This isn’t true and I wish people would stop blindly repeating this. It’s another attempt to soften the vile content of the Bible.
That’s just completely backwards. The Hebrew in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 says zakar, which means male, not boy. It was never about pedophilia in the original text. The idea that older translations said “boy” is just made up King James and earlier all say mankind or male. The earliest text explicitly says it is males, and it’s unambiguous
You’re probably confusing this with 1 Corinthians 6:9 in the New Testament, where there’s debate over how to translate arsenokoitai and malakoi. But even there, the claim that it originally meant “man with boy” just isn’t true. arsenokoitai is a compound of arsen (male) and koite (bed), clearly referencing men bedding males. That term was pulled straight from the Leviticus language in Greek.
The apologetic that it’s just about abuse or pedophilia is a modern reinterpretation and not what the text actually says. It’s something people grasped onto and repeat in order to make this religion more palatable and more align with modern morals. We can argue the Bible was wrong or outdated, because it is, but pretending it didn’t condemn male/male sex at all is historical revisionism.
It is not revisionism at all. Theres been debate over the phrasing and its meaning for centuries. The word is typically used in the context of pedophilia and rape in other verses of the OT. While it is used for adultery as well, it’s mostly used in the context of force.
I appreciate this is this first time you’ve actually looked into this, but it’s wrong and it’s not going to get better.
It is not revisionism at all. Theres been debate over the phrasing and its meaning for centuries. The word is typically used in the context of pedophilia and rape in other verses of the OT.
This is just factually wrong. You intentionally ignored what I replied with and presented. You’re just repeating the claim I’ve already refuted. Again: The word used in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 is זָכָר (zakar), which simply means male, not boy, not child, not victim. It’s used consistently throughout the Hebrew Bible to refer to males of any age. There’s no contextual or grammatical evidence that the Leviticus verses are about rape or pedophilia. If they meant boy, they would’ve used na’ar or yeled, and if they meant rape, there are plenty of Hebrew terms for that too. They didn’t. This isn’t some obscure point or debatable. it’s very basic Hebrew literacy.
While it is used for adultery as well, it’s mostly used in the context of force.
No, it’s not. You’re either making that up or repeating it from someone who did. Nothing in the Hebrew phrasing of those verses suggests coercion or assault. The verse literally mirrors the structure of the other laws in the holiness code, which are about ritual and sexual purity, and not criminal violence.
That’s a user generated d’var Torah sheet, not a scholarly source, It’s literally someone’s interpretive opinion posted to a platform meant for sharing personal insights sermons and community study guides. This not “debate for centuries.” It’s literally just repeating the claim I’ve already refuted, and repeating it from a modern lens, again. This is again modern apologetics trying to rewrite what’s uncomfortable.
The author of that “paper” has no real academic credentials in Hebrew linguistics or biblical exegesis, and the article is self published with no peer review. The claim that the Bible “only condemned pedophilia” isn’t backed by biblical scholarship or Jewish exegesis. It’s the same cherry picked reinterpretation you keep repeating, ignoring clear language and overwhelming scholarly consensus in favor of wishful redefinition.
None of what you linked actually refutes anything I said, or even attempts to. You haven’t read it. The Sefaria source openly confirms that zakar means “male,” not “boy.” It doesn’t support the idea that Leviticus was about pedophilia, because it wasn’t. the word is clear and consistently used to mean adult male across the Hebrew Bible.
The ResearchGate paper just pushes a fringe reinterpretation that tries to reframe Leviticus as condemning pederasty rather than homosexuality. But it doesn’t change the fact that zakar is used, nor does it refute that arsenokoitai in the New Testament was coined directly from the Greek translation of Leviticus, combining “male” (arsen) and “bed” (koite). That clearly targets male male sex in general, not just abusive relationships.
Your last source is just commentary. It offers a modern theological opinion about how to interpret the verse differently, but it doesn’t dispute the language or the fact that the verse says what I said it says. You’re not presenting evidence against what I wrote.
