Bibeln säger inget om homosexualitet!
Oh, dear. I see some people objecting to my reading of "arsenokoite" in the Greek text of the New Testament and to my suggestion (hardly one I'm alone in) that "homosexual" is a mistranslation of "arsenokoite" ... by claiming that "koi-" is a root for "coitus" (sexual intercourse). But "coitus" is just a participle of the Latin verb "coire," which is a compound made from "ire" (to go) and the prefix "co-" (with). To "go with" or "get together" in Latin means to get it on. It doesn't have anything to do with Greek "koite," which is the word for "bed." Despite the fact that they sound the same, they come from completely different etymologies. Just because it -sounds- the same doesn't mean it is actually connected.
From a little digging, though, I *am* seeing claims that "koite" (bed) was used elsewhere in the Greek New Testament as a metonymy in the way that we use it in English (in which case "koitehn" *might* mean "bedded" in the same sense that we would read "bedded"), so I will look into that more as time permits and try to verify.
If that is the case, then early readers of New Testament in Greek may well have read an explicitly sexual connotation into "arsenokoite." However, suppose that is so. If indeed "-koites" (which is literally the word "beds") would or could have been read as "people having sex," it still requires a leap to suggest that " arsenokoite" is specifically "gay man." It would be *one* logical leap to make, which is why some Romans made that guess and others have since followed suit. But it would also be an equally logical leap to translate this peculiar word as "prostitutes." Or "child molesters." Or even "promiscuous players [of any gender] who seduce men," since the "-koites" grammatical ending would include both men and women, and since the Greeks were normatively bisexual.
Because we don't have any other attested occurrences of the word, if we were to determine that the word was specifically sexual, we would then need to:
(a) choose the leap of logic that appeared to best match both the context and the teachings and heart of Christ, and
(b) be humble about the fact that our choice remained a guess.
Our desire for absolute certainty on every point (which is a Western thing, and not a craving that the early, Semitic disciples of Yeshua would have shared) drives us to insist that our guesses must be right. We don't like approaching God through the "cloud of unknowing." We want all the answers. It's a way of pinning God and the universe like a butterfly on a board so that God and the universe will no longer be scary to us and we'll no longer have to worry about little things like doubt. But without the possibility of doubt, there is no possibility of faith, of trust. We don't "trust" that the sky is blue. The kind of leap into the unknown that God requires when he calls us to cross a wilderness or walk across the water, when he asks us to have faith even the size of a mustard seed so that we can move mountains if he needs us to ... that kind of leap is impossible for people who desire only certainties and clear proofs. We are a culture of Thomases. But God is not calling us to know -about- him; he calls us to -know- him, in a relational sense.
Our tendency to treat our guesses as absolute facts would be more amusing than worrisome, except that then we treat our neighbors cruelly on the basis of the guesses we've made. And that is evil. That is sin. That is the allegiance to the "letter" that Paul said kills and that Jesus said breaks God's peoples with burdens God does not need them to bear. "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." Let us remember that, and read our holy texts looking for people to love, not excuses to hate or fear. Because the apostle John teaches us that "perfect love casts out fear."
The word "perfect" there is a translation of a word that means "complete." Complete and total love casts out fear. Let us read in complete and total love, and let us read for the -purpose- of allowing God to plant the vital growth of complete and total love in our hearts. That is my plea.
A commenter raising the koite/coitus connection (which is a happenstance, not an actual etymology) suggested that I am "a workman of the devil." Well, it's possible I may be wrong about some things, which is why I am offering educated guesses (and most of them not even my own guesses, but those of a fractious but earnest community of committed scholars) and not certainties.
But I hope I am not a "workman of the devil," at least. :/
I rather think the devil's work is shown in all the murders of LGBTQ+ youth, and the suicides of people whose Christian communities have taught them that they are unloved and unlovable and will never be welcome in the Body of Christ. I think the devil's work can be seen clearly by its outcomes, even as a tree is known by its fruit.
Stant Litore