|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Homosexuality and Christianity
|
Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
It took a bit of searching, but this is meticulously researched and referenced.
From the same source is a list of all the uses of the word arsenokoit here. Reading the rubric indicates three different translations of the word, each defensible.
I am not a Classical scholar, but at the very least, there seems to be sufficient contemporary sources to argue that Goddess cults did encourage temple prostitution including same-sex sex acts.
Louise er, "indicated" that this post regarding primary sources for the belief that Greco-Roman cultic practices included same-sex sex, should be shifted from the Anyone know any 'cured' gay folk? thread.
I thought I recognised that article. This is my discussion on the very same article on these boards in 2009. After exhaustive discussion and analysis of what primary sources could be located, my conclusion was that there is absolutely no evidence that Cybele worshippers ever got up to the practices alleged in the article. In fact, the evidence for Cybele worship shows it is one of the worst examples to chose to try and prove gender-bending or homosexual cultic practice in Classical Rome.
That seemingly doesn't prevent people from insisting it's true though and believing it as received wisdom, using it to insist on a 'broad consensus' and 'uncontroversial view' of it being the case. And this even when soundly trashed by scholars, historians, or even just those like me, Peter Ould and Ricardus who just bother to use a bit of critical analysis on the subject. Of course Jeremy Townsend who wrote the article isn't even an historian, or ever studied history, classical or otherwise, according to the CV on his website, so we can forgive his complete misunderstanding of the subject.
--------------------
“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
I thought I recognised that article. This is my discussion on the very same article on these boards in 2009. After exhaustive discussion and analysis of what primary sources could be located, my conclusion was that there is absolutely no evidence that Cybele worshippers ever got up to the practices alleged in the article. In fact, the evidence for Cybele worship shows it is one of the worst examples to chose to try and prove gender-bending or homosexual cultic practice in Classical Rome.
That seemingly doesn't prevent people from insisting it's true though and believing it as received wisdom, using it to insist on a 'broad consensus' and 'uncontroversial view' of it being the case. And this even when soundly trashed by scholars, historians, or even just those like me, Peter Ould and Ricardus who just bother to use a bit of critical analysis on the subject. Of course Jeremy Townsend who wrote the article isn't even an historian, or ever studied history, classical or otherwise, according to the CV on his website, so we can forgive his complete misunderstanding of the subject.
I am still not a classical scholar.
Dafyd and TojoursDan disagreed with you in part (and it's still Jeramy, btw). So whether or not there was cultic homosexual prostitution has moved in my mind from 'received wisdom' to 'contentious view'. But the 'people insisting that it's true' don't merely consist of horrible revisionists using falsehoods to reinterpret Paul's epistle, but conservative evangelicals who want to show how corrupt and debased pagan worship was at the time.
But also, this is how debate is carried on: Hawk has showed his working, as did Dafyd and TD.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
And while I'm at the computer, does anyone have any references to peer-reviewed articles or published books by recognised scholars that explicitly refute the cultic prostitution claims?
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Louise
Shipmate
# 30
|
Posted
Hi Doc Tor,
I was hoping Hawk would weigh in as he's well read on this. I agree with him that the Cybele claim isn't a good one. I'm not a classicist either but a historian of a much later period and I should be clear that I don't hang my opposition to anti-gay views on any reading of St Paul, but there are a couple of points that occur to me.
Firstly the big problem with history for this period is that the sources are few and far between, so it's very hard to contextualise the few texts we have. So historians end up trying to shed light on things from texts which are far away either in geographical location or time period which is a very tricky enterprise where good scholars can come to radically different and even contradictory conclusions.
Like Hawk I've visited the subject before.
quote:
James Davidson's, 'The Greeks and Greek Love' [is] very good on the fact that customs varied from city state to city state. You can't assume that you know what is going on in Corinth from what you have on Athens or Sparta.
One of the things I noticed from Davidson (who is a proper classicist) is the sheer variation in same-sex customs within Greece which could vary radically from city to city, never mind over centuries.
The other thing I noticed was that in some places there were rituals associated with same sex relationships/ bonding which were very bound up with a particular pagan shrine or cult, but these were particular local cults of the ordinary Greek Gods like Zeus, not exotic cults like Cybele. However the same caveat on sources applies - they're either not from Corinth or not from anywhere near the 1st century AD.
