oh please, neither does the word, "oh" appear. Nor the word, "please." Nor the word, "does." Nor the word, "the." Nor the word, "word." Nor the word, "appear."
The NT was written in Greek, NOT English and there are NO English words in the original. But there were Greek words for what we call homosexuality and Paul used those words. See the study by Dan Wallace a REAL Biblical Greek scholar.
[c]Review of Mel Whites
What the Bible Saysand Doesnt Sayabout Homosexuality
By:
Daniel B. Wallace , Th.M., Ph.D.[/c]
Daniel B. Wallace has taught Greek and New Testament courses on a graduate school level since 1979. He has a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently professor of New Testament Studies at his alma mater.
Mel White was a ghostwriter for several Christian leaders, including Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell. After years in ministry, working for the religious right, he came out of the closet. He and his wife divorced, though she is still good friends with him and is supportive of his new ministry.
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Third, he overstates his case in a couple of key areas. His emphasis in this pamphlet is that we need to reexamine the Bible to see what it says. At the beginning of his work, he writes in large, bold print, LIKE YOU, I TAKE THE BIBLE SERIOUSLY! Under his first premise, which bemoans biblical ignorance in America, he says, Only six or seven of the Bibles one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way (p. 4). That is misleading on two fronts: (a) there are nowhere near one million verses in the Bible. The exact count is actually just over 31,000! Thats a far cry from one million, and it raises a disturbing issue: If White can be so cavalier, so loose with the data, about the very thing that he says we all need to pay more careful attention to, perhaps he hasnt done his homework as he said he did. (b) Regardless of how many verses there are in the Bible, one cant play games with what it addresses on this issue.
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Fourth, his fourth premise is flawed:
The Bible is a book about Godnot a book about human sexuality (p. 8). Actually, the Bible is a book about Gods relation to human beings and his instructions for how we are to relate to each other. The problem with how White has stated this fourth premise is that he seems to want to say that the Bible doesnt really deal with homosexual behavior as we understand it today. Yet all through his booklet he also argues that the Christian faith is about love for ones neighbor. You cant have it both ways. If the Bible is only a book about God, then why even mention how we should relate to each other? And as for sexuality, I think the Bible speaks very much to this issue. It starts in Genesis by laying out a pattern of behavior that God has designed.
* * *
He goes on to dismiss the Bibles teaching about several things related to marriage and sex. But hes really doing a Cuisinart reading of these texts. By mixing the Old Testament commands with the New Testament commands, hes not wrestling with the progress of revelation or the likelihood that we are no longer under the law. Yet
all of the passages he discusses here (Deut 22.13-21, 22; Mark 10.1-12; Lev 18.19; Mark 12.18-27; Deut 25.11-12) are speaking about OT law (even the ones in Mark). My concern here is not simply over small quibbles. Its over the very thing that White says many Christians are doing incorrectly: carefully reading the Bible. On the one hand, we dont have the right to pick and choose what we want to believe. On the other hand, we need to nuance our faith so that we are in line with progressive revelation, especially the revelation that has come through Gods Son. I take it as axiomatic that Christians are not under the Mosaic Law. The NT gives plenty of evidence to this effect.
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Fifth, the fifth premise also seems a little off:
We miss what these passages say about God when we spend so much time debating what they say about sex (p. 10). Its not an either/or: the Bible is about both God and man, about Gods relation to man, and about human beings relation to one another. Whites treatment of Genesis 1 is simply unconvincing precisely at the key word natural. White argues that some Christians see in Genesis 1 that it is natural for a man and woman to have sex and bear children, and thus some people think this means gay or lesbian couples are unnatural. This is the word that Paul camps on in Romans 1 (though its not used in Genesis 1) as the basis for his proscription against homosexual behavior.
* * *
Sixth, his treatment of Rom 1.26-27 leaves a lot to be desired. He argues that the only people Paul had in view were temple priests and priestesses. It may be true that they were on his radar, but its hardly the whole picture. Further, where does it say that only these folks are in view? Thats an assumption that White brings to the text. Yes, Paul knew of the orgies at the pagan temples, but he also knew of other kinds of perversions. Indeed, drunken orgies in which people experiment with each others bodies is almost surely not the focus of this passage. White assumes that it is, but there is no evidence that Paul is restricting his exegesis to just these folks.
* * *
Pauls indictment against same-sex relations among women first notes that these women
exchanged the
natural sexual relations for that which is
unnatural. The key terms here are in italics. The exchange that these women did was more than a momentary experimentation, which they would revert back from in more sober times. No, its the same exact word that is used in v. 25 for people exchanging the truth of God for a lie. Thats not something done on a whim; its a lifestyle decision, not one you easily retreat from. And the exchange in v. 25 is most important: if the immediate result of exchanging the truth of God for a lie is all sorts of sexual perversion (including heterosexual perversion), then, by definition, Paul is saying that when someone makes the commitment to a homosexual lifestyle (or to a perverted heterosexual lifestyle), this commitment is against the truth of God.
