Is premarital sex really a sin?

[Sonofason]

Really? I am assuming that you have a thorough command of ancient Greek and Hebrew, then, and that you are familiar with the idiomatic expressions used in the relevant periods, which presupposes familiarity with a much larger body of literature, Christian and otherwise.

yes. Cite the verses.

 

[JerryL]

I told you to cite the verses, and you did not. I don't care much for reading through your atheistic websites. Just cite the verses. I'll be happy to end our discussion now.

No. You didn't tell me to cite anything. You are confusing me with another poster.

And he did cite verses. And he did call out the fallacy of your Biblical understanding.

You are just attempting to obfuscate.

 

[Sonofason]

No. You didn't tell me to cite anything. You are confusing me with another poster.

And he did cite verses. And he did call out the fallacy of your Biblical understanding.

You are just attempting to obfuscate.

Just cite the verses scripture.

 

[gsa]

Just cite the verses scripture.

I did, by way of Glancy, who is discussing specific provisions of Thessalonians and, if you went to the link, Corinthians. But your entire approach to the Christian scriptures is flawed; they do not carry meaning independent of their context. You cannot take a letter on theological, doctrinal and moral instruction from two thousand years ago and simply read a translation of it today and apply it.

Consider the following observation: There is considerable dispute over the meaning of Shakespeare today. This dispute persists even though we can more or less all read Elizabethan English and we have far more information about the period than we do of the Second Temple era. We not only have to overcome another thousand years of history to read Paul and the early Christian authors (and even more time to read ancient Hebrew), we have to do it in languages that we are not fluent in, aided by far fewer contemporary written sources and in the context of a totally and radically alien culture.

Can this be done? Maybe, but certainly not easily and not with the kind of arrogance typical of Abrahamic literalism. You express an amazing degree of certainty with Leviticus 20:13, for example, even though, as I have pointed out, it contains an idiom that appears no where else in the Tanakh. Do you understand how presumptuous it is to claim to decipher and understand such an idiom in the absence of any corroboration? The phrase mishk'vei ishah, which is the prohibition that is described in 18:22 and repeated in 20:13, is a hapax legomenon, which means that we must resort to analogy to different idioms to uncover its meaning, if understanding is even possible. It is also unattested outside of the direct commentary on the phrase that is hundreds or thousands of years following it. It has unusual features and pairings of nouns that suggest the idiomatic meaning may be forever lost to us.

In the face of such things, you say there is a clear command, one decreed by the creator of the universe. How do you reach conclusions like that? The answer is tradition, not the text, and tradition is a poor guide for understanding this particular text. Presumably you have rejected the cosmological presuppositions of the same text (i.e., that the world is a dome with water above and below separated by a firmament), which might in fact be vital to understanding the prohibitions on mixing and how the Israelites understood things to have cosmic significance. And all of this assumes that the texts are relatively well thought out consistent accounts of law and narrative, which they are clearly not.

 

[JerryL]

No. You didn't tell me to cite anything. You are confusing me with another poster.

Just cite the verses scripture.

Seriously. What is wrong with you?

 

[Sonofason]

I did, by way of Glancy, who is discussing specific provisions of Thessalonians and, if you went to the link, Corinthians. But your entire approach to the Christian scriptures is flawed; they do not carry meaning independent of their context. You cannot take a letter on theological, doctrinal and moral instruction from two thousand years ago and simply read a translation of it today and apply it.

Consider the following observation: There is considerable dispute over the meaning of Shakespeare today. This dispute persists even though we can more or less all read Elizabethan English and we have far more information about the period than we do of the Second Temple era. We not only have to overcome another thousand years of history to read Paul and the early Christian authors (and even more time to read ancient Hebrew), we have to do it in languages that we are not fluent in, aided by far fewer contemporary written sources and in the context of a totally and radically alien culture.

Can this be done? Maybe, but certainly not easily and not with the kind of arrogance typical of Abrahamic literalism. You express an amazing degree of certainty with Leviticus 20:13, for example, even though, as I have pointed out, it contains an idiom that appears no where else in the Tanakh. Do you understand how presumptuous it is to claim to decipher and understand such an idiom in the absence of any corroboration? The phrase mishk'vei ishah, which is the prohibition that is described in 18:22 and repeated in 20:13, is a hapax legomenon, which means that we must resort to analogy to different idioms to uncover its meaning, if understanding is even possible. It is also unattested outside of the direct commentary on the phrase that is hundreds or thousands of years following it. It has unusual features and pairings of nouns that suggest the idiomatic meaning may be forever lost to us.

