Homosexuality in the bible; not what most Americans think.

Jun 4, 2023 5:12 AM

J4nein4ne

Views

20791

Likes

2918

Dislikes

172

I'm posting this on its own so I can quickly and easily link to it when I need it. Feel free to downvote, but I think it's worth knowing.

Since this is getting so much traction: I posted this so *I* could link back to it. Stop upvoting me. Apparently it's controversial. There's translation issues. Leave it alone.

3 years ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 8

I tell people this all the time. Christians seem to believe that their translation of the bible is the one true word of God, even though it contradicts itself (like the two sets of "identical" Ten Commandments which are actually wildly different (the one they like to quote is actually the first, which only Moses supposedly saw and was destroyed, the other, which everyone saw and presumably lasted a while is widely ignored by Christians)).

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Another one is abortion. There used to be a line in the bible where if you caused a miscarriage, any punishment was up to the husband. Thus, if the husband was fine with it, then the fetus you aborted was just fine. After Roe, they changed that to if you caused a miscarriage/premature birth but the baby was fine, then the punishment was up to the husband. Thus, christianists (sic) INVENTED that abortion was wrong. The bible even has a formula to induce an abortion.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Remember that child molester were rampant in the era when Rome was in power....and it was rumoured that Tiberias raped Julies Cesar as a teen to ensure that he knew his place. As Christianity grew in favour these writing would have been a direct conflict with a lot of molester Romans in power.

3 years ago | Likes 37 Dislikes 26

Tiberius was born after Caesar was dead, but he had young boys in his Capri villa that he allegedly threw off the cliffs when he was not happy with their performance.

3 years ago | Likes 26 Dislikes 1

Maybe early christianity also had alot of rapey priests?

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 2

And slaves

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

This is kinda sorta true but not really. To the best of our knowledge, "arsenekoitai" is literally just a compound word made up of "male" and "bed" and means pretty much exactly what it sounds like, though is probably more in reference to sexual acts rather than sexual orientation. Other interpretations like child molester or prostitute or fuckboy do exist but they're not nearly as accepted. That being said, "arsenekoitai" isn't even used in Leviticus 18:22. It's used in a couple other

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 1

passages that are usually cited as being homophobic, but the boy/man confusion with "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." comes from an obvious mistake in a relatively recent German translation where they accidentally wrote "boys" instead of "men". The original wording there is quite clear, even if the meaning itself might not be.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

this is lies. For one, the term "arsenokoitai" is Greek, not the Hebrew the Pentateuch was written in...while the Septuagint's Ancient Greek translation is worthwhile, it doesn't mean shit for the original intent of the work. Also, the word has myriad definitions, only one of which is "pederast--" seeing as queer people are accused of that constantly, a religious orthodoxy equating homosexuality and pederasty makes perfect sense. As for OOP...Leviticus was written ~500 years before Yeshua--

3 years ago | Likes 27 Dislikes 5

of Nazareth was born. Arguing semantics between half a millenium is a futile exercise. But your amplifying of this revisionist reading of the Bible is harmful and you should be ashamed that you're spreading falsehoods.

3 years ago | Likes 14 Dislikes 2

[deleted]

[deleted]

3 years ago (deleted Jun 4, 2023 6:31 PM) | Likes 0 Dislikes 0

I'm a bigot because I care about historical accuracy? Fuck you with a rake. The Torah wasn't written in Greek, so big fucking red flag there, and even a cursory search would actually provide the meaning of the words OOP used. And who the fuck am I a bigot to? Gay men, whose ranks I count myself among? Brown, biracial, mentally ill, non-neurotypical? I'm all of them too. I guess I'm bigoted against people who lie for their agenda and can't see scholarship for what it is. Sit on a cactus.

3 years ago | Likes 18 Dislikes 1

"arsenkotai" appears in the Pauline epistles, not Leviticus. Its precise meaning is unknown, as Paul appears to have coined it himself

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I have a bible from the late 1800s, I think its 1880, and it says Man, not Boys. Not that I pay much mind cos it also says somewhere about not wearing mixed threads and pork is frowned upon. I like pork.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

People like what Christianity is RIGHT NOW because it validates their hatred of homosexuals. They don't care what it was about 2000 years ago.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Guys, you're going about it the wrong way. Stop legitimizig this bs by discussing it. Instead, ask what else is in Leviticus and if we should do that too. That'll shut most people up.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I ... think this post is made up ... the sentence quoted does not contain the word the post claims was mistranslated ...

3 years ago | Likes 25 Dislikes 3

A better argument is that leviticus also forbids have tattoos, and you don't get to cherry pick from a source while claiming the source is definitive.

