What Does the Bible Say About Gay?

(1 Corinthians & 1 Timothy)

The admonitions against homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10 revolve
around controversial translations of the Greek words “malakoi” and “arsenokoites.” Paul was a
Jewish author writing in Greek to a largely Greek (hellenized) audience. Therefore, we must
understand these Greek words to understand what Paul was trying to say about sexuality.

“Malakoi” in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10

What it Never Meant: “Gay”
• Gay: If the word homosexual appears in your Bible in either passage then you have a
version that was written after 1946. Prior to the 1946 Edition of the Revised Standard
Version, the words that homosexual had begun to replace in many modern versions
included boy prostitutes, effeminate, those who make women of themselves, sissies, the
self-indulgent, sodomites, lewd persons, male prostitutes, and the unchaste.
o See “Malakoi in 44 Translations” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/23841405)

What it Likely Meant: “Soft” or “Effeminate”

• Biblical References:
o The word malaka, with the general meaning soft, is used multiple times in the
New Testament:
 Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 10:1. It is translated disease in the KJV and
sickness in the NAS.
 Matthew 11:8 and Luke 7:25, Jesus uses the word to refer to soft
clothing.
 In the Bible, Jesus never used the malakos word group to mean
homosexual.
• Extra-Biblical writers:
o Patristic writings: liquid, cowardly, refined, week willed, delicate, gentle,
debauched.
o Pericles, 495-429 BC, in his funeral oration, lauded the Greeks because they
cultivated knowledge without malakia, meaning softness or effeminacy.
o Plato, 427-347 BC, in The Republic, has Socrates opine that too much music
effeminates a warrior, causing him to be malakoteroi, soft, feeble, sensitive.
Plato expressed an ancient Greek concept, that too much music made a man
soft, not homosexual. (Plato, The Republic, 360 BC, Book III.)
o Aristotle, 384-322 BC, in Nicomachean Ethics, used malakos to describe lack of
restraint and excessive enjoyment of bodily pleasures.
 Aristotle wrote: He “who pursues the excesses of things pleasant, and
shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and cold and
all the objects of touch and taste... that men are called 'soft' [malakos]
with regard to these pleasures...
o Josephus, AD 37-100, used malakos to describe men who appeared soft or
weak through lack of courage in battle or who were reluctant to commit
suicide in defeat or who enjoyed too much luxury. This usage does not
indicate homosexuality. (Wars of The Jews, 7.338; Antiquities of The Jews,
5.246; 10.194.)
o Epictetus, AD 55-135, used malakos to refer to soft-headed persons, whom he
regarded as unable to absorb true philosophy. This usage does not indicate
homosexuality. (Epictetus, Discourse 3:9.)
o Dio Chrysostom, AD 40-120, used malakos to refer to those made soft by too
much learning. This usage does not indicate homosexuality. (Dio Chrysostom
 49:25.)
o John The Faster, around AD 575. For centuries, malakia was said to mean
masturbation. Use of malakia, with the meaning of masturbation, is attributed to
John the Faster around AD 575. The Catholic Church has long interpreted
malakia to mean masturbation. (John The Faster, Penitential).

Why the soft, effeminate ones were “condemned”

o Crossing of Gender Roles
 For Jews this would have broken the Holiness Code (see “Violation of
Identity” in Leviticus notes). Creation was sacred. To be born as a man
was to be a man. To change this was to find fault in God’s creation.
 For Greco-Romans (including Roman Christian converts) Being
effeminate was threatening to the whole structure of society by crossing
the fragile line between man and woman in a world where to be male
was to be superior and to be woman was to be intrinsically inferior. Being
effeminate included such behavior as bathing frequently, shaving,
frequent dancing or laughing, wearing cologne, eating too much or
wearing fine undergarments. (http://www.sisterfriends-
together.org/words-matter-1-corinthians-1-timothy/)
o Moral Weakness: “Words translated as ‘effeminate’ imply ‘unmanliness’ in the
sense of weakness or self-indulgence rather than gender roles or sexual
behavior. It was probably not the passivity of [the gays] in Rome which inspired
hostility, but their promiscuity which were signs of moral weakness.” (Boswell,
76)

Why “soft” doesn’t mean “gay”

