Reply to Did Christian homophobia come from a mistranslation of the Bible?

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Reply to "Did Christian homophobia come from a mistranslation of the Bible?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DP. It's obviously correct to say that all churches' teaching prior to mid-20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful.

As I understand it, OP and her sources are focussing on the New Testament. We all agree Jesus said nothing on the subject. The only other New Testament passage is from Paul, [b]but the Guardian piece disputes the translation[/b]. Which if correct would leave nothing in the New Testament against homosexuality.

If that's the case, then Christians who condemn homosexuality have to fall back on the Old Testament--Leviticus, Sodom and Gomorrah, although the Adam Erickson piece somebody posted disputes them, too.

Point is, if you knock off the New Testament, then only Bible literalists who think everything in the Old Testament is God's word would still have a basis for homophobia. Few Christians today are Bible literalists. As a pp pointed out, the Old Testament also has father-daughter incest.

There's a third source, which is cultural biases. Undoubtedly these affected Aquinas, Luther, etc, although they did find supposed "authority" in the Bible. But culture is changing, thank goodness.[/quote]

This is simply fallacious (the Guardian piece assertions, not your post).  Go to Biblehub for 1 Cor. 6 and look up the Wycliffe bible (14th century), Tyndale bible (16th century), and King James bible (17th century).  The King James bible uses euphemistic terms (although they would have been clear enough in the 17th century) in the 1 Cor. 6 passage, but Wycliffe is explicit, [i]sic[/i]  "nor lechers against nature, nor those who do lechery with men".  These "1946 mistranslation" arguments are not a result of serious scholarship.

[/quote]

So do the folks in the Guardian need to go back further than 1946, back to the 16th century, and dispute those translations too? Because it seems like if the translation was wrong in 1946, it would have been wrong then, too.

Which isn't to say Christian homophobia didn't exist before 1946. Of course it did.[/quote]

Yes, exactly.  What is more likely, that all past translations before mid-20th century were incorrect OR that, with our modern sensibilities, we don't like what 1 Cor. 6 actually says?  The idea that "everybody got it wrong before now" as a matter of simple language translation is ridiculous.  Say you don't want to rule your life by it, fine, but don't do damage to yourself intellectually with this "mistranslation" nonsense.  [/quote]

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