothing directly at all. 

This post is similar to one first written by me for the ViaMedia website, May 2019.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Specific passages from scripture used in debates over homosexuality

There are only a few verses in the Bible that are directly relevant to the debates over homosexuality and the interpretation of scripture. I look at each of these verses in my other posts, so you can go into more depth elsewhere on the website. 

Here are the verses that are referenced:

Genesis 1 & 2

Genesis 1 and 2 are often appealed to as showing that God only approves of marriage between people of different genders, which can lead to children. But there is some faulty logic here – the accounts certainly highlight how God blesses and approves of marriage between men and women. 

But that doesn’t mean that God disapproves of every other pattern. God can also bless couples who can’t have children, people who are single through not finding a partner, and those who choose to be celibate. Similarly, God might also choose to bless couples of the same gender. 

Read more in the post Does Genesis Rule Out Adam and Steve?

Genesis 19

This passage is the account of what happens to the town of Sodom when the people there try to gang-rape two angelic visitors to Lot.

There is a similar account in Judges 19, where townsfolk want to gang-rape a male visitor. In that case, a female concubine is given to the crowd, who use her and leave her dying on the steps of the house. 

This highlights that the gender is not important in these cases – rape is about abuse of power and not about sexuality. Trying to use Sodom as an argument against homosexuality would be like trying to use Judges as an argument against heterosexuality.

Read more on my post on What Has Sodom to do with Homosexuality?

Leviticus 18 & 20

The Levitical commands tell the ancient Israelites ‘not to lie with a male as with a woman’. The background to these verses was a culture where the two most common settings for male same-sex activity were pederasty (as above), or also as part of pagan fertility gods and goddesses worship. 

Additionally, we need to consider why we pick out these two verses, when Christianity has long held that the time for the Law has ended, that ‘Christ is the end of the Law’ (Romans 10:4).

Read more at Does Leviticus Mean Homosexuality is an Abomination?

Romans 1:18-32

I touch on this in the article above, but there is much more to say. Besides pederasty, the other context for Romans 1 may well be Paul attacking the practices associated with fertility goddess worship (like Cybele and Aphrodite).

Find out more at Condemned or Not? St. Paul, Romans 1 and Homosexuality.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

In a list of immoral behaviour, Paul uses a word that is translated by the NIV as ‘homosexual offenders’. There are some difficulties knowing exactly what Paul meant, because he was the first to use it in the Greek literature which has survived. 

I think it probable that Paul is referring to men who commit pederasty, the most common-place form of male same-sex activity (as explained above).

You can find out more at St Paul, 1 Corinthians and Homosexuality.

1 Timothy 1:8-10

In this letter, the same term is used as in 1 Corinthians, so similar issues are involved in working out what Paul means. You can find out more at the 1 Corinthians post.

Further resources

If you want to explore the issues around the Bible and sexuality in more depth, have a look at the annotated bibliography page. It covers much of the most important literature on this subject, with contributions from all sides of the arguments.

A separate but related issue is what the Bible says about transgender people. I also have a video and post on this topic (and some of the bibliography relates to this area).

Posted by admin in Bible - general

St Paul, 1 Corinthians and homosexuality

What does Paul say about homosexuality in 1 Corinthians? Is he saying that those who are gay or lesbian won’t enter God’s kingdom? How do these verses apply to committed, loving, faithful same-sex relationships?

Below, you can find the transcript of the video, and a pointer to some of the academic resources that lie behind this post.

Transcript

In his first letter to the Corinthians, what is Paul saying about homosexuality, and how should we be applying that today? Are those who are gay or lesbian outside of God’s kingdom? I don’t think so. Keep watching to find out why.

In 1 Corinthians (first Corinthians if you’re American), Paul says that a variety of wrongdoers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. Included in the list are a couple of words that the New International Version of the Bible translates as ‘men who have sex with men’ but the English Standard Version translates as ‘men who practice homosexuality’. But the King James Version of the Bible has ‘effeminate’ and ‘abusers of themselves with mankind’. What’s going on here?

Let’s have a closer look at the verses in question: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Here’s the New Revised Standard Version, and again a different translation; this time male prostitutes and sodomites.

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

A little dig into some of the other terms in that list. Fornicators translates pornoi – a word which particularly suggests the use of prostitutes, which was widespread in Roman times. Idolaters – those who worship pagan gods and goddesses. Adulterers translates moichoi, and has a narrower meaning than in English. Legally, only sleeping with someone which violated honour was adultery – so sleeping with slaves or prostitutes (who had no honour) wasn’t adultery.

Then we come to the two words. Malakoi and arsenokoitai. Why is there so much disagreement about how to translate them?

Malakos

Malakoi comes from a word, malakos, which literally means ‘soft’. For example, in Matthew 11:8 Jesus compares John the Baptist to those who dress in soft – malakos – robes and live in palaces, perhaps a dig at King Herod.

Just as ‘soft’ in English covers a range of meanings, so it did in Greek. So malakos could mean effeminate – in a patriarchal society where to be feminine was to be considered weaker and more swayed by your passions.

And this is where the word ‘effeminate’ can mislead us. In Roman times, it could refer to those who acted in a dissolute way: the lazy, the cowardly, the idle rich sleeping around with any women available. Think of playboys, or eighteenth century dandies. If a man spent too much time caring about how he looked and then being led by his lust that was effeminate – soft – malakos.

And the word could also refer to those who took what was considered to be the effeminate position in intercourse, the passive partner, the partner being penetrated, and so malakos could also refer to a male prostitute.

So malakos is a broad term, linked to what were seen as unmanly vices, which is perhaps why one of the very first English versions of the Bible translates it as ‘weaklinges’.

In Paul’s letter, there are no clues as to what he meant precisely, it is just one term in the list, which is why the translations differ so much from each other.

Does malakoi refer to the idle rich, or those who are sleeping around with loads of women, or to male prostitutes, or to some other aspect of the word? How much weight do we put on the fact that the next item in the list is arsenokoitai, the other disputed term which we’ll come to in a minute?

Different commentators disagree with each other, which is why we have so many different translations of these terms.

My view? I think Paul was referring generally to the morally weak, those who choose to let their lusts lead their actions.

