"I'm not interpreting it; that's what it says."

[lawtonfogle]

When the meaning of a statement is clear there is only one valid interpretation.

So a new born (someone who is a 'clean slate') can fully understand it, right?

I don't think so. No matter how clear a passage is, you must understand you own ability to interpret is based off of experience.

The best example I can give you is with sight. No, I am not talking about having it, but about interpreting it.

Here, try this, hold one hand close to your face, hold the other as far from you as you can. Now, are they the same size based off sight alone? Well, at first, no, but you realize the whole concept of 'as distance increases, size decreases'. Guess what, that is not natural. Modern day technology can give sight to some people born blind. If they did the same exercise, they would be completely confused confused because they don't have the ability to abstract sight from a (double) 2D image into one 3D one.

There is a documented case of a man who recently regained sight almost climbing out of a window to get on the ground (he didn't want to use the door because he didn't know how to get out of the hospital). He was a reasonable sane man, though you would have never expected it when you saw him try to crawl out of the window, which happened to be on the 4th floor. While he had depth perception, he didn't know how to interpret it, so he didn't know that the window was high in the air. He just thought that the road and cars (which he had never seen before) were very interesting tiny figures moving about.

We perceive reality though our senses interpreted though our experience. Therefore, the most obvious things (say looking out of a 4th story window and having a rough estimate of how far down it is) are not to those who lack the experiences to interpret the same sensations.

We perceive our experience of reality, we don't actually experience it. Nothing of this world can be assumed, even our very perception of reality. Therefore, how can you say the meaning of a statement is clear?

 

[David Brider]

There is no interpretation of the Bible I know of or have heard of which says a man porking a man is ok. It takes someone with a vivid imagination to interpret that from the Bible.

If you really believe that homosexuality consists of "a man porking a man", then you have an extremely vivid imagination...

David.

 

[lawtonfogle]

If you really believe that homosexuality consists of "a man porking a man", then you have an extremely vivid imagination...

David.

What is 'porking' another human?

I get them image of the one person fattening up another human to slaughter them and sell the meat.


Never said I it was a pretty image.

 

[Polycarp1]

I think this is a very important and valuable thread. It's very easy to quote something out of context and hang a whole prebuilt ideology on it. It's also interesting to see how preconceptions affect what we think "the clear meaning of Scripture" is.

Let's take just one word -- from I Corinthians 6:9. Paul wrote (or, more accurately, dictated) the term arsenokaites there. It's a coined term; the Greeks knew quite well what homosexual activity was and had words for it long before Paul lived. But Paul made up this new term, meaning roughly "man-bedder," for the purpose. (And for the record, there is no instance of anyone using it before Paul, and every use since either is commenting on his writings or alluding to them.) There seems to be fairly good evidence that it was coined to specifically echo the odd "lie the lyings with" phrasing of Leviticus 18:22, tying Paul's comments about sinners who would not inherit the Kingdom back to the O.T. Law.

Some older translations, oddly, render this as "abusers of oneself" -- masturbators. But it probably does mean something to do with same-sex sexual practice. So the modern translation "homosexual offenders" may well be accurate.

But does that mean "gay person" in the modern sense? Remember that Corinth was built on the isthmus connecting the Peloponessus to Attica and the rest of mainland Greece. It was a thriving port city, with harbors on both sides of the isthmus to avoid the long and dangerous sail around the Peloponessus. And like many another port city before and since, it had a seamy underside, with black market deals and prostitution. And that's important here -- boys were enslaved and their sexual services sold to customers; it was a prosperous business which the city fathers turned a blind eye toward (and occasionally used a slaveboy's services themselves, if some scurrilous contemporary accounts are true). There is no doubt in my mind that Paul had this horrendous practice in mind in condemning "man-bedders" -- people who hired and used an adolescent or younger boy for their sexual pleasure.

And in my mind that does not translate into two people with same-sex attraction falling in love.

So the process for the "it's there in black and white" people is: Pick up the Bible. See "homosexual offenders" there in black and white. Translate that in their mind to "all homosexuals." Write a nasty post on CF about people twisting Scripture to justify homosexuality, and found it in part on that verse. And never look at setting or context.

I'd ask those who flag Romans 1:26-27 for the same purposes if they believe that they themselves are as great sinners as those they condemn. Because Paul says exactly that, only six verses later. And the whole purpose of Romans is to demonstrate that everyone is condemned for their sins under the Law, but saved, redeemed, and justified through God's grace mediated through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Which means that no Christian is entitled to judge the sins of another under the Law. "That's there, in black and white, in the text."

But it's so much easier to live the old life of self-excusing and judgmentalism towards others than to actually try to live the new life in Christ. So people prooftext to justify their own prejudices instead.