Transcription
Recently, Ali Beth Stucky defended the traditionally historic and biblical positions among other things on sexuality, marriage, gender, and abortion on the popular Jubilee series, "Surrounded." And I thought Ali Beth did a tremendous job on this. She clearly did her homework. She remained calm and collected throughout. She stuck to the main issue without getting bogged down into the rabbit holes and distractions throughout the course of the conversation.
One thing I wanted to comment on, and what the focus of this video is going to be about, is the issue of the topic of homosexuality in the Bible as it relates to the terms used in the original languages. For those of you who are familiar with my conversation with the guys on "Flagrant" on that podcast, this actually was something that was brought up to me in that setting, and I just very, very briefly addressed it there, but I want to discuss it a little bit more comprehensively in this video. So, let's look at what was talked about and said in the Jubilee video, and we'll use that as a jumping-off point to address some of those issues.
>> Used in the Old Testament to talk about male-on-male relationships.
>> I'm not, I don't remember the Hebrew term.
>> Which is actually male prostitutes.
>> And you're talking about, do you believe that it was just pederasty or it was pedophilia that they were condemning at the time?
>> Kadesh literally means male prostitutes. But in the New Testament, the Greek words used are just male-on-male. There is no denotation whatsoever that this was not consensual or that this was a man and a child. There's a different word for that.
>> Arsenotai.
>> Arsenotai is one of the words that's used for that. There's also another word that's used in Romans 1 to condemn homosexuality. We don't actually see that this denotes any sort of pederasty or pedophilia. It's very clear that we're talking about two adults.
>> I'm not talking about pedophilia here. I'm talking about pederasty. Uh, arsenokotai, do you know the earliest usage of it?
>> I don't.
>> It was actually used as economic exploitation of men because back then the only homosexual relationships you had, keep in mind, the word homosexual came in the 1860s, the earliest.
>> Which is exactly why it wasn't added, added to scripture till 1946, not because the act was not, uh, described in scripture.
>> Yeah, so arsenokotai has been used for economic exploitation in its earliest usage. And above that, malakoi was used for effeminate men that were castrating themselves for the goddess Athena. When Christianity first came around, there's a huge pantheon of Roman gods and people in Ephesus were worshiping them as well. And they were saying, "Oh, there's actually multiple gods." And all around scripture, that's, that's exactly the case that's happening. There's actually no usage at all. We actually have Greek words that Paul likely knew about that were, uh, reference homosexuality. Why didn't he use them? Why did he only use two words that mean effeminate men, which were he was describing for men that castrate themselves for Athena, and arsenokotai, which refers to men that take advantage of smaller men, like sex slave trades.
>> So, is your argument that the Bible never condemns homosexuality anywhere, and that homosexual relations, as long as they were consensual and between two adults, is actually elevated to a place of morality in the same place that a man between, of marriage between a man and a woman is? Is that your argument?
>> I'm saying the Bible has no condemnation of it.
>> No condemnation. But when we look at scripture, what is the one kind of relationship that we see described as holy, as representative of Christ in the church, as having the ability to go forth and be fruitful and multiply? All of us are born with our full digestive systems, our full circulatory systems, but all of us are only born with half a reproductive system. Don't you think that science tells us a little bit of something about how human beings are supposed to join together?
>> No, because not all human beings join together. Uh, many don't. Many people don't even have sexual.
>> In principle?
>> Well, no, by nature.
>> In principle, sure. That, that's to multiply. You know, if that's your natural law and interpretation.
So, what Ally did here is exactly what I think she should have done in her predicament. She knew her limitations and she knew her strengths. She knows she's not very well-versed enough in Greek to take on the issue of what arsenokotai does or doesn't mean, and she sticks to the issue at hand. This is excellent dialogue and debate strategy on display right here. Too often, what I find is that people can't read Greek and Hebrew themselves. And so when those they're talking with bring up the terms in those languages, whether that's on the issue in regards to something like this with homosexuality in the Bible, or say a Jehovah's Witness shows up at your door and he's bringing up John 1:1 and the grammar and the syntax there, or something, this comes up and we let that become a distraction. It's not always the case, but far too often, both parties who are often privy to this kind of tactic aren't overly well-competent in the biblical languages, and it becomes a game of one-upmanship. One person knows the Greek term off the top of their head and they can reference it in the moment. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can read or understand ancient Greek, but they can recall the term and they're pretty sure the person they're dialoguing with doesn't. And so it's just used as some sort of rhetorical gotcha in the course of the conversation.
However, I, as someone who does read Greek and Hebrew, I want to tackle this issue in the original languages in order to help those who don't know how to potentially navigate through those types of accusations when those come up. So, first, let's get the terms referenced in this particular clip addressed. Paul, who's discussing with Ali, brings up Leviticus 18:22, but then says that the word used in the Old Testament to talk about male-on-male relationships is "kadoshim." But this word doesn't appear in Leviticus 22:18 in the prohibition. "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female." That's the phrase there in the Hebrew. Uh, "zarish mishk" is, uh, the word "kadesim" that Paul mentions isn't found there. In fact, not only is it absent from both Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, which are the two prohibitions related to homosexual relationships in that book, I couldn't find its presence anywhere in the entire book of Leviticus. Now, it is found in the Torah more broadly in Deuteronomy 23:17, but that relates to cultic prostitution specifically. The assertion from Paul to Ali was that this was the word in the Old Testament to talk about male-on-male relationships, and that's just incorrect. Okay.
