Posted on 02/09/2011 3:51:50 PM PST by wmfights
You’re right, of course. I do agree with GeronL, though. As soon as I saw Newsweek, I almost stopped reading.
Yes, it would be very interesting.
Yes, it would be very interesting.
Actually, you don’t need to do much interpreting when it comes to the Bible passages on gay sex. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 says “no....homosexual shall enter the kingdom of God. Straight, direct - so simple even a caveman (or 6 year old) could understand it.
Bear with me here. I am not defending these pro-gay interpretations; but I beg you to become better-equipped for the fight by looking into the actual argument being made.
Here's a website called Gay Christian 101 (Link) Which makes the following argument to support their position that the Corinthians passage does not refer to homosexuality per se:
| "Many modern Christians have embraced false teaching about 1 Corinthians 6:9. They arrive at their false teaching by assuming that the Greek words, malakoi and arsenokoitai mean homosexual. "Of course, there is nothing in the Bible and very little in church history to support their false teaching. In the first century AD, no one would define malakoi to mean homosexual. The Greek word malakoi was rarely, if ever, used in the first century to indicate homosexual men and was never used to indicate lesbians. "In the first century AD, no one would define arsenokoitai to mean homosexual. Historical evidence - the way the arsenokoit stem was actually used in the first century AD - indicates that the arsenokoit stem referred to: Rape Sex with angels or the gods.... "Based on the extant Greek manuscripts available to us today, the Greek word arsenokoites was rarely, if ever, used to indicate homosexual men and was never used to describe lesbians. "Therefore, when someone quotes 1 Corinthians 6:9 or 1 Timothy 1:10 to "prove" that God is against homosexuality, they are conveying nothing more than their opinion, without any basis in fact."
|
Agree with this? No, you don't, and neither do I. But my point is that this is where the argument has gone. These people agree with "Sola Scriptura," "authentic Bible Chirstianity," And all the rest, but are convinced, and argue, that the Biblical words do not apply to such things as "gay marriage," but only to gay rape and angel abuse and the like.
That's the state of the argument now.
And Dr. Mohler is no fool: he knows this. Which is why he has to allude to "how Christians have understood this for 2,000 years." Because the interpretation of Scripture is NOT self-evident, absent the authority of the historic Church.
If someone wants to leave their understanding of Scripture to an apostate church, steeped in paganism, and full of made up "traditions" it won't be long before they are bowing down to men, praying to idols and calling men Father. I'll stick with the rough and tumble arguing with folks from Scripture Alone.
You are missing my point, wmfights. The GayChristian101 site (honestly, now: did you take a look at it?) adopts the POV of Sola Scriptura, and claims that the key Biblical terms "arsenatokoi" and "malakoi" refer not to homosexuality per se, but to rape, boy prostitution, etc.
It's Albert Mohler who makes the excellent point that these terms are not to be defined only in the context of the particular Scriptural examples (the threat to the angelic visitors at Sodom, the boy-prostitution prevalent at Corinth) but in the context of what the Church has said for 2,000 years.
I agree with Mohler here. Your argument isn't with me. It's with Mohler.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2671210/posts?page=47#47
I usually wander off, once I find that someone’s flip-out button has been pushed. It’s too much like real life. “Why did you have to tell Pat he was perspicacious? Now he’ll spend an hour howling!”
Michael Coogan, as far as I can determine, is not a Jesuit. (The article says, trained as a Jesuit ... not the same thing.)
I don't see any evidence that he's a priest of any kind. He's a college professor.
This is absolutely wrong and nothing but a gay attempt to rewrite the NT as was the excerpt you posted by the Gay author. The word used by Paul in 1 Cor. 6 is arsenokoitai which is a word you will not fined in ancient Greek literature other than in the Pauline epistles. It is a Greek take off of the Hebrew word used in Leviticus to describe "sleeping with a man as with a woman". The word literally means "man-bed". It clearly means homosexuality as has been noted by Christian exegetes since the first century. One cannot escape God's dictates by trying to rewrite his word. Of courst the word "homosexual" didn't exist when Paul wrote his epistles because the English language didn't exist yet. But the concept and associated native language words clearly existed at the time.
You are so percipient. Take that!
I’m deeply wounded by your persiflage.
You and I and "Christian exegetes since the first century" are in agreement: arsenokoitai = man-bedding = homosexuality. We would say that Christian moral law forbids sexual contact between two males, two females, or even masturbation (which is the way Martin Luther interpreted it, and I think he was right, too.)
This interpretation is much broader, however, than what one can derive from the word "arsenokoitai." For one thing, we take it to be against lesbianism, too (since lesbianism is included in the definition of homosexuality), but lesbians are obviously not covered by the word "arsenokoitai" (they don't "bed men".) Also that word does not apply against a wife with her husband, since she does "bed a man," but in a way which is entirely honorable, holy, and blessed.
My point here is that the interpretation of this word depends on Christian exegetes from Paul's time onward --- that's a long history of exegesis ---which ought NOT to to be overturned by some novel interpretation that just emerged in the 20th or 21st century.
I honestly as you to look and notice how this Ontario "Religious Tolerance" website (Link) makes a linguistic case that "arsenokoitai" is hopeless ambiguous.
This illustrates why the ipsissimi verbi of the Biblical text cannot be thought to convey the full intended meaning. Only the Church (as you rightly said, "Christian exegetes since the first century") can do that.
Not meant as contumely.
Thank you ladies.
Just you wait til Tax-chick busts loose with something really sesquipedalian!
What defines an "empty marriage"?
One doesn’t need the Church for this interpretation. Romans 1 makes it clear the prohibition against homosexualilty applies to women also. Further, given that Paul created the word arsenokoitai as a take off of the Hebrew word in Leviticus clerly shows what he meant. The Bible interprets itself. All one needs is a bible, a concordance, linguistic books if they don’t speak Greek or Hebrew and lots of hours of study. Certainly consulting the work of other Godly Christian writers is important. But no Church has any special “hotline” to God which gives it special powers of exegesis. Individual indwelling by the Holy Spirit is the only essential spirit.
My aim here is to help arm fellow Christians against the gay exegetes, who also rely on "the Bible, a concordance, study of Greek and Hebrew, consultation with other Christians," and extra-and-specially "individual indwelling by the Holy Spirit," -- and of course they are convinced that their scholarship and their indwelling are as good as yours: better, actually.
I have no doubt that they are wrong, but their error largely rests on their reliance on "their" scholarship and "their" "individual" inspiration, and their rejection of the 20 centuries of Christian scholarship, reflection, discipline and discipleship that preceded them.
"...Has the church misunderstood the Bible’s teachings on sexuality for over two thousand years?...We are only now able to understand what Paul was talking about in Romans 1? The church was wrong for two millennia? "-- Albert Mohler
As Mohler said, the gay exegetes seriously posit that they are right, and the Church has been wrong for 20 centuries.
We, in our lifetime and in our parents' lifetime, have seen many Christian teachers accept divorce, masturbation, and contraception, in stark discontinuity with what "Godly Christian writers", Reformed and Evangelical and Orthodox and Catholic, armed with Biblical proof-texts and principles, had taught for the previous 1900 years. The gay exegetes fit in comfortably with this larger process of church-minimizing and church-discontinuity.
Please understand that I am firmly, urgently, on your side, not theirs.
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