Arsenokoites

But what about the other term, arsenokoitai, the plural form of arsenokoitēs? Here, we have almost the opposite problem from malakos, which is used widely in Greek literature.

Paul’s use of the word here is the earliest we have on record, and it was only infrequently used afterwards, and often when it was used it was quoting Paul anyway. So what did Paul mean by this word?

One approach is to look at what the different parts of the word might be able to tell us. Arsenokoitēs has two halves – arseno comes from a word meaning male (not man, and that’s signification), and koitēs comes from a word meaning bed, but in Greek as in English bed was sometimes a euphemism for intercourse – in fact this is where the word ‘coitus’ comes from. So this would suggest a male-bedder.

But working out meaning this way is dangerous – a cupboard doesn’t necessarily have cups inside; the chairman of the board doesn’t necessarily refer to an item of furniture. And as for butterflies…

Another approach is to try to work out where the word came from. One possibility here is it is from the Greek version of Leviticus 20:13, where you get both the word arsenos (male) and koitēn (bed). But again, this may tell us about the history of the word, but not how it was actually used in practice.

We are working with limited evidence.

Just looking at the construction of the word, and its possible source from Leviticus, suggests that it is referring to those who bed males. But those who bed males, not men.

In the ancient world, overwhelmingly the most common form of male-male intercourse was the violation of boys, slaves and prostitutes – pederasty. Whenever Philo, a Jewish rough contemporary of Paul, refers to male-male intercourse, he means with boys (that is when he doesn’t refer to practices associated with goddess worship). Pederasty would have been the default assumption for what was meant. (I have more information on sexuality and gender in the ancient world when I explain the background to Romans 1).

Looking at the context in which arsenokoitēs is used elsewhere suggests that violent, economic oppression may also have been part of its meaning. Some of the earliest occurrences outside of the Bible include it with economic vices rather than sexual ones. Given the slave trade in boy prostitutes in the ancient world, perhaps this is not surprising.

Pederasty as the meaning is also suggested by other early Christian literature, which also includes lists of vices similar to those in Paul’s letter, but use the word paidophthoria – child corruption – to refer to pederasty. Here’s a selection spanning the first four centuries.

The Didache, a teaching manual from about the beginning of the second century.

You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt children [paidophthorēseis]; you shall not be sexually immoral; you shall not steal…
Didache 2.2.

The epistle of Barnabas, a second century letter.

You shall not be sexually immoral; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt children [paidophthorēseis].
Barnabas 19.4

Justin Martyr, another second century writing.

…how much more shall all the nations appear to be under a curse who practise idolatry, who corrupt children [paidophthorounta], and commit other crimes?
Justin Martyr, Dial. Trypho 95.

Clement of Alexandria; about the beginning of the third century.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not worship idols. You shall not corrupt children [paidophthorēseis]. You shall not steal…
Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.12.

Athanasius, writing in the first half of the fourth century.

Which is more beautiful? To confess the cross, or to attribute to those you call gods adultery and corruption of children [paidophthorias]?
Athanasius, Vita Antonii 74.

And Gregory of Nazianzus, writing in the second half of the fourth century.

One who approves of adulteries and corruption of children [paidophthorias]…
Gregory of Nazianzen, Adv. Eunomianos (orat. 27) 6.

Notice that these are general lists that sum up a wide range of wicked activities broadly. Pederasty was so common that it appears as a main item in many lists. You could sleep with other people’s wives: adultery. You could sleep with prostitutes: sexual immorality. And you could sleep with boys: child corruption, pederasty, and I think that’s what Paul is referring to when he uses the term arsenokoitai – male-bedders.

Bedding males means violating boys.

Conclusion

Where does that leave us? We don’t have enough evidence to be entirely sure what Paul’s talking about. But in my view there is a strong argument that in Paul’s sights were those who were morally lax including sexually, and those who abused boys.

And if Paul is talking about pederasty, the violent rape of slaves and boy prostitutes, then again what Paul is writing about is far away from committed, loving, faithful relationships.

What Paul was condemning in his letter to the Corinthians has got nothing to do with what we’re talking about today.

Remember to subscribe to the channel, and you can find links to resources and scholarship at www.bibleandhomosexuality.org.

The other issue that arises in discussions about sexuality and gender in the Bible is what the Bible says about transgender people – you can see what I think here.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Resources

The articles that are most relevant to this topic are those by Wright, Martin and Elliott. Wright gave strong arguments that arsenokoitēs derived from Leviticus, referred generally to all male-male intercourse, and proceeded to argue that it therefore applied to all male-male intercourse (so including but going beyond pederasty). However, that it was a general term including pederasty rather than a synonym for pederasty seems to be assumed rather than proved by Wright.

Martin’s rejoinder also covers malakos, where he produces a strong argument that it is dangerous to go beyond a general ‘effeminate’. Martin notes how arsenokoitēs is linked with economic vices (not picked up by Wright), and emphasises the danger in trying to determine the meaning of a word when we have flimsy evidence. Some readers may find Martin’s conclusions uncomfortable, but his analysis seems sound.

Elliott provides a comprehensive overview of a range of factors and critiques a wide range of translations in different Bibles. Elliott also concludes that there is a lack of clarity about what Paul meant, but argues that for arsenokoitai Paul is more likely to have been attacking the prevalent abusive pederasty.

Malick argues (unconvincingly to me) that all homosexual behaviour is meant. Petersen was an early critic of translations using ‘homosexual’. And Scroggs was one of the first to articulate powerfully the argument that pederasty was meant.

Elliott, John H. “No Kingdom of God for Softies? Or, What Was Paul Really Saying? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in Context.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 34 (2004): 17-40.

Malick, David E. “The Condemnation of Homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9.” Bibliotheca Sacra 150 (1993): 479-92.

Martin, Dale B. “Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences.” In Biblical Ethics & Homosexuality: Listening to Scripture, edited by Robert L. Brawley. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.

Petersen, William L. “Can Ἀρσενοκοῖται Be Translated by “Homosexuals”?” Vigiliae Christianae 40 (1986): 187-91.

Scroggs, Robin. The New Testament and Homosexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

Wright, David F. “Homosexuals or Prostitutes? The Meaning of Αρσενοκοιται (1 Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10).” Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984): 125-53.