3 years ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 2

It also forbids wearing mixed fabrics (19:19), touching the skin of a dead pig (11:7) so football's cancelled, and all sorts of stupid shit.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

Yeah, but I like mine when someone has a swastika tattoed on their forehead ...

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Are footballs real leather nowadays?

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

... bacon ...

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

All this discussion about the meaning of the word in Leviticus. We must remember that Leviticus provides us with all sorts of different laws that we would not even consider today. I enjoy this post which has travelled the internet for many years. I think it points to the absurdity of considering the Bible infallible. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2010/08/18/dr-laura-and-leviticus

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

Thanks for the URL, hilarious.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Arsenokoitai is a greek word for Men( or boys) and Beds. It’s way harder to translate than it is said in this unsourced statement.

3 years ago | Likes 31 Dislikes 2

Anyone got a bible from before 1946 handy?

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

King James Version from 1610 says: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination”

3 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

I have one from the late 1800s and it says man, not boys unfortunatly

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

The problem here is that its conflating the word "Homosexual" and the concept of "Homosexuality". The word is very modern (1869), so the fact it wasn't in the several Millenia old Bible is hardly surprising. By that logic gayness was invented in Germany just over 150 years ago.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 2

OOP is banking on people's ignorance of how language changes, assuming that they figure homosexual was always a term and that some bad translation put them in the crosshairs. The reality is that religions always marginalize people and treat them as a despised other, and gay people are very often first on the chopping block.

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 1

Yes, and in particular, all three Abrahamic religions forbid (male) homosexual sex explicitly and in multiple places. It's so easy to disprove the "it's just a mistranslation, really Bronze Age desert tribes were super woke and tolerant!" trope, but the wishful thinking is strong. Like, there are instructions for how to keep slaves and how to conduct a genocide in there, too.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Last time this was on here it was debunked by a few people. I don’t remember exactly, unfortunately

3 years ago | Likes 40 Dislikes 1

Arsenokoitai is a word that only exists in Paul's book. It's a made-up compound word (male-fucker) that may or may not have been common. If we wrote, today, to kick out the "shitheads" to stay in God's graces, there'd be similar conflict. Arsenokoitai could mean "male prostitutes", "boy-prostitutes", "pedos", "guys who took vows of celibacy but fucked anyway", or "any guy who fucks (anti-natalism in the house?)" or possibly "guys who fuck other guys". The Bible is lost in translation.

3 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Arguing about the bible is just legitimizing it, that's how they manipulate the debate. Someone is using the bible to argue ? Who cares what it says, just because people have deluded themselves into thinking their fantasy book matters is irrelevant. The founding fathers were christians? Well the constitution is not, and they are dead anyway, dead people who would be shook by a microwave and their beliefs in a fantasy book shouldn't dictate laws for the living.

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 1

Thank you. I usualy put it this way: if someone is quoting Batman when writing laws and policies, you should not quote Spider-Man back. You should point out they're *comics*.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

"Who cares what it says" 40% of the country, in a democracy. It's a problem that isn't fixed by ignoring or isolating those people from political power. It can only be fixed by the slow steady grind of culture shift, which means sharing these memes so that they or their children see it in the wild and say "huh... I should ask my [religious authority] about that."

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Ok, but I’m gonna desperately need a source on this, because it’s a big claim and if true I wanna be able to shove it in peoples’ faces

3 years ago | Likes 20 Dislikes 1

got downvoted on my other reply but...no. Wikipedia has the best fit translations from the Hebrew, not the Greek OOP is using, and it's a resounding rebuke against male-male sexual acts.

3 years ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 1

it's fake af. I have the reciepts.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 6

Unfortunately, I've got a bible from the late 1800s, 1880 I think, and I've specifically checked it, it doesnt say Boys but Men I'm afraid. So I suppose it depends on what bible you look at for when it was changed in the 1940s

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

It's not true. Every time this is posted someone tries to correct it, but it never sticks. Alas, "what I want to believe" is often more powerful that "what's actually true." Doubly so for religion.

3 years ago | Likes 25 Dislikes 0

You know what is true, In the moddern King James Bible when asked "Are you king of the jews" Jesus says "I am", But dating back to 400 AD in the Coded Bezae in Latin - Pilatus autem interrogavit eum dicens tu es rex Iudaeorumat ille respondens ait tu dicis. Translation And Pilate asked him, saying, Thou art the king of the Jews but he answered and said, Thou sayest.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

BRING BACK SARCASTIC JESUS

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

You don't have. Just look at verse 20 and just tell them they are hypocrites that use the cloth Jesus was wrapped in as a napkin to wipe they shit stained mouth.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

Sadly it's not a clear cut argument as Paul made the word up, so its etymology is highly debated. All the academic papers I can find are locked behind paywalls. But lets face it, anything that encourages hate is wrong, whether that is the correct translation or not.

