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'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. "Extramarital" assumes Paul is only addressing married men. Is Lv18:23 only directed to extramarital bestiality? >> >> >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. This contention of yours has been thrashed out on B-GREEK and B-HEBREW and is very unconvincing. > 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. Since there does not seem to be a law against Gentile prostitutes, per se, then how are they lawbreakers? Perhaps male prostitution violates the law against homosexual activity [Lv18:22 20:13], but that is an argument for the latter meaning for 'arsenokoites'. >> >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'm confused. 'Koite' refers to male prostitution??? >> > 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. Sodom was destroyed for a multitude of sins, including inhospitality and homosexuality. To claim that it was destroyed for just one sin is an example of a fallacious disjunctive ("either-or") reasoning. > 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. Jesus does refer to Sodom's inhospitality, but that shows that He merely selected one sin out of many to illustrate His clever point. I found Boswell's use of Ezekiel 16:48-49 to be facile. First, those verses establish that there were more sins than inhospitality going on (pride, gluttony, sloth). Second, Boswell ignores Eze16:50 ("and commited abomination before me"). Nowhere is inhospitality is described as an abomination, but homosexual activity is [Lv18:22 20:13]. Then, of course, Jude 7 indicates homosexual activity in Sodom. > 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. Judges 19, similar in construction to the story of Sodom, tells of a Levite guest who offered up his own concubine to the men who wanted to "know" him. Inhospitality does not explain the Levite's response. >> > 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. Huh? Paul is calling the 'arsenokoitai' lawbreakers in 1 Timothy. The 'arsenokoitai' are not lawbreakers merely for being pagan. Are the "murderers of fathers" [1Ti1:9] pagan by the same reasoning? >> >> 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. >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). As I have argued, Paul's use of 'arsenokoites' was readily transparent to those familiar with the Septuagint's translation of the Levitical laws. Paul's letters were from a Christian to a Christian community. Boswell's argument from silence is astonishingly poor. Not only it is methodologically weak (because of the term's rarity) but even his examples of silence are not persuasive: 1. Silence among Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch is simply not relevant. [Boswell at 345.] The first three are way too early to use a term probably coined by Paul or someone within a Pauline community. Plutarch, a Gentile, was certainly unfamiliar with Christian or Pauline terminology. 2. Philo and Josephus are not helpful either. [Boswell at 346]. There is no Pauline (or Christian) influence upon their writings. Josephus, in fact, did not use characteristically Christian language to describe the life of Jesus. [See Meier's THE MARGINAL JEW.] 3. Since Diadache 5:1-2 (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) is a list of sins, with no literary dependence on 1Co6:9-10, it is hardly relevant to the meaning of 'arsenokoites'. After all, other lists of vices do not are not exhaustive. [Boswell at 346]. 4. Tatian's and Justin Martyr's use of the more common Hellenistic terms is not surprising considering the polemical and apolegetical character (i.e., written for non-Christians to read) of their works. Of course, they chose a less obscure term. [Boswell at 346]. 5. Boswell's use of Eusebius's silence ("yet nowhere does he the word which supposedly means 'homosexual' in Paul's writings" [Boswell at 346]), is misleading because Eusebius did use the verbal form of 'arsenokoites' which hinted at homosexual behavior. [Boswell at 351]. Also Eusebius is too late. 6. Clement of Alexandria is more interesting [Boswell at 346]; however, he had a penchant for provocative language against homosexuality, likening it the behavior of a hyena for example, so it is not surprising that he did not use such a rare and euphemistic word. 7. John Chrysostom (4th cen.) is really too late to be probative, but his only use of the term is to distinguish it from male prostitutes (hEtairEkws). [Boswell at 347-48, 351-52]. If this is "overwhelmingly decisive" evidence, I am not impressed. The fact that it is a rare term, euphemistic, apparantly coined within a small Christian community to allude to the Levitical prohibition readily explains why other Christian writers would use terms that were either more current or provocative. Furthermore, this word is used by Polycarp in relation to the lusts of young men, but appears in other places though without much context. This is hardly a good argument from silence. >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. This is not borne out by Polycarp's explicit failure to invoke the covetous in quoting Paul but including three sexual sinners (pornoi, malakoi, and arsenokoitai). >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). Christianity has always had a problem with "carnal Christians," but the existence of those who flout the teachings of the Church confirms rather than denies those teachings. (It may, however, be a criticism of their efficacy...) >> 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.) [...] >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. No, that's seeking after *pleasures* against nature, desiring to "arsenokoitein." The behavior itself is viewed as unnatural. > 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. This is bizarre. Are they also "disobediant to parents" (v30) as well? It is an error to interpret a collective statement about a group of people as being applicable to every member. > I'll present my own observations >on Paul's views soon. Good, I would love to read them. 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 Wed Sep 14 16:44:11 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id QAA17977; Wed, 14 Sep 1994 16:44:03 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa02837; 14 Sep 94 16:20 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa02811; 14 Sep 94 16:19 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA27795; Wed, 14 Sep 1994 16:19:16 -0400 Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 14:32:20 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: 1 Cor. 6:9-10 To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO I'm always surprised by people who say they find the Gospels mysterious and Paul easy to understand. I find the Gospels crystal clear; it's Paul that seems mysterious to me: he often seems to contradict Christ (not to mention common sense). 2 Peter 3:16 gives the warning, so here I'll go trying to figure out a text that's just this side of incomprehensible. First of all, the discussion leading to 6:9-10 starts at least as early as 1 Cor. 5:1-5 where Paul points out a case of PORNEIA among the Corinthian believers. A man has slept with his father's wife. This would violate Lev. 18:8, but because Paul had little regard for Leviticus's food laws, not to mention the Sabbath and circumcision, I would relate his indignation to a universal "dikaiosunE", not the "nomos" of Moses. Anyway, the man guilty of PORNEIA is considered a pornos among other "pornoi" (5:9) to be avoided. Paul compares non-Christian pornoi to "pleonektais kai harpaxin E eidOlolatrais..." (v. 10) and a Christian pornos to "pleonektEs E eiOlolatrEs E loidoros E methusos E harpax..." (v. 11). What do these words mean? I'm getting to that. In 6:1-8 Paul condemns the Corinthians for cheating each other and suing each other: "humeis adikeite kai aposterete kai touto adelphous." Paul is concerned with their violating each other's property rights; notice the word aposterete which Jesus adds to the 10 Commandments in Mark 10:19. All violations of property related to Exodus 20:14 (adultery) and 20:17 (LXX): "ouk epithumEseis," "you will not be greedy for ["covet"]", in a sense not necessarily sexual, since the objects are "neighbor's wife, field, male slave, female slave, ox, donkey". This is important to note, because epithumia is often (and probably mistakenly) translate as "lust" in the New Testament. It is *greed* for something that doesn't belong to one and a willingness to take it unfairly. In 6:9 Paul begins his passage: "mE planasthe: oute pornoi oute eidOlolatrai oute moikhoi oute malakoi oute arsenokoitai oute kleptai oute pleonektai ou methusoi ou loidoroi oukh harpages basileian theou klEronomEsousin." What does pornoi mean? It has been suggested that it should not mean the same thing as "moikhoi," "adulterer, but rather "male prostitute." Its use in the NT does not support this reading. It is a vaguer term than "moikhos" and one related to the word for prostitution, but it is often juxtaposed with marriage obligations. In Hebrews 13:4 we read: "timios ho gamos en pasin kai hE koitE amiantos pornous gar kai moikhous krinei ho theos", "Marriage should be honorable in all things and the marriage bed undefiled, because God condemns pornoi and moikhoi." Jesus also uses "pornos" in a way usually rendered "adulterer" and never "male prostitute." More importantly, Paul has here just condemned a particular example of PORNEIA in the sense of a heterosexual violation of a heterosexual marriage (5:1 ff). What does eidOlolatrai mean? Idol-worshippers, of course, but one should notice that this was conceptually related in NT minds with ideas of adultery (as a metaphorical disloyalty of Israel towards God) and prostitution (as a willingness to worship any god promiscuously), and other sins. In 10:8 Paul reminds the readers of Numbers 25, in which the Israelite men were enticed by Moabite women to sin sexually (in a heterosexual way) and also to become involved in pagan worship. In Rev. 17:1-5 we see the conflation in a vision of the ideas of prostitution, paganism, drunkenness (emethusthEsan), and "abomination" (bdelugma, again, heterosexual, and the same word as used in LXX Lev. 18:22 and Deut. 23:19). What does moikhoi mean? Adulterers, much more specifically than "pornoi," which as we noted, has a possible sense of frequenting, or much less likely (nowhere else in the NT), being a prostitute. What does malakoi mean? It has been suggested that we should read this as "passive partner in homosexual sex." This contradicts the unanimous Greek Christian interpretation of the word later, as "masturbators." But I have already said that I think "masturbators" may also be a misunderstanding. The base meaning of malakos was "weakling, sissy, coward, dandy." How could this be considered a sin and how could it fit in here, in a context so far limited to property? In Matt. 11:8 Jesus banters humorously with the crowd about what they expected to find when they went to see John the Baptist: "Alla ti exElthate idein? anthropon en malakois Emphiesmenon? idou hoi ta malaka phorountes en tois oikois tOn basileOn eisin!" - "But what do you go out there to see? A man all dressed up in malaka? Look - the people who wear malaka are in kings' houses!" The phrase "in malaka" can also be translated "among the malakoi." The NIV translates: "....a man dressed in fine clothes?" In Luke 7:25, a parallel passage reads: "...anthrOpon en malakois himatiois Emphiesmenon? idou hoi en himatismO endoxO kai truphEi huparkhontes en tois basileiois eisin" - "... a man dressed in malaka clothes? Look - people in gorgeous clothes and living in luxury are in palaces!" Here "in palaces" can also mean "among royals." Poor John the B was certainly not dressed like a dandy, but here we get the idea that one fault of the malakoi might have been that they spent too much money on clothes and other luxuries to make themselves look important. It *could* be that Paul thought malakoi were evil just for being tender-foots - cf. how Rev. 21:8 condemns "deiloi" ("cowards") to hell (based on a severe reading of John 14:27? - "do not be afraid!"). But I would prefer to dismiss that possibility, since "luxury-lovers / big-spenders" would fit in with the emphasis on property and excess here. What does arsenoikoitai mean? It has been suggested that here we should understand a reference to all homosexuals who express their act on their orientation. This would ignore the emphasis here on excess and property. Boswell (1980) has already made a case for "male prostitute" (which would fit in with this passage perfectly); at any rate, it is nowhere else used, even by later homophobic Christians, to refer to homosexuals in general. The suggestion that Polycarp so used it is misguided. In his letter to the Philippians Polycarp recommends to the "neOteroi" (younger men, literally) to "anakoptesthai apo tOn epithumiOn en tOi kosmOi, hoti pasa epithumia kata tou pneumatos strateuetai, kai oute pornoi oute malakoi, oute arsenoikoitai basileian theou klEronomoEsousin, oute hoi poiountes ta atopa" (5:3) - "to be cut off from the greedinesses ("lusts") in the world, because every greediness ("lust") fights against the spirit, and neither pornoi nor malakoi nor arsenokoitai will inherit the kingdom of God, nor those who commit crimes." It is certainly likely here that pornoi means adulterers or whoremongers, since unmarried men could easily be tempted by other, older men's wives or