Posted by admin in Bible - general, New Testament - Paul's letters

Condemned or not? St Paul, Romans and homosexuality

Does St Paul condemn homosexuality in Romans? I don’t think so. The video explains why. Below you can find the transcript, and then scholarly resources on Roman sexuality, on what ‘against nature’ might mean, on what the females were doing, on pagan temple worship and Romans, and other interpretations not covered in the video. I have also included a short extract from Wisdom 14 as a parallel Jewish rhetorical attack on pagan idolatry.

Transcript

Does St Paul condemn all homosexuality, both those who are lesbians, those who are gays, in Romans chapter one? These are probably the most important verses in the entire Bible for this issue. But I think non-affirming interpretations are wrong. Keep watching to find out why.

Sometimes people claim a plain reading of Romans clearly condemns lesbianism and homosexuality. If you take the Word of God seriously, you need to take Paul’s condemnation seriously.

The thing is, though, the people in Paul’s churches might have thought that the plain meaning of Romans was something entirely different.

How come? The past is a foreign country – they do things differently there (LP Hartley, The Go-Between, 1953). To understand Paul’s letter to the Romans, we need to understand Paul’s world.

How the Roman world saw sexuality

The ancient world saw sexuality differently from the modern Western world. There were no categories of ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual’ as specific, separate orientations. There was occasional comment or recognition about certain people who only favoured their own genders, but this was rare.

The main categories for sexuality revolved around practice – who was the dominant, active partner in an encounter, the one doing the penetrating, and who was the submissive, passive partner.

Status mattered more than gender. So, to maintain high status, a freeborn male had to be the dominant, active partner in an encounter.

In contrast a woman, who always had lower status in that society, should be the submissive, passive partner.

In general, a high status person had to be the dominant partner; a low status person or someone with no status should be the submissive partner.

So long as the freeborn man was the active partner, it was socially acceptable to have intercourse with:

  • his wife, of course;
  • but also with boys (freeborn in Greek culture, slaves in Roman culture);
  • with slaves (male or female), because slaves had no honour;
  • with prostitutes, male or female, because prostitutes had no honour;
  • and with actors and bar staff, because they too had no honour in that culture.

Sleeping with someone else’s wife or daughter was not acceptable, because that was violating honour – that was moicheia: adultery.

But slaves and prostitutes had no honour to violate, so legally sleeping with a slave or a prostitute was not adultery.

And there were plenty of opportunities. So a married man might go out to a brothel, and have intercourse with a boy slave prostitute, and then return home to his wife, and that was part of the social landscape.

In general, the Roman world’s attitude to intercourse could be summarised as:

Forbidding adulteries, building brothels.

Jewish attitudes to sexuality

But Paul was Jewish. What were Jewish attitudes to intercourse? The Judaism of the time strongly linked prostitution with idolatry, and so prostitution was condemned. Similaly, pederasty was linked with idolatry, and was condemned.

But the Judaism of the time also frowned upon any type of intercourse that was non-procreative – basically, anything that couldn’t result in a pregnancy. In contrast, the Greco-Roman world generally accepted such practices as anal intercourse.

I want to emphasise what seems to us, and is, horrendous;

the use of boys for intercourse, pederasty, was widespread.

Judaism and early Christianity both condemned it. For example, an early Christian teaching manual says:

Commit no murder, adultery, corruption of children, sexual immorality…
[Didache 2:2]

[You can find more examples of early Christian teaching condemning child corruption/pederasty on my page explaining the background to 1 Corinthians 6:9-10].

Notice that adultery (moicheia), corrupting children and sexual immorality are listed separately. Of those, only adultery would be widely condemned by all three of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman cultures.

What about lesbian women?

But what about women with women? The ancient world, at least in official, written sources, wasn’t terribly interested. Now in part, that’s because ‘intercourse’ was not seen as really taking place because there was no penetration, and in part, it is because the male-dominated society wasn’t terribly interested generally in what women said or did. And that is true both for Greco-Roman and Jewish sources.

This is not to say that female-female sex did not take place – we know that it did from written spells and dream interpretations and other evidence that has been relatively recently compiled. But it was generally looked down on in both Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures but not much talked about.

If anything, the evidence points to it being treated as being less serious an issue within Judaism. That’s partly because it wasn’t forbidden specifically in the Torah, and partly because again there was no penetration involved. And so some rabbis would view it as being similar as an offence to masturbation. It was treated completely differently and separately from male-male intercourse.

Paul’s argument in Romans 1

OK, that’s a broad sweep of the background to sexuality in the ancient world. Let’s have a close look now at Romans 1.

Paul is conducting a sting operation here against the Jewish listener. He produces a stereotypical Jewish argument against gentile society – you can see a similar example in the book Wisdom of Solomon 13-14.

The gentiles, the pagans, worship created things rather than the creator: idolatry. And the results of idolatry are awful and evil, and God judges them. And the Jewish listener is expected to be nodding along, going ‘yes, yes’, only to be told in chapter 2 ‘you’re no better than the pagans’.

Paul begins by describing the replacement of God with images of humans, or birds, or beasts, or reptiles or animals. Some have seen echoes of Genesis here. Because of this worship of idols, God gives them up.

God gives them up to: impurity; to dishonourable passions; to a debased mind.

The key verses

So let’s now have a look at the key verses – Romans 1:26-27. This is my own translation:

On account of this [the gentile idolatry] God handed them over to dishonourable passions: for both their females exchanged the natural usage for the usage against nature, likewise also the males, having left the natural usage of females, were burnt up in their desire for each other, males in males doing that which brought shame and receiving in themselves the due rewards which inevitably came from their going astray.

There are three areas we need to look closely at – what does ‘against nature’ mean; what were the females doing, and what were the males doing?

Against nature

‘Against nature’ (para phusin) could mean a variety of things. For Paul writing elsewhere, it seems to mean going against the natural order of things. And that can be both negative, such as long hair on a man [1 Cor. 11:14]; but also positive, such as the gentiles being grafted into the ‘olive tree’ of Judaism [Rom. 11:24].

