Authored by: Payton Alexander.

In writing this article, I hope to take steps towards correcting the peculiar view, which has become almost universal among Christians in recent decades, that there are passages in the New Testament which condemn homosexual practice as immoral.  Such a position cannot be taken on any logical basis, but must instead be the result of a kind of prejudice born from a misguided attempt at intuitivist morality.  What I mean by this is that many modern Christians have set out to interpret the old texts with their own prejudices already in mind.  They have this idea that it is somehow “obvious” that homosexuality is wrong, and naturally, when they begin to see sexual references in Paul’s exhortations, they jump to the conclusion that he is referring to homosexuality as a sin.

On the contrary, were it not for these modern Christians and their homophobia, I would never have guessed that homosexuality was in any way wrong or “abominable”.  And if I spoke ancient Greek, I daresay I would not think it ‘obvious’ that these passages refer to homosexuality at all!

Now, the subject of homosexuality and the Bible is vast, and I could not hope to cover it in one simple post.  Here, I will be discussing homosexuality and 1 Timothy 1:9-10.  Practically speaking, I can develop a much more detailed and concrete idea of this topic if I spend an entire essay exploring just one verse.  Moreover, there is much to be said about this verse in particular, so I could not possibly be left at a loss for words. (NOTE: I make several references to a similar verse in 1 Corinthians in this paper. I will handle that verse later in an essay like this)

To begin, let’s read over the actual verse below, taken from the King James Version:

“Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.”  1 Timothy 1:9-10

Now, the Greek word translated as, “them that defile themselves with mankind”, is “arsenokoitai”.

In English bibles, this word is usually translated as being a reference to homosexuals. However, this is far from clear.  (NOTE: It has not been given a Strong Number because it is a made-up word not found in the Greek language other than in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians.)

It is a compound word, formed from two well-known and well-precedented words; “arsen“, meaning “male”, and “koitai“, meaning “beds”. We might suspect, then, that Paul is not writing about “them that defile themselves with mankind”.  If he was, he would have used the word “paideraste“, which was the standard Greek word for people who engaged in any male-male sexual behavior.

Moreover, of all the ancient homoerotic Greek texts and stories, of which many thousands remain, “arsenokoitai” is never used (see here). From this, it is abundantly clear that Paul is not referring to homosexuality.  Instead, since he had to invent a word here, we can say that Paul is referring to something which had no name in the Greek language; so unless it can be shown that he had some overriding need to invent new words for something the Greeks already had a word for, we cannot assume this verse refers to homosexuals.

Yet while this understanding shows that Paul is not referring to homosexuality, it leaves the question open: What exactly is he referring to?

A scholar by the name of Justin Cannon has provided an interesting analysis of this passage. He noticed a syntactical pattern in this verse, composed of pairs or triads of related groups of people:

1. The lawless & disobedient: two near synonyms
2. The ungodly & sinners: also two near synonyms
3. The unholy & profane: two synonyms
4. The murderers of fathers & murderers of mothers & manslayers: three kinds of murderers
5. Whoremongers & “arsenokoitai” & menstealers: presumably, three related words.
6. Liars & perjurers etc.: again, two near synonyms.

From the repeated pairs or triads made up of synonyms or near synonyms, one might expect that whoremongers, “arsenokoitai” and meanstealers are either synonyms, or interconnected by a particular theme.  (Refer to Cannon’s actual study at the link above for a more academic analysis.)

In the original Greek, the first of the three words is “pornov.” An online Greek lexicon notes that this is Strong’s Number 4205, and was derived from the Greek word “pernemi” which means to sell. Its meanings are:

1. A man who prostitutes his body to another’s lust for hire.
2. A male prostitute.
3. A man who indulges in unlawful sexual intercourse, a fornicator.

The second term is “arsenokoitai” which is Strong’s Number 733, though it is a made-up word not found in the Greek language other than in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians.

The last of the three words is “andrapodistes,” the stem of the word “andrapodistai”. It is Strong’s Number 405, which means:

“A slave-dealer, kidnapper, man-stealer — one who unjustly reduces free men to slavery or who steals the slaves of others and sells them.”

If we assume that the three words are either (nearly) synonymous or particularly interconnected, as the other five groups are, then we have to look for some sense in which the words refer to a common theme. Cannon suggests:

1. “pornoi” refers to an enslaved male prostitute.
2. “arsenokoitai” refers to a man who sleeps with an enslaved male prostitute
3. “andrapodistes” refers to a person who enslaves men for said prostitution.

Cannon’s theory of structural pairs is exceptionally convincing, as the whole of scripture is full of patterned and easily memorized verses. The thing reeks of order and complexity, and right here we have an outstanding example of it!  From a literary standpoint, Cannon’s analysis is matchless.

Additionally, this passage in Timothy and its counterpart in Corinthians have only very recently been construed as denouncing homosexuality. It has traditionally, and universally, been thought to refer to masturbation. Even anti-homosexual bible scholars such as Martin Luther and John Calvin interpreted this word “arsenokoitai” in both Timothy and 1 Corinthians as referring to masturbators. Indeed, the Catholic Church too, actively preached that it referred to masturbation up until the 1970′s, when society generally began to accept masturbation as not sinful and this interpretation became hard to believe.

I suspect it might be a result of the practice of celibacy that the Catholic Church is so opposed to the idea that masturbators would go to Hell…