Paul's coinages of Greek words seem to show that he's drawing from the Old Testament septuagint text and the more useful question may be what's the back-drop to Leviticus? Are the prohibitions there reflecting an abhorrence of pagan practices contemporary to them and is this original abhorrence what is being projected onto the Corinthians? But again we have the problems of lack of sources landing us in the realm of speculation. There's probably no way of telling.
But I think in the end we just don't know. Sources are few and far between. To blight people's lives on the basis of a handful of difficult to contextualise and interpret texts just strikes me as a hiding to nothing. From my point of view, esoteric bits of historical digging shouldn't be a basis for setting rules on who may or may not have their relationships recognised.
cheers,
L
--------------------
Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Fine. If you want to be a pedant, better language would be that a post-gay chooses to exclude the option of engaging in homosexual sex, regardless of whether or not circumstances will present a possible opportunity for so engaging.
Happy now?
I'm not just happy, I'm post-gay! As are most other straight people.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
And while I'm at the computer, does anyone have any references to peer-reviewed articles or published books by recognised scholars that explicitly refute the cultic prostitution claims?
Which claims? The ones by Jeramy Townsend on his personal website? Or your claims on this website referencing only a conversation you remember with your con-evo friend? I'm sure recognised scholars have got better things to do than trawl the internet finding all the people who aren't classical scholars who are wrong about classical history and then writing articles refuting them.
I might as well demand peer-reviewed articles refuting the argument that Paul was actually a lizard man from Venus, and taking the absence of such articles as proof of his alien lizardness.
--------------------
“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
And while I'm at the computer, does anyone have any references to peer-reviewed articles or published books by recognised scholars that explicitly refute the cultic prostitution claims?
Which claims? The ones by Jeramy Townsend on his personal website? Or your claims on this website referencing only a conversation you remember with your con-evo friend? I'm sure recognised scholars have got better things to do than trawl the internet finding all the people who aren't classical scholars who are wrong about classical history and then writing articles refuting them.
Why is everyone so yebani touchy over this?
As Orfeo commented on the original thread, it's not like this idea exists only in the minds of a few misguided souls on the Ship. It's a widely-held view, even if it is wrong. I've heard it preached repeatedly from the pulpit as fact.
All I'm asking for is whether you or anyone else knows of a reputable book or peer-reviewed source that will allow me to come to the right conclusion, and henceforth point others in that direction.
Otherwise it's just another shouty person on the internet's opinion, and I can draw my own inferences.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Louise
Shipmate
# 30
|
Posted
It's one of those things that falls into a kind of uncanny valley where it's not close enough to mainstream scholarship for the normal journal articles to think it's worth handling, but because it had a run as received wisdom in some quarters, it's not obviously wrong to people who aren't familiar with the subject (I know it's obvious to you why this is so Hawk, but as Doc Tor says it has had a lot of currency, so it's not obvious to others).
This produces the problem of the matter usually only being handled on websites which have obviously taken one side or the other, and which don't reach the standard of peer-reviewed stuff by academics. I've tried to read up a bit on the subject, but I know Hawk is better read on it than me and I've found his posts very helpful, so may I attempt to unruffle any ruffled feathers here on either side and say that I value both your contributions from your different areas of knowledge? So please bear with each other!
cheers,
Louise
--------------------
Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
This is sort of anecdotal, but I went to a talk on Greek sex and marriage rules a few years ago at (IIRC) the archaeological society at the college I work in. The speaker said that something like half of all the sources used by modern writers who comment on ancient sexual practices come from 4th & 5th centutury BC Athens. And about half the rest are from scandalous writers moaning about the Roman Emperors (and even those are highly biased towards the early Caesars) OK, an exagerration, but not a huge one.
So the average preacher (or TV scriptwriter), even if they conscientiously read serious history books, is likely to get a very local view. We really don't know that much about what went on in Tarsus, or Thebes, or Tiberias. And what we do know tends to be in highly specialised publications that go through laundry lists and obscure laws.
But them most well-educated British people don't have much idea about how sex or marriage worked in their own country before about the mid-Victorian period, never mind other places thousands of years earlier.
Of course I'm not any kind of historian either, and I don't read Greek or Latin or Aramaic, (thogh I can read JSTOR...) so don't believe what I say without checking it.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Fine. If you want to be a pedant, better language would be that a post-gay chooses to exclude the option of engaging in homosexual sex, regardless of whether or not circumstances will present a possible opportunity for so engaging.
