Is Homophobia The Result of a Mistranslation in 1946 Version of The Bible?

[PeterRS]

A new documentary has just opened in New York, London and Los Angeles. 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Cultures has as its premise the mistranslation of just one word in a 1946 publication of The Bible - in 1 Corinthians 6:9. It has long fuelled the Christian anti-gay movement that continues to thrive today, particularly with the Christian Right.

The word "homosexual" first appears in translations of The Bible in 1946 when the Greek word malakoi was confused by scholars with a compound Greek word arsenokoitai. The former is defined as someone who is effeminate and leading a lazy, decadent life, whereas the latter basically means "male bed". While this could be interpreted as a man bedding a man, scholars then believed it also referred to abusive predatory behaviour and pederasty.

When this  version of the Bible was published, one gay seminarian took issue with the translations. He commenced a correspondence with the Head of the Translation Committee. As a result, the Committee agreed that there had indeed been a mistranslation. When the next publication of The Bible appeared in 1971, the Committee had changed the word "homosexuals" to "sexual perverts." By then, though, hundreds of millions of Bibles with the wrong translation had been circulated and purchased with the result that conservatives had had plenty of time to band together to push their anti-gay agenda. The Guardian article continues - 

The documentary [focuses] on the academia and research, featuring interviews with language experts and biblical scholars to provide context not just for the mistranslated verse, but the other “clobber” verses that have been cited by the Christian right as a condemnation of homosexuality. They explore Sodom and Gomorrah, and the historical context behind the Leviticus verse denouncing when “a man lies with a male as with a woman”; scholars believe the verse is not alluding to homosexuality, but to ritual pagan prostitution . . .

The documentary, which opens this week, first premiered in 2022 and has already won 23 festival awards. But Roggio [producer and director Sharon Roggio] admitted that the film was struggling to get wider distribution. Even before its premiere, the documentary received a lot of backlash in the form of conservative articles, radio shows, videos and sermons all attempting to debunk the research – despite some never having watched the documentary, Roggio said . . . for gay Christians like Roggio, this mistranslation means everything. It means that “no one can dictate your relationship with God,” she said. “We’ve been told how we have to live as Christians, by putting away our identity, a part of ourselves. But you can totally be gay and Christian.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/01/christian-homophobia-bible-mistranslation-1946-documentary

[reader]

The version discussed appears to be recognized by Southern Baptists, but is it used by many other sects?

[Latbear4blk]

I think cause and effect may be upside down in the thread's topic. I would rather wonder whether the mistranslation of the Bible is just another consequence of homophobia. 

[omega]

Christianity has been homophobic since before 1946.

So no.

[PeterRS]

10 minutes ago, omega said:

Christianity has been homophobic since before 1946.

So no.

Agreed. No one can deny that homophobia was pretty widespread before that particular version of the Bible was published. In England and Wales (before they were joined by Scotland and Northern Ireland), the Buggery Act of 1533 was passed. The Act defined buggery as an unnatural act against the will of God and man. Same sex sexual activity was thereafter punishable by death.

Interesting, though, that when the crowns of Scotland and England were united in 1603 with King James VI of Scotland becoming also King James 1 of England and Wales, it was well known that although married he was homosexual and enjoyed the company and favours of a wide coterie of handsome young men, particularly the Dukes of Buckingham and Lenox and the Earl of Somerset. Historian Michael B. Young described him as "the most prominent homosexual figure in the early modern period." Yet James wrote a well-known book in which he railed against the sin of homosexuality! Kings were clearly above the law as James died aged 58 after suffering a stroke.

The law was changed in 1868 to abolish the death penalty in favour of a long term in prison. It was under this law that Oscar Wilde was convicted at the end of the century.

I believe the purpose of the film is not to suggest that homosexuality suddenly appeared in 1946, but that the word first appeared in a translation of The Bible in that particular year. This gave the conservative movement and Evangelicals a name to hang their loathing of the LGBTQ community.

Interesting perhaps to note that the Greek word arsenokoitoi was correctly translated as far back as Martin Luther's 1534 translation in German. That and several future German and several other European language publications of The Bible translated the Leviticus sentence as "Man shall not lie with young boys (knabenschander - a word acknowledged to mean boys beween 8 and 12 yo) as he does with a woman, for  it is an abomination." Moving foward to Leviticus 20:13, again the word is translated as "young boys". In Corinthians, yet again arsenokoitoi was at that time translated as "child molesters." Further, it was the Germans who created the word homosexual in 1862 but they did not use it in the publications of their Bibles.

It's surely reasonably clear that the translators of the 1946 version in the USA deliberately inserted "homosexual" to further their own conservative agenda. As such, they altered the text of the most widely read book of faith with deliberate intent to stoke decades of homophobia.

[reader]

Religions don’t recognize any version it does not accept. So it’s quite possible that whatever particular version described in the OP is not observed by, for example, Anglicans or Catholics.

[jamieb202]

I don't think people need the Bible to be homophobic. One of the most bigoted people I know - a guy at work - is an outspoken Atheist.

[fedssocr]

I think it's largely a result of internalized issues

[Latbear4blk]

We should ask an anthropologist, but I bet you homophobia is standard in all patriarchal societies, starting thousands of years before Christianism. 

[unicorn]

Christianity was not always anti-gay. The late Yale Professor John Boswell noted that anti-gay interpretations started around the 12th Century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boswell

"...Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980) is a work which, according to George Chauncey et al. (1989), "offered a revolutionary interpretation of the Western tradition, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men."..."

