arsenokoitai scroggs cont dr james deyoung r scroggs robin scroggs has built upon the discussion of his predecessors and suggested a new twist to the word scroggs believes that arsenokoitai is a hellenistic jewish coinage perhaps influenced by awareness of rabbinic terminology the term is derived from lev where the lxx juxtaposes the two words arsenos male and koiten bed and represents the hebrew miskab zabar lying with a male yet he believes that paul did not originate the term but borrowed it from circles of hellenistic jews acquainted with rabbinic discussions n it was invented to avoid contact with the usual greek terminology if this is true scroggs observes it explains why the word does not appear in greco roman discussions of pederasty and why later patristic writers avoided it it was meaningless to native speaking greeks scroggs takes the second part as the active word and the first word as the object of the second part thus differing from boswell s learned discussion yet scroggs understands the general meaning of one who lies with a male to have a very narrow reference with the preceding malokoi i cor which scroggs interprets as the effeminate call boy arsenokoitai is the active partner who keeps the malakos of the mistress or who hires him on occasion to satisfy his sexual desires hence arsenokoitai does not refer to homosexuality in general to female homosexuality or to the generic model of pederasty it certainly cannot refer to the modern gay model he affirms this is scrogg s interpretation of the term in i tim also the combination of pornoi fornicators arsenokoitai and andrapodistai slave dealers refers to male prostitutes males who lie with them and slave dealers who procure them it again refers to that specific form of pederasty which consisted of the enslaving of boys as youths for sexual purposes and the use of these boys by adult males even serious minded pagan authors condemned this form of pederasty he then uses these instances of arsenokoitai in i cor and i tim to interpret the apparently general condemnation of both female and male homosexuality in rom consequently paul must have had could only have had pederasty in mind we cannot know what paul would have said about the contemporary model of adult adult mutuality in same sex relation ships in relating these terms to the context and to contemporary ethical concerns scroggs emphasizes the point that the specific items in the list of vices in i cor have no deliberate intended meaning in paul the form and function of the catalogue of vices are traditional and stereotyped any relationship between an individual item in the list and the context was usually nonexistent he concludes that paul does not care about any specific item in the lists both on the basis of the meaning of the terms and of the literary phenomenon of a catalogue of vices scroggs argues that the scriptures are irrelevant and provide no help in the heated debate today the model in today s christian homosexual community is so different from the model attacked by the nt that biblical judgments against homosexuality are not relevant to today s debate they should no longer be used in denominational discussions about homosexuality should in no way be a weapon to justify refusal of ordination reactions to the new interpretations of arsenokoitai d wright in more recent years the positions of bailey boswell and scroggs have come under closer scrutiny perhaps the most critical evaluation of boswell s view is that by david wright in his thorough article wright points out several shortcomings of boswell s treatment of arsenokoitai he faults boswell for failing to cite or citing inaccurately all the references to lev and in the church fathers such as eusebius the apostolic constitutions clement of alexandria tertullian and origen boswell has not considered seriously enough the possibility that the term derives either its form or its meaning from the leviticus passages this is significant for if the term is so derived it clearly refutes boswell s claim that the first half of the word arseno denotes not the object but the gender of the second half koitai the lxx must mean a male who sleeps with a male making arseno the object wright also faults boswell s claims regarding linguistic features of the term including suggested parallels though boswell claims that compounds with arseno employ it objectively and those with arreno employ it as an adjective wright believes that the difference between the two is merely one of dialectical diversity no semantic import attaches to the difference between the two forms wright believes that in most compounds in which the second half is a verb or has a verbal force the first half denotes its object and where the second part is substantival the first half denotes its gender it is with boswell s treatment of the early church fathers that wright takes special issue because the former has failed to cite all the sources for example aristides apology c ad probably uses arrenomaneis androbaten and arsenokoitias all with the same basic meaning of male homosexuality contrary to boswell s discussion boswell fails to cite hippolytus refut omn haer and improperly cites eusebius and the syriac writer bardensanes the latter uses syriac terms that are identical to the syriac of i cor and i tim next wright shows how the early church fathers use arsenokoitai in parallel with paidophthoria referring to male homosexuality with teenagers the dominant form of male homosexuality among the greeks sometimes this parallelism occurs in the threefold listings of moicheia adultery porneia fornication and paidophthoria with arsenokoitai replacing paidophthoris clement of alexandria in protr cites the second