Homosexuality in the Gospels...

[DharmaBum84]

I'm looking for a reference to homosexuality in the Gospels. Can someone point me in the right direction? If there are none, can someone point me to a reference within the New Testament? Thanks in advance!

 

[Edial]

I'm looking for a reference to homosexuality in the Gospels. Can someone point me in the right direction? If there are none, can someone point me to a reference within the New Testament? Thanks in advance!

Sure.
This is what I know.

RO 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Here it does not say "homosexuality", but we know from the Old Testament that homosexuality was what was practiced there.
JUDE 1:7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

1CO 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Thanks,
Ed

 

[MLEN]

Hi,

An additional Sodom and Gomorrah reference: "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly;" (2 Peter 2:6)

Also, the Old Testament says:

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)


God Bless,

 

[ebia]

I'm looking for a reference to homosexuality in the Gospels.

There aren't any direct references. There are references emphasising marrage and chastity, with reference to the Genesis 2 story.

Can someone point me in the right direction? If there are none, can someone point me to a reference within the New Testament? Thanks in advance!

Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6.

In the O.T. you have Leviticus 18 and 20.

(I strongly suggest you read whole chapters in each case rather than the individual verses in isolation.)

N.T. and O.T. References to Sodom and Gomorrah are sometimes quoted but if one goes back and checks the old testament the presenting issue was actually primarily one of rape and lack of hospitality rather than the fact that the rape would have been same-sex in nature. As the Prophet Ezekiel said: "
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. " (A warning Ezekiel is giving to Jerusalem, but one our rich western culture needs to hear badly.)

 

[Edial]

.

 

[ebia]

Discussion between Christians is not permitted in Exploring Christianity. Please note and observe the forum rules.

 

[Edial]

Discussion between Christians is not permitted in Exploring Christianity. Please note and observe the forum rules.

Ha! Mixed up my forums.
I'll delete it. Stand corrected.

Ed

 

[ebia]

Ha! Mixed up my forums.
I'll delete it.

Thanks. Easily done.

 

[DharmaBum84]

There aren't any direct references. There are references emphasising marrage and chastity, with reference to the Genesis 2 story.


Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6.

In the O.T. you have Leviticus 18 and 20.

(I strongly suggest you read whole chapters in each case rather than the individual verses in isolation.)

I've read the Bible in its entirety multiple times. I'm not concerned with Old Testament references. I recently had someone insist to me that homosexuality was referenced in the Gospels, and I thought I might have overlooked it or not remembered it.

So, am I correct in saying that the Epistles of John and Peter are the only the only books that reference homosexuality? And that these references are only to Sodom and Gomorrah?

I know someone mentioned Jude, but most scholars believe that Jude and Peter drew on a common source (and I accept their argument).

ETA: I intended to say the Epistles of Paul, not John.

 

[ebia]

I've read the Bible in its entirety multiple times. I'm not concerned about Old Testament references. I recently had someone insist to me that homosexuality was referenced in the Gospels, and I thought I might have overlooked it or not remembered it.

So, am I correct in saying that the Epistles of John are the only the only books that reference homosexuality? And that these references are only to Sodom and Gomorrah?

The letters to Romans and 1 Corinthians are by Paul and reference same-sex-sex fairly directly.

Jude's letter references Sodom and Gomorrah.

I'm not sure where you got the name John from - John's epistles aren't concerned with this stuff at all.

Beyond that you have support for sex being intended for within marriage based on the Genesis 2 model of a man and a woman, which has implications for the discussion without directly addressing it.

 

[DharmaBum84]

I'm not sure where you got the name John from - John's epistles aren't concerned with this stuff at all.

I mispoke. I meant the Pauline Epistles - the thirteen books in the NT attributed to Paul.

I don't know where I got the name John, either.

 

[DharmaBum84]

In my edition of the Bible, Ro 1:26 has an accompanying annotation: "[While] the Torah forbids a male 'lying with a male as a woman' (Lev 18.22), Paul's Jewish contemporaries criticized a range of sexual behaviors common in the Pagan world. Although widely read today as a reference to homosexuality, the language of unnatural intercourse was more often used in Paul's day to denote not the orientation of sexual desire, but its immoderate indulgence, which was believed to weaken the body (the due penalty)."

(From The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition).

ETA: My edition of the Bible also translates Ro 1:26 differently: "For this reason God gave them 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."

 

[DharmaBum84]

My Bible also translates 1Co 6:9 differently: "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prosititutes, sodomites, theives, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers - none of these will inheret 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 Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."

I also looked up the etymology of "sodomy" and "sodomite" in the OED, and it appears that the term "sodomy" wasn't even used in English until the 13th Century. Does anyone know what language 1Co was originally written in?

 

[DharmaBum84]

Apparently, 1Co was written in Greek. The word that is often translated to "Sodomite" is malakos. Malakos, from what I can gleam, seems to connote pedophila and/or ephebophila, not homosexuality.

 

[ebia]

My Bible also translates 1Co 6:9 differently: "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prosititutes, sodomites, theives, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers - none of these will inheret 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 Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."

I also looked up the etymology of "sodomy" and "sodomite" in the OED, and it appears that the term "sodomy" wasn't even used in English until the 13th Century. Does anyone know what language 1Co was originally written in?

The New Testament was all written in Koine Greek.

One of the words Paul uses there - arsenokoitēs - is a compound word that is pretty much restricted to the couple of times he uses, that literally translates more or less as men-bedders (with bedder very much having connotations of the 'f' word). It is also connected to the word used for men-lying-with-men in Leviticus in the LXX, the ancient translation of the OT into Greek used by Paul and the other NT writers. That's the one NRSV translates (quite badly for the NRSV) sodomite. The other is malakos which literally means soft and tends to denote the effeminate or passive partner in a same-sex relationship and is the word NRSV translates as 'male prostitutes'.