Bitter Hams

I don't know what is going on with anti-gay Christians and posting questions for people to answer as a gimmick. First Brown did; "6 Questions for a Gay Christian." Then DeYoung went hog wild with; "40 Questions for Christians Waving Rainbow Flags (see that little dig in the title?)." And now Brown is doing more questions because the well doesn't run dry yet with questions from these people. I think the questions need to stop because people aren't looking for questions, they're looking for answers.

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Matthew Vines was brought up to me by someone and to be honest I don't know anything about what he believes. A while back I debated a man on YouTube who used James White* to refute Vines (on the "Mysteries Mary" post in the word ☁️ below).

White is a poor man's Robert Gagnon. The first thing out of White's mouth in the only debate I saw him in was a lie. He claimed the other written source at the time of Paul to use the word arsenokoite put the word in the context of homosexuality, it didn't. The source (Sibylline Oracles) used the word in talking about an injustice having nothing to do with sexuality. I also find out he isn't the scholar he claims to be. White calls himself "Doctor" and this Christian-based website addresses those in ministry who claim that title for themselves (White is a side reference). Now, White has actually talked about this and it's another perfect example of how good he is with turning the tables with an argument an opponent brings to his face. Instead of being defensive, he goes on the offensive with turning it back on the critic. White pointed out a critic was a Mormon (irrelevant, facts are facts), how he has more hours over the Mormon's own credit hours (again, irrelevant with the given) and he makes it sound like you're an elitist if you question on-line schools even though he has called out others on their own lack of schooling. White also mentions his degree from Fuller that is only honorary, Fuller being a "seminary" only taken seriously by anti-gay Evangelicals that prohibits homosexuality in the school's own "Community Standard's" Policy. The only other school White has received a degree from is "Grand Canyon University," another on-line school who by their own admission are on par with ITT Technical School.

I don't bother with a separate post refuting White.*

White has several YouTube accounts (Alpha/Omega Ministries, DrOakley1689, and probably others) he's disabled all comments on and states you cannot copy or redistribute any of his media. His bread and butter are debates because it's impossible to fact check him in real time.

*I've since changed my mind and wrote on White and what he said on the Roman 1 verses on the first page of my site that went viral all over the place

In My YouTube Comments

Hi Frank,
Thank you for posting these videos. They have changed perspectives, answered life-long questions & liberated gay Christian people longing from guilt who value committed, faithful, nurturing, loyal, fulfilling relationships.


This makes all my effort worth it if even one...

Koitaiarseno

There is a misconception currently held by some Christians that Paul coined the word ἀρσενοκοῖται from Lev. 20:13 as found in the Greek Septuagint (LXX), which is the oldest translation of the Hebrew Bible.:

Και ος αν κοιμηθη μετα αρσενος κοιτην γυναικος βδελυγμα εποιησαν αμφοτεροι θανατουσθωσαν ενοχοι εισιν·

The idea is based upon the existence of the words αρσενος κοιτην in that verse, but this is flawed scholarship. Since αρσενος means male, and κοιτην means bed, ANY Greek sentence that mentions a male and a bed will have forms of those two words in it. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are not the only verses in the Septuagint containing those words, as seen below.

και νυν αποκτεινατε παν αρσενικον εν παση τη απαρτια και πασαν γυναικα ητις εγνωκεν κοιτην αρσενος ζωγρησατε αυτας

πασαν την απαρτιαν των γυναικων ητις ουκ οιδεν κοιτην αρσενος ζωγρησατε αυτας

And now kill every male among all children. But every woman who has not known the bed of a male, take them alive. All the women children who have not gone to the bed of a male, take them alive.

Num. 31:17-18

και ουτος ο λογος ον ποιησετε παν αρσενικον και πασαν γυναικα γινωσκουσαν κοιτην αρσενος αναθεματιετε

και ευρον απο των κατοικουντων ιαβις γαλααδ τετρακοσιας νεανιδας παρθενους αι ουκ εγνωσαν ανδρα εις κοιτην αρσενος και ηγον αυτας εις την παρεμβολης εις σηλω η εστιν εν γη χανααν

And this is the word that you will do: every male, and every woman who has known the bed of a male, you will destroy. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins who had not known a man in the bed of a male, and the brought them into the camp into Shiloh which is in the land of Canaan.

