Letter to the Editor

[insanetimbo]

Dear Southern Cross (the newsletter of the Sydney Anglican Diocese)

The real issue at stake regarding sexual ethics, according to Dr Jensen's article " Why I am going to Israel", is the preservation of reverence for "Biblical authority". When will he acknowledge that those on the other side of the divide actually share this concern? In a spirit far

Comments

[insanetimbo]

I always found the surmised link between the Sodom and Gomorrah story and homosexuality odd. The Ezekiel 16 passage which lists the sins of Sodom, renders the connection even more tenuous.

48 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. 49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

Well, as per usual, the most thorough critique of my liberal stance has come from a fellow liberal while the conservative majority sit comfortably on their foregone conclusions. Thankyou brother for making me sharper.

I hadn't realised arsenokoitai was such a direct compound of "male" and " to bed" (though stuff Greek, if you want the best lexicon, use Australian vernacular to decode this one. The phonetic rendering "Arse an' a Coitus" says it all), so I'll admit it's a term that likely applies to all male-male sex. A quick scan of the Wikipedia article on the timeline of LGBT history suggests to me that it's possible - likely - that same-sex attraction has manifested itself through affirming, equality-based relationships as well as the dodgy ones like temple prostitution and pederasty, over the millenia. I still wonder, though, whether this fact alone is enough to suggest the term encompasses this definition in its original context - there doesn't seem to be a reference to a gay couple being busted and punished in the Law, while there are plenty of references to the other abhorrent sexual practises of the early Caanaanite clans (eg numbers 25). Do you think it's fair to suggest it highly unlikely the term arsenokoitai's primary intended meaning was same-sex love?

The thing that resonated most with me in Wink's article was his exploration of sexual 'mores' that have dropped out of our moral code over the centuries. I'm reading through the Pentateuch at the moment and it has struck me how alien the moral codes of the law are to the actions of the patriarchs, to the practises of the Jews at the time of Jesus, and to common teaching in the church today. That's 4 very distinct progressions in sexual practise popping up in my mind already.. I imagine when i get to the Judges/Kings section of the OT I'll probably start noticing even more (the institution of divorce already springs to mind). It makes me increasingly aware of how incredible it is that a Biblical teacher can say something like "well, Jesus came to fulfil the law, not destroy it, so that's why we Christians still do such and such", and not be questioned any further.

I think you're probably right in your final paragraph, though there is still a danger in using a modern word that almost fits, but unintentionally erases the contestable nature of its interpretation vs a difficult to translate idea, translated in a more accurate, though clunky, way. Surely a good modern translator would render the term "man who beds men"(ambiguous - male slut? homosexual? gigolo?), rather than "homosexual" (i'm picturing Mardi Gras).

Once again, thankyou for your awesomeness, all the best with your writing, and my regards to your beloved

[zcatcurious]

Paul's choice of αρσενοκοιται, rather than, say, αρσενοφιλιοι (lovers of males), suggests that his object is male-male sex, not love, but I should add that I am not sure that same-sex love actually figured into his conceptions of homosexuality at all: like many of our homophobic contemporaries, he appears to have assumed that only lust could turn someone towards another of their sex (especially in Romans 1). It is quite possible that he did not believe that αρσενοφιλια even existed.

For an English translation, I would be tempted to go with "sodomites", because the term is as brutal a description in English as αρσενοκοιται is in Greek: it is bluntly physical, and singularly pejorative. I prefer literalist translations like this, because I would rather see what the author's words looked like to a contemporary audience (which is why I like the LXX, the Greek OT, which often errs on the side of being so literal that it is rather unGreek Greek).

The development of mores which you mention is a fascinating thing, not least because all that we get to see in the historical records are generally the official rules, not the actual social practices, unless there is a large enough body of preserved narrative art from which we can glean details. Consider the difference now between what the Bible or a church teaches, and how the congregants genuinely live their lives.

One day, I would like to see if I can track down records of Roman-era Greek nonChristian responses to Christianity, partly to see what they thought of Christianity's thoroughly different sexual morality: as well as having no prohibition against homosexuality, they had no particular valuation of virginity, and those two things must have seemed very strange to them.

I am glad that my hobbies can be of use to someone! My regards to you and to your beloved, also.