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Paul, homosexuality and the church

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Between us, my partner and I had 9 kids, 4 of whom survived to reproduce.
Believe me when I say, gay guys have lots of kids. And a king, operating with the impunity of a primitive ethical code, could pretty much do whatever he wanted. Especially with regards to sex.

I doubt that King David was gay in the modern sense of the word. But I am also confident that he had sex with males.
Tom

So you say that King David broke the law. He broke the law with Bathsheba
and paid the penalty. Doesn't mention David being penalized for sodomizing
men or giving oral to boys - maybe he didn't do these things at all. Maybe he
was a God fearing man and observant Jew. Certainly seems that way when
you read the Psalms he wrote.
 
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PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Paul states explicitly in his writings that he has no desire to have sex with women. If this is true, the only possibilities are that he was either asexual or homosexual. Given that homosexuality is more common than asexuality, I would wager that he was homosexual.

Are you speaking of yourself? What did Paul say about homosexuality?
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Are you speaking of yourself? What did Paul say about homosexuality?


Hubert Farnsworth said:
Paul states explicitly in his writings that he has no desire to have sex with women. If this is true, the only possibilities are that he was either asexual or homosexual. Given that homosexuality is more common than asexuality, I would wager that he was homosexual.

Seems perfectly clear to me he was talking about St Paul.. who had an "affliction". As a Jew and a Pharisee he would have been expected to marry....
 

sooda

Veteran Member
So you say that King David broke the law. He broke the law with Bathysphere
and paid the penalty. Doesn't mention David being penalized for sodomizing
men or giving oral to boys - maybe he didn't do these things at all. Maybe he
was a God fearing man and observant Jew. Certainly seems that way when
you read the Psalms he wrote.

Some of David's psalms were taken from the older North Coast Canaanites at Ugarit.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Oh that's right. David's psalms were written in the Grecian/Persian era.
Strange that the Ugarit's seem so, well, Jewish with their psalms. Some
even spoke of the Messiah.

The north coast Canaanites gave way to the Phoenicians... There was little to no difference between the Phoenicians and the Hebrews.. same people. The north coast people were urban and prosperous.. the Hebrews were rural and impoverished. The written language of Ugarit is the forerunner of written Hebrew.. and the clay tablets are written in 6 other similar languages.

Who Were the Phoenicians? - Biblical Archaeology Society

You'll probably remember Hiram the King of Tyre.

1Phoenicia.jpg
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
The north coast Canaanites gave way to the Phoenicians... There was little to no difference between the Phoenicians and the Hebrews.. same people. The north coast people were urban and prosperous.. the Hebrews were rural and impoverished. The written language of Ugarit is the forerunner of written Hebrew.. and the clay tablets are written in 6 other similar languages.

Who Were the Phoenicians? - Biblical Archaeology Society

You'll probably remember Hiram the King of Tyre.

1Phoenicia.jpg

I think the Phoenicians were proto-Greeks, weren't they?
Certainly we don't know who wrote all the psalms.
Some come with names, some don't. David's are the
most prescient in respect to the Messiah - perhaps
his own experience as rejected and reigning king
helped him.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I think the Phoenicians were Greeks, weren't they?
Certainly we don't know who wrote all the psalms.
Some come names, some don't. David's are the
most prescient in respect to the Messiah - perhaps
his own experience as rejected and reigning king
helped him.

NO.. The Philistines were sea people (Greek Islands)

Phoenicia was the Greek name for the city states along the coast.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I think the Phoenicians were proto-Greeks, weren't they?
Certainly we don't know who wrote all the psalms.
Some come with names, some don't. David's are the
most prescient in respect to the Messiah - perhaps
his own experience as rejected and reigning king
helped him.

