Rev. Dr. Mel White on Christian Homosexuality, part 19 of 21

Paul, Greek, Malaokois and Arsenokoitai
Rev. Dr. Mel White wrote:

"Greek scholars say that in first century the Greek word malaokois probably meant 'effeminate call boys.' The new Revised Standard Version says 'male prostitutes.' Greek scholars don't know exactly what arsenokoitai means. And a good part of this tragic debate is that we don't know. Some scholars believe that Paul was coining a name to refer to the customers of 'the effeminate call boys.' We would call them 'dirty old men.' Others translate it as 'sodomites' and never explain what that means. Then, in 1958, for the first time in history a person translating that mysterious Greek word into English decided that it meant homosexuals; when in fact there is no such word in Greek or in Hebrew. But at that time, a translator decided to make the decision for all of us that placed the word 'homosexual' in the English-language Bible for the very first time."

Rev. Dr. Mel White makes specific reference to two New Testament texts:

1st Corinthians 6:9-10, "Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abusers, nor homosexuals [arsenokoites], nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

1st Timothy 1:8-10, "But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous one, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for homosexuals [arsenokoites], for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and anything else that is contrary to sound doctrine."

The Timothy text has had quite a variety of formal and dynamic translations for arsenokoites, such as:

"sodomites" (NKJV, RSV, Young and Darby)
"homosexuals" (NLT, NASB and HNV)
"them that defile themselves with mankind" (KJV and Webster)
"perverts" (NIV)
"men who practice homosexuality" (ESV)
"abusers of themselves with men" (ASV)

"Malaokois" or "malakois" can be understood as a term referring to "soft ones," "passive partner," "one who receives as a woman," "effeminate," a "catamite," "a boy kept for homosexual relations with a man," often male prostitutes.

"Arsenokoitai" or "arsenokoites" can be understood by the Greek text of the Old Testament with which Paul and all early Christians (Jews or Gentiles) would have been familiar. The Greek translation, the Septuagint or LXX, renders Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 with "man" translated as "arseno" and "lay with" as "koitai" ergo these words are compounded as "arsenokoitai."

Certainly these texts are demonstrative of the sorts of debauchery into which Greek and Roman society had fallen. It would be a mistake at both extremes to either claim that on the one hand, homosexuality is being specified as the worse of the worse or on the one hand, that it is excluded from the list.