Re: arsenokoites and malakos

To: nt-greek@virginia.edu
Subject: Re: arsenokoites and malakos
From: Michael I Bushnell <mib@gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 14:40:32 -0500
In-Reply-To: Tony Bowden's message of Tue, 25 Jan 94 19:25:46 GMT <9401251925.AA13720@elm24>

   From: Tony Bowden <dejavu@athmail1.causeway.qub.ac.uk>
   Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 19:25:46 GMT
   Sender: u8915431@athmail1.causeway.qub.ac.uk

   There is very little direct biblical reference to homosexuality.  A major
   component of the arguments on both sides is over the interpretation of these
   two words - thus my research into them  :)

   The `traditional` translations of these as referring to 'homosexuals' in 
   general has come under a lot of fire, but at the minute I haven't many 
   references to detailed discussion of them.

The real question, in my mind, is whether the "traditional"
translations are traditional at all.  They only seem to go back to the
fifteenth century at the latest.  St. John Chrysostom, who wasted no
love of gay people, never used those words in that context, nor did he
refer to the vice lists in which they occur.

John Boswell (while a bit hasty in much of his exegesis) presents a
good description of the history of translating those words in his
_Christianity,_Social_Tolerance,_and_Homosexuality_.  (But if this is
a graduate dissertation, wouldn't you have already read that??)

	-mib

References:

Re: arsenokoites and malakos

From: Tony Bowden <dejavu@athmail1.causeway.qub.ac.uk>