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What Does "Arsenokoitai" Mean? Interesting word study on homosexuality
This is short but sweet. An interesting word study from a 'new' word Paul coined in his writings that he apparently created from the OT. Also an answer to when people say things like, "well I know the OT mentions homosexuality, but what about all the other weird stuff like wearing certain kinds of fabric, etc" in an effort to prove that that part about homosexuality is not relevant today. You can teach this sometime VW. :)
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Does the Greek word "arsenokoitai" really refer to homosexuality?
That word is an unusual word. It's a new word; we don't know of any other instances of the word until Paul coins the word in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1. It's a compound word: "arsen" means man and "koite" or "koitas" or "koitai"—depending on a verb or a noun—means bed. It's men who bed with other men.
It's quite clear that Paul has coined this word from Leviticus 18 and 20. Even if you don't know any Greek, you could find online or pull up the Greek transliteration of these two verses. Look at the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and then just look at the Greek for the necessary passage in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 and you'll see there (and in fact the words are right next to each other in Leviticus 20) this word for man ("arsen") and the word for bed ("koitai" or "koite").
Paul is quite deliberately pulling from the Torah to make this new word. So he has in his mind all that was written in the Old Testament. And that's part of the reason why we can't just say, "Well Leviticus has a lot of strange things and so we shouldn't pay attention to Leviticus." Because Paul is explicitly drawing this teaching into the New Testament to coin this word which, given the context in Leviticus and how it's used elsewhere after the New Testament, means men having sex with other men. And there is no real other interpretation that makes the best sense of the evidence both in the early Christian literature and especially in the Old Testament.
What Does "Arsenokoitai" Mean? | Crossway Articles
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After reading that at Crossway, I did a search on the word and here is another more detailed study of the word in response to people that claim the word has nothing to do with homosexuality in trying to prove it is ok according to the Bible.
Responding To Five Arguments About Arsenokoites...
Responding To Five Arguments About Arsenokoites… | Watch Your Life and Doctrine Closely…
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Good topic
I looked into it may years ago as there were people discrediting the word and saying it had nothing to do with homosexual male acts.
It's quite obvious Paul used the word for males having sex - the breakdown as mentioned above is clear about the 2 Greek words
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Originally Posted by
fuego
This is short but sweet. An interesting word study from a 'new' word Paul coined in his writings that he apparently created from the OT. Also an answer to when people say things like, "well I know the OT mentions homosexuality, but what about all the other weird stuff like wearing certain kinds of fabric, etc" in an effort to prove that that part about homosexuality is not relevant today. You can teach this sometime VW. :)
The main difference between the two mentioned commandments in the law is that the list in Leviticus 18 about severe sins is summed up in the following statement :
Lev 18:24 'Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you.
25 For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants
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