
Has “Homosexual” Always Been in the Bible? - fanf2
https://www.forgeonline.org/blog/2019/3/8/what-about-romans-124-27
======
frittig
I don't understand. The old German version translated זכר (male) into young
boy and then later in 1983 an American financed a German translation because
there weren't enough Christians in Germany (!?). The new translation correctly
translates it to male. So that proves that the Americans wanted to influence
how Germans think about homosexuals.

If I understood this correctly then this is one of the worst research that I
have read on hn.

~~~
codefreakxff
I don’t follow your argument from having read the article. It says the
original version was against sleeping with young boys, not men. And the 1983
version changed it from young boys to homosexuality. The author argues the
original word was Greek and the text was to denounce Pederasty, which was a
strange Greek practice. He also argues this change in word was deliberately
made by as part of a larger anti gay agenda

~~~
sorokod
The original Hebrew ( not Greek ) word in the book of וַיִּקְרָא (aka
Leviticus) means male.

~~~
acqq
And the original Greek word in the New Testament (the New Testament's original
language _is_ Greek) is also arsenokoitai:

[https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-does-arsenokoitai-
mea...](https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-does-arsenokoitai-mean/)

"It’s a compound word: “arsen” means man and “koite” or “koitas” or
“koitai”—depending on a verb or a noun—means bed."

But there are different interpretations about what that "those who sleep with
men" meant:

[https://www.gaychristian101.com/what-did-paul-mean-when-
he-u...](https://www.gaychristian101.com/what-did-paul-mean-when-he-used-the-
greek-word-arsenokoitai.html)

"Despite what some scholars allege, arsenokoitai is _never used in any extant
Greek literature with our modern meaning of homosexual._ The best evidence
available today indicates that arsenokoitai described shrine prostitutes. That
is the learned opinion of Philo, a contemporary of both Jesus and the apostle
Paul and one of the most widely read Jewish intellectuals in the first
century."

"Because the Jewish view was that Lev 18:22 and 20:13 (Deu 23:17) prohibited
shrine prostitution, it is highly unlikely that Paul would have used
arsenokoitai with a meaning unfamiliar to most of his readers.

And because arsenokoitai is never used in any extant Greek text from AD 57 to
AD 1450, to refer to two men or two women in committed partnership, it is
highly unlikely that Paul would have used arsenokoitai with that meaning,
which would have baffled his first century readers."

Regarding the word that the "Latin lexicon from 1483" apparently used to
translate the arenokoitai word, the Greek language did have a specific word
for that:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty)

"The word pederasty derives from Greek παιδεραστία (paiderastia) "love of
boys",[1] a compound derived from παῖς (pais) "child, boy" and ἐραστής
(erastēs) "lover"."

So we can be sure that that Latin lexicon is wrong. If Paul wanted to mean
"boys lover" he had an existing word for that, and didn't have to use
"arsenokoitai" ("those who sleep with men").

~~~
sorokod
Leviticus is mentioned in the article - hence the comments on what is
original.

~~~
acqq
Sure. I don't dispute that the author of the text in the NT was probably
inspired by Leviticus. And both Leviticus and NT use "men" there.

I don't agree that codefreakxff's claim that "the original version was against
sleeping with young boys, not men" is correct. Because Greeks had the specific
word for that and didn't use it there, but used the word arsenokoitai.

Searching even more, this internet poster even argues that the Paul used that
rare word (with "men") because he used the more common for "fornicators":

[https://www.quora.com/How-has-usage-of-the-term-
arsenokoitai...](https://www.quora.com/How-has-usage-of-the-term-arsenokoitai-
changed-over-time-and-does-the-word-appear-anywhere-other-than-the-Bible)

"Centuries before Paul, the πορν- porn- root referred only to prostitutes &
prostitution. But over the centuries, the meaning expanded to include all
illicit sexual contact. Paul had already used the word πόρνοι pornoi to mean
fornicators. What that meant is that Greek, for all intents and purposes, no
longer had a word that specifically referred to having sex for money. That
alone was reason to create a new word for it."

That actually sounds strange to me, that at Paul's time there was not a
specific word for prostitutes.

~~~
sorokod
>Sure. I don't dispute that the author of the text in the NT was probably
inspired by Leviticus. And both Leviticus and NT use "men" there.

Cool, just to clarify, the word means 'male', not 'man', and is applied to
animals as well as humans.

~~~
acqq
Yes, in Greek too:

[https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἄρσην#Ancient_Greek](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἄρσην#Ancient_Greek)

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anaisbetts
You know it doesn't actually matter right? Transgender people / Trans-the-
concept doesn't appear in the Bible _at all_. Not a single word. And yet,
Christians still _vigorously_ claim they're "against God" and "immoral".

And why? Because at the end of the day, many Christians (and lots of other
people tbh) construct a byzantine mansion of circular reasoning, to justify
their shitty bigoted _feelings_ towards LGBT+ people.

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scintill76
> of 4 of the 6 clobber passages, all these nations and translations were
> referring to pederasty, and not what we would call homosexuality today

I would have liked to hear more about this. What are the other 2 passages,
what do they say, and how might it have been changed over time?

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KboPAacDA3
What Greek words are used in Romans 1:26-27?

