Does Jack Rogers's New Book "Explode the
Myths" about the Bible and Homosexuality and "Heal the Church"?
(Installment 3: June 10, 2006)
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
gagnon@pts.edu
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[Continued from Installment 2:
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We saw in installment 2 how (1)
Rogers didn’t realize that one of his two main arguments for
establishing that the Bible doesn’t oppose all homosexual practice, the
misogyny argument, actually contradicts this central contention; and (2)
the examples that Rogers gives in his book for demonstrating the
importance of knowing the historical context for biblical texts actually
demonstrate that Rogers himself doesn’t know well the historical
context. In
some instances this can be attributed to plain ol’ poor scholarship and
ignorance of the data.
Yet most troubling is that this data
was readily available to Rogers in resources that he quotes from. Some
of it he had to have read since it appears in very close proximity to
pages that he quotes. This introduces the element of dishonesty into
his book: the failure to alert readers to significant material and
counterarguments that would have a strong bearing on his own overall
argument. We noted this element of dishonesty already in installment 1
as regards his highly selective use of resources. In particular, we
highlighted his aversion to conclusions even in pro-homosex works that
Scripture’s opposition to homosexual practice is total; that neither
committed homosexual unions nor knowledge of homosexual orientation
(which, incidentally, is not radically new knowledge to the ancient mind)
would have made any difference to Scripture’s indictment of homosexual
practice.
-
The dishonest character of Rogers’s scholarship on
the Bible and homosexuality reaches a high (low?) point in his use of my
own work. Rogers actually lies (i.e. bears false witness) to his readers
about my views. Now “lies” is a strong term. I choose it because
Rogers knows of my responses (here
[Mar. 2004] and
here [Dec. 2001]) to two of his previous attacks on my work and yet
has refused to make corrections. Moreover, my views on the matters about
which Rogers bears false witness are so prominent and clear within the
works of mine cited by Rogers that Rogers could hardly have
misunderstood them, much less missed them altogether. Let me cite two
prime instances of these lies: (A) The claim that I provide no
supporting evidence for the view that the Bible opposes all homosexual
practice. (B) The claim that I believe homosexuality is merely a
“willful choice.” In this installment I will treat the first
claim.
(A) The
claim that I provide no supporting evidence for the view that the Bible
opposes all homosexual practice. I have had a few scholars distort
my work in the past (particularly, David Balch, Walter Wink, and Susan
Ackerman). However, perhaps the biggest lie of all is Rogers’s claim that
I “simply assert” that the Bible speaks against all forms of homosexual
practice but nowhere supply any supporting evidence (boldface added):
[Gagnon] simply asserts, with no supporting evidence, that sexual
relations between contemporary Christian people who are homosexual are
sinful as such. (p. 84)
Gagnon does not demonstrate that the
immoral sexual relations Paul condemns are related to the love of
contemporary faithful gay and lesbian Christians. He simply asserts it.
(p. 83)
Usually the
complaint against my work is that it supplies too much material—what Rev.
Jim Berkley of Presbyterian Action (Institute on Religion and Democracy)
has aptly called
“pleromaphobia,” a fear of fullness (which we could shorten to
“plerophobia”). Even if I limit myself
to the Pauline corpus, and omit any discussion of the Old Testament
and Jesus, I could point Rogers to the following resources where I
supply precisely the supporting evidence that he claims that I nowhere
supply:
-
The Bible and Homosexual Practice (2001),
254-336 (including 289-94, “Did Paul Not Have Creation in Mind
When He Spoke of Same-Sex Intercourse?”), 347-61 (“Does the
Bible condemns only exploitative, pederastic forms of homosexuality?”)
-
Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views
(2003), 76-81 (“Romans 1:24-27: Does Paul Indict All
Same-Sex Intercourse?”), 81-88 (“First Corinthians 6:9: Does It
Forbid All Forms of Male-Male Intercourse?”), plus 7 pages of
detailed
online notes (pp. 19-25)
-
“Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as
Intrinsically Sinful?” in Christian Sexuality: Normative and
Pastoral Principles (Kirk House, 2003), 106-54, esp. 127-40
-
“A Comprehensive and Critical Review Essay of
Homosexuality, Science, and the ‘Plain Sense’ of Scripture, Part 2,”
Horizons in Biblical Theology 25 (Dec. 2003)A: 179-275, esp.
