From sysadmin Mon Sep 5 12:02:24 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA35776; Mon, 5 Sep 1994 12:02:18 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa07564; 5 Sep 94 11:53 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa07560; 5 Sep 94 11:51 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id LAA09617; Mon, 5 Sep 1994 11:51:22 -0400 Date: Mon, 5 Sep 1994 10:58:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: arsenoikoites To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO BAG give related words: arsenikos, arsenokoitein, with an important but dated reference to D.S. Bailey. The translation, "a male who practices homosexuality, pederast, sodomite" is not much better than Liddell & Scott's ("sodomite"), but L&S provide a much greater wealth of references for all arsen- compounds, including those that might be considered semantically related to arsenokoites, under the Attic arren-: arrenomanes "mad after males (of men)", arrenomiktes "arrenokoites", arrenomixia "sodomy", arrenopiptes "one who looks lewdly on males", arrenothelus "hermaphrodite, of both sexes". Larry Hurtado is right that L&S 9th ed. w/supplement 1968 is dated, but only in needing updated additions. Dan McDonald points out that L&S is "primarily a classical lexicon" but one should notice, for example, that in the above entries there was at least one 11th century A.D. reference! The important thing, for a scholar looking at a controversial word, is to LOOK UP the sources referenced in L&S or BAG and verify the contextual meanings so that you can eliminate any bias in the dictionary (and, naturally, insert your own :). Nigel Turner's words are not very useful: "It is, however, important to recollect that when we are examing words in any given environment we need above all to be aware of the system of thought that lies behind their use -- in our case, the Christian system of thought." After all, the Christian system of "thought" is unavailable for examination except as *text* in words or physical remains; there is nothing "behind" them since they are all that there is. Interpretation is the unavoidable task. Some main scholarship on arsenokoites is: Boswell, J. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. (Chicago, U of Chicago P, 1980). The original statement by Boswell. Boswell, J. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. (New York: Villard, 1994). Pp. 219-220 n4 contains a brief rebuttal to some of the criticisms below. W. L. Peterson, "Can ARSENOKOITAI be Translated by 'Homosexuals'?", Vigiliae Christianae 40 (1986), 187-91. W. L. Peterson, "On the Study of 'Homosexuality' in Patristic Sources," Studia Patristica 20 (1989), 283-88. R. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia, 1983). J. Wright, "Homosexuals or Prostitutes: The Meaning of ARSENOKOITAI [1 Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10], Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984), 125-53. And after all that, I'm still up to a look at Leviticus 18! We can discuss it here because the LXX/Septuagint is a fairly literal rendering of the Hebrew: Lev. 18:22 Kai meta arsenos ou koimEthEsE koitEn gunaikos. The first thing you should notice is the absence of the phrase "... man... as with a woman" usual in most English translations. The KJV "mankind...womankind"and many other English translations rendering it "man...woman" do not do justice to the contrastive pairs emphasized in the NRSV. In Greek, they are: arsEN (male) vs. thElus (female) and anEr (man/husband) vs. gunE (woman/wife) The word koitE often renders "marriage bed." It is unmistakeable that Lev. 18:22 is contrasting the use of "arsenos" (not andros) with that of "gunaikos" (not thElus). It is forbidding a husband to sleep with a *male* on the bed of his wife, a specification of adultery, not a general condemnation of homosexual behavior. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Mon Sep 5 20:42:14 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id UAA35646; Mon, 5 Sep 1994 20:42:13 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa09367; 5 Sep 94 20:33 EDT Received: from feenix.metronet.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa09361; 5 Sep 94 20:32 EDT Received: by metronet.com id AA25974 (5.67a/IDA1.5hp); Mon, 5 Sep 1994 19:31:38 -0500 Date: Mon, 5 Sep 1994 19:08:09 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Lipsey Subject: Re: arsenoikoites To: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Mon, 5 Sep 1994, Gregory Jordan (ENG) wrote: > BAG give related words: arsenikos, arsenokoitein, with an important but > dated reference to D.S. Bailey. The translation, "a male who practices > homosexuality, pederast, sodomite" is not much better than Liddell & > Scott's ("sodomite"), but L&S provide a much greater wealth of > references for all arsen- compounds, including those that might be > considered semantically related to arsenokoites, under the Attic arren-: > arrenomanes "mad after males (of men)", arrenomiktes "arrenokoites", > arrenomixia "sodomy", arrenopiptes "one who looks lewdly on males", > arrenothelus "hermaphrodite, of both sexes". Larry Hurtado is right that > L&S 9th ed. w/supplement 1968 is dated, but only in needing updated > additions. Dan McDonald points out that L&S is "primarily a classical > lexicon" but one should notice, for example, that in the above entries > there was at least one 11th century A.D. reference! First of all, are you claiming that BAG is also a "dated" source? Second, I did not see any reference to Louw and Nida's lexicon. Is it too dated (tongue in cheek, of course!) Thirdly, you mention the need of seeking original sources, yet I did not notice any original sources collaborating your severely flawed presupposition. > > Boswell, J. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. (Chicago, > U of Chicago P, 1980). The original statement by Boswell. > > Boswell, J. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. (New York: Villard, > 1994). Pp. 219-220 n4 contains a brief rebuttal to some of the criticisms > below. > > J. Wright, "Homosexuals or Prostitutes: The Meaning of ARSENOKOITAI [1 > Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10], Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984), 125-53. > Fourthly, and I do not intend to be crass, but I denote an incredible amount of bias here. Does "usf" in your address stand for "University of San Francisco?" Do not be mistaken, I understand the genetic fallacy in argument, however, I cannot come to any other conclusion based on your total neglect to proper scholarship than to assume that you have either been effected by presuppositional (and unfounded) arguments of the homosexual community, or you are indeed a homosexual. If it is the latter of the two, I indeed pray for you. I can then see that your poor scholarship is accounted for by an attempt to justify an unjustifyable sin (apart from the sacrifice of Christ and the natural repentance that follows.) Do not even think of addressing me as a "homophobic" either. I, by the actions of Christ, have learned to love the repentant sinner, yet the sin. The following demonstrates how a growing number of the uneducated (or "dumbed down") populace have fallen to the word games of homosexual community: > > > The word koitE often renders "marriage bed." It is unmistakeable that > Lev. 18:22 is contrasting the use of "arsenos" (not andros) with that of > "gunaikos" (not thElus). It is forbidding a husband to sleep with a > *male* on the bed of his wife, a specification of adultery, not a general > condemnation of homosexual behavior. > This is nothing short of nonsense! To those reading on in disbelief, as if I am being intolerant, the stakes are high. If the Bible and/or God detests and convicts the act of homosexuality (and all who study it honestly must attest both do), and then we as Christians accept homosexuality as a decent act; we have done none other than to deny God's word and have allowed all the more people to join into this damning (and I do not take that word lightly) sin. PLEASE, let us not give into this onslaught of intellectual suicide. Have compassion for those wanting to make a change for Christ, but for the sake of our sons and daughters, do not give ground and turn from the words of our Lord! Michael Lipsey (lipsey@metronet.com) Head of the Apologetics Dept. (Tyndale Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth) From sysadmin Tue Sep 6 11:51:23 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id LAA20707; Tue, 6 Sep 1994 11:51:18 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa29599; 6 Sep 94 11:40 EDT Received: from uu3.psi.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa29568; 6 Sep 94 11:39 EDT Received: from iclink.UUCP by uu3.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA07432 for ; Tue, 6 Sep 94 11:15:08 -0400 Received: from ropes.reston.icl.com by iclink.reston.icl.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA00883 for b-greek@virginia.edu; Tue, 6 Sep 94 09:44:22 EDT Received: by ropes.reston.icl.com (4.1/smail2.5/01-31-90) id AA20069; Tue, 6 Sep 94 09:40:00 EDT From: Stephen Carlson Message-Id: <9409061340.AA20069@ropes.reston.icl.com> Subject: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Tue, 6 Sep 94 9:40:00 EDT In-Reply-To: <9409022143.AA28735@prodpyr1.us.oracle.com>; from "MADAVIDS.US.ORACLE.COM" at Sep 2, 94 2:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO > I would be interested in reading your critique of John Boswell's book. > Actually, I would be interested in reading ANY critique of John Boswell's > book. I've seen excerpts floating around on mailing list in which the > paraphraser uses Boswell to refute both OT and NT prohibitions against > homosexual activity. I don't see how one can get around Leviticus 18 (you > shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination) but perhaps > that's a question for the b-hebrew list. > > I am willing to approach this topic with an open mind; to that affect, I would > be interested in reading any available critiques of Boswell's work. > Suggestions? What I have prepared (see attached) is a critique of Boswell's analysis of the term 'arsenokoites' not his entire book. Boswell's technique of getting around Leviticus 18 is to assert that it is the part of the Old Mosaic Law that no longer applies to Christians. At this point, the meaning of arseno- koites becomes crucial because 1Co6:9 may allude to and renew this specific Levitical prohibition. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boswell's Analysis of 'Arsenokoite:s' in 1Co6:19 and 1Ti1:10 One controversial statement from Boswell's seminal book, CHRISTIANITY, SOCIAL TOLERANCE & HOMOSEXUALITY (1980), is that the term 'arsenokoite:s' in 1Co6:19 and 1Ti1:10 means a male prostitute rather than a homosexual as it commonly translated. While this could have remained a rather arcane point among scholars, its doctrinal implications make this quite relevant today. Before going into Boswell's analysis, I would like to address some methodological considerations. Determining what a word means in a particular context is quite tricky. Words change meaning over time, and the author may use a metaphorically, idiosyncratically, or with a specialized meaning as jargon. Thus, when considering the meaning of a word, the closer the evidence is to the word's context--textually, culturally, and chronologically--the stronger that evidence will be. The New Testament was written in the Koine Greek dialect for a Hellenized Jewish/Christian community in the first century. This cultural and chronological context plays a strong role in investigating the meaning of a word in the New Testament. The best evidence is the textual context of the word itself within the document's literary genre. Next in strength is the author's other uses of the term. After this, that word's usage throughout the rest of the New Testament becomes important. Since the early Hellenistic Christian community relied on the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint (LXX) is also very important. At this point, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, or Patristics, of the next few generations after the Apostles become relevant. After that, the word's usage by the contemporary Hellenized Jews, Philo and Josephus, can be considered. Evidence by pagans in the Hellenistic world comes after that. Among the last of the kinds of evidence to be considered is the word's meaning in earlier Attic Greek dialect and in the later Byzantine Greek dialect. Words change meaning over time and culture so one must be careful with the extra-dialectal evidence. There are two additional means of analysis which one must use at one's peril. The first is an etymological argument that analyzes how the word is constituted. This is difficult because a word may have changed meaning since it was created, and there is also the problem of knowing the meaning of the constituent parts at the time of creation. For example, the English words, "pioneer," "pawn," and "peon" have the same etymon, Medieval Latin, "pedo," a foot soldier, but that is not useful in determining the meaning of those three words. The second argument is the argument from silence, and it is even more problematical. Obviously, it cannot indicate a word's meaning but only give some inference about what it might not mean. For this to be at its most effectiveness, there has to be evidence that an author would have used it but chose not to. The rarer the word in the word in question is the more the argument from silence has to contend with the author's not knowing what it meant or how to use it. Unfortunately, Boswell only gives a cursory treatment of the most relevant information, generally in footnotes and parantheticals, but spends a much greater portion of his analysis on the least probative--the etymology and silence. As a result, his analysis is weak and unpersuasive and his conclusion unlikely. The relevant New Testament verses are: 9 . . . Be not deceived: neither fornicators [pornoi], nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [malakoi], nor abusers of themselves with mankind [arsenokoitai], 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. [1Co6:9-10 (KJV)] 9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for the righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and for murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 for whoremongers [pornois], for them that defile themselves with mankind [arsenokoitais], for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. [1Ti1:9-10 (KJV)] Boswell first tries to plant the suggestion that 'arsenokoite:s' is about prostitution. He only makes the most minimal examination of its context, by noting that 'arsenokoite:s' appears next to 'pornos' meaning whore, or fornicator in 1Ti1:10, and that Paul talks about prostitution a lot. [Boswell at 341.] Whatever the initial strength of his point is, it must be attenuated by the fact that 'arsenokoite:s' follows 'malakos' in 1Co6:9, not 'pornos.' Since 'malakos' is commonly taken to mean a catamite, a pederast's boy partner, the juxtaposition of 'malakos' and 'arsenokoite:s' in 1Co6:9 better favors the conclusion that 'arsenokoite:s' means a homosexual, possibly the one who takes the "active" role. In addition, the Greek word 'pornos' itself has connotations of male prostitution, as in Xenophon for example. The use of 'pornos' in the masculine plural would encompass both male and female prostitutes. While 'pornos' is commonly generalized in the New Testament to all sexually immoral people, the context of 1Co6:9 suggests that prostitution is covered by 'pornos' not 'arsenokoite:s'. Paul probably was keying off of the first item in his list when he illustrated it with an example a man going to a prostitute [1Co6:15-16]. Thus, while it true that 'pornos' in both lists does bring in a context of prostitution, it actually cuts against Boswell's analysis. Paul does not repeat any other vice in the list, so it is quite unlikely that he was being redundant in this case. >From the 1 Corinthians passage one can no more conclude that the 'arseno- koitai' are male prostitutes than that the idolators, or even the drunkards and revilers are. The 1 Timothy passage is more interesting-- the 'arsenokoitai' are law breakers. The Mosaic law certainly prohibited active homosexuality [Lv18:22 and 20:13] but is less clear about prostitution. Dt23:17 seems, as most commentators agree, to be more about temple cult prostitution than prostitution per se, and Lv19:29 is not about male prostitution but pandering one's daughters. Therefore, the immediate context of the New Testament attestations of 'arsenokoite:s' better suggests an engager in homosexual activity than Boswell's denotation of an active sexual agent of any orientation. Boswell's next argument is etymological, which is one of the weakest. Since Paul is one of the first to ever use the term, the strength of the analysis relies on the meaning of the first part, the meaning of the second part, and the meaning the whole. [See generally, Goodwin, A GREEK GRAMMAR 191-95 (1968)] Furthermore, a coined word might allude to another context. Boswell is correct only for the meaning of the first part (viz. that arseno- means male) and ignores a possible provenance of the word. Much of the strength of Boswell's conclusion that 'arsenokoitai' means "male sexual agent, i.e., active male prostitutes" [Boswell at 344] relies on a one sentence analysis of the second part: "The second half of the compound, 'koitai,' is a coarse word, generally denoting base or licentious sexual activities (see Rom. 13:13), and in this and other compounds corresponds to the vulgar English word 'fucker,' i.e., a person who, by insertion, takes the 'active' role in intercourse." [Boswell at 342.] Boswell's undocumented assertion misrepresents the meaning. 