In the face of such things, you say there is a clear command, one decreed by the creator of the universe. How do you reach conclusions like that? The answer is tradition, not the text, and tradition is a poor guide for understanding this particular text. Presumably you have rejected the cosmological presuppositions of the same text (i.e., that the world is a dome with water above and below separated by a firmament), which might in fact be vital to understanding the prohibitions on mixing and how the Israelites understood things to have cosmic significance. And all of this assumes that the texts are relatively well thought out consistent accounts of law and narrative, which they are clearly not.

I honestly don't need a bible to know that God condemns homosexual conduct. It is obvious to me that such conduct is an abomination to God. So I'll pass on your opinion.

 

[gsa]

I honestly don't need a bible to know that God condemns homosexual conduct. It is obvious to me that such conduct is an abomination to God. So I'll pass on your opinion.

Right. Those self-evident truths asserting themselves again...

 

[Harikrish]

Homosexuality is ranked no worse than other sins. The Church has to respect that. They allow pedophiles to become priests. Which is more egregious, children sexual victims or consenting adults finding same sex partners?


1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

 

[sojourner]

I honestly don't need a bible to know that God condemns homosexual conduct. It is obvious to me that such conduct is an abomination to God. So I'll pass on your opinion.

How? How is it "obvious that God condemns homosexual conduct?" How do you know what God condemns or condones without reading the bible? How is it obvious that "such conduct is an abomination to God?" Be specific and terse.

 

[Harikrish]

Jesus was unemployed and at 30 remained unmarried. Some priests believe there is an explanation for this oddity.

Was Jesus gay? Probably

Was Jesus gay? Probably | Paul Oestreicher | Comment is free | The Guardian

Montefiore exhibited in 1967, when he was invited to lecture to the Modern Churchman's Union at Somerville College, Oxford. Knowing it was an open lecture, he nevertheless put forward the theory that because Jesus had remained unmarried, an unusual occurrence for a Jew of his age and time, he might have been homosexually inclined.


Obituary: The Rt Rev Hugh Montefiore | World news | The Guardian

 

[1prophet]

PRE-MARITAL SEX IS NOT A SIN. THE SEX LAWS ARE GIVEN IN THE TORAH IN 2 PLACES - LEVITICUS 18 IS ONE. GO READ THEM. THERE IS NOTHING THERE THAT SAYS YOU MUST BE MARRIED TO HAVE SEX. IN FACT THE BIBLE DOES NOT CLEARLY DEFINE MARRIAGE.

MANY PATRIARCHS HAD MULTIPLE WIVES TOO AND CONCUBINES.

GOD SAID GO FORTH AND FILL THE EARTH. HE WANTS SEX.

IT IS RELIGION THAT PUTS THIS REQUIREMENT ON YOU TO BE MARRIED FOR SEX NOT GOD. AND SEX HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MARRIAGE BIBLICALLY SPEAKING. SEX IS SEX.

 

[1prophet]

GOD CONDEMNS HOMOSEXUALITY BECAUSE THE TOUCHING OF ANOTHER PERON'S BLOOD OR FECES CAN MAKE YOU SICK OR KILL YOU. WE HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OUR LIVES. GOD WANTS TO PROTECT YOU - NOT LET YOU FALL TO EVERY WHIM AND DESIRE OF THE FLESH YOU HAVE.

 

[sojourner]

PRE-MARITAL SEX IS NOT A SIN. THE SEX LAWS ARE GIVEN IN THE TORAH IN 2 PLACES - LEVITICUS 18 IS ONE. GO READ THEM. THERE IS NOTHING THERE THAT SAYS YOU MUST BE MARRIED TO HAVE SEX. IN FACT THE BIBLE DOES NOT CLEARLY DEFINE MARRIAGE.

MANY PATRIARCHS HAD MULTIPLE WIVES TOO AND CONCUBINES.

GOD SAID GO FORTH AND FILL THE EARTH. HE WANTS SEX.

IT IS RELIGION THAT PUTS THIS REQUIREMENT ON YOU TO BE MARRIED FOR SEX NOT GOD. AND SEX HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MARRIAGE BIBLICALLY SPEAKING. SEX IS SEX.

I'M YELLING, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!

 

[sojourner]

GOD CONDEMNS HOMOSEXUALITY BECAUSE THE TOUCHING OF ANOTHER PERON'S BLOOD OR FECES CAN MAKE YOU SICK OR KILL YOU. WE HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OUR LIVES. GOD WANTS TO PROTECT YOU - NOT LET YOU FALL TO EVERY WHIM AND DESIRE OF THE FLESH YOU HAVE.