For other Jewish writers of the time, against nature could mean any form of intercourse that couldn’t lead to pregnancy. Philo is an example who uses the term ‘against nature in this way.

So, prohibited forms of intercourse would include oral and anal, it would include intercourse during menstruation, using any form of contraception, and also having intercourse where you know that one of the partners is infertile.

So if you insist on this particular understanding of ‘against nature’, be aware that it does rule out oral intercourse, it rules out using any form of contraception, and it rules out marriage between couples beyond child-bearing age, or where you know one of them is infertile.

Within the wider Greco-Roman world, ‘against nature’ could also mean excessive sexual desire: desires which go beyond proper, normal bounds. Self-control was a key virtue in the Greco-Roman world. On this understanding, Paul would be condemning the sexual activity as being an expression of excessive, uncontrolled lust.

What were the females doing?

Let’s move onto the females. Many people assume that Paul had lesbian activity in mind, but he doesn’t say that two women were involved. He says ‘the females exchanged the natural usage for the usage against nature’.

Did Paul have female-female sex in mind?

In favour of this view, it is parallel to male with male. But why talk about female-female sex first?

In the ancient world, dominated by men and where men get talked about first, this is surprising. Commentators scoot round trying to find a reason for it. Some suggest that it demonstrates Paul’s egalitarianism talking about women first, and others suggest perhaps Paul is taking a really bad example first.

But it is odd for Paul to be writing about female-female sex at all. There are very few Jewish references to it in the writings, and there aren’t that many more in the Greco-Roman world either. And also, everyone looked down on it, it wasn’t seen as a particularly gentile vice. And also, the early church didn’t understand the passage this way for roughly the first four hundred years.

But is there an alternative understanding? Yes, as we’ve heard, in Jewish sources unnatural usage often refers to intercourse which couldn’t result in a pregnancy. So females exchanging the natural usage for the usage against nature could be women changing to forms of intercourse, such as anal intercourse (perhaps used as a method of contraception), widely accepted in gentile society, but not within Judaism.

So Paul in Romans 1 could be accusing gentile, pagan women of indulging in what would be seen by Jewish contemporaries as excessive, unnatural intercourse with men.

What were the males doing?

What about the men, though? Except it doesn’t say men, it says males with males. Why is this significant? Because males includes boys, as well as men. As I’ve said, pederasty was widely accepted in the Greco-Roman world. It was by far the most common form of male same-sex activity. And it was closely associated with idolatry in Jewish thought.

But there’s an interpretation which takes not only this aspect seriously, but makes sense of the whole passage, and is also the way in which some of the earliest Christian commentators understood the passage.

Let’s remind ourselves of Paul’s argument. The critical failing of the gentiles (not all humanity) is idolatry: worshipping creation, not the creator. Pagan worship at the time of Paul included goddesses associated with fertility, like Artemis, Aphrodite, Isis, Ceres, and Cybele.

Worship of Cybele was said to include all sorts of sexual practices. Priestesses used phalluses during ecstatic worship to penetrate male eunuch priests, known as galli. These galli, dressed as women, would then also penetrate each other. Initiation involved castrating themselves as part of the ecstatic worship at festival time.

Here’s an account of that worship from the second century:

During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. I will narrate what they do. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd, and picks up a sword from a number of swords which I suppose have been kept ready for many years for this purpose. He takes it and castrates himself and then runs wild through the city, bearing in his hands what he has cut off. He casts it into any house at will, and from this house he receives women’s raiment and ornaments. Thus they act during their ceremonies of castration. (Lucian, Syr. d. 51)

Paul was writing to Rome, where Cybele worship was part of the official calendar and where the empress Livia, Caesar Augustus’ wife, had been head of the cult.

Was the worship as frenzied as sources claimed? It is probably much exaggerated; Rome publicly valued restraint and respectability, and modified worship accordingly. Accounts of debauched orgies owe more to rhetoric than reality.

But in Romans 1 we are dealing with rhetoric. Paul has launched a rhetorical attack on pagans that focuses on the reputation of pagan worship.

How does this rhetoric fit in with the chapter? On this reading, in Romans 1:26-27 Paul is still talking about idolatry directly. Anyone in Paul’s world hearing his language would naturally link it to the ecstatic, orgiastic worship that pagans were accused of.

This explains why the females are mentioned first – they were the priestesses, the ones ruling the cult.

It explains the exchange of a natural use for an unnatural one – priestesses using phalluses. And it explains the male-male burning in desire for each other – the male galli having orgies.

It further explains the punishment (due reward) having already been received in themselves: it is a reference to self-castration.

And, just like in other Jewish literature, the frenzied pagan worship is followed up by general accusations of all sorts of wickedness. This is perfect for Paul’s broader rhetorical aim of springing a trap upon the Jewish hearer who is thinking ‘I’m better than them’ and judging the pagans.

Evaluating different interpretations of Romans 1

Let’s recap the different possibilities.

Any interpretation of Romans 1:

  • has to make sense of Paul’s Jewish background;
  • it has to have Paul criticising practices that are identified with pagans, not Jews;
  • it should fit in with Paul’s argument about idolatry;
  • and account for Paul naming females first; and ideally, it should match the earliest Christian understandings of Romans.

The idea that Paul was writing about people who are lesbians and gays fails at numerous points. No-one, Jewish or pagan, categorised sexuality this way; it doesn’t account for females being named first; and it doesn’t match early Christian understandings.

The idea that Paul was writing about female and male same-sex activity, not orientation, is stronger.

It makes sense of Paul’s Jewish background, and pederasty was associated with gentile rather than Jewish practice, although this is not particularly true of female same-sex activity. It sort of fits Paul’s argument from idolatry, if you see it as a distortion of the creation in Genesis. It doesn’t explain why females are mentioned first by Paul, and this interpretation of Romans can’t be found amongst Christian writings until the late fourth century.

What about Paul referring to females having unnatural intercourse with males, and pederasty?

This fits Paul’s Jewish background, and uses accusations that are specific to pagans. It also fits with Paul’s argument about idolatry, and makes some sense of females being named first – Paul is starting with male-female unnatural intercourse before moving to male-male pederasty. This interpretation also fits in with references to Romans in early Christian writings from the second century onwards.

