TLK Valentine
I've already read the books you want burned.
- Apr 15, 2012
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What biblical scholars told you TK that Paul was homosexual? The general consensus is that Paul definitely did not like women. No question about that. However, I have yet to hear any biblical scholar arguer he was homosexual.
Nobody "told" me or anyone else that he was homosexual... but they have considered the possibility and raised the question.
And to say that he didn't like women is something of an understatement. He didn't like himself all that much, and was constantly at war with his own "flesh..." it's enough to cause some less-than-wild speculation.
There are several out there; here's an section from one of my personal favorites, John Shelby Spong:
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/04/Was-The-Apostle-Paul-Gay.aspx
Paul felt tremendous guilt and shame, which produced in him self-loathing. The presence of homosexuality would have created this response among Jewish people in that period of history. Nothing else, in my opinion, could account for Paul's self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body, and his sense of being controlled by something he had no power to change. The war that went on between what he desired with his mind and what he desired with his body, his drivenness to a legalistic religion of control, his fear when that system was threatened, his attitude toward women, his refusal to seek marriage as an outlet for his passion-nothing else accounts for this data as well as the possibility that Paul was a gay male.
Even if you disagree -- and I'm sure you do -- it's worth a read.
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