Sure it’s also in 1 Corinthians, and Romans
Well, I had a rather lengthy message I had planned to post, but apparently I was too long in putting it together and when I tried to submit it, I was asked to sign in (again) and the message was lost.
I was questioning, aside from the teaching of the hierarchy, the Biblical proof-texts that so many use – that is, the accuracy of translation and interpretations that we use. Are the translations truly the Word of God? Are the translators as inspired as the original authors of Scripture? How has the Church’s use of Biblical texts changed over the years? I do not think we still point to the story of Onan as a proof-text for the sinfulness of masturbation and/or birth control. Nor do we cite the Sodom story as a moral against homosexual acts per se.
Often cited as proofs that homosexual activity is sinful are Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians without giving a nod to the accuracy of, in 1 Cor, the translations of the ancient Greek words, none of which, it seems, refer directly or definitively to homosexual acts. How often do we read interpretations of both Romans and Leviticus that put those texts into their historical and/or literary contexts? Romans 1 seems to speak about heterosexual people who, because of their blindness to God, turn to same-sex activities, giving up “natural relations.” No question is asked about what are “natural relations” for gay people and do they, indeed, give up “natural relations” when they are intimate with persons of their same gender.
In Leviticus: what about the context of “The Holiness Code,” which doesn’t deal with sinfulness but with ritual uncleanness? And in the historical context were those acts condemned because they were idolatrous rather than same-sex sex?
How much of the Biblical translations that we use today are simply restatements of a traditional translation rather than an investigation by the translator of the original-language texts? I’ve found interesting the books of John MacNeil and John Bosworth when it comes to investigating the translations of these oft-cited Biblical texts.