3 years ago | Likes 11 Dislikes 1

Does this help? -> https://academictorrents.com

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Or this? -> https://sci-hub.se

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

That still doesn't cover Romans 1:26,27

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 2

A film last year made the claim that the inclusion of the word "homosexuality" in the Revised Standard Version was a mistake. This is far from accepted fact. Although the word wasn't used in earlier translations, it's pretty clear that Christianity was homophobic long before that.

The word "arsenokoitai" literally translates to "male-sex". "Arseno" as in "arsenic" (so called because it was a strong and manly poison, apparently), and "koitai" as in "coitus". There's no implication of "young".

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Incidentally, the RSV was actually rejected by many conservatives, because it calles Mary a "young woman" rather than "virgin". (Also, according to biblegateway.com, the word "homosexuality" isn't actually used in the RSV, so I'm not sure what happened there.)

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

None of this matters. Even if the bible was nothing but Jesus directly saying homosexuality is a sin - it doesn’t matter. Christians can choose to live however they like but they have no right to demand anyone else live according to their beliefs.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I do not care what your religious book says. I care if it's true. If it's not true, why should I care?

3 years ago | Likes 77 Dislikes 12

That's not really an argument that works on them though, since the book says its true. Arguing with them at all is really a waste.

3 years ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 1

Faith is thinking something is true in spite of an absence or even completely contrary evidence (if there was evidence, you wouldn't need faith). Can't argue rationally against the irrational.

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

Because it still affects you. True or not, people who believe it and people who don't but spend their time talking about it being false are a part of the society that you are also a part of, and not caring is cowardice. If you don't care, then you can't complain about any resulting policy that you opted out of responsibility for.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

I guess I wasn't clear about what I meant by not caring. If their book isn't true, we do not need to defer to it when it comes to public policy and public education. I care not what their position is of it's coming from any religious book. Hope that cleared it up.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

An atheist has no more power to definitively as assert if God is real/nonexistent than the most pious Individual, their religion matters not. Claiming otherwise is the definition of Arrogance

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 10

May I introduce you to the invisible striped dragon in my garage? Unfortunately she only speaks telepathically through me, so you'll have to accept me as an intermediary.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Hard disagree. With more than 4000 non-Hindu gods that have been worshiped by humans, it is the apex of arrogance to believe your Abrahamic god (of which 4 religions worship) is the one true god who loves YOU and forgive YOU and has tasked YOU with being their mouthpiece. Your argument is amazingly laughable. Christianity alone has more than 40,000 different denominations - nothing with any truth value behave like that. Grow up- there are no good reasons to believe any gods exist.

3 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Erm...people just shouldn't be relying on a centuries old text of unknown origin to dictate your moral values, no matter what they really wrote or meant. That's just dumb. Dumb, irresponsible, and ridiculous.

3 years ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 4

Also, the Old Testament has a lot of horrible stories in it, with murder, rape, incest... Not a good base for morality imo.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Dunno, a lot of jeusus stuff would make the world a fuckton better, so I'd say its not the age of the written that matters but the conent itself.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Wait till they hear about the mistranslation of the word "rib" in the Bible...

3 years ago | Likes 26 Dislikes 2

yeah originally Adam said "i'd give my third nut to have a companion" before god put him to sleep

3 years ago | Likes 28 Dislikes 0

it wasn't a mistranslation, it was innuendo and veiled speech. Just like how Seraphim covered their eyes and feet with 2 pairs of their wings so as not to see nor offend God. 'feet' of course meant "genitals." Rib meant rib, it simply alluded to the baculum. There's lots of figurative speech in the Bible--it's not all mistranslation.

3 years ago | Likes 17 Dislikes 2

And that rib thing sorta is related to how men have one less rib than woman. So probably a strange explanatory description why men have one lesd

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 24

But why would God be offended by genitals?

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

And why would angels have genitals? God made angels, then gave them dongs so big even He was offended by them? That's one weird-ass book.

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 2

the classic paradox, can God make a dong so big he offends himself?

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

he's not, we are. And while Angels are basically robots (sentient but without free will), they act with propriety...since God's chosen, having eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge, now feel shame for their nakedness, so too do His servants hide theirs from His sight. It's a convoluted fandom.

3 years ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 1

I've also read that it was a way for them to "say" they were impotent in God's presence, implying gods omnipotence. But I admittedly do not remember where I got that info.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Satan was an angel, how'd he rebe... Oh, it's all fiction, nvm.

