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The word homosexual in translations

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by TadQueasy, Jun 29, 2015.

  1. TadQueasy

    TadQueasy Member

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    One of the latest statements I have been seeing all over now is that the word homosexual did not appear in translations until 1946.

    How do we handle this statement in the discussion?
     
  2. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Simple. The word in Biblical days was sodomy. Nowadays it's homosexuality.
     
  3. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    It's typical English-centric thinking. That is, whoever says such a thing usually has no knowledge of other languages.

    The term in the Classical Japanese Bible (1917) is 男色, (danshoku), meaning homosexual, and is the same word used in modern Japanese Bibles. The term in the Chinese Union Bible (1919) is the same, 男色, again meaning homosexual.

    What is more important is the meaning of words in the original languages. The Greek of 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10 is arsenoikoites. This word clearly meant "homosexual" to 1st century Greeks, as any good koine Greek lexicon will say.
     
  4. Van

    Van Well-Known Member
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    Do not fall into the trap of referring to "homosexuality" but instead refer to homosexual behavior. The dark side will claim they were born gay, thus their "homosexuality" is genetic, and to reject them is the same as rejecting blacks or short people.

    And, the other tactic is to claim the Greek word does not refer homosexual behavior. This is the liberal tool of redefining the meaning of words to rewrite scripture.

    Wycliff has it as "they that do lechery with men," and thus the avoidance of specifics too depraved to print.
     
    #4 Van, Jun 29, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 29, 2015
  5. Scarlett O.

    Scarlett O. Moderator
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    The literal word homosexual and the literal word heterosexual were not even COINED until the late 1890's by some psychologists.

    What IS in the Bible [1 Corinthians 6] is the English word, "effeminate" and it's translated from Greek word μαλακός [mä-lä-ko's] and it means [a] a male prostitute (for men), or a boy kept for sexual relations with a man, or [c] a male who gives his body over to lewd behavior.

    That's all I looked up.

    To claim that the literal word, homosexual, wasn't in the English Bible until later shows ignorance of how languages change words but do not change meanings. The whole purpose of translating the Bible into different languages with different words that still mean the same thing was/is to put the Bible into the languages of the people.
     
  6. TadQueasy

    TadQueasy Member

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    Thanks guys, some good stuff here.
     
  7. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Yes, the German word 'homosexuale' was coined in 1880 by German psychologist Gustav Jager, in Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, and rendered as "homosexual" in 1892 in C. G. Chaddock's English translation of that work.

    Previously, the clinical term had been "sexual inversion".

    The use of 'gay' as slang for HS, especially males, began in the USA shortly before the Pearl harbor attack. Many teens use 'gay' to mean bad, undesirable, inferior', with no connection to sexuality. (What a GAY movie; it stunk!)

    The use of "queer" as slang for a HS, especially a male, was first known in the USA 1922. While "lesbian" as a noun for a female HS was first recorded in the USA in 1925, the use of the adjective "lesbianism" with the same meaning dates back some hundred years earlier.

    The term 'dyke' for a female HS was first noted in the USA in 1921, as a garbling and contraction of "hermaphrodite".

    With that outta the way, 'sodomite' and 'sodomy' now have different meanings and are seldom-if-ever used in modern English to mean a HS. The term 'homosexual' has become the accepted term for a person sexually attracted to one's own gender, and is the term used in modern Bible translations. It's not found in the KJV for the simple reason that word was not around in 1611.

    But no matter what we call it, it's still an ABOMINATION BEFORE GOD!
     
  8. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely correct. Stop letting them frame the conversation. Scripture speaks to the homosexual offense and that is sex in a manner not prescribed by God---and that's gay or lesbian.

    It doesn't matter how a person was born. God commands us to not commit adultery just as He commands man to not lie with another man or a woman with another woman.
     
  9. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    Same thing with dinosaurs. They say dinosaurs aren't mentioned In the bible but the word didn't come into being until the mid-1800s. Before that every big lizard was called a dragon. And dragons ARE mentioned in scripture.
     
  10. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    By pointing out that Paul in Romans 1 was describing gay lifestyles as being against nature and order of God, as always always condemned in the scriptures!
     
  11. JohnDeereFan

    JohnDeereFan Well-Known Member
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    I would just point out that it isn't the word "homosexual" the Bible calls a sin, but the act of homosexuality, whether that act is describe by "homosexuality", "lying with a man as with a woman", "arsenokoites", or just good ol' "unnatural relations".

    Therefore, our argument isn't based on the word, but on the act.

    James White just did a really good three part series on this in case you're interested in googling it.
     
    #11 JohnDeereFan, Jul 11, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 11, 2015
  12. JohnDeereFan

    JohnDeereFan Well-Known Member
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    On a related note, it's also what Michael Horton calls "chronological snobbery", the idea that everybody who lived before you must have been an idiot, or that the truth must have been hidden for thousands of years until this generation finally figured it out.

    I get that argument all the time: "Paul couldn't have possibly been referring to homosexuality because they didn't know what homosexuality was then".

    That, and, "Oh, that's not an example of homosexuality. That's just an example of pederasty", as if that's any better and as if pederasty can't also be an expression of homosexuality.
     
  13. Bro. James

    Bro. James Well-Known Member
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    Methinks maybe we are not getting the message: "It matters not what the scripture says." There is a new definition anyway: alternative lifestyle--not abomination. There is a reformed definition for abortion: freedom of choice--not murder.

    Check out the revised code of conduct for Baylor University--a Baptist University??

    How many souls were left when God burned Sodom and Gomorrah? "God is longsuffering to us ward, not will that any should perish..."

    Now what?

    Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

    Bro. James
     
    #13 Bro. James, Jul 11, 2015
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  14. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Homosexuality was known so well to the classical Greek writers that it was written about in detail by several, so much so that most of the translators into English did not translate such passages. This is delineated in a book by Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility: a History of Translation.
     
  15. JohnDeereFan

    JohnDeereFan Well-Known Member
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    I know. Sometimes I'll cite examples. Of course, they just ignore it.
     
  16. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    But we also need to agree with the Apostle paul that it is even worse of a deviation, as it goes against natural order and creation itself!
     
  17. Hezekiah

    Hezekiah New Member
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    This is a good point. Francis Collins, the gifted physician-geneticist and leader of the Human Genome Project, as well as Bible-believing Christian, wrote:

    "An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis of homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20% (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations."​
     
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