206-24 (the critique of David Fredrickson’s article, “Natural and
Unnatural Use in Romans 1:24-27”; also available online at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoBalchHBTReview2.pdf)
-
“Bad Reasons for Changing One’s Mind: Jack
Rogers’s Temple Prostitution Argument and Other False Starts,”
Mar. 1, 2004 (online at
http://www.robgagnon.net/ResponseToRogers2.htm or, for pdf,
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoRogersResp2.pdf; 26 pages;
15 reasons why the exploitation argument doesn’t work)
-
New: “Why the Disagreement Over the Biblical
Witness on Homosexual Practice? A Response to Myers and Scanzoni,
What God Has Joined Together?, in Reformed Review 59.1
(Autumn 2005), esp. 62-88 (online at
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf)
In fact, I
specifically gave 15 reasons why the exploitation argument used by
Rogers doesn’t work in my March 2004 response to Rogers, “Bad Reasons for
Changing One’s Mind.” Rogers knows of the article. Yet he ignores
virtually all of the arguments presented in it. For Rogers to claim to
readers now—after all these resources have been produced, including one
aimed directly at him—that I don’t offer any supporting evidence for
debunking the exploitation argument amounts to a level of dishonesty to
his readers that perhaps surpasses anything that I have yet encountered.
And this dishonesty comes from a former moderator of the Presbyterian
Church (USA). It would be one thing if Rogers actually responded to my
arguments with strong arguments of his own. But it is quite another when
Rogers not only (1) fails to respond to my arguments but even (2) denies
the very existence of my arguments.
Here are
some of the arguments that I put forward as “supporting evidence” for the
conclusion that Paul was absolutely opposed to homosexual practice, no
exceptions:
What is the
point of the echo in Rom 1:23-27 to Gen 1:26-27? Idolatry and same-sex
intercourse constitute a frontal assault on the work of the Creator in
nature. Those who suppressed the truth about God transparent in creation
were more likely to suppress the truth about the complementarity of the
sexes transparent in nature, choosing instead to gratify contrary innate
impulses.
(2) The
nature argument in Romans 1:26-27. Paul’s nature argument in
Romans 1:26-27 is also not the kind of argument that lends itself to a
distinction in Paul’s mind between good and bad forms of homosexual
practice: “their females exchanged the natural use for that which
is contrary to nature; and likewise also the males, having left
behind the natural use of the female. . . .” Nature for Paul here
refers to the material structures of creation, still intact despite the
fall of Adam and still giving evidence for God’s will even to those
without access to the revelation of Scripture. This is precisely the point
made in the parallel discussion about idolatry in 1:19-24; namely, that
humans (here primarily Gentiles) are culpable not merely for sinning but,
even more, for suppressing the knowledge of the truth accessible to them
in creation structures. Thus Rom 1:19-20 emphasizes:
The
knowable aspect of God is visible (or: transparent, apparent, evident)
to them because God has made it visible to them. For since the
creation of the world his invisible qualities are clearly seen, being
mentally apprehended by means of the things made.
For Paul
the sin of same-sex intercourse provides the perfect complement on the
horizontal level to the sin of idolatry on the vertical level. For, like
the sin of idolatry, it involves the suppression of truth that should be
obvious to all by means of the “things made,” here the complementarity of
our gendered bodies in terms of genital fit, physiology (incl. procreative
capacity) and various interpersonal features distinctive to men and women.
Female-female intercourse and male-male intercourse are “beyond nature” (para
phusin), contextually in the negative sense of being “contrary to” or
“against nature,” because they “dishonor” this self-evident
complementarity of male and female “bodies” through a bodily incongruous
union with a structural same. The issue of exploitation by having sex with
a minor, slave, or prostitute is simply irrelevant to a global indictment
based on gender incompatibility.
Rogers
depends entirely on Nissinen in contending that
physis
(nature) is not a synonym for ktisis
(creation). In speaking about what is “natural,” Paul is merely accepting
the conventional view of people and how they ought to behave in
first-century Hellenistic-Jewish culture. (pp. 77-78)
Rogers,
however, doesn’t even acknowledge Nissinen’s concession that “‘natural
intercourse’ implies not only gender difference and the complementarity
of sexes but also gender roles” (p. 107; my emphasis). Rogers simply
states that it has nothing to do with the complementarity of the sexes. At
any rate, so far as Paul’s understanding in Rom 1:18-27 is concerned, an
assertion that physis refers only to the merely conventional over
against ktisis (creation) is absolutely false. Already in The
Bible and Homosexual Practice (2001) I had responded to Nissinen’s
claim:
To be sure, Paul
in 1 Cor 11:2-16 does put forward a proof pertaining to the creation of
Adam and Eve (11:7-12; the verb ktizo appears in 11:9) separately
from a proof pertaining to nature (11:13-14). In this sense, creation
refers to an event at the beginning of time while nature refers to the
ongoing semi-timeless state or result issuing from that event. Depending
on the information needed, discerning creation may require some knowledge
of divine revelation (viz., God's specific actions in Genesis 1-3, such as
woman's derivation from man), whereas discerning nature presupposes only
human observation of created things. In the case of Rom 1:18-27, the
distinction between creation and nature collapses because Paul there means
by “creation” the way things turned out after the initial act of creating.