prostitutes. Aresenoikoitai could be a warning against becoming a prostitute, or selling one's body to older men, a very real temptation for young men at that time and place (we have already seen the prevalence of pederasty, which in pagan Greek tradition often involved seduction by promises and presents). One of the few other instances of the use of the word arsenokoitE, in the form arrenokoitas, appears in a supposed inscription of late Christian times in Thessalonica: a visitor reads on the gate that in this city "...barbaron ou tromeeis, ouk arrenas arrenokoitas" (Greek Anthology 9.686.5) - "you need not dread the barbarian nor the male arrenokoitai." The passage is very ambiguous: why would a visitor dread even a male prostitute? But if arrenkoitai here meant "homosexual" (with the arreno- referring to the person so described as male), then "arrenas" here is oddly out of place. Kleptai and pleonektai both referred to stealing. Pleonektai *may* have had a broader sense that could involve swindling or cheating. The word pleonektai often appears in Paul's sin lists and is associated with his references to sexual immorality: it probably refers to seduction, rape, or prostitution, in which pure, considerate sexual intentions were muddied with lying, money, and force. What does loidoroi mean? In Acts Paul is called one for talking down to the High Priest. "Slanderer" or "abusive talker" is meant. Here an inability to control one's mouth or temper would be implied. In Pharisaical law, talking down to one's parents, in particular, brought a death sentence which even the parents could not reverse. In the next passage Paul summarizes his atttitude toward this list of sins: (6:12) "ouk egO exousiasthEsomai hupo tinos" (NIV: I will not be mastered by anything) - ... ta brOmata tEi koiliai ... to de Soma ou tEi PORNEIAi alla tOi kuriOi kai ho kurios tOi sOmati" - "food is for the stomach ... but the body is not for PORNEIA, rather, it is for the Master, and the Master for the body." It is self-control, avoidance of PORNEIA, and following the Master (Jesus/God) which is at issue here. From here Paul launches into a discussion of heterosexual prostitution (frequenting female prostitutes) as wrong (6:13-17). In v. 18 he sais "E ouk oidate hoti to Soma humOn naos tou en humin hagiou pneumatos estin?" - "Or don't you know that your (plural) body (singular) is a temple of the holy spirit in you (plural)?" Cf. Deut. 23.19 LXX where it was forbidden for a male or female prostitute's earnings to be put into YHWH's temple: "ou prosoiseis misthOma pornEs oude allagma kunos eis ton oikon kuriou tou theou sou...hoti bdelugma ...estin" - "don't put the wages of a female temple prostitute or the pay of a male temple prostitute ("dog") into the house of your Master God, ...because it is 'an abomination.'" So here Paul's abomination is prostitution, not homosexuality in general, by way of considering one's body the Temple. In chapter 7 Paul finds a discussion of marriage regulations appropriate, and in chapter 8 a discussion of food sacrificed to idols, and in chapter 9 Paul defends himself, apparently against charges that he is not a real apostle/Representative of Christ, that he is only interested in money, that he is sexually immoral, and that he is tempting others to commit idolatry by his looseness. So far he has discussed heterosexual marriage, prostitution, idolatry, and lack of self-control. Now he says he is a real witness of Christ, and that he is innocent sexually: "mE ouk ekhomen exousian adelphEn gunaika periagein hOs kai hoi loipoi apostoloi kai hoi adelphoi tou kuriou kai Kephas?" - "Don't I have the right to bring around a sister, a wife, just like the other Representatives and the Master's brothers/ relatives, and Kephas?" He wants more material support, although he is willing to work for his keep. He will not eat food sacrificed to idols, even though he knows there is nothing wrong with it, if it tempts someone else to go all the way and commit idolatry. Paul concludes: "Panta exestin all' ou panta sumpherei. Panta exestin all' ou panta oikodomei ... MEdeis to heautou zEteitO alla to tou heterou" - "Everything is allowed but not everything is beneficial. Everything is allowed but not everything is constructive. ... No one should look out for that belonging to himself but rather that belonging to the other" (10:23-24). This sets the preceding discussion in the broadest possible context: mere selfishness that ignores the needs of others is to be set aside, but pure concern for others' welfare is to be the rule. This is the context in which sexual ethics have been discussed - starting with the man who offended his father by sleeping with his father's wife (5:1 ff) and continuing on to avoiding being in an idolatrous setting even when one realizes it is OK, if it might encourage someone else to go ahead back into idolatry. The Corinthian temple prostitutes (pornai and arsenoikoitai) and temple food markets were combined temptations for the community emerging from paganism. Nowhere here does Paul tell them to avoid physically loving people of the same sex in a pure way - his discussion is built around warning them not to be impulsive or inconsiderate in their behavior. Forbidding homosexuals from loving one another, in fact, would have been just another example of inconsiderate behavior. If arsenokoitai meant all homosexuals, then why would Paul condemn them in a context in which he is condemning only greed, lack of self control, and offending others? Is mere homosexuality greedy? How is homosexuality necessarily an example of lack of self control? [Staying closeted, in fact, is a virtuoso performance of self-control.] How do they necessarily offend others or harm them by their actions? Paul would be the last person to defend arbitrary obedience to Levitical prescriptions, even if he thought they condemned all homosexuality. He knows the difference between necessary and unnecessary sacrifices for holiness (Col. 2:23), and he knows that all of the law is summed up in love. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Thu Sep 15 15:10:09 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id PAA32765; Thu, 15 Sep 1994 15:10:04 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20187; 15 Sep 94 14:59 EDT Received: from uu3.psi.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20137; 15 Sep 94 14:58 EDT Received: from iclink.UUCP by uu3.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA09322 for ; Thu, 15 Sep 94 14:44:06 -0400 Received: from ropes.reston.icl.com by iclink.reston.icl.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA26199 for jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu; Thu, 15 Sep 94 14:07:20 EDT Received: by ropes.reston.icl.com (4.1/smail2.5/01-31-90) id AA05790; Thu, 15 Sep 94 14:01:39 EDT From: Stephen Carlson Message-Id: <9409151801.AA05790@ropes.reston.icl.com> Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: Gregory Jordan Date: Thu, 15 Sep 94 14:01:38 EDT Cc: scc@reston.icl.com, b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: ; from "Gregory Jordan" at Sep 14, 94 4:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO It seems to me that we have come to point where further argumentation is not likely to elucidating on this issue (the meaning of arsenokoites and Boswell's analysis of it). All the major arguments have been brought forth and discussed, and the remaining ones are really quite minor and subsidary to the main point. One thing is clear, however, is that no one seems willing to defend the specifics of Boswell's analysis, frankly because they are indefensible. His linguistic analysis is fundamentally unsound; his contextual analysis is arbitrary and fanciful; and his argument from silence is weak and misleading. My conclusion is that the term, arsenokoites, on its face, broadly and euphemistically refers to those (males) having sex with males. Probably a neologism from the time of Paul, if not from Paul himself, it trans- parently refers to Lv18:22 & 20:13. Therefore, its origin, temporally and literarily, readily explains why its circulation was limited and inappropriate for polemical writings. Now, there have been suggestions that this term is limited to a certain class of homosexuals whose behavior is independently sinful, such as male prostitutes, but there really isn't anything to justify this contention from the context. Indeed, this whole exercise strikes me as a cramped, tendentious reading of the text. 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 15 16:47:25 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id QAA29957; Thu, 15 Sep 1994 16:47:24 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa11964; 15 Sep 94 16:29 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa11951; 15 Sep 94 16:28 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA12965; Thu, 15 Sep 1994 16:28:16 -0400 Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 15:46:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409151801.AA05790@ropes.reston.icl.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Boswell's thesis on arsenokoites has been widely criticized for many of its details, but his conclusion has generally been accepted. There is no reason to retain the understanding of arsenokoitai as referring to male homosexuals in general. First of all, there is a significant doubt that Paul would have known of a term for "homosexual," in our contemporary usage. No other ancient language had such a term, and the earliest Greek writers used a wide variety of periphrastic constructions to render a similar conception. It might be argued that Paul was only concerned with a particular sexual behavior, say anal intercourse between males, frequent among male homosexuals of the time. There is no evidence that Paul condemned anal intercourse between men and women or between men, or that he saw physical affection between males as something to be avoided. I think it would be completely unnecessary to demonstrate how Paul rejected much of the arbitary legislation of the Pentateuch; that is sufficiently well known. I have, though, demonstrated that even the Leviticus 18:22, 20:13 passages do not reflect the general condemnation of homosexual behavior as usually assumed. Although the word arsenokoites contains stems mentioned in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, it is very unlikely that Paul coined any new words: the context of his letters implies his term would be easily understood. The term appears only in contexts dealing with greed, prostitution, adultery, idolatry, and lack of self control. Although it is a rare term, its use is probably best connected with those male prostitutes who are clearly condemned in the Old Testament, and who would fit in with those temptations which drew Paul's audience toward idolatry and greed, whether they were tempted to become such prostitutes or take advantage of their services. It is abundantly clear from the evidence of later Christian usage that the term arsenokoites changed meaning from its original use by Paul: it eventually came to refer to anything from child molesting to anal intercourse with one's wife. This semantic drift probably occurred because Paul's warnings were so successful that the phenomenon he addressed actually disappeared from prominence in Christian-controlled areas of late antiquity/early medieval times. After the fall of paganism, temple prostitutes would have become a thing of the past, and male prostitutes, always probably fewer in number than female prostitutes, probably dwindled to extreme rarity. Later Christians, not readily seeing the meaning of arsenokoitai, would then have inserted a meaning they wished to see there, a practice not exactly unheard of in Christian circles. Reading arsenokoitai "homosexuals" is an example of eisegesis. Homophobes who want to find condemnations of homosexuals in the Bible are capable of reading their prejudice into any given passage, just as their predecessors were capable of finding abundant encouragement for anti-Semitism and racism in the Bible. Do we now read the "mark of Cain" as black skin, as many American preachers in the past did? Do we now read "May his blood be upon us and our children forever" in the Gospel of John as our marching orders to massacre Jews, as medieval European Christians did? In the end, as some have already indicated, the responsibility for correct exegesis is not merely a scholarly one - it is an ethical one, too. I hope everyone who cares about this issue puts as much prayer and thinking into this as they do page turning. At Judgment Day I don't think we will be held accountable for not harrassing those we thought were sinners; we will be held accountable for acting fairly and responsibly towards those who depended our actions. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Thu Sep 15 16:21:40 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id QAA32155; Thu, 15 Sep 1994 16:21:39 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa06128; 15 Sep 94 16:06 EDT Received: from raitt.bbn.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa06115; 15 Sep 94 16:05 EDT Received: from konitz.bbn.com (KONITZ.BBN.COM [128.89.2.225]) by raitt.bbn.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id QAA07027; Thu, 15 Sep 1994 16:04:55 -0400 Received: by konitz.bbn.com (931110.SGI/890607.SGI) (for ingria@raitt.bbn.com) id AA24254; Thu, 15 Sep 94 16:10:08 -0400 Date: Thu, 15 Sep 94 16:10:08 -0400 From: ingria@bbn.com Message-Id: <9409152010.AA24254@konitz.bbn.