Paul then brings up two other words, Greek ones: arsenokotai and malakoi. These are the two words found in 1 Corinthians 6:9. The NIV renders this clause in the Greek, "men who have sex with men." The ESV says, "men who practice homosexuality," and the LSB follows the more literalistic reading of "nor effeminate, nor homosexuals." So let's break this down. The Apostle Paul, not to be confused with the Paul who's talking with Ali Beth, I'll try to differentiate those two as much as possible by calling the biblical Paul the Apostle. Uh, the Apostle Paul is giving a prohibition list in 1 Corinthians 6, and he uses the Greek arsenokotai. There are two words there that are in context, and it's relevant to recognize that the Apostle Paul is playing off of the Greek translation of Leviticus 18:22 here. In Leviticus 18:22 in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it says, "kai meta arsenos koiten," and "you will not lie with a man as with a woman." It's a compound word. It takes two terms: "arsen," meaning male, and "koite," meaning lie within bed. And "koite" has a very strong sexual connotation to it. It's not just talking about going physically horizontal in a bed; it means to go to bed, to have sex. "Arsenokotai" is a very descriptive term because it's formulated directly out of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Those familiar with the Torah in the first-century Corinthian setting would have been reading their Bible, the Old Testament in Greek, and they would have known exactly what is happening with what Paul is doing. Leviticus 18:22 is in direct view.
Now, Paul in the video refers to the earliest usage of arsenokotai as a term for economic exploitation of men. The only place where this could possibly be drawn from is in a transliteration of a possible use of a term from a Sibylline Oracle translation by an individual named J.J. Collins. However, there are two pretty big issues with this. First, it's not clear that arsenokotai is the word that's actually found in the text of the Sibylline Oracle. And second, in order to make the citation fit the hypothesis that arsenokotai is economically exploitative sex, you have to posit that the other phrases, "do not betray" and "do not murder," deal with economic exploitation, too. And that's nothing more than patent special pleading. What is clear and is pretty widely agreed upon throughout the scholarship is that the Apostle Paul is almost certainly coining the term here. He's combining the two words in Greek found in Leviticus to create a new term, a term that would have been obvious to its original audience and its meaning would have been clear.
Paul in the "Surrounded" video says that there were other ancient Greek words used for homosexuality and asks Ali the question, "You know, why doesn't the Apostle Paul, why, why wouldn't he have used them?" Now, I'd be curious what words he thinks the Apostle Paul should have used instead. But at face value, I think there's a very simple answer to this. Paul is a Jew. He's writing to a context of Jewish believers in the Messiah residing in Corinth who would have been very familiar, uh, with the Greek translation of the Torah. They would have known the Levitical prohibitions, and in being contextual to his audience, using the terminology that is both obvious and contextually framed for who he is writing to. And so the reason why the Apostle Paul does what he does by combining the two words found in Leviticus 18:22 in its Greek translation and coining this new word is because he knows his audience. He's a clever writer and a clear communicator, speaking to who he's writing to directly in an effective and an efficient manner. That's why.
Now, the other term, malakoi, which directly translates to "soft men," is a term with both wide valence and specific use. So, unlike arsenokotai, this is actually a well-attested word within broader Greco-Roman literature. In the context here, it, it's definitely speaking to the use in being referenced to men who effeminate themselves in order to attract male sex partners. And it's used primarily in Greco-Roman context, not for boys or even for youths, but for adults. Adults who are usually thought of as having a biologically predisposed condition, what we might today call a sexual orientation. And we actually see this term being talked about most often in Greco-Roman medical texts. So the idea that the Apostle Paul is talking about men who castrate themselves for Athena and men who are involved in sexual slavery is, with all due respect, ridiculous.
Let me be blunt here, and I apologize if this sounds a little bit crass, but this is what we're dealing with. By using arsenokotai and malakoi together in the same sentence, the way that they're framed in 1 Corinthians 6:9, the Apostle Paul is identifying the active and passive partners in a sexual act. By the prefix "arsen," we have the gender, and the morpheme "koite," where we actually get the, the kind of archaic English term "coitus" from, meaning to have sex with. Those two words combined, "arsen" combined with "koite," and then added with "malakoi," what we're given is a very direct meaning. You have described two participatory individuals engaged in a sexual act where one is doing the giving in the act and the other is doing the taking. There's no hint in the terminology or the context that this is exploitative or between anything other than two consenting adults.
So, while I wrap up here, let me just once again say, I thought Ali Beth Stucky did a fantastic job in her "Surrounded" episode. I thought she stuck to the topic very well. She didn't allow herself to get sidetracked or pulled down in any sort of unnecessary rabbit holes. She didn't try to overstate her knowledge of the Greek or the Hebrew. And most importantly, she didn't take the bait of getting dragged into the biblical languages. But hopefully, what a video like this does is help you, the viewer, when you hear these types of arguments, call them out for what they are. They're not valid interactions and interpretations of the text. What we see in a lot of these attempts to reinterpret the Bible's stance on issues like homosexuality and marriage and gender or even abortion, etc., are not honest interactions and interpretations. They're ideologically captured ones. Their reinterpretation is often misconstrued and couched as being loving and accepting. But I think we need to be very careful if that's our perspective. The Apostle Paul tells us that love does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. If you love God as he truly is, and you love your neighbor as they truly are before God, you won't rejoice in sin that's harming those neighbors. So, like I said on the "Flagrant" podcast, this issue might be seen as controversial, but in the Bible, it's not unclear.