I didn't say all the Psalms were Ugaritic.. just some of them.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Because of this advanced tech, the young people start a new fad of mutilating the skin, through various stresses of cutting, piercing, burning and chemical altering.
Piercings, tattoos, scarification, and branding are actually very ancient practices. We've also had chemicals to alter us in various ways, such as herbal supplements and beer, for a very, very long time. And what you call mutilation, some have called marks of courage, indications of social position, symbols of group/tribal membership, and signs of having achieved a rite of passage. Some call it art and aesthetics.
Given that Paul evidently had no desire to have sex with a woman, he likely was a homosexual himself.
Not necessarily. A better explanation is he just had some pretty strong hang ups about sex, a very unhealthy attitude towards sex, or an experience or disorder that left him uneasy with sex. He may have been gay, true, but he may have been a eunuch. Or asexual.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
To conclude this somewhat bumby post with a question: Was Paul familiar with the kind of homosexual relationships which can relate to what we find in the church today, the monogamous, mutual, faithful, equal and publicly accepted marriage between people of the same sex. Or is he simply addressing the unhealthy and unequal pederastic traditions of his time?

Pederasty, adult male sex with enslaved teenaged boys, was a foundational social institution in ancient Greco-Roman civilisation that a majority of elite Roman males engaged in.

Monogamous, consensual homosexual relationships based upon mutual love and equality of status between two adults were not the norm in the classical world, as they are today, and so wouldn't have been on Paul's radar.

Sexuality in general was not understood in terms of orientation - heterosexual versus homosexual - but in terms of positions of dominance and subordination, penetrators and the penetrated. Masculinity was defined as the penetrative, dominant partner and it didn't matter if the inferior penetrated was a male or female.

The references to homosexual acts in the New Testament epistles should predominantly be understood against this cultural backdrop (whereas the condemnation of gay sex in the Old Testament, for instance Deuteronomy, had male temple prostitutes of the Canaanite pagans in mind).

It is for this reason that in his recent translation of the New Testament, the Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart translates 1 Timothy 1:10 as condemning, “men who couple with catamites” (meaning abuse of young male slaves) while Luther’s German Bible actually renders it as referring to ‘paedophiles’.

The Didache, the first century document attributed to the Twelve Apostles that served as the early church’s first catechism (for which reason it is used as an authority, witnessing to sacred tradition, in the modern Catechism), contained an explicit condemnation of sex between adult males and young males and this is the only form of homosexual activity that it mentions because as Professor Hart explains, “in the first century the most common and readily available form of male homoerotic sexual activity was a master’s or patron’s abuse of young male slaves


THE DIDACHE


2:1 And this is the second commandment of the teaching.
2:2 You shall do no murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not seduce boys, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not deal in magic, you shall do no sorcery, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born, you shall not covet your neighbor’s goods, you shall not perjure yourself, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall not cherish a grudge, you shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued;


The biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, who translated the Didache in 2003 for the Loeb Library, noted: "The Didache condemns certain sexual “sins” (pederasty, adultery, and, generally, immorality) but it does not number homosexual activity among them, or say anything about it."

The first legislation proscribing pederasty was passed by a group of bishops at the Synod of Elvira in southern Spain in 309 AD.

As late as the 7th century, a canon of the church by St. Fructuosus of Braga, condemning "clerics and monks who are seducers of males" quoted by St. Peter Damian in 1051, still defined homosexual sex in terms of pederasty:


"A cleric or monk who seduces adolescent males or young boys, or who is caught in a kiss or other occasion of indecency, should be publicly beaten and lose his tonsure, and having been disgracefully shaved, his face is to be smeared with spittle, and he is to be bound in iron chains, worn down with six months of imprisonment, and three days every week to fast on barley bread until sundown.

After this, spending his time separated in his room for another six months in the custody of a spiritual senior, he should be intent upon the work of his hands and on prayer, subject to vigils and prayers, and he should always walk under the guard of two spiritual brothers, never again soliciting sexual intercourse from youth by perverse speech or counsel and he shall never again associate with male youths in private conversation nor in counselling them."


(Book of Gomorrah Chapter 16 )

In French, "pédérastie" is still used as a synonym for homosexuality.

