Unnatural Intercourse

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE?
Part 6

There may not be a Jesus card available to play in the debate over gay marriage, but there are a few different Paul cards to choose from. Indeed, there are three common passages attributed to Paul in the New Testament that speak against homosexual intercourse, and all three are frequently quoted as evidence by Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin.

Each of these passages are found in what are known as the Pauline Epistles. An "epistle" is simply a Greek word for "letter," and is generally used nowadays to refer to books in the New Testament that are formatted as letters sent from early Christian leaders to various churches or individuals. "Pauline" is an adjective used to describe epistles that are thought to have been written by Paul. These epistles were written for various reasons, usually addressing problems that a particular church was facing, correcting doctrinal errors, and offering encouragement. There are 13 Pauline Epistles in the New Testament, but only 7 of them are widely accepted by scholars as being authentically written by Paul.^[1]

We find our passages on homosexuality in three different Pauline Epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy. This article will look at each passage, address why these verses were included in Paul's epistles, and analyze their relevancy in the modern Christian debate over gay marriage.

As a warning to my readers, the following article is more explicit in its descriptions of sexual intercourse than my previous articles. Paul uses specific terms to refer to specific homosexual acts, and such terms need to be addressed if we are to understand Paul's views on homosexuality. For those who are uncomfortable with reading about sex in a frank manner, viewer discretion is advised.

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Romans

Romans is widely believed among scholars to have been written by Paul, and is his longest known letter. Paul is writing to the church in Rome to address tensions between the Gentiles within the Jesus Movement and the Jewish community. I refer to these Gentiles as belonging to "the Jesus Movement" rather than "Christianity" because the latter term refers to a distinct religion outside of Judaism. Such a distinction did not exist in the time of Paul. Indeed, Paul and Jesus were not Christians; they were Jews! The Jesus Movement can best be understood as a movement within Judaism.

Paul understood Gentile conversion to the Jesus Movement as a legitimate way to bring Gentiles into the new world order which would be established by the Jewish Messiah (Jesus). While Jewish communities were generally fine with Gentiles worshiping their god without fully converting to Judaism,^[2] they were not necessarily keen on the Jesus Movement, nor Paul's views on full Gentile inclusion in the Messiah's new world order. This created significant religious tension between Jews and Gentiles.

In Romans, Paul is writing to ease such tensions. He writes his letter to the Gentiles in the Roman church, explaining their place in relation to Jews in light of the return of Jesus. He begins his letter by addressing how pagan religion and culture came to exist as a result of humans turning away from God. It is in this context that we find Romans 1, our first passage against homosexuality.

In Romans 1.18-32, we see Paul explaining that despite God's eternal power being invisible, all humans should know of him through observation of the natural order of creation. Paul claims that despite knowing God, humans turned away from him, and created idols for themselves. He writes:

...they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator...

(1.22-25)

So Paul is saying that because these humans worshiped false gods, God abandoned them to their lustful ways, resulting in sexual immorality. Paul then goes into detail in the next verses, which is where we find explicit references to both male and female homosexual intercourse:

For this reason God gave [those who worshiped idols] up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. 

(1.26-27)

Here Paul is saying that homosexual intercourse was the result of humans going against the natural order of creation, just as idol-worshiping was.^[3] Paul also points out that males who have participated in homosexual intercourse have received a penalty for their sexual error.

[[Okay, so you are saying that Paul thought homosexual intercourse was contrary to the natural order of creation, and was the result of a distance between humans and God. You are also saying that Paul thought there was a penalty for men who participated in homosexual intercourse. So why would any Christians think that homosexuality is not a sin?]]

Many Christians don't trust Paul's views on the natural order of creation. It's true that Paul viewed homosexual intercourse as a perversion of nature. While there are not many references to the natural order of creation in the Pauline Epistles, we do see Paul make the claim in 1 Corinthians 11 that nature itself teaches that long hair on a man is degrading, but on a woman "it is her glory" because it covers her body (this makes those pictures of a white Jesus with lengthy golden locks seem even more silly). Few Christians today choose to take Paul seriously and consider long hair on men and short hair on women to be contrary to nature, and therefore don't see a need to take his views on homosexual intercourse being contrary to nature all that seriously either.

[[Okay, so perhaps most Christians don't really take all of Paul's ideas about the natural order of creation seriously. But what about his reference to those who partake in male homosexual intercourse receiving their penalty? Shouldn't that be taken seriously?]]

It was a common belief in Paul's day by both Jews and pagans that immoderate "unnatural" sex among males would bring about physical ailments. This is likely grounded in the idea that men's ejaculations drained them of their life-force, and so when used excessively resulted in disease and weakness.^[4] Views like this have been largely discredited by modern science. While sexually transmitted diseases are very real, they can be contracted through both homosexual AND heterosexual intercourse, and can affect both men AND women; they are not a unique to male homosexual intercourse.