'Koitai' is best understood as a euphemism for sexual activity. While Paul certainly uses it in the plural in Ro13:13 to describe "chambering" (KJV) or "debauchery" (NIV), that is the most vulgar the term ever gets. Paul also uses it to describe how "our father Isaac" conceived both of Rebecca's children [Ro9:10]. Luke uses it quite neutrally to describe a bed. [Lk11:7 "my children are with me in bed" (KJV)]. The final use of this term in the New Testment can hardly be *less* vulgar: "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed [koite:n] undefiled . . . ." [Heb13:4 (KJV)]. Thus, one can see that Paul uses it generally as a euphemism for sexual intercourse, which is also how the Septuagint uses it, especially in Lv18:22 and 20:13. A better translation for 'koitai' with the same degree of vulgarity is something like the English word "bedder." The first part of the word 'arsenokoite:s' is simply "male," as Boswell recognizes, so a rough English calque could be something like "male- bedder." Greek compounds, like English, can be either objective (and thus would mean "someone who beds males") or determinative ("a male who beds"). While Boswell spends the next three pages arguing for the latter, the choice for the former is obvious. If a Greek writer wanted to refer to a male actor, the masculine grammatical gender is enough to make his point, unless it is something only women do. Although Boswell does provide examples of the prefix 'arseno-' in determinative compounds ('arsenomorphos' = of masculine form; 'arsenogene:s' = (born a) male; 'arsenothumos' = man-minded; and 'arsenwma' = seed of the male), they are not germane because none of these examples are for male actors or activities involving male actors. There are plenty of other words with the 'arseno-' prefix (or in its Attic form, 'arreno-') which use it in objective compounds for actors or actions, such as: 'arrenogamew' = to marry men, 'arrenogonew' = to bear male children, 'arrenokoite:s' (Attic form) = a sodomite, 'arrenokuew' = to bear male children, 'arrenomane:s' = mad after males, 'arrenomikte:s' ~ 'arsenomikte:s' = sodomite, 'arrenomixia' = sodomy, 'arrenoomai' = to become a man, and 'arrenopipe:s' = one who looks lewdly on males. [See Liddel, Scott & Jones] Boswell's explanation that the 'arreno-' form is for objective compounds but that 'arseno-' prefix is for determinative compounds is bizarre. It ignores that the difference is merely one of dialect; it ignores that the same word appears in both dialectal forms (arsenokoite:s ~ arrenokoite:s and arrenomikte:s ~ arsenomikte:s); and that there exists a word with 'arseno-' that is in an objective compound (arsenobat:es, paedicator = pederast [LS&J suppl.]). Generally, the prefix in either form is used make a sexual distinction, and this prefix is used several times for compounds relating to sodomy or homosexuality. Even though Boswell recognizes that his proposed distinction has "not been carefully examined," [Boswell at 343] he hangs his entire analysis on this flimsy nail. Also, Boswell tries to side-step the embarrassing existence of 'arreno- koitas' in a Byzantine inscription in a confusing footnote. [Boswell at 344 n.22]. He wrongly assumes that 'arrenas' cannot be used as an adjective (attested by Aristotle among others [see LS&J]), and does not consider that it could be used in apposition. In any event, the inscription is directed against the Arabs, who were accused of being sodomites according to the footnote in the Loeb Classical Edition. In any event, Boswell never mentioned the most obvious source for compound word, 'arsenokoit:es' in the first place: Lv20:13. The Septuagint translates that verse, which imposed the death penalty for acts of homosexuality, as follows: "Kai hos an koime:the: meta ARSENOS KOITE:N gunaikos, bdelugma epoie:san amphoteroi; thanatousthwsan, enoichoi eisin" [Lv20:13 (LXX) (emphasis added), see Boswell at 100 n.28] Not only are both parts of the compound used in the Septuagint translation, but they are juxtaposed in the exact same order. Paul has simply used (or even coined) a word that strongly alludes to the Levitical verse. Moreover, this is not a technique unknown to Paul. In 2Co6:14, Paul coopted the compound 'heterozugountes' which normally meant "mismatched" in the Greek world to allude to Lv19:19 and all of its connotations in being "unequally yoked." [See Bauer, Gingrich & Arndt's] Similarly, Paul probably used 'arsenokoite:s' to pick up both the genericity of the the activity (a man lying with a man as with a woman) and its accompanying moral condemnation. Boswell's next six pages are an argument from silence and a complete waste of time. The word is rarely used, and its facial meaning of "men-bedders" may have been judged too weak or obscure by later writers, so it is hard to conclude much from this silence. His argument from silence can also cut the other way, as an argument *against* it meaning a male prostitute, because no one chose to employ it in that context either. Boswell's treatment of the Patristic evidence is very brief. He dismisses For example, he dismisses Polycarp's Epistle to the Philipians (PPhp) (early 2d cen.) by asserting that it provides no context. [Boswell at 350 n.42]. Some additional information, however, can still be gleaned from the passage. After setting out the high moral standards of the deacons [PPhp 5:2], Polycarp says that "[l]ikewise also let the younger men be blameless in all things," and avoid "every lust." [v3] Then Polycarp quotes from 1Co6:9 three kinds of people who will not enter the Kingdom of God: the fornicators [pornoi], the effeminate [malakoi], and the sodomites [arsenokoitai]. Polycarp clearly tailored Paul's list for his concern of young unmarried men, because he omitted adulterers from the list. If Polycarp understood 'arsenokoitai' to refer to male prostitutes, it makes little sense that he would ignore two main reasons for engaging in it: the religious reasons, for which the idolaters would also be appropriate, or perhaps for money, for which the covetous would also be mentioned. As scanty as the Patristic evidence is, it nonetheless tends to refute Boswell's interpretation of the term 'arsenokoite:s'. The rest of Boswell's analysis is a discussion of the later Byzantine usage of the term. From a methodological standpoint, this evidence is not all that probative, because words can change meaning over time. In fact, this appears to be the case: after the word dropped out of use for some time, it was brought back to mean "anal intercourse," similar to the sense development of the English word "sodomy." This later meaning makes more sense if the term originally related to homosexuality rather than prostitution. Often the evidence about a word's meaning in a certain context is not conclusive but merely indicative. When the best and strongest evidence consistently points to the same conclusion, however, we can become more confident. In this case, the immediate context of the word 'arsenokoite:s', all throughout the New Testament, its Septuagint parallels, and its usage among the Apostolic Fathers, like Polycarp, all point to a meaning of a homosexual and not a male prostitute. Boswell's general argument, apart from a facile consideration of the context, relies too much on the argument from silence and an egregious etymological analysis. Whatever one thinks of the residual uncertainty in concluding that 'arsenokoite:s' means a homosexual, one can say that this sense is *much* more probable than Boswell's. Stephen Carlson -- Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc. scc@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr. (703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA From sysadmin Tue Sep 6 11:08:25 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id LAA20115; Tue, 6 Sep 1994 11:08:23 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20293; 6 Sep 94 11:00 EDT Received: from mail02.prod.aol.net by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20289; 6 Sep 94 10:59 EDT Received: by mail02.prod.aol.net (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA25375; Tue, 6 Sep 1994 10:59:10 -0400 From: Dvdmoore@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Dvdmoore Message-Id: <9409061059.tn383517@aol.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Tue, 06 Sep 94 10:59:09 EDT Subject: Re: Lev. 18:22 (LXX) Status: RO jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu (Greg Jordan) writes: >The word koitE often renders "marriage bed." It is unmistakeable that >Lev. 18:22 is contrasting the use of "arsenos" (not andros) with that of >"gunaikos" (not thElus). It is forbidding a husband to sleep with a >*male* on the bed of his wife, a specification of adultery, not a general >condemnation of homosexual behavior. The word KOITH is also often used euphemistically for sexual intercourse. This is most assuredly its use in this passage. The Hebrew underlying KOITHN is a *plural* noun in the construct state. The use of the plural where it would not be expected suggests an idiomatic expression. There are three examples of this expression in the Hebrew Bible: the text under discussion (Lev. 18:22), Lev. 20:13 which is parallel to the former and Gen 49:4. The reference in Genisis is undoubtedly to sexual intercourse since it refers to Reuben's laying with his father's concubine (Gen. 35:22). It is logical to believe that an idiomatic expression of this sort has a like meaning in the other two passages mentioned. The idea that this passage should be limited to adultery by homosexual activity rather than to homosexual behavior in general is to be rejected. There is no clear indication that it is anything but a general statement. Any idea of adultery must be read into it without any substancial support from the text itself. Although GUNH, which means "woman," may be used for "wife," normally one would expect to see clear indications in the text if the meaning were "wife," either by a context that demands such an understanding or by a genitive refering to a husband or by the use of the article make the reference specific. If one will peruse the instances of "wife" in the OT and look at the contexts and the underlying Hebrew one finds a similar situation. For invariably the context specifies the relationship, where there is not a construct-state noun or a pronoun suffix to make the the husband-wife relationship clear. We may get an idea of the general meaning of GUNH in Lev. 18:22 by comparing it to the correponding part of the expression in Gen. 49:4. In the latter we have KOITHN TOU PATROS SOU indicating that Reuben had introduced himself into a sexual relationship that properly belonged to his father (note both the article and the second-person posessive pronoun). In the case of Lev. 18:22 (and also 20:13) we have simply KOITHN GUNAIKOS. If the meaning had to do with a sexual relationship that properly belonged to the man's *wife*, we would expect to find THS GUNAIKOS AUTOU or something of the sort. Since GUNAIKOS is both anarthrous here and also lacks any modifying pronoun, the most natural way to understand it is to assign it a general sense. The use of ARSHN in place of ANHR and the use of GUNH in stead of QHLUS are not of enough significance to affect the meaning here, and these coices of synonyms certainly do not, in and of themselves, imply a marriage relationship. Nevertheless, assigning a meaning to Lev. 18:22 does pose somewhat of a problem because of the idiomatic nature of the expression corresponding to KOITHN GUNAIKOS. It would appear, however, that the essential meaning is that you shall not lie with a man as in the sexual relationship one might have with a woman. David Moore From sysadmin Tue Sep 6 12:42:59 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA25487; Tue, 6 Sep 1994 12:42:57 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa09466; 6 Sep 94 12:28 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa09457; 6 Sep 94 12:27 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id MAA01315; Tue, 6 Sep 1994 12:27:06 -0400 Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994 12:03:49 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Lev. 18:22 (LXX) To: Dvdmoore@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409061059.tn383517@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Tue, 6 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > The word KOITH is also often used euphemistically for sexual intercourse. > This is most assuredly its use in this passage. The Hebrew underlying > KOITHN is a *plural* noun in the construct state. The use of the plural > where it would not be expected suggests an idiomatic expression. There are > three examples of this expression in the Hebrew Bible: the text under > discussion (Lev. 18:22), Lev. 20:13 which is parallel to the former and Gen > 49:4. The reference in Genisis is undoubtedly to sexual intercourse since it > refers to Reuben's laying with his father's concubine (Gen. 35:22). It is > logical to believe that an idiomatic expression of this sort has a like > meaning in the other two passages mentioned. I was not under the impression that I had implied that Lev 18:22 was not about sex. What else happens in a marriage bed, except sex? The point is, that here and elsewhere the idiom using beds, combined with the distinguishing choice of word for "wife" contrasted with "male", implies a marriage situation. Adultery and fornication, naturally, can happen elsewhere: say, under Gary Collier's tree; so this may be the thinking behind the idiom. The