Happy now?
I'm not just happy, I'm post-gay! As are most other straight people.
...somehow, I just knew that if I didn't repeat the unchanged bit about sexual attraction, you would do this to me...
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
Question: given that Paul was widely travelled through Greece and Asia Minor, does it particularly matter whether practices were universal or only took place in particular locations?
This is also his letter to the Romans, we're talking about, which not only is to people in the capital of the empire, but as I recall it's to people he's not actually met. This is not a letter specifically tailored to local conditions in the sense of him talking to a church he already knows and their specific environment.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Question: given that Paul was widely travelled through Greece and Asia Minor, does it particularly matter whether practices were universal or only took place in particular locations?
This is also his letter to the Romans, we're talking about, which not only is to people in the capital of the empire, but as I recall it's to people he's not actually met. This is not a letter specifically tailored to local conditions in the sense of him talking to a church he already knows and their specific environment.
Haven't you answered your own question? If it is a letter to a disparate group then he is not going to use extremely localised connotations.
Likewise with Doctor's question - if there is no evidence for something I'm puzzled as to why the burden of proof is on the side of those who claim there is no evidence.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Likewise with Doctor's question - if there is no evidence for something I'm puzzled as to why the burden of proof is on the side of those who claim there is no evidence.
Simply because if it's canard, it's a widely-held one.
Someone must have, at some point, refuted it in a book or reputable journal. It's not a question of 'burden of proof' but of clarification.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Question: given that Paul was widely travelled through Greece and Asia Minor, does it particularly matter whether practices were universal or only took place in particular locations?
This is also his letter to the Romans, we're talking about, which not only is to people in the capital of the empire, but as I recall it's to people he's not actually met. This is not a letter specifically tailored to local conditions in the sense of him talking to a church he already knows and their specific environment.
Haven't you answered your own question? If it is a letter to a disparate group then he is not going to use extremely localised connotations.
I did NOT say it was a letter to a disparate group.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
Nor, it's important to add, did I say "extremely localised". Occurring in some locations but not others is not the same thing as 'extremely localised', and my understanding of what was said (I'm thinking of Louise mostly) was that cults occurred in some locations but not others.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Someone must have, at some point, refuted it in a book or reputable journal. It's not a question of 'burden of proof' but of clarification.
It's rather hard to imagine someone writing a paper on texts that don't exist but if all you mean is a sentence somewhere in a related piece of work then fair enough.
Trying to remember where one read a single sentence is a little harder than to come up with a book title though.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I did NOT say it was a letter to a disparate group.
Sorry, misunderstood you.
I thought that is what you meant by reference to Rome as the capital of the Roman Empire.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Someone must have, at some point, refuted it in a book or reputable journal. It's not a question of 'burden of proof' but of clarification.
It's rather hard to imagine someone writing a paper on texts that don't exist but if all you mean is a sentence somewhere in a related piece of work then fair enough.
Trying to remember where one read a single sentence is a little harder than to come up with a book title though.
I was trying to come up with something comparable in a field I actually knew something about, when I realised that scientists do this sort of debunking all the time.
So if, for example, someone (it happens a lot in primary school, especially from the teachers ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) ) states that astronauts experience zero g because they're beyond the reach of Earth's gravity, I can not only explain to them that it's not the case, I can point them to any number of books explicitly tackling that question.
If what I'm asking for is simply too much, how about a general primer on Greek and Roman religious practices?
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
If what I'm asking for is simply too much, how about a general primer on Greek and Roman religious practices?
It would be really nice if some Greek or Roman had written a general primer on Greek and Roman religious practices. Unfortunately, none of them did.
In order to write a general primer on Greek and Roman religious practices you have to read between the lines of other sources which are written with other aims in mind, and are frequently fictional or satirical or written with polemical intent. Bear in mind also that the genre of the realist novel has not yet been invented, so writers don't include realist details merely to give verisimilitude. There's also archaeological evidence but that needs interpretation as well.
So there are books on Greek and Roman religious practice, but they're surveys of the field.
Christian liturgists don't have any firm agreement on what Christian worship looked like in the first few centuries. And we have actual liturgical documents preserved from that period for Christianity.
--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It would be really nice if some Greek or Roman had written a general primer on Greek and Roman religious practices. Unfortunately, none of them did.