Judges 21:11-12

In each of these four verses, the phrase “bed of a male” is in relation to women who have not known that location, that is, women who were virgins.

In Leviticus, however, we have a different set up. Lev. 20:13 includes the phrase μετα αρσενος κοιτην γυναικος.

In this verse, αρσενος (a male) is preceded by μετα (with), while κοιτην (a bed) is paired with the genitive γυναικος (of a woman). This agrees exactly with the Hebrew text, that is, with a male (in) a woman's bed.

Ἀρσενοκοῖται, on the other hand, is NOT derived from the word for bed, but from the verb meaning “lie down.” This verb, κειμαι, in some of its forms, uses the construction κοιτ-. Therefore ἀρσενοκοῖται does not mean male beds, but rather, those who lie with males.

From: hoperemains.com 

Why Now?

This is the first time I've heard this question that begs a response from me: "Why, after over 2000 years, is the argument only now being made for the acceptance of homosexuality in Christianity?

 This is a legitimate question with a few answers.

The first thing you need to understand is that this question is asked on the assumption that the Body of Christ on Earth has always gotten it right in looking at and treating others. Church history will tell you they've done the exact opposite when it came to Scripturally seeing "the other." The exploitation of animals God told us to be shepherds over, persecuting Jews, Protestants, Catholics... the persecution of Jews again... and again... and again, seeing a woman as less than a man, black men and women as less than human. Religious persecution in England founded this country. The list goes on and on, and ALL had their justification from the Bible. I see nothing different with what is happening with homosexuals now, with only the time period being different.

Also, remember that the "Catholic" Church had a monopoly on Scripture for a good chunk of history and told the masses how to believe on homosexuality with decrees and putting the Church Fathers' opinion, men who never claimed to be inspired, at the level of inspired Scripture.

The early Church that was persecuted for their faith in Christ would rend their garments in grief and disbelief if they knew the modern Church would turn the tables and now be the ones doing the persecuting in the Name of Christ.

For people calling this new acceptance of gays into the church heresy, it just doesn't fit the definition. Every heresy will also start to show its fruit, bleed out its poison; it can't help itself. The only ugly fruit I see is not from the multitudes of LGBTQ following Christ in their sexuality, it's in the harsh spirit and cold heartlessness of those inside the Church to the homosexuals they accuse and demand they leave their sexuality for God to love them. Debating over literal years on social media, I have witnessed over and over loving and kind Christians turn into monsters in their spirit when homosexuality is brought up. The poison that comes from how they believe in bleeding out.

For those saying it's a 'new thing' in the Church and that alone makes it suspect, remember that the "Doctrine of (Bible) Inerrancy" only started in the 19th Century. "Evangelical Christianity" only started in the 1700s. Even the "Ex-Gay" movement, which critics of gay acceptance love to embrace and legitimatize, only started in 1973.

What you see with gays becoming Christians and straight Christians accepting them is a great moving of the Holy Spirit, only He can do, independently, all over the world at the same time. The Presbyterian church just now made the judgment as a church body to accept gays in ordination, while gay-affirming Pentecostal churches in Brazil are exploding with new converts, from Evangelical mega-churches in Texas now embracing gays to gay voices within Orthodox Judaism finally being heard. Something is going on with homosexuals that is bringing them to God in a time like never before in countless numbers never seen with a speed that's making those in the Body of Christ who aren't LGBTQ heads spin.

God is saying to hearts in His "Still Small Voice; "Accept those who are mine because they too hear my voice." The Bible did say God would pour out His Spirit in the last days. I truly believe gays are the last group breaking down the gates to rush into the Kingdom because, as a community, I believe they are only now mature and willing to accept God's calling to multiply it. Gays being the last group called into the Kingdom was a Prophetic Word given in the 70s by Pentecostal leaders

 

The question now is this? On what side will you stand? 

