What does Paul say about homosexuality in 1 Corinthians? Is he saying that those who are gay or lesbian won’t enter God’s kingdom? How do these verses apply to committed, loving, faithful same-sex relationships?
Below, you can find the transcript of the video, and a pointer to some of the academic resources that lie behind this post.
Transcript
In his first letter to the Corinthians, what is Paul saying about homosexuality, and how should we be applying that today? Are those who are gay or lesbian outside of God’s kingdom? I don’t think so. Keep watching to find out why.
In 1 Corinthians (first Corinthians if you’re American), Paul says that a variety of wrongdoers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. Included in the list are a couple of words that the New International Version of the Bible translates as ‘men who have sex with men’ but the English Standard Version translates as ‘men who practice homosexuality’. But the King James Version of the Bible has ‘effeminate’ and ‘abusers of themselves with mankind’. What’s going on here?
Let’s have a closer look at the verses in question: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Here’s the New Revised Standard Version, and again a different translation; this time male prostitutes and sodomites.
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.
A little dig into some of the other terms in that list. Fornicators translates pornoi – a word which particularly suggests the use of prostitutes, which was widespread in Roman times. Idolaters – those who worship pagan gods and goddesses. Adulterers translates moichoi, and has a narrower meaning than in English. Legally, only sleeping with someone which violated honour was adultery – so sleeping with slaves or prostitutes (who had no honour) wasn’t adultery.
Then we come to the two words. Malakoi and arsenokoitai. Why is there so much disagreement about how to translate them?
Malakos
Malakoi comes from a word, malakos, which literally means ‘soft’. For example, in Matthew 11:8 Jesus compares John the Baptist to those who dress in soft – malakos – robes and live in palaces, perhaps a dig at King Herod.
Just as ‘soft’ in English covers a range of meanings, so it did in Greek. So malakos could mean effeminate – in a patriarchal society where to be feminine was to be considered weaker and more swayed by your passions.
And this is where the word ‘effeminate’ can mislead us. In Roman times, it could refer to those who acted in a dissolute way: the lazy, the cowardly, the idle rich sleeping around with any women available. Think of playboys, or eighteenth century dandies. If a man spent too much time caring about how he looked and then being led by his lust that was effeminate – soft – malakos.
And the word could also refer to those who took what was considered to be the effeminate position in intercourse, the passive partner, the partner being penetrated, and so malakos could also refer to a male prostitute.
So malakos is a broad term, linked to what were seen as unmanly vices, which is perhaps why one of the very first English versions of the Bible translates it as ‘weaklinges’.
In Paul’s letter, there are no clues as to what he meant precisely, it is just one term in the list, which is why the translations differ so much from each other.
Does malakoi refer to the idle rich, or those who are sleeping around with loads of women, or to male prostitutes, or to some other aspect of the word? How much weight do we put on the fact that the next item in the list is arsenokoitai, the other disputed term which we’ll come to in a minute?
Different commentators disagree with each other, which is why we have so many different translations of these terms.
My view? I think Paul was referring generally to the morally weak, those who choose to let their lusts lead their actions.
Arsenokoites
But what about the other term, arsenokoitai, the plural form of arsenokoitēs? Here, we have almost the opposite problem from malakos, which is used widely in Greek literature.
Paul’s use of the word here is the earliest we have on record, and it was only infrequently used afterwards, and often when it was used it was quoting Paul anyway. So what did Paul mean by this word?
One approach is to look at what the different parts of the word might be able to tell us. Arsenokoitēs has two halves – arseno comes from a word meaning male (not man, and that’s signification), and koitēs comes from a word meaning bed, but in Greek as in English bed was sometimes a euphemism for intercourse – in fact this is where the word ‘coitus’ comes from. So this would suggest a male-bedder.
But working out meaning this way is dangerous – a cupboard doesn’t necessarily have cups inside; the chairman of the board doesn’t necessarily refer to an item of furniture. And as for butterflies…
Another approach is to try to work out where the word came from. One possibility here is it is from the Greek version of Leviticus 20:13, where you get both the word arsenos (male) and koitēn (bed). But again, this may tell us about the history of the word, but not how it was actually used in practice.
We are working with limited evidence.
Just looking at the construction of the word, and its possible source from Leviticus, suggests that it is referring to those who bed males. But those who bed males, not men.
In the ancient world, overwhelmingly the most common form of male-male intercourse was the violation of boys, slaves and prostitutes – pederasty. Whenever Philo, a Jewish rough contemporary of Paul, refers to male-male intercourse, he means with boys (that is when he doesn’t refer to practices associated with goddess worship). Pederasty would have been the default assumption for what was meant. (I have more information on sexuality and gender in the ancient world when I explain the background to Romans 1).