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: Greg Carey's message of Thu, 15 Sep 1994 14:48:02 -0600 (CST) <1FF812E655B@library1.vanderbilt.edu> Subject: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) Reply-To: ingria@bbn.com Status: RO Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 14:48:02 -0600 (CST) From: Greg Carey For people who really care about sexuality in the ancient Greek world, I would suggest Winkler's _The Constraints of Desire_, devoted to that subject specifically. And, as an antidote to Winkler, I would recommend Camille Paglia's review of it in Arion: ``Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf'', {\it Arion}, Third Series 1.2, Spring 1991, pp. 139--212. This is also reprinted in her collection, _Sex, Art, and American Culture_. -30- Bob Ingria ``They're brooding in Boston with darts between their teeth.'' ---Jayne Cortez From sysadmin Sat Sep 10 09:55:56 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id JAA29340; Sat, 10 Sep 1994 09:55:55 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa01156; 10 Sep 94 9:49 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa01149; 10 Sep 94 9:47 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id JAA07363; Sat, 10 Sep 1994 09:47:41 -0400 Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 09:34:59 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Lev. 18:18, 22 (LXX) To: John Moody cc: 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, John Moody wrote: > 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. Well, what I'm trying to do is show that what you assume to be the "issue" at issue in this passage, is in fact, not at issue. The fact that the issue is not one of the sex of the partner is that sex with females (from thElus) is not contrasted with sex with males (from arsEn), according to what would be the best way in the Greek to render an idea like the one you mentioned. If it seems *logical* to you that the writer would prohibit all same-sex relations, then you have failed to provide an argument to defend your interpretation of this passage. You seem to rely entirely on your preconceived expectations about the passage, which is not "logical" at all. What is more likely is that a writer from such a distance in time and space would have a completely different attitude toward sexuality and gender vocabulary than either you or I would. So interpretation should be historically contextualized, regardless of whether we would then want to agree or disagree with the moral import of the passage (as many Christians, for example, would want to disagree with OT tolerance of polygamy, or expect more rigorous punishment for rape than Moses gives [i.e., marriage]). > > ___________________________________________________________ > John L. Moody Palm Beach Atlantic College > jmoody@goliath.pbac.edu > ___________________________________________________________ > > Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sat Sep 10 10:02:55 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id KAA36022; Sat, 10 Sep 1994 10:02:54 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa01804; 10 Sep 94 9:55 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa01800; 10 Sep 94 9:55 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id JAA10433; Sat, 10 Sep 1994 09:55:22 -0400 Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 09:52:39 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Lev. 18:22 To: Dvdmoore@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409082107.tn579264@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Thu, 8 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > 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 I was under the impression that discussion of the LXX was on-topic in this list. If not, my apologies to those offended by the OT discussion, which following David Moore's suggestion, will now move to B-Hebrew. If I can properly subscribe, I will also respond there to Donn Leatherman's post, which I would like to answer. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Fri Sep 16 12:02:37 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA41483; Fri, 16 Sep 1994 12:02:34 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa28918; 16 Sep 94 11:41 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa28913; 16 Sep 94 11:40 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id LAA09506; Fri, 16 Sep 1994 11:40:05 -0400 Date: Fri, 16 Sep 1994 11:20:37 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Boswell (was Re: Lexicons) To: DDDJ@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409161054.tn1115887@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Fri, 16 Sep 1994 DDDJ@aol.com wrote: > < rejected much of the arbitary legislation of the Pentateuch; that is > sufficiently well known.>> Well, that's properly a theological point, not a linguistic one, although it had indirect bearing on whether or not Paul would be restating a Levitical law in condemning term "arsenokoitas," since it is in fact the usual reason anti-gay Christians give for observing (as they think) Lev. 18:22 - that is, that Paul reconfirmed it. If you think Paul observed the Pentateuch then you are going to have to explain why Paul condemned circumcision, dietary laws, cleanliness laws, etc. Read Galatians for a general diatribe against all of the above. > If you and Paul reject the OLd Testament Why the argument about What LEv > means? Why not just say it is <> and leave it at that. I totally > reject the common false assumption that Paul was against the OT. Read Romans > 7 where He said that the Law was Holy just and Good Not <>. He said > that the problem was with us not with the law. Ditto. > < Leviticus 18:22, 20:13 passages do not reflect the general condemnation > of homosexual behavior as usually assumed.>> > > Only to your satisfaction greg no one elses. Again, if you have a cogent reason for dismissing my argument, then give it. Otherwise I'll assume you don't understand my point or have biased reasons for rejecting it. > < Homophobes who want to find condemnations of homosexuals in the Bible > are capable of reading their prejudice into any given passage.>> > > Greg everyone but you is quilty of eisegesis. I could only wish. (I think you meant to accuse me of eisegesis). > On Judgement Day We will be held accountable if we fail to warn teh sinner of > his error See Ezekial Where the watchman is accountable for the destruction > of the people if he fails to warn them, but not responsible if he does warn > them, even if they do not listen. If heterosexist Christians limited themselves to "warning" gays that they might be sinning by some of their actions, like the Orthodox Jews who warn others not to eat cheeseburgers, then the whole issue might be a tempest in a teapot. On the other hand, the reality is that heterosexist Christians have organized throughout the U.S. and world to deprive gays and lesbians and bisexuals of their basic human rights, as if their mere existence were an active attack on the heterosexual community. But I don't mean to get into a political discussion. Suffice it to say that Ezekiel preached repentance from *real* sins, not harrassment of so-called sinners, which has always been the special preoccupation of the Pharisee and hypocrite. > I will let you get the last word in if you want to greg. I will not respond > again. I will even tell you why from the OT book of proverbs. I think you're under the mistaken impression that I am responding personally to you - I'm not. > > "answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him" > If you didn't want to be disturbed by my folly, you could always have just deleted my posts. I really didn't mean to tinker with you personal beliefs, because Proverbs also says: "Better to come between a she-bear and her cubs, than a fool and his folly." Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sat Sep 17 11:42:33 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id LAA26210; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 11:42:32 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa26134; 17 Sep 94 11:32 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa26130; 17 Sep 94 11:31 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id LAA12519; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 11:31:24 -0400 Date: Sat, 17 Sep 1994 11:12:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Boswell To: "MADAVIDS.US.ORACLE.COM" cc: b-greek@virginia.edu, MADAVIDS@us.oracle.com In-Reply-To: <9409161746.AA01618@prodpyr1.us.oracle.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Fri, 16 Sep 1994, MADAVIDS.US.ORACLE.COM wrote: > Hi - > > At the risk of cutting off scholarly discussion, might I offer one word: > dayenu! Enough, already. I feel that both sides have analyzed, exegesised, > interpreted, and cited enough sources and lexicons to stock the New York City > Public library. > > I find it very difficult to believe that there is really anything new under > the sun linguistically speaking; if Leviticus 18:22 really only referred to > male prostitution, then why hasn't one of the commentators of the past come up > with this interpretation (especially as this type of behaviour was certainly > not unknown in the Hellenistic period)? Seems to me that most of the Jewish > commentators in particular loved to interpret, argue, and expound on what the > scripture meant - not unlike the discussions that have ensued on b-greek on > this topic. > Has one single reputable commentator (i.e. non-Boswell, whose motives are > suspect and scholarship appears sloppy) ever come up with this interpretation > before? If not, then perhaps it is because A is A; Leviticus 18:22 is exactly > what it appears to be. At the risk of breaking Leo's moratorium on Lev. 18:22 (I had already moved it to B-Hebrew myself), I would like to say something about this. First of all, it is only in modern times that Christians or Jews have started to think realistically about the origins of their religion. Today we don't think twice about assuming that religion changes over time, or that the Biblical texts reflect differing conditions, cultures, and situations, as opposed to our ancestors who thought that the entire Bible was a unanimous, univocal, homogeneous statement. Archaeology, comparative cultural studies, etc. show us that the world in which the earliest parts of the Bible were written (including Leviticus) were very different from those of later Bible times. Certain critical moments in Jewish history effaced or distorted the memory of earlier conditions and beliefs. That is why it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the original meaning of, say a Leviticus passage, might have been lost until present day reconstructions. As you say, Jews of later times were certainly able to *argue* about the meaning of a text, but because their methods were so poor you could hardly expect them to recover an original meaning any more than you could have expected them to look for real evidence when they considered what we would now call scientific questions. Their legal twistings and pullings were often transparently disingenuous even to them. For at least the existence of a disagreement over Lev. 18:22 in ancient times, see Sanhedrin 33b. The Sadducees, who were usually more conservative in their interpretation of the Law than the Pharisees (who often exaggerated commandments and generalized them), were apparently in the habit of acquitting those the Pharisees would condemn to death because of Lev. 18:22. You say Boswell's motives were suspect: well so should everyone's be. I suspect the motives of most every interpreter of Lev. 18:22 until now, considering how homosexuals have been treated since late antiquity-early middle ages. In the same way I would suspect the motives, or even abilities to think clearly, of male interpreters of texts relating to females, considering that there has almost never been a woman in a position of authority to interpret a text since the early middle ages. And if you think Boswell's scholarship was sloppy, then his conclusions could be dismissed by more careful scholarship. So far I haven't seen any. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sat Sep 17 12:09:35 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA38706; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 12:09:32 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa27601; 17 Sep 94 11:57 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa27597; 17 Sep 94 11:56 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id LAA13670; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 11:56:38 -0400 Date: Sat, 17 Sep 1994 11:35:05 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Scripture To: Dvdmoore@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409161437.tn1133161@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Fri, 16 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > "Heterosexist"?? Is that a word you coined yourself, Greg? I haven't been > able to find it in any of the several dictionaries I consulted. I picked it up from Donna Haraway; sorry to stump you. But it is different from homophobe. A person who is -phobic is irrationally afraid or hateful of someone or something. A person who is -sexist is perhaps merely chauvinistic; they unconsciously assume that however they are is the norm, and the state of things they know is right. > Others on this list, including myself, are not convinced by your treatment > of scriptures relating to homosexuality. I, for one, believe that your > personal orientation concerning this subject colors your judgement. Your > interpretations overreach any reasoned reading of the text as you try to keep > homosexuality from being classed as sin. You ignore or frantically > reinterpret any surrounding context to fit your presupposition that > homosexual activity is a legitimate, non-sinful expression of sexuality. > That may sound good to those concerned with conforming to political > correctness. But it makes no sense from a Christian point of view to be > pimarily concerned to take a politically correct position in an age that > cynically calls itself post-Christian. Maybe the reason this age cynically calls itself post-Christian is that the world has given up on waiting for Christians to start imitating Christ in his capacity to love, heal, and forgive. It does seem a disgrace to me that non-Christians have to take the lead in removing the hatred of blacks and women which the churches often held on to the longest. As Paul said, God would have even less patience with Gentile Christians than He did with the pre-Christian Jews. I'm surprised He's waited this long for judgment. > I don't wish you ill, as you imply that I do. But I do perceive that the > Bible unequivocally calls homosexual activity sin. In another post, you > called my position "homophobic." Are, then, those who call adultery sin to > be called _moichophobic_. Are there to be _kleptophobes_ and _phonophobes_? > How about _pornophobes_? Would that refer to those that call fornication > sin or those that call prostitution sin or would it refer to an aversion to > pornography? Maybe there are such a thing as _pornophobes_. I guess if you could show me how homosexuals necessarily hurt anyone, the way adulterers, thieves, and murderers do then I'd join you. Until then I'd rather assume Paul (and maybe even Moses) were less irrational and stupid than that. If you have trouble with words that end in -phobic, I suggest you buy a new unabridged dictionary. > You talk about repentance from *real* sins, not harrassment of so-called > sinners. Well, homosexual activity would not be sin at all if it were not > *real* sin. You are not really asking not to be harrassed: you are asking a > Christian baptism for the homosexual lifestyle. No one with a biblically > based system of ethics is going to afford you that. You need to repent. > There is no door the way you are trying to come in. My reference was to someone who quoted from the Prophets. The Prophets, especially Ezekiel, condemned the *abomination* of idolatry, of Israel's betrayal of God. The other prophets were prominent for condemning social injustice, oppression of the poor and helpless, unfairness, political corruption, religious hypocrisy, violence, greed, etc. Not one of them saw fit to condemn homosexuality. The prophets *did* find time to condemn the mindless observance of the Pentateuch's commandments and the man-made rules that mere humans had added to it. Reread the prophets if you don't believe me! You say your ethics are based on the Bible, but it seems like a book you haven't read in a while. As for trying to come in; I'm already in Him, and He is in me. As for where you are, I don't know. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sat Sep 17 18:18:18 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id SAA38835; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 18:18:17 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa24072; 17 Sep 94 18:11 EDT Received: from cais.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa24068; 17 Sep 94 18:10 EDT Received: from cais2.cais.com (cais2.cais.com [199.0.216.200]) by cais.cais.com (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA01420; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 18:04:02 -0400 Received: from localhost (gewex@localhost) by cais2.cais.com (8.6.5/8.6.5) id SAA11281; Sat, 17 Sep 1994 18:08:40 -0400 Date: Sat, 17 Sep 1994 18:08:39 -0400 (EDT) From: INTL GEWEX PROT OFF Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Scripture 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 Sat, 17 Sep 1994, Gregory Jordan (ENG) wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > > > "Heterosexist"?? Is that a word you coined yourself, Greg? I haven't been > > able to find it in any of the several dictionaries I consulted. > > I picked it up from Donna Haraway; sorry to stump you. But it is > different from homophobe. A person who is -phobic is irrationally afraid > or hateful of someone or something. A person who is -sexist is perhaps > merely chauvinistic; they unconsciously assume that however they are is > the norm, and the state of things they know is right. > > > Others on this list, including myself, are not convinced by your treatment > > of scriptures relating to homosexuality. I, for one, believe that your > > personal orientation concerning this subject colors your judgement. Your > > interpretations overreach any reasoned reading of the text as you try to keep > > homosexuality from being classed as sin. You ignore or frantically > > reinterpret any surrounding context to fit your presupposition that > > homosexual activity is a legitimate, non-sinful expression of sexuality. > > That may sound good to those concerned with conforming to political > > correctness. But it makes no sense from a Christian point of view to be > > pimarily concerned to take a politically correct position in an age that > > cynically calls itself post-Christian. > > Maybe the reason this age cynically calls itself post-Christian is that > the world has given up on waiting for Christians to start imitating > Christ in his capacity to love, heal, and forgive. It does seem a > disgrace to me that non-Christians have to take the lead in removing the > hatred of blacks and women which the churches often held on to the > longest. As Paul said, God would have even less patience with Gentile > Christians than He did with the pre-Christian Jews. I'm surprised He's > waited this long for judgment. > > > I don't wish you ill, as you imply that I do. But I do perceive that the > > Bible unequivocally calls homosexual activity sin. In another post, you > > called my position "homophobic." Are, then, those who call adultery sin to > > be called _moichophobic_. Are there to be _kleptophobes_ and _phonophobes_? > > How about _pornophobes_? Would that refer to those that call fornication > > sin or those that call prostitution sin or would it refer to an aversion to > > pornography? Maybe there are such a thing as _pornophobes_. > > I guess if you could show me how homosexuals necessarily hurt anyone, the > way adulterers, thieves, and murderers do then I'd join you. Until then > I'd rather assume Paul (and maybe even Moses) were less irrational and > stupid than that. If you have trouble with words that end in -phobic, I > suggest you buy a new unabridged dictionary. > > > You talk about repentance from *real* sins, not harrassment of so-called > > sinners. Well, homosexual activity would not be sin at all if it were not > > *real* sin. You are not really asking not to be harrassed: you are asking a > > Christian baptism for the homosexual lifestyle. No one with a biblically > > based system of ethics is going to afford you that. You need to repent. > > There is no door the way you are trying to come in. > > My reference was to someone who quoted from the Prophets. The Prophets, > especially Ezekiel, condemned the *abomination* of idolatry, of Israel's > betrayal of God. The other prophets were prominent for condemning social > injustice, oppression of the poor and helpless, unfairness, political > corruption, religious hypocrisy, violence, greed, etc. Not one of them > saw fit to condemn homosexuality. The prophets *did* find time to > condemn the mindless observance of the Pentateuch's commandments and > the man-made rules that mere humans had added to it. Reread the prophets if > you don't believe me! You say your ethics are based on the Bible, but it > seems like a book you haven't read in a while. > As for trying to come in; I'm already in Him, and He is in me. As for > where you are, I don't know. > > Greg Jordan > jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu > > Is all this *really* the biblical greek discussion group? If it is then I'll unsubscribe and look for greek scholarship elsewhere. Imho there are several individuals who need to carry on their axe grinding in regular email. I would really like to hear others opinions on this. Chuck Arnold From sysadmin Sun Sep 18 12:01:17 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA40307; Sun, 18 Sep 1994 12:01:15 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa11218; 18 Sep 94 11:42 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa11214; 18 Sep 94 11:41 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id LAA02274; Sun, 18 Sep 1994 11:41:17 -0400 Date: Sun, 18 Sep 1994 10:16:34 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Phusei, Phusik-, Phusis To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO In an article on the use of "nature" in Paul (Relations Natural and Unnatural..., Journal of Religious Ethics 14 (1986), Richard Hays argued that the word should be understood to refer to "an intuitive conception of what ought to be, the world as designed by God" (194). Hays relates the word to the Edenic situtation in Genesis and implies that the word should be understood to relate to God's providential intention for creation. The use of phusis and its related forms in the New Testament, however, does not bear out this conception. Most often the word is used in the New Testament in the form _phusei_. Hays considers that its "anarthrous dative singular form . . . actually functions in a quasi-adverbial manner . . .; its nominal character is largely dissipated in this construction" (197). This seems like back-pedaling; Hays doesn't give an example in which even a dissipated sense of "providential intention" is meant in the form _phusei_. Nor does he give an example (other than Romans 1) in which even the noun form _phusis_ could easily be interpreted as "providential design." In Galatians 4:8 we read: Alla tote men ouk eidotes theon edouleusate tois phusei mE ousin theois. "But at that time when you did not know God you served as slaves those who were not by _phusis_ gods." Surely Paul is referring to idols. Idols were not, of course, part of God's providential design, nor could they have any "nature" in the sense of being the way they ought to have been. Idols, as artificial creations, also couldn't have had an inherent character or essence. In fact, the English translation "those who were not by *nature* gods" introduces a pleonasm: if the idols weren't gods, of course they couldn't have the natures of gods. What does _phusis_, "nature", add to the sense? The only sense which seems to shed any light on the phrase is Lewis & Short (abr'd) I.3: "The outward form, stature, look, Latin _species_, like phuE." In their *evident characteristics and apparent behavior* the idols certainly were not gods: they weren't immortal, they weren't all-powerful, they weren't even alive, as one could see by going up to them and kicking them. :) If this is how we understand _phusei_ here, it is no longer pleonastic, and it now fits the sense of very well. In 1 Cor. 11:14 we read: Oude hE phusis autE didaskei humas hoti anEr men ean komai atimia autOi estin?... vv. 13-15: "Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a wife to pray to God uncovered? Doesn't _phusis_ itself teach you that if her husband has long hair, it is dishonorable? But if his wife has long hair, it is her magnificence [doksE]." Hays admits this use of _phusis_ probably means "the character of some person or group of persons, a character which was largely ethnic and entirely human" (197). But why keep shifting the sense of the word? What if it means the same thing here as it did in Galatians? It may be that neither universal nature or even particular human nature are at issue. This passage is very controversial, as to what the problem was and as to what solution Paul was suggesting, but if _phusis_ here means evident characteristics and behavior, then Paul may be referring to the _phusis_ of the people involved, not others to whom they may be compared. In other words, he may be defending the right of women to cover themselves since they normally liked to "glory" in their long hair, just as men liked to go "uncovered" since they would be embarrassed by long hair. It may be that some men were forbidding women to cover their heads even though the women wanted to cover their heads, perhaps based on the notion that in Christ there was neither male nor female. This understanding of _phusis_ alone would radically change the usual understanding of this passage. Again, in Galatians 2:15 we read HEmeis phusei ioudaioi kai ouk eks ethnOn hamartOloi... The context is Paul rebuking Peter and Barnabas for separating from Gentiles at meals. "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? ... We who are Jews by _phusis_ and not Gentile sinners..." Hays assumes the translation should be "by birth" (197). Again, why change the sense of the word? Behavior and outward customs are at issue here in this passage. Jews by _phusis_ are contrasted with Gentile "sinners": surely even Gentiles were not pagans by birth-disposition. It is much more likely that here again Paul means outward characteristics; in the case of Jews, minimally circumcision; in the case of Gentiles, their uncircumcision, paganism, and