3 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 2

This is why, in Islamic tradition, Shaytan is a Djinn, as categorically angels can't rebel.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Who fucking cares what the moronic fairy tale says? Its a myth with absolutely no evidence that gets basic information at the time wrong.

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 4

In all fairness, the entire book is fiction so who cares if it gets changed. The majority of Americans just want to live their lives and don’t give a single fuck about other people’s sexual preferences so long as it’s not with minors/children.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Have you considered that "I don't need to care what other people think in a functioning democracy" is not only a ridiculously false statement, but also a result of propaganda that benefits those most capable of manipulating what other people think?

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

“I don’t care what other people think…” isn’t remotely close to what I said. I said that most Americans aren’t concerned with other people’s sexual preferences.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

The word used in Leviticus 18 is "zā·ḵār". Which is used EVERYWHERE ELSE to refer to "Males" in general (e.g. in Numbers 1 it is used more than once in the context of "zā-ḵār mib-ben ‘eś-rîm šā-nāh", i.e "males over 20 years old") — so why would it suddenly refer to "young boys" in that SINGLE instance? (Also, Leviticus 18 is prefaced with a disclaimer that it only applies to Jews, not to anyone else, such as gentiles living in Israel. There are different chapters of Leviticus for those rules.)

3 years ago | Likes 78 Dislikes 2

Given that plenty of people say they'follow all of the bible'

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

(Leviticus 18 is *also* prefaced with an admonition not to "live as they did in Egypt", implying that many of the things banned in that chapter are things that were common for the Ancient Egyptians to do at the time…)

3 years ago | Likes 22 Dislikes 0

The post is conflating many things in confusion, but the chain of transmission it's talking about is Martin Luther's translation of the Septuagint vs the New Revised Standard from 1946. A majority of Christian translations of the Old Testament derive from the Septuagint (the oldest complete text of the OT, which is in Greek) rather than from any Masoretic texts or Hebrew sources.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Not touching the translation in which I have no experience, but Matthew 5:17 has some things to say about laws only applying to Jews. Also, you should be keeping kosher. Or maybe a collection of Bronze Age myths isn’t the best moral guide we can come up with?

3 years ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 1

Of course, given it’s a Facebook post, they’re not even quoting the right section. Matthew, not Leviticus. Which was Ancient Greek, not Hebrew. Also defunct anyways since individual faith shouldn’t control the lives of everyone. Theocracies should stay in the past where they belong.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Thank you. This nonsense gets posted all the time, and it's so clearly BS. I mean, it would be nice if it were true, but pleasant BS is still BS. Overall, one shouldn't expect a 4000 year old religious text that also has rules for regulating slavery to be super woke and perfectly adapted to modern cultural values.

3 years ago | Likes 45 Dislikes 4

Spouting ‘Woke’ unironically really dampens your credibility. The “nonsense” refers to a different verse in the NT, which of course a random Facebook post could incorrectly reference. Of course the Abrahamic religions disapproved of homosexuality in the context of the ancient worlds as the practice was specifically done as fertility rites to polytheistic pantheons. Which included a practice of laying with boy-servants.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 4

Leviticus is old testament, and the OP is pure confused nonsense. The rest of your comment I'm having a hard time parsing - what exactly are you trying to communicate there?

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

It's a classic religious move. When your holy book says something horrid say it actually never said that. "It doesn't say slavery is ok it's version of slavery is not like real slavery", except the "good slavery" in the Bible is only when it's another Hebrew, non-Hebrews it's pretty clear you own a person and you own their descendants. It was written by people 2000 years ago wtf you expect they believed stupid shit.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

It's all man-made.

3 years ago | Likes 1406 Dislikes 33

All gods together can't kill a single person but all people together can kill every god.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Shhh!.. the whole system is rigged

3 years ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 1

pretty much. King James took out the wort tyrant some 30 times because it could very easily be applied to the monarchy

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

[deleted]

[deleted]

3 years ago (deleted Sep 14, 2025 2:57 AM) | Likes 0 Dislikes 0

Fun fact: literally everything about the Jesus mythos is lifted from some older proto-indo myths about Sun gods that did some resurrecting. What’s more likely? That Jesus as a dude existed, or that someone in the 1st or 2nd century AD wrote fanfics modernizing an old Babylonian myth of the sun god, and 200 (4th AD) years later someone thought it was a historical account. Keep in mind this is like 800 years after the Greeks had already produced fictional plays and theater and written them down.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Also bear in mind nearly everything in the New Testament is spoken lines, like, “Jesus says, be kind to the meek,” etc.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Dismissing oral tradition is a condescension that has lead historians to embarrassment on numerous occasions. Troy was, in fact, real, and the Great Barrier Reef was indeed part of the mainland. Such records are certainly to be taken with a grain of salt, but the educated secular standpoint is not to dismiss them as *total* fabrications. Skepticism over some loudmouth named Josh having a dozen buddies seems... misplaced.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 4