It's worth noting that some have interpreted this passage to mean that Paul is referring to punishment in the afterlife, but this does not seem to be the case. Note that Paul is NOT saying that they will receive their penalty after they have been resurrected to be judged by Jesus. He is saying that they have already received it "in their own persons," implying a physical, this-worldly consequence.

To trust Paul's reasoning on why homosexual intercourse is wrong, we need to trust his understanding of the natural world and the human body, which many modern Christians view as outdated (Paul did live about 2,000 years ago, after all).

1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians is also widely accepted as being authentically written by Paul. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, and in chapter 6 we find him addressing some behavioral issues the church was facing. According to verses 1-8 there were members of the church who were taking fellow members to pagan courts to resolve their issues. Paul sees this as shameful, since he believes that issues among churches should be settled among believers, not pagan government officials.

Following these verses, we find our second Pauline passage against homosexuality. Paul writes:

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. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 

(6.9-11, emphasis in my own)

Paul is providing a list of sins that many of the members of the Corinthian church used to be guilty of before they were "washed" (this likely is referring to baptism) and made righteous through Jesus. It seems Paul is using this list to emphasize the incompatibility of pagan society with church society, which ought to be unified, not divided, especially by means of pagan authority.

Of the list of sinners that Paul claims will not inherit the kingdom of God, we find 3 that are related to homosexuality: fornicators, male prostitutes, and sodomites. Let's analyze these three terms in Greek to see if we can get a better understanding of what Paul is saying.

Fornicators. The Greek here is the word pornoi, which simply means sexually immoral persons. This is a general term for those who practice sexual deviancy, which for Paul likely included any kind of sexual relations outside of marriage. For Paul, pornoi probably did include people practicing homosexual intercourse, but also incest, adultery, and bestiality, and even a husband having sex with his wife on her period (which as we saw in Part 4 was one of the "abominations" in the Torah).

Male Prostitutes. The Greek word here is malakoi, which literally means "soft ones." The translation "male prostitutes" is a bit misleading; it really referred to boys and men who were penetrated anally by other males. While this would certainly include male prostitutes who allowed other men to penetrate them, it also included young boys who had little say in the matter. While it was acceptable in ancient Greek culture for men to use their young apprentices as malakoi, it was forbidden by Roman law for a man to use a freeborn boy to have sex with; it was only acceptable to use slave boys and male prostitutes. Both the Romans and the Greeks considered an adult male citizen taking the submissive role of a "soft one" to be shameful, since they believed it signified femininity and weakness.

The translators of the NRSV passage quoted above likely didn't think Paul was saying that boys who were the victim of pedophilia would not inherit the kingdom of God, so they simply translated malakoi as "male prostitutes."^[5] Since adult male homosexual relationships were generally seen as taboo in the Roman Empire, it makes sense that Paul would be referring to male homosexual prostitutes, not young boys. Along similar lines, he was likely not referring to homosexual intercourse in committed and loving relationships like we have today either, making its relevancy in the debate over gay marriage questionable.

Sodomites. The Greek here is arsenokoites, and the exact translation is unclear. It is the combination of the Greek words for "male" and "bed." What is clear is that translating it as "sodomite" is problematic. Indeed, the term for "Sodom" is not found in the word, and as we saw in Part 3, the sin of Sodom is never identified as homosexual intercourse in the Bible. Arsenokoites is very likely meant to contrast malakoi, referring to men who have sex with other men as they would a woman. Or in other words, men who penetrate the "soft ones." It was socially acceptable for men to engage in such sexual behavior, so long as they were taking the active/penetrating role, and not using freeborn boys or as their malakoi.

Of the words used by Paul to describe groups of people who would not inherit the kingdom of God, 3 are related to homosexuality. However, pornoi was a general term for sexual deviancy, not homosexuality specifically, and malakoi and arsenokoites referred to specific roles of male-on-male anal sex, which was typically associated with pedophilia and prostitution. It would be inappropriate to say these terms are direct comparisons to our understanding of homosexual practices found in loving relationships such as gay marriages today.

1 Timothy

Our last passage on homosexuality can be found in 1 Timothy. Unlike Romans and 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy's place among the Pauline Epistles has been doubted by many scholars. This is not shocking to those who have studied early Christianity; forgery was a common practice of the ancients, and there are many scriptures that have been discovered which claim to be written by early Christian leaders well after the time of their deaths. However, as was pointed out in Part 5, the books within the Bible are seen as authoritative to Christians, regardless of who really wrote them. As such, we will take 1 Timothy's passage just as seriously as we took Romans' and 1 Corinthians' for the sake of this article.