sinfulness. In Ephesians 2:3 we read: En hous kai humeis pantes anestraphEmen pote en tais epithumiais tEs sarkos hEmon, poiountes ta thelEmata tEs sarkos kai tOn dianoiOn, kai Emetha tekna phusei orgEs hOs kai hoi loipoi. NIV 2:1-3 (adapted): "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. *All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were children, by _phusis_, of wrath*." Here Paul is saying that he himself, with the rest of them, was a child of wrath. The form _phusei_ is inserted into the middle of a genitive construction in a way that closely ties it to the phrase: "children by _phusis_ of wrath." Surely Paul is not here referring to providential plan, since God did not preordain Paul for damnation, but for salvation. He is also not referring to some unchanging internal characteristic of his person either, since Paul obviously later repented and changed his manner of life. _Phusei_ must be understood to refer directly to that former manner of life: children of wrath, _as was evident by our behavior_. Here Paul is using a form similar to what one might call the "Semiticism" of "son of perdition" used by Jesus, to refer to someone who _by their actions_ demonstrated that they, at that moment, would be damned if they were to be judged. Thus _phusei_ makes the best sense when it has the same sense as it has elsewhere in the NT. Leaving Paul, in 2 Peter 1:4 we read Di' hOn ta timia kai megista hEmin epaggelmata dedOrEtai hina dia toutOn genEsthe theias koinOnoi phuseOs, apophugontes tEs en tOi kosmOi en epithumiai phthoras. V. 3ff: "His [God's] divine power has given us everything we need for life and piety through our knowledge of him who called us to his own magnificence (doksEi) and virtue (aretEi). *Through these he has given us his great and precious promise, so that through them you might become sharers of a divine _phusis_ and escape the corruption of the world by greed*." Here it is only vaguely possible that the word _phusis_ could refer to providential design, if Hays's heavily Calvinistic theology is to be applied, and the Christians are given no credit for choosing to believe in Christ or follow him in their behavior. On the other hand, inserting all of the previous uses of _phusis_ here makes even more sense. Christians are now living a pious life, one of glorious honor/virtue, unlike the corrupt greediness of the world. It is in that way that the Christians will share the _evident characteristics_ of God, the observable behavior characteristic of God. It is God's _phusis_ which is being imparted to humans - how could it mean God's plan, since it would mean God had a plan for himself? In Jude 10 we read: Houtoi de hosa men ouk oidasin blasphEmousin, hosa de phusikOs hOs ta aloga zOia epistantai en toutois phtheirontai. "And these people blaspheme what they don't know about, and whatever things they have experience of, _phuskOs_, like irrational animals, by these things they are destroyed." It is most likely that since here the behavior of these people is being discussed, that _phusikOs_ refers to that behavior, and not to any unchanging personal nature, much less to a providential design. Although they may be *acting* like animals, God did not intend them to act that way. Yet here it is plainly said that their behavior is _phusikOs_. They don't know (oidasin) God, so all they know is what they experience (epistantai) sensually, by their behavior. Their evident characteristics are those of animals. In Romans 2:14 we read: Hotan gar ethnE ta mE nomon ekhonta phusei ta tou nomou poiOsin, houtoi nomon mE ekhontes heautois eisin nomos. vv. 14-15: "Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law do by _phusis_ things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show [endeiknuntai] the practice [ergon] of the law that is written in their hearts, their consciences also testifying, and their thoughts now accusing, now defending them." Again, reading "providential design" into this passage, even in a diluted way, makes nonsense of it. Surely God intended for both Jews and Gentiles to follow the law in their hearts, though here Gentiles are being favorably compared to Jews. It is wrong to assume that _phusei_ here refers to the "universal natural law", a concept ill-developed at the time, but if anything, better rendered by the "law that is written in their hearts." It is their practice of that law, in their decent behavior, that is their _phusis_. If they plainly, and in their evident behavior, demonstrate they are following the requirements of the law, then they must be showing (endeknuntai) that they have a law written on their hearts. Hays would have us believe this might mean "birth," but again, not all Gentiles were righteous by birth; much less could it mean "by custom"; since Paul's whole point is that they had no _nomos_. It was in Stoic usage itself, which Hays sees reflected in Paul, that _nomos_ as "custom" was distinuished from _phusis_, "nature." It is much more likely here that Paul is not using _phusis_ in the Stoic technical sense. This is evident from the consistent use of _phusis_ throughout the New Testament. Only in James 3:7 would a translation of "species" be better than "outward characteristics and observable behavior," although the meanings are obviously closely related, unlike those Hays suggests of birth, providential design, or ethnic custom. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sun Sep 18 23:34:08 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id XAA41986; Sun, 18 Sep 1994 23:34:07 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa03387; 18 Sep 94 23:26 EDT Received: from mail02.prod.aol.net by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa03383; 18 Sep 94 23:25 EDT Received: by mail02.prod.aol.net (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA17335; Sun, 18 Sep 1994 23:25:52 -0400 From: Dvdmoore@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Dvdmoore Message-Id: <9409182325.tn122983@aol.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Sun, 18 Sep 94 23:25:34 EDT Subject: ARSENOKOITHS Status: RO I apologize to those who may have been bored by some of my conversation with Greg Jordan. I'll try to keep my posts on topic. Nevertheless, there was a sentence in one of his recent posts that got me looking into something that I believe should be productive in an on-topic sense. He said: GJ>If you have trouble with words that end in -phobic, I GJ>suggest you buy a new unabridged dictionary. His suggestion to look up the second foot of a compound word made me realize we had dealt with other words that begin with ARREN- (=ARSEN-) in considering ARSENOKOITHS, but we had not even mentioned any other words that have -KOITHS for their second foot. I was able to find a couple of examples by paging through Liddell & Scott. The first was DOULOKOITHS which L&S translate "Consorting with slaves." The definition sounds bland, but when you consider that it is equated with DOULOMIKTHS and DOULOGAMOS the meaning becomes clearer. The DOULOKOITHS reference is from Paulus Alexandrinus Astrologus (vi A.D.) O.2 which I don't have readily available, so am unable to give any notes on the context. The other word is MHTROKOITHS which L&S define "incestuous person." The reference is from Hippon (v B.C.) 14. Again I am unable to give any notes on the context. If someone has search software that has the capacity to pick out component parts of words and would be willing to do a search, we could probably come up with several more examples that could help elucidate Paul's use of the compound ARSENOKOITHS in 1Cor. 6:9. David Moore From sysadmin Fri Sep 23 12:58:40 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA12555; Fri, 23 Sep 1994 12:58:38 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa24004; 23 Sep 94 12:42 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa23998; 23 Sep 94 12:41 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id MAA24201; Fri, 23 Sep 1994 12:41:00 -0400 Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 12:29:26 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: ARSENOKOITHS To: Dvdmoore@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409182325.tn122983@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Sun, 18 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > His suggestion to look up the second foot of a compound word made me realize > we had dealt with other words that begin with ARREN- (=ARSEN-) in considering > ARSENOKOITHS, but we had not even mentioned any other words that have -KOITHS > for their second foot. I was able to find a couple of examples by paging > through Liddell & Scott. The first was DOULOKOITHS which L&S translate > "Consorting with slaves." The definition sounds bland, but when you consider > that it is equated with DOULOMIKTHS and DOULOGAMOS the meaning becomes > clearer. The DOULOKOITHS reference is from Paulus Alexandrinus Astrologus > (vi A.D.) O.2 which I don't have readily available, so am unable to give any > notes on the context. The other word is MHTROKOITHS which L&S define > "incestuous person." The reference is from Hippon (v B.C.) 14. Again I am > unable to give any notes on the context. > > If someone has search software that has the capacity to pick out component > parts of words and would be willing to do a search, we could probably come up > with several more examples that could help elucidate Paul's use of the > compound ARSENOKOITHS in 1Cor. 6:9. > > David Moore David Wright already threw out a few examples in his 1984 article: parakoitEs (bedfellow, spouse), klepsikoitEs (seeking illicit sex), androkoitEs (having intercourse with a man), hEmerokoitEs (sleeping by day), khamakoitEs (sleeping on the ground), enOtokoitEs (with ears large enough to sleep in), borborokoitEs (mudcoucher - a kind of frog), akoitEs (bedfellow, spouse), sugkoitos (bedfellow), homokoitos (bedfellow), deuterokoiteO, polukoitos (sleeping with many men or women), adelphokoitia (incest of brother or sister), anemokoitEs (luller of winds), etc. The translations here are Wright's - I haven't checked them or their usage. What would be important would be to determine their date. Wright said "most of them were of very rare occurence." It would be very important if any of them were pre-Paul, since it would show the formation in question was hardly anomalous. Although Wright was trying to undermine the part of Boswell's argument that dealt with _arsenokoitEs_ as denoting active sexuality, by providing these examples he cast doubt on part of his own thesis: that the term reflects a special Jewish neologism based solely on Leviticus 20. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sun Sep 25 15:18:50 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id PAA38213; Sun, 25 Sep 1994 15:18:44 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22621; 25 Sep 94 15:01 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22617; 25 Sep 94 15:01 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id MAA17899; Sun, 25 Sep 1994 12:20:43 -0400 Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994 12:18:30 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Sender: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Reply-To: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: ARSENOKOITHS To: Dvdmoore@aol.com cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409242134.tn50150@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Status: RO On Sat, 24 Sep 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote: > Some of those examples seem to be more to the point than others. > ANDROKOITHS and ADELFOKOITIA, for instance seem to be most analogous to the > term ARSENOKIOTHS. Among those somewhat related analogically to the latter > we might list KLEYIKOITHS and possibly DEUTEROKOITEW AND POLUKIOTOS. By assuming some are more related semantically than others, you are already assuming the definition of _arsenokoitEs_ is known and able to be compared with some select others. > The verb ANDROKOITEW which L&S defines "sleep with a man" may be found in > context in _Berliner griechische Urkunden_, (Berlin, 1895), 1058.30 dated to > the first Century B.C. (i B.C). It is also used by Aetius Medicus (vi A.D.) > 1.142. The context, in these cases would have to dictate how we understand > these terms. I don't find ADELFOKOITIA in L&S, but, if it is to be found in > extant literature, its meaning seems clear enough. KLEYIKOITHS is > translated, "seeking illicit love," and carries the somewhat cryptic > reference in L&S: "Ismenias ap. Ps.-Callist. 