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How well does the standard pro-gay exegesis in Rom 1.26-27 do in this passage? The standard pro-gay view is to see pederasty here. That also is quite unlikely, but at least its more likely than temple priests and priestesses as the only ones in view. Its unlikely because (a) Paul starts by discussing women having sex with women (v. 26), and that was all but unheard of in the ancient world when it came to pederasty; (b) Paul then speaks of men with men, but says that these men abandoned the natural sexual relations with the females.
Abandoned is a strong word, suggesting that this was a lifestyle change. But again, this wont work for pederasty: unmarried nobles would have sex with pre-teen boys, usually slaves, until they got married. Pederasts, thus, abandoned sex with
boys for sex with their wives. Thats just the
opposite of what Paul is describing. But it seems to be similar to what we see today: men who abandon their wives for their homosexual partners. (c) They burned in their own passions for one another. The reciprocal punishment suggests reciprocal responsibility, but this too could not be true of the slave-boys in a forced pederast scenario.
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Others argue that natural (vv. 26, 27) mean natural inclination. (This is implicitly what White argues for, too.) Thus, if a person has a natural
inclination to homosexuality it would be a sin for him to abandon that and go for the unnatural inclination. The only problem with this view is twofold: (a) Paul does not address whether homosexual inclination is even possibly to be considered as a natural
inclination; (b) that which is natural is not inclination at all, but what is
designed. And this gets back to the Genesis record on which Paul so heavily depends for his argument. God
designed men and women to be sexual creatures that would be compatible only with each othernot men with men, not women with women, not humans with animals, etc. Natural thus refers to physical design, not psychological inclination.
* * *
But where I think hes missed the point is that v. 25 explicitly says that people abandoned the truth of God for a lie, and this prompted God to hand them over to homosexual acts.
* * *
The fact is that homosexual infidelity is significantly higher than heterosexual infidelity. For example, in a recent issue of
The Advocate (a pro-gay magazine), 20 percent of those surveyed had had 51-300 different sex partners in their lifetime, with an additional 8 percent having had more than 300.1 But if I were just to speak anecdotally as Smedes has done on this point, I would say that I have known many homosexuals who simply cant reign it in. Their addiction to sex is far worse than that of most heterosexuals.
* * *
In sum, Rom 1.26-27 almost surely is speaking generically about homosexual behavior, and is condemning it absolutely. It is not restricted to temple prostitutes, nor pederasts, nor is it implicitly excusing those with a natural inclination toward homosexuality. The language is very clear that these specifics are not on the horizon. And the basis for the argument, once again, is Genesis 1. Paul in fact uses the language of Genesis 1 to drive this point home: he doesnt say men and women but male and female, words taken directly out of Gen 1.26.
* * *
Seventh, Whites exegesis of 1 Cor 6.9 and 1 Tim 1.10 is, frankly, a whitewash over the real meaning of the text. He speaks of the ambiguity of
malakos and
arsenokoites. But he doesnt mention that
the authoritative lexicon of the NT, known as BDAG, does not speak so ambiguously. This lexicon has about a 120-year history, over which time the scholars putting it together have been able to compile plenty of illustrations for the Greek of the NT. To be sure, there are places where the meaning is quite ambiguous. Because of their scholarly reputation, they do not hesitate to mention doubts about the meaning of a word if there are any. What do they say about these words then? For
arsenokoites they note that it means a man who engages in sexual activity w. a pers. of his own sex. They add pederast as a second meaning, which would depend on the context (viz., if boys were in view rather than adult males). White is correct that this term should not be translated homosexual and that there is no ancient Greek word for homosexual. But that is a far cry from saying that there was no
concept of homosexuality because the Greeks didnt use
just one word for it! That is to make a lexical-conceptual equation that was debunked nearly fifty years ago. To take one example: Eskimos dont have a single word for snow. Does this mean that they dont know what snow is? Rather, precisely because they have multiple words for snow indicates that they were well aware of it, even to understanding it in its various states. The
arsenokoites was the active partner in male sex. The
malakos was the passive partner in such sex acts. BDAG is unequivocal on both of these points. Incidentally, BDAG also notes that
Pauls strictures against same-sex activity cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of alleged temple prostitution
or limited to contract w. boys for homoerotic service.
* * *
Besidesand this is one thing that was never addressed in Whites book:
If fornication is sinthat is, sex outside of marriagewouldnt that equally apply to heterosexual and homosexual relations? If Paul was not talking about homosexual behavior, shouldnt he have sanctioned homosexual marriages? That thought never crossed his mind, nor Jesus, and the silence is almost deafening. Is it really possible that God could have overlooked the needs of millions of homosexuals in the only book that is our final revelation of his will, just so that we could sort out what to do thousands of years later?
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=4494