True, ktisis in 1:20 (“from the creation of the world”) refers
to the primal event, but it does so in a context that emphasizes the
aftermath of that event: “the things made” which are now subject to human
observation. The use of ktisis in Rom 1:25 (worshipping the
creature rather than the Creator), like its use in Rom 8:19-22 (the
creation groans in expectation of redemption), refers to created things or
things reproduced after the pattern of the initial creation, which are
still accessible to sense perception. One could easily substitute
nature for creation in Rom 8:19-22 and not materially affect Paul's
meaning. The only difference would be that the term creation necessarily
requires the notion of a Creator, whereas the term nature does not. Yet
in Paul's thinking, as for first-century Jews generally, nature is by
definition the Creator's handiwork. Consequently, when Nissinen (citing
Wischmeyer) states that “creation and nature are not interchangeable
concepts in Paul's theology,” he is mistaken, at least insofar as the uses
in Romans are concerned (Homoeroticism, 107). What is “contrary
to nature” is at one and the same time contrary to divinely created
structures. (p. 259 n. 18; boldface added)
In short, there
is no substantive difference in Rom 1:18-27 between “creation,” understood
as “the things made,” and “nature.” Rogers does not mention, much less
respond, to my argument here. He simply acts as if no counterargument has
been made.
Rogers’s
only other argument against Paul understanding “nature” as the material
structures put in place by God’s act of creation is the following:
The most significant evidence that
“natural” meant “conventional” is that God acted “contrary to nature”
(Rom. 11:13-24). That is, God did something very unusual by pruning the
Gentiles from a wild olive tree, where they grew in their natural state,
and grafting them into the cultivated olive tree of God’s people (Rom.
11:24). Since it cannot be that God sinned, to say that God did what is
“contrary to nature” or “against nature” (v. 24) means that God did
something surprising and out of the ordinary. (p. 77)
Once
again, Rogers simply ignores my response to this type of argument. In
The Bible and Homosexual Practice I comment on Rom 11:21, 24 in the
course of a discussion of the meaning of physis in Paul outside of
Rom 1:26-27:
Here [in Rom 11:21, 24] “nature” clearly has to do not with innate
desires or social convention but with the “organic” unity of branches and
the tree from which they originally sprouted. What is “beyond” or
“contrary to” nature is the circumvention of natural processes of growth
with artificial, human intervention. In this particular case, however,
such a circumvention of nature is not treated as a negative act because
olive trees do grow branches; while supplementing or aiding nature, one is
not trying to fit together two discordant entities. The same could not be
said for sexual intercourse between two males, in the view of Paul, Philo,
Josephus, and many Greco-Roman moral philosophers, since males do not
possess complementary sex organs. To attempt to join two members of the
same sex is to act contrary to nature’s bodily and physiological provision
for human sexuality.
In all of [Paul’s uses of the word physis], “nature”
corresponds to the essential material, inherent, biological, or organic
constitution of things as created and set in motion by God. Neither in
Paul’s thinking nor in our own do any of these uses pertain merely
to personal preferences or prejudices, custom, a culturally conditioned
sense of what is normal, or social convention. “Nature” in these verses
goes beyond what one feels and thinks to what simply “is” by divine
design. (pp. 372-73; boldface added)
This
includes the meaning of physis in 1 Cor 11:14-15 where the hair
argument is similar to the Stoic argument for beards for men, based on
natural endowment (ibid., 365-67, 373-78). In Rom 11:21 (similarly
11:24b), the prepositional phrase kata physin (lit., according to,
or in conformity with, nature) sandwiched in between the definite article
and the word “branches” does not mean “the conventional branches.” It
means branches that are organic, growing without human interference,
natural. The same is true of kata physin in Rom 11:24a,
sandwiched between the definite article and the term “wild olive tree.”
Where
Rogers gets confused—no doubt because he is not a Greek scholar—is over
the preposition para + accusative object. The most basic meaning is
the neutral “beyond” and here the morally neutral “beyond nature” (para
physin) makes perfect sense for a horticultural metaphor. But para
+ acc. obj. often (incl. with physin as object) stretches in
meaning to the morally negative sense “in transgression/violation of” or
“contrary to, against” (cf. Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon,
s.v. para C.III.4; and BDAG, s.v. para B.6, citing, for
example, Rom 1:26; 16:17; Gal 1:8-9). There can be no doubt that
para physin in Rom 1:26 is in this morally negative sense since the
context refers to same-sex intercourse as “sexual impurity,” “dishonoring
their bodies,” “dishonorable passions,” and “indecency” or “shamelessness”
(1:24, 26-27)—all in a broader context referring to “impiety,”
“unrighteousness,” “sin,” and practices “deserving death” (1:18-32;
3:9-20, 23).