use of gunE throughout Lev 18 can be read as "wife" quite consistently, especially since many English translations assume licit and illicit marriages and threats to marriages are being systematically dealt with here. > from the text itself. Although GUNH, which means "woman," may be used for > "wife," normally one would expect to see clear indications in the text if the > meaning were "wife," either by a context that demands such an understanding > or by a genitive refering to a husband or by the use of the article make the > reference specific. If one will peruse the instances of "wife" in the OT and > look at the contexts and the underlying Hebrew one finds a similar situation. > For invariably the context specifies the relationship, where there is not a > construct-state noun or a pronoun suffix to make the the husband-wife > relationship clear. > > We may get an idea of the general meaning of GUNH in Lev. 18:22 by comparing > it to the correponding part of the expression in Gen. 49:4. In the latter we > have KOITHN TOU PATROS SOU indicating that Reuben had introduced himself into > a sexual relationship that properly belonged to his father (note both the > article and the second-person posessive pronoun). In the case of Lev. 18:22 > (and also 20:13) we have simply KOITHN GUNAIKOS. If the meaning had to do > with a sexual relationship that properly belonged to the man's *wife*, we > would expect to find THS GUNAIKOS AUTOU or something of the sort. Since > GUNAIKOS is both anarthrous here and also lacks any modifying pronoun, the > most natural way to understand it is to assign it a general sense. I suppose you realize the difference between Lev 18:22 and the passage in Genesis you mentioned. Leviticus 18 is part of a legal code, addressed to all males, not any specific male. Although in English we might say 'a husband will not cheat on *his* wife', say, there is no reason to assume that the Hebrew rendering, and the LXX which follows it slavishly, is anything other than a reflection of a general prohibition, say, something like 'a husband will not cheat on a wife' with "his" implied as usual. > The use of ARSHN in place of ANHR and the use of GUNH in stead of QHLUS are > not of enough significance to affect the meaning here, and these coices of > synonyms certainly do not, in and of themselves, imply a marriage > relationship. First of all, if they are exact synonyms, then why is the LXX so careful to render them with the correct choice from semantic pairs in Greek corresponding to the Hebrew ones? Lev 18:22 reads "V'et zakhar lo tishkav mishkevey issha." Notice the contrast: ish (man/husband) vs. issha (woman/wife) [cf. Gk anHr/gunE] and zakhar (male) vs. nekeva (female) [cf. Gk arsEn/thElus] The LXX keeps the distinction carefully, following the Hebrew in this passage. The distinction is however abandoned in the Latin, which had less of a distinct set of pairs, in the Vulgate: "cum masculo non commiscearis coitu femineo". The pairs mas/femina and vir/mulier are not as distinct in regards to marriage in Latin (mas, e.g., can mean a husband); but perhaps here we can see the incipient trend to making the passage fit a heterosexist/homophobic agenda not found in the original. > Nevertheless, assigning a meaning to Lev. 18:22 does pose somewhat of a > problem because of the idiomatic nature of the expression corresponding to > KOITHN GUNAIKOS. It would appear, however, that the essential meaning is > that you shall not lie with a man as in the sexual relationship one might > have with a woman. > > David Moore If the Greek, or Hebrew, text had wanted to say "one shall not lie with a man/male as with a woman/female" it certainly could have: something like "meta arsenos ou koimEthEsE hOs meta thElus / meta andros ou koimEthEsE hOs meta gunaikos", or in Hebrew "et zakhar lo tishkav mishkevey kaasher et nekeva / et ish lo tishkav mishkevey kaasher et issha" [not sure about my grammar, but you get the picture], but neither the Greek nor the Hebrew say this. It is much easier to assume that the English translators inserted their own cultural differences, including a different and special bigotry, when they set about translating this passage. This has already been abundantly pointed out in the use of the "abomination" accompanying this verse. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Wed Sep 7 10:03:33 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id KAA30582; Wed, 7 Sep 1994 10:03:32 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa16846; 7 Sep 94 9:56 EDT Received: from mail02.prod.aol.net by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa16837; 7 Sep 94 9:53 EDT Received: by mail02.prod.aol.net (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA03373; Wed, 7 Sep 1994 09:53:58 -0400 From: Dvdmoore@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Dvdmoore Message-Id: <9409070953.tn456463@aol.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Wed, 07 Sep 94 09:53:56 EDT Subject: Re: Lev. 18:22 (LXX) Status: RO jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu (Greg Jordan) writes: >If the Greek, or Hebrew, text [in Lev. 18:22] had wanted to say "one shall >not lie with a >man/male as with a woman/female" it certainly could have: something like >"meta arsenos ou koimEthEsE hOs meta thElus / meta andros ou koimEthEsE >hOs meta gunaikos", or in Hebrew "et zakhar lo tishkav mishkevey kaasher >et nekeva / et ish lo tishkav mishkevey kaasher et issha" [not sure about >my grammar, but you get the picture], but neither the Greek nor the >Hebrew say this. It is much easier to assume that the English >translators inserted their own cultural differences, including a >different and special bigotry, when they set about translating this >passage. This has already been abundantly pointed out in the use of the >"abomination" accompanying this verse. It is sometimes difficult to know why the biblical text expresses something one way rather than another. Apparently, the writers employed their language with an almost complete lack of concern for twentieth-century exegetes who would have to puzzle over their idiomatic expressions more than three millenia hence. :) Seriously, the Hebrew writers of the OT have an affinity for idiomatic and forceful, energetic modes of expression. Especially when speaking of matters related to sex, euphemism and idiomatic speech is the rule rather than the exception. So it is not appropriate to say that if they had wanted to say this or that, they would have spoken more directly. You may find it "much easier to assume that the English translators inserted their own cultural differences, including a different and special bigotry, when they set about translating this passage." But that really does not seem to be the case. If GUNH were to be translated "wife" here as you suggest the dilema would arise of whose wife the text is referring to - the wife of the man addressed in Lev. 18:22 or the wife of the man with whom he lies. In such a case, the meaning of the passage would be equivocal and undefined. And only the addition of a second-person genitive pronoun (in case of its referring to the wife of the man addressed) or the third-person genitive pronoun (in case of the wife of the man with whom he lies) would clarify enough to make such a construction intelligible. If, of course, the reference is general, then we are back to what is really the only logical interpretation of this passage - a general prohibition to lying with a man as one might lie with a woman. About your implication of bias and bigotry in those who translate this passage as I have: well, I try not to come to the text with a preconceived idea of what it ought to say. Frankly, I have been amazed at some of the interpretations I have recently seen given to passages dealing with homosexual practice. In my opinion, there is a consistent thought pattern behind interpretations that avoid the conclusion that the Bible calls homosexual activity sinful. The thinking goes something like this: Some people are naturally inclined to a sexual interest in people of their own sex. Since they are naturally inclined to this, it cannot be bad. Therefore the Bible, in its references to homosexual practice, must not be qualifying it as sin. I believe such reasoning is flawed. Every one of us has natural inclinations to activities the Bible calls sinful. Some are especially tempted in one area, others in another. But just as the adulterer cannot justify his sinful actions by saying that he has a stronger sex drive than other men, the homosexual is not justified by arguments based on a homosexual nature or on homosexual attraction. You imply that I am biased against people involved in homosexuality. I respond that I see them as I see others involved in sin - with the same kinds of problems that sin brings and with the same hope of freedom and redemption from sin through faith in Christ. If I were to acceed to incorrect exegesis so as to not burden certain persons with the Bible's condemnation of their homosexual lifestyle, I would be doing them an injustice. I would be shutting the door for them to the way out of sin. I don't want to do that; Christ opened the door to forgiveness and salvation by His death on the cross. That door should not be closed to anyone. David Moore From sysadmin Wed Sep 7 14:41:51 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id OAA19959; Wed, 7 Sep 1994 14:41:45 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20223; 7 Sep 94 14:30 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20204; 7 Sep 94 14:29 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id OAA28509; Wed, 7 Sep 1994 14:28:48 -0400 Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 13:59:56 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: Stephen Carlson cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409061340.AA20069@ropes.reston.icl.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Tue, 6 Sep 1994, Stephen Carlson wrote: > 9 . . . Be not deceived: neither fornicators [pornoi], nor > idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [malakoi], nor > abusers of themselves with mankind [arsenokoitai], 10 nor > thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor > extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. > [1Co6:9-10 (KJV)] > > 9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for the righteous > man but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly > and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of > fathers and for murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 > for whoremongers [pornois], for them that defile themselves > with mankind [arsenokoitais], for menstealers, for liars, > for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that > is contrary to sound doctrine. > [1Ti1:9-10 (KJV)] > > Boswell first tries to plant the suggestion that 'arsenokoite:s' is about > prostitution. He only makes the most minimal examination of its context, > by noting that 'arsenokoite:s' appears next to 'pornos' meaning whore, or > fornicator in 1Ti1:10, and that Paul talks about prostitution a lot. > [Boswell at 341.] Whatever the initial strength of his point is, it must > be attenuated by the fact that 'arsenokoite:s' follows 'malakos' in > 1Co6:9, not 'pornos.' Since 'malakos' is commonly taken to mean a > catamite, a pederast's boy partner, the juxtaposition of 'malakos' and > 'arsenokoite:s' in 1Co6:9 better favors the conclusion that 'arsenokoite:s' > means a homosexual, possibly the one who takes the "active" role. You accuse Boswell of the weakness of determining definition of a word by words proximate to it, and yet you use the same technique! Please be consistent! Malakos is not "commonly taken to mean a catamite, a pederast's boy partner." Both in earlier and later Greek it had many meanings: mainly "coward, weakling", and also "masturbator." The latter is its present Greek meaning, in fact, and was used as early as the time of Socrates. > In addition, the Greek word 'pornos' itself has connotations of male > prostitution, as in Xenophon for example. The use of 'pornos' in the > masculine plural would encompass both male and female prostitutes. While > 'pornos' is commonly generalized in the New Testament to all sexually > immoral people, the context of 1Co6:9 suggests that prostitution is > covered by 'pornos' not 'arsenokoite:s'. Paul probably was keying off of > the first item in his list when he illustrated it with an example a man > going to a prostitute [1Co6:15-16]. Thus, while it true that 'pornos' in > both lists does bring in a context of prostitution, it actually cuts > against Boswell's analysis. Paul does not repeat any other vice in the > list, so it is quite unlikely that he was being redundant in this case. The normal meaning of pornos is whore-monger, a man who frequents (mainly female) prostitutes. For example, Deuteronomy 23:18 renders qadesh (usually taken to mean male temple prostitute) as "porneuOn [apo huiOn IsraEl]" - not pornos. You say Paul does not repeat any other vice in this list. I assume you mean 1 Cor. 6:9-10. Well, kleptai and harpages are nearly synonomous. We might *assume* Paul meant, say, highway robbery by one and con-artistry by the other, but that is just an assumption. As usual, we have to guess that when Paul uses a vague general term he has something very specific in mind, regardless of the normal meaning of the word in Greek. This is all part of Paul's irritating style of indirectness and allusiveness. > >From the 1 Corinthians passage one can no more conclude that the 'arseno- > koitai' are male prostitutes than that the idolators, or even the > drunkards and revilers are. The 1 Timothy passage is more interesting-- > the 'arsenokoitai' are law breakers. The Mosaic law certainly prohibited > active homosexuality [Lv18:22 and 20:13] but is less clear about > prostitution. Dt23:17 seems, as most commentators agree, to be more about > temple cult prostitution than prostitution per se, and Lv19:29 is not > about male prostitution but pandering one's daughters. Therefore, the > immediate context of the New Testament attestations of 'arsenokoite:s' > better suggests an engager in homosexual activity than Boswell's denotation > of an active sexual agent of any orientation. Nice to know you're not reading my criticism of Lev. 18:22. I fail, on my part, to follow your logic here. When homosexuality *seems* to be condemned in the OT, it is only condemned as active prostitution. Notice that Moses does not make it unlawful to *frequent* a male prostitute, only to *be* one and give one's earnings to the temple. This only provides further support for my argument that the Hebrews tolerated homosexual behavior among men who were not married, just as many cultures and societies do: for example, the Romans (check out Catullus, for example). > In any event, Boswell never mentioned the most obvious source for > compound word, 'arsenokoit:es' in the first place: Lv20:13. The > Septuagint translates that verse, which imposed the death penalty for > acts of homosexuality, as follows: > > "Kai hos an koime:the: meta ARSENOS KOITE:N gunaikos, bdelugma > epoie:san amphoteroi; thanatousthwsan, enoichoi eisin" > [Lv20:13 (LXX) (emphasis added), see Boswell at 100 n.28] > > Not only are both parts of the compound used in the Septuagint > translation, but they are juxtaposed in the exact same order. Paul has > simply used (or even coined) a word that strongly alludes to the Levitical > verse. Moreover, this is not a technique unknown to Paul. In 2Co6:14, > Paul coopted the compound 'heterozugountes' which normally meant > "mismatched" in the Greek world to allude to Lv19:19 and all of its > connotations in being "unequally