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Paul, homosexuality and the church

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Well, only the part of the Bible attributed to Jesus. That part is unambiguous, if you believe in Jesus.
I don't.


I believe that all of It is the ancient Scripture that worked for the warlord Constantine. Everything else was deemed heresy.

That's why everyone from the Pope to Trump to you are Christians, but Jesus Christ gets ignored.


It just goes on and on. Christians telling me stuff I know is not true or moral or even rational. ..

Tom
Well then, why worry about it since you ( think ) you know what is true ? If you are a homosexual, we bear no animus toward you, do what you want. Come to our services, you will be welcomed, but while practicing your ¨lifestyle¨, you will never be accepted as a voting member of the congregation, nor will you be able to take part in communion or baptism.

That is the standard, as it has been from the very beginning, 2,000 years ago
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
You might find this interesting.. Probable dates in the margin.

Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers

This site is interesting. It's not of consequence however as the authors of
the Gospels are not recorded. That is to say, authorship is not important,
date is not important - only the message is important.

And certainly, Constantine played no part in it. Not so much as a single
word.

However it's good to look at ALTERNATIVE POV's for any claim someone
makes about the bible. I did like reading recently of how Matthew's skill in
legal shorthand was employed in the Gospel according to Matthew.
On your site the Matthew of the Gospels is not the author.

And, be careful of "scholarly opinion." If you are a scholar and you read
that Jesus ascended to heaven then how are you going to treat that
statement in a "scholarly" way? First step is to repudiate it.
 
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sooda

Veteran Member
This site is interesting. It's not of consequence however as the

authors of
the Gospels are not recorded. That is to say, authorship is not important,
date is not important - only the message is important.

And certainly, Constantine played no part in it. Not so much as a single
word.

However it's good to look at ALTERNATIVE POV's for any claim someone
makes about the bible. I did like reading recently of how Matthew's skill in
legal shorthand was employed in the Gospel according to Matthew.
On your site the Matthew of the Gospels is not the author.

And, be careful of "scholarly opinion." If you are a scholar and you read
that Jesus ascended to heaven then how are you going to treat that
statement in a "scholarly" way? First step is to repudiate the statement.


Quartz Hill School of Theology

Since the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, study of the Old Testament has never been the same. We now have a much clearer picture of Canaanite religion than we ever had before. We also understand the Biblical literature itself much better as we are now able to clarify difficult words due to their Ugaritic cognates.
This site is interesting. It's not of consequence however as the authors of
the Gospels are not recorded. That is to say, authorship is not important,
date is not important - only the message is important.

And certainly, Constantine played no part in it. Not so much as a single
word.

However it's good to look at ALTERNATIVE POV's for any claim someone
makes about the bible. I did like reading recently of how Matthew's skill in
legal shorthand was employed in the Gospel according to Matthew.
On your site the Matthew of the Gospels is not the author.

And, be careful of "scholarly opinion." If you are a scholar and you read
that Jesus ascended to heaven then how are you going to treat that
statement in a "scholarly" way? First step is to repudiate the statement.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Quartz Hill School of Theology

Since the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, study of the Old Testament has never been the same. We now have a much clearer picture of Canaanite religion than we ever had before. We also understand the Biblical literature itself much better as we are now able to clarify difficult words due to their Ugaritic cognates.

Seriously interesting. Thanks for that.
I thought this was funny, "The population of Ugarit at that time was roughly 7635 people"
"roughly" but down to the fifth person.
Interestingly, there is a huge school of thought which claims that the Old Testament was
written during the Persian/Greek period. This article essentially contradicts that.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Seriously interesting. Thanks for that.
I thought this was funny, "The population of Ugarit at that time was roughly 7635 people"
"roughly" but down to the fifth person.
Interestingly, there is a huge school of thought which claims that the Old Testament was
written during the Persian/Greek period. This article essentially contradicts that.

Most of the OT was written after the Babylonian exile.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Most of the OT was written after the Babylonian exile.

Did you read your own link? It talks about the "Ugarit script" that later
scribes couldn't interpret. This script was well before Babylon, well
before the Judean kings (thus Samuel, Kings, Psalms, Proverbs etc..)