 In antiquity, Gay males were not considered effeminate.
o Men who love men are attracted to the masculine, not feminine (or effeminate)
“…it was often assumed that men who loved other men would be more masculine
than their heterosexual counterparts, by the logical (if unconvincing) argument that
men who loved men would emulate them and try to be like them, while men who
loved women would become like women, i.e., ‘effeminate.’” (Boswell, 24)
o “Manly” gay role-models: Gay men were not expected to be effeminate
 The army: Plato argued that pairs of male lovers would make the best
soldiers.
 The gods: Hercules is associated with 14 male lovers. “Hercules could
engage in any number of homosexual liaisons without the slightest loss
of prestige or any hint of decreased manliness, but the simple act of
wearing a woman’s garment or performing tasks traditionally reserved to
females would be considered irredeemably degrading. (Boswell, 340)

Arsenokoites: 1 Corinthians 6:9

Historical Considerations: an invented word
 In I Cor 6:9, Paul is the first writer we have on record as using “arsenokoites.” After Paul,
it occurs no more than 74 times in the intervening millennia, with 56 of these in the six
centuries after Paul coined it.
 At the time of Paul (and before), there were vast writings on the subject of homoerotic
sexuality in Greek in which this term does not occur. It is extremely difficult to believe
that if the word actually meant “homosexual,” no previous or contemporary author would
have used it in a way which clearly indicated this connection. (Boswell, 345)
 We can be fairly certain that homosexual is not the meaning that Paul wanted to convey
 when he used “arsenokoitai”. If he had, he would have used the Greek word
"paiderasste." That was the standard term at the time for male homosexuals. We can
conclude that he probably meant something different from persons who engaged in male-
male adult sexual behavior.

Origin and Construction

Hellenistic (Greek speaking) Jews coined the word from the Septuagint (a Greek translation of
the Hebrew Old Testament) based on use of the two roots of the word in Leviticus 18:22 and
20:13.
 Leviticus 18:22 - meta arsenos ou koimethese koiten gunaikos
 Leviticus 20:13 - hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gunaikos
Meaning
 Given that the word is derived directly from Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, its meaning must
be derived from these passages as well. Since Paul invented the word and made no
effort to define it, it’s contextual meaning must have been obvious to his readers.
 Arseno is the Greek word for man and koite is the Greek word for bed, used
euphemistically to mean having sex.
o This, however, does not mean someone who lies in a bed with a man any more
than “lady killer” means “someone who kills ladies.
o The etymological context of the word must be considered. If the prohibitions of
the Levitical Holiness Code informed its meaning, arsenos koiten condemns
shrine prostitution, given the context of Leviticus 18 and 20.
 “Arsenokoitai,” then, means mail sexual agents, i.e., active male prostitutes, who were
common throughout the Hellenistic would in the time of Paul. (Boswell, 344)

Other Uses
 When authors writing after Paul spoke about homosexuality, they virtually never used this
word he created. This might be because it didn’t “stick.” It is more likely because they
understood it not to be about homosexuality, but about temple prostitution.
o Clement of Alexandria uses at least 13 different expressions for “homosexual,”
but none of them are arsenokoiai.
o St. John Chrysostom wrote about same-sex sexuality more than any other pre-
Freudian writer. Greek was his native language. His writings abound with New
Testament references and he quotes Paul extensively. Yet among the dozens of
words he uses for homosexuality, arsenokoitai is not among them.
 He doesn’t even mention homosexuality when writing commentary on 1
Cor 6:9!
o Augustine discusses homosexuality both independently and in relation to biblical
texts. Nowhere does he quote the word from the Pauline epistles or use any
words similar to Latin translations of Corinthians or Timothy.
o Joannes Jejunator (John the Faster, 575 AD), the Patriarch of Constantinople,
used the word in a treatise that instructed confessor priests how to ask their
parishioners about sexual sin. Here it appears in the context of a paragraph
dealing with incestuous relations, and if translated as ‘homosexuality,’ the
sentence containing it would read “In fact, many men even commit the sin of
homosexuality with their wives.” (Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca,
88:1893-96) Though at the time it apparently referred to anal or oral sex or to sex
forced upon a woman, it pretty clearly had nothing to do with homosexuality.
o As late as the 12th century, when the original meaning of arsenokoitai had long
been lost in the west, Peter Cantor ransacked the Scriptures for all possible
references to homosexuality. He came up with Genesis (Sodom and Gomorrah),
Leviticus (the Law), Romans, Jude – plus many rather fanciful inferences (eg,
from Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joshua, Titus, Colossians), but he did not cite 1 Cor 6:9 or 1
 Timothy 1:10
o For more examples, see Boswell, 346-350 and
http://www.jeramyt.org/gay/arsenok.htm