Fighting the Holy Spirit pouring out to these people you don't understand, or praising God for those who were lost and now are found?

Edward Dalcour

My response to Edward Dalcour in the comments section:

Dalcour would be hard-pressed to make his points if you took his lexicons away, the base of his arguments. Someone makes an excellent point that's worth repeating:

"For the most part, your (Dalcour's) argument consists of summaries of three lexica entries: Thayer, Louw & Nida, and BDAG. These are the best available lexica of the New Testament, and I refer to them regularly. However, it must be remembered that a lexicon gives the judgment of either a single scholar or a committee on the meaning of any word. The best lexica gives a list of the ways that any lexeme is used in the known literature so that the reader can form an educated judgment, and even be critical of the lexicon’s own conclusion.  The lexicon may also put forward suggested meanings which would account for all the usages, but ultimately the meaning is determined by the usages, not the authority of the lexicon."

Dalcour's only response to this statement is more or less; "Give me more lexicons!"

He states (to the blog author who started this whole discussion) that it's irrelevant; "... that the term “homosexual” was a “fairly new word, and was not even invented until 1892.”
The fact is it is a very relevant point because the majority of lay Christians go along with the reading of this word (homosexual) in 1 Corinthians that also could be construed to include lesbians in the text, it doesn't and it never did.

Translators who would use the term "Sodomite" in anything other than referring to the inhabitants of Sodom shows the error with what was THOUGHT to be the late historical sin of Sodom, homosexuality. Unlike what Dacour would like to believe, they are no Semitic equivalences to the Greek text in translations.

When talking about 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10, Dacour's true, nasty, colors come out with his statements of the blog author's "(gay) lifestyle," whatever that means, and his Biblical interpretations coming from a; "Concordance you got at the local WalMart." I notice anti-gay proponents of the Bible love to pepper these little personal jabs in debates, it's like they can't help themselves (when James White debated GCN founder Justin Lee he mentioned Lee's "flailing hands" just to take a jab with what many believe is a gay male trait with exaggerated talking with the hands).


I covered arsenokoite enough on this blog to refute what he's saying.


Dalcour pulls a camel through a needle eye with trying to make malakoi an effeminate gay man in 1 Corinthians, but a simple look at the first 4 Bible translations of the word show's he's wrong with what isn't even a hint at homosexuality in this order:

Koine Greek = Malakoi.

Vulgate = Molles, plural of mollis (soft, flexible, pliant, a slew of meanings).

Wycliffe = puts molles as; "lechourious ayen kynde."

Tyndale = "weakling"  The word is carried over to Coverdale and the Bishops Bible.

Geneva = "wantons."

It wasn't until the 16th century when all of a sudden we find "effeminate" in the Douay-Rheims translation and even then the term had many connotations ranging from being a spineless coward to loving women TOO much.


The irony is Dacour quotes James White (I think he's also a buddy) who sees the homosexuality of Romans in idolatry.


A challenge was given of naming Bible scholars who don't see the anti-gay reading Dacour clings to for dear life (he makes it sound like it's only Boswell and Barr), well I'm happy to meet that challenge:

http://rottenqueerchristian.blogspot.com/2014/05/american-theologians-and-bible-scholars.html

Kevin DeYoung

Spending my time refuting the dragon Gagnon, I tend to miss the younger serpents that slip through the cracks. Though DeYoung (a younger and prettier version of Gagnon) has been around for a while, for some reason it's only now he's gotten my attention.

Listening to DeYoung speak in a video really surprised me with what were elementary arguments (Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality, etc.) I didn't see in anyway challenging (I later refute his attempt to refute Boswell in my "Late Nite Tapas" thread).

Like Brown's 9 questions, DeYoung goes the umpteenth mile with coming up with 40 to those who would affirm homosexuality with the Bible. Apparently, this was a clarion call to tons of bloggers who decided to take up his 40 question challenge and now he has shut up because of the countless responses that rained down on his head like rocks he never expected.