Besides, the religion is called Christianity, not Paulism. No one has ever claimed that Jesus said anything against homosexuality. Quite the contrary, Jesus is purported to have freed Christians from having to follow the dictums of the book of Leviticus. Those who froth anti-gay vitriol, probably often gay themselves, are simply engaging in the time-honored tradition of scapegoating to distract from real problems. Yes, Paul's words have probably been mistranslated. At best they're ambiguous. That being said, those who follow the Christian faith should be following the teachings of Jesus. 

 

[reader]

As original texts went through multiple translations into Greek and Latin, each one was an opportunity for translator to interpret it to their satisfaction. Consequently nothing should be taken literally today, regardless of what version of “bible’ you’re reading (and there are many).

[PeterRS]

16 hours ago, reader said:

As original texts went through multiple translations into Greek and Latin, each one was an opportunity for translator to interpret it to their satisfaction. Consequently nothing should be taken literally today, regardless of what version of “bible’ you’re reading (and there are many).

I agree, but surely the sad fact is there are far too many around the world who take the wording in the primary religious books as just that - 'fact'.

I have written this before some years ago, but there are some who object to the writings and misinterpretations about homosexuality and the fact that Bibles are placed in the bedside drawers in a huge number of hotel rooms. This well known activist whom I shall not name always looked for the Leviticus verses and tore the pages out of these Bibles! Some will object to  such 'destruction'. Others will applaud. Well, he is an actor!

[unicorn]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

...This well known activist whom I shall not name always looked for the Leviticus verses and tore the pages out of these Bibles! ...

While some Jews do follow the laws in Leviticus, one of the main points of Christianity is that a Christian does not have to follow those laws, so there is no need to desecrate those Bibles. Doing so just shows that that person doesn't understand Christianity. Christians are allowed to wear cotton-polyester and other blended fabrics, eat pork and/or shrimp/shellfish, not circumcise their boys, and sleep with people of the same gender. That's why it's called the New Testament.

[PeterRS]

54 minutes ago, unicorn said:

While some Jews do follow the laws in Leviticus, one of the main points of Christianity is that a Christian does not have to follow those laws, so there is no need to desecrate those Bibles. Doing so just shows that that person doesn't understand Christianity. Christians are allowed to wear cotton-polyester and other blended fabrics, eat pork and/or shrimp/shellfish, not circumcise their boys, and sleep with people of the same gender. That's why it's called the New Testament.

But Leviticus has absoutely nothing to do with the New Testament! Leviticus is one of the first five books of the Old Testament, named the Pentateuch and basically the Jewish Torah. It was compiled in the Persian period from in 538-332 BC and their authors were the elite of exiled Jewish returnees who controlled the Temple at that time. So it has nothing to do with Christianity and the various issues you list.

[unicorn]

8 hours ago, PeterRS said:

But Leviticus has absoutely nothing to do with the New Testament! Leviticus is one of the first five books of the Old Testament, named the Pentateuch and basically the Jewish Torah. It was compiled in the Persian period from in 538-332 BC and their authors were the elite of exiled Jewish returnees who controlled the Temple at that time. So it has nothing to do with Christianity and the various issues you list.

You missed the point. What Jesus said is in the New Testament and therefore supersedes the Old Testament. It is in the New Testament that Jesus said (I believe in the book of Matthew, among other places, though I'm not at home right now so don't have access to my Bible) that those who follow Him don't have to adhere to the edicts of the Old Testament, such as those of Leviticus. This is why most Christian men eat pork and shrimp, aren't circumcised (except in the US), wear clothing with blended fabrics, and so on. 

[PeterRS]

On 12/4/2023 at 10:03 PM, unicorn said:

You missed the point. What Jesus said is in the New Testament and therefore supersedes the Old Testament. It is in the New Testament that Jesus said (I believe in the book of Matthew, among other places, though I'm not at home right now so don't have access to my Bible) that those who follow Him don't have to adhere to the edicts of the Old Testament, such as those of Leviticus. This is why most Christian men eat pork and shrimp, aren't circumcised (except in the US), wear clothing with blended fabrics, and so on. 

For Christians, I agree, although that does not stop Evangelicals and certain other more extreme branches of the Christian faith to quote Leviticus when talking about family life.

But I am not sure you are correct about what Jesus said. There are at least three references to homosexuality in Paul's epistles in the New Testament. Although not specifically relating to homosexuality, Jesus himself mentioned marriage in a tradtional heterosexual way when in both Mark and Matthew he refers to a discussion about divorce. Plus the authors of the New Testament - the Councils summononed by Constantine to determine what would be included in the New Testament and what left out - were deeply rooted in the Old Testament Jewish tradtion which in essence prohibited homosexuality. But I am no expert on the Bible not having opened one for decades and so I leave future discussions here to others.

[unicorn]

Well, even Paul himself said (Romans 7:6) "But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." The New Testament clearly teaches that Christians do not have to follow the old laws of Leviticus. If you read Leviticus, it is absolutely chock-full of laws/edicts that Christians don't follow, so it's a bit crazy to pick one out and say "but you have to follow this one." Not everyone agrees with the translation/interpretation that Paul condemned homosexuality. If he did, though, he was the only apostle to do so, and Jesus Himself certainly did not. 

[unicorn]

Also: Gal. 3:23-25 "However, before the faith arrived, we were being guarded under law, being handed over into custody, looking to the faith that was about to be revealed. 24 So the Law became our guardian leading to Christ, so that we might be declared righteous through faith. 25 But now that the faith has arrived, we are no longer under a guardian."