But could Paul have been talking about pagan goddess worship? It fits Paul’s Jewish background, uses accusations that are closely linked to pagans (particularly in Rome), is continuing the theme of idolatry, makes sense of why females, the priestesses, are named first, and matches the earliest Christian writings on Romans.

What may have seemed a plain meaning of Paul’s letter to ancient hearers can be obscured to us because their world is different from ours.

But if Paul is condemning pederasty, or idolatrous, ecstatic orgiastic, self-harming pagan goddess worship, that’s quite different from loving, committed, faithful relationships.

Conclusion

My view? What St Paul was condemning in Romans has got nothing to do with what we’re talking about today. Remember to subscribe to the channel, and you can find links to resources and scholarship at www.bibleandhomosexuality.org.

The other key passage from Paul’s letters on this topic comes up in 1 Corinthians 6 – here is my explanation of these crucial verses.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Resources on Roman sexuality

The best general background to the world of Roman sexuality (especially in relation to homosexuality) is provided by Craig Williams, which highlights some of the differences from Ancient Greece covered in Dover’s ground-breaking work. Karras also provides a helpful review of the evidence. Were there any homosexual partnerships in the modern sense that show any traces in the sources? Not many at all, but for potentially gay relationships, see Hubbard’s review of peer homosexuality. For female partnerships, see Brooten (though I disagree with her interpretation of Romans 1).

Brooten, Bernadette J. Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Hubbard, Thomas K. “Peer Homosexuality.” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, edited by Thomas K. Hubbard, 128-49. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Active/Passive, Acts/Passions: Greek and Roman Sexualities.” The American Historical Review 105, no. 4 (2000): 1250-65.

Williams, Craig. Roman Homosexuality. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Resources on against nature and females

More scholars are now questioning strongly whether or not Romans 1:26 refers to unnatural acts with other females or with males. Some of the key work here was done by Miller, both in his 1995 article and his 1997 rebuttal of Smith (1996). See also Swancutt, Banister and Lamas Jr. Looking at interpretations of Romans, de Bruyn notes that the fourth century Ambrosiaster initially interprets Romans 1:26 as involving women having unnatural relations with men.

The meaning of ‘against nature’ as being excessive desire is forcefully argued by Dale Martin, who also critiques many traditional interpretations of Romans. Swancutt also follows this line in her interpretation.

Banister, Jamie A. “Ὁμοίως and the Use of Parallelism in Romans 1:26–27.” Journal of Biblical Literature 128, no. 3 (2009): 569-90.

de Bruyn, Theodore. “Ambrosiaster’s Interpretations of Romans 1:26-27.” Vigiliae Christianae 65, no. 5 (2011): 463-83.

Lamas Jr, Mark. “The Sin of Cunnilingus.” In Centre for the Study of Christian Origins, edited by Helen Bond, Paul Foster, Larry Hurtado, Timothy Lim, Matthew Novenson, Sara Parvis, Philippa Townsend and Margaret Williams. Edinburgh: New College, University of Edinburgh, 2017.

Martin, Dale B. “Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32.” Biblical Interpretation 3, no. 3 (1995): 332-55.

Martin, Dale B. Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006.

Miller, James E. “The Practices of Romans 1:26: Homosexual or Heterosexual.” Novum Testamentum 37, no. 1 (1995): 1-11.

Miller, James E. “Response: Pederasty and Romans 1:27: A Response to Mark Smith.” American Academy of Religion 65, no. 4 (1997): 861-66.

Smith, Mark D. “Ancient Bisexuality and the Interpretation of Romans 1:26-27.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, no. 2 (1996): 223-56.

Swancutt, Diana M. ““The Disease of Effemination”: The Charge of Effeminacy and the Verdict of God (Romans 1:18–2:16).” In New Testament Maculinities, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

Resources on pagan temple worship

The most comprehensive account is given in two articles by Jeramy Townsley, which cover the rhetoric around pagan temple worship as a background to Romans 1:26-27, and then also the early Christian interpretations of the passage, which refer to pagan worship. Budin provides an argument that sacred temple prostitution only ever existed in rhetoric and not reality. See also the blogpost by Helen King on the mundane reality of Roman worship.

Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

King, Helen. “Temple Prostitution for Christians.” In Shared Conversations. https://sharedconversations.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/temple-prostitution-for-christians/, 2016.

Townsley, Jeramy. “Paul, the Goddess Religions, and Queer Sects: Romans 1:23–28.” Journal of Biblical Literature 130, no. 4 (2011): 707-28.

Townsley, Jeramy. “Queer Sects in Patristic Commentaries on Romans 1:26-27: Goddess Cults, Free Will, and “Sex Contrary to Nature”?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion  (2012).

Other interpretations

There are other interpretations of Romans 1. Overlapping with what is covered in the video, Diana Swancutt argues that Paul is condemning active, ‘masculine’ women and passive, ‘feminine’ men. In a completely different take, Elliott argues that Paul is actually targeting the scandalous behaviour of Roman emperors. I am not entirely convinced, but was surprised by how persuasive his argument is.

Elliott, Neil. Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.

Swancutt, Diana M. ““The Disease of Effemination”: The Charge of Effeminacy and the Verdict of God (Romans 1:18–2:16).” In New Testament Maculinities, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

Excerpt from Wisdom of Solomon as an attack on pagan idolatry

Wisdom 14:21-29

21        And this became a hidden trap for humankind,
because people, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority,
bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared.

22        Then it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God,
but though living in great strife due to ignorance,
they call such great evils peace.

23        For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries,
or hold frenzied revels with strange customs,

24        they no longer keep either their lives or their marriages pure,
but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one another by adultery,

25        and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury,

26        confusion over what is good, forgetfulness of favours,
defiling of souls, sexual perversion,
disorder in marriages, adultery, and debauchery.

27        For the worship of idols not to be named
is the beginning and cause and end of every evil.

28        For their worshipers either rave in exultation,
or prophesy lies, or live unrighteously, or readily commit perjury;

29        for because they trust in lifeless idols
they swear wicked oaths and expect to suffer no harm.

Posted by admin in New Testament - Paul's letters

What has Sodom got to do with homosexuality?

