Dear Jerri #13

Dear Jerri, #13

Today we’ll continue with a close look at I Corinthians 6, a chapter that is often part of the conversation about the biblical view of homosexuality. Over the last couple of weeks I have tried to show that Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are addressed to a very difficult church, at odds over many questions and bickering over how to respond appropriately to scandals within their fellowship. It is no wonder that Paul sounds a bit testy at times in this letter. He believes so strongly that Christ is coming soon that he even thinks provisional arrangements like marriage ought to be set aside, yet this church is filled with people misapplying his teachings and offering their own self-interested interpretations of Christianity. 

I Corinthians 6 shows that this church, which should be offering a powerful witness to the Roman imperial powers around them by embracing the radical love that Paul describes later in the “love chapter,” is not doing that at all. In fact, they are dragging their disputes to the civil legal system, which astounds Paul. In response, Paul reminds them of a couple of things that they should know, asking 

v.2: Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

v.3: Do you not know that we are to judge angels—to say nothing of ordinary matters?

Frankly, if Paul walked up and asked me these questions, I’d have to answer “no.” And there is a whole body of literature among biblical scholars whether these two questions are even answerable from the Old Testament. Ah well. The point is that Paul and the church in Corinth share this understanding and folks in the church are violating it by taking their disputes to civil court. 

The controversial portion of this chapter, with regard to same-sex relationships, is in verses 9-10. It is a question that also begins with the phrase “Do you not know?” Here is the translation from the NRSV: 

“Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.” 

In other translations, the words translated here as “Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites” are “the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,” (ESV), “the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men” (NIV), “whoremongers, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor sodomites” (YLT), and “fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind” (KJV). 

As you can see, there is some variation among the translations, partly because these are not familiar biblical terms. Even comparing them to other 1^stcentury literature is not entirely helpful, because their context usually shades their meaning. One of the words is a mashup of two words that literally means “man bed.” The interpreter then has to ask how this word is best translated into English. It could mean a male prostitute’s bed or a homosexual person’s bed or a homosexual prostitute’s bed or something else. Interpreting this word into English involves some necessary degree of guesswork. Even translations that describe themselves as “literal” do not leave it as “man bed.” They want to make it meaningful, which means that they have to interpret its meaning.  

That is why when a friend of mine points to this passage and says, “See, the Bible says sodomites will not inherit the kingdom of God,” I respond, “That is indeed how that interpreter has translated it.” I cannot say that my friend is wrong when she reads this verse to mean that persons in same-sex relations will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, I cansay that my friend is not completely right on this topic. She is following an interpretation – an interpretation that has merit but is not the final word on the subject. In following that interpretation she is either making a judgment about the best meaning of the text or she is agreeing with someone else – in this case a translator – who is making a judgment about the meaning of the text. 

Jerri, when you and I disagree on whether I Corinthians 6:9-10 shows that people who engage in same-sex relationships are going to hell, it is not the case that one of us is being “biblical” and the other is not. It is certainly not that I am “compromising the Word of God” or “conforming to the world” or “making the Scriptures say what fits my ideology” or whatever catchphrases people use to claim that their interpretation is the only legitimate one. It is simply the case that you are embracing one interpretation and I embrace another. Next week, I’ll show you what I believe the Apostle Paul is saying in this chapter – and it’s not what you think. 

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version; ESV = English Standard Version; NIV = New International Version; YLT = Young’s Literal Translation; and KJV = King James Version.