Take note, also, of the contemporaneous political situation in Judea, and the manner in which it provoked other Jewish religious innovations. We can conclude pretty reasonably that SOMEBODY came from Nazareth; Doing so is a contradiction of prior prophesy, and is honestly a pretty embarrassing thing to admit. The motivations to make up such a detail for a handcrafted narrative are much less construable than it just being an unfortunate fact that had to be copped to.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 2

They had 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 religious kooks than we have today; it's easier to take a random one from >50 years ago that still has some people remembering him than to invent a new one from whole cloth. Authors of the Bible didn't bother researching anything more than a name, though, as in those days no one cared about historical records.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Did you make disease and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made you?

3 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

Dear god…it’s you

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

3 years ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 1

Doesn't matter. god wouldn't let anything happen with the message during those translations. *says the brain washed*

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Correct use of the phrase man-made. I’ll allow it.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Yup. All of it!

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

In the beginning Man created God.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

I cant wait to be a grumpy old guy and add my page to the mess..

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Imgur comments mixing there and theirs, were and we're.. thats a abomination.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Well yes, but also a good point it has been translated and so the translations may not even meet the original intent of that is someone's argument. This is a better argument than saying God is dead/ false/ made up

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

That's pretty recent. Let's keep updating the bible. Make it hella sci fi.

3 years ago | Likes 141 Dislikes 7

SquirrelHaven 0.1 "The first BBS was created in 1978. It proceeded to reproduce with all of its siblings for many many years."

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

You shall not buttprobe other species as you come a long them as it uncleans your expensive scientific tools.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

It's also a complete lie, that translation has been there since 1611 and the Jewish part may or may not have been about same sex rape it said nothing of children.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Book of revelation is pretty great fantasy/scifi. We could just start by rewriting the whole bible like that.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

And Jesus walked on the water, because he had a jet-ski.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

In a lot of countries the translations are updated by academics on a regular basis. Whether the churches want to use them or not is a different matter

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Someone living in post-apocalypse earth gonna come across some Forgotten Realms books a couple hundred years from now and people are going to worship Elminster like Christ.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

It's already pretty sci-fi.

3 years ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 1

There's a lot of missed potential for advertising in there too. "And Jesus said to his deciples 'checketh out mine dope Raycons'"

3 years ago | Likes 31 Dislikes 1

Let thou who hath not sinned cast the first stone by today's sponsor RAID SHADOW LEGENDS.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

“Drinketh from my cup” *crash, Kool-Aid man appears* OHHH YEAHHH

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

The Desert Trilogy: A Jew Hope, The Roman Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jihad

3 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 1

You mean Dune?

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

The Bible is still one of the worst written fantasy books I have ever had to read. I don't get why this thing has such a giant fanbase.

3 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 7

it's not a single book. It's a group of texts bundled together and presented as a single book, despite the wild variances in worldview, voice, style, theme, &etc. that prevent one from taking it as a single work. To see it as anything but a chaotic mess bound together in one book is to be delusional.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

When you convert by the sword, you don't need compelling literature.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

money mostly

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

And violence!

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Translating long dead languages is tough. I generally agree with the assessment, but the tone of the post implies a correctness that is incorrect. Leviticus was originally proto-persian, not Greek as implied. And it was an oral tradition way before it was written down. Misidentifying specific meaning of words is a classic zealot technique - it shouldnt be done by opposition either

3 years ago | Likes 755 Dislikes 20

Pro-life, woke, homosexuals, leftist fascists, radical, weapons of mass destruction...what have you

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I quite like your ending sentiment, I agree it doesn’t help. Cheers for sharing

3 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 2

The weird part to me is where the bible itself apparently says "this is the Word as spoken by God, and you shall not disobey it," and even reasonable Christians like my parents accept that and don't accept that man was able to fudge a few things over years of translation and passing around. Like one English dude translated the entire thing into English from Latin, you don't think he fucked up a little? God aint that easy to hear when you're mispelling fuck as duck.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

Except that neither of those words are there... a direct translation from hebrew simply stats: a man shall not lay a womans laying, he an abomination. That language is alive and well by the way, its spoken by an entire country...

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

the voice of reason? here?

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

It's all bollocks anyway so try not to get too het up about it.

3 years ago | Likes 24 Dislikes 6

Because regardless of you belief position, sufficient people believe to influence laws and governance. To ignore this is to cede governance to theocrats.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Exactly. Who gives a fuck about what the bible says about ANYTHING. As soon as you start arguing technicalities with fundamentalists you've joined them in giving their book of stories far more importance than it deserves.

