Introduction
Trigger warning: This article offers a historical-grammatical view of homosexuality in the Bible. Hopefully, you will consider it helpful in the real-world practice of the Christian faith, especially in having compassion and correction for people with same-sex attraction.
Paul of Tarsus wrote specifically about "men who have sex with men" and "those practicing homosexuality" in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10. Before looking into the underlying Greek, we must understand how our modern terms refer to different facets of same-sex attraction. For "homosexuality," a word that entered our language in the late 1800s, there is the abstract desire for one's same sex. However, the Greek word Paul used in both 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 was arsenokoitēs (G733), which referred to same-sex behavior rather than orientation. Here is a breakdown of this weighty noun: airō (G142; "to lift upward") → arsēn (G730; "male") + koitē (G2845; "bed," especially for marriage). Thus, an arsenokoitēs was a man who lifted another man onto a bed for coitus—the active partner who was presumably the stronger of the two. The word arsenokoitēs rarely appears in Greek literature. However, it does occur in the Septuagint (LXX), which was the de facto translation of the Old Testament for Hellenistic Jews (see here). Paul derived the term from the LXX reading of Leviticus 20:13: ("If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable"). See here:
Kai hos an koimēthē meta arsenos koitēn gunakois bdelugma epoiēsan amphoteroi.
καὶ ὃς ἂν κοιμηθῇ μετὰ ἄρσενος κοίτην γυναικός βδέλυγμα ἐποίησαν ἀμφότεροι.
If whoever sleeps with [a] male sexually [as with a] woman, [an] offense did they both.
Moreover, Paul was not writing to Gentiles but to Hellenistic Jews familiar with Leviticus. If he were speaking to Greeks, Paul would have used erastēs ("erotic lover") and erōmenos ("erotic beloved") for the active and passive roles. An arsenokoitēs stood in contrast to the other man, a malakos (G3120), the "soft" passive one. We may also find this adjective in Matthew 11:8 and Luke 7:25, wherein Jesus talked about Herod's "soft" robes. There, "soft" refers to the age of the malakos partner, not necessarily an effeminate personality. Even today, we may call a young person "softhearted" without considering their gender. This fact leads many biblical scholars to read in the context of pederasty, sexual intercourse between a man and a younger male. Pederasty often occurred in pagan cultic prostitution—but not always.
Greco-Roman Context of Homosexuality
Many Greeks and Romans believed that intercourse should only happen between a man and a woman to conceive a child, with pleasure reserved for same-sex relationships—most often with slaves, prostitutes, and anyone else barred from holding Roman citizenship. When biblical translators consider malakos in the context of prostitution and other exploitative relationships among men, they too readily consider the slang behind the word. Even in our terminology, we often call other people "soft" to ridicule their weaknesses or praise their kindness. Given the socioeconomic context, it is clear that malakos had more to do with the viewpoint of a "man-bedder" looking to exploit a vulnerable outcast than merely one's effeminacy. In Greece and Rome, male homosexuality was not a public expression of love between citizens but a way to exploit the oppressed.
However, for women, there was an elevation in status regarding homosexuality. In this very patriarchal society, women felt role reversal in lesbianism. The demonym "lesbian" initially identified the residents of Lesbos (Greek: Lesvos), an island in the Aegean Sea. The Greek poet Sappho (c. 510–c. 670 BC; pictured above) was from Mytilene (Greek: Mutilēnē; G3412), a city that still exists on Lesbos and that Luke of Antioch mentioned in Acts 20:14. She is a controversial figure even in our time, as scholars from all over the humanities debate whether Sappho was a proto-feminist, homosexual, and a prostitute. Her poetry and teaching at Lesbos inspired gay women to identify as "lesbians" from time immemorial. Despite the controversy, Sappho's poetry was a sociopolitical commentary on ancient Greece, which still reveals much about humankind today. Sappho had a school of disciples (Greek: thiasos) dedicated to the pagan deity Aphrodite. It is debatable whether Sappho was gay, as many of her writings alluded to a desire for men. However, many hints of female homoeroticism among her thiasos prepared women for marriage—to men.
Today, many commentators say that Paul only condemned homosexuality in the context of pagan fertility cults, attempting to find a loophole regarding committed same-sex relationships. They also read their assumptions into ancient Greek culture, claiming such a thing was not widespread. However, consensual same-sex relationships were prevalent among Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean, especially in the form of pederasty. Moreover, unlike many contemporary assumptions, not all Greeks approved of homosexuality. The well-known Greek philosopher Plato (428/27–348/47 BC) wrote:
Whether one observes earnestly or in jest, one certainly should not fail to keep that when a male unites with a female for procreation, the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature but contrary to nature when a male mates with a male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were compelled by their slavery to pleasure. And we all accuse the Cretans of concocting the story about Ganymede. Because it was the belief that they derived their laws from Zeus, they added this story about Zeus so that they might follow his example in enjoying this pleasure as well. Now, with the story itself, we have no more concerns. Still, when men are investigating the subject of laws, they deal almost entirely with pleasures and pains, whether in states or as individuals (Laws, Bk. 1, § 636 c, d).
