I have been asked to offer some perspective and clarification of the biblical view of homoerotic behavior. On one level this is a rather straightforward task, but one which has been complicated by the attempt to have the BIble support various preconceived conclusions, on both ends of the discussion, rather than allowing it to speak for itself. So, my goal is to allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves in order to provide a more concrete and accurate basis for the discussion of sexual behavior and orientation.
First, some context. Both Judaism and Christianity see themselves as "revealed" religions. By that I mean that both see themselves as holding to a faith that does not originate from human invention, but from divine revelation- i.e. from a God who exists outside ourselves and who is distinct from us in both being and nature. The history of this revelation is contained for Jews in the Hebrew Scriptures, and for Christians in both the Old and New Testaments. As my professor of Jewish at the University of Virginia was fond of saying, "Obedience is the essence of revealed religion." That is, if we believe that God has revealed His will on a matter- any matter- the essence of our response is to obey. It is not to debate, to de-construct, or to rationalize, but simply conform our behavior to what has been revealed. It is this context that both the Old and New Testaments speak of all moral behavior, including sexual behavior.
With these thoughts in mind, we turn our attention to specific biblical texts which speak to the question of homoerotic behavior. I use the term "homoerotic behavior" deliberately, because this is what the biblical texts address. The idea of people "being" either homosexual of heterosexual is a modern construct, the term "homosexuality" not being coined until the late 19th Century by German psychologist K.M. Benkert. Neither the ancient Greeks nor the ancient Hebrews has terms or concepts corresponding to the contemporary dichotomy between "heterosexual" and "homosexual." What matters in the biblical texts, therefore, is not what we are in a sense of an innate sexual orientation, but what we do. So it is to our behavior, not to our nature that the Bible speaks.
The Old Testament texts concerning homoerotic behavior are of basically two types: narratives in which homoerotic behavior is demonstrated, and legal codes prohibiting it. In the first category is the story of the men of Sodom in Genesis 19 who demanded that Lot surrender them the two angels who had visited him in human form, "that we may know them." "Know" is the Hebrew term yadah, which frequently means to "know" someone in the sense of having sexual relations with them, as in Genesis 4:1, "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain." This is obviously the meaning of yadah in Genesis 19. To suggest that the "wickedness" which Lot begs his neighbors not to commit toward his guests is simply the violation of Eastern standards of hospitality is countered by the New Testament letter of Jude, which refers to "Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding citiess, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire." (Jude 7)
The legal code of Leviticus is emphatic in its denunciation of homoerotic behavior. Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination." Two chapters later, Leviticus 20:13 says, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to their death; their blood is upon them." It is sometimes argued that homoerotic behavior is prohibited in the legal code only because of its associations with the cultic prostitution which was part of Canaanite religion, and is therefore culturally conditioned and not applicable to non-idolatrous homoerotic behavior. However, this argument flounders on the fact that if this is true homoerotic behavior, then it must be likewise true of other forms of sexual behavior outlined in this chapter, including incest (vs. 6-18), adultery (vs 20-21), and sex with animals (v. 23). Likewise, the context of Leviticus 18 and 20 argues against this interpretation: the issue in these chapters, as in the entire book of Leviticus, is not primarily cultural conditioning, but holiness, as indicated clearly in Leviticus 18:24-30, where the word "unclean" occurs six times within seven verses.
Turning to the New Testament, the authors accept without question the moral demands of the Hebrew scriptures and reflect them in their own comments on homoerotic behavior. The only New Testament writer who speaks directly to this issue is Paul, who mentions homoerotic behavior in three texts. I will address each of these briefly. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul writes,
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (English Standard Version)
The phrase "men who practice homosexuality" is actually two separate words in Greek. The first is malakos which means "soft", and was used in secular Greek to denote men or young boys who allowed themselves to be used sexually by other men, and who served as the "passive" partner in homosexual intercourse. The other term, arsenokoites, literally means "one who has sex with a man," and was used to indicate the "active" partner in male homosexual intercourse.
The latter term, "arsenokoites", is likewise used in 1 Timothy 1:10, where Paul responds to the promblem of some who used Mosaic law inappropriately by saying that the law... is laid down for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and what else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
It is frequently said that arsenokoites and malakos do not refer to homoerotic behavior generally, but to homosexual prostitution or to pederasty (sex with children). This is reflected in the New Revised Standard Version's translation of malakos in 1 Corinthians 6:9 by the term "male prostitutes"/ However, there is nothing in the term itself that connotes prostitution. And even if this were its meaning, we must still reckon with the fact that Paul uses it alongside arsenokoites, which the NRSV translates as "sodomites." But a study of the standard lexical resources for New Testament Greek will show clearly that the two terms are simply ways of referring to the active and passive roles of men engaging in homoerotic behavior.
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