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Every year around this time, I see canards like these pop up on Twitter, as regular as clockwork:
There are two assertions made in this tweet, so let's get the second one out of the way first. The Hebrew word zakar means "male," not specifically "young boys." God created mankind "male [zakar] and female" (Genesis 1:27). He also made the animals "male [zakar] and female" (Genesis 7:9). Israel's militia was formed from "every male [zakar] from twenty years old and upward" (Numbers 1:20). Are 20-year-olds young boys?
So we can dispense with the second assertion. What the Law forbade was not men having sex with boys specifically, but males having sexual relations with other males.
That said, we can examine the first canard, that the word "homosexual" didn't appear in the Bible until 1983. I assume this refers to the revision of the NIV that came out in 1983-84. However, the term was used already in the original 1978 edition:
But even that's not the earliest instance. The first English Bible to use a form of the word "homosexual" in its translation was the Revised Standard Version, published in 1946:
A later revision changed "homosexuals" to "sexual perverts," but in the Catholic edition of the RSV found at Bible Gateway, the original wording is still extant.
The word "homosexual," coined by a late-19th-century Hungarian psychologist, was first published in 1891. The next major English Bible translation was the American Standard Version, a 1901 revision of the 1885 Revised Version. After that came the RSV. There's a perfectly good reason the "homosexual" didn't appear in an English Bible until the middle of the 20th century: there was no new English Bible until the middle of the 20th century.
So what? Words change. That's nothing new. Before 1946, biblical and Christian discourse used a variety of different words: amongst others, arsenokoites (cf. 1 Corintians 6:9), the "sin against nature," and, yes, "sodomite." The modern era has its own set of colloquialisms: "fairy," "flit," "gay," and so forth.
So there's no lack of vocabulary. But the argument in the above tweet isn't merely that the word "homosexual" didn't exist when the Bible was written (which is true, but trivial). Drawing on social-constructivist queer theory, it's implied that since the word didn't exist, the concept was also foreign. If a person today were to go back in time and try to explain homosexuality to first-century Christians, they wouldn't recognize the category. Epistemologically, the concept of men having sexual relations with men, as opposed to with women, might be unintelligible. Ontologically, they might tell you there was no such category of person as a homosexual; they just didn't exist. Homosexuality, in other words, is a construction of a particular time and culture (the modern West), not something that is, in principle, found in all times and all cultures.
This, too, is false. For the Law of Moses to forbid men having relations with men (Leviticus 18;22), the culture whose law it was would have had to have an awareness that a man bedding another man was different from him bedding a woman. Extended philosophical discussions of homosexuality predate the New Testament (e.g. Plato's Symposium). Even if the word "homosexuality" didn't come into being for another 2,000 years, the category of homosexual persons was well-known and well-understood.
Here's my point. Our postmodern, social-constructivist leftists friends try to tell us that since a technical term for men with same-sex attraction didn't exist in Bible times, the Bible could not possibly be talking about them. Similarly, KJV-only zealots will come on this forum and complain that since Bibles like the NIV, which uses a 20th-century vocabulary instead of a 17th-century one, no longer uses the term "sodomite," it too cannot possibly be talking about homosexuality. It's gone "soft."
Guess what? It's the same constructivist argument. It's just another instance of KJV-onlyists stealing bad arguments from unbelievers (homosexuals, atheists, apostates, etc.), appropriating them, and making them worse. Garbage in, garbage out.
There are two assertions made in this tweet, so let's get the second one out of the way first. The Hebrew word zakar means "male," not specifically "young boys." God created mankind "male [zakar] and female" (Genesis 1:27). He also made the animals "male [zakar] and female" (Genesis 7:9). Israel's militia was formed from "every male [zakar] from twenty years old and upward" (Numbers 1:20). Are 20-year-olds young boys?
So we can dispense with the second assertion. What the Law forbade was not men having sex with boys specifically, but males having sexual relations with other males.
That said, we can examine the first canard, that the word "homosexual" didn't appear in the Bible until 1983. I assume this refers to the revision of the NIV that came out in 1983-84. However, the term was used already in the original 1978 edition:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ... will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
But even that's not the earliest instance. The first English Bible to use a form of the word "homosexual" in its translation was the Revised Standard Version, published in 1946:
Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals ... will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 RSV).
A later revision changed "homosexuals" to "sexual perverts," but in the Catholic edition of the RSV found at Bible Gateway, the original wording is still extant.
The word "homosexual," coined by a late-19th-century Hungarian psychologist, was first published in 1891. The next major English Bible translation was the American Standard Version, a 1901 revision of the 1885 Revised Version. After that came the RSV. There's a perfectly good reason the "homosexual" didn't appear in an English Bible until the middle of the 20th century: there was no new English Bible until the middle of the 20th century.
So what? Words change. That's nothing new. Before 1946, biblical and Christian discourse used a variety of different words: amongst others, arsenokoites (cf. 1 Corintians 6:9), the "sin against nature," and, yes, "sodomite." The modern era has its own set of colloquialisms: "fairy," "flit," "gay," and so forth.
So there's no lack of vocabulary. But the argument in the above tweet isn't merely that the word "homosexual" didn't exist when the Bible was written (which is true, but trivial). Drawing on social-constructivist queer theory, it's implied that since the word didn't exist, the concept was also foreign. If a person today were to go back in time and try to explain homosexuality to first-century Christians, they wouldn't recognize the category. Epistemologically, the concept of men having sexual relations with men, as opposed to with women, might be unintelligible. Ontologically, they might tell you there was no such category of person as a homosexual; they just didn't exist. Homosexuality, in other words, is a construction of a particular time and culture (the modern West), not something that is, in principle, found in all times and all cultures.
This, too, is false. For the Law of Moses to forbid men having relations with men (Leviticus 18;22), the culture whose law it was would have had to have an awareness that a man bedding another man was different from him bedding a woman. Extended philosophical discussions of homosexuality predate the New Testament (e.g. Plato's Symposium). Even if the word "homosexuality" didn't come into being for another 2,000 years, the category of homosexual persons was well-known and well-understood.
Here's my point. Our postmodern, social-constructivist leftists friends try to tell us that since a technical term for men with same-sex attraction didn't exist in Bible times, the Bible could not possibly be talking about them. Similarly, KJV-only zealots will come on this forum and complain that since Bibles like the NIV, which uses a 20th-century vocabulary instead of a 17th-century one, no longer uses the term "sodomite," it too cannot possibly be talking about homosexuality. It's gone "soft."
Guess what? It's the same constructivist argument. It's just another instance of KJV-onlyists stealing bad arguments from unbelievers (homosexuals, atheists, apostates, etc.), appropriating them, and making them worse. Garbage in, garbage out.
