Homosexuality and the Bible Lecture

A Yale Professor was brought to Trinity University on the evening of March 19, 2009 present his lecture on "Homosexuality and the Bible" in Parker Chapel. Dr. Dale B. Martin is the Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University and the author of five books. His most famous book Sex and the Single Savior is a collection of essays on gender and sexuality in biblical interpretation.

At the actual lecture, over 250 people were in attendance. Dr. Martin talked about social justice and debates surrounding it such as same sex marriage, the don't ask don't tell clause in the military, and anti-gay passages in Scripture, to name a few. He talked about how in helping us to seek meaning behind the words of the Scripture, it depends on the person, and that is why it is such a controversial issue. Dr. Martin proved to be a very thought provoking man while his work proved to be ground breaking and considered "must-reads."

During his lecture, he describes situations in which people ask him questions such as "What does the Bible say?" In which he answers that literally the Bible does not say anything. He makes the point that "the Bible as a text doesn't speak." So therefore it doesn't say anything about homosexuality or marriage or slavery. It is simply up to interpretation and for you to decide what is right or wrong while having the option of using the Bible as a source to back your views. Simply, Dr. Martin says " Texts don't speak, they must be interpreted." The intentions of their meaning vary. Even authors who write having intentions of getting a certain meaning or point across may sometimes word it to where it doesn't lead to the meanings of the texts. The meaning is not limited to what the author intended to say. The interpretation of it depends on the social convention in the context of which the statement was made.

He further goes on to analyze the reasons behind where the notion that homosexuality is wrong in the Bible. He takes the Latin word arsenokoites which is a word used in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and also 1 Timothy 1:10. Literally, Arsen means male and koites means bed. So therefore arsenokoites was interpreted in ancient times as men who have sexual activities with other men. But Dr. Martin proves a great point, just because you take a word and dissect it doesn't mean you get the meaning of the word. To further prove his point on this he uses the word understanding; you don't actually stand under a person. His main point on this is that you have to look at how a word is used in context to find the meaning of the word. The word arsenokoites occurs within the list of sins in the Sibylline Oracle but the sins listed are not sexual. Things listed are stealing, cheating laborers, and defrauding widows and orphans for example. The context the word is used in this case is for economic sins, not sexual. There is an entirely different list for sexual sins on which arsenokoites is not included on. So the question is, why is it not included in the sexual sins list but it is on the economic sins list? Interesting, ehh?

Arsenokoites is also used in the Acts of John 36 to once again make a list of economic sins. Dr. Martin suggests that maybe the economic sin or arsenokoites could be pimping. Another word, malakos, occurs thousands of times. Only in the last 20th century has the word been translated to mean homosexuality which is the interesting point. Before the 20th century, malakos simply meant soft men, men of the good life who were "effeminate". Here are some examples:

• "weaklinges" : Tyndale 1534, Coverdale 1535, Cranmer 1539




• Wyclif 1380, "lechouris ayens kynde"




• Geneva Bible 1557 "wantons"




• "effeminate" : Douai-Rheims 1582, KJV 1611, ASV 1901

Malakos stopped being translated to have such meanings due to our changing society. It became known as:

• a particular sexual act or disposition




• Jerusalem Bible (1966) : catamite




• "male prostitute" : NIV 1973, NRSV 1989




• NAB 1970: arsenokoites + malakos = sodomite




• sexual perversion: RSV 1946, TEV 1966, NEB 1970, REB 1992

Some people claim that idolaters are the reasons there are homosexuals because their punishment for committing idolatrous acts was to be called to perform homosexual acts. Paul also claimed that Jews and Christians don't commit this act, and therefore cannot be homosexual. His logic is that only gentiles are punished by homosexual sex. This was one theory discussed by Dr. Martin in his lecture.

His closing remarks were that if you say you understand the true meaning of the Scripture yet your meaning does not preach the love of God and the love to thy neighbor, then your meaning does not interpret Scripture at all. Dr. Martin says that you have to interpret through love, which is also preached by St. Augustine (354-430) in the Christian Doctrine 1.35.40. He ends by stating the fact that Christian faith is based on not knowing but having faith, and trying to understand with love and God's grace.