texts recently applied to homosexuality

The word homosexual first appeared in the bible in 1946. This is a discussion of the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words, which some translators have interpreted as referring to homosexuality. You can follow the links to read each verse in several translations. Also use the links to read the chapter to appreciate the context of each verse.

Gen. 19:5-8;
The Hebrew verb which is commonly translated as "know" is ya,,da. It appears 943 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. In only about a dozen of these cases does it refers to sexual activity - all heterosexual. The Bible comments on Sodom in about 40 or so places. The "sin of Sodom" was that they were, arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. For rabbinic Judaism, Sodom was the cruel city that abused the poor and the outsider and not a hotbed of male male eroticism.

Lev. 18:22; 20:13;
Many Biblical scholars interpret these verses as referring to temple prostitution, which was a common practice in the Middle East at that time. They note that to'ebah, often translated "abomination", is a religious term, usually reserved for use against instances of idolatry. If the writer(s) of Leviticus wished to refer to a moral violation, a sin, he would have used the Hebrew word zimah. The word "abomination" that we see in English translations of the Bible could better be translated "foreign religious cult practice." The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (circa 3rd century BCE) translated to'ebah into Greek as bdelygma, which meant ritual impurity.

Deut. 23:17; 1 Kin. 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kin. 23:7;
The word qadesh in the original Hebrew text was mistranslated as "sodomite". Quadesh literally means "holy one" and is here used to refer to a man who engages in ritual prostitution in a Pagan temple. The entire verse seems to condemn temple, ritual, prostitution, whether heterosexual or homosexual. It has nothing to say about gay or lesbian sex within either a casual or a committed relationship.

Rom. 1:24,26,27;
The Greek phrase para physin is commonly translated into the English word "unnatural". In Greek, the phrase really means "that which is beyond the ordinary and usual." "Unconventional" would have been a good word to use. Paul uses those very same words para physin to describe how God grafted the Gentiles into the olive tree that is the Jews. Romans 11:24 Now Jew and Gentile are one in Christ. But to graft a wild tree into a cultivated tree is not the ordinary thing to do; it is something unusual. Still, that is what God did through Christ. Paul uses the same two words, para physin 1 Corinthians 11:14, when he refers to long hair on men as unusual and not ordinary.

1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:9,10.
The original Greek text is malakoi arsenokoitai. In both Matthew 11:8 and Luke 7:25, malakoi is translated as "soft" (KJV) or as "fine" (NIV) in references to clothing. The meaning of arsenokoitai has been lost. Some sources in the early Church interpreted the phrase as referring to "temple prostitutes" - people who engaged in ritual sex in Pagan temples, others thought that it meant "masturbators". Much Greek homosexual erotic literature has survived, none of it contains the word aresenokoitai