This is a response in a comment forum of yet another blogger who answered the challenge, worth repeating, about what DeYoung tried to accomplish with his 40 questions:

"I think Kevin DeYoung is quickly going to get tired of seeing all of these "40 Answers" blogs - for one simple reason: when he posed his asinine list of questions, he thought he was asking tough questions we wouldn't be able to answer in some sort of "Ha, GOTCHA!" fashion that has become the favorite weapon in the heterosexist arsenal of late. 

It's a pretty impotent weapon. Unfortunately, I think when he asked these questions, he wasn't really interested in getting answers (I say this about Charisma magazine with Brown's 9 Questions on this, my own blog). So on HIM, this is casting pearls before swine. However, I'm glad you're saying these things because others who follow his line of bilge might see posts like this one and begin to open their minds and hearts a bit."

DeYoung said; "If this volume makes no contribution beyond explaining why God opposes the homosexual lifestyle, a worthwhile goal will have been accomplished.” (DeYoung 2000). 

This is what he wants his great contribution to be? Telling gays God isn't happy with their lives? I thought it would be, I don't know, bringing the message of salvation to the homosexual?

If anyone wants to bring any of DeYoung's arguments, please be my guest. I doubt that will happen though as I've refuted what he's had to say came from better apologists.

Johnny SCOTUS And His Giant Robot

When SCOTUS passed gay marriage for all the land, I was 'happy.' Not a screaming out windows; "Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last!" Happy. The reason is because I went through years of a long back and fourth tug of war in my own state of California with fighting for gay marriage that started back with Prop 8's demon birther mama Prop 22 when the roller coaster ride first started with gay marriage in my state, in other words I felt I did my time when Prop 8 finally fell a whole two years before the SCOTUS ruling.
My best to all states and tell me where to register for wedding gifts (I hope all the states are registered at the same place and it's cheap because I'm not made out of money).


Soon after the ruling came in I saw a big spike in social media of anti-gay Christians losing their mind in all kinds of sloppy ways. They made it sound like instead of it being about gays getting married, it was something going out of the way to attack them personally, making it all about them. They were actually angry because gays bypassed them with asking them; "Can I get married with your kind permission?" Like my ability to marry can only be decided by them when I have all the same Constitutional rights they have according to our founding documents as an American. There isn't tiers of citizenship where a Christian American can trump the rights of a gay American. Our founding fathers made sure of that with trusting future generations would do good with what they were trying to say.


Justice Kennedy who favored in the ruling made a point that needs to be printed here and is at the heart of the decision:

"Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other."

This saying is Christ-like in echoing God with man not wanting to be alone:

"Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him."

Geneses 2:18.

See this in contrast to the other judges who voted against gay marriage with them saying; "Let's keep it just for us and not lovingly broaden this for others."
 

One thing I'm also noticing are religious leaders asking their followers to defy the ruling, not understanding by telling others to do that, they and those who follow them go against God Himself:

"All of you must obey those who rule over you. There are no authorities except the ones God has chosen. Those who now rule have been chosen by God. So whoever opposes the authorities opposes leaders whom God has appointed. Those who do that will be judged. If you do what is right, you won’t need to be afraid of your rulers. But watch out if you do what is wrong! You don’t want to be afraid of those in authority, do you? Then do what is right, and you will be praised. The one in authority serves God for your good. But if you do wrong, watch out! Rulers don’t carry a sword for no reason at all. They serve God. And God is carrying out his anger through them. The ruler punishes anyone who does wrong. You must obey the authorities. Then you will not be punished. You must also obey them because you know it is right.
That’s also why you pay taxes. The authorities serve God. Ruling takes up all their time. Give to everyone what you owe them. Do you owe taxes? Then pay them. Do you owe anything else to the government? Then pay it. Do you owe respect? Then give it. Do you owe honor? Then show it."

Romans 13:1-7.