yoked." [See Bauer, Gingrich & Arndt's] > Similarly, Paul probably used 'arsenokoite:s' to pick up both the > genericity of the the activity (a man lying with a man as with a woman) > and its accompanying moral condemnation. I guess you missed out on my list of arseno- compounds relating, apparently, to homosexuality, from Liddell and Scott. If you look at the references, you will see that even Manetho centuries before Christ was using a similar compound, from arrenomik-. This makes it very unlikely that Paul coined a word, or even that Jews of Paul's day used this word with the meaning of the supposed referent of the phrase in Leviticus LXX. > dismisses For example, he dismisses Polycarp's Epistle to the Philipians > (PPhp) (early 2d cen.) by asserting that it provides no context. > [Boswell at 350 n.42]. Some additional information, however, can still > be gleaned from the passage. After setting out the high moral standards > of the deacons [PPhp 5:2], Polycarp says that "[l]ikewise also let the > younger men be blameless in all things," and avoid "every lust." [v3] > Then Polycarp quotes from 1Co6:9 three kinds of people who will not enter > the Kingdom of God: the fornicators [pornoi], the effeminate [malakoi], > and the sodomites [arsenokoitai]. Polycarp clearly tailored Paul's list > for his concern of young unmarried men, because he omitted adulterers > from the list. If Polycarp understood 'arsenokoitai' to refer to male > prostitutes, it makes little sense that he would ignore two main reasons > for engaging in it: the religious reasons, for which the idolaters would > also be appropriate, or perhaps for money, for which the covetous would > also be mentioned. As scanty as the Patristic evidence is, it nonetheless > tends to refute Boswell's interpretation of the term 'arsenokoite:s'. Again, I fail to follow your reasoning. Polycarp's usage could easily reflect male prostitution: you seem to be using the old argument from silence (Polycarp's) that you supposedly find dreadful in Boswell. > The rest of Boswell's analysis is a discussion of the later Byzantine > usage of the term. From a methodological standpoint, this evidence is > not all that probative, because words can change meaning over time. In > fact, this appears to be the case: after the word dropped out of use for > some time, it was brought back to mean "anal intercourse," similar to the > sense development of the English word "sodomy." This later meaning makes > more sense if the term originally related to homosexuality rather than > prostitution. Not at all: look at Revelations 22:15 where we see "exO hoi kunes kai hoi pharmakoi kai hoi pornoi kai hoi phoneis kai hoi eidOlolatrai kai pas philOn kai poiOn pseudos." Does John have something against canines? No: here are the male temple prostitutes again from Deuteronomy 23:19 "allagma kunos", with amazing longevity. D. Greenberg makes an excellent suggestion that "dog" might refer to the position a male or female temple prostitute would take in order to have anal intercourse, and thus avoid pregnancy (in the case of the female): that is, crouching on all fours. All this shows how Christians (and their Jewish ancestors) had a special interest in condemning homosexual/anal heterosexual prostitution, which would be absurd if there were already a blanket prohibition against homosexual behavior of any kind. > Often the evidence about a word's meaning in a certain context is not > conclusive but merely indicative. When the best and strongest evidence > consistently points to the same conclusion, however, we can become more > confident. In this case, the immediate context of the word > 'arsenokoite:s', all throughout the New Testament, its Septuagint > parallels, and its usage among the Apostolic Fathers, like Polycarp, all > point to a meaning of a homosexual and not a male prostitute. Boswell's > general argument, apart from a facile consideration of the context, > relies too much on the argument from silence and an egregious > etymological analysis. Whatever one thinks of the residual uncertainty > in concluding that 'arsenokoite:s' means a homosexual, one can say that > this sense is *much* more probable than Boswell's. > > Stephen Carlson > -- > Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc. > scc@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr. > (703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA Well, you're not the only one who's lining up to take a crack at Boswell: every contemporary scholar in the field is taking up a position on Boswell as part of their training. I myself find some incongruities in Boswell's argument, and I'm not entirely convinced on every point. However, this just goes to prove, IMHO, how ground-breaking Boswell's questions and attempted answers are. Retreating to old assumptions will never be so easy again. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Thu Sep 8 21:14:26 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id VAA29539; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 21:14:25 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20233; 8 Sep 94 21:08 EDT Received: from mail02.prod.aol.net by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20227; 8 Sep 94 21:07 EDT Received: by mail02.prod.aol.net (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA22581; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 21:07:36 -0400 From: Dvdmoore@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Dvdmoore Message-Id: <9409082107.tn579264@aol.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Thu, 08 Sep 94 21:07:35 EDT Subject: Lev. 18:22 Status: RO jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu (Greg Jordan) writes: >I *have* perused the Hebrew use of issha, and I can only conclude that >your criteria for an acceptable context are not the same as mine. I >assume you support the traditional interpretation, something like "you >will not lie with a man as with a woman" and interpreted as being a >general prohibition against homosexual behavior. Well, if this is so >[assuming, for the sake of argument, what I reject], then you must see >that homosexual behavior, illicit, is being contrasted to relations with >a woman, licit. Now you have insisted that issha/gune is *not* to be >interpreted as wife, so you are saying that homosexuality is being shown >to be evil as CONTRASTED with adultery or fornication between a man and a >woman, that is, sex between a man and a woman who, as you say, are NOT >married. Do you see the problem with that? We could chase issha's and >gunE's all through the Hebrew Bible, but I don't think that would do any >more to convince you that issha/gunE throughout Leviticus 18 is >sufficiently contextualized to need to be rendered "wife." So I've done >my part to present the evidence. I see your point that Lev. 18:22 is most probably not referring to an illicit activity with the words KOITHN GUNAIKOS. I believe we agree that the reference to lying with a man is referring to illicit activity. The question is over what makes the latter illicit. You maintain that this verse is referring to commission of adultery with a man and that the illicit aspect is in the adultery. Your interpretation depends on understanding the word GUNH as referring specifically to the wife (or *a wife* in the case of a polygamist) of one of the males in the illicit union. My interpretation depends on GUNH being a general reference. I do not believe that a *translation* of "wife" is necessary here to imply a licit (i.e. within matrimony) relationship. I consulted more than a dozen translations in two languages (English and Spanish), including Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish editions, and *all* of them translate "woman" or "womankind" or something similar in Lev. 18:22. I know that majority opinion does not establish the interpretation in biblical exegesis. But these many instances where the translation is "woman" rather than "wife" show that translators who one may safely assume are aware of biblical strictures against fornication and adultery saw no problem with translating "woman" rather than "wife" here. So I still maintain that the lack of either an article or a posessive pronoun with GUNAIKOS (or with 'ishshah) is fatal to your interpretation. It also seems to me that v. 22 is more closely related to v. 23 than with what precedes v.22 since the phrase 'eni yhwh at the end of v. 21 represents a terminus to the preceding section. Recognizing v. 23 as the most closely related context, and taking into account the lack of any indicators of specification with GUNH, Lev. 18:22 is most naturally understood as the first of a series of prohibitions of unnatural sexual acts. May I suggest that if anyone wishes to make any further posts on this topic that he or she post to the B-Hebrew list where questions relating to the language of the text could be more easily dealt with. Someone has already called to my attention an old post of mine in which I called for keeping the discussion here to the topic of New Testament Greek. At any rate if any additional posts on this topic appear here, I plan to post any answer to B-Hebrew. David Moore From sysadmin Wed Sep 7 22:48:48 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id WAA18305; Wed, 7 Sep 1994 22:48:46 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa13599; 7 Sep 94 22:43 EDT Received: from mail02.prod.aol.net by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa13593; 7 Sep 94 22:42 EDT Received: by mail02.prod.aol.net (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA15195; Wed, 7 Sep 1994 22:42:54 -0400 From: Dvdmoore@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Dvdmoore Message-Id: <9409072242.tn506417@aol.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Wed, 07 Sep 94 22:42:52 EDT Subject: Lev. 18:18, 22 (LXX) Status: RO jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu (Greg Jordon) writes: >But if you think the >absence of articles or possessive pronouns is problematic, look no >further than Leviticus 18:18: >Gunaika epi alelphE autEs ou lEmpsEi antizElon apokalupsai tEn >asxEmosunEn autEs epi' autEi eti zOsEs autEs. >Or in Hebrew (BHS3): V'issha el-akhotah lo tikkakh litsror l'gallot >ervatah aleyha b'khayyeyha. >The KJV translates: "Neither shalt thou take a wife [or, one wife to >another] to her sister, to vex *her*, to uncover her nakedness, beside the >other in her life *time*." >The NIV translates: "Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and >have sexual relations with her while your wife is living." >The NAB-Catholic translates: "While your wife is still living, you shall >not marry her sister as her rival; for thus you would disgrace your first >wife." >Notice all these English translations render *plain old GUNE* as "wife", >usually with possessive pronouns not in the original: "your wife." Then >suddenly in Lev. 18:22 *plain old GUNE* suddenly becomes the universal >woman. If you'll notice, this verse assumes the listener/reader is a male >polygamist. This is one more reason a definite article or possessive >pronoun would not be employed: there was not one woman who was "the" wife >or "his" wife: there were many wives. In an earlier post, I recommended a perusal of the Hebrew underlying instances of the translation "wife." I said then that you will find that when 'ishshah has the meaning "wife," either the context clearly so indicates, or the use of the article and/or some pronoun points to the husband-wife relationship. In the case of Lev. 18:18, the context is what shows that GUNH (and its underlying Hebrew) is to be understood as "wife." The context does not so indicate in Lev. 18:22. And with neither article nor pronoun to show a husband-wife relationship in Lev. 18:22, GUNH (and its underlying Hebrew) should be most naturally understood in a general sense (i.e. "woman"). Make no mistake, the semantic range of both GUNH and 'ishshah include both "wife" and "woman." The coice between these two meanings is a matter of exegesis and depends entirely the kinds of indicators I have mentioned. . . . . >> Every one of us has natural inclinations >> to activities the Bible calls sinful. Some are especially tempted in one >> area, others in another. But just as the adulterer cannot justify his sinful >> actions by saying that he has a stronger sex drive than other men, the >> homosexual is not justified by arguments based on a homosexual nature or on >> homosexual attraction. >Then I assume you cannot justify heterosexuality by the fact that you >have a heterosexual nature. What assumptions make you assume that >heterosexual nature expresses itself only in sinless behavior, and that >homosexual nature expresses itself only in sinful behavior? I neither assumed that nor did I say it. My paragraph above says quite the contrary. I hope you will read it again. David Moore From sysadmin Thu Sep 8 11:19:20 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id LAA33364; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 11:19:18 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa19319; 8 Sep 94 11:10 EDT Received: from canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa19311; 8 Sep 94 11:09 EDT Received: from mira.cc.umanitoba.ca by canopus.CC.UManitoba.CA (4.1/25-eef) id AA14606; Thu, 8 Sep 94 10:09:32 CDT Received: by mira.cc.umanitoba.ca (4.1/25-eef) id AA06439; Thu, 8 Sep 94 10:09:29 CDT Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 10:07:48 -0500 (CDT) From: "Larry W. Hurtado" Subject: Boswell critique To: "MADAVIDS.US.ORACLE.COM" Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409022143.AA28735@prodpyr1.us.oracle.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO For a very good and thoughtful critique of Boswell's earlier book (on Homosexuality in the Christian trad.), esp. Boswell's exegesis of Rom 1, see R. B. Hays, "Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to John Boswell's Exegesis of Romans 1," _Journal of Religious Ethics_ 14/1(1986), 184-215. Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba From sysadmin Thu Sep 8 13:15:10 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id NAA25136; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 13:15:08 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa14601; 8 Sep 94 13:10 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa14597; 8 Sep 94 13:09 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id NAA21411; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 13:09:09 -0400 Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 12:59:17 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Lev. 18:18, 22 (LXX) To: Dvdmoore@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409072242.tn506417@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Wed, 7 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > In an earlier post, I recommended a perusal of the Hebrew underlying > instances of the translation "wife." I said then that you will find that > when 'ishshah has the meaning "wife," either the context clearly so > indicates, or the use of the article and/or some pronoun points to the > husband-wife relationship. In the case of Lev. 18:18, the context is what > shows that GUNH (and its underlying Hebrew) is to be understood as "wife." > The context does not so indicate in Lev. 18:22. And with neither article > nor pronoun to show a husband-wife relationship in Lev. 18:22, GUNH (and its > underlying Hebrew) should be most naturally understood in a general sense > (i.e. "woman"). Make no mistake, the semantic range of both GUNH and > 'ishshah include both "wife" and "woman." The coice between these two > meanings is a matter of exegesis and depends entirely the kinds of indicators > I have mentioned. I *have* perused the Hebrew use of issha, and I can only conclude that your criteria for an acceptable context are not the same as mine. I assume you support the traditional interpretation, something like "you will not lie with a man as with a woman" and interpreted as being a general prohibition against homosexual behavior. Well, if this is so [assuming, for the sake of argument, what I reject], then you must see that homosexual behavior, illicit, is being contrasted to relations with a woman, licit. Now you have insisted that issha/gune is *not* to be interpreted as wife, so you are saying that homosexuality is being shown to be evil as CONTRASTED with adultery or fornication between a man and a woman, that is, sex between a man and a woman who, as you say, are NOT married. Do you see the problem with that? We could chase issha's and gunE's all through the Hebrew Bible, but I don't think that would do any more to convince you that issha/gunE throughout Leviticus 18 is sufficiently contextualized to need to be rendered "wife." So I've done my part to present the evidence. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Thu Sep 8 16:35:17 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id QAA36212; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 16:35:15 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id ab29539; 8 Sep 94 16:20 EDT Received: from uu3.psi.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa29506; 8 Sep 94 16:19 EDT Received: from iclink.UUCP by uu3.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA18548 for ; Thu, 8 Sep 94 16:14:43 -0400 Received: from ropes.reston.icl.com by iclink.reston.icl.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22678 for b-greek@virginia.edu; Thu, 8 Sep 94 16:04:37 EDT Received: by ropes.reston.icl.com (4.1/smail2.5/01-31-90) id AA13485; Thu, 8 Sep 94 16:03:21 EDT From: Stephen Carlson Message-Id: <9409082003.AA13485@ropes.reston.icl.com> Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Thu, 8 Sep 94 16:03:20 EDT In-Reply-To: ; from "Gregory Jordan" at Sep 7, 94 1:59 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO On Wed, 7 Sep 1994, Greg Jordan wrote: >On Tue, 6 Sep 1994, Stephen Carlson wrote: >> Boswell first tries to plant the suggestion that 'arsenokoite:s' is about >> prostitution. He only makes the most minimal examination of its context, >> by noting that 'arsenokoite:s' appears next to 'pornos' meaning whore, or >> fornicator in 1Ti1:10, and that Paul talks about prostitution a lot. >> [Boswell at 341.] Whatever the initial strength of his point is, it must >> be attenuated by the fact that 'arsenokoite:s' follows 'malakos' in >> 1Co6:9, not 'pornos.' Since 'malakos' is commonly taken to mean a >> catamite, a pederast's boy partner, the juxtaposition of 'malakos' and >> 'arsenokoite:s' in 1Co6:9 better favors the conclusion that 'arsenokoite:s' >> means a homosexual, possibly the one who takes the "active" role. > >You accuse Boswell of the weakness of determining definition of a word by >words proximate to it, and yet you use the same technique! Please be >consistent! The only direct evidence Boswell gives for a meaning related to prostitution is its juxtaposition next to 'pornoi' in 1 Timothy: Indeed, if context is to be admitted as evidence, the juxtaposition of "arsenokoitai" and "pornoi" in 1 Timothy suggests very strongly that prostitution is what is at issue, in one case presumably (male) heterosexual and in the other, homosexual . . . . [Boswell at 341]. There are many things wrong with this analysis: 1. While there are many pairs of sinners in the 1 Timothy list, the pairing off breaks down right before "pornoi": who do the "androphonois" ("manslayers" KJV) correspond to? and the "andrapodistais" ("menstealers")? 2. "Pornoi" in the New Testament usually is taken to mean "fornicators" or "the sexually immoral." [See Bauer, Arndt, Gringrich & Danker's Lexicon (BAGD)], so there is no necessary reason to conclude that prostitution is what is at issue. Those two words together may well refer to both the heterosexually and the homosexually immoral. 3. Your (and the KJV's) definition of "pornoi" as "whoremongers" might suggest for "arsenokoitais" a meaning of clients of male prostitutes, not the male prostitutes themselves. 4. "Arsenokoitai" is not juxtaposed with "pornoi" in 1Co6:9. 5. Its juxtaposition with "malakos" there might also suggest, if this technique is valid, active versus passive homosexuality. Thus, Boswell's juxtaposition technique is probably not elucidating, so no conclusion can be made. And even if it is helpful to understand the meaning, it better suggests homosexuality rather than male prostitution. Unfortunately for Boswell, this is the only direct, contextual evidence for his conclusion of "male prostitution." His indirect inference from Paul's writings: Moreover, prostitution is manifestly of greater concern to Saint Paul than any sort of homosexual behavior: excluding the words in question, there is only a single reference to homosexual acts in Paul's writing, whereas the word "pornos" and its derivatives are mentioned almost thirty times. [Boswell at 341.] This is hardly any evidence at all for the "male prostitution" meaning. Paul is greatly concerned about justification, but no one would dare suggest that this is what he is saying in this context. The immediate context of a man going to a prostitute [1Co6:15-16] is merely an illustration of the first item in the list ("pornoi"). Paul's concern over gay versus straight sin (1 in 30 = 3.3%) seems right considering the relative prevelance of homosexuality within society (also around 3%). Perhaps, this is a good example for some Christian churches today who are overly concerned about homosexuality. Since this is his only evidence, other than merely asserting the conclusion, for a meaning of male prostitution, Boswell's conclusion cannot be justified on these grounds. > Malakos is not "commonly taken to mean a catamite, a >pederast's boy partner." Both in earlier and later Greek it had many >meanings: mainly "coward, weakling", and also "masturbator." The latter >is its present Greek meaning, in fact, and was used as early as the time >of Socrates. Both BAGD and Liddel, Scott & Jones's Lexicon (LSJ) give that meaning for "malakos." Granted that it may mean a "coward or weakness" such a meaning is odd in the context (not inheriting the kingdom of God) in light of the Gospel. Neither BAGD nor LSJ give the meaning of "masturbator" for this word, so, without a specific reference of an earlier usage, the Modern Greek meaning is not probative of its significance in the mid first century. >> In addition, the Greek word 'pornos' itself has connotations of male >> prostitution, as in Xenophon for example. The use of 'pornos' in the >> masculine plural would encompass both male and female prostitutes. While >> 'pornos' is commonly generalized in the New Testament to all sexually >> immoral people, the context of 1Co6:9 suggests that prostitution is >> covered by 'pornos' not 'arsenokoite:s'. Paul probably was keying off of >> the first item in his list when he illustrated it with an example a man >> going to a prostitute [1Co6:15-16]. Thus, while it true that 'pornos' in >> both lists does bring in a context of prostitution, it actually cuts >> against Boswell's analysis. Paul does not repeat any other vice in the >> list, so it is quite unlikely that he was being redundant in this case. > >The normal meaning of pornos is whore-monger, a man who frequents (mainly >female) prostitutes. For example, Deuteronomy 23:18 renders qadesh >(usually taken to mean male temple prostitute) as "porneuOn [apo huiOn >IsraEl]" - not pornos. I am not unreasonable in stating that "pornos" itself can refer to male prostitutes. BAGD says Xenophon used it with this meaning. In addition, Boswell writes that "pornos" is one of the "common Attic words for male prostitute" [Boswell at 344 n.23.] Thus, it may well be the case that Paul is generally talking about prostitution with "pornoi." > You say Paul does not repeat any other vice in >this list. I assume you mean 1 Cor. 6:9-10. Well, kleptai and harpages >are nearly synonomous. We might *assume* Paul meant, say, highway >robbery by one and con-artistry by the other, but that is just an >assumption. As usual, we have to guess that when Paul uses a vague >general term he has something very specific in mind, regardless of the >normal meaning of the word in Greek. This is all part of Paul's >irritating style of indirectness and allusiveness. BAGD says that "harpages" is better understood as a swindler. Paul's list anticipates the fundamental Libertarian definition of coercion by "force or fraud." >> >From the 1 Corinthians passage one can no more conclude that the 'arseno- >> koitai' are male prostitutes than that the idolators, or even the >> drunkards and revilers are. The 1 Timothy passage is more interesting-- >> the 'arsenokoitai' are law breakers. The Mosaic law certainly prohibited >> active homosexuality [Lv18:22 and 20:13] but is less clear about >> prostitution. Dt23:17 seems, as most commentators agree, to be more about >> temple cult prostitution than prostitution per se, and Lv19:29 is not >> about male prostitution but pandering one's daughters. Therefore, the >> immediate context of the New Testament attestations of 'arsenokoite:s' >> better suggests an engager in homosexual activity than Boswell's denotation >> of an active sexual agent of any orientation. > >Nice to know you're not reading my criticism of Lev. 18:22. Actually, I wrote this before seeing your criticism of Lv18:22. Frankly, I am unimpressed, largely for the same reasons Mr. David Moore has given in a separate message. In any event, your analysis of "koite" is completely contrary to Boswell's, so your point actually undercuts rather than supports Boswell without special pleading. > I fail, on >my part, to follow your logic here. When homosexuality *seems* to be >condemned in the OT, it is only condemned as active prostitution. Homosexual activity [Gn19:5 Lv18:22 20:13 Judg19:22] is condemned apart from any reference to prostitution, whether it be rape, propositioning, sex, or adultery (as you suggest). > Notice >that Moses does not make it unlawful to *frequent* a male prostitute, >only to *be* one and give one's earnings to the temple. This only >provides further support for my argument that the Hebrews tolerated >homosexual behavior among men who were not married, just as many cultures >and societies do: for example, the Romans (check out Catullus, for example). Since, as you say, that it is not unlawful for to be a male prostitute who does donate to the temple, then the "arsenokoitais" in 1Ti6:10 cannot be them. All the people in the 1Ti1:9-10 list are lawbreakers. However, engagers in sexual activity (if that's what Lv18:22 means) are lawbreakers. >> In any event, Boswell never mentioned the most obvious source for >> compound word, 'arsenokoit:es' in the first place: Lv20:13. The >> Septuagint translates that verse, which imposed the death penalty for >> acts of homosexuality, as follows: >> >> "Kai hos an koime:the: meta ARSENOS KOITE:N gunaikos, bdelugma >> epoie:san amphoteroi; thanatousthwsan, enoichoi eisin" >> [Lv20:13 (LXX) (emphasis added), see Boswell at 100 n.28] >> >> Not only are both parts of the compound used in the Septuagint >> translation, but they are juxtaposed in the exact same order. Paul has >> simply used (or even coined) a word that strongly alludes to the Levitical >> verse. Moreover, this is not a technique unknown to Paul. In 2Co6:14, >> Paul coopted the compound 'heterozugountes' which normally meant >> "mismatched" in the Greek world to allude to Lv19:19 and all of its >> connotations in being "unequally yoked." [See Bauer, Gingrich & Arndt's] >> Similarly, Paul probably used 'arsenokoite:s' to pick up both the >> genericity of the the activity (a man lying with a man as with a woman) >> and its accompanying moral condemnation. > >I guess you missed out on my list of arseno- compounds relating, >apparently, to homosexuality, from Liddell and Scott. If you look at the >references, you will see that even Manetho centuries before Christ was >using a similar compound, from arrenomik-. This makes it very unlikely >that Paul coined a word, or even that Jews of Paul's day used this word >with the meaning of the supposed referent of the phrase in Leviticus LXX. Since I quoted "arrenokoites," "arsenokoites," "arrenomanes," "arrenomiktes," "arsenomiktes," and "arsenobates" from LSJ, I haven't missed anything. How does Manetho's use of "arrenomiktes" makes it unlikely that Paul coined the word? Certainly, the existance of other "arseno-" compounded aided in the coinage of "arsenokoites" from Lv20:13. Paul is apparently the first person to ever use the term [see, e.g., Boswell at 341] and the related verb in the Sybilline Oracles, "arsenokoitein," is probably of a later date. [See Boswell at 341 n.17]. >> dismisses For example, he dismisses Polycarp's Epistle to the Philipians >> (PPhp) (early 2d cen.) by asserting that it provides no context. >> [Boswell at 350 n.42]. Some additional information, however, can still >> be gleaned from the passage. After setting out the high moral standards >> of the deacons [PPhp 5:2], Polycarp says that "[l]ikewise also let the >> younger men be blameless in all things," and avoid "every lust." [v3] >> Then Polycarp quotes from 1Co6:9 three kinds of people who will not enter >> the Kingdom of God: the fornicators [pornoi], the effeminate [malakoi], >> and the sodomites [arsenokoitai]. Polycarp clearly tailored Paul's list >> for his concern of young unmarried men, because he omitted adulterers >> from the list. If Polycarp understood 'arsenokoitai' to refer to male >> prostitutes, it makes little sense that he would ignore two main reasons >> for engaging in it: the religious reasons, for which the idolaters would >> also be appropriate, or perhaps for money, for which the covetous would >> also be mentioned. As scanty as the Patristic evidence is, it nonetheless >> tends to refute Boswell's interpretation of the term 'arsenokoite:s'. > >Again, I fail to follow your reasoning. Polycarp's usage could easily >reflect male prostitution: you seem to be using the old argument from >silence (Polycarp's) that you supposedly find dreadful in Boswell. So if Polycarp is reflecting male prostitution, then male prostitution involves "lust." This lust is not for idolatry or money, as I have shown, so it must be homsexual lust. Therefore, Polycarp is condemning homo- sexual lust. However, there is nothing in the context to suggest male prostitution. On the other hand, it is addressing young, Christian men, who would not be temple prostitutes at all. The argument from silence is not particularly dreadful because Polycarp is manipulating the list in 1Co6:9-10. So there is a reason why he could have said idolators or the covetous but did not. Boswell's dismissal of the contextual evidence from Eusebius strikes me as sloppy at best and dishonest at worst: He buries the argument into a footnote, makes a mild concession ("though somewhat ambiguous"), boldly asserts the meaning he wishes it would say ("strongly implies an equation . . . with 'gunaikes atimoi,' i.e., female prostitutes"), and presents the word within a seven-line mass of untranslated, untransliterated Greek, and then says it is of too late origin in any case. [Boswell at 350 n.43]. While this technique may intimidate the average reader, who does not know Greek, the quotation actually has a very interesting clause: hoi de exw toutwn rhembomenoi, tas para phusin he:donas meterkhontai, arsenokoitein epize:tountes, . . . But those who roam outside