1 Timothy was written to combat false teachers in Christian communities. In verses 3-7 we see Paul warning Timothy (a known disciple of Paul) about those who would teach the law (that is, the Torah) in a way contrary to the way Paul had taught it. The passage following this warning is where we find our verses on homosexuality:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. 

(1.8-11, emphasis is my own)

Paul is saying that laws in the Torah were not established for those who were innocent (the Greek word here literally means "righteous"), but rather for those who contradict the teachings of Paul (that includes you, long-haired Jesus!). Paul lists groups of people as examples of those who contradict his teachings, and among them we find "fornicators" and "sodomites." And you guessed it! The Greek terms used here are pornoi and arsenokoites.

As we discussed above, pornoi and arsenokoites are not adequate terms for relating to our modern understanding of gay love and marriage. It may be worth noting that the author of 1 Timothy did not include malakoi among his list. It's unclear exactly why it was excluded, but perhaps was due to malakoi's frequent association with innocent boys who were used sexually by older men, not merely male prostitutes as the NRSV translated it in 1 Corinthians.

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There are three different passages in the Pauline Epistles that condemn homosexual practices. The first is found in Romans, which is based on Paul's understanding of the natural world. Many Christians, however, see Paul's understanding as outdated and no longer relevant to loving homosexual relationships. The other two passages are found in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, which use terms that either signify general sexual deviancy (not specifically homosexuality), or specific roles in male-on-male anal sex, which often were associated with pedophilia and male prostitution, not homosexual intercourse within committed and consensual partnerships.

Paul's passages against homosexuality are for many the most persuasive in the Christian debate over gay marriage. However, they were written with a 1st-century understanding of the natural world that has for the most part been rejected today, and in response to homosexual practices that were understood quite differently than they are now. While we can't say Paul supported homosexual intercourse in his ancient culture, we can say the subject is, biblically speaking, much more grey in our modern-day context than many Christians would care to admit.

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Notes

[1] There used to be 14 traditional Pauline Epistles, which included Hebrews. Hebrews was written anonymously, but by the second century was attributed to Paul. While some early Christians noticed differences in its style when compared to other Pauline Epistles, it was assumed to be Pauline for much of Christian history. It was around the 16th century when Christians started doubting it as Pauline, and today few scholars (including theologians) consider it to be written by Paul.

[2] Many Gentiles would attend Jewish synagogues and accepted pieces of Jewish doctrine, but did not want to convert to Judaism (which would require them to live by the law, and for men to be circumcised). These Gentiles were known as "God-Fearers." It was likely the God-Fearers who largely took to Paul's doctrine of the Jesus Movement, since he taught that they could be fully grafted into God's covenant with Jews, yet still maintain their cultural identity as a Greek/Roman. With converts being mostly Gentiles, the Jesus Movement soon became a distinct religion from Judaism, which we call "Christianity."

[3] Some Christians have interpreted Paul's words to teach what I call the "doctrine of distortion." Basically, this doctrine claims that a husband and wife reflect the image of God together in marriage and in sexual union, and so any form of homosexual intercourse or marriage is really idolatry since it distorts the image of God. This is not what Paul is saying. According to Paul, it was because of idolatry that God gave humans up to their sexual immorality. In other words, Paul taught that the idolatry separated humanity from God, and that homosexuality was a result of this separation. Nowhere does he equate homosexual intercourse with idolatry. Additionally, it doesn't seem that Paul viewed the combination of male and female roles in marriage/sex to reflect the image of God together. In 1 Cor. 11.7, Paul teaches that "man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man."

[4] Philo of Alexandria (a Jew writing in the first century) held such views. In his Embassy to Gaius, he lists lusting after boys as one of the wicked acts performed by Caligula that caused him to become physically sick, since it "destroy[ed] both body and soul." It's also worth pointing out that semen (along with breast milk) was thought to be refined blood in the body (see Galen's On the Natural Faculties). Losing it excessively out of lust (which homosexual intercourse was perceived as mere acts of lusts, since it did not produce lineage) was thought to drain one's strength and result in disease. According to the Acts of Paul (likely written in the second century), upon being beheaded, Paul's neck bled milk rather than blood. This probably seems weird (and gross) to many modern readers, but isn't as ridiculous as it sounds if one believes milk is merely refined blood. It's unclear why the author of Acts of Paul wrote this, perhaps to show that Paul was filled with life and spiritual nourishment. Regardless, it is clear that the ancients (including Paul) had a quite different understanding of the natural world than we hold today.

[5] Many popular translations such as the NIV and ESV combine malakoi and arsenokoites and simply translate them as "men who have sex with men" or "men who practice homosexuality." The NASB translates malakoi as "effeminate," and arsenokoites as "homosexuals" (which is incredibly misleading, given that the term specifically refers only to males, and "homosexuals" designates both males and females).