One YouTube comment said this when I quoted the above verses:

"Christians are not to obey any law that contradicts the bible and God's holy nature. In the book of Acts, Peter and John are taken before the Jerusalem Council (Supreme Court) and told not to speak about Jesus Christ. This law by the Jerusalem Council goes against Jesus Christ command in Matthew 28:18-20 to go and make disciples of all nations teaching to obey all that I have commanded you. Peter and John have two commands before them one from God and the other from man. Who will they obey? God. from Acts 4:18; So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." 

My comment back:

"This has NOTHING to do with fair laws that put all American citizens on equal footing with rights that follow; "loving others as yourself." Would you deny yourself marriage? Than if you deny it to another, you break the Golden Rule that we are to seek and follow with all our choices and decisions. Questions like gay marriage the Bible doesn't specifically address? Apply "love another as yourself" before all else to the situation to get your answer that also puts ALL the Laws and what ALL the prophets had to say in the backseat.

Peter and John loved others as themselves enough to share the soul saving message of salvation they themselves had to others and that is why they were able to break the law in good conscious."

He never responded back.


I find it interesting that the same states bucking the most against the SCOTUS ruling are the same states that also fought the hardest against segregation. Some things never change.

Missing Lesbians on Milk Cartons

Two simple and irrefutable points that blow out the water arsenokoitai is the aggressor (man) partner in a gay sexual union and malakoi the passive (girl) partner believed to be condemned in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:9.

1. If 'arsenokoitai' is the "aggressor" in a homosexual relationship and 'malakoi' the "passive" partner in 1 Corinthians, why is malakoi absent in 1 Timothy? An arsenokoitai would be missing the other half of his relationship. If they are a word pair, no other vice list with either malakoi or arsenokoitai, and there are many with malakoi prior to Paul and many with arsenokoitai after Paul, ever have them paired together.

2. If 'arsenokoitai' can be the catch-all word for both sides of a homosexual relationship, why does Paul bother using malakoi in 1 Corinthians? "Koites" was used centuries before Paul's usage and when used as a suffix in compounds it always indicated the penetrative aggressor, never the passive. That means it can't apply to both partners in an act and cannot be a catch-all term for all homosexual activity.

Neither one of us is a malakoi dumbass. 

I'm lost. Can you point me to the nearest gas station?

Baby Got Baby Back Ribs

No decent exegete still sees the Sodom story as anything but a story about a debased people lacking hospitality that was a life-or-death situation in the ancient world. Most people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the Sodom narrative being about hospitality, like I once did, instead of homosexuality because they go by a modern-day understanding of what hospitality is.


Even with the Roman 1 verses, anti-gay scholars can't really take homosexuality outside of its idolatry context. Hence, they just meld the two together, what the text doesn't do.

I now want to answer the argument that many sincerely want to be answered. The argument goes that Paul "made up" the Greek word arsenokoite in 1 Corinthians with compounding words 1 in Leviticus 20:13 ("A man shall not lay with a male") and sticking it in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 with what looks like it's a clear-cut case Paul is condemning homosexuality with cleverly using Leviticus.

Correcting the Leviticus passage has a dual purpose. 

It shows Paul did not intend to make a general condemnation of homosexuality with the compound word arsenokoite and it destroys the argument Jesus didn't need to say anything about homosexuality because Leviticus tells you how He felt about homosexuality already.

There is no question that the Leviticus verses were written in the context of the idolatry practices of the Canaanites. Leviticus 20:2,3 gives you that context with that same context then being carried over to Deuteronomy in discussing the "Quedesh" priesthood that isn't named in the Leviticus verses, but are the men Leviticus is referencing, and that if Paul referenced them, he was referencing homosexuality in the context of only their idolatry practices.

Now I will approach the Leviticus verse as if it wasn't in the context of idolatry because that is the only argument that can be made to carry this verse as a general prohibition of homosexuality to the present day.

To start, read what I say as to why Leviticus is only in the context of idolatry and then go to what I say about the word itself (you'll find argument after argument from me on this blog refuting the claim arsenokoite means a homosexual).