table of the ten commandments as you shall not kill ou moicheuseis you shall not commit adultery ou paidophthoreseis you shall not practice homosexuality with boys you shall not steal n another occurrence of arsenokoitein commit homosexuality exists in the sibylline oracles it may be wright observes that the word was coined by a jewish pre christian writer in a hellenistic setting represented by or sib book wright also discusses uses of arsenokoitai in rhetorius th c who drew upon the first century ad writer teucer in macarius th th c and in john the faster d the last in particular bears the idea of homosexual intercourse contrary to boswell wright next replies to boswell s contention that the term would not be absent from so much literature about homosexuality if that is what it denoted wright points out that it should not be expected in writers prior to the first century ad since it did not exist before then that the greeks used dozens of words and phrases to refer to homosexuality that some sources e g didache show no acquaintance with paul s letters or deliberately avoid citing scripture and that boswell neglects citing several church fathers boswell s treatment of chrysostom in particular draws wright s attention boswell conspicuously misrepresents the witness of chrysostom omitting references and asserting what is patently untrue chrysostom gives a long uncompromising and clear indictment of homosexuality in his homily on rom boswell has exaggerated chrysostom s infrequent use of the term wright observes that boswell has signally failed to demonstrate any us of arsenokoites etc in which it patently does not denote male homosexual activity it is infrequent because of its relatively technical nature and the availability of such a term as paidophthoria that more clearly specified the prevailing form of male homosexuality in the greco roman world wright also surveys the latin syriac and coptic translations of i tim and i cor all three render arsenokoitai with words that reflect the meaning homosexual i e they understand arseno as the object of the second half of the word none of these primary versions supports boswell s limited conclusion based on them wright concludes his discussion with a few observations about the catalogues of vices as a literary form he believes that such lists developed in late judaism as hellenistic jews wrote in clear condemnation of homosexuality in the greek world this paralleled the increased concern on the part of moral philosophers over homosexual indulgence the term came into being under the influence of the lxx so that writers spoke generally of male activity with males rather than specifically categorized male sexual engagement with paides if arsenokoitai and paidophthoria were interchangeable it is because the former encompassed the latter in summary wright seeks to show that arsenokoitai is a broad term meaning homosexuality and arises with judaism the views of boswell scroggs and others who limit the term to active male prostitutes or pederasty are without significant support from linguistic and historical studies next the questioning of wrights position by william peterson after that we get into the good stuff of historical linguistic studies this will include symposium by plato if there is any doubt as to the modern understanding of homosexuality being understood or contemmplated at the time of paul this will certainly clear things up also we will review paul s use of lev in the nt and how as for him the law was fulfilled but not done away with lev was the universal and the following chapters the general those who put forth that the ot no longer holds true today in our culture should stick around for this one r scroggs the new testament and homosexuality phil independently we came to the same conclusion apparently the connection is made in e a sophocles greek lexicon of the roman byzantine periods from bc to ad see discussion he says the same thing about paul s language in rom but this is doubtful see the more cautious words of p zaas i cor ff was homosexuality condoned in the corinthian church sblasp he observes that the words moixai malakoi and arsenokoitai were part of jewish anti gentile polemic yet paul s wors at the end of the vice list and such were some of you indicate that paul is addressing real or potential abuses of his ethical message not citing primitive tradition by rote wright disputes zaas attempt to associate the term with idolatry on boswell s treatment of rom the article by r b hays relations natural and unnatural a response to john boswell s exegesis of romans jre spring is an excellent critique d f wright homosexuals or prostitutes the meaning of arsenokoitai i cor i tim vc in an unpublished paper henry mendell arsenokoitai boswell on paul effectively refutres boswell s claims regarding the philology of arsenokoitai he finds the meaning to be general a male who has sex with a male wright s endnotes list additional sources in the church fathers we also have noticed the same tendency by boswell to fail to cite all the references to sodom and sodomy in the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha see j b deyoung a critique of prohomosexual interpretations of the ot apocrypha and pseudepigrapha bsac in light of the claim made by boswell that the infrequency of arsenokoitai points to a meaning lacking homosexual significance wright asks pertinently why neither philo nor josephus use paidofthoria nor josephus paiderastia and why clement did not use the latter and chrysostom the former n in a more recent article homosexuality the relevance of the bible evq wright reiterates these same points paul shows a remarkable originality in extending the ot ethic to the church
