Response from Justin
Greetings Brother,
I would like to respond to your question, "Since you have decided to register on this message board and promote an abomination as normal would you care to educate us in how you can label an abomination as normal?" First off, I joined this message board to bornagainpagan's question about my site.
You assert that I am promoting an "abomination as normal," but I would never do such a thing. I believe the Bible is divinely inspired and I use it to direct my life. In studying what the Bible says about homosexuality, I have come to see that it only talks about homogeniality in the context of rape (Sodom), prostitution (1 Cor & 1 Tim), an orgy (Romans), and abusive sexual encounters (Leviticus). There simply is no blanket condemnation of homosexuality. This is all outlined in my study, but I ca respond on here to some of the verses which you quotes.
Leviticus 18:22“Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (KJV) Some affirm that this law is quite straightforward. Clearly from the previous sixteen verses, we know that these laws are written to men. Thus, some may say, this law forbids men to “lie with”, or have sex with, other men. This interpretation is flawed as it entirely ignores the phrase “as with a woman.” These four words cannot simply be understood to refer to lying sexually, since that is already clearly indicated in the Hebrew word shâkab, translated “to lie with.” If the above interpretation were what the author means he could have just written, “Thou shalt not lie with a man; it is an abomination.”
“As with a woman” must have been added for some reason, and we must understand the context of this law to understand it fully. The status of women in that time was much lower than that of men, and women were even considered property of the men. This belief regarding gender relations is rejected by most of the Christian church today, but in order to make sense of this specific Jewish law we must keep in mind this context in which it was written.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow explains, “The whole structure of sexuality in the Torah assumes a dominant male and a subordinate female.” In other words, women were obedient to men, and men in that time would have been dominating and controlling in sexual encounters. The woman did what the man wanted and how the man wanted it. For a man in a sexual
encounter to be treated in that way, within the Jewish culture of the time, the man would have be taking a lower status, as well as being sexually dominated and controlled. To do so would have been reducing him to property and in effect defiling the image of God, which man was considered in that culture.
Romans 1:24-27: "Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another…" Paul is talking about the sexual practices of the pagan religions wherein the god Baal was worshiped with sacred sexual orgies on Mt. Tabor, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. Specifically, in these sexual orgies, as Paul writes, the participants “gave up” relations with the opposite sex to have sex with members of the same gender, turning aginst their own sexuality. The Greek term translated "gave up" is aphente meaning more precisely "to divorce." The men and women divorced themselves from point A (sexual relations with opposite sex) and had sex with members of the same sex. Read it again, "men likewise gave up natural relations with women." I talk about this more in depth in my study. I too would condemn heterosexuals having homosexual sex and vice versa.
1 Corinthians 6:9 & 1 Timothy 1:10:
The word translated 'sodomites' and 'homosexuals' is the Greek word arsenokoitai, an obscure Greek word. It's appearance in the Bible is the first incidence of this word in ancient greek literature, and there are no appearances of this word in other greek literature of the time. It is made up of the adjectivial prefix "arseno" meaning male and the word "koitai," which is the plural of bed. Koitai is commmonly used as a euphamism for "one who has sex." So we have a "male who has sex." This word is used in lists in the New Testament and always follows a greek word meaning "male prostitutes." Through close historical and lexical analysis my study shows that Paul is condemning not only the male prostitute, but also the male who sleeps with them, the arsenokoitai, or the male-bed.
I would encourage you to take some time to read my study, and there are other sources in my bookstore which also look closely at these texts. I would be happy to discuss any of these texts more in depth if you wish. Just send me an email to and we can arrange something.
Blessings on you,
Justin R. Cannon
Founder of www.TruthSetsFree.net