This sense
of para physin as “in transgression or violation of, contrary to,
or against the embodied complementarity of the sexes” is also confirmed by
usage in Philo and Josephus (two prominent first-century Jews) and in
Greco-Roman authors. We have already noted in installment 2 that
Basic to the heterosexual position [against
homosexual practice] is the characteristic Stoic appeal to the providence
of Nature, which has matched and fitted the sexes to each other.
(Thomas K. Hubbard, Homosexuality in
Greece and Rome, 444; boldface added)
The physician
Soranus characterized desires of “soft men” to be penetrated by other men
as “not from nature” insofar as they “subjugated to obscene uses parts not
so intended” and disregarded “the places of our body which divine
providence destined for definite functions” (On Chronic Disorders
4.9.131). Rogers simply gives no credible argument for understanding
Paul’s nature argument in Rom 1:26-27as anything other than an attack on
homosexual practice as a structurally incongruous violation of God’s will
for human sexual pairing, a sinful pairing of sexual sames rather than
sexual counterparts.
(3)
Exchange, mutuality, lesbianism, and echoes to the Levitical prohibitions
in Romans 1:26-27. Other features of Romans 1:26-27 rule out a
focus on particularly exploitative behavior.
(a)
The wording of 1:26-27 regarding “exchanging” and “leaving behind” the
other sex for the same sex is absolute and clearly inclusive of all
same-sex sexual relations: “their females exchanged the natural use . . .
and likewise also the males, having left behind the natural use of the
female, were inflamed with their yearning for one another, males with
males . . . .” What is the point of Paul charging males with “leaving
behind” sexual intercourse with “the female” and females with “exchanging”
natural intercourse (with the male) if his indictment is aimed solely at
an exploitative subset of same-sex unions? Would he not rather have to say
that they exchanged or left behind loving consensual relationships with a
person of either sex? This is precisely what he does not say.
(b) In
fact, the wording in 1:27 stresses the mutuality of affections:
“. . . were inflamed with their yearning for one another” (similarly,
1:24: “their bodies being dishonored among themselves”).
(c)
Further, as noted in installment 1, the mention of lesbian intercourse
in 1:26 does not fit with a focus on intercourse with prostitutes,
slaves, and adolescents, since in the ancient world lesbianism is neither
known nor critiqued primarily for such practices.
Note:
Although Rogers (citing Myers/Scanzoni
who, in turn, were citing John Boswell) raises a question about whether
Rom 1:26 refers to female-female intercourse (p. 78), the vast majority
of commentators rightly recognize that female-female intercourse is being
indicted in Rom 1:26, including Bernadette Brooten, Love Between
Women, 248-52. The parallel phrasing of Romans 1:26 and 1:27 leaves
little doubt: “even their females exchanged the natural use
[i.e. of the male] for one contrary to nature, and likewise also the
males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed
in their yearning for one another, males with males.” For the “likewise
also” of 1:27 to be appropriate, both the thing exchanged and the thing
exchanged for must be comparable—here sex with members of the same
sex, not non-coital sex. Male and female homoeroticism are paired often
enough in ancient sources—for example, in Charicles’s argument against
same-sex intercourse in (pseudo-)Lucian, Affairs of the Heart 28—so
that there to be nothing surprising about such a pairing in Rom 1:26-27.
In addition, while it was commonplace in the Greco-Roman world to refer to
female homoeroticism as “unnatural,” there are no explicit references to
anal or oral heterosexual intercourse as unnatural. Finally, in the
context of the Greco-Roman world, it is not possible that Paul could have
been strongly opposed to male homosexual practice while being favorably
disposed to female homoeroticism. For although some Greco-Roman moralists
were open to specific forms of male homoerotic practice, attitudes toward
female homosexual practice were uniformly negative. Paul’s statement that
“even their women” engage in such practices underscores the point. That
Paul and other biblical authors were opposed to lesbian intercourse can be
taken as an historical given. Cf. The Bible and Homosexual Practice,
297-99. Not surprisingly, Rogers addresses not a one of these arguments.
(d)
That Paul had the absolute Levitical prohibitions of male-male
intercourse partly in view is evident from the intertextual echoes to
Lev 18 and 20 in Rom 1:24-32. Paul’s word for “nakedness, indecent
exposure, indecency” (aschēmosynē) in Rom 1:27 is used 24 times in
the Septuagint translation of Lev 18:6-19; 20:11, 17-21. Paul’s word for
“uncleanness, impurity” (akatharsia) in Rom 1:24 appears in the
Septuagint rendering of Lev 18:19; 20:21, 25. “Worthy of death” in Rom
1:32 may also have called to mind the capital sentence pronounced on
man-male intercourse in Lev 20:13. Even Bernadette Brooten acknowledges
that Rom 1:26-32 “directly recalls” Lev 18:22 and 20:13.