of these, they seek after pleasures against nature, desiring to [do what the arsenokoitai do]. (Translation mine.) Compare the similar phrase "para phusin" (against nature) in Rm1:26. The connection between the arsenokoitai and the 'gunaikes atimoi' is far from clear: "kai tis me: he:sukazwn alla rhembomenos, tois kate:gore:masi koinwne:sei te:s atimou gunaikos." (and anyone who is not quiet but roams, shares in the accusations of the shameless woman.) (Translation mine). The roaming is referring to those "roaming the streets who accept the designs of adultery, fornication, and theft" also in the passage. >> The rest of Boswell's analysis is a discussion of the later Byzantine >> usage of the term. From a methodological standpoint, this evidence is >> not all that probative, because words can change meaning over time. In >> fact, this appears to be the case: after the word dropped out of use for >> some time, it was brought back to mean "anal intercourse," similar to the >> sense development of the English word "sodomy." This later meaning makes >> more sense if the term originally related to homosexuality rather than >> prostitution. > >Not at all: look at Revelations 22:15 where we see "exO hoi kunes kai hoi >pharmakoi kai hoi pornoi kai hoi phoneis kai hoi eidOlolatrai kai pas >philOn kai poiOn pseudos." Does John have something against canines? >No: here are the male temple prostitutes again from Deuteronomy 23:19 >"allagma kunos", with amazing longevity. This is hardly relevant to my point. The longevity of "kunos" in Dt23:18 [we have a different verse numbering] may be due to the vividness of its usage. Arsenokoites, on the other hand, is not particularly vivid; it is quite euphemistic and weak. > D. Greenberg makes an excellent >suggestion that "dog" might refer to the position a male or female temple >prostitute would take in order to have anal intercourse, and thus avoid >pregnancy (in the case of the female): that is, crouching on all fours. This is interesting but it contradicts Boswell's conclusion that the male prostitution is of an active, not passive, kind. [See Boswell at 340, 344.] >All this shows how Christians (and their Jewish ancestors) had a special >interest in condemning homosexual/anal heterosexual prostitution, which >would be absurd if there were already a blanket prohibition against >homosexual behavior of any kind. How do you square your statement with Boswell's "In his De legibus specialibus Philo contrasts Mosaic prohibitions of homosexual acts with their complete acceptance in Hellenistic society (3.37)"? [Boswell at 350 n.44.] >> Often the evidence about a word's meaning in a certain context is not >> conclusive but merely indicative. When the best and strongest evidence >> consistently points to the same conclusion, however, we can become more >> confident. In this case, the immediate context of the word >> 'arsenokoite:s', all throughout the New Testament, its Septuagint >> parallels, and its usage among the Apostolic Fathers, like Polycarp, all >> point to a meaning of a homosexual and not a male prostitute. Boswell's >> general argument, apart from a facile consideration of the context, >> relies too much on the argument from silence and an egregious >> etymological analysis. Whatever one thinks of the residual uncertainty >> in concluding that 'arsenokoite:s' means a homosexual, one can say that >> this sense is *much* more probable than Boswell's. > >Well, you're not the only one who's lining up to take a crack at Boswell: >every contemporary scholar in the field is taking up a position on >Boswell as part of their training. I myself find some incongruities in >Boswell's argument, and I'm not entirely convinced on every point. >However, this just goes to prove, IMHO, how ground-breaking Boswell's >questions and attempted answers are. Retreating to old assumptions will >never be so easy again. I did credit Boswell's book as being "seminal," but being a great influence does not necessarily mean being correct. I am curious to know what you think are the incongruities in his argument. Stephen Carlson -- Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc. scc@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr. (703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA From sysadmin Thu Sep 8 15:59:22 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id PAA36260; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 15:59:03 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22269; 8 Sep 94 15:49 EDT Received: from goliath.pbac.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22245; 8 Sep 94 15:48 EDT Received: by goliath.pbac.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA15147; Thu, 8 Sep 94 15:38:44 EST Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 15:38:43 -0500 (EST) From: John Moody Subject: Re: Lev. 18:18, 22 (LXX) To: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Cc: Dvdmoore@aol.com, b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Thu, 8 Sep 1994, Gregory Jordan (ENG) wrote: > On Wed, 7 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > > > In an earlier post, I recommended a perusal of the Hebrew underlying > > instances of the translation "wife." I said then that you will find that > > when 'ishshah has the meaning "wife," either the context clearly so > > indicates, or the use of the article and/or some pronoun points to the > > husband-wife relationship. In the case of Lev. 18:18, the context is what > > shows that GUNH (and its underlying Hebrew) is to be understood as "wife." > > The context does not so indicate in Lev. 18:22. And with neither article > > nor pronoun to show a husband-wife relationship in Lev. 18:22, GUNH (and its > > underlying Hebrew) should be most naturally understood in a general sense > > (i.e. "woman"). Make no mistake, the semantic range of both GUNH and > > 'ishshah include both "wife" and "woman." The coice between these two > > meanings is a matter of exegesis and depends entirely the kinds of indicators > > I have mentioned. > > I *have* perused the Hebrew use of issha, and I can only conclude that > your criteria for an acceptable context are not the same as mine. I > assume you support the traditional interpretation, something like "you > will not lie with a man as with a woman" and interpreted as being a > general prohibition against homosexual behavior. Well, if this is so > [assuming, for the sake of argument, what I reject], then you must see > that homosexual behavior, illicit, is being contrasted to relations with > a woman, licit. Now you have insisted that issha/gune is *not* to be > interpreted as wife, so you are saying that homosexuality is being shown > to be evil as CONTRASTED with adultery or fornication between a man and a > woman, that is, sex between a man and a woman who, as you say, are NOT > married. Do you see the problem with that? If I am following Greg's argument correctly, then he obviously sees a problem I don't. Homosexuality in this passage is contrasted with relations with a woman. The issue is not whether they are married; that issue is taken up elsewhere in the text. The issue is simply one of the sex of the partner. It seems perfectly logical (to me, anyway) that the writer would prohibit all same-sex relations, and then be more specific in dealing with licit and illicit opposite-sex relations. ___________________________________________________________ John L. Moody Palm Beach Atlantic College jmoody@goliath.pbac.edu ___________________________________________________________ From sysadmin Thu Sep 8 19:48:04 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id TAA26308; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 19:48:03 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa07577; 8 Sep 94 19:41 EDT Received: from ns.southern.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa07566; 8 Sep 94 19:40 EDT Received: from localhost (leather@localhost) by southern.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id TAA08616; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 19:41:16 -0400 From: Donn Leatherman Message-Id: <199409082341.TAA08616@southern.edu> Subject: Lev. 18:22 To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 19:41:15 -0400 (EDT) Cc: jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6041 Status: RO I have followed with considerable interest the recent debate on the meaning of arsenokoites and Paul's comments in I Cor. 6:9. I hesitated to respond to this, as I am primarily a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, rather than of the New Testament. Recently, however, the discussion has turned to Lev. 18:22. Although participants began with the LXX, they have not hesitated to quote the Hebrew text, and I feel compelled to offer several comments on some of the recent contributions. 1. Whatever the LXX means by "KAI META ARSENOS OU KOIMHQHSH KOITHN GUNAIKOS," the Hebrew text is rather less ambiguous. The Hebrew text, "we-et-zakar lo' tishkav mishkevey 'ishshah," means simply, "And with a male, you shall not lie down as with a woman." The verb shakav is used idiomatically for sexual relations, and in the context of Lev 18 it could hardly mean anything else. The only possible ambiguity here is the meaning of 'ishshah, which can be read either as "woman" or "wife." Previous contributors are correct in pointing out that many translations supply pronouns with 'ishshah where it seems appropriate to the translator. Thus, this word could be interpreted as "a woman," "a wife" or "your wife." Since the verb in this verse is masculine singular, there are three possible interpretations of this prohibition: a. A man is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with a male as he might with a woman. b. A man is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with a male as with *a* wife (possibly one of a polygamist's several wives). c. A man is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with a male as with his wife. In any case, there is a distinction of the licit with the illicit. In this generalization, a contrast is drawn between relations between a man and a woman/a wife/his wife, on the one hand, and relations between a man and a male, on the other. Whatever is licit in the former relationship is illicit in the latter. The details of this commandment are not specified, but it would seem from a plain reading of the text that whatever sexual relations are permitted between a man and a woman/a wife/his wife are forbidden between a man and a male. The burden of proof is upon anyone who suggests this is not a blanket condemnation of sexual relations between men, and that it only applies to *some* types of homosexual relations, for example, male prostitution, for which one might offer payment. My (admittedly cursory) reading of Boswell does not lead me to believe that he has offered proof on this point. 2. The context of Lev. 18 tends to confirm the reading I have suggested. This chapter forbids several different types of illicit sexual relations. In all cases, the prohibitions seem unequivocal. One may consider, e.g., the very next verse, Lev. 18:23, which begins, "ubekol-behemah lo' titen shekavteka letam'ah bah . . ." (And with any beast, you shall not give/make your lying down for uncleanness with it . . .) I am unaware of anyone who would suggest that this refers to only *some* types of bestial sexuality, for example those relations for which one might offer payment. But if this latter example is a blanket condemnation (of bestial sexuality) why should the former not be understood as a blanket condemnation (of homosexual practice)? 3. It has been suggested by contributors that the modern reading of such passages as Lev. 18:22 is culturally conditioned to the extent that twentieth century European and American readers have eisegetically imposed their own prejudice on the text, and have read into it a broad condemnation of homosexual practice which was not in the mind of the original writer and readers. Such a remark ignores the indigenous interpretive tradition. From rather remote antiquity Jewish scholars have offered their own understandings of such verses. These interpretations, found, inter alia, in the Mishnah and Talmud are certainly untainted by modern misconceptions, and are provided for us by people who spoke Hebrew as a native language, and presumably understood it better than most of us do today. It is clear from these documents that indigenous interpreters understood Lev. 18:22 to condemn all acts of sexual intercourse between males. Passages such as Sanhedrin 54a cite Lev. 22 to prove that anal intecourse with a male is punished by stoning. Sanhedrin 54b debates the age at which a child becomes legally responsible (and thus liable to punishment) for a passive role in anal intercourse. Yebamoth 83b specifies that the prohibition against sexual intercourse between males applies also to hermaphrodites. There are thus three factors which confirm the understanding that Lev 18:22 forbids homosexual relations (and not merely homosexual prostitution): the plain reading of the text itself (in the original language); the context of the verse; and the indigenous interpretive tradition. In view of this, the burden of proof still lies with anyone who suggests a different interpretation. I would like to suggest that the intellectually repectable course for those who do not agree with this prohibition is for them to simply say that they disagree with Leviticus. This is permissible (whether others like it or not.) History is replete with those who have objected to some parts of Leviticus (the Apostle Paul comes to mind). There may be some who will insist that Leviticus is right, but no one can deny your liberty to say otherwise. In any case, to disagree frankly with what is said is certainly more responsible, and more productive of intelligent discussion, than the attempt to re-write Leviticus to correspond to current opinion. Again, I offer my apologies to those who did not expect to see so much Hebrew in a conference dedicated to Biblical Greek. My only defense is that others in this conference have already raised the issue of the Hebrew text of Leviticus. Donn W. Leatherman Southern College 615-499-8644 615-238-2979 leather@southern.edu From sysadmin Sun Sep 11 14:21:32 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id OAA26381; Sun, 11 Sep 1994 14:21:29 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa26722; 11 Sep 94 14:12 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa26707; 11 Sep 94 14:10 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id OAA04252; Sun, 11 Sep 1994 14:10:00 -0400 Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 12:35:48 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: Stephen Carlson cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409082003.AA13485@ropes.reston.icl.