No kingdom of God for softies? or, what was Paul really saying? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in context

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2004 by John H. Elliott

Abstract

The search for biblical texts on "homosexuals" and "homosexual activity" presents a particularly prickly problem of contextual reading and interpretation. It involves, among other things, a clash of ancient and modern sexual concepts, constructs, and frames of reference. Attempts at using allegedly relevant texts as moral guidelines today are subject to serious exegetical and hermeneutical constraints.

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Among the issues currently challenging the U.S. church across the denominations, there is none producing as much heat and as little light as the burning issue of the place and role of homosexuals in the church and its offices of leadership. In the studies commissioned by virtually every major American church body on this topic, attention is dutifully given to "what the Bible says on homosexuality," but the conclusions vary widely, with no consensus anywhere in sight. For Joe and Mary Churchgoer a big part of the problem is an uncertainty or even an admitted ignorance concerning how to read, interpret, and possibly apply the Bible to this and other pressing problems of our time. Clarity is needed on at least four points: (1) how to analyze a biblical passage exegetically; (2) the hermeneutical principles guiding any exegetical undertaking; (3) the content of the investigated texts themselves--what they state and do not state; where unclarities of meaning, nuance, and implication of the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic formulations are present; how and why translations vary and represent culturally-specific interpretations; how the meaning of each biblical text is controlled and limited by its complex of contexts (literary, historical, geographical, economic, social, cultural); and (4) the hermeneutical guidelines concerning the use of any biblical text to shape and inform theological and ethical decisions today.

With the "ordinary, unprofessional Bible reader" in view, I shall address these issues as I examine a New Testament text, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, frequently mentioned as a biblical passage relevant to the topic of "what the Bible says on homosexuality." In reading and interpreting this text in the light of its various contexts (literary, historical, social, cultural-religious), I intend to show how one proceeds exegetically, what hermeneutical principles come into play, and how one assesses the hermeneutical relevance of this biblical text to current discussion concerning gays, lesbians, and transgender persons, "heterosexual" and "homosexual" "orientation," and operative moral guidelines. This essay has undergone several transmogrifications over the years to fit specific themes of specific conferences. The current version, with minor modifications, is appearing in a 2004 publication honoring my friend and colleague, Herman C. Waetjen of San Francisco Theological Seminary, on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, with the title, Hunting for Homosexuals at Corinth: Exegetical Tracking Rules and Hermeneutical Caveats. An initial draft of the paper was commissioned by and presented to a Task Force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Human Sexuality on 4/5/1991. The final report of this Task Force was published in November 1991 under the title, HUMAN SEXUALITY AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. A STUDY FOR THE CHURCH'S REFLECTION AND DELIBERATION.

The Text of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10--Preliminary Considerations

   The passage in question reads as follows:

   9 Do you not know that unjust persons will not inherit the kingdom
   of God? Do not be deceived. Neither pornoi, nor idolaters,
   nor adulterers, nor malakoi, nor arsenokoitai,

   10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
   robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The terms thought to bear specifically on the issue of homosexuality are malakoi and arsenokoitai.

The first problem for most bible readers will be their inability to read the Greek text. So they shall have to resort to a translation and this introduces problems of its own. Every translation is an interpretation. This is the case because all languages encode information from their respective social and cultural systems and no two social or cultural systems are identical. They are alike in some respects but never completely identical. Thus translations always run the risk of using culture-specific or modern terms and concepts (so that the reader can understand), but terms and concepts that are alien to the cultures of the texts being translated. Our 1 Corinthians text is a classic case of this translation and interpretive problem. When "homosexuals" or "homosexual perverts" is used to translate malakoi oude arsenokoitai (as is the case in both the RSV and the TEV, for example), a modern, post-Enlightenment term coined late in the 19th century--"homosexual"--is used to translate one or two Greek terms that literally mean "soft males" and "males who lie with males." This represents a serious problem, however, since "homosexual" and "homosexuality" are conceptual constructs of recent time and have no ancient counterparts in any ancient language. The term "homosexual" was first coined by the Austrian-Hungarian Karoly Maria Kertbeny (Benkert) in 1869 (two pamphlets in German). It was then introduced into English in the 1890s by Charles Gilbert Chaddock in his translation of R. Krafft-Ebbing's PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS (2nd edition of the German original of 1887). Thereafter it was included in the Oxford English Dictionary (1892). The word was invented to designate persons who manifested a particular sexual profile reflecting a particular modern construct of gender and sexual differentiation quite divergent from the prevailing gender construct(s) of the ancient world.