(4) “Soft
men” and “men who lie with a male” (1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10) in context.
Rogers’s treatment of 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 is a classic instance of
how one-sided and selective Rogers’s “exegesis” is. There is no original
thought here. He simply leans exclusively on a few quotes from the work of
Martti Nissinen (an Old Testament scholar), Dale Martin (a New Testament
scholar who is a self-identified homosexual man with an enormous axe to
grind), and Victor Furnish (a New Testament scholar who offers only a
short one-page treatment that provides little new information). He
concludes that the terms malakoi (soft men) and arsenokoitai
(men who lie with a male), whatever they might mean, cannot be used to
“condemn all homosexual relations” (citing Nissinen). He then closes with
a quote from Marion Soards back in 1995 that “only indirectly may we
derive information regarding homosexuality from this material” (pp.
73-75). This appeal to Soards is now irrelevant. See the postscript at the
beginning of Installment 2 where Soards now states, in an email to me:
Rogers does not seem to read my
intentions with clarity. . . but if anything I am more than ever
persuaded of the relevance of the range of OT/NT texts for the current
discussion of homosexual behavior. Actually to put it succinctly, I
find your own analysis/exegesis persuasive.
At no
time—not even once—does Rogers address a single one of the arguments that
I have raised against the positions of Nissinen, Martin, Furnish, and
others. In fact, I’m not even mentioned in his discussion of 1 Cor 6:9 and
1 Tim 1:10. And this is despite the fact that I devote to the question of
whether the terms in 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 forbid all forms of
male-male intercourse 34 pages in The Bible and Homosexual Practice
(pp. 303-36), 7 pages in Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views
(pp. 81-88, plus 3 pages of small-print online notes, containing some new
material), and 14 pages in my critique of David Fredrickson’s views on
these texts (views similar to those of Nissinen and Martin) in Part 2 of
my review of D. Balch’s Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense”
of Scripture (review in
Horizons in Biblical Theology 25.2
[2003]: 226-39; this also contains some new material). What kind of
credibility is there to an analysis of 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 that
completely ignores the work of a scholar who, holding a different view,
has done the most extensive investigation of these texts in their literary
and historical context? This is supposed to be good and responsible
scholarship? At least when I write on the subject I address all the
arguments that are put forward for dismissing the relevance of these texts
for contemporary discussions of homosexual practice. Rogers and,
apparently, his editors at Westminster John Knox (Stephanie Egnotovich and
Donald McKim) think that the opposite approach, addressing none of
the arguments for their relevance, represents the best way at getting at
the meaning of biblical texts. I offer here a summary of my arguments but
urge readers to see the fuller analyses in my works cited above.
The
meaning of malakoi (lit., “soft men”) in context is not the
broad sense of merely effeminate men, as Rogers (parroting Nissinen and
Martin) contends, but rather has the more restrictive sense of “men who
feminize themselves to attract male sex partners” (incidentally, this
is similar to the meaning given to the term by both Furnish and Brooten,
though Rogers conveniently does not tell readers this). What is the
evidence for the more restrictive sense?
§
Its place in the vice list amidst other participants
in illicit sexual intercourse. Since it is sandwiched in between
the terms pornoi (a generic term for sexually immoral persons but,
in the immediate context of 1 Cor 5, applied specifically to the
incestuous man in nearly identical vice lists; cf. 5:9-11) and moichoi
(adulterers) on the one side and arsenokoitai (men who lie with
a male) on the other side, it is probable that malakoi too has to
do with immoral sexual relations.
§
Its pairing with the immediately following word
arsenokoitai. Since arsenokoitai means “men who lie
with a male” as a reference to the active, insertive partners in male-male
intercourse, it is likely that malakoi refers to the passive,
receptive partner in such intercourse. Indeed, the two preceding terms
eidololatrai (idolaters) and moichoi (adulterers) form a
natural pair in the Old Testament, making more probable the pairing of the
next two terms, malakoi and arsenokoitai.
§
Philo of Alexandria’s use of cognate words.
Philo (a first-century Jewish philosophy) uses cognate terms to malakos
to refer to men who actively feminize themselves for the purpose of
attracting other men: malakia and malakotēs, “softness”;
also: anandria, “unmanliness,” hoi paschontes, “those who
are ‘done’” [as opposed to the “doers,” hoi drōntes], and
androgynoi, “men-women” (cf. Special Laws 3.37-42; On
Abraham 135-36; Contemplative Life 59-61; translated in Gagnon
2001a, 172-75).