This video explains why Sodom has nothing to do with the debate about the Bible and homosexuality. Sodom is an account of attempted gang rape – and, like the similar account of a gang rape of a woman in Judges 19, it has nothing to do with committed, faithful, loving relationships of any kind.

Transcript

The sin of Sodom was homosexuality. You’ve heard this? It’s wrong. Keep watching to find out why.

Some people argue that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible shows that God condemns all homosexuality. Here’s a quick recap of that story – it comes from Genesis 18 and 19.

The story of Sodom

Two angels are sent by God to the city of Sodom, known for its wickedness. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, lives there. He welcomes the angels, and offers them hospitality, persuading them to stay for the night. They accept, and he lays on a lavish feast for them.

But word gets out, and all the men of the town surround the house, and demand that the visitors be brought out so that they can rape them (translations often translate the Hebrew literally – ‘so that we may know them’ – that’s just a euphemism for intercourse).

[Note – Scott Morschauser (amongst others) has argued against this interpretation, proposing that the sin of Sodom was abandonment of the rule of law, and that the men of Sodom wanted to ascertain the reason for the strangers coming to the city (and so nothing to do with sexual aggression). This approach remains a minority view amongst scholarship.
Morschauser, Scott. “‘Hospitality’, Hostiles and Hostages: On the Legal Background to Genesis 19.1-9.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27, no. 4 (2003): 461-85.]

Now, Lot tries to protect his visitors, even offering his own daughters in their place – that is problematic for other reasons – but the mob become enraged and they try to attack.

The angels blind the mob, and then drag Lot and his family away from the city, and God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. Only Lot and his daughters escape with their lives.

It’s a dramatic account, and Sodom becomes a by-word for an evil city. But what, in the Bible, is Sodom remembered for?

How does the Bible talk about Sodom?

Well, Isaiah compares the nation of Judah to Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that Judah needs to learn to do good; to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan, to plead for the widow. And elsewhere there is judgment upon Judah for being like Sodom – why? – because they are ‘grinding the faces of the poor’.

Ezekiel says: This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

Elsewhere, it’s the fate of Sodom which is emphasised – watch out, or you’ll end up worse than Sodom and Gomorrah!

So a range of accusations, centring around:

  • injustice,
  • oppressing the poor, and
  • doing abominable things.

Analysing the story

Let’s go back to the account. At the heart of it is a grotesque evil – abominable. It’s the attempted gang rape by an enraged mob. Is it same-sex? Yes. But rape isn’t to do with sex or gender – it’s to do with power and attempted control and humiliation.

In Britain, Jimmy Savile left a trail of both male and female survivors of his abuse. In Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison became notorious for the assaults inflicted upon both female and male prisoners – assaults including rape. This was an attempted gang rape. What has that got to do with committed, loving relationships?

Parallels with Judges 19

But if you think the gender matters, there’s a similar account in Judges 19. A man and his concubine enter a city and are offered hospitality. The men of the city come at night demanding that he be thrown out to them to be raped. The concubine is offered instead – and she is raped and killed.

[For a harrowing exegesis of this episode, see in particular:
Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror, new ed. (London: SCM Press, 2002), 45-66.]

Same-sex rape; heterosexual rape; rape is rape. It’s about violence, and it has nothing to do with any kind of loving relationships.

Conclusion

In an earlier video, I argued that we need to consider whether, when the Bible talks about same-sex activities, these are similar to or different from committed, faithful, loving same-sex relationships.

Venn diagram showing Bible and homosexuality as similar Venn diagram showing Bible and homosexuality as different

What happened in Sodom was a million miles away from any type of loving relationship, whether same-sex or not.

Sodom has got nothing to offer in the debate about the Bible and homosexuality.

This is part of a series of videos looking at the Bible and homosexuality. If that interests you, subscribe to the channel. And if you want to find out a bit more, you can go to the companion website, bibleandhomosexuality.org.

The next passages that usually come up are the verses in Leviticus 18 & 20 – you can read more about them here.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Resources

First of all, here is a list of occurrences of Sodom in the Bible (including deuterocanonical books) after its destruction in Gen. 19:

Deut 29:23; Deut 32:32
Isa 1:9; Isa 1:10; Isa 3:9; Isa 13:19
Jer 23:14; Jer 49:18; Jer 50:40
Lam 4:6
Ezek 16:46; Ezek 16:48; Ezek 16:49; Ezek 16:53; Ezek 16:55; Ezek 16:56
Amos 4:11
Zeph 2:9
3 Macc 2:5
2 Esd 2:8; 2 Esd 7:106
Matt 10:15; Matt 11:23; Matt 11:24
Luke 10:12; Luke 17:29
Rom 9:29
2 Pet 2:6
Jude 7
Rev 11:8

A note on Jude 7

The text of Jude 6-7 says (NRSV translation):

And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality [ekporneusasai] and pursued unnatural lust [sarkos heteras], serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Sarkos heteras is more literally translated as ‘other flesh’. What might this mean?

First, note that it is a strange construction if the primary referent is homosexuality – that is not pursuing other flesh.

Secondly, note that Sodom and Gomorrah sinned ‘in the same manner’ as angels who did not keep their own station.

Jude appears to be referring to the sin of humans and angels (who could be described as being of other flesh from humans) having (or attempting to have) intercourse together. Both Gen. 6:1-4 and Gen. 19 can be understood this way.

What makes this interpretation the most plausible is that Jude is working with the same ideas as the Jewish apocryphal book of Enoch, which includes an account of the fall from heaven of 200 angels who take human wives – an elaboration of Gen. 6:1-4 (Enoch 6).

As the angels fell because of their lust for women, so the Sodomites desired sexual relations with angels. sarkos heteras, “strange flesh”, cannot… refer to homosexual practice… it must mean the flesh of angels.
Bauckham, Richard J. Jude, 2 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary vol. 50. (Waco, Texas: Word, Incorporated, 1983), 54

The author’s point here is not that the male inhabitants of Sodom sought to have sex with male visitors, but that they sought relations with angelic beings of an entirely different order.
Kraftchick, Steven J. Jude 2 Peter, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 39.

To summarise: Jude 7 condemns Sodom and Gomorrah for attempting to have intercourse with angels, just as angels were condemned for having intercourse with humans.