Homosexuality has nothing to do with touching feces. That's a disorder called coprophagia. Homosexuality isn't a disorder. As for blood, heterosexuals can mix blood frequently.

 

[Harikrish]

PRE-MARITAL SEX IS NOT A SIN. THE SEX LAWS ARE GIVEN IN THE TORAH IN 2 PLACES - LEVITICUS 18 IS ONE. GO READ THEM. THERE IS NOTHING THERE THAT SAYS YOU MUST BE MARRIED TO HAVE SEX. IN FACT THE BIBLE DOES NOT CLEARLY DEFINE MARRIAGE.

MANY PATRIARCHS HAD MULTIPLE WIVES TOO AND CONCUBINES.

GOD SAID GO FORTH AND FILL THE EARTH. HE WANTS SEX.

IT IS RELIGION THAT PUTS THIS REQUIREMENT ON YOU TO BE MARRIED FOR SEX NOT GOD. AND SEX HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MARRIAGE BIBLICALLY SPEAKING. SEX IS SEX.

And then there is adultery.

Though shall not covert another mans wife.
But he who looks upon a woman with lust in his eyes has already committed adultery.

Sounds like sex is very contained in the Bible.

 

[gsa]

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

There are many problems with this; the conservative view is that Paul is copying from the Septuagint when he "creates" a novel term arsenokoitēs , but if he is doing so he manages to invert the Leviticus prohibition (because zakhar, the passive partner in Hebrew, is being described with the relevant terms [the lyings of a woman or koite for bed] joined to create "arsenokoitēs" according to this theory) and limit it to the passive partner. There are only 74 references to the term in early Christian literature, with meanings ranging from pederasty to sodomy (including man with his wife). The other problem is that we don't exactly know if Paul had access to the translation, or if he was relying on a similar word that was used to translate the Septuagint. And of course, Paul had to ignore a host of other terms to describe a male who has sex with a male that would have been more familiar with his Greek audience; the argument that the Greeks had no term for male homosexuality divorced from social roles or pederasty is of course false.

Between the lack of extant contemporary use of the term and the inherent dangers of assuming Paul created a compound noun from a reading of an idiomatic expression with its own difficulties, and even more importantly the divergent use of the term to describe pederasty, anal sex generally, or what have you, the term is obscure (and that's without addressing its odd context).

The other problem here is that the ESV actually demonstrates how weak the Septuagint argument is; the ESV translator simply conjoined malakos (which does not appear in the Septuagint so would presumably have nothing to do with it) with arsenokoitēs. Malakos is "soft" and is all over the place in meaning, but it suggests male (boy?) prostitute, possibly, or, less charitably to Paul's theology, the young partner in a pederastic relationship. I believe Philo uses malakos to refer to male prostitutes. But if read in conjunction, in any event, the phrase makes no sense within the context of a compound noun created by Paul, because arsenokoites would, using the LXX, reference the passive partner. Is it possible that is all Paul wants to condemn? I suppose, but he had a number of clear terms to choose from were that the case, which he failed to do.

The closer you look at this, the easier it is to conclude that, if Paul meant what conservative exegetes clearly want him to mean, it is next to impossible to buy into divine inspiration, since he managed to select the most ambiguous communication of this condemnation conceivable. It would not be difficult to cut through this ambiguity with different word choices if the intended meaning was "a male who has sex with a male."

 

[Sonofason]

Right. Those self-evident truths asserting themselves again...

Absolutely. You're catching on now. Bravo!!!

 

[Sonofason]

Homosexuality is ranked no worse than other sins. The Church has to respect that. They allow pedophiles to become priests. Which is more egregious, children sexual victims or consenting adults finding same sex partners?


1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Key word, "were".

 

[Sonofason]

How? How is it "obvious that God condemns homosexual conduct?" How do you know what God condemns or condones without reading the bible? How is it obvious that "such conduct is an abomination to God?" Be specific and terse.

Because while He might not do this for you, God speaks to my heart.

 

[Sonofason]

Jesus was unemployed and at 30 remained unmarried. Some priests believe there is an explanation for this oddity.

Was Jesus gay? Probably

Was Jesus gay? Probably | Paul Oestreicher | Comment is free | The Guardian

Montefiore exhibited in 1967, when he was invited to lecture to the Modern Churchman's Union at Somerville College, Oxford. Knowing it was an open lecture, he nevertheless put forward the theory that because Jesus had remained unmarried, an unusual occurrence for a Jew of his age and time, he might have been homosexually inclined.


Obituary: The Rt Rev Hugh Montefiore | World news | The Guardian

That's more blasphemy. Good luck friend.