Was cult prostitution homosexuals?

In Deuteronomy, Kings, and Job, the Hebrew uses a form of qādēš (“cult prostitute”). The LXX uses a variety of words to translate this one term. Is this a reference to homosexual relations, as in the King James Bible and some other translations, which use the word sodomite?

The Revisionist Answer

There is no basis for reading homosexual connotations into the concept of “cult prostitute.” The word qādēš does not demand this, and historical records are silent. The word would more likely mean simply a female prostitute who serviced males. The LXX translates the references to “cult prostitute” in such passages by a variety of terms, showing that even these early Jewish scholars were confused as to the meaning of the Hebrew. None of the terms used suggests homosexuality. The LXX and English versions using sodomite are “mistranslations.”

The Biblical Answer

Context again informs the meaning of the Hebrew word. In Deuteronomy 23:17–18 the text refers explicitly to both female and male cult prostitutes servicing those who come to them, and forbids offering to the Lord the payment or hire for such services. 

Such offerings are an “abomination” to the Lord. References to the word dog in the Hebrew definitively show it to be a male cult prostitute. Many revisionists accept this translation. Because women were excluded from most pagan worship, the prostitution in view was almost certainly homosexual, making this the predominant form of cultic prostitution. The LXX appropriately uses Greek equivalents to the terms harlot, prostitute, and dog. Dog refers to males who debased themselves in the manner of women, often in the role of acting as agents for a deity. They were devotees of the gods and goddesses.

The LXX adds two clauses to the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 23:17, using terms that mean “sorceress,” “dedicated person,” or “initiated person.” These words refer to female and male prostitutes who were initiated to serve the mystery religions that were rampant in the ancient Near East during Hellenistic times—the era during which the LXX was translated in the third or second century B.C.

The other translations for the Hebrew qādēš include syndesmos (“binding,” “union,” in 1 Kings 14:24); teletas (“initiate,” “devotee,” in 1 Kings 15:12); endiellagmenou (“changed,” “perverted,” in Codex Alexandrinus at 1 Kings 22:47); kadesim (a Greek way to transliterate the Hebrew qādēšim in 2 Kings 23:7); and titrōskomenē (“wounded,” “crushed,” “pierced,” in Job 36:14).

All of these terms represent obvious attempts to use terms correlating to contemporary forms of male cultic prostitution in the mystery religions and elsewhere in their day. Historians of the era of the LXX (e.g., Livy, 59 B.C.–A.D. 17) speak of the homosexuality practiced in mystery religions. Contextualization in the LXX neither contradicts nor violates the meaning of the Hebrew text, because the cultic homosexual idea was there already. The LXX is a reliable translation at these points.

Historical data from all over the ancient East show that ancient peoples practiced homosexuality in various forms. Male temple prostitutes who serviced men were common. Certain forms were punished