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Stephen, I wanted to clarify that I am in now way defending Boswell's particular thesis (although I agree with the basic surmise that Paul was concerned only about male prostitution, not general homosexuality). I have not studied his argument, or responses made to it, enough to make a reasonable judgment. I merely injected my own observations on the New Testament into your discussion of Boswell, perhaps in a way that was confusing and unhelpful to you. Perhaps I should have left your post entirely alone :)! But to mop things up, I will try to answer with general comments. On Thu, 8 Sep 1994, Stephen Carlson wrote: > The only direct evidence Boswell gives for a meaning related to prostitution > is its juxtaposition next to 'pornoi' in 1 Timothy: > > Indeed, if context is to be admitted as evidence, the juxtaposition > of "arsenokoitai" and "pornoi" in 1 Timothy suggests very strongly > that prostitution is what is at issue, in one case presumably (male) > heterosexual and in the other, homosexual . . . . > [Boswell at 341]. > > There are many things wrong with this analysis: > > 1. While there are many pairs of sinners in the 1 Timothy list, the > pairing off breaks down right before "pornoi": who do the "androphonois" > ("manslayers" KJV) correspond to? and the "andrapodistais" ("menstealers")? > > 2. "Pornoi" in the New Testament usually is taken to mean "fornicators" or > "the sexually immoral." [See Bauer, Arndt, Gringrich & Danker's Lexicon > (BAGD)], so there is no necessary reason to conclude that prostitution is > what is at issue. Those two words together may well refer to both the > heterosexually and the homosexually immoral. > > 3. Your (and the KJV's) definition of "pornoi" as "whoremongers" might > suggest for "arsenokoitais" a meaning of clients of male prostitutes, not > the male prostitutes themselves. Pornoi was a vague term in Koine just a "whore(-monger)" actually is in English. My present conclusion would be that the New Testament seems to use it for heterosexuals who cheat on their wives with prostitutes (whoremongers), or more broadly, adulterers (in heterosexual encounters). On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that Paul's statements which are taken to refer to homosexuality in general are always set in a context which concerns money. I will show this here or later. > 4. "Arsenokoitai" is not juxtaposed with "pornoi" in 1Co6:9. > > 5. Its juxtaposition with "malakos" there might also suggest, if this > technique is valid, active versus passive homosexuality. Boswell's treatment of *malakos* (p. 106ff) is overwhelming evidence in favor of not interpreting it as referring to homosexuality in any way (except as a stereotype). I would doubt that "masturbator" was necessarily it's original meaning, but then we are left with "weakling, decadent, sissy" which hardly seems like something to deprive one of eternal life, in a homosexual or a heterosexual man. Paul obviously intends some specific meaning which is irrecoverable, from the lost shared context. Compare "pleonektai" (1 Cor. 6:10): every greedy person? In that case, almost every U.S. Christian is hell-bound. What qualifies as greedy? Or "loidoroi": how much railing counts as hell-bound railing? I never get the impression Paul is presenting an ideal lifestyle, like Jesus often did. I rather think he had some specific case in mind. > Thus, Boswell's juxtaposition technique is probably not elucidating, so no > conclusion can be made. And even if it is helpful to understand the > meaning, it better suggests homosexuality rather than male prostitution. > Unfortunately for Boswell, this is the only direct, contextual evidence > for his conclusion of "male prostitution." His indirect inference from > Paul's writings: > > Moreover, prostitution is manifestly of greater concern to Saint > Paul than any sort of homosexual behavior: excluding the words in > question, there is only a single reference to homosexual acts in > Paul's writing, whereas the word "pornos" and its derivatives are > mentioned almost thirty times. > [Boswell at 341.] > > This is hardly any evidence at all for the "male prostitution" meaning. > Paul is greatly concerned about justification, but no one would dare > suggest that this is what he is saying in this context. The immediate > context of a man going to a prostitute [1Co6:15-16] is merely an > illustration of the first item in the list ("pornoi"). Paul's concern > over gay versus straight sin (1 in 30 = 3.3%) seems right considering > the relative prevelance of homosexuality within society (also around 3%). > Perhaps, this is a good example for some Christian churches today who > are overly concerned about homosexuality. > > Since this is his only evidence, other than merely asserting the conclusion, > for a meaning of male prostitution, Boswell's conclusion cannot be justified > on these grounds. > > > Malakos is not "commonly taken to mean a catamite, a > >pederast's boy partner." Both in earlier and later Greek it had many > >meanings: mainly "coward, weakling", and also "masturbator." The latter > >is its present Greek meaning, in fact, and was used as early as the time > >of Socrates. > > Both BAGD and Liddel, Scott & Jones's Lexicon (LSJ) give that meaning for > "malakos." Granted that it may mean a "coward or weakness" such a meaning > is odd in the context (not inheriting the kingdom of God) in light of the > Gospel. Neither BAGD nor LSJ give the meaning of "masturbator" for this > word, so, without a specific reference of an earlier usage, the Modern Greek > meaning is not probative of its significance in the mid first century. > > >> In addition, the Greek word 'pornos' itself has connotations of male > >> prostitution, as in Xenophon for example. The use of 'pornos' in the > >> masculine plural would encompass both male and female prostitutes. While > >> 'pornos' is commonly generalized in the New Testament to all sexually > >> immoral people, the context of 1Co6:9 suggests that prostitution is > >> covered by 'pornos' not 'arsenokoite:s'. Paul probably was keying off of > >> the first item in his list when he illustrated it with an example a man > >> going to a prostitute [1Co6:15-16]. Thus, while it true that 'pornos' in > >> both lists does bring in a context of prostitution, it actually cuts > >> against Boswell's analysis. Paul does not repeat any other vice in the > >> list, so it is quite unlikely that he was being redundant in this case. > > > >The normal meaning of pornos is whore-monger, a man who frequents (mainly > >female) prostitutes. For example, Deuteronomy 23:18 renders qadesh > >(usually taken to mean male temple prostitute) as "porneuOn [apo huiOn > >IsraEl]" - not pornos. > > I am not unreasonable in stating that "pornos" itself can refer to male > prostitutes. BAGD says Xenophon used it with this meaning. In addition, > Boswell writes that "pornos" is one of the "common Attic words for male > prostitute" [Boswell at 344 n.23.] Thus, it may well be the case that > Paul is generally talking about prostitution with "pornoi." Well, I don't think *assuming* that pornoi refers to male and female prostitutes is an acceptable position. There would be no reason why Paul might not specify a male prostitute, especially if pornoi was ambiguous. He is being thorough, like Leviticus, in his listing of possible extramarital encounters. He does not, like contemporary Christians, resort to the "no sex outside of marriage" comment. > > You say Paul does not repeat any other vice in > >this list. I assume you mean 1 Cor. 6:9-10. Well, kleptai and harpages > >are nearly synonomous. We might *assume* Paul meant, say, highway > >robbery by one and con-artistry by the other, but that is just an > >assumption. As usual, we have to guess that when Paul uses a vague > >general term he has something very specific in mind, regardless of the > >normal meaning of the word in Greek. This is all part of Paul's > >irritating style of indirectness and allusiveness. > > BAGD says that "harpages" is better understood as a swindler. Paul's > list anticipates the fundamental Libertarian definition of coercion by > "force or fraud." I'm not sure what Libertarianism has to do with this, but harpax referred to quite violent snatching and grasping: it was used of rapacious birds, grappling irons used in sea-battles, and kidnapping (L&S). Paul's probably special meaning would have to be painstakingly reconstructed from his context and other related writings. BAGD's harpazO and harpagmos support this meaning. > >> >From the 1 Corinthians passage one can no more conclude that the 'arseno- > >> koitai' are male prostitutes than that the idolators, or even the > >> drunkards and revilers are. The 1 Timothy passage is more interesting-- > >> the 'arsenokoitai' are law breakers. The Mosaic law certainly prohibited > >> active homosexuality [Lv18:22 and 20:13] but is less clear about > >> prostitution. Dt23:17 seems, as most commentators agree, to be more about > >> temple cult prostitution than prostitution per se, and Lv19:29 is not > >> about male prostitution but pandering one's daughters. Therefore, the > >> immediate context of the New Testament attestations of 'arsenokoite:s' > >> better suggests an engager in homosexual activity than Boswell's denotation > >> of an active sexual agent of any orientation. Lev. 18:22, 20:13 only prohibit adultery with a man. Deut. 23:17, as you note, only forbids becoming a temple prostitute or giving one's earnings to the temple of YHWH (as if YHWH were a pimp like the other gods). The story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis shows how schizophrenic Hebrew attitudes toward prostitution were: a whoremonger could have a whore killed for doing what he asked her to do. This could be mere hypocrisy, but it could also reflect that NON-ISRAELITE boys and girls were acceptable as prostitutes, and that enjoying prostitution with them was OK for Israelites, but that Israelites were not able to join such a profession themselves or share in its pagan trappings. > >Nice to know you're not reading my criticism of Lev. 18:22. > > Actually, I wrote this before seeing your criticism of Lv18:22. Frankly, > I am unimpressed, largely for the same reasons Mr. David Moore has given > in a separate message. In any event, your analysis of "koite" is completely > contrary to Boswell's, so your point actually undercuts rather than > supports Boswell without special pleading. I disagree with Boswell's analysis of the word, but I agree that it refers to male prostitution (thought not necessarily active). > > I fail, on > >my part, to follow your logic here. When homosexuality *seems* to be > >condemned in the OT, it is only condemned as active prostitution. > > Homosexual activity [Gn19:5 Lv18:22 20:13 Judg19:22] is condemned apart > from any reference to prostitution, whether it be rape, propositioning, > sex, or adultery (as you suggest). The story of Sodom was not interpreted by early writers as a condemnation of homosexuality, but of inhospitality. Jesus himself was of this opinion (Matt. 10:14-15, Luke 10:10-12), and the best scholarship today agrees. If you want to argue this tired old point, you're going to have to bring out some fresh evidence. Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 are irrelevant as general condemnations of homosexuality also, as I have shown. Judges 19 is a strange choice: I would think that your assumptions would make you think that the brutally lustful gang rape and murder of a *woman* was proof that *heterosexuality* should be condemned across the board. Not that I would agree with such a short-sighted conclusion. > > Notice > >that Moses does not make it unlawful to *frequent* a male prostitute, > >only to *be* one and give one's earnings to the temple. This only > >provides further support for my argument that the Hebrews tolerated > >homosexual behavior among men who were not married, just as many cultures > >and societies do: for example, the Romans (check out Catullus, for example). > > Since, as you say, that it is not unlawful for to be a male prostitute > who does donate to the temple, then the "arsenokoitais" in 1Ti6:10 cannot > be them. All the people in the 1Ti1:9-10 list are lawbreakers. However, > engagers in sexual activity (if that's what Lv18:22 means) are lawbreakers. Since only a pagan would *be* a prostitute, since it was unlawful for Jews, they would have already been condemned to hell for being idolaters. Paul's use of "anomois" (*without* the law/Torah) (1 Tim. 1:9) is a perfect word to describe pagans, from the Jewish standpoint. Pagans would also have rejected Paul's instruction, anyway, so he is obviously not *addressing* arsenokoitai in 1 Timothy. > >> In any event, Boswell never mentioned the most obvious source for > >> compound word, 'arsenokoit:es' in the first place: Lv20:13. The > >> Septuagint translates that verse, which imposed the death penalty for > >> acts of homosexuality, as follows: > >> > >> "Kai hos an koime:the: meta ARSENOS KOITE:N gunaikos, bdelugma > >> epoie:san amphoteroi; thanatousthwsan, enoichoi eisin" > >> [Lv20:13 (LXX) (emphasis added), see Boswell at 100 n.28] > >> > >> Not only are both parts of the compound used in the Septuagint > >> translation, but they are juxtaposed in the exact same order. Paul has > >> simply used (or even coined) a word that strongly alludes to the Levitical > >> verse. Moreover, this is not a technique unknown to Paul. In 2Co6:14, > >> Paul coopted the compound 'heterozugountes' which normally meant > >> "mismatched" in the Greek world to allude to Lv19:19 and all of its > >> connotations in being "unequally yoked." [See Bauer, Gingrich & Arndt's] > >> Similarly, Paul probably used 'arsenokoite:s' to pick up both the > >> genericity of the the activity (a man lying with a man as with a woman) > >> and its accompanying moral condemnation. > > > >I guess you missed out on my list of arseno- compounds relating, > >apparently, to homosexuality, from Liddell and Scott. If you look at the > >references, you will see that even Manetho centuries before Christ was > >using a similar compound, from arrenomik-. This makes it very unlikely > >that Paul coined a word, or even that Jews of Paul's day used this word > >with the meaning of the supposed referent of the phrase in Leviticus LXX. > > Since I quoted "arrenokoites," "arsenokoites," "arrenomanes," "arrenomiktes," > "arsenomiktes," and "arsenobates" from LSJ, I haven't missed anything. How > does Manetho's use of "arrenomiktes" makes it unlikely that Paul coined the > word? Certainly, the existance of other "arseno-" compounded aided in the > coinage of "arsenokoites" from Lv20:13. Paul is apparently the first person > to ever use the term [see, e.g., Boswell at 341] and the related verb in > the Sybilline Oracles, "arsenokoitein," is probably of a later date. [See > Boswell at 341 n.17]. If Paul coined the term, how could he expect his letter-readers/hearers to understand him? Especially when he doesn't lift a finger to define it, as we have both aggravatedly noticed. The word IS rare. Boswell's evidence that it was NEVER used by later Christian homophobes, even when they were dealing with that very passage and subject, is almost overwhelmingly decisive (Appendix One). > >> dismisses For example, he dismisses Polycarp's Epistle to the Philipians > >> (PPhp) (early 2d cen.) by asserting that it provides no context. > >> [Boswell at 350 n.42]. Some additional information, however, can still > >> be gleaned from the passage. After setting out the high moral standards > >> of the deacons [PPhp 5:2], Polycarp says that "[l]ikewise also let the > >> younger men be blameless in all things," and avoid "every lust." [v3] > >> Then Polycarp quotes from 1Co6:9 three kinds of people who will not enter > >> the Kingdom of God: the fornicators [pornoi], the effeminate [malakoi], > >> and the sodomites [arsenokoitai]. Polycarp clearly tailored Paul's list > >> for his concern of young unmarried men, because he omitted adulterers > >> from the list. If Polycarp understood 'arsenokoitai' to refer to male > >> prostitutes, it makes little sense that he would ignore two main reasons > >> for engaging in it: the religious reasons, for which the idolaters would > >> also be appropriate, or perhaps for money, for which the covetous would > >> also be mentioned. As scanty as the Patristic evidence is, it nonetheless > >> tends to refute Boswell's interpretation of the term 'arsenokoite:s'. > > > >Again, I fail to follow your reasoning. Polycarp's usage could