In order to write a general primer on Greek and Roman religious practices you have to read between the lines of other sources which are written with other aims in mind, and are frequently fictional or satirical or written with polemical intent. Bear in mind also that the genre of the realist novel has not yet been invented, so writers don't include realist details merely to give verisimilitude. There's also archaeological evidence but that needs interpretation as well.
So there are books on Greek and Roman religious practice, but they're surveys of the field.
Christian liturgists don't have any firm agreement on what Christian worship looked like in the first few centuries. And we have actual liturgical documents preserved from that period for Christianity.
And this, gentlefolk, is why Science! is simply better.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
|
Posted
Add to the mix the fact that a lot of Graeco-Roman cults were mystery cults, which are, well, mysteries ...
--------------------
Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
"I can't actually point you to any contemporaneous Greek texts that support my contention that there were homosexual prostitution cults of worship at the Cybele / Rhea shrines. However, despite the fact that I can't provide one single piece of primary source evidence, I still hold to this view".
I can point you to several articles that challenge this position, but what I originally asked you for was primary sources. If you want to argue this position you need to be able to provide some actual evidence for it.
I wouldn't want to dilute anyone's interest in knowledge-for-its-own-sake about first century religious prostitution, but does it really have much bearing on our understanding of Paul's text?
He almost certainly had some group or other in mind as an example of notorious debauchery. The alternative is that he means to imply that in general all pagans are queers, and there must surely have been some who were not. We might not now be able to identify what group or groups his readers would have understood him to mean, but clearly he meant something.
That this was a religious group seems a reasonable guess because:
a) Paul links to this directly from a condemnation of idolatry;
b) He does so as part of an argument contrasting Jews and Gentiles (initially - the conclusion, of course, is that morally we are all in the same boat);
c) That sort of thing has been routinely said in disparagement of religious groups throughout much of recorded history, and there's no reason to suppose that human nature has changed so much that uniquely in first century Rome people never thought to accuse strange religious people of sexual misbehaviour.
That could be wrong, of course. It might have been obvious to his readers that he was talking about some other scandalous group. I just don't see that all that much turns on it being right or wrong. He is talking about some group or other in which men reputedly* had sex with other men.
But not just that - he is definitely accusing them of debauchery, having a degenerate sexual standard in which former norms of proper behaviour have been discarded. The sexuality he is talking about is lustful, self-indulgent, ‘do anything to anything' behaviour from people who have at least temporarily set their previous respectable relationships to one side. That's where the passage jars, for me, when used to condemn homosexuals, because while I know one or two debauchees who are gay (and rather more who are straight), most simply aren't like that.
There seems to me to be several ways of dealing with that:
1. Paul might be saying that ALL gay sex is degenerate in that way, and if it appears to me that much of it is not, then I'm just wrong.
2. Paul thought that all gay sex was like that, but this was because he did not know of, or imagine, any gay sex which was not degenerate. Contemporary society knows more on the subject than he did, so his teaching does not have the universal applicability to all gay sex which he imagined it did.
3. Paul was very specifically referring to a debauched group or groups, and never intended to be understood as discussing homosexuality in general (though he may, of course, have disapproved of it on other grounds not stated in the text).
Saying that Paul is referring only to the Cybele (or other) cult in particular is one specific take on position 3, but position 3 is perfectly tenable without it. It seems to me almost certain that (whether we know their name or not) Paul must have been referring to some group, and absolutely certain that what he says to characterise that group is simply not true of all homosexuals now. Thus positions 2 and 3 are plainly superior readings of Paul than position 1, even if we cannot precisely identify the people that he did so characterise.
(*The passage works even if it was just ‘reputedly', of course. Provided Paul and his readers had a perception of cultists of Cybele, or whoever, merrily screwing each other, the rhetorical effect is there even if they were in actual historical fact as chaste as angels. Just as there are no end of contemporary references to recent child abuse scandals - like the one I'm making now - where everyone will understand precisely what religious group I'm talking about without me needing to say, even though it is probably true that priests of the particular church concerned molest children with no greater frequency than the general population.)
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
He almost certainly had some group or other in mind as an example of notorious debauchery. The alternative is that he means to imply that in general all pagans are queers, and there must surely have been some who were not.
Why are those the only two options?