§
Greco-Roman usage of malakoi and the parallel Latin
word molles (soft men). The terms malakoi and
molles could be used broadly to refer to effeminate or unmanly men.
But in specific contexts it could be used in ways similar to the more
specific terms cinaedi (lit., “butt-shakers”) and pathici
(“those who undergo [penetration]”) to denote effeminate adult
males who are biologically and/or psychologically disposed to desire
penetration by men. For example, in Soranus’s work On Chronic Diseases
(early 2nd century A.D.) the section on men who desire to be
penetrated (4.9.131-37) is entitled “On the molles or subacti
(subjugated or penetrated partners, pathics) whom the Greeks call
malthakoi.” An Aristotelian text similarly refers to those who are
anatomically inclined toward the receptive role as malakoi
(Pseudo-Aristotle, Problems 4.26). Astrological texts that speak of
males desirous of playing the penetrated female role also use the term
malakoi (Ptolemy, Four Books 3.14 §172; Vettius Valens,
Anthologies 2.37.54; 2.38.82; cf. Brooten, 126 n. 41, 260 n. 132). The
complaint about such figures in the ancient world generally, and certainly
by Philo, centers around their attempted erasure of the masculine stamp
given them by God/nature, not their exploitation of others, age
difference, or acts of prostitution.
Rogers
addresses not one of the above points.
The
word arsenokoitai should be translated literally as “men who lie
with a male.” Here are some reasons why:
§
Clear connections to the Levitical prohibitions of
male-male intercourse. The word is formed from the Greek
words for “lying” (koite) and “male” (arsen) that appear in
the Greek Septuagint translation of the Levitical prohibitions of men
“lying with a male” (18:22; 20:13). The intentionality of the connection
with the absolute Levitical prohibitions against male-male intercourse is
self-evident from the following points: (a) The rabbis used the
corresponding Hebrew abstract expression mishkav zakur, “lying
of/with a male,” drawn from the Hebrew texts of Lev 18:22 and 20:13, to
denote male-male intercourse in the broadest sense. (b) The term or its
cognates does not appear in any non-Jewish, non-Christian text prior to
the sixth century A.D. This way of talking about male homosexuality is a
distinctly Jewish and Christian formulation. It was undoubtedly used as a
way of distinguishing their absolute opposition to homosexual practice,
rooted in the Torah of Moses, from more accepting views in the Greco-Roman
milieu. (c) The appearance of arsenokoitai in 1 Tim 1:10 makes the
link to the Mosaic law explicit, since the list of vices of which
arsenokoitai is a part are said to be derived from “the law” (1:9).
All of the above considerations show Dale Martin’s argument (adopted by
Rogers) to be silly; namely, that the meaning of a compound word does not
necessarily add up to the sum of its parts. In this instance, it clearly
does.
§
The implications of the context in early Judaism.
That Jews of the period construed the Levitical prohibitions of
male-male intercourse absolutely and against a backdrop of a male-female
requirement is beyond dispute. For example, Josephus explained to Gentile
readers that “the law [of Moses] recognizes only sexual intercourse that
is according to nature, that which is with a woman. . . . But it abhors
the intercourse of males with males” (Against Apion 2.199). There
are no limitations placed on the prohibition as regards age, slave status,
idolatrous context, or exchange of money. The only limitation is the sex
of the participants. According to b. Sanh. 54a, the male with whom
a man lays in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 may be “an adult or minor,” meaning that
the prohibition of male-male unions is not limited to pederasty. Indeed,
there is no evidence in ancient Israel, Second Temple Judaism, or rabbinic
Judaism that any limitation was placed on the prohibition of male-male
intercourse.
§
The choice of word. Had a more limited meaning
been intended—for example, pederasts—the terms paiderastai (“lover
of boys”), paidomanai (“men mad for boys”), or paidophthoroi
(“corrupters of boys”) could have been chosen.
§
The meaning of arsenokoitai and cognates in
extant usage. The term arsenokoites and cognates
after Paul (the term appears first in Paul) are applied solely to
male-male intercourse but, consistent with the meaning of the partner term
malakoi, not limited to pederasts or clients of cult prostitutes
(see specifics in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 317-23). This
includes the translations of arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim
1:10 in Latin, Syriac, and Coptic.
§
Implications of the parallel in Rom 1:24-27.
It is absurd to interpret the meaning of arsenokoitai in 1 Cor
6:9 without consideration of the broad indictment of male-male intercourse
expounded in Rom 1:27 (“males with males”).
§
Implications from the context of 1 Cor 5-7.