Likewise, the Greek comic poet Aristophanes (c. 450–c. 388 BC) mocked the infamous homosexuality of Agathon (c. 445–c. 400 BC), one of his literary contemporaries, in his work called Women at the Thesmophoria. Between Plato and Aristophanes, it is clear that many Greeks did consider same-sex relationships a violation of natural law and societal mores.
Hebrew Context of Homosexuality
By now, you probably see how weighted the scriptural view of homosexuality is toward the masculine. In the ancient Hebrew culture, in which men led the family, it was shameful for them to neglect this responsibility for mere pleasure. Unlike the Romans and the Greeks, the Hebrews were not concerned with balancing family and entertainment but with survival. The background here is socioeconomic, as the Hebrews never had an empire and were always on the move or surrounded by hostile nations. Men needed to fight and protect their families; thus, homosexuality threatened both. Having fewer children would result in vulnerability to an attack and the ultimate destruction of their people. To add to these fears of nonexistence, every ancient culture also feared high infant mortality rates. As a result, they viewed children as a precious resource. In the ancient Near East, most people turned to nature religions, in which they invoked gods and goddesses for protection and abundance. Because femininity represented childbirth and continuation, its symbolism extended to agriculture and religion. The Hebrews struggled with a traitorous devotion to these false idols for hundreds of years while paying lip service to God himself. Only after Israel's exile to Babylon did they finally abandon these pagan religions.
As mentioned above, Paul referred to the holiness code in Leviticus when he wrote about same-sex relationships between men. The Old Testament authors were unconcerned with lesbianism, and Paul was the first biblical writer to mention it precisely when he said, "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual 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 shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error" (Rom. 1:26-27). One of Paul's contemporaries, Philo of Alexandria (c. 15 BC–c. AD 50), had an equally harsh view:
As men, being unable to bear satiety of these things discreetly, get restive like cattle, become stiff-necked, and discard the laws of nature, pursuing a tremendous and intemperate indulgence of gluttony, drinking, and unlawful connections, for not only did they go mad after women, and defile the marriage bed of others, but also those who were men lusted after one another, doing inappropriate things, and not regarding or respecting their common nature, and though eager for children, they were convicted by having only an abortive offspring, but the conviction produced no advantage since they were overcome by violent desire. So, by degrees, the men became accustomed to being treated like women, and in this way engendered among themselves the disease of females and intolerable evil; for they not only, as to effeminacy and delicacy, became like women in their persons, but they also made their souls most ignoble, corrupting in this way the whole race of man, as far as depended on them. At all events, if the Greeks and barbarians were to have agreed together and to have adopted the commerce of the citizens of this city, their cities, one after another, would have become desolate, as if they had been emptied by a pestilence (On Abraham, Ch. 26, §§ 135–36).
By the first century, many Jewish commentators read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as God's judgment for the sins he would later forbid in Leviticus: incest, inhospitality, rape—and, yes, homosexuality. Philo's context was Sodom (On Abraham, Ch. 26, §§ 133, 137). Likewise, the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus (c. AD 37–100) wrote:
About this time, the Sodomites grew proud on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men and impious towards God, insomuch that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices. God was therefore much displeased at them, and determined to punish them for their pride, and to overthrow their city, and to lay waste their country until there should neither plant nor fruit grow out of it. . . . Now when the Sodomites saw the young men be of beautiful countenances, and this to an extraordinary degree, and that they took up their lodgings with Lot, they resolved themselves to enjoy these beautiful boys by force and violence; and when Lot urged them to sobriety, and not to offer anything immodest to the strangers, but to have regard to their lodging in his house; and promised that if their inclinations could not be governed, he would expose his daughters to their lust, instead of these strangers; neither thus were they made ashamed (Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. 1, Ch. 11, §§ 1, 3).
Incidentally, first-century Jews considered homosexuality a reason for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. The prophet Ezekiel said, "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore, I did away with them as you have seen" (Ezek. 16:49-50). The "detestable things" clause refers to the same-sex acts of the men with the angels. Jude, one of Jesus' brothers, corroborated this interpretation when he wrote, "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 1:7). The main thing to keep in mind when reading any scriptural mention of Sodom and Gomorrah is that God judged these cities for multiple offenses–to choose one sin over the other misses the point.
Conclusion
With the historical-grammatical method, we see that the background and meanings of the original texts lead to a clear and restrictive understanding. For the record, the rainbow belongs to God alone, a sign of his covenant with us never to flood the earth again (see Gen. 9:13-16). That said, God repeatedly tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (e.g., Lev. 19:18; Matt. 19:19, 22:39)—we can never put this aside for mere bigotry. Nevertheless, marriage is a sacrament, a means of grace; it is neither a right nor a privilege, but a covenant between a man and a woman to further God's kingdom (see Gen. 1:26-27; 2:24; Matt. 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9; Eph. 5:32). Although many liberal commentators today say the Bible does not consider the modern view of homosexuality as an orientation, its primary concern was same-sex behavior. Paul deemed homosexual orientation a result of humankind's fall along with every other sin, so that argument is moot (see Rom. 1:26-32). Furthermore, let us consider this balanced research from the American Psychological Association:
Scientists have no consensus about why an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that any particular factor or factor determines sexual orientation. Many think that nature and nurture play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.
Prayer
Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of the universe; from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: Kindle, we pray, in the hearts of all people, the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility your kingdom may go forward, till we fill the world with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus the Messiah our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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