1.46" which I was unable to > decipher. DEUTEROKOITEW is translated in L&S as simply, "to have a > bedfellow," and the reference given is Athenaeus Grammaticus (ii/iii A.D.) > 13.584b. POLUKOITOS and POLUKOITEW (I found the verbal form as well) L&S > translate as "lying (or to lie, in the case of the verb) with many women or > men." References to both are found in Vettius Valens Astrologus (ii A.D.) > 118.5 and 75.9, al. > > By adding to these DOULOKOITHS and MHTROKIOTHS as mentioned above (The > latter, BTW, is attested from the fifth century B.C.), we should have enough > material to get a clearer idea of the meaning of ARSENOKOITHS in 1Cor. 6:9 if > we could clarify the pertinent contexts. I don't think any of these examples will be helpful for determining the meaning of _arsenokoitEs_ in Paul. The mere existence of the morphemes arsen- and -koit- in other combinations only proves that they were lexically productive. That does, though, cast doubt on the idea that _arsenokoitEs_ was a Pauline neologism based on Leviticus 20, since as you say, many of them occur centuries before Paul wrote. On the other hand, none of these compounds can be expected to provide clues to the semantic boundaries of the word _arsenokoitEs_: they show the broad range of meanings -koitEs can take in such compounds. Common-sense etymology is worse than useless: I would have thought _mEtrokoitEs_ meant someone who had sex with their mother, not just any incestuous person; _deuterokoitEs_ could have been taken to mean someone who had sex with two people at once, not just a person sleeping with one other person; _borborokoitEs_ could conceivably have meant someone who had sex with mud, not a frog that sits on the mud; _anemokoitEs_ could have been taken to mean someone who had sex with winds, not a luller of winds; _enOtokoitEs_ could have been taken to mean someone who had sex with ears, not someone with big ears. All of these examples simply reinforce the idea that we should abandon the mere morphological similarity of these words in the search for their meanings, and instead look only to the context to decide the meanings of these words. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sun Sep 25 15:09:05 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id PAA40165; Sun, 25 Sep 1994 15:09:02 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22250; 25 Sep 94 15:00 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22236; 25 Sep 94 14:59 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id NAA21955; Sun, 25 Sep 1994 13:26:37 -0400 Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994 12:50:26 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Rom. 1:26-27 To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Since several people asked me to look at this passage, I'll try an exegesis of it. If you find problems with my analysis, go ahead and give my analysis your worst going over. On the other hand, if you want to abuse me for even suggesting an alternative translation, please do not post your flames to the list: if you must, send complaints to me personally. Dia touto paredOken autous ho theos eis pathE atimias, hai te gar thEleiai autOn metEllaksan tEn phusikEn khrEsin eis tEn para phusin; homoiOs te kai hoi arsenes aphentes tEn phusikEn khrEsin tEs thEleias eksekauthEsan en tEi oreksei autOn eis allElous, arsenes en arsesin tEn askhEmosunEn katergazomenoi kai tEn antimisthian hEn edei tEs planEs autOn en heautois apolambanontes. "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." (NIV) Boswell (1980) argued that the passage was not mistranslated, but merely misunderstood: that the people mentioned here are heterosexuals, since they have a heterosexual nature to "exchange" and "abandon" before pursuing homosexual-looking acts; thus their sin would be abandoning their true natures as heterosexuals and that if the people in question were intended as ordinary 100% homosexuals, Paul's argument about "exchanging natural relations" and his broader point about people abandoning original positions would collapse. Richard Hays (1986) took issue with the interpretation of nature in this passage. I will ignore his thesis, since I am satisfied it is wrong (unless anyone wants to argue it), esp. because it is an argument with little foundation in the Greek language of the text per se. I argue contra Boswell that the passage is in fact mistranslated as well as misinterpreted, and I think the correct translation casts more light on the issues involved. The first phrase is _Dia touto paredOken autous ho theos_ "On account of this God handed them over." The "this" refers to the Gentiles' idolatry. The word _paredOken_ seems to have been almost a legal term, for assigning someone to an officer of the court to be taken to their punishment (John 19:16; cf. Matt. 5:25--26). It does *not* refer to the punishment itself, which is a mistake that leads Hays to assume that the following sins are themselves God's punishment and judgment. The present tense in Rom. 1:18 "God's wrath is being revealed" is actually referring to the storing up of God's wrath for the day of wrath (Rom. 2:5), that is, the *future* Judgment Day, when God's actual punishment will be administered. Until then, the sinners are simply in custody, having been "handed over." The NIV takes quite a bit of liberty with rendering _pathE atimias_ as "shameful lusts." Lusts, or covetings, are a favorite subject of Paul's, as _epithumia_, a kind of Ten-Commandments-style greediness with only an optional sexual-desire dimension. Here though we have _pathE_ which refers to passion alone. _PathE_ both in etymology and usage are *passive* feelings, feelings that happen *to* one, not feelings one sets out to have; in more general Greek usage _pathE_ can refer to events that happent *to* one. Boswell (1980) showed that _tim-/atim_- in NT usage are equally passive: they are the honor or dishonor given to a person by a community, regardless of the reason (Paul once refers to Christianity as dishonorable in this sense - that it outrages the community). I would render the phrase "dishonorable passions" or "dishonorable emotional-reactions" ("passion" in English still implies too much volition and deliberation: people "develop passions for gardening" in English, whereas "pathE" in Greek more routinely refer to outbursts like rage after an insult). I'm taking this translation slow and easy, so I'll post the rest in stages. Comments and relevant criticism welcome. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Mon Sep 26 12:28:10 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA43973; Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:28:08 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa05397; 26 Sep 94 12:13 EDT Received: from halon.sybase.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa04631; 26 Sep 94 12:11 EDT Received: from sybase.com (sybgate.sybase.com) by halon.sybase.com (5.0/SMI-SVR4/SybFW4.0) id AA07644; Mon, 26 Sep 1994 08:35:33 +0800 Received: from arctic.sybgate.sybase.com by sybase.com (4.1/SMI-4.1/SybH3.3) id AA05998; Mon, 26 Sep 94 08:32:28 PDT Received: by arctic.sybgate.sybase.com (4.1/SMI-4.1/SybEC3.2) id AA15299; Mon, 26 Sep 94 08:32:28 PDT Date: Mon, 26 Sep 94 08:32:28 PDT From: Kenneth Litwak Message-Id: <9409261532.AA15299@arctic.sybgate.sybase.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Subject: Re: Rom. 1:26-27 content-length: 0 Status: RO Greg Jordan wrote: >refers to passion alone. _PathE_ both in etymology and usage are >*passive* feelings, feelings that happen *to* one, not feelings one sets >out to have; in more general Greek usage _pathE_ can refer to events that >happent *to* one. I don't want to spit hairs, but Mr. Jordan seems to imply that Paul would distingush between feelings one deliberately created as opposed to feelings which just somehow "happen". I don't think I could suppor that exegetically (indeed, in Romans 7, however you understand it overall, Paul seems clearly to be saying that his feelings or linclinations to covet and so forth, come froma source he cannot even identify, but dfoes not for that reason escuse himself from guilt). I certainly don't understand feelings or urges as something actIVEly chosen. I don't suppose many people wake up one day and will to create the emotional feelings that go with stealing, murder, adultery, etc. All those feelings could be argued to "happen" to them, so I don't see that understanding of pathE, however valid it is, as being of consequence exegetically. Second, while "this" does seem to refer to idolatry, I would argue that Paul is saying the Gentiles, having rejected God, have been handed over to the urges or inclinations that come from the flesh alienated from God, since that's what the context describes, while it does not descirbe any sort of guard. If that were not the case, and if Mr. Jordan's interpretation is correct, how does Paul's statement advance Paul's argument? Paul is arguing that Gentiles rejected what they could see of God and turned to idolatry. In response, God gave them over to their own choices "however those choices were arrived at), and those choices demonstrate just how fallen humans are, which is the whole point of Rom 1:18-3:21. Ken Litwak Sybase, Inc. Emeryville, CA From sysadmin Mon Sep 26 14:16:56 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id OAA23986; Mon, 26 Sep 1994 14:16:55 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa28120; 26 Sep 94 14:01 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa28105; 26 Sep 94 13:59 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id MAA22772; Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:14:00 -0400 Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 11:56:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Rom. 1:26-27 To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO I wanted to add to my last post that _pathE atimias_ could also be "passions for dishonor" - that is, a desire to do something dishonorable. Based on the usage of _phusis, phusik-_ in the NT, I would render the phrase _tEn phusikEn khrEsin_ as "their characteristic usage" or "their clearly evident sexuality". _Phus-_ etc. refers to a visible characteristic or evident behavior, and thus supports and emphasizes Boswell's thesis that the people mentioned here are engaged in heterosexual behavior of some sort before "exchanging" it for something else. The real trouble is with _khrEsis_: in ordinary Greek it could refer to any custom or habit; on the other hand, it could be so specific as to refer to the pattern of sexual behavior which distinguished homosexuality from heterosexuality. The use in Pseudo-Lucian's _ErOtes_ is late but telling for its context; the "khrEsis" with women is contrasted to the "khrEsis" with "paides" (boys/men) in a debate between homosexuals and heterosexuals. On the other hand, I could not find a single example in which _khrEsis_ could be used to refer to the "function" of a gender for sexual activity. This is, though, what the English translation "use" implies: that a female is supposed to be "used" by a male, and that a male is supposed to be "used" by a female (I think the many Greek gynophobes would have had a hard time with that second statement, which Paul would otherwise be understood as making here). So what I need is an English word that refers to a pattern of sexual activity, and I'm not sure I've found it. I would render the second part of the phrase _tEn [khrEsin understood] para phusin_ as "that sexuality which was not characteristic of them" or "that usage which was not evident in their [previous] behavior." Paul seems to be going to all the trouble of using these expressions to *avoid* the misunderstanding that he is talking about ordinary homosexuals. That he used Stoic terms which could and *were* misunderstood almost from the very beginning of interpretations of Paul's passage here is amazing and unfortunate. It almost parallels his pathetically unsuccessful attempt to forestall anti-Semitism in this same letter - Paul's very words were used to reinforce the exact kind of anti-Semitic "boasting" which he here condemned (cf. Ignatius of Antioch). Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Tue Sep 27 16:42:37 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id QAA43397; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 16:42:35 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa13482; 27 Sep 94 16:29 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa13464; 27 Sep 94 16:27 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA01343; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 16:28:17 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 16:06:17 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Rom. 1:26-27 To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO _PathE_ as passive emotions may not be significant since all emotions can be seen as passive (?) - good point - but they may be part of an overall alternation between passive and active senses in this passage. The males "set aside" (_aphentes_ participle form) their characteristic behavior with females. The verb here could be used to "putting away" one's wife in a divorce. Here is the "active" part of their sin. Just as the already-believed-in God was set aside and exchanged for something lesser, created animals; here the already-practiced sexuality is set aside and exchanged for something dishonorable. The verb _eksekauthEsan_ is aorist passive. The -eks- is an inchoative particle here: they were set on fire, made to start burning (from a prior state of not being on fire). The subject is unexpressed - someone or something set them burning, caused them to start burning. The phrase _tEn askhEmosunEn katergazomenoi_ gives some trouble. The first word is used in the LXX to render the "nakedness" referring to sexual behavior. In the NT, though, it usually refers to dishonor, embarrassment, shame; its etymological sense "incongruity" can I think be safely set aside. This is especially so since the second term makes sense not as "producing, creating" but as "earning by labor." Dishonor is earned by labor. So this part of the passage I could render: "...likewise the males set aside their evident enjoyment of [characetristic sexual activity with] the female and were made to burn with longing for one another, males among males earning dishonor..." The most important difference in my translation of the passage though is in the last and final part. