Introduction
I want to say thank you to Jim Lee (“SlimJim”) for the opportunity to provide a “guest post” to this important blog. Just a little bit to introduce myself before I get into the topic. I was raised in the Presbyterian Church USA, but when I came to understand my need for a personal relationship with Christ, I eventually made my way to the Restoration Movement. After getting a BA in Psychology from the University of Nebraska Omaha, I earned a Master of Divinity in Old Testament/Hebrew from Lincoln (IL) Christian Seminary. I went on teach as an adjunct for several Bible-focused universities in biblical languages, hermeneutics, and worldviews, and other biblical studies courses.
In 2011, I took the Strengths survey from Gallup, and discovered I had the “gift” of intellection. One of the suggestions for me to develop that gift further was to write a blog, which I had just started to do. I had committed to reading through the Greek New Testament and writing about my discoveries along the way. That was the birth of my Sunday Morning Greek Blog. I went on to read through the Greek New Testament again in 2012 and continued writing. In the last couple years, after churches began to open up again after the pandemic, I found myself filling pulpits, so most of my recent posts are my sermons.
Tackling the Easy Stuff First
For my topic today, I want to address Mr. Wells’ treatment of 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 in The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. He identifies three issues with his symbols on this passage: injustice, intolerance, and homosexuality. I want to dispense with his first error, because it’s easy to do so. He says, “Paul lists ten groups of people who will never enter heaven.” Actually, he only lists one group, “the unrighteous,” and lists ten subgroups, hardly exhaustive, that, on their own merits, would certainly not inherit the kingdom of God.
But verse 11, which Wells completely ignores, provides important context for Paul’s statement. He says, “For such were some of you,” and goes on to indicate they have been sanctified and justified so that the promise of the kingdom is indeed theirs to claim. This also answers Contradiction #434: People who were once thieves, or living any of the other sinful lifestyles identified for that matter, can be redeemed. One more point: the Greek word for “thief” in 1 Corinthians 6:10 (kleptēs) is not the word used in Mark 15:27 (lēstēs; KJV: “thief”; NIV: “rebel”) or Luke 23:39 (kakourgos; KJV: “malefactor”; NIV: “criminal”). These are not the contradictions you’re looking for, Mr. Wells. Move along.
Word Study on the Greek Terms Behind “Effeminate” and “Abusers of Themselves With Mankind”
For someone who wants to be skeptical about the Scriptures, he doesn’t seem to have done much homework on the things he’s skeptical about. I’ve seen comments to that effect from many of the Veritas Domain readers here. I want to help mitigate his ignorance of who the “effeminate” (KJV) are. One of the most basic steps he could have taken was to check how other English versions translated the underlying Greek term here. I’ll discuss those below, but I want to start with tools available for those who don’t have access to Greek. Let’s look at how some of the modern translations translate the passage.
(KJV) “effeminate…abusers of themselves with mankind”
(NIV 2011) “men who have sex with men” (this actually conflates the two Greek words translated “effeminate” and “abusers”)
(ESV) “men who practice homosexuality” (again, a conflation of the two terms)
(TNIV; precursor to NIV 2011) “male prostitutes…practicing homosexuals”
(RSV) “sexual perverts” (conflation)
(NRSV) “male prostitutes…sodomites”
(NASB) “effeminate…homosexuals”
(NKJV) “homosexuals…sodomites”
So as one can easily see, none of the translations are particularly flattering for these two terms, nor are the rest of the terms in the two verses flattering in any way. The NIV gives a rather basic description without using any labels, perhaps because they’re focusing on the sinful act more than on the labels.
But let’s dig a little deeper to see just what’s behind these translations. (For a detailed look at these words, please see my post, μαλακός (malakos) “soft,” “weak,” “effeminate”: A Look at Classical and Biblical Greek Usage.) The Greek term translated “effeminate” is malakos. The word is only used a few times in the NT, and not always with sexual meaning. The word is used in the Gospels in two parallel passages (Matthew 11:8, Luke 7:25) to speak of people in palaces who wear “fine” clothes. This is completely consistent with one of the semantic domains of the word in classical Greek writings. That particular domain has the general meaning of “soft” or “delicate,” and can refer to anything from someone’s appetite to soft turf on which a horse is trained to the soft coat of a horse or other animal. It is used in opposition to the Greek word for hard, sklēra. It can also be used of furniture. That seems to be more of a neutral, benign use of the word.
But it also has a negative connotation that again has nothing to do with sexuality. Broadly speaking, the semantic domain for this use has to do with weakness (this is what the abstract noun form, malakia, means, but still applied to the substantive form malakos). It is used in parallel with the Greek word for “weak” and in contrast with “strong.” It even describes the defeated (and deceased) Hektor after a battle scene, or the character of an army or military leader who refuses to fight when necessary. This is definitely not flattering, especially in a male-dominated culture that valued strong men and warriors.
Like the Bible, classical Greek does use the word to refer to sexual activity or orientation. Herodotus describes Telines as someone “soft and effeminate,” using the word for femaleness in parallel with malakos. This is one reason why I believe this is referring to someone who acts like a female. In fact, Louw & Nida, in their lexicon for Bible translators, define the word as the “passive male partner in homosexual intercourse.” This is further bolstered by the complementary term that follows, arsenokoitēs (KJV: “abusers of themselves with mankind”; yeah, all that for one Greek word!), which is a compound word meaning literally “lying with
men.” Louw & Nida indicate this is the term for the “active male partner in homosexual intercourse.”
Conclusion
When I was a campus minister many years ago, the school I ministered at had the largest Gay-Lesbian Student Union (as they called it at the time; mid 1990s). Many of them tried to argue that the term malakos meant “morally soft,” in keeping with nonsexual semantic domains. But Paul makes it clear in the context of 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 that these were sins that often led to some sort of social stigma or isolation. The irony is, such a misguided interpretation “softens” the hard reality of the passage.
These sins, or perhaps more accurately, sinful lifestyles, identified in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 are evidence of life lived outside of God’s grace and apart from belief in Jesus as the Messiah. In fact, we often need to remind ourselves as Christ-followers that we ALL have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. It’s not the sins themselves that keep us out of heaven; it’s the lack of acknowledging that Christ is the only one who can cleanse us of our sins, restore us to a right relationship with God, and ensure for us the hope of eternal life in his coming kingdom. Christ died for us while we were ungodly, while we were still sinners (Romans 5:6–8). Let us be shining lights in a world of darkness so the world can know God’s salvation.
Thank you for allowing me to share with you. Peace to all.
My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the owner of this blog.
Scott Stocking
The Domain for Truth 