This absolute and inclusive sense is further confirmed by the broader
context of 1 Cor 5-7: the parallel case of incest in ch. 5 (which gives no
exceptions for committed, loving unions and echoes both Levitical and
Deuteronomic law); the vice list in 6:9-11 (where sexual offenders are
distinguished from idolaters, consent is presumed, and a warning is given
to believers not to engage in such behavior any longer); the analogy to
sex with a prostitute in 6:12-20 (where Gen 2:24 is cited as the absolute
norm and the Christian identity of the offender is presumed); and the
issue of marriage in ch. 7 (which presumes throughout that sex is confined
to male-female marriage).
§
The relevance of 1 Cor 11:2-16. If
inappropriate hairstyles or head coverings were a source of shame because
they compromised the sexual differences of men and women, how much more
would a man taking another man to bed be a shameful act, lying with
another male “as though lying with a woman”? Paul did not make head
coverings an issue vital for inclusion in God’s kingdom, but he did put
same-sex intercourse on that level.
§
Implications of 1 Tim 1:9-10 corresponding to the
Decalogue. At least the last half of the vice list in 1 Tim 1:8-10
(and possibly the whole of it) corresponds to the Decalogue. Why is that
important? In early Judaism and Christianity the Ten Commandments often
served as summary headings for the full range of laws in the Old
Testament. The seventh commandment against adultery, which was aimed at
guarding the institution of marriage, served as a summary of all biblical
sex laws, including the prohibition of male-male intercourse. The vice of
kidnapping, which follows arsenokoitai in 1 Tim 1:10, is typically
classified under the eighth commandment against stealing (so Philo,
Pseudo-Phocylides, the rabbis, and the Didache; see The
Bible and Homosexual Practice, 335-36). This makes highly improbable
the attempt by some to pair arsenokoitai with the following term
andrapodistai (kidnappers, men-stealers), as a way of limiting its
reference to exploitative acts of male-male intercourse (so Rogers,
parroting others), rather than with the inclusive sexual term pornoi
(the sexually immoral) that precedes it.
§
The implication of the meaning of malakoi.
If the term malakoi is not limited in its usage to boys or to men
who are exploited by other men, then arsenokoitai certainly cannot
be limited to men who have sex with boys or slaves.
§
Sex with adult males as worse than sex with adolescent
boys. In the Greco-Roman world homosexual intercourse between an
adult male and a male youth was regarded as a less exploitative
form of same-sex eros than intercourse between two adult males. The
key problem with homosexual intercourse—behaving toward the passive male
partner as if the latter were female—was exacerbated when the intercourse
was aimed at adult males who had outgrown the “softness” of immature
adolescence. Consequently, even if arsenokoitai primarily had in
mind man-boy love (and from all that we have said above, there is no
evidence that it does), then, a fortiori, it would surely also take
in man-man love.
§
On commitment and orientation. Finally, there
is little basis for concluding that arsenokoitai does not take in
committed homoerotic relationships between homosexually oriented persons.
The term’s emphasis on the act—similar to proscriptions of various
incestuous unions—makes the term more encompassing of all male-male sexual
activity, not less so. A loving disposition on the part of the
participants is as irrelevant a consideration for homoerotic behavior as
it is for an adult man-mother or brother-sister union. Moreover, as we
shall see below, ancient authors were able to conceive of caring,
committed homosexual unions. Knowledge of a “sexual orientation” also is
irrelevant, both because (as noted in installment 1) the ancients could
conceive of something akin to a sexual orientation while rejecting the
behaviors that arise from them and because Paul conceived of sin itself as
an innate impulse, passed on by an ancestor, running through the members
of the human body, and never entirely within human control.
Does Rogers
mention a single of the above arguments, let alone bother to refute any of
the above arguments? No, not a one. Keep in mind that Rogers has charged
me with supplying “no supporting evidence” for my assertion that
Scripture’s prohibition of homosexual practice is absolute. Not only have
I supplied supporting evidence for this reading of 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim
1:10, but also the supporting evidence that I do give for this assertion
is far greater than anything that Rogers supplies. It is not even close.
(5)
Caring homosexuality and universal critiques in Greece and Rome.
Rogers’s argument presupposes that (a) no one in the ancient world had any
knowledge of caring and committed homosexual unions; or (b), if anyone
did, such persons could not have opposed homosexual unions of this type.
So, the argument goes, Paul’s remarks could not have had in view such
homosexual unions, but only exploitative kinds. The evidence does not bear
out such presuppositions. Rogers has no excuse for not knowing this, for
a good part of the argument that follows was already present in my book
The Bible and Homosexual Practice (pp. 350-60). Rogers simply turned a
blind eye to the evidence that was before him. He covered it up for his
readers.
(a)
The conception of caring homoerotic unions in Paul’s cultural environment.