A note on hospitality

One dimension I have not raised in the video is that Sodom’s sin is a violation of hospitality. Hospitality was a key virtue in the Ancient Near East culture to an extent often unrecognised in the West.

Sodom should have welcomed Lot, and in turn welcomed his visitors. Instead they tried to gang-rape both the visitors and Lot (note in particular Gen. 19:9 – Lot is singled out as an alien).

This failure of hospitality may lie behind passages such as Luke 10:12 – it is in the context of a town’s inhospitality to the seventy that Jesus sends out that a comparison with Sodom is made.

Support helplines and websites (UK)

NHS Choices – Help after rape and sexual assault

Help after rape and sexual assault

Rape Crisis

Helpline: 0808 802 9999 (12-2:30 and 7-9:30)

rapecrisis.org.uk

National organisation offering support and counselling for those affected (female and male) by rape and sexual abuse.

Sexual Abuse Referral Centres – Find a SARC

Find a SARC

SARCs are specialist medical and forensic services for anyone who has been raped or sexually assaulted. They aim to be one-stop service, providing the following under one roof: medical care and forensic examination following assault/rape and, in some locations, sexual health services. Medical Services are free of charge and provided to women, men, young people and children.

Posted by admin in Old Testament

Does Genesis rule out Adam and Steve?

This video explains why the creation accounts in Genesis do not rule out same-sex marriages. God blesses the union of men and women, but that doesn’t mean that God can’t or won’t bless other patterns of life, whether that’s gay or lesbian couples, being married without children, or singleness.

Transcript

It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! Have you heard Genesis used this way to rule out homosexuality? Keep watching to find out why I think that’s misguided.

People argue that the creation accounts in Genesis only allow a man and a woman to be married. Let’s have a look at them.

Extracts from Gen 1 & 2

The broad picture is clear. God creates humankind, and blesses them. In particular, he blesses the union of a man and a woman. Notice that we haven’t got clear commands or prohibitions here. We have an account, a narrative. It’s the story of creation, not commands to create.

Is Genesis prescribing or describing?

So here’s the question.

Is it prescriptive – it has to be this way, and only this way – or is it descriptive – it describes what God blesses?

I think it’s descriptive – it describes what’s broadly true for most people, most of the time. Men and women fall in love, and marry and have children, and God blesses that.

But it’s not prescriptive, because if you try and understand Genesis in this way you run into all sorts of problems.

Be fruitful…

Let’s look at ‘be fruitful’ – is it necessary? Is it prescribed? Is having children an essential part of marriage? What about couples who can’t have children – can they still marry? Or if you do marry and then discover you can’t have children, do you have to get divorced?

You never hear this argued in Church. But it’s not a theoretical question – parts of ancient Judaism interpreted Genesis and other parts of the Bible precisely this way.

In the Mishnah, a collection of ancient Jewish oral tradition, one saying suggested that if a couple had no children after ten years, the husband was obliged to divorce his wife.

Philo, a Jewish writer living in Egypt about the time of Jesus, argued that marrying someone you knew to be infertile made you an enemy of God.

And also, what about those people who would like to marry but haven’t found the right person?

Churches are full of single people – most of them don’t feel called to lifelong celibacy. Are they somehow inferior to those who are married with children? Are they not properly in the image of God?

And what about those do choose lifelong celibacy? Where do they figure in this interpretation of Genesis?

Again, this is not just a theoretical question. Parts of ancient Judaism condemned those who voluntarily chose celibacy as being contrary to God’s commandments. It was the duty of every Jewish male to marry and to have children.

Twin babies

But Christianity has never interpreted the Bible this way. The command ‘be fruitful’ applies not to every individual, but to the human race as a whole, as Aquinas argued a thousand years ago.

And If you emphasise procreation, having children, as being essential, frankly you’re in danger of turning Christianity into a fertility cult.

…leaves his father and mother…

And anyway, how prescriptive are we going to take the account in Genesis? It says in scripture, ‘therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife…’ or in the more traditional language, ‘cleaves unto his wife’.

Does that mean that once you’re married you can’t stay with the husband’s parents?

‘I’m sorry son, I know you’re newly married and you’ve nowhere to go, but you’ll have to leave. That’s what it says in Genesis’.

Genesis describes, not prescribes

This is why it makes more sense to see Genesis as being descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Sure, God blesses those who marry and move out from their parents and have children, but God can also bless those who don’t fit that particular pattern.

Companionship

And once we see this, we can begin to see other features in the account as well. Notice how it says it wasn’t good for the human to be alone.

In Genesis 2, the reason for Eve’s creation isn’t to have children, it’s to be a partner – and God sees that as a good thing. Companionship is important. But what about those who find a companion of the same sex?

But some may say, in Genesis the partners are male and female, not male and male or female and female. Well, yes.

Because for most people, throughout human history, that’s what happens. Most men are attracted to women. Most women are attracted to men. Most couples have children.

We’re dealing here with an exception to the majority, and the creation accounts don’t deal with exceptions, whether that’s same-sex couples, or those who are choose celibacy, or those who marry but can’t have children.

Conclusion

So, is simply saying that Genesis is about Adam and Eve a knock-down argument against homosexuality? No – no more than it’s an argument against singleness.

God blessing Adam and Eve doesn’t mean condemnation for Adam and Steve.

Holding hands

This is part of a series of videos looking at the Bible and homosexuality. If that interests you, subscribe to the channel. And if you want to find out more about ancient Jewish and Christian interpretations of Genesis, you can go to the companion website, bibleandhomosexuality.org.

The next passage that usually comes up is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 & 19 – here’s my explanation of the passage.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Resources

In the transcript I refer to the Mishnah. This is a collection of oral laws that dates from around AD200 (though it includes traditions far older). There are debates both about how much these were observed by ordinary Jews, and also how far these applied in the time of Jesus and Paul (the Jewish rebellion of AD66 and the Roman reaction are significant in shaping Judaism). I use the extracts from the Mishnah (m.Yevamot 6.6) to show how it is possible to take Genesis as prescriptive, and where the logic of that leads. The critical edition is:

Penka, Gabriele, Die Mischna:‎ textkritische Ausgabe mit deutscher Übersetzung und Kommentar, Jevamot (Schwägerinnen), Jerusalem, 2009.

