From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Mon Aug 11 2003 - 15:20:02 EDT
John W Burgeson wrote:
>
> George wrote: "I think it's plausible that Paul (& his contemporaries)
> did not have anything
> like our modern understanding of sexual orientation."
>
> Plausible? I'd say "highly improbable." Unless one holds that Paul, when
> penning letters that later became scripture, was supernaturally informed
> of all relevant knowledge. Which position, I understand, some folks do
> hold.
"What we [may] have here is a failure to communicate." I said it's plausible
that they did NOT have anything like our modern understanding ... ." This seems to me
to differ only in degree from your statement - espcially because of my qualification
"anything like."
> "But it seems very unlikely that he wasn't aware that homosexual activity
> sometimes took place outside settings of pagan ritual. "
>
> Robert commented on this, and I can add little beyond my remarks of
> yesterday. Maybe we could agree upon the wording "I think it's plausible
> that Paul MIGHT have been aware that homosexual activity sometimes took
> place outside settings of pagan ritual. " I could buy that much. "Aware
> of" does not mean one thinks of it when penning a letter such as Romans,
> of course.
Here I'd say it's highly unlikely that he _didn't_ know of such ritual activity.
E.g., the sexual activity that took place between men & boys in Greek society wasn't of
that character. Paul wasn't modern but he wasn't ignorant.
> "& was there any significant lesbian pagan ritual?"
>
> I am not aware of any, but that's not my area of expertise. <G>
Nor is it in mine, but this seems to me a non-trivial point. If there wasn't
any significant amount of such activity in pagan ritual then Paul's inclusion of it
argues against the thesis that it's homosexual activity in such settings that he's
criticizing in Rom.1.
(It's also worth noting that Romans 1:18-31 seems to have Wisdom 14:12-31 as
part of its background, & in particular the mention of "sex perversion" in Wisd.14:27
corresponds to Rom.1:26-26 - though Paul moves this to the head of the list. If this is
so then Paul doesn't have just the sins of contemporary society in view.)
> On 8/7 you wrote: "I just finished a 5 page essay for preachers for this
> coming Sunday,
> tied to lectionary texts & the issues raised at the Episcopal convention,
> for an
> internet sermon resource. "
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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