One of Paul’s most significant references to
“nature” outside of Romans 1 comes in 1 Corinthians 11. There, in verses
13-15, he writes:
Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?
This is actually the most similar passage in the
New Testament to Romans 1:26-27, because not only does Paul refer to
“nature” here, he also speaks of the concept of “disgrace,” which is the
same term that is translated as “shameful” in Romans 1. But the way
that we interpret these terms in 1 Corinthians 11 is very different than
how the traditional interpretation wants to read them in Romans 1.
One
of the most common meanings of the Greek word for “nature” is custom,
and that is how Christians widely interpret this passage in 1
Corinthians today. And the reference to what is a “disgrace” or “shame”
is taken as specifically being shameful given particular customs. So how
we read Paul here in 1 Corinthians is basically this: “Do not the
customs of our society dictate that it is considered shameful for a man
to have long hair, but honorable for a woman?”
This reading aligns with
ancient Mediterranean attitudes about gender and hair length, and it
makes much more sense than the idea that natural biological processes
would lead men to have short hair. By “nature,” it would grow long.
But again, this passage about hair length in 1
Corinthians is the most similar one in Paul’s writings to the passage
about sexual behavior in Romans 1. So if we understand Paul’s references
to “nature” and “disgrace” in 1 Corinthians as being about custom, why
do we not do the same in Romans 1? And in fact, unlike the traditional
interpretation, that approach would be consistent with how the terms
“natural” and “unnatural” were actually used in regard to sexual
behavior by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
In those patriarchal
societies, in which women were viewed as inferior to men, the main
distinction that they made when discussing sexual behavior was not
orientation, but rather, active versus passive roles. The Greeks and
Romans, along with other societies of biblical times, believed that a
man’s natural, customary role was to be active in sexual relations,
whereas a woman’s was to be passive. When either of those roles were
inverted – when a man was passive or a woman was active – they labeled
that behavior shameful and “unnatural” in the sense of violating
customary gender roles.
That is why they commonly called same-sex unions
“unnatural.” But just like Greek and Roman attitudes about appropriate
hair length, their views about gender roles are specific to those
patriarchal cultures. In both of these cases, Paul is merely using terms
that have already gained a wide currency to describe things in the
societies that he is addressing. And he uses the term “nature” in Romans
1 just as he does in 1 Corinthians 11.
So if we’re going to be
consistent as well as historically accurate in our biblical
interpretation, then we need to acknowledge for Romans 1 what we already
do for 1 Corinthians 11: the term “nature” here refers to social
custom, not to the biological order, and it is a culturally specific
term.
Our two remaining passages are less involved than
the others, so I’ll spend somewhat less time on them.
They are 1
Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10, and the debate here centers around
the translation of two Greek terms. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul warns
against those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he lists
10 different types of people who will not inherit the kingdom. Because
the dispute here is about translation, I’ll start with the King James
Version of this passage, which was published more than 400 years ago and
so predates this modern controversy. It reads:
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
Our key words for the discussion here are the words
translated as “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind.”
These somewhat ambiguous translations in the King James are consistent
with how these words were actually translated into English for hundreds
of years: some kind of immorality or abuse, but specifically what kind
was never stated.
This changed halfway through the last century, when
some Bible translators began connecting these terms directly to
homosexuality. The first occurrence of this shift came in 1946, when a
translation of the Bible was published that simply stated that
“homosexuals” will not inherit the kingdom of God. Several decades
later, after the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual
behavior came to be more widely understood, this was changed to say that
only “practicing homosexuals” will not inherit the kingdom.
But these
terms and concepts regarding sexual orientation are completely alien to
the biblical world. Neither Greek, the language of the New Testament,
nor Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, nor Latin, the language
of early Christian translations of the Bible, had a word that means or
corresponds to the English word for gay.
The concept of sexual
orientation, and of same-sex orientation in particular, didn’t exist in
the ancient world. The English term “homosexual” was not even coined
until the end of the 19th century. And so translations of
these words that suggest that Paul was using these distinctly modern
concepts and categories are highly suspect.
But today, there are many
translations of the Bible—though certainly not all of them—that link
these terms in some way to homosexuality, rendering them variously as
“males who practice homosexuality,” “men who have sex with men,” or
“male prostitutes.” What is the basis for this shift in translation?
The word translated as “abusers of themselves with
mankind” in the King James is a compound word. In the Greek, it is
“arsenokoites,” “arsen” meaning “male,” and “koites” meaning “bed,”
generally with a sexual connotation. And so the argument is that we can
determine the meaning of this term from its etymology: male plus bed in
the plural form must, then, refer to men who sleep with other men.
But
there are several problems with this approach. First, simply looking at a
word’s component parts doesn’t necessarily tell us what it means. There
are many English words where this approach would fail: for example, the
words “understand,” “butterfly,” “honeymoon.”
The component parts here –
“honey” and “moon” – really don’t tell us anything about what that word
actually means. In order to understand what a word means, you have to
consider how it’s used in context. The problem with the word “abusers of
themselves with mankind” – arsenokoites – is that it was used extremely
rarely in ancient Greek.
In fact, Paul’s use of it in 1 Corinthians is
considered to be its first recorded use anywhere. And after Paul, the
few places that it appears tend to be in lists of general vices, which
are not the most helpful of contexts. Fortunately, however, many of
these lists are grouped by category, and this Greek word consistently
appears among sins that are of a primarily economic nature rather than
those that are primarily sexual.
This and some other contextual data
indicate that this term referred to some kind of economic exploitation,
likely through sexual means. This may have involved forms of same-sex
behavior, but coercive and exploitative forms. There is no contextual
support for linking this term to loving, faithful relationships.
-Matthew Vines
to be continued
J-Bo
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