Ainea wrote: Ptolemy, why did you have to go to an online Bible to find Revelation 21:7-8? Don't you have a copy of a Bible?
Response: Yes, of course, we have several Bibles in our house, however, since you were the one that plugged the NASB, it was only logical from an argumentative point of view to quote Biblical verse from the same source as you do.
Ainea wrote: “...If your only disagreement with Scripture is the King James Version that buy a new and better translation or learn Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Chaldean and study from the
more than 26000 manuscripts that are available...”
Response: The folloiwng is from a person who, since childhood, spoke, wrote & read ancient Hebrew & whose Biblical studies including the discussion with his teachers & fellow students of the meaning of scripture was carried on in ancient Hebrew, therefore, he knows whereof he
speaks, especially, in regards to the meaning of ancient Hebrew words in their original context.
Rabbi Gershon Caudill (heterosexual & married) states http://hometown.aol.com/ecorebbe/myhomepage/rant.html
“...Over the past decade, I have been involved in a study of the so-called anti-homosexual texts of Leviticus in the original Hebrew versions extant, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and with the help of a Catholic Priest and a Protestant Biblical Languages student at Emory University, I have studied translations of the Greek and Latin texts.
This study has involved reviewing Talmudic texts and other materials of a collateral nature to the subject matter being studied; history, anthropology, archaeology, philology, and etymology, to name but a few.
As a result of my research, I am convinced of two things.
1. THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXTS HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH HOMOSEXUALITY!”
2. The texts of Leviticus (and Deuteronomy) were utilized by the teachers and Rabbis of the Jewish religious tradition to condemn homosexuality only at a MUCH later date, about 1500 years later. This change of direction happened in the 4th to 6th centuries under THREAT from the dominant and controlling Christian governmental and ecclesiastical authorities. The theologians of the Church needed to have the perceived Jewish interpretation of the texts to be in accordance with their own commentaries and teachings on homosexuality and what they believed (falsely) to be sexual perversion.
Ainea wrote: “...Since you love to quote the Torah then you need to consider that Abraham and Sarah lived before the Law was given...”
Response: Where does the sinfulness of a thought, word or deed emanate? Is a thought, word or deed sinful in & of itself or is it dependent on who commits them or did the social status of biblical patriarchs & kings give a VIP exemption from such sins as incest & polygamy? What is a sin for everyone today had to have been a sin for everyone yesterday & 3,000 years ago as well as it will be a sin tomorrow, 3,000 years into the future & even throughout eternity.
Ainea wrote: “...Tell me Ptolemy do you have a dictionary from 1611? If not then you cannot tell me what “sodomy” meant in the 17th century since word meaning evolve over time. How do modern Bibles translate Deuteronomy 23:17?”
Response: Be kind enough to, using your dictionary from 1611, give us its meaning for the word “sodomy.”
Meanwhile, consider the following definitions of “sodomy” including
(1) http://www.etymonline.com/s8etym.htm
“...sodomy - c.1280, from O.Fr. sodomie, from L.L. peccatum Sodomiticum "anal sex," lit. "sin of Sodom," from L. Sodoma, ult. from Heb. s'dom "Sodom," morally corrupt city in ancient Palestine, said to have been destroyed, with neighboring Gomorrah, by fire from heaven (Gen. xviii-xix). Sodomize coined 1868. In Du. slang, besodemieteren means "to deceive," and evidently is built from the traditional notion of "corruption" in Sodom...”
(2) http://www.prosentient.com.au/balnaves/ ... issch4.asp
The meaning of "sodomy" expressed in Saint Thomas' third category* was probably the most common meaning throughout the middle ages. It seems to be the sense in which Bernard of Morlaix uses the word. It is perhaps the most common usage today also.
* Tertio, si fiat per concubitum ad non debitum sexum, puta masculi ad masculum, vel foeminae ad foeminam, ut Apostolus dicit ad Rom., quod dicitur sodomiticum vitium.
Translation of the above Latin passage:
“...Thirdly, if done by union with the wrong gender, such as male to male or woman to woman, as said by the apostle in Romans 1; which is called sodomitic vice...”
(3) http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/social22.htm
In the Latin language the word ‘‘sodomite’’, sodomita, existed earlier than the word ‘‘sodomy’’, sodomia. In linguistic terms the concept of the homosexual person preceded the concept of the homosexual act. The ecclesiastical phrases peccatum sodomitae or crimen sodomitae are usually translated as the sin or crime ‘‘of sodomy’’, but it is more accurate to translate them as the sin or crime ‘‘of the Sodomites’’: i.e. the sin or crime of a specific set of persons. Long before the term ‘‘sodomy’’ became the word of choice, there were a large number of Latin-based words which relate to a generalized conception of homosexuality rather than to specific acts: for example, Saint Jerome employs the forms Sodoman, in Sodomis, Sodomorum, Sodomææ, Sodomitææ
(Hallam 1993). Florio in an English-Italian dictionary of 1598 cites the following:
Sodomia, the naturall sin of Sodomie.
Sodomita, a sodomite, a buggrer.
Sodomitare, to commit the sinne of Sodomie,
Sodomitarie, sodomiticall tricks.
Sodomitico, sodomiticall
Florio uses 'Sodometrie' as an English word. Thomas Nashe referred to ‘‘the art of sodomitry’’ in 1594. Today, sodomia and sodomitia and their equivalents in various romance languages are usually but inaccurately translated as ‘‘sodomy’’, which is simply a specific sexual act, but the
more accurate (albeit infelicitous) translation is ‘‘sodomiticalness’’, which refers to a collection of characteristics encompassing licentious behaviour, i.e. a generalized (albeit negative) concept equivalent to ‘‘homosexuality’’, rather than to anal intercourse specifically. Even Aquinas defined ‘‘the vice of sodomy’’ as ‘‘male with male and female with female’’ –– which is a
relational concept rather than descriptive of a specific act (Gilbert 1980), and which in his usage refers to lesbianism as well as male homosexuality –– i.e. homosexuality tout court.
Sodom of course is the name of a town, apparently derived from Sadeh Adom, meaning ‘‘red field’’ or ‘‘field of blood’’, origin and derivation obscure. A Sodomite is a person who comes from Sodom, and by extension a person who exhibits the characteristics of the inhabitants of
Sodom. The primary Christian and Jewish term for a queer is thus a national––cultural term rather than a sexual signifier. In the Middle Ages the term ‘‘sodomy’’ could be used to describe anal intercourse, even heterosexual anal intercourse, but the word ‘‘sodomite’’ invariably meant male homosexual, whether the sex he enjoyed was anal or otherwise.‘‘Sodomite’’ from the very earliest times conjured up an identity, an identity linked to the idea of same-sexuality and a group of identity characteristics rather than anal sex...”