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Subject: ARSENOKOITAI: Scroggs (#3)
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Date: 20 May 93 09:02:22 GMT
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[cont. Dr. James DeYoung; #3]

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 18"22 & 20:13 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" (180 n.14).  It was invented to avoid
"contact with the usual Greek terminology" (108).  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 (108).

     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"
(107).  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 6:9),
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" (108).  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 (109).
     This is Scrogg's interpretation of the term in I Tim 1:10 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]" (120).  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" (121).  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 1. 
Consequently Paul "Must have had, could only have had pederasty in mind" (122).
We cannot know what Paul would have said about the "contemporary model of
adult/adult mutuality in same sex relation ships" (122).

     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 6 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" (104). 

     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" (129).  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. . . " (127).

      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
18:22 and 20:13 in the church fathers, such as Eusebius, the "Apostolic
Constitutions,"  Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen (127-28). 
Boswell has not considered seriously enough the possibility that the term
derives either its form or its meaning from the Leviticus passages (129).  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 (129).  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" (131).  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" (132). 

     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 138) probably uses arrenomaneis,
androbaten, and arsenokoitias all with the same basic meaning of male
homosexuality (133), contrary to Boswell's discussion.  Boswell fails to cite
Hippolytus (Refut. Omn. Haer. 5:26:22-23) and improperly cites Eusebius and the
Syriac writer Bardensanes.  The latter uses Syriac terms that are identical to
the Syriac of I Cor 6:9 and I Tim 1:10 (133-34). 

     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 (134).  Sometimes this
parallelism occurs in the threefold listings of moicheia ("adultery"), porneia
("fornication"), and paidophthoria, with arsenokoitai replacing paidophthoris
(136).  Clement of Alexandria in Protr. 10:108:5 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. . ." (150 n. 43).

     Another occurrence of arsenokoitein ("commit homosexuality") exists in the
Sibylline Oracles 2:71-73.  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 2 (137-38).

     Wright also discusses uses of arsenokoitai in Rhetorius (6th c.) who drew
upon the first century AD writer Teucer, in Macarius (4th-5th c.), and in John
the Faster (d. 595) (139-40).  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
(140-41).  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 (140-41). 

     Boswell's treatment of Chrysostom in particular draws Wright's attention
(141-44).  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
1:26.  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" (144).  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 (144-45).  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 (145) so that writers spoke "generally of
male activity with males rather than specifically categorized male sexual
engagement with paides" (146).  If arsenokoitai and paidophthoria were
interchangeable, it is because the former encompassed the latter (146).

     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
Lev18-20 in the NT and how, as for him, 1) the Law was fulfilled, but not done
away with, 2) Lev 18-20 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.]
___________________________
13 R. Scroggs, THe New Testament and Homosexuality (Phil: 1983) 86, 107-8. 
Independently we came to the same conclusion.  Apparently the connection is
made in E.A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman & Byzantine Periods (from
146BC to AD 1100).
14   See discussion, 101-4.  He says the same thing about Paul's language in
Rom 1:26-27 (128).  But this is doubtful.  See the more cautious words of P.
Zaas, "I Cor 6.9ff: Was Homosexuality Condoned in the Corinthian Church? SBLASP
17 (1979):205-12.  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" (210).  Wright disputes Zaas' attempt to associate the term with idolatry
(147).
15  On Boswell's treatment of Rom 1:26-7, the article by R.B. Hays, "Relations
Natural and Unnatural"  A Response to John Boswell's Exegesis of Romans 1," JRE
14/1 (Spring 1986): 184-215, is an excellent critique.
16  D.F. Wright, "Homosexuals or Prostitutes?  The Meaning of ARSENOKOITAI (I
Cor 6:9, I Tim 1:10), VC 38 (1984):125-53.
17  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" (4-11).  
18  Wright's endnotes (148-49) list additional sources in the church fathers.
19   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 146/588 (1990):437-53.
20   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?"  (152 n.
71)  In a more recent article, "Homosexuality: The Relevance of the Bible," EvQ
61 (1989):291-300, Wright reiterates these same points.  Paul shows a
"remarkable originality" in extending the OT ethic to the church (300).

 
