What does it say about gay people in the bible
What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?
What Does The Bible State About Homosexuality?
Introduction
For the last two decades, Pew Research Center has reported that one of the most enduring ethical issues across Christian traditions is sexual diversity. For many Christians, one of the most frequently first-asked questions on this topic is, “What does the Bible say about attraction to someone of the equal sex?”
Although its unlikely that the biblical authors had any notion of sexual orientation (for example, the term homosexual wasn't even coined until the belated 19th century) for many people of faith, the Bible is looked to for timeless guidance on what it means to honor God with our lives; and this most certainly includes our sexuality.
Before we can leap into how it is that Christians can maintain the authority of the Bible and also affirm sexual diversity, it might be helpful if we started with a little but clear overview of some of the assumptions informing many Christian approaches to understanding the Bible.
What is the Bible?
For Christians to whom the Bible
What does the Bible express about homosexuality?
Answer
In some people’s minds, being homosexual is as much outside one’s control as the hue of your skin and your height. On the other hand, the Bible clearly and consistently declares that homosexual activity is a sin (Genesis –13; Leviticus ; ; Romans –27; 1 Corinthians ; 1 Timothy ). God created marriage and sexual relationships to be between one man and one woman: “At the launch the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will abandon his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’” (Matthew –5). Anything outside of God’s intent and design is sin. The Bible teaches that Christians are to reside for God, deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow Him (Matthew ), including with their sexuality. This disconnect between what the Bible says and what some people feel leads to much controversy, debate, and even hostility.
When examining what the Bible says about homosexuality, it is important to distinguish between homosexual behaviorand hom
Has 'Homosexual' Always Been in the Bible?
Reprinted with permission from The Forge Online
The pos “arsenokoitai” shows up in two other verses in the bible, but it was not translated to mean “homosexual” until
We got to sit down with Ed Oxford at his home in Long Beach, California and talk about this question.
You contain been part of a research team that is looking for to understand how the decision was made to insert the word gay in the bible. Is that true?
Ed: Yes. It first showed up in the RSV translation. So before figuring out why they decided to use that word in the RSV translation (which is outlined in my upcoming manual with Kathy Baldock, Forging a Revered Weapon: How the Bible Became Anti-Gay) I wanted to see how other cultures and translations treated the matching verses when they were translated during the Reformation years ago. So I started collecting ancient Bibles in French, German, Irish, Gaelic, Czechoslovakian, Polish… you name it. Now I’ve got most European major languages that I’ve composed over time. An
Leviticus
“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”[1] It is not a surprise that this verse seems to say that gay male sex is forbidden in the eyes of God. The dominant view of western Christianity forbids queer relations. This verse is one of the clobber passages that people cite from the Bible to condemn homosexuality. This essay first looks at the various ways the verse is translated into the English Bible and then explores some of the strategies used to create an affirming interpretation of what this passage means for the LGBTQ community. More specifically, it presents the interpretation of K. Renato Lings in which Lev. refers to male-on-male incest.
While Lev. is used to condemn homosexuality, we must realize that the legal title “homosexuality” was only recently coined in the English language. So did this term exist in ancient Israel? Charles D. Myers, Jr. confirms that none of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible mention homosexuality.[2] He also contends that in ancient Israel same-sex relations were viewed as an ancient Near East issue. The anc