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 1

It's one of the things where it lacks intrinsic value, but because enough people care it has extrinsic value. Just saying it's bullshit isn't sufficient to change society at any meaningful scale

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

But rational argument about the content is counter-productive, as this validates it as a source. I'm not sure what the answer is, perhaps something on a more emotional level?

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

I'm not sure what the solution is, either. I don't think just ignoring people's beliefs is it. But I don't want to validate by acknowledging either

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

By Proto-Persian do you mean Hebrew?

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

As someone else clarified, I didn't, but should have

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

You'd think since people know this. They would realize the text is unreliable and not use it as evidence for our laws. But no. It's not like we can even fact-check the bible but they still use it.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

The translation of Paul's only use of ἀρσενοκοίτης is unfortunately not terribly clear. For example, Martin Luther understood this as meaning pederasty. However, as Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew, it is often assumed to refer to the Septuagint translation of Leviticus 18:22, which says that you shall not lie with (koiten) a man (arsenos) as with a woman.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

I dont understand why people try to excuse the Bible. It says what it says. "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet." This isn't a one-word issue. Romans/Paul meant homosexuality. You can choose to believe it is divine or dismiss it, but Old and New Testament have anti-homosexual scriptures.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Isn't Leviticus the one that Christians just go "oh, nothing in that one actually counts anymore" anyways?

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

The US Christian political right, yea. And while that group is loud, they are not actually representative

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I have never known ANYone who professes to be "Christian" who follows the rules set out in Leviticus.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

First, the rules were written for the Israelites, as proof that it was impossible to be truly righteous by the law. (Which was why sacrifices were required - "All have sinned and fallen short...") Jesus flipped the script by representing a NEW covenant, based on faith and love ("Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself..." which Jesus said completely encapsulated the new covenant.) Jesus didn't want His followers to get bogged down in legalism like the Pharisees.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

And leviticus 20:13 says that both shall be killed. If it was about sexual abuse of minors it would still suck ass.

3 years ago | Likes 34 Dislikes 0

Any religion or practice that actually punishes abuse of minors has at least one positive mark in my book. And a negative one for punishing being gay. Not really the same

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 7

trapdoorogre was pointing out that the punishment for "abuse of minors" would include killing the minor, which would be terrible, since a minor shouldn't be sentenced to death because an elder person abused them. It's a problematic passage, no matter how you interpret it.

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

Ah. I misunderstood

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Leviticus is also Judaism, Christians and people arguing against them using the old testament are both wrong

3 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 1

Shhhhh we arent allowed to criticise judaism. *Wind blows aaanntiisemmmitismmm*. Shit they’re onto to us

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 16

This is a shitty take.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Tell that to isntrael.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

You can criticize the religion all you want, but if you start advocating for discrimination, violence, or implying some sort of conspiracy then you're literally anti-Semitic. It's a real simple line not to cross.

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 1

Looks like you cant make a joke either. And 1 of those 3 things is not like the other 2 whereby abiding by the stupid idea that advocating “conspiracy” is akin to violence when what ur saying actually lays the foundation of fascism. Especially in the modern era where many “conspiracies” like the spying of private citizens was proven. Way to back fascism mate to the point any alt thinking gets labelled conspiracy and then the thought police get involved. Noice.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 2

yeah, like whenever someone wants to criticise the practice of circumsicion on babys... There were many debates about that after the UN ratified the Children Rights Convention (well ratified by all members except the USA...)

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Maybe we translated Jesus’s name wrong and it’s actually Bob.

3 years ago | Likes 117 Dislikes 6

Robin Williams "we have Mary and Joe...we were closing to having Jim Bob Christ"

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

No, that's the brother. "A nobody relative, of the son of God. If only I'd been been born, just a little sooner, I'd be more than the brother of God Juniorrrrrrrrr."

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 2

Bob Dobbs?

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your news letter.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 3

Or boab

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Archeologists and anthropologists have a theory that the actual man did exist and he was named Joshua and was a stone carver, an artist more than a craftsman and a teacher rather than a prophet.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

So Socrates was Jesus?

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

No. Go away if you're just going to be dumb.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

His name webt through many iterations in different labguages and scripts. Afaik Yehoshua–Yeshua–Iēsous–IESVS–Iesu–Jesus is the proper order. Modern English speakers also often mispronounced it as Djesus due to how J is pronounced in English. So you can still see his name is still slowly changing in real time.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Ey get a load’a Bobby Christ ova heah!

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 1

Classic Bob

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Yeshua ben Yosef, Christos. Joshua son of Joseph, the anointed one. Oily Josh.