How about he was using homosexuality as an example of society as it moves further away from God? I say that because otherwise, according to your reading, Paul is arguing in verses 29-31 that every single person who is an idolater is likewise equally guilty of all the sins listed there.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
He almost certainly had some group or other in mind as an example of notorious debauchery. The alternative is that he means to imply that in general all pagans are queers, and there must surely have been some who were not.
Why are those the only two options?
How about he was using homosexuality as an example of society as it moves further away from God? I say that because otherwise, according to your reading, Paul is arguing in verses 29-31 that every single person who is an idolater is likewise equally guilty of all the sins listed there.
To look at the text, the exchanging of opposite-gender relations for same-sex relations parallels the exchanging of true worship of God for idolatry.
To me, it seems that Paul has in mind people who are originally erotically oriented towards the opposite sex, now turning towards those of the same sex. If one understands that the root sin is lust, one can understand the rationale. If one is lustful and desperate for sex, then in this reading, one does not care if the object are male or female. The closest modern application of this might be the situational same-sex acts that occur in prisons and other closed male-environments.
Nothing in the passage of Romans applies to people who are erotically oriented towards those of the same sex to begin with. Whether Paul would have favored same-sex marriage as we now think of it is about as anachronistic as wondering if Paul would have approved of teenage dating. The concept of egalitarian same-sex relationships wasn't pervasive enough to warrant his mention.
[ 02. May 2012, 11:42: Message edited by: Anglican_Brat ]
--------------------
It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Why are those the only two options?
How about he was using homosexuality as an example of society as it moves further away from God? I say that because otherwise, according to your reading, Paul is arguing in verses 29-31 that every single person who is an idolater is likewise equally guilty of all the sins listed there.
But that's one of my options! (and the only realistic one, IMO).
On no realistic view does Paul want to accuse ALL idolaters of homosexuality. Therefore, he has in mind some sub-set of idolaters actually or reputedly conducting themselves in that way.
OK, there's a third alternative - he knows or believes the accusation to be entirely false, and thinks none of them actually do this, but says it anyway. I didn't think that one meritted any consideration, though.
That the passage refers to all, some, or none of the set of idolaters surely exhausts all possibilities, doesn't it?
The 'some' could be unpacked into two broad categories: Paul might or might not expect his readers to think of the same subset as he was. In the later list of sins, he probably doesn't: he wouldn't have expected the Roman Christians to know the same people who disrespected their parents as he did, so would have intended them to fill in that blank with examples from their own experience. There is some reason to think that for the earlier parts of the argument, he had a more specific reference in mind, even if we don't know what it is. Firstly, because the rhetorical effect of the build-up works much better if you suppose some shared stereotype of pagan degeneracy common to writer and audience, and secondly because there's that cryptic reference to 'receiving in their own bodies the due penalty'. I'm buggered if I know what that means, but Paul likely intended something to be conveyed by it, and therefore that when he started talking about (this particular sort of) homosexuality there was some common understanding about what and who he meant.
But again, nothing much turns on that. He meant something. He had some one in mind (if only by reputation), or some group (if only by stereotype), even if his original audience would have been as puzzled to identify them as we are. We can see that what he says about that group isn't obviously true of all gays. It is therefore not necessary to conclude that all gay sex is as vile as Paul thinks that the stuff he is talking about is (whatever that may be). Gay sex may be wrong for other reasons, but the text itself does not force that conclusion. You can properly conclude that Paul thought that sexual debauchery including same-sex fucking was a possible consequence of turning away from God. You need not conclude that all homosexual relationships whatever are debauched.
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Peter Ould
Shipmate
# 482
|
Posted
Hi folks,
My apologies for not contributing over the past few days having been one of the people who reactivated this thread earlier last week. I've been away on business.
Two observations:
i) I think Hawk has done the job I wanted to do on dismantling the claim that Romans 1 refers to cultic prostitution. I did a similar exercise to Hawk a few years ago whilst I was going over the "clobber verses" again to see whether I'd been wrong about them. I was amazed how so many revisionist claims in this area were baseless. This is part of the reason I challenged Doc_tor to actually provide some texts to back up his claim - too many people in this debate simply rely on something they read in a secondary source without checking out the primary sources cited. I wanted to illustrate this by challenging Doc_tor to be sure about what he(?) was claiming.
ii) I want to comment on the idea propagated here that "proof" needs to be demonstrated FOR something as standard evidential basis. My day job at the moment is as a statistician so I am used to questions of "truth" in my work.
