Today was the fourth of four discussions at my congregation on the ELCA's draft sexuality statement. Something odd happened, which I'd like to recount.
A member of the congregation—one of those who in the language of the statement is, “on the basis of conscience-bound belief ... convinced that same-gender sexual behavior is sinful, contrary to biblical teaching and their understanding of natural law,” read 1st Corinthians 6:9-10 from the RSV. I'm sitting there with my laptop, trying to catch up. So I switch to the RSV, and do a word search for “homosexual,” a word that was emphasized in her reading. It's not there—anywhere in the entire RSV—so I search by verse, find it, and am left wondering whether she'd added the word herself. Here's what I had:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.
No “homosexuals” there. So I show it to her after class, and she shows me her RSV— and there it is, “homosexuals” where “sexual perverts&rdquo is in mine. A quick check of the copyrights shows a 1952 copyright on her RSV, and a 1971 copyright on mine. There's also a very strange footnote in the 1952 RSV, “Two Greek words are translated by this expression.” Since I was the cantor at the next service, I didn't have time to dig any further, so off I went.
One thing that was really strange about this, and struck me as strange at the time, was her insistence when she read the passage on both the RSV version and the 1952 copyright. In retrospect, I believe she was aware that there were multiple editions of the RSV, and that they differed in how they translated this particular passage. Her purposes were better suited by her edition's language. And so she viewed the 1952 translation as authoritative, and subsequent changes as reflecting the efforts of those who would dilute God's word to excuse their own sinful behavior.
After service, I go back to the laptop, and check out Nestle-Aland (the current best version of the original Greek text), search out the underlying words, ἀρσενοκοίτης and μαλακός, and look at their respective entries in BDAG—A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition—a standard reference work for New Testament studies. I can't say that the resulting entries will set your hair on fire, but if you're used to this kind of reference, you'll recognize that it is not for lack of trying.
BDAG is pretty graphic in terms of what is actually intended: μαλακός refers to the passive partner in male-on-male anal intercourse, and moreover emphasizes that this likely refers to catamites, an English word that wasn't part of my vocabulary until today. According to Wikipedia, a catamite is “the younger partner in a pederastic relationship between two males, which was a popular arrangement in many areas of the ancient world.” Websters gives a different, but supporting gloss, “a boy kept for unnatural purposes.” OK, I knew the concept and the context, if not the particular word. But BDAG goes further, taking a calculated swipe at two major translations of 1 Cor 6:9: “ ‘male prostitutes’ NRSV is too narrow a rendering; ‘sexual pervert’ REB is too broad.”
The definition of ἀρσενοκοίτης complements that of μαλακός, it refers to the dominant (and, in the likely case of a pederastic relationship, elder) participant in male-on-male anal intercourse. Moreover, the criticism of particular translations really ratchets up here: “on the impropriety of RSV's ‘homosexuals’ [altered to ‘sodomites’ NRSV] s. WPetersen, VigChr 40, '86, 187–91; cp. DWright, ibid. 41, '87, 396–98; REB's rendering of μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται w. the single term ‘sexual pervert’ is lexically unacceptable.” This is pretty dense, in keeping with the style of the reference, citing with specificity two scholarly articles regarding the proper interpretation of ἀρσενοκοίτης, contradicting the translation(s).
For a neutral, scholarly text, this is remarkable language: ‘impropriety’ is a hapax legomenon in BDAG, a word that occurs only this one time; ‘unacceptable’ occurs only four times, and in each of the other three occurrences, it is used in defining the lexical entry, rather than as a commentary on a translation's word choice. These are, within the confines of this kind of scholarship, fighting words.
I've also looked at every occurrence of ‘RSV’ and ‘NRSV’ in BDAG, and there is not a single other occurrence in which the author (presumably the most recent reviser, Fredrick William Danker) criticizes either translation. Likewise, the REB, which gets it coming and going in this sequence, although often cited in BDAG, otherwise escapes anything that resembles pointed criticism.
And it's not as if unnamed translations do any better. ‘Homosexual’ is used by the NIV, NASB, NAS95, GWORD, ESV, HCSB, NET, NLT. ‘Sodomites’ is used by NJB. I suspect that the only translations that would evade criticism from Danker for mistranslation are Messsage and BBE, both of which are be too vague to inform discussion or behavior. It appears that pretty much every English-language Bible does a disservice to the reader in translating 1 Cor 6:9. With apologies to Casey Stengel, can't anyone here play this game?
This is why I believe it is important to learn Greek, and to be willing and able to refer to the original texts, and to be willing and able to refer to the scholarly resources that are available. Because an error of superficial scriptural literalism, for which this passage constitutes the major proof-text, has resulted in the full or partial alienation of a significant fraction of the population from our churches.
As for the inconsistent readings of 1 Cor 6:9 with the RSV that got this whole ball rolling, it turns out that there were two major editions of the RSV, and the term ‘homosexuals’ was changed to ‘sexual perverts’ in the 2nd edition. Strangely, while the introduction to the 2nd edition talks about many of the changes that were made, it is mute on 1 Cor 6:9. I didn't know.
Peace
7 comments:
Amazing: catamites. So both partners are equally condemned in the passage? One thing I hear a lot whispered in various churches is that nobody really cares about female homosexuals, it's the gay men that bother them. I have often wondered if this wasn't really an insurance policy and actuarial issue, since they are more likely to have and pass diseases, since the anal passage is used for intercourse more frequently. Gay women I believe are more likely to be monogamous and more likely to have safer sex.
There is the passage in Romans that goes against both gay men and women, but often the references are solely against gay men. Would it be true even in ancient societies that it would be known that they are likelier to pass diseases?