Quote - "One example of this is found in Proverbs 26:23. In the Hebrew
text כֶּ֣סֶף סִ֭יגִים "silver lips" is divided just as it is here. This has caused
commentators quite a bit of confusion over the centuries, for what does
"silver lips" mean? The discovery of the Ugaritic texts has helped us to
understand that the word was divided incorrectly by the Hebrew scribe
(who was as unfamiliar as we are with what the words were supposed
to mean). Instead of the two words above, the Ugaritic texts lead us to
divide the two words as כספסיגים which means "like silver"
.

Let's assume this Hebrew Scribe wrote Proverbs 26 in Babylonian times
and not King Solomon ca 1000 BC. Why did he write something that
made no sense? Now assuming that indeed Proverbs was written when
the bible says it was written, then the Urgarit text was employed and the
text now makes sense.
This is evidence Proverbs was written in the time of King David and King
Solomon. It's also evidence that translating Proverbs took place a long
while afterwards - maybe even Babylonian times.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Did you read your own link? It talks about the "Ugarit script" that later
scribes couldn't interpret. This script was well before Babylon, well
before the Judean kings (thus Samuel, Kings, Psalms, Proverbs etc..)

Quote - "One example of this is found in Proverbs 26:23. In the Hebrew
text כֶּ֣סֶף סִ֭יגִים "silver lips" is divided just as it is here. This has caused
commentators quite a bit of confusion over the centuries, for what does
"silver lips" mean? The discovery of the Ugaritic texts has helped us to
understand that the word was divided incorrectly by the Hebrew scribe
(who was as unfamiliar as we are with what the words were supposed
to mean). Instead of the two words above, the Ugaritic texts lead us to
divide the two words as כספסיגים which means "like silver"
.

Let's assume this Hebrew Scribe wrote Proverbs 26 in Babylonian times
and not King Solomon ca 1000 BC. Why did he write something that
made no sense? Now assuming that indeed Proverbs was written when
the bible says it was written, then the Urgarit text was employed and the
text now makes sense.
This is evidence Proverbs was written in the time of King David and King
Solomon. It's also evidence that translating Proverbs took place a long
while afterwards - maybe even Babylonian times.

The Hebrews had no national narrative or origin myth until AFTER the Babylonian exile. Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written down during and after the exile.. Genesis and Exodus were written after that.

I think the Hebrew scribes were copyists... not really literate.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
The Hebrews had no national narrative or origin myth until AFTER the Babylonian exile. Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written down during and after the exile.. Genesis and Exodus were written after that.

I think the Hebrew scribes were copyists... not really literate.

This is ONE academic opinion. Look for others.
It begs the question, what is the Ugaric text
doing in these books? That text was extinct for
centuries before Babylon.
and there's others - how did scribes in Babylon
and Grecian times understand so much about
Bronze Age culture? I mean, if no text was there,
then they made it all up. But we are finding the
kings, prophets, lost cities that were gone, gone,
gone from all living memory by Babylonian times.
Answer - the scribes of the Babylonian times were
just copiers, translating this awful Ugaric and old
Hebrew texts.
 
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sooda

Veteran Member
This is ONE academic opinion. Look for others.
It begs the question, what is the Ugaric text
doing in these books? That text was extinct for
centuries before Babylon.
and there's others - how did scribes in Babylon
and Grecian times understand so much about
Bronze Age culture? I mean, if no text was there,
then they made it all up. But we are finding the
kings, prophets, lost cities that were gone, gone,
gone from all living memory by Babylonian times.
Answer - the scribes of the Babylonian times were
just copiers, translating this awful Ugaric and old
Hebrew texts.

The Ugaritic texts provide a rich resource for understanding the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Ugarit, located on the coast of Syria. The site has yielded about two thousand tablets in Ugaritic, the West Semitic language of this city-state, and about twenty-five hundred tablets in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the period, as well as many texts written in seven other languages.

These reveal a cosmopolitan, commercial center operating in the shadow of two great powers of the eastern Mediterranean basin, the Egyptians and the Hittites.

The Ugaritic texts offer innumerable literary and religious parallels to biblical literature. The parallels are so rich and in some cases so specific that it is evident that the Ugaritic texts do not merely provide parallels, but belong to a shared or overlapping cultural matrix with the Hebrew Bible.

Ugaritic literature may not predate the earliest biblical sources by much more than a few decades, but the bulk of
biblical literature dates to centuries later.

