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,” which can be interpreted as "male human traffickers" What is the basis for this shift in translation? (see project labeled please read this 9 to continue)