When presented with a question "Does this therapy work", we are (simplistically) looking to discover one of two outcomes - "Yes" or "No". Some here wish us to work on the basis that the default position is "No", but the reality is the default position is "We don't know". For example, when testing a new drug it would be a brave man who stood up at the start of a clinical trial and declared "Since no-one has yet proved this drug works we therefore have proof that it doesn't".
To prove either "Yes" or "No" we need to perform an experiment and see what the results are. Perfect experiments are randomised double blind samples, where the participants don't know which group they are in (for example in testing a drug, the two groups are "drug" and "placebo"). That is next to nigh impossible for therapy, so the next best thing is a longitudinal study, where we follow people going through the therapy and see what happens to them.
Until we have done that our default answer is "We don't know". That is currently, like it or not, the place where we are as regards "gay therapies". There has only been one proper longitudinal study in the past two decades and that is the Jones and Yarhouse study (www.exgaystudy.org) which was, for want of a better expression - inconclusive. J&Y recorded a change in sexual orientation for some participants, but it wasn't quite statistically significant for some sub-populations.
What does this mean for those who reject the idea of "gay therapies"? Has the "failure" of the J&Y study proved that gay therapies don't work? No, it simply means that we still don't know. The only way to say "They don't work" is to perform another longitudinal study and to demonstrate very clearly that people's orientations *didn't* change afterwards.
Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence, it is simply evidence of the absence of the necessary research to come to a definitive conclusion.
--------------------
Peter Ould
www.peter-ould.net
Posts: 94 | From: Canterbury | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
When presented with a question "Does this therapy work", we are (simplistically) looking to discover one of two outcomes - "Yes" or "No". Some here wish us to work on the basis that the default position is "No", but the reality is the default position is "We don't know".
The problem with this assessment is that "we don't know" is effectively equivalent to "no" when prescribing drugs or therapy. If you don't know what a treatment is going to do to a patient, it's usually considered malpractice to prescribe it as a treatment and deeply unethical to present it as effective.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... When presented with a question "Does this therapy work", we are (simplistically) looking to discover one of two outcomes - "Yes" or "No". Some here wish us to work on the basis that the default position is "No", but the reality is the default position is "We don't know". For example, when testing a new drug it would be a brave man who stood up at the start of a clinical trial and declared "Since no-one has yet proved this drug works we therefore have proof that it doesn't". ...
You have not addressed my point that it is unethical and possibly dangerous to perform therapies that have not been demonstrated to be effective. The question in a therapeutic setting is never merely, "Does this work?" but always, "Do the benefits of this treatment outweigh the risks?" OliviaG
ETA x-post with Croesus. Great minds and all that.
[ 02. May 2012, 20:46: Message edited by: OliviaG ]
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Peter Ould
Shipmate
# 482
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
When presented with a question "Does this therapy work", we are (simplistically) looking to discover one of two outcomes - "Yes" or "No". Some here wish us to work on the basis that the default position is "No", but the reality is the default position is "We don't know".
The problem with this assessment is that "we don't know" is effectively equivalent to "no" when prescribing drugs or therapy. If you don't know what a treatment is going to do to a patient, it's usually considered malpractice to prescribe it as a treatment and deeply unethical to present it as effective.
Not so. I myself have participated in a trial via my GP where he essentially said "We have no idea if this will work or not, but will you be part of a trial to see if it might?"
Being a randomised double-blind (so neither my GP or myself knew whether I had a placebo or the tested drug), it was a perfect experiment.
This is how a huge amount of testing goes on. We're pretty certain something isn't harmful, but we need to test whether it works in the real world.
But ultimately this is a question of logic - does not knowing if something works means that you know it doesn't work? The answer is no - the default position on any experiment to ascertain knowledge is "don't know" not "no".
--------------------
Peter Ould
www.peter-ould.net
Posts: 94 | From: Canterbury | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Peter Ould
Shipmate
# 482
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... When presented with a question "Does this therapy work", we are (simplistically) looking to discover one of two outcomes - "Yes" or "No". Some here wish us to work on the basis that the default position is "No", but the reality is the default position is "We don't know". For example, when testing a new drug it would be a brave man who stood up at the start of a clinical trial and declared "Since no-one has yet proved this drug works we therefore have proof that it doesn't". ...
You have not addressed my point that it is unethical and possibly dangerous to perform therapies that have not been demonstrated to be effective. The question in a therapeutic setting is never merely