Only if we can understand the exact Hebrew wording in Leviticus can we figure out what Paul was trying to convey with his new compound word arsenokoite if that was really what he was doing 2.

The literal Hebrew reads like this:

Weth-zakhar lo tishkav mishkevey ishshah

Translated into literal English it reads; "with a male you shall not lie the lyings of the woman 3."

Now since Leviticus 20:13, like 18:22, is only directed at Israeli males and not women, a clear-cut and simple reading prohibiting all male homosexuality would read; "Weth-zakhar lo tishkav" (with a male you shall not lie), but instead we have mishkevey ishshah (lyings of the woman) put into the verse. English translators of the verse also place in "as with," making the verse, wrongly, read; "with a male you shall not lie as with a woman" Translators inserted "as with" instead of "the lyings of a woman" because "lyings of a woman" was not a term they understood clearly because it's found nowhere else in the Bible. Now it can be said that the translators were only trying to fill in the blanks by putting in "as with" so the reading of it flows, but the author of Leviticus meant it to read as it reads. Besides, there are other places in the Bible where the two words 'as with' are used, it's just not used here.

Now if we figure out what the term "lyings of a woman" is getting at, it will shed light on the actions of the males being discussed that are prohibited.

Like I said, Mishkevey Ishsha (lyings of a woman) is found nowhere else in the Bible, but if you go to Numbers 31:18, we find Mishkav Zakhar 4 (lyings of a male) with what's coming from the male perspective of penetrating a woman. So "lyings of a woman" in turn must mean it's coming from the perspective of the one being penetrated.

We next go to the Talmud which further explains the saying. There are only two ways a woman can have sex according to the Rabbis (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 54a), vaginal and anal. They saw "lyings of a woman" as either one or the other. Since obviously, two men cannot have vaginal sex, the only other act it is talking about is anal sex, a prohibition to God's Israeli males to separate them from those pagan (cult anal sex) practices of the Canaanites with the "Quedesh" in their land the Jews were entering, what is easily proven by the historical record I showed in the footnotes of this post.


In my first arsenokoite post I show a distinction between the two types of males who are forbidden to be penetrated in Leviticus 20:13 with the word 'zakhar,' a boy (pederasty) or a male cult priest with what would be an act of idolatry. In the CONTEXT it is given in Leviticus (Moloch worship), the prohibition is saying an Israeli man should not lie with cult Canaanite priests.

 
Also, most translators make the word "woman" (ishshah) which is also translated as "wife" in the verse into the incorrect gender word "female" (neqevah) that broadens the verse to make it even more of a general prohibition on "homosexuality" when it shouldn't.

Knowing now the correct Hebrew wordings, we can correctly translate Leviticus 20;13 as;  

An Israeli man of age shall not have anal sex with Zakhar (a male of some type of religious or age distinction) in his wife's beds. 

This is the correct literal translation and it's still ambiguous because you don't know if it's condemning idolatry with the "Quedesh" or condemning anal sex with an underage male in the marriage bed of a male Israelite and his wife. Either way, it narrows down the prohibition from the common belief the verse says;

A man should not have sex with the a man as with a woman.

Anti-gay scholars with the verse like to dismiss the argument from pro-gay apologists who say homosexual orientation was not known to the writers of Leviticus, but these verses were conveyed by God who DID know of homosexual orientation. The problem is God didn't go above and beyond the restrictive act of anal 5 sex in condemning the love a man has for another man and prohibiting female homosexuality. You won't find it in Leviticus; in turn, you won't find it with Jesus or Paul in his use of arsenokoite.

This is my counterargument to those who take Leviticus out of its proper idolatry context and take it to mean a binding prohibition of homosexuality today.

1. Yale Bible scholar Dale Martin points out the errors that can occur in compounding ancient words and expecting them to have the same meaning in future eras.

2. I purposely leave out the discussion on Paul's Greek Septuagint translation of Leviticus here because it gives no further depth of what the Hebrew is saying. 