Moreover, unlike the coastal, cosmopolitan center of Ugarit, ancient Israel’s heartland lay in the rural inland hill-country considerably to the south in what is today Israel and occupied Palestinian territory.

Despite these important differences, Ugaritic and biblical literature are not to be understood as representing entirely different cultures, but overlapping ones.
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
The Bible, whether the old or the new covenants states what should be the proper sexual relation. The only proper sexual relation is when a man and a woman are husband and wife. Outside of the marriage is detestable and a sin against God.

What is improper is also mentioned and that includes homosexual relations. To wit what are improper:

Homosexual relations Leviticus 18:22; [URL='https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+20:13&version=NIV']Leviticus 20:13[/URL]
Sexual relations with the father's wife Leviticus 20:11; [URL='https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians+5:1&version=NIV']1 Corinthians 5:1[/URL]
Sexual relations with the daughter in law Leviticus 20:12
Sexual relations with an animal Leviticus 20:15
Sexual relations with siblings Leviticus 20:17
Sexual relations during monthly period Leviticus 20:18
Sexual relations with aunt Leviticus 20:20
Sexual relations with a woman not his wife Numbers 5:20
Divorce Malachi 2:16

Romans 1:26-28 New International Version (NIV)
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.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.


It is not only during Paul's time that he sets the doctrines against improper sexual relations but the law against these were mentioned in during the time of Moses.

Even during the time of the Israelites in Egypt there were improper sexual relations that is why even the Old Testament Bible prohibits them.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Ugaritic and biblical literature are not to be understood as representing entirely different cultures, but overlapping ones.

WHOA.... People on one hand are saying that the bible was all made up three-four
hundred years before Christ. And on other that Ugaritic texts are to be found in the
bible - though this text wasn't known to any Jew unless something was keeping the
history. That history was the bible itself.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
WHOA.... People on one hand are saying that the bible was all made up three-four
hundred years before Christ. And on other that Ugaritic texts are to be found in the
bible - though this text wasn't known to any Jew unless something was keeping the
history. That history was the bible itself.

This may help.
Ugaritic Texts Show Possible Influences on Abraham

This Ugarit tablet is inscribed with the Hurrian hymn. Heritage Images / Getty Images. ... Scholars have noted that Ugaritic resembles Hebrew, as well as the Aramaic and Phoenician languages. ... trying to understand the world they chronicle and its possible influence on …

How Did the Religion of Ugaritic Texts Influence Abraham?
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Aristophanes tale about the creation of desire, as written in Plato's Symposium can be summarized in this way: Initially, three kinds humans were created; man, descended from the sun, woman, descended from the earth and androgynous (man and woman in the same body), descended from the moon. The bodies of the three genders had a double set of arms, heads, legs, reproductive organs etc. During a rebellion against the gods, the gods discovered that humans had become to powerful for them, and as an attempt to stop the rebellion, they cut all humans in half. This caused a big longing in the lives of humans, a constant longing to find the other half which they were separated from. The split androgynous longed for the opposite sex while the men and women which had been split longed for the same sex. If one relate this to the kind of homosexual love Aristophanes is generally encouraging, it's not a mutual relationship between adult men, but between a man and a boy, a teacher and a student or wherever there was an imbalance of power in the relationship. This is called pederasty.

If this was what Paul had in mind when he thought of homosexuality, his thought would likely be a result of an idolatry myth. Is this the reason why Paul in his letter to the Romans (1:23) writes that people turned to idol worship just ahead of his writings about homosexual relationships? I don't know, but the whole reasoning is built upon a myth of idolatry, and within the context of imbalanced relationships and pederastic homosexuality.

In the same tale from Plato's symposium, we hear about the couple Pausanias and Agathon. This example is perhaps more relevant to the context the church is facing today, but it's important not to read our own time into the relationship between Pausanias and Agathon. During the classical Greek period (5-400. bc), it was essential to divide the sexual partners in a relationship into a passive and an active part; The one who penetrates and the one who gets penetrated. The men were thus seen as superior to women for this reason. In the relationship between Pausanias and Agathon, Pausanias was politically superior. Agathon was around 15 years old when the middle aged Pausanias took him as his lover. Even in his late 20's, Agathon was described as a young boy, he was known to dress like a woman, and was described as having an attractive feminine appearance.