The Sibylline oracles claim that only the Jews were free from this:


[The Jews] are mindful of holy wedlock,

and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children,
as do Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans,
spacious Greece and many nations
of other,
Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing

the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.
 
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Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
If this is true, the only possibilities are that he was either asexual or homosexual. Given that homosexuality is more common than asexuality, I would wager that he was homosexual.
As is sexual abuse, mental disorder, physiological problems, or maybe a devotion to his religion.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Between us, my partner and I had 9 kids, 4 of whom survived to reproduce.
Believe me when I say, gay guys have lots of kids. And a king, operating with the impunity of a primitive ethical code, could pretty much do whatever he wanted. Especially with regards to sex.

I doubt that King David was gay in the modern sense of the word. But I am also confident that he had sex with males.
Tom

Based on what? Your preterist misunderstanding regarding his friendship with a man?
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member

Quote - "the Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart translates 1 Timothy 1:10 as condemning, “men who couple with catamites” (meaning abuse of young male slaves) while Luther’s German Bible actually renders it as referring to ‘paedophiles’."

I get seriously tired of this sort of thing: people explaining away the bible, or
the INTENT of the bible.
Such translations could be taken up by the homosexual community to attack
mainstream church people as judgmental and ignorant of the bible, when in
fact its the other way around.
What fascinates me about the story of Lot and Sodom was that the men of
the city took offense when Lot said they were behaving wickedly, and told
Lot they would deal worse with him than his guests because he JUDGED
them. We aren't far from this point in our own society, read my profile
below for these fast moving trends.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Quote - "the Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart translates 1 Timothy 1:10 as condemning, “men who couple with catamites” (meaning abuse of young male slaves) while Luther’s German Bible actually renders it as referring to ‘paedophiles’."

I get seriously tired of this sort of thing: people explaining away the bible, or
the INTENT of the bible.
Such translations could be taken up by the homosexual community to attack
mainstream church people as judgmental and ignorant of the bible, when in
fact its the other way around.
What fascinates me about the story of Lot and Sodom was that the men of
the city took offense when Lot said they were behaving wickedly, and told
Lot they would deal worse with him than his guests because he JUDGED
them. We aren't far from this point in our own society, read my profile
below for these fast moving trends.
You may get tired of it, but that's your problem.

Paul, in the original Koine Greek of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible, is unambiguous on the matter.

What polls of the populace say is irrelevant, everyone is free to do what they choose.

Paul said that to avoid homosexuals in the general populace one would have to leave the planet.

He further said that he nor anyone else should judge them outside the church.

Only those inside the church are to be judged, as they cannot be members of the church.

Some denominations have decided to ignore that instruction, which is their right as well. They will learn whether that was wise.

So, there will always be churches who follow the instructions of the Bible, as there has been for almost 2,000 years.

You are free to complain and become exhausted about it as you choose. You won't change it, no one can change it.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
You may get tired of it, but that's your problem.

Paul, in the original Koine Greek of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible, is unambiguous on the matter.

What polls of the populace say is irrelevant, everyone is free to do what they choose.

Paul said that to avoid homosexuals in the general populace one would have to leave the planet.

He further said that he nor anyone else should judge them outside the church.

Only those inside the church are to be judged, as they cannot be members of the church.

Some denominations have decided to ignore that instruction, which is their right as well. They will learn whether that was wise.

So, there will always be churches who follow the instructions of the Bible, as there has been for almost 2,000 years.

You are free to complain and become exhausted about it as you choose. You won't change it, no one can change it.

Thanks, you agree with my point. I guess you are exhausted too with the way
the bible is translated into oblivion.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Thanks, you agree with my point. I guess you are exhausted too with the way
the bible is translated into oblivion.
Nope, the Bible is translated properly in most cases, both Hebrew and Koine Greek scholars agree.

There are some sects that essentially make their own scriptures, and ignore what the foundation texts say, but they are obviously manipulating the texts to what they want to believe
 
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