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Tue Sep 27 17:58:21 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id RAA37571; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 17:58:19 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa03548; 27 Sep 94 17:50 EDT Received: from canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa03539; 27 Sep 94 17:49 EDT Received: from mira.cc.umanitoba.ca (hurtado@mira.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.16.8]) by canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id QAA23903 ; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 16:49:48 -0500 Received: by mira.cc.umanitoba.ca (4.1/25-eef) id AA12210; Tue, 27 Sep 94 16:49:48 CDT Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 16:42:17 -0500 (CDT) From: "Larry W. Hurtado" Subject: Re: Rom. 1:26-27 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 Gregory Jordan: "physis" in Rom 1:26-27 is not the individual preferences and practices of this or that person. Physis here = what Paul sees as "normal" sexual behavior which = male/female relations. What's "physis" for Paul here and elsewhere is what conclusions he draws based on common experience and what he thinks as the divine plan. Please respect the principle that there is always a potential difference between what you yourself (or anyone else, for that matter) propose as Christian sexual attitudes and what a given author under study may have believed. We normally understand this, except, it seems, when it comes to "scripture", for we have trouble accepting that we and scripture might disagree on anything important, esp. heroes like Jesus and Paul. But having read now several e-missives from you on Rom 1 et alia, I remain persuaded that Hays has done a much better job of handling the text here, and that whatever the merits of what you wish Paul were saying, Paul wasn't saying it! I cherish no illusions that my demurring will check your enthusiasm in the slightest, but I simply thought it would be OK to report that from my standpoint your argument isn't working well with the texts in question. Call it the teacher symdrome, offering criticism of work! Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba From sysadmin Tue Sep 27 19:19:10 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id TAA23807; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:19:09 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa17273; 27 Sep 94 19:06 EDT Received: from halon.sybase.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa17022; 27 Sep 94 19:05 EDT Received: from sybase.com (sybgate.sybase.com) by halon.sybase.com (5.0/SMI-SVR4/SybFW4.0) id AA23919; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 15:31:10 +0800 Received: from arctic.sybgate.sybase.com by sybase.com (4.1/SMI-4.1/SybH3.3) id AA24837; Tue, 27 Sep 94 15:28:07 PDT Received: by arctic.sybgate.sybase.com (4.1/SMI-4.1/SybEC3.2) id AA16109; Tue, 27 Sep 94 15:28:07 PDT Date: Tue, 27 Sep 94 15:28:07 PDT From: Kenneth Litwak Message-Id: <9409272228.AA16109@arctic.sybgate.sybase.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Subject: Re: Rom 1 content-length: 0 Status: RO On Sept. 27, Greg Jordan wrote: > The males "set aside" (_aphentes_ participle form) their >characteristic behavior with females. The verb here could be used to >"putting away" one's wife in a divorce. Here is the "active" part of >their sin. Just as the already-believed-in God was set aside and >exchanged for something lesser, created animals; here the >already-practiced sexuality is set aside and exchanged for something >dishonorable. Exegetically, two things trouble me about the translation?? (much more of an interpretation I think than an attempt to just render the Greek accurately into English). First, to understandthe passage this way, Paul has to already believe something the passage is seemingly being said to assert: that Paul thought there were multiple kinds of homosexuals, those who chose it and those destined to it without any choice involved at all (hence the stress on the possibly passive tone) when we have no evidence besides the passage in question that Paul wold ever make such a distinction. Positing such a concept for a 1st century Jew is, IMHO, somewhat anachronistic. Indeed, even now, living in 1994, I don't accept this distinction and have yet to see anything that would pass for reputable scientific evidence to the contrary. Second, it seems to rely on several possible, but by now means certain meanings and significances for Greek words. While graning those possibilities (and I would not want to discount the research that went into Mr. Jordan's formulation, I have to ask myself if Paul's hearers would have put all those possibilities together to get that meaning, or if a seemingly plainer understanding would have been more likely. If Paul had meant to say the proposed alternative, I would have expected him to be more clear about it. Perhaps since no one else has responded, I'm the only one who does not agree witht he translation being proposed?? Ken Litwak Richmond, CA From sysadmin Tue Sep 27 19:44:00 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id TAA39467; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:43:57 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22869; 27 Sep 94 19:36 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa22855; 27 Sep 94 19:35 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id TAA09411; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:36:00 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:25:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Rom. 1:26-27 To: "Larry W. Hurtado" cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O On Tue, 27 Sep 1994, Larry W. Hurtado wrote: > Gregory Jordan: > "physis" in Rom 1:26-27 is not the individual preferences and practices of > this or that person. Physis here = what Paul sees as "normal" sexual > behavior which = male/female relations. What's "physis" for Paul here and > elsewhere is what conclusions he draws based on common experience and what > he thinks as the divine plan. I'm not sure what your basis for this definition of _phusis, phusik-_ is since it is nowhere else so used in the New Testament (cf. Romans 2:14, 11:21, 1 Corinthians 11:14, Galatians 2:15, 4:8, Ephesians 2:3, James 3:7, 2 Peter 1:4, 2:12, Jude 10). Hays basically agreed with this fact, and so he explained his definition in other ways, many of which had little to do with Biblical texts or language. I'm wondering if you have the same or different approaches to the word _phusis_. > I cherish no illusions that my demurring will check your > enthusiasm in the slightest, but I simply thought it would be OK to report > that from my standpoint your argument isn't working well with the texts in > question. Call it the teacher symdrome, offering criticism of work! > Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba Thank you for taking the time to critique it - I am just a little curious about your specific reasons for demurring. Thanks. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Tue Sep 27 20:11:04 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id UAA23363; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 20:11:01 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa26586; 27 Sep 94 19:56 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id ab26575; 27 Sep 94 19:55 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id TAA10788; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:55:34 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:36:33 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Rom 1 To: Kenneth Litwak cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409272228.AA16109@arctic.sybgate.sybase.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O On Tue, 27 Sep 1994, Kenneth Litwak wrote: > Exegetically, two things trouble me about the translation?? (much more of an interpretation I think than an attempt to just render the Greek accurately into > English). First, to understandthe passage this way, Paul has to already believe something the passage is seemingly being said to assert: that Paul thought > there were multiple kinds of homosexuals, those who chose it and those destined to it without any choice involved at all (hence the stress on the possibly > passive tone) when we have no evidence besides the passage in question that > Paul wold ever make such a distinction. Positing such a concept for a 1st > century Jew is, IMHO, somewhat anachronistic. Indeed, even now, living in > 1994, I don't accept this distinction and have yet to see anything that would > pass for reputable scientific evidence to the contrary. Second, it seems to > rely on several possible, but by now means certain meanings and significances > for Greek words. While graning those possibilities (and I would not want to > discount the research that went into Mr. Jordan's formulation, I have to > ask myself if Paul's hearers would have put all those possibilities together > to get that meaning, or if a seemingly plainer understanding would have > been more likely. If Paul had meant to say the proposed alternative, I would > have expected him to be more clear about it. Perhaps since no one else has > responded, I'm the only one who does not agree witht he translation being > proposed?? There are two issues here: (1) About what the real (as opposed to falsely imputed) characteristics of homosexuality and heterosexuality are, from our various contemporary points of view (religiously and phenomenologically); and (2) About what Paul's understanding of (1) might have been, other than what we can surmise from what he wrote. Neither of these are accessible by mere Biblical interpretation. They are properly points of religious belief and scientific understanding. Maybe I should clarify: I am only interested in knowing whether mine is a *likely or even possible* interpretation, not an *inevitable or even necessary* one. For that reason I would like to know more about what linguistic or textual factors might be relevant for dismissing my reading as impossible or extremely unlikely. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Tue Sep 27 20:54:17 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id UAA32559; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 20:54:16 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa06175; 27 Sep 94 20:47 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa06166; 27 Sep 94 20:46 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id UAA12423; Tue, 27 Sep 1994 20:47:28 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 19:58:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Rom. 1:26-27 To: b-greek@virginia.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O Boswell's interpreted this passage to refer to heterosexuals who had abandoned their personal natures or behavior in favor of homosexual-looking behavior, not actual homosexuals, who would have no heterosexual natures to "exchange" or "give up." Others had made this reading before Boswell. On the other hand, what no one, even Boswell's detractors, have asked is: why would a heterosexual want to "give up" and "exchange" a genuinely heterosexual orientation for homosexual-style behavior? The answer might have been more obvious to ancients than it is to us. ...kai tEn antimisthian hEn edei tEs planEs autOn en heautois apolambanontes. _Antimisthian_ refers to payment for services rendered; it is the object of the participle _apolambanontes_, "taking, receiving." It is also the object of _edei_ usually rendered in this passage as "what was due" or "what was proper," but this is a mistranslation since its use elsewhere as an agentless imperfect refers to binding requirement and absolute necessity; the reason it is not usually translated "it was required, necessary" here is because the context has usually not been seen to support it as it does elsewhere. _PlanEs_ is usually rendered "error" but its use in the NT seems to require the understanding "deception" - it is a deliberate act of deluding or misleading someone else. When it used of the person deceived, it is usually in a passive construction (where someone else, perhaps not named, can be assumed to have deceived or tricked the person in question). Here it is ambivalent, perhaps deliberately so: are the persons in question deceiving others by their behavior or are they themselves tricked into behavior not characteristic of them? But the "en heautois" not to mention the "en oreksei autOn" strongly implies they were more the ones deceived. "...and receiving the payment that was required [necessary] for their deception [to deceive them] in their own minds." All together, "On account of this God handed them over to dishonorable passions. For in addition their females exchanged their characteristic behavior for that which was aside from what was evident; likewise the males also set aside their evident enjoyment of the female and were made to burn in their longing for one another, males earning dishonor among males, and receiving the payment that was required to deceive them in their own minds." These visibly heterosexual males then would be changing their behavior in order to make money, as male prostitutes. It may be that this is fact what the *females* are guilty of (homoiOs), in which case their "exchange" may not even involve lesbian activity of any sort. If this is true, it would put Paul back in line with almost every other ancient writer in non-criticism of lesbianism. Commentators have often puzzled over why Paul alone should have condemned the phenomenon of lesbianism, especially so prominently. Of course, even with my translation, it is still possible to conclude that Paul is here referring to all of those people we would now consider homosexuals. In that case, though, it would be necessary to assume that Paul was ignorant about homosexuals, in the manner of the later John Chrysostom. John Chrysostom was genuinely mystified about why homosexuals did what they did - he thought that they were just very confused heterosexuals who did not really enjoy homosexual behavior, and who for some reason couldn't tell the difference between pain and pleasure, dishonor and honor. Paul, though, here clearly indicates the individuals are enjoying their behavior; for this and various other reasons, I would continue to give Paul credit for discerning the issues involved. That he was misunderstood is ironic, but not at all unexpected: as I said before, cf. his splendidly unsuccessful attempt to prevent Christian anti-Semitism in the same letter to the Romans. Paul's use of words which had special meanings in pagan Greek and Jewish Hellenistic philosophy (like _phusis_) especially influenced misunderstandings of this passage almost from the beginning of the Patristic writers. Only the NT usage bears him out. