ARSENOKOITĒS and THE LAW
This is one of the famous anti-homosexual passages that are
often quoted to justify Christian homophobia.
Apparently this passage has a word in it which is nearly
impossible to translate. I did some fairly serious reading about the word in
question, which is: arsenokoitēs (‘?’-‘sexual
exploiter’? ). It is quite evident that nobody really can say anything
definitive about arsenokoitēs, because
it is such a rare word. It doesn’t appear often enough in ancient texts for us
to be able to translate it accurately. I was very impressed by a paper written
by Dale B. Martin, the Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale. Here’s a
link to that paper: https://www.cedarvilleout.org/assets/Arsenokoites-and-Malakos-9a48377772f00bc3ae3f5f814e7c3cc69094107928bd273ba72eea6ed622adf7.pdf
I found Professor Martin’s paper while searching the internet
for the word arsenokoitēs.
After I’d read several sources, I was left with the
understanding that the word generally referred to one who profits or benefits
from sexual exploitation and domination, or a “sex trafficker.” A pimp or madam
would be an arsenokoitēs, and so
would a predatory pedophile, or a rapist. In our modern understanding, I
believe that the most accurate translation would be “human trafficker.”
Then I looked up all the different translations of this
particular passage that did not use
the word homosexual as a translation
of arsenokoitēs. I have to say that I
was discouraged and disappointed by every single one of the translations. The
Message was the best, I thought, but it just skipped over it and didn’t really
translate it in the list form that the original Greek uses.
Here it is anyway:
“It’s true that moral guidance and counsel need to be
given, but the way you say it and to whom you say it are as important as what
you say. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the law code isn’t primarily for people
who live responsibly, but for the irresponsible, who defy all authority, riding
roughshod over God, life, sex, truth, whatever!” (The Message)
I felt as if I needed to go to the Mounce Reverse interlinear,
look up each Greek word and try to make my own interpretation, which is what I
did. Here’s the Mounce translation, in which I’ve italicized the words that I
thought could benefit from an alternate word choice. The words I’ve substituted
either come directly from the Strong’s Greek Lexicon, or are synonyms I looked
up for the words in Strong’s that I felt could better be expressed in modern
language.
1 Timothy
1:8-10 Mounce Reverse-Interlinear New Testament (MOUNCE)
Now we know that the law is good if someone uses it lawfully,
knowing this: that law is not valid (keimai-
laid down, established) for (the sake of) a righteous person (dikaios- just, equitable) but for the lawless
and rebellious, irreligious (asebēs-
ungodly) and sinners (hamartōlos-
wicked, evil-doer), those who are unholy and profane, those who beat their fathers
(patrolōas- father-killer, patricide) and
mothers (mētrolōas- mother-killer,
matricide), murderers, fornicators (pornos-
unfaithful, impure person), men who practice homosexuality (arsenokoitēs), kidnappers (andrapodistēs- man stealers), liars, perjurers,
and everything else that is contrary to (antikeimai-
other than) healthy teaching.
Finally, here’s my version, in which I tried to put the sense
of what Paul is saying into language that means the same thing in modern terms:
“Now we
know that the law is useful if it’s
applied in the right way, keeping in mind that the law was not laid down for
fair and equitable people, but for outlaws, rebels, ungodly people, evil-doers,
corrupt people; sleazy people; for father-killers, mother-killers, and all
murderers; for those who betray
themselves, for sexual abusers and
human traffickers, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and anything whatever that goes
against healthy teaching.”
(Italics are mine, used whenever I interpreted a Greek word
slightly differently, or using a synonym.)
So, why is this important? I think it’s important because of
the way we (modern Christians) tend to look at the “rules and regulations” of
Christianity. We tend to think of Scripture as though it was an ‘operations
manual’ for Christian life, and treat it as an unbreakable code of laws.
In that case, if I think about everything that Paul has to say
about Jewish religious law; the application of the law; Christian duty to both
religious law and secular law; and stand it up against everything Paul says
about Christ, the nature of God, and what it means to be Christian, one thing
emerges so clearly that I tend to get frustrated and discouraged with people
who claim they are following what the Bible says, but who have apparently never
paid attention to the meaning of the
sentences they read.
