Wow! A movement whose life style dissents from the unanimous teaching of the Judeo Christian tradition for about 3,000 yrs publishes a statement that the Bible [amazingly!] never really meant that teaching in the first place. Who would have guessed.
Look. From Genesis through Revelation the vision of human sexuality is heterosexual with the NT particularly stressing that this is in marriage.
Just a few particulars. I would recommend Raymond F. Collins (a Professor of New Testament)
Sexual Ethics and the New Testament (2000).
He consistently brings to light what Paul and other the NT authors actually conveyed by their words in context.
He agrees that homosexual behavior was a known fact of the ancient world, but goes on to note that there was a Jewish consensus against such behavior well before the time of Christ (pp. 90-1, 137). Even non-biblical Jewish writings as far back as 250 BC distinguished the Jews from Gentiles by the fact that Jews did not engage in homosexual activity (102-3, 132, 134-5, 138). Collins stresses that Paul was aware of this consensus and built on it in his own writing (137).
Secondly, while it is self-evident that Paul’s generation did not know the Medieval formulation of the natural law, it is equally true that natural law theory goes back significantly before Christ to the Stoic idea of a “law of nature.” Roman writers later took over this idea. Cicero 50 years before Christ wrote one classic expression of it in
De Legibus. Professor Collins observes that two Jewish contemporaries of Paul, Philo of Alexandria a philosopher and Flavius Josephus an historian, as well as Paul himself speak about “nature” (
physis in Greek) with regard to homosexual activity (136, 144 n30). Philo and Josephus speak about homosexual acts as being against the laws of nature, and Paul also speaks (Rom 1:26-27) about them as being
para physin, which is correctly translated as “against or contrary to nature” (136-7, 144 n31). Collins goes on to say that by using the word
physis these three were bringing themselves into dialogue with the philosophers of the time who emphasized a law of nature in their sexual ethics (136, 191). Further unlike most OT, Rabbinic, and Classical authors who discuss and proscribe only male homosexual activity Paul includes a rejection lesbian activity as well in Romans (140, 145 n41).
In the classical world
kata physis means “according to nature” or “normal.” “Normal” is especially common in medical literature.
Para physis means “against nature” or “abnormal.” These phrases are used in the classical world in ethical judgments “above all with reference to sexual failings.” Normal sexual intercourse is
kata physis while abnormal is
para physis. [Gerhard Kittle, ed., *Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm R. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968-74), vol. IX, p. 262-263.]
According to Collins, it goes beyond the evidence of Paul’s words to claim his writings merely forbid certain actions while making no reference to one’s inclinations (142). Paul’s use of
physis means what is natural by God’s creative intent in human beings (142, 192). This coincides with Jesus’ vision of sexuality–that from the beginning it is heterosexual and within marriage (27, 32, 187).
Regarding the word
arsenokoitai (1 Cor 6:9), Collins’ conclusion based upon studies of the word is that Paul may have coined the word
arsenokoitai and etymologically it means “bedding down with a man” (89). The Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek lexicon indicates that this neologism of Paul’s seems to be a Greek translation of the Hebrew
miškab zakûr used in rabbinic texts based on Lv 18:22, i.e., “lying with a man as with a woman” (99 n70).
—I was just want add that we should not read Holy Scripture all to be taken literally, some meant to be taken symbolically.