3 years ago | Likes 77 Dislikes 0

Yup there's a straight line of continuity from his native Yeshua to modern Joshua. Their savior was a Josh.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Joshua, Son of Joseph... Is Jesus a JoJo?

3 years ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 0

Holy shit. Jesus is a JoJo...

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

That's his brother. If only he'd been born a little sooner, he'd more more than the brother of God Jr.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 2

Wow an Arrogant Worms reference in the wild!

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I've seen them every time they have been in my town over the last 20 years, formed my comedy!

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Fun fact, it almost certainly wasn't Jesus.

3 years ago | Likes 22 Dislikes 3

Their savior's name is Josh

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

There's no "almost". We know the etymology. His name was Yeshua in Hebrew. In Greek it became Iesous. His Latin name Jesus (yay-soos) derived from that.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 3

[deleted]

[deleted]

3 years ago (deleted Jun 7, 2023 9:10 PM) | Likes 0 Dislikes 0

Jesus' existence is very much in agreement with most historians, religious and non religious.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 4

His divinity and supernatural abilities, obviously, is not.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 3

Pretty sure it was Joshua

3 years ago | Likes 16 Dislikes 3

It was likely something close to that, but not that either.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 3

[deleted]

[deleted]

3 years ago (deleted Jun 6, 2023 8:11 PM) | Likes 0 Dislikes 0

Considering the letter J did not exist until well after the Bible was written (16th century), it was definitely not Jesus.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

And like you say, those are just variants of the same name (varying by region and by time), which is the one otherwise usually adapted into English as Joshua. It's hard to know which precise form Jesus would have used, and it's even possible that he used both of them in different contexts, or that people used whichever one they liked to him, the way someone might be called George or Giorgio depending on the speaker.

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

It's more of a Romanization vs traditional Hebrew. Lots of names have variants depending on the language using them. In the appeal to Roman Gentiles, they use his Roman name. Would be like Guillermo del Toro deciding it would be better for his brand to go by "Bill"

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

To be fair, it seems reinterpreting these ancient languages so that the abysmal morality spelled out in those ancient versions start to coincide with the more enlightened morality of modern times. Funny how that always works out.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

"Leviticus was originally proto-persian" – Where do you get this idea? The oldest texts are in Hebrew, and it was probably originally in Hebrew.

3 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

Greek, not hebrew. Paul, Mark, Matthew, all written in Greek.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

And Hebrew is hard

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

עברית קשה שפה

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

You right. My knowledge of ancient languages is limited. I thought Hebrew was a proto Persian language but I can't find a reference that confirmation that. My call in language was based on geography.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

Persian is an Indo-European language (like English), while Hebrew is a Semitic language (like Arabic). They are not at all closely related. However, at the time when Leviticus is believed to have been compiled and edited, Israel was part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, so there might be some language influence—loan words and the like. But I've never heard of any traces of this in Leviticus.

3 years ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

No, it was (and is) a Semitic language. Persian is Indo-European. The two language families are unrelated. There are a lot of loanwords between Persian and Arabic, but that comes from trade and conquest. Persian is, linguistically, closer to English than to Hebrew.

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

Yes, I was incorrect

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

No worries. I only know because I studied Arabic for a few years.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

The oldest parts the the Bible were written in Phoenician-Canaanite, not Hebrew. That language did not come about until later.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

I don't believe that's either true or a meaningful objection, on almost too many grounds to list. (1) On what basis? We don't have any surviving Biblical texts written in a pre-Hebrew language, with the oldest inscription dated c.600 BCE, written in Biblical Hebrew using the paleo-Hebrew script (a variation of the Phoenician alphabet).

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

(2) Even if there is a lost history of Biblical texts going back that far, Hebrew evolved gradually from Canaanite, so that it's arguable whether it can be called a separate language. Some scholars have called (non-Biblical) Canaanite inscriptions from 1000 BCE "ancient Hebrew."

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

(3) Whatever the earliest textual history of individual texts, there is considerable evidence that the books of the Bible as we know them were compiled and edited in the Second Temple period, after the return from Babylonian Captivity in 539 BCE.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Which is why the idea that all the translators involved with the Bible are "divinely inspired" is bull. Such a stupid freaking argument.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

He also hated the Greeks, who specifically were sleeping with their apprentices. This line in Leviticus was specifically to condemn this Greek practice. The Jewish people long considered the practice an abomination. So the correctness here is actually really important historically.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Pretty sure the oral tradition in Leviticus (1600bc) predates Greek civilization (est 900bc) by a few hundred years

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Persians were openly gay. Very. It was a thing. That is pre-Arab Persia. Zoroastrians (even today) are very open about their LGBT community and a lot of them exist in relative safety within the community (but it gets complicated when it's with other Indian communities). The Indian Zoroastrians are called Parsis (Parsees), Freddy Mercury being perhaps the most well-known.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

I disagree. with the end there. If a fanfic causes real problems, it's a good solution to write a more popular fanfic that does not.