First of all, I don’t think there is a single passage
anywhere in Paul’s writing in which he defends the religious law as being more important
than it is for us to live according to the law of love. In fact, he goes on and
on and on about how ridiculous it is to try to use religious law to establish
righteousness. He even calls the law a “curse.”
3 You stupid Galatians! Who has put you under a spell?
Before your very eyes Yeshua the Messiah was clearly portrayed as having been
put to death as a criminal! 2 I want to know from you
just this one thing: did you receive the Spirit by legalistic observance of Torah commands or by trusting in what
you heard and being faithful to it? 3 Are you that
stupid? Having begun with the Spirit’s power, do you think you can reach the
goal under your own power? 4 Have you suffered so much
for nothing? If that’s the way you think, your suffering certainly will have
been for nothing! 5 What about God, who supplies you
with the Spirit and works miracles among you — does he do it because of your
legalistic observance of Torah
commands or because you trust in what you heard and are faithful to it? (CJB)
Paul clearly labels legalism as a perversion of the Torah. He
clearly says that strict adherence to the law distances a person from God,
because it makes reliance on rules more important than a relationship of love
and trust with God. He also says plainly that Christ was the ‘fulfillment of
the law’, and if a person returns to reliance on the law after they’ve
understood that, then that would mean that they’ve denied Christ’s great love and sacrifice
which was made specifically to free us from the law. What does “free us from
sin” actually mean? What if what Christ saved us from was a codification of transgressions
that trapped us in a legalistic perversion: a law that literally shoved itself
between us and the very ability to love? No wonder Jesus needed to get rid of
it!
Why does it never occur to anyone that it was the law itself that created sin?
Paul actually says that in Galatians 3:
22 But instead, the Tanakh shuts up everything under sin; so that what had been
promised might be given, on the basis of Yeshua the Messiah’s trusting
faithfulness, to those who continue to be trustingly faithful. 23 Now
before the time for this trusting faithfulness came, we were imprisoned in
subjection to the system which results from perverting the Torah into legalism, kept under guard
until this yet-to-come trusting faithfulness would be revealed. 24 Accordingly,
the Torah functioned as a
custodian until the Messiah came, so that we might be declared righteous on the
ground of trusting and being faithful. 25 But now that
the time for this trusting faithfulness has come, we are no longer under a
custodian. 26 For in union with the Messiah, you are all
children of God through this trusting faithfulness; 27 because
as many of you as were immersed into the Messiah have clothed yourselves with
the Messiah, in whom 28 there is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor freeman, neither male nor female; for in union with
the Messiah Yeshua, you are all one.
So what it boils down to is that Christ replaced legalism with trusting faithfulness born out of Love.
It isn’t that the law is not a reasonable guideline for us,
it’s that if we don’t respond to God’s trust in us by trusting God in return,
then we are utterly lost, and the law is not
going to save us, in fact, it’s the opposite— the law is what we needed to be
saved from!
And here’s the clincher:
We simply can’t
love and trust God if we don’t love and trust each other. Christ loved and
trusted us because he loved and trusted God. Without that love and trust Christ’s
execution would have been nothing more than a tragedy, and it would probably
never have been remembered at all.
It’s a simple fact that no-one and nothing can kill Love.
When a person embodies Love completely, then Love spills out everywhere, soaking
through all of time and space, and it can’t ever be separated out again. (I couldn’t
help thinking, “Could that be the ‘Tao of Love’…?”)
Paul says that too— “For
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly
rulers, neither what exists nor what is coming, neither powers above nor powers
below, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the
Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.”
So the message is simple—
If all our choices are not
governed by love, then there is no point to anything!
Paul again— “I may
fathom all mysteries, know all things, have
all faith — enough to move mountains; but if I lack love, I am nothing.”
If our actions are driven by animosity, hatred, condemnation,
reproach, fear, or desire for power over others, then our whole existence will
be defined by wrongdoing. In that kind of existence, there just isn’t any room
for kindness, trust, or compassion.
But—
If we live out of trust in God, nothing else matters.
Then—
We won’t even be able to think in terms of “sin.”
We won’t care what anyone else thinks of us;
we won’t care what we think of anyone else.
We won’t care about keeping the “rules,”
because we will be safe in the heart of Love.
We will walk out through the Open Gate
into the freedom of the Great Wide,
into God’s Dominion, and never return.
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