However, you can also find editions online with English translations. Here are a couple of examples of m.Yevamot 6.6:

http://www.emishnah.com/Nashim_Vol_1/Yev6.pdf

Or:

https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Yevamot.6.6?lang=bi

I also refer to Thomas Aquinas’ argument that the command to be fruitful applied to the whole of humankind rather than every individual. The reference is:

Aquinas, Summa Theologicae 2.152.2.

In the video I rounded up when I said that he argued this ‘a thousand years ago’ – a more precise figure would be about 750 years.

Aquinas is part of the long Christian tradition that has never seen marriage and procreation as obligatory (a tradition that, of course, goes back to Paul and Christ).

The Genesis creation accounts appear to have become more prominent in arguments recently. Generally, I have found that some commentators make extremely strong statements about the interpretation of these narratives on extremely shaky ground. This applies not only to the use of Genesis 1-3 in statements and arguments about homosexuality, but to a wide variety of issues on gender and sexuality, including transgender.

Posted by admin in Old Testament

Does the Bible condemn homosexuality?

What does the Bible say about homosexuality? There are a few verses that are relevant to homosexuality in the Bible, but how should we understand them, and how should we apply them today?

This video explains why the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality. You can also read the transcript, or look at some of the resources backing up the video.

Other posts look at specific passages, including Genesis 1 & 2, Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 & 20, the Gospels, Romans and 1 Corinthians. I also have a post looking at the Bible and transgender people.

You can also see my annotated bibliography.

Transcript

The Bible condemns homosexuality.

You’ve heard this? I think that’s wrong. Keep watching to find out why. Oh, and Calvin’s going to be important.

The argument often used

Let’s examine the type of argument you’ll have heard to say that the Bible condemns homosexuality. It usually takes the form of…

  • This is X;
  • The Bible condemns X;
  • Therefore we should condemn X.

This is murder. The Bible condemns murder. Therefore we should condemn murder. And who isn’t against murder?

Let’s use a different example.

  • Mortgages are a form of money-lending.
  • The Bible condemns money-lending.
  • Therefore we should condemn mortgages.

Hang on a second – we don’t. Have you ever heard a sermon against mortgages? Are mortgages denounced on Christian podcasts, Christian TV channels, Christian books? But why not?

Mortgages are a form of moneylending. And the Bible condemns moneylending. Well, the reason we don’t is in part down to the great protestant reformer, Calvin.

Why we don’t condemn mortgages

Before the reformation, about 500 years ago, the church pretty universally thought that moneylending was wrong, and always wrong. And they thought the Bible said that it was always wrong.

Money-lending, usury, was a mortal sin. You couldn’t get a Christian burial if you lent money for profit. And this carried on into the reformation. Martin Luther denounced lending money for profit. He saw it as wicked.

But in the reformation, lots of people began to question this. Lots of reasons for this, to do with economic change. Anyway, a friend of Calvin’s wrote to him, asking him if lending money for interest could ever be OK.

And Calvin wrote back saying yes, in certain circumstances, it might be. This was incendiary stuff – the letter itself remained private until a decade after Calvin’s death.

But how did Calvin reach this conclusion?

His answer covered a range of areas – these include the authority of the Bible compared with interpretations of the Bible; the need to understand what the writings meant in their original context and to their original audience; that you need to look behind prohibitions to see what the purpose of them is; and also how does all this fit in with justice and love.

The importance of different contexts

In particular, Calvin recognised that the Bible’s context and his context (16th century Geneva) were radically different.

The Bible was talking about money-lending that was oppressive and harmed the poor, not businesses borrowing money to invest.

In other words, what the Bible was talking about was different enough from what was going on in Geneva, that in some circumstances it might be OK to lend money for profit.

So that’s why you don’t hear sermons against mortgages. It might be money-lending, but there’s a big difference between usury – money-lending that’s oppressive, that feeds on the poor, that’s wicked – and taking out a mortgage so you can make a large purchase and spread out the payments over a long period of time.

Venn diagram showing little overlap between usury and mortgages

The argument we should be looking at

So this is the pattern of argument we should use when we come to the Bible with questions about today’s world:

  • This is X (taking out a mortgage);
  • The Bible condemns Y (usury);
  • X and Y are similar (they both involve money-lending).

Do we then condemn X?

Well, if they’re different enough, not necessarily.

Applying this to homosexuality

OK, so let’s now apply this to the Bible and homosexuality. In Britain, there are committed, faithful, same-sex marriages. The Bible condemns same-sex activity in its contexts. But how similar are the two?

Is it like this?

Venn diagram showing Bible and homosexuality as similar

Or is it more like this?

Venn diagram showing Bible and homosexuality as different

Over a series of videos (and posts) covering different parts of the Bible, I’ll be showing you why I think it’s the latter – why what the Bible is talking about is vastly different from what we’re talking about today. If that interests you, subscribe to the channel. And if you want to find out more about Calvin and his approach to money-lending, you can go to the companion website bibleandhomosexuality.org

Ready to dive into the Bible in more detail? You can access my page explaining Genesis 1 and 2 here.


Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.


Resources

You can find Calvin’s letter about moneylending to his friend Claude de Sachin at:

Calvin, John. De Usuris. Ioannis Calvini: Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia. Vol. 10. Edited by Guilielmus Baum, Eduardus Cunitz and Eduardus Reuss. Brunsvigae: C. A. Schwetschke, 1871.

Calvin’s works are available through the University of Geneva.

You can find a summary of Calvin’s approach, and its relevance to today, in an article by Andrew Goddard:

Goddard, Andrew. “Semper Reformanda in a Changing World: Calvin, Usury and Evangelical Moral Theology.” In Alister E Mcgrath and Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement, edited by Sung Wook Chung, 235-63. Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003.

It is available on the Fulcrum website.

Others have also analysed Calvin’s approach to money-lending – for example:

Wykes, Michael. “Devaluing the Scholastics: Calvin’s Ethics of Usury.” Calvin Theological Journal 38 (2003): 27-51.

Posted by admin in Bible - general