Looking at the context in which arsenokoitēs is used elsewhere suggests that violent, economic oppression may also have been part of its meaning. Some of the earliest occurrences outside of the Bible include it with economic vices rather than sexual ones. Given the slave trade in boy prostitutes in the ancient world, perhaps this is not surprising.
Pederasty as the meaning is also suggested by other early Christian literature, which also includes lists of vices similar to those in Paul’s letter, but use the word paidophthoria – child corruption – to refer to pederasty. Here’s a selection spanning the first four centuries.
The Didache, a teaching manual from about the beginning of the second century.
You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt children [paidophthorēseis]; you shall not be sexually immoral; you shall not steal…
Didache 2.2.
The epistle of Barnabas, a second century letter.
You shall not be sexually immoral; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt children [paidophthorēseis].
Barnabas 19.4
Justin Martyr, another second century writing.
…how much more shall all the nations appear to be under a curse who practise idolatry, who corrupt children [paidophthorounta], and commit other crimes?
Justin Martyr, Dial. Trypho 95.
Clement of Alexandria; about the beginning of the third century.
You shall not commit adultery. You shall not worship idols. You shall not corrupt children [paidophthorēseis]. You shall not steal…
Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.12.
Athanasius, writing in the first half of the fourth century.
Which is more beautiful? To confess the cross, or to attribute to those you call gods adultery and corruption of children [paidophthorias]?
Athanasius, Vita Antonii 74.
And Gregory of Nazianzus, writing in the second half of the fourth century.
One who approves of adulteries and corruption of children [paidophthorias]…
Gregory of Nazianzen, Adv. Eunomianos (orat. 27) 6.
Notice that these are general lists that sum up a wide range of wicked activities broadly. Pederasty was so common that it appears as a main item in many lists. You could sleep with other people’s wives: adultery. You could sleep with prostitutes: sexual immorality. And you could sleep with boys: child corruption, pederasty, and I think that’s what Paul is referring to when he uses the term arsenokoitai – male-bedders.
Bedding males means violating boys.
Conclusion
Where does that leave us? We don’t have enough evidence to be entirely sure what Paul’s talking about. But in my view there is a strong argument that in Paul’s sights were those who were morally lax including sexually, and those who abused boys.
And if Paul is talking about pederasty, the violent rape of slaves and boy prostitutes, then again what Paul is writing about is far away from committed, loving, faithful relationships.
What Paul was condemning in his letter to the Corinthians has got nothing to do with what we’re talking about today.
Remember to subscribe to the channel, and you can find links to resources and scholarship at www.bibleandhomosexuality.org.
The other issue that arises in discussions about sexuality and gender in the Bible is what the Bible says about transgender people – you can see what I think here.
Found this helpful? You can now get the material from this website and more in a book. Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to LGBTQI+ People is available at Amazon and other major retailers. You can find out some more about the book here.
Resources
The articles that are most relevant to this topic are those by Wright, Martin and Elliott. Wright gave strong arguments that arsenokoitēs derived from Leviticus, referred generally to all male-male intercourse, and proceeded to argue that it therefore applied to all male-male intercourse (so including but going beyond pederasty). However, that it was a general term including pederasty rather than a synonym for pederasty seems to be assumed rather than proved by Wright.
Martin’s rejoinder also covers malakos, where he produces a strong argument that it is dangerous to go beyond a general ‘effeminate’. Martin notes how arsenokoitēs is linked with economic vices (not picked up by Wright), and emphasises the danger in trying to determine the meaning of a word when we have flimsy evidence. Some readers may find Martin’s conclusions uncomfortable, but his analysis seems sound.
Elliott provides a comprehensive overview of a range of factors and critiques a wide range of translations in different Bibles. Elliott also concludes that there is a lack of clarity about what Paul meant, but argues that for arsenokoitai Paul is more likely to have been attacking the prevalent abusive pederasty.
Malick argues (unconvincingly to me) that all homosexual behaviour is meant. Petersen was an early critic of translations using ‘homosexual’. And Scroggs was one of the first to articulate powerfully the argument that pederasty was meant.
Elliott, John H. “No Kingdom of God for Softies? Or, What Was Paul Really Saying? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in Context.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 34 (2004): 17-40.
Malick, David E. “The Condemnation of Homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9.” Bibliotheca Sacra 150 (1993): 479-92.
Martin, Dale B. “Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences.” In Biblical Ethics & Homosexuality: Listening to Scripture, edited by Robert L. Brawley. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Petersen, William L. “Can Ἀρσενοκοῖται Be Translated by “Homosexuals”?” Vigiliae Christianae 40 (1986): 187-91.
Scroggs, Robin. The New Testament and Homosexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.
Wright, David F. “Homosexuals or Prostitutes? The Meaning of Αρσενοκοιται (1 Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10).” Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984): 125-53.
