Let us keep in mind that the word translated as [perverts] is the Greek word arsenokoitai. Right now we should ask, What exactly does this word mean? Often when writing lists, common things are grouped together. Looking closely at 1 Timothy 1:9-10, we can see that there are what I will call structural pairs that are reflected below in the English as well as in the Greekthe original language of the New Testament.
As you will notice there seems to be a relationship between the words in each row. The chart below illustrates that the words in each row are either synonyms or closely related in some manner:
But what about row E? What do immoral persons, sodomites, and kidnappers have in common? To answer this question beyond a shadow of a doubt, we will need to explore the Greek. The three Greek words present in line E are: pornoi (πορνοι
, arsenokoitai (αρσενοκοιται
, and andrapodistai (ανδραποδισται
.
Some commonly read Bible translations include the King James Version (KJV), New International Version (NIV), New King James (NKJ), Revised Standard Version (RSV), and New English Bible (NEB). These words were, respectively, translated in the following manner:
As we see there is no clear-cut agreement as to what these words mean, though the above translations agree on the general sense of such words. To determine the precise meanings, we will use a lexicon. A lexicon is a scholarly dictionary used to determine the meaning of biblical words. A search through the online Greek lexicon available at searchgodsword.org
gives the following information on the Greek term pornos, which is the stem of the word pornoi, the first of the three words:
Pornos derives from the verb pernemi meaning to sell and the following three definitions are given:
1. a male who prostitutes his body to anothers lust for hire
2. a male prostitute
3. a male who indulges in unlawful sexual intercourse, a fornicator
Andrapodistes, the stem of the word Andrapodistai, the third word, returns the following definitions:
1. slave-dealer, kidnapper, man-stealer
a. of one who unjustly reduces free males to slavery
b. of one who steals the slaves of others and sells them.
Arsenokoitai, as previously indicated, is made up of the Greek words for male (arseno-) and beds (koitai). In Greek, the word koitai, literally meaning beds, is commonly used as a euphemism for one who has sex. Arseno- is an adjectival prefix, thus literally we could translate this as a man who has sex or male bedder.
We have, first of all, a male prostitute, the male-bedder (arsenokoitai), and the slave dealer. The New American Bible, a version authorized by the Roman Catholic Church, offers a footnote that might shed some light on the historical context of the time:
The Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology this was the function of Ganymede, the "cupbearer of the gods," whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated Sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys. (New American Bible)
It was a common practice in that men of Pauls time would have slave pet boys whom they sexually exploited. Dr. Ralph Blair explains, The desired boys were prepubescent or at least without beards so that they seemed like females. Today, this practice is referred to as pederasty. Regardless, we know the pornos is a prostitute.
Keeping this in mind, lets look back at what we have so far: the enslaved male prostitute, the male-bedder (arsenokoitai), and the slave dealer. This contextual dynamic leads one to understand arsenokoitai as being the one who sleeps with the prostitutethe man who literally lies on the bed with him. It is as if Paul were saying, male prostitutes, males who lie [with them], and slave dealers [who procure them]. Not only does the syntactical and historical context point to this understanding, but also the very literal sense of the word arsenokoitai itself: male bed.