It was 1000 years from the Torah before the Rabbis, an elite, wrote on the Torah and what Leviticus tried to convey. Unlike the writers of the New Testament, the Rabbis in their commentaries never claimed to be inspired men, so if Paul was reaching to Leviticus to come up with arsenokoite, laws he said are dead to us, he was an inspired man quoting uninspired men with how they interpreted the Leviticus passages with what was one of SEVERAL interpretations they were never unanimous in agreeing on then or even today with the Rabbinical. 

3. I won't discuss the term "abomination" (to'ebah) because no matter the degree, it's still putting a taboo on what action is taking place in the verse.

4. Mishkevey in the singular. This is one of the times zakhar can be translated to just be 'man' when normally ish would be used. Remember when zakhar is used in the Hebrew Bible, 90% of the time it's in reference to a male, human, or animal that serves some type of religious purpose. Because zakhar is so close in proximity to ish in the Levitical verse, zakhar wouldn't mean just 'man' when ish does the job.

5. Various arguments have been put forth as to why only the specific act of anal sex is so strongly prohibited to an Israeli male. Some of these arguments are the prohibiting of "mixing of seed" (semen with menstrual blood), the wasting of semen that would have been detrimental to the procreation of a people, or what would be seen as a disrespect of the sacredness of the penis with uncleanliness (semen with feces). Israeli men would put one hand on their penis to swear a promise, similarly like a hand is placed on a Bible in a court of law swearing to tell the truth. Paul visits the sacredness of the penis in Romans verse 27 verse as I showed when he talks about the "Galli" priesthood with their practice of cult castration.

Absence of Malice

One of the most overlooked, if not the most glaring, arguments against a condemnation of all homosexuality from the Bible is the absence of any condemnation of lesbianism.

God is not a God of loose ends to not complete the loop of prohibiting homosexuality with men, but not women, yet that's exactly what you see when you read all the supposed anti-gay Bible passages. God or those He inspired to write like the Apostle Paul, weren't of the mindset of most human heterosexual males in having an abhorrence of male homosexuality, but is just dandy with the titillation of two women together. Lesbianism, or lack thereof, is never really addressed by anti-gay Bible apologists because it's a stumbling block for them. They gloss over it in hopes you do too.

It starts with Leviticus ("man shall not lay with male") where "woman shall not lay with female" is absent. If you look at all the other Levitical passages on what is prohibited (incest, bestiality, etc) women are named in a separate category covered by all the same prohibitions as the men.*

(I leave out the Sodom story because the obvious is the women of Sodom played no part in it)

Next, we move to Romans. Now many will say this is the 'smoking gun' passage that mentions lesbians. A little history lesson needs to be told here.

No writing from a church Father in commentary ever saw lesbianism in the Roman 1 passage, that is until John Chrysostom in the 4th century all of a sudden saw lesbians in the passage like it appeared out of thin air when it wasn't there before. This one reading from this one early church father put lesbianism on the map for the first time and centuries later it became as good as the Gospel. The Church with bated breath couldn't wait to swallow it fast enough with wanting to close the homosexual loop. Paul DID have several word choices to describe lesbians (hetairistria, tribas), but they are never used by him in Romans or in anything he wrote.

We next go to 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy. The word "arsenokoite" is found in both books and is translated as "homosexual" in the New Revised Standard Version edition of the Bible, the version most quote from because it gives a supposed condemnation of all homosexuality without ambiguity. The prefix of arsenokoite is 'arseno,' that in the Koine Greek (Paul's Greek) translates as "male" (koite means "lying the bed"). Now since the word "homosexual" covers both male AND female homosexuality in a broad term, we know the word "homosexual" shouldn't be there because it only states males with 'arseno.' Those who know the Greek breakdown of the word arsenokoite like to keep quiet about why the word "homosexual" shouldn't be in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy because it fools you into thinking women are included.

Ironically, it's female homosexuality that is the strongest argument against ALL condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible.

*My argument has always been the Levitical prohibition of "man shall not lay with man" is only in the context of idolatry and shouldn't be taken further than that.