The idea of caring homosexual unions existed long before Paul’s day.
For example, in Plato’s Symposium Aristophanes refers to males who
are “not inclined by nature toward marriage and the procreation of
children, yet are compelled to do so by the law or custom” and must “live
their lives out with one another unmarried.” When those who are “fondly
welcoming that which is of the same kind”
happen upon that very person who is his
half . . . they are wonderfully struck with affectionate regard and a
sense of kinship and love, almost not wanting to be divided even for a
short time. And these are they who continue with one another throughout
life. . . . [the lover] desiring to join together and to be fused into a
single entity with his beloved and to become one person from two.” (192)
Similarly in
the much later work, the Pseudo-Lucianic Affairs of the Heart (ca.
A.D. 300) Callicratidas defends
love for males by arguing, in part, that “reciprocal expressions of love”
between a man and his young male beloved reach a point where “it is
difficult to perceive which of the two is a lover of which, as though in a
mirror. . . . Why then do you reproach it . . . when it was ordained by
divine laws . . . ?” (48). There are numerous examples of committed
homosexual love in antiquity (see texts in Homosexuality in Greece and
Rome, edited by Thomas K. Hubbard). Had Paul and other Jews of the
period opposed only unloving kinds of homosexual unions, they could easily
have made the distinction in their writings.
(b)
Absolute rejections of homosexual practice in the Greco-Roman world.
Even some emerging Greco-Roman thought rejected homosexual practice
completely. We have already noted this through quotes from Hubbard
regarding (i) the emergence in the first few centuries of the common era
of “severe moral condemnation of all homosexual acts” alongside strong
endorsement of homosexual unions and (ii) the development of critiques of
homosexual practice based on nature arguments regarding the holistic
fittedness of the sexes—arguments that transcend the issue of individual
exploitative acts and reject homosexual acts categorically. For example,
Plutarch’s friend Daphnaeus admits that homosexual relationships are not
necessarily exploitative, for “union contrary to nature does not destroy
or curtail a lover’s tenderness.” Yet, he declares, even when a “union
with males” is conducted “willingly” it remains “shameful” since males
“with softness (malakia) and effeminacy (thelutes) [are]
surrendering themselves, as Plato says, ‘to be mounted in the custom of
four-footed animals and to be sowed with seed contrary to nature” (Dialogue
on Love 751). If some non-Jewish/non-Christian moralists and
philosophers in the Greco-Roman world, coming out of cultures that had
considerable tolerance for various forms of homosexual behavior, could
indict even loving homosexual unions as against nature and morally wrong,
is it not all the more likely that Paul, coming out of a culture that had
a long history of intense rejection of homosexual activity, could do the
same?
Does
Rogers show any awareness of this broader cultural environment? Although
he stresses in his guidelines for interpreting Scripture the importance of
knowing the historical-cultural context, he shows no such awareness here.
I have
given 12 pages here to showing that I do supply in my work an abundance of
evidence that demonstrates that Scripture’s opposition to homosexual
practice is absolute and total. Part of me feels apologetic about
giving readers so much to digest but part of me wishes that I could
present here an even fuller case (but space concerns do not permit me to
do so). Remember, too, that the evidence that I have just supplied is
limited to the Pauline witness. I haven’t yet discussed the Old Testament
evidence or the evidence from the Jesus tradition. Yet I think that
I have said enough to pose again the allegations that Rogers makes about
my work:
[Gagnon] simply asserts, with no supporting
evidence, that sexual relations between contemporary Christian people who
are homosexual are sinful as such. (p. 84)
Gagnon does not demonstrate that the
immoral sexual relations Paul condemns are related to the love of
contemporary faithful gay and lesbian Christians. He simply asserts it.
(p. 83)
How else can
these statements by Rogers be reasonably classified as anything but an
extreme instance of bearing false witness in scholarship?
And how can the official publishing house of the Presbyterian Church
U.S.A., Westminster John Knox—a Christian publishing house—give credence
to such a lie by publishing such a book? Readers who do not know my
work and who are inclined to believe Rogers will be deceived because
Rogers has failed to mention any of the supporting evidence that I give
for my position. Surely, many will conclude, a former moderator of the
PCUSA is not going to lie so brazenly about a fellow Christian and
Presbyterian? Alas, that is precisely what Rogers and, by inference,
Stephanie Egnotovich and Donald McKim of Westminster John Knox have done.
In so doing, Rogers and WJK have attempted to cover up the deficiencies
in Rogers’s argument. How can such conduct possibly “heal the church,” as
the subtitle of his book advertises? And when Rogers and WJK talk about
“exploding myths” have we not shown that the myth is Rogers’s own position
that Scripture does not disapprove of all homosexual practice?
To be continued in Installment 4