Paul wrote that the man shall be the head of the woman as Christ is the head of the church. The church' general attitude today is to interpret Paul in a way that women and men are equated and equitable in relations. If the church is right about this, there should be no difference in status or value between men and women in any relationship, and hence no difference between men. This whole pederastic constellation would then appear as a perversion of the ideal of equality and balance of power in a relationship. If Paul on the other hand meant that women were subordinate, it doesn't get any better. This means that the man who is the passive part will degrade himself to something less than what God had intended, and the active part would oppress another man.

The way the relationship between Pausanias and Agathon is portrayed, is not coherent with what Paul prescribes as a healthy relationship. Today. healthy, mutual and life long homosexual relationships are not considered oppressing or un-equal. To the church, it's the act itself which is considered a sin, regardless how it's performed. The church now acknowledges that both hetero- and homosexual relationships can be built upon equated and equitable friendships. This is most likely not the kind of relationships Paul had in mind when writing to the Romans.

There has always been disagreements on whether or not Akilles and Patroklos were lovers or only good friends. Homer never writes that they are lovers. Akilles fell in love with the woman Penthesilea right before she died, which indicates that Akilles was either hetero or bisexual. Patroklos on the other hand wished to marry the woman Briseis, and was ready to persuade Akilles into an agreement which made this possible. This indicates that Patroklos didn't want a monogamous or life long relationship with Akilles.

I assume that most churches today do not agree that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship, even though the bible states that they kissed, that David stated that his love for Jonathan meant more than womens love, and that their relationship has been interpreted as a pact as strong as a marriage. The story of Akilles and Petroklos is written around the same time as the story about David and Jonathan. Even though there are more textual indicators to assume David and Jonathan being lovers than with Akilles and Petroklos, I still assume that Paul did not regard David and Jonathans relationship any more erotic than the relationship between Akilles and Patroklos. It's also woth noticing that the relationship between Akilles and Patroklos can be interpreted as unequal, and more in line with the tradition of pederasty.

There are many more examples of such relatioships: Harmodios and Arisogeiton, Plutarks writings in the Erotikos, the story about the sacred band of Thebes, the roman philosopher Seneca etc.

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?

Paul describes the relationship between God and Christian as the same as male/female intercourse. So was he gay or formerly married, a widower, who knew intercourse?

David had many wives, concubines and children. Was David gay?
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Paul describes the relationship between God and Christian as the same as male/female intercourse. So was he gay or formerly married, a widower, who knew intercourse?

David had many wives, concubines and children. Was David gay?

Why would you bring up the bandit king?
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
David had many wives, concubines and children. Was David gay?
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
 

InChrist

Free4ever
Here's the thing.
Living in the USA I see this a lot.

Wealthy married couple, each previously divorced, get out of their late model luxury sedan, wearing wool power suits. They support Trump and his Wall.
They go into church to worship the Author of:
"Don't get divorced. Don't store up treasure that rust and moth will devour. Take care of the children and the least. Etc. Etc."

And they don't grasp the irony of claiming that Christians cannot have gay sex, because of what Moses and Paul said.

Tom
Yes, the hypocrisy is annoying and disillusioning. I almost think it may a worse sin when those who claim to be Christians practice sin all the while going to church and putting on a self-righteous veneer.
Nevertheless, I don't see that any sin can be rationalized because others are sinful hypocrites.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
Ignorance on full parade. Paul was likely married, and if he wasn´t, so what ? You know what his sexual desires were ? Amazing intellectual feat there hubert.

I guess every unmarried or not sexually active man is a homosexual, huh hubert ?

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.
 

sooda

Veteran 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.

Well Saul was a Jew and a Pharisee and would have been expected to marry as that was the norm. Perhaps his conversion was to escape that cultural obligation.
 

shmogie

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.
If he was spending every second of his life pursuing his ultimate God given goal, sex would have been irrelevant to him. Not everyone operates at the level of lust.

He was really subtle according your theory, he wrote a number of things that homosexuals then and now were enraged by. He pissed off his fellow travelers so he could be beaten, chucked into prison, and be beheaded.

He gained a lot by alienating his fellow homosexuals.

Get real
 
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