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Thu Sep 29 17:45:16 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id RAA26587; Thu, 29 Sep 1994 17:45:15 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa11312; 29 Sep 94 17:36 EDT Received: from chuma.cas.usf.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa11306; 29 Sep 94 17:36 EDT Received: from localhost (jordan@localhost) by chuma.cas.usf.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5) id RAA13809; Thu, 29 Sep 1994 17:36:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 17:05:31 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: RE: Rom 1:26-27 To: broman@nosc.mil cc: b-greek@virginia.edu In-Reply-To: <9409282105.AA02127@Np.nosc.mil> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Wed, 28 Sep 1994, Vincent Broman wrote: > If I may be permitted to interpret Litwak on "kinds of homosexuals" > (or at least provide a stereo effect) I would word it this way... > Neither in Paul, nor anywhere in the OT or NT is any moral distinction > ever drawn between on the one hand blameworthy homosexual acts performed > (a) in adultery, (b) for filthy lucre, or (c) as part of idolatrous worship, > and on the other hand homosexual acts sanctified by their being motivated by > erotic impulses/feelings/attitudes rooted in the unconscious mind. If this is in reference to my proposal, I want to say I never said anything about the "unconscious mind" as having any relevance for Paul or any Biblical author. But as to "sanctified" as opposed to "unsanctified" acts, I have already cited the passages I believe indicate distinct qualifications of homosexual behavior which imply there is and was no blanket condemnation, at least in the Biblical texts (their lives might have been another matter). > I wouldn't recommend a retreat to the "love is all that's needed" > approach, because a lot of things the modern world thinks of as > victimless are not what Paul would classify as "love". > Patronizing prostitutes might be a good example. Paul condemns > this in 1 Cor 6 not because the prostitute is a victim of exploitation, > nor because the exchange of money corrupts something beautiful, but rather > because the christian patron becomes "one flesh" with the prostitute, > and because he defiles his own body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Paul recognized patronizing prostitutes might not be obviously sinful, which is why he goes to the trouble of explaining a reason. Instead of being a violation of one's neighbor, it "eis to idion sOma hamartanei" (v. 18), sinning against one's own body. This is Paul's conclusion after like this: a Christian's body is a bodypart of Christ's (v. 15). Having sex with a prostitute makes a Christian man one with her (v. 16), because what happens in prostitution is the same thing that happens in marriage - Paul even cites the Genesis text Jesus cited to prove the indissolubility of marriage (Matthew 19:5). Needless to say, this doesn't make prostitution look very sinful, and it is hard to see any further clarification. In fact, he concludes with a flourish in which he announces to the Christian, 'you are already a whore!' - v. 20, God has already "bought" you with his money (there is a pun on _timEs_, "price", which also means "honor"). Perhaps his argument is that a whore has no business whoremongering. The bottom line is that Paul did seem to consider prostitution wrong in a practical sense for Christians, but his logic here is not opposed to the "law of love of neighbor" which naturally includes "love of self" and "love of God." More apropos would be seeing here a reflection of the Jerusalem Council, which aimed to keep peace with Jews by asking Gentiles to follow a few rules only (Acts 15:29), one of them being _porneia_ (prostitution/adultery), and all of them seeming to refer to idolatrous practices. Homosexuality is not mentioned. Paul is explicitly said to have agreed to this negotiation, despite apparent reluctance. > Does anyone suppose that Paul would, consistent with this expression, > view unmarried Christian sodomy as a pure expression of love, and > not as a defiling method of "becoming one flesh"? Sodomy is a post-Biblical term. Marriage in antiquity was usually not a matter of "pure expression of love" but more one of property arrangements and negotiations, as in all traditional societies. It is unlikely homosexuals would have been expected to involve themselves in those material concerns which were the basis of ancient marriage, although same-sex marriages were not exactly unknown. In the running debates between homosexuals and heterosexuals in antiquity, the homosexuals were always the ones to say that their way of love, in fact, was the only one that was a "pure expression of love," Plato's "heavenly love", not the earthly lust of heterosexuality. (I'm not taking Plato's position, BTW, just citing it as evidence of ancient attitudes). Last but not least, even if you think Paul condemned homosexuality, e.g., that _arsenokoitai_ meant all homosexuals, it would not have been subsumed under _porneia_ since Paul clearly distinguishes homosexuals from _pornoi_, who are men on the prowl for other men's wives, or husbands on the loose. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From sysadmin Sun Sep 25 04:27:01 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id EAA42252; Sun, 25 Sep 1994 04:26:59 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20849; 25 Sep 94 4:12 EDT Received: from mail02.prod.aol.net by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa20821; 25 Sep 94 4:10 EDT Received: by mail02.prod.aol.net (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA21448; Sat, 24 Sep 1994 21:36:20 -0400 From: Dvdmoore@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Dvdmoore Message-Id: <9409242134.tn50150@aol.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 21:34:12 EDT Subject: ARSENOKOITHS Status: RO >> we had dealt with other words that begin with ARREN- (=ARSEN-) in considering >> ARSENOKOITHS, but we had not even mentioned any other words that have -KOITHS >> for their second foot. I was able to find a couple of examples by paging >> through Liddell & Scott. The first was DOULOKOITHS which L&S translate >> "Consorting with slaves." The definition sounds bland, but when you consider >> that it is equated with DOULOMIKTHS and DOULOGAMOS the meaning becomes >> clearer. The DOULOKOITHS reference is from Paulus Alexandrinus Astrologus >> (vi A.D.) O.2 which I don't have readily available, so am unable to give any >> notes on the context. The other word is MHTROKOITHS which L&S define >> "incestuous person." The reference is from Hippon (v B.C.) 14. Again I am >> unable to give any notes on the context. >>........ >> >> David Moore >David Wright already threw out a few examples in his 1984 article: >parakoitEs (bedfellow, spouse), klepsikoitEs (seeking illicit sex), >androkoitEs (having intercourse with a man), hEmerokoitEs (sleeping by >day), khamakoitEs (sleeping on the ground), enOtokoitEs (with ears large >enough to sleep in), borborokoitEs (mudcoucher - a kind of frog), akoitEs >(bedfellow, spouse), sugkoitos (bedfellow), homokoitos (bedfellow), >deuterokoiteO, polukoitos (sleeping with many men or women), >adelphokoitia (incest of brother or sister), anemokoitEs (luller of >winds), etc. > The translations here are Wright's - I haven't checked them or their >usage. What would be important would be to determine their date. Wright >said "most of them were of very rare occurence." It would be very >important if any of them were pre-Paul, since it would show >the formation in question was hardly anomalous. Although Wright was >trying to undermine the part of Boswell's argument that dealt with >_arsenokoitEs_ as denoting active sexuality, by providing these examples >he cast doubt on part of his own thesis: that the term reflects a special >Jewish neologism based solely on Leviticus 20. >Greg Jordan Some of those examples seem to be more to the point than others. ANDROKOITHS and ADELFOKOITIA, for instance seem to be most analogous to the term ARSENOKIOTHS. Among those somewhat related analogically to the latter we might list KLEYIKOITHS and possibly DEUTEROKOITEW AND POLUKIOTOS. The verb ANDROKOITEW which L&S defines "sleep with a man" may be found in context in _Berliner griechische Urkunden_, (Berlin, 1895), 1058.30 dated to the first Century B.C. (i B.C). It is also used by Aetius Medicus (vi A.D.) 1.142. The context, in these cases would have to dictate how we understand these terms. I don't find ADELFOKOITIA in L&S, but, if it is to be found in extant literature, its meaning seems clear enough. KLEYIKOITHS is translated, "seeking illicit love," and carries the somewhat cryptic reference in L&S: "Ismenias ap. Ps.-Callist. 1.46" which I was unable to decipher. DEUTEROKOITEW is translated in L&S as simply, "to have a bedfellow," and the reference given is Athenaeus Grammaticus (ii/iii A.D.) 13.584b. POLUKOITOS and POLUKOITEW (I found the verbal form as well) L&S translate as "lying (or to lie, in the case of the verb) with many women or men." References to both are found in Vettius Valens Astrologus (ii A.D.) 118.5 and 75.9, al. By adding to these DOULOKOITHS and MHTROKIOTHS as mentioned above (The latter, BTW, is attested from the fifth century B.C.), we should have enough material to get a clearer idea of the meaning of ARSENOKOITHS in 1Cor. 6:9 if we could clarify the pertinent contexts. David Moore From sysadmin Mon Sep 26 12:28:10 1994 Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.8/CCAT) with SMTP id MAA43973; Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:28:08 -0400 Received: from Virginia.EDU by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa05397; 26 Sep 94 12:13 EDT Received: from halon.sybase.com by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa04631; 26 Sep 94 12:11 EDT Received: from sybase.com (sybgate.sybase.com) by halon.sybase.com (5.0/SMI-SVR4/SybFW4.0) id AA07644; Mon, 26 Sep 1994 08:35:33 +0800 Received: from arctic.sybgate.sybase.com by sybase.com (4.1/SMI-4.1/SybH3.3) id AA05998; Mon, 26 Sep 94 08:32:28 PDT Received: by arctic.sybgate.sybase.com (4.1/SMI-4.1/SybEC3.2) id AA15299; Mon, 26 Sep 94 08:32:28 PDT Date: Mon, 26 Sep 94 08:32:28 PDT From: Kenneth Litwak Message-Id: <9409261532.AA15299@arctic.sybgate.sybase.com> To: b-greek@virginia.edu Subject: Re: Rom. 1:26-27 content-length: 0 Status: RO Greg Jordan wrote: >refers to passion alone. _PathE_ both in etymology and usage are >*passive* feelings, feelings that happen *to* one, not feelings one sets >out to have; in more general Greek usage _pathE_ can refer to events that >happent *to* one. I don't want to spit hairs, but Mr. Jordan seems to imply that Paul would distingush between feelings one deliberately created as opposed to feelings which just somehow "happen". I don't think I could suppor that exegetically (indeed, in Romans 7, however you understand it overall, Paul seems clearly to be saying that his feelings or linclinations to covet and so forth, come froma source he cannot even identify, but dfoes not for that reason escuse himself from guilt). I certainly don't understand feelings or urges as something actIVEly chosen. I don't suppose many people wake up one day and will to create the emotional feelings that go with stealing, murder, adultery, etc. All those feelings could be argued to "happen" to them, so I don't see that understanding of pathE, however valid it is, as being of consequence exegetically. Second, while "this" does seem to refer to idolatry, I would argue that Paul is saying the Gentiles, having rejected God, have been handed over to the urges or inclinations that come from the flesh alienated from God, since that's what the context describes, while it does not descirbe any sort of guard. If that were not the case, and if Mr. Jordan's interpretation is correct, how does Paul's statement advance Paul's argument? Paul is arguing that Gentiles rejected what they could see of God and turned to idolatry. In response, God gave them over to their own choices "however those choices were arrived at), and those choices demonstrate just how fallen humans are, which is the whole point of Rom 1:18-3:21. Ken Litwak Sybase, Inc. Emeryville, CA