easily > >reflect male prostitution: you seem to be using the old argument from > >silence (Polycarp's) that you supposedly find dreadful in Boswell. > > So if Polycarp is reflecting male prostitution, then male prostitution > involves "lust." This lust is not for idolatry or money, as I have shown, > so it must be homsexual lust. Therefore, Polycarp is condemning homo- > sexual lust. The word Polycarp uses (which he borrows) for "lusts" is epithumiOn, which could very much refer to monetary greed (e.g., in the LXX 10 Commandments, with epithum-). Young men might be tempted to become prostitutes by offers of money or patronage made to them by older men. Much of the early Christian concern was in fact, about pediphilia, not homosexuality between consenting adults. Yet as Bosell notes, even pediphilia was accepted among Christians and Christian leaders for a long time (131-132). John Chrysostom especially mentions the "thousand arguments" that he was answered with for his criticism of pederasty among Christians: "If [the chaste or disapproving] happen to be insignificant, they are beaten up; if they are powerful, they are mocked, laughed at, refuted with a thousand arguments. ... The parents of the abused youths bear this is silence and neither sequester their sons nor seek any remedy for the evil." (pp. 362-3). Naturally I share in Chrysostom's disapproval of child-molesting, and I assume he himself derived his passion from the fact that in his youth he had been a victim. But Chrysostom shows how rare his opinion was quite clearly. Child-molesting is a *form* of heterosexuality and homosexuality, but it is by no means their only expression. One thinks that if Chrysostom had been a woman, he would have condemned the molesting of little girls just as severely. > However, there is nothing in the context to suggest male prostitution. On > the other hand, it is addressing young, Christian men, who would not be > temple prostitutes at all. > > The argument from silence is not particularly dreadful because Polycarp > is manipulating the list in 1Co6:9-10. So there is a reason why he > could have said idolators or the covetous but did not. My conclusion is that by Paul's time the Pharisees had generalized OT laws to prohibit frequenting, as well as being, prostitutes, for Jews. The connection is one of ritual defilement: if a temple prostitute was ritually defiled, then surely (?) having sex with her/him would make *one's self* ritually defiled. We see Paul pulling this logic clearly in 1 Cor. 6:12-20. Prostitutes are almost subhumanly evil sources of defilement. Christians are Christs's "members" (melE Xristos): that is, his penises. If a Christian puts his penis in a prostitute, he unites Christ (through his penis) with the prostitute, and thus defiles Christ. The very fact that Paul would have to explain this is proof that he was dealing with people who used to think, or might think, that frequenting a prostitute was OK: Paul is apparently reflecting a Pharisaical broadening of the OT laws. > Boswell's dismissal of the contextual evidence from Eusebius strikes me > as sloppy at best and dishonest at worst: He buries the argument into > a footnote, makes a mild concession ("though somewhat ambiguous"), boldly > asserts the meaning he wishes it would say ("strongly implies an equation > . . . with 'gunaikes atimoi,' i.e., female prostitutes"), and presents > the word within a seven-line mass of untranslated, untransliterated Greek, > and then says it is of too late origin in any case. [Boswell at 350 n.43]. > > While this technique may intimidate the average reader, who does not know > Greek, the quotation actually has a very interesting clause: > > hoi de exw toutwn rhembomenoi, tas para phusin he:donas meterkhontai, > arsenokoitein epize:tountes, . . . > > But those who roam outside of these, they seek after pleasures against > nature, desiring to [do what the arsenokoitai do]. (Translation mine.) > > Compare the similar phrase "para phusin" (against nature) in Rm1:26. The > connection between the arsenokoitai and the 'gunaikes atimoi' is far from > clear: "kai tis me: he:sukazwn alla rhembomenos, tois kate:gore:masi > koinwne:sei te:s atimou gunaikos." (and anyone who is not quiet but roams, > shares in the accusations of the shameless woman.) (Translation mine). The > roaming is referring to those "roaming the streets who accept the designs > of adultery, fornication, and theft" also in the passage. Wrong again. Even if this passage is genuine 4th century, Boswell already conceded that by then homophobia was making a home in the Christian church. If people sought to "arsenokoitein" para phusin, that could certainly reflect prostitution. The Romans 1:27 passage clearly indicates the people concerned "taking payment" ("antimisthian... apolambanontes"): even if you interpret this as metaphorical, which would be unnecessary, it would *still* indicate that the sin Paul had in mind involved *idolaters* (Romans 1:23) and exchange of money (Romans 1:27). This is exactly what one would expect from the traditional law aimed *specifically* against pagan temple prostitutes. > >> The rest of Boswell's analysis is a discussion of the later Byzantine > >> usage of the term. From a methodological standpoint, this evidence is > >> not all that probative, because words can change meaning over time. In > >> fact, this appears to be the case: after the word dropped out of use for > >> some time, it was brought back to mean "anal intercourse," similar to the > >> sense development of the English word "sodomy." This later meaning makes > >> more sense if the term originally related to homosexuality rather than > >> prostitution. > > > >Not at all: look at Revelations 22:15 where we see "exO hoi kunes kai hoi > >pharmakoi kai hoi pornoi kai hoi phoneis kai hoi eidOlolatrai kai pas > >philOn kai poiOn pseudos." Does John have something against canines? > >No: here are the male temple prostitutes again from Deuteronomy 23:19 > >"allagma kunos", with amazing longevity. > > This is hardly relevant to my point. The longevity of "kunos" in Dt23:18 > [we have a different verse numbering] may be due to the vividness of its > usage. Arsenokoites, on the other hand, is not particularly vivid; it > is quite euphemistic and weak. I'm using Alfred Rahlf's 1 vol. ed. (1979) from the German Bible Society. The verse numbering *is* different from the English, if that's what you're using. > > D. Greenberg makes an excellent > >suggestion that "dog" might refer to the position a male or female temple > >prostitute would take in order to have anal intercourse, and thus avoid > >pregnancy (in the case of the female): that is, crouching on all fours. > > This is interesting but it contradicts Boswell's conclusion that the male > prostitution is of an active, not passive, kind. [See Boswell at 340, 344.] I disagree with Boswell on this, since I see no distinction between active and passive homosexuality being stigmatized until the closing-up of late-antique morality, when the status of women dropped considerably and passive anal intercourse by a male was considered an abandonment of male prestige, and doing it to another male was considered a taking away of that gender prestige: a double sin. Obviously, homophobia spread out among different people at different times, but again, I do not see evidence of it in Paul. > >All this shows how Christians (and their Jewish ancestors) had a special > >interest in condemning homosexual/anal heterosexual prostitution, which > >would be absurd if there were already a blanket prohibition against > >homosexual behavior of any kind. > > How do you square your statement with Boswell's "In his De legibus > specialibus Philo contrasts Mosaic prohibitions of homosexual acts > with their complete acceptance in Hellenistic society (3.37)"? [Boswell > at 350 n.44.] The fact that Philo had an idiosyncratic view of Scriptural meaning should not be news to you or anyone else here. Philo's homophobia could certainly be considered a carefully detailed proposal to Judaism, not a restatement of long-standing Jewish opinion as reflected in the OT. > >> Often the evidence about a word's meaning in a certain context is not > >> conclusive but merely indicative. When the best and strongest evidence > >> consistently points to the same conclusion, however, we can become more > >> confident. In this case, the immediate context of the word > >> 'arsenokoite:s', all throughout the New Testament, its Septuagint > >> parallels, and its usage among the Apostolic Fathers, like Polycarp, all > >> point to a meaning of a homosexual and not a male prostitute. Boswell's > >> general argument, apart from a facile consideration of the context, > >> relies too much on the argument from silence and an egregious > >> etymological analysis. Whatever one thinks of the residual uncertainty > >> in concluding that 'arsenokoite:s' means a homosexual, one can say that > >> this sense is *much* more probable than Boswell's. > > > >Well, you're not the only one who's lining up to take a crack at Boswell: > >every contemporary scholar in the field is taking up a position on > >Boswell as part of their training. I myself find some incongruities in > >Boswell's argument, and I'm not entirely convinced on every point. > >However, this just goes to prove, IMHO, how ground-breaking Boswell's > >questions and attempted answers are. Retreating to old assumptions will > >never be so easy again. > > I did credit Boswell's book as being "seminal," but being a great influence > does not necessarily mean being correct. I am curious to know what you > think are the incongruities in his argument. > I think I've already covered that here. I'll present my own observations on Paul's views soon. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Tue Sep 13 15:57:25 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id PAA20855; Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:57:23 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa25026; 13 Sep 94 15:42 EDT Received: from uu3.psi.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa25020; 13 Sep 94 15:41 EDT Received: from iclink.UUCP by uu3.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA25576 for ; Tue, 13 Sep 94 15:17:12 -0400 Received: from ropes.reston.icl.com by iclink.reston.icl.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07307 for b-greek@virginia.edu; Tue, 13 Sep 94 14:29:27 EDT Received: by ropes.reston.icl.com (4.1/smail2.5/01-31-90) id AA24672; Tue, 13 Sep 94 14:28:52 EDT From: Stephen Carlson Message-Id: <9409131828.AA24672@ropes.reston.icl.com> Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Tue, 13 Sep 94 14:28:51 EDT In-Reply-To: ; from "Gregory Jordan" at Sep 11, 94 12:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO On Sun, 11 Sep 1994, Greg Jordan wrote: >On Thu, 8 Sep 1994, Stephen Carlson wrote: > >I wanted to clarify that I am in now way defending Boswell's particular >thesis (although I agree with the basic surmise that Paul was concerned >only about male prostitution, not general homosexuality). I have not >studied his argument, or responses made to it, enough to make a >reasonable judgment. I merely injected my own observations on the New >Testament into your discussion of Boswell, perhaps in a way that was >confusing and unhelpful to you. Perhaps I should have left your post >entirely alone :)! But to mop things up, I will try to answer with >general comments. Thank you for your comments; they do promote thought and rational discussion. If your thesis is that 'arsenokoites' refers to male prostitutes in general rather than active prosititutes, it still seems that is there is close to zero textual basis for it unless you have more evidence than what Boswell presented. But I'll wait for your observations on Paul's views. >> 3. Your (and the KJV's) definition of "pornoi" as "whoremongers" might >> suggest for "arsenokoitais" a meaning of clients of male prostitutes, not >> the male prostitutes themselves. > >Pornoi was a vague term in Koine just a "whore(-monger)" actually is in >English. My present conclusion would be that the New Testament seems to >use it for heterosexuals who cheat on their wives with prostitutes >(whoremongers), or more broadly, adulterers (in heterosexual >encounters). This is odd. Although it might occasionally be used in reference to those cheating with their wives with prostitutes, this does fit under its broadest meaning of the sexually immoral. Even so, 'pornos' is applied to unmarried men [see Polycarp] and is distinguished from adultery [Hb13:4], so the conclusion that the 'pornoi' are simply a species of an adulterer is simply untenable. > On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that Paul's >statements which are taken to refer to homosexuality in general >are always set in a context which concerns money. I will show this here >or later. I will wait for your remarks, but until then, I remain skeptical. >> 4. "Arsenokoitai" is not juxtaposed with "pornoi" in 1Co6:9. >> >> 5. Its juxtaposition with "malakos" there might also suggest, if this >> technique is valid, active versus passive homosexuality. > >Boswell's treatment of *malakos* (p. 106ff) is overwhelming evidence in >favor of not interpreting it as referring to homosexuality in any way >(except as a stereotype). I would doubt that "masturbator" was >necessarily it's original meaning, but then we are left with "weakling, >decadent, sissy" which hardly seems like something to deprive one of >eternal life, in a homosexual or a heterosexual man. Paul obviously >intends some specific meaning which is irrecoverable, from the lost >shared context. Boswell's treatment of 'malakos' is a strawman: The word [malakos] is never used in Greek to designate gay people as a group or even in reference to homosexual generically . . . . [Boswell at 107.] Obviously, the use of 'malakos' to describe the boy partner of a pederast does not designate gay people as a group, but that isn't the issue. This meaning fits in well with Polycarp's advice to young Christian men. I stand by my comment: >> Both BAGD and Liddel, Scott & Jones's Lexicon (LSJ) give that meaning for >> "malakos." Granted that it may mean a "coward or weakness" such a meaning >> is odd in the context (not inheriting the kingdom of God) in light of the >> Gospel. Neither BAGD nor LSJ give the meaning of "masturbator" for this >> word, so, without a specific reference of an earlier usage, the Modern Greek >> meaning is not probative of its significance in the mid first century. > Compare "pleonektai" (1 Cor. 6:10): every greedy >person? In that case, almost every U.S. Christian is hell-bound. >What qualifies as greedy? Or "loidoroi": how much railing counts as >hell-bound railing? I never get the impression Paul is presenting an >ideal lifestyle, like Jesus often did. I rather think he had some >specific case in mind. I agree that greed is a big problem among American Christians, witness Jim Bakker, and that Paul may have had the sins of specific Corinthians in mind: And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God. [1Co6:11 (KJV)] Given the prevalence of pederasty (man-boy love) in the Hellenistic world, it is not surprising that former catamites would become members of the church in Corinth. It also shows that homosexual activity is not an unforgivable sin. >> I am not unreasonable in stating that "pornos" itself can refer to male >> prostitutes. BAGD says Xenophon used it with this meaning. In addition, >> Boswell writes that "pornos" is one of the "common Attic words for male >> prostitute" [Boswell at 344 n.23.] Thus, it may well be the case that >> Paul is generally talking about prostitution with "pornoi." > >Well, I don