This is tricky, so I want to give you some background info on the word Sodomite, as used in the King James Version of the Bible. This applies to the original KJV; I don't have a New KJV handy to see if it is also true there. The King James translators don't use the word Sodomite to refer to people who live/lived in Sodom! Instead they use the word Sodomite later on in the Bible, in several places, to translate the Hebrew word "Kadesh," which means "male temple prostitute" or "shrine prostitute" (plural Kedeshim). They don't use Sodomite to translate the word for the female temple prostitute, Kadesha, (plural Kedeshoth). (Sometimes the Hebrew letters are transliterated with a Q instead of a K.)
More modern translations like the NIV translate the Hebrew as male or female shrine (temple) prostitutes. That's why, if you look up Sodomite in a Lexicon or Concordance, like Strong's, you will see the definition "male temple prostitute." The word Sodomite in the KJV has nothing to do with Sodom! The connection was in the minds of the translators! There IS NO CONNECTION--either in language or in reference--in the original Hebrew between Sodom and male temple prostitutes!
How did they make such a translation error? Here's my best guess: I suspect there weren't any generally accepted words for homosexuals in the1600's,except for derogatory slang words. Remember "orientation" was not a concept; there was just the sex act. The word "homosexual" was coined by a psychiatrist in the early 1900's!!!! He was trying to create a neutral clinical word. Other words before that were "invert" and "pervert"...and I suspect "Sodomite" was created around the time the KJV was translated to describe the "despicable" act of male/male sex. The translators' bias was that the sin of Sodom was attempted male/male sex (it didn't matter if they were all straight!) The Hebrew word Kadesh later in the Bible was hard to translate, but seemed to include male/male sex. Research had not yet uncovered the practice of cult sex. Why not just coin a word that would cover both? It was such a popular word that it got into the law books and evolved over the years to mean anything from anal intercourse with either gender, to sex with animals!!! The connection with animal sex undoubtedly comes from bestiality being mentioned close to men lying with males in Leviticus!
And the original Living Bible, a paraphrase by one man, in Kings 14:24, came up with the ridiculous and false --and very harmful--phrase, "There was homosexuality in the land..." for the Hebrew meaning, "There was male cult prostitution in the land"; that, of course, the people of God found abhorrent because it was intregally linked with worshipping idols. What does your translation of the Bible say? In some US states today "Sodomy" also is defined to include oral sex with either gender--humans I mean, even a man and his wife !!!!!
It is good to keep in mind that translators, even if trying to be unbiased, are going to translate a word they can't figure out by a more general word, rather than a specific one. We're going to see this problem come up in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10, when some translators translate the Greek words "arsenokoitai" and "malakoi" as some variation of male homosexuals, because they believe the words have SOMETHING to do with male/male sex. They really can't tell the exact meaning from either the way the words are used in the Bible or in any other literature of the time. The words probably mean some type of male/male sex , such as pederasty, general prostitution, unfaithfulness, cult prostitution, or some other act most of us, gay or straight, find abhorrent, not just homosexuality in general. (Just because an adult male having sex with a young girl is immoral, does this mean all heterosexuality is wrong?)- To further complicate the matter, the RSV (another translation published in 1947, but worked on much earlier) also uses "Sodomites" to translate the Greek word "arsenokoitai" found in 1 Timothy 1:10. The same word, "arsenokoitai" is combined with another Greek word, "malakoi" and both words are combined in the minds of the translators (in the same RSV translation!) and translated as "homosexuals" in 1 Corinthians 6:9. (What does your translation say?) At first this seems very strange. They obviously didn't know what to make of this arsenokoitai word (we're still not sure; did Paul coin it)? It literally means "male-beds." Please Read On to next page for the rest of this discussion!!
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This is a discussion about the word "SODOMITE" - the Bible says "in the tongue is the power of life and death" - Proverbs 18:21
& "by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned....." - Matthew 12:37
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Shouldn't we know more about the WORD???
This is a discussion by Rev. Marj Creech of "God's Promise" Metropolitan Community Church in Granville, Ohio
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No One has the right to Limit the Boundless Love of God from ANYONE - any Race, any color, any GLBT person, any truly Seeking and Sincere Soul !!!