In the 1950s it was thought that gay men and women never got through the 2nd grade phenomenon of regarding the other sex as icky, and thus were stuck in some phase of development. I saw a video that claimed this.
I have no idea if it's true. I don't think anybody knows.
But there are definitely a lot of sexually transmitted diseases. Not just AIDS and Herpes, which require lifelong care, but various kinds of Hepatitus. Hepatitus A, B, and C, at least, and maybe a few more letters have been added by now.
Allen Ginsberg died from Hepatitus C. He was an extremely active gay man who must have had partners in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, both male and female. He lived with a man named PEter Orlovsky, who was his catamite.
Orlovsky wrote a book called Clean Asshole Poems, about keeping his ass clean for Allen.
The video I saw was produced by Focus on the Family.
I think this view of homosexuality is largely disregarded in academic quarters these days, but in the churches, it's still the answer to the question as to why gay people exist in the first place.
I have no idea. I have two gay friends, both poets.
The woman poet at least strikes me as quite sane.
The male poet is hilarious, but would not strike most people as sane. I think he is, though. He just laughs way too much for an 88 year old man.
don't know why you think
sexual pervert is unacceptable
it's a silly point
hardly worth looking into
it is clear from pauls moral teaching
that anything beyond marriage and chastity within a complete commitment was considered perverse
and is considered perverse today and is perverse an will always be perverse
in monastic texts the warning was always against the
malakoi and they were recognized
by the way they were
if they
displayed proper penitence everything was fine
the church always understood that sexual failing was a reality for almost everyone and judged with patience always
but the church stood adamantly against the sophistry and relativism of the first centuries in the mediterranean world that which gave rise to the ways of the "world" and it is no different today
the word homosexual did not come into use until the 20th century
the morals concerning sexual preference and practice in christianity will not change in the RC world they cannot the church has always taught that man and woman is the acceptable social arrangement for marriage and beyond that there is the "celibate" path
everything else is outside the scope of christian behaviour
that we feel that we can appropriate some of the "morality" of humanist relativeism and psychology only reveals the distortions and the degradations we've been willing to abide in tolerating the demented rationalism of the human sciences
the challenge and the charity within christian practice is clear
i found it so interesting that during the recent sex assault on the RC church that the demands for draconian justice were so intense...and the understanding that bishops dealing with priests who had fallen were being corrupt when in fact they were trying to be pastoral
now the sexual practices that were accepted by the world in ancient times as normal are the new taboo whereas we merely saw it as an ongoing behavioural dilemma
abortion is OK
gay sex is OK
lesbians ar OK
sexual displays in the media are OK
but get a horny priest near a child and the world goes to pieces
after the vaticancouncil there was this impicit demand that priests show themselves to be more human
and when they did whoa boy hold 'em up nelly there is decadence in the ranks
it's a complicated issue
but it seems to me there can be no other moral standard than the one worked out from the beginning
there are no new insights
psychology has offered us nothing new
it is an unfortunate body of conceptions
we can do without it
there are no homosexuals
only persons who act out in homosexual ways
and it's a degradation to label them as such
nobody should be labelled or categorized based on their sexual self understanding
for it is an epistemological prison
during the hard core jansenist period out of which the church is now emerging there was the attitude that the "devils claw" if not checked would corrupt a whole body
i see plenty of evidence that this is still the case
the people who adamantly campaign for justice based on freudian principles even in my own commuity are the most devious and the most viscious and controlling people... and they use the "rights" of humanism to justify themselves
it's one thing to be open and pastroal to people it is quite another thing to acknowledge the categories of human sciences and use them as if it is the groundwork for truth
the body of writing that has treated this area in a spirit of prophecy and personal genius is the JOHN PAUL II's "theology of the body"...it is a restatement of the morality of the first christians worked out in the language and concepts of existentialism and personalism...always with a nod to thomas d'aquino
all tendencies for sexual licentiousness must be curtailed within the scope of spiritual growth...otherwise we simply allow the demons to dance alongside us
i don't care what the social consensus is on same sex marriage and people of that ilk deciding to have children it can never be accepted within sound christian teaching
only the smarmy relativists will go along with it
i'll have nothing to do with it
i refuse i will always refuse
it is really forcing the issue of god's will and a well worked out and acknowledged understanding of things from the view of natural law
if we cannot begin with natural law then the discussion is ridiculous
i am liking your posts but have and will be away from the cyber world for a few weeks more
just checking in
j
I think part of homosexuality is that it offers a certain level of comfort. It is certainly easier for two men to live together than one man and one woman (I'm not so sure about 2 women living together).
Certainly it's easier for two members of the same sex to understand each other.
I prefer the mysterious & heterogenous. It's interesting that folks who promote diversity don't seek it in their love life. . .
Thanks for the Greek digging, Stu (it saved me the trouble). It seems that the words should be translated idiomatically:
Rump Rangers
Turd Burglers
Butt Pirates
Anal Avengers
Which is not really surprising. There was a bias even in Greece and Rome against anal sex.
What I wish we would do with this whole sexuality thing is stop caring and stop sharing. Live with a "roommate," be a grownup and don't engage in PDA, and just let it be.
Kirby's right, we definitely shouldn't have pride parades.
jh --
sexual perverts is far too broad a term if the two specific words are best translated as
penis pitcher
and
cock catcher.
And not participating in m-2-m butt play is a lot easier -- and more accomplishable -- than figuring out what "sexual pervert" means.
Specificity is always a good thing.
The discussion continues on the next thread.
jh—
You'll be missed! Best wishes on whatever your doing. I look forward to your return.
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