3 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 3

That's fair

3 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

The word "arsenokoitai" is found in the New Testament which was written in Greek. The post is talking about two different passages. It looks like a reply to something else so the context is missing, making it look like it's talking about one single passage.

3 years ago | Likes 115 Dislikes 2

It's also wrong; the word used in Leviticus 18 is used everywhere else to refer to "males" in general. The only times it is used to refer to "young boys", it explicitly has an adjective or adjectival clause to make that phrase — i.e. "young males", or "males under 1 year old". Unless they are trying to say that "the male priests" and "males over 20 years old" (both contexts in which the same word is used) are still "young boys"?

3 years ago | Likes 36 Dislikes 1

iirc isn't the question in the context of the original text? that different terms were used for the first 'man' (Hebrew/Aramaic term for a man) and then a different term for the 2nd 'man' (greek root term) implying a difference? eg- man (hebrew/aramaic) shall not lay with man (greek) as he does with a woman. since there was a stereotype (some what deserved) of greek men having relationships with younger men, the implication being anti-pederasty vs anti-homosexual

3 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 2

Context of the original text is an entire chapter of rules for "the sons of Israel" (i.e. Jewish males) - hence, it says "you should not lie with man as with woman…", not "man should not lie with man as with woman"…. And, being that it was written by the Israelites, NONE of the original text was written in Greek. https://biblehub.com/interlinear/leviticus/18-22.htm

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

nah, it's a tumblry sort of feel-good affirmation lie. I'm guessing it takes the Septuagint's Greek translation of the Torah and tweaks it for its own benefit. The amount of people in these comments that are straight up hostile to me relaying the facts that "early Judaism was homophobic, and "from the start, Christianity was homophobic as well" has been surprising, seeing how self-evident those statements are.

3 years ago | Likes 57 Dislikes 5

I've met some hostility myself too in other comments People either misunderstand these facts as being homophobic or defending of Christian homophobia, or they care about what the Bible says and they don't want it to be homophobic. Or maybe they want homophobia to be a modern invention and thus delegitimize it. But I think everyone who isn't a homophobe can agree that no matter the reason behind homophobia it has no place in modern society.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Word...though I can't even say how homophobia doesn't belong in regular society given the racism, xenophobia, sexism, &etc. that we see every day, It shouldn't, but that's another story. All that said, it feels to me that the biggest backlash is from people who are, without mincing words, terminally uninformed. Either "Christianity is welcoming and a religion of love so the contrary is hate speech," or "By describing discrimination and the justifications for it, you're enabling it," or p

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

'raps the old standby, "by challenging what I thought was a fact, you are attacking me." If someone even references the base argument, I count that as a win. At least a dialogue opened up.

3 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I haven't read anything that was out right homophonic, though it certainly wasn't positive. Most early traditions are based around survival. Don't eat pork because it can easily kill you. Don't be gay because you need babys. Do you have a decent article around the subject?

3 years ago | Likes 20 Dislikes 0

Not really, no. I have whatever knowledge I recall from college plus the (age old) idea that being a top or bottom was the really important part. But can you honestly say that a system that fears homosexual behavior so much that it's punishable by death isn't definitionally homophobic? As for the pork/trichinosis theory, my understanding is that the underlying reasoning for 'no pork' is that they're omnivorous--they eat what we eat, and we can't spare the food.

3 years ago | Likes 20 Dislikes 2

yeah if i recall in both roman and early greek cultures the 'male' and 'female' roles in sex were more contextualized around top/bottom. ie it wasn't a problem for a man (even well known men) to have gay sex as long as they were the one penetrating rather than being penetrated. however that's one of the problems with translation from ancient sources, there's tons of implied information that isn't captured in the text.

3 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Yea, good point re fear. For the pork thing, that's the current justification but it's unlikely it originated that way. The podcast 'stuff you should know' did a good episode in a similar subject. They bring up interesting examples like early wrathful gods were based around geological dangers. For example, volcanoes happen once every other generation, and so oral tradition around wrathful fire gods severs as a reminder to run away when they explode. I doubt we'll ever be able to know for sure/1

3 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 1

That's a pretty windy way of saying someone was right about something and you're not ready to accept that as fact yet

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I accept it, but nuance and clarity are important to me and generally lacking on the Internet. More a reminder to be better than anything else

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Yes if only it were so simple.

3 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0