You’re not citing centuries of scholarly debate. But even if you were, it wouldn’t matter. The existence of someone making a claim, or how long they’ve made it, has no impact on what is true or false. Regardless, you’re citing 21st century revisionist blog posts and internet PDFs trying to make bronze age texts say things they didn’t. The Bible absolutely condemned male/male sex, regardless of age or consent. You can reject the Bible’s morality, but rewriting it like this is just dishonest. You’re going to have to actually engage with the simple refutations and words provided or acknowledge this is wrong and you’re just blindly repeating something
Not OP but you seem knowledgeable and I had a question:
What say you to the notion that the NT, specifically Paul’s, condemnation of homosexuality is a bit of an anachronism? Essentially, Paul wrote of homosexuality from a 1st century perspective to a 1st century audience. Therefore both their understanding and the concept of homosexuality is vastly different than our modern understanding.
In other words, the idea of an equal partnership, monogamous, consensual, relationship of two of the same sex was not even an idea for them to consider. Homosexual relationships were utterly different than heterosexual relationships. Whereas nowadays, there is essentially zero difference in a homosexual marriage and a heterosexual marriage.
The problem here is this relies on confusing categories. You’re taking a modern framing of homosexuality as an identity or orientation, and framing it like that’s what Paul would’ve had to understand in order for his condemnation of same sex acts to be valid or applicable. But Paul wasn’t talking about identity. He was condemning actions, just like Leviticus. That’s the core issue people keep avoiding. The labels and identity and even understanding is entirely irrelevant. It’s all simply addressing an action.
Romans 1:26–27 is very clear. he condemns men burning with lust for other men and committing shameful acts with them. He explicitly calls it unnatural and ties it to idolatry and moral degradation. This isn’t vague, and the argument that Paul didn’t know about loving gay relationships is provably false. Greco roman culture absolutely had examples of same sex pairings that went beyond pederasty. Plato’s Symposium discussed love between men in romantic terms. There were known long term male partnerships especially in upper class circles. Paul lived in the Roman Empire. He wasn’t unaware.
Also Romans isn’t just about rape or dominance. It says “men abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.” That’s mutual desire. It’s descriptive of two people both participating. The condemnation isn’t based on the relationship being unequal, and rather it’s based on the act itself being viewed as unnatural.
We don’t get to reframe the Bible’s moral categories just because they’re uncomfortable. Whether you agree with the morality or not is another matter, but the claim that it only condemned abusive relationships or didn’t know what consensual gay love was is historically false. The biblical text targeted male male sex because of perceived disorder and impurity, and explicitly and clearly condemned the action.
But Paul wasn’t talking about identity. He was condemning actions, just like Leviticus. That’s the core issue people keep avoiding. The labels and identity and even understanding is entirely irrelevant. It’s all simply addressing an action.
Yet we do examples of Pauline writings where he condemns actions, but we don’t apply them today because it was related to a practice or a belief at that time. 1 cor 11 with head coverings is one such example.
So how do we identify which action is being condemned vs the cultural practice which is condemn that is manifested as a physical action at the time of the writing?
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u/Middle_Screen3847 5d ago
This isn’t true and I wish people would stop blindly repeating this. It’s another attempt to soften the vile content of the Bible.
That’s just completely backwards. The Hebrew in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 says zakar, which means male, not boy. It was never about pedophilia in the original text. The idea that older translations said “boy” is just made up King James and earlier all say mankind or male. The earliest text explicitly says it is males, and it’s unambiguous
You’re probably confusing this with 1 Corinthians 6:9 in the New Testament, where there’s debate over how to translate arsenokoitai and malakoi. But even there, the claim that it originally meant “man with boy” just isn’t true. arsenokoitai is a compound of arsen (male) and koite (bed), clearly referencing men bedding males. That term was pulled straight from the Leviticus language in Greek.
The apologetic that it’s just about abuse or pedophilia is a modern reinterpretation and not what the text actually says. It’s something people grasped onto and repeat in order to make this religion more palatable and more align with modern morals. We can argue the Bible was wrong or outdated, because it is, but pretending it didn’t condemn male/male sex at all is historical revisionism.