LGBT arguments and the Bible
The Revisionist Answer
Arsenokoitai cannot refer to “homosexuals” because there is no preceding occurrence of this word with such a meaning. In the lists of vices, the word means “homosexual acts,” “pederasts,” or “active male prostitutes” or refers to ritual impurity. These were the prevalent forms of homosexual activity that found some disapproval in contemporary codes or among the Jews. Paul’s word cannot refer to those of a homosexual orientation or to those who live in a mutually respectful and committed homosexual relationship; these are modern phenomena, unknown to Paul.
The Biblical Answer
The English term homosexuals is an appropriate correspondent to arsenokoitai, given both ancient sexual practice and today’s usage. We have ample evidence that ancient Greeks and Romans knew about homosexual orientation and that some Greeks practiced a mutually respectful, committed homosexual relationship.
Arsenokoitai (lit. “male beds”) does not occur prior to Paul, because Paul probably coined it as he coined other terms. He almost certainly derived it from two words that occur together in the LXX of Leviticus 20:13 (arsenos koitēn, “whoever shall lie with a male a bed as a woman”).
This rendering suggests that Paul had in mind the prohibition of adult homosexuality in Leviticus. Support for this position comes from 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 and 1 Timothy 1:9–10, lists of vices that correspond, even in word order, to the Ten Commandments. In either list, Paul adds “homosexuals” to “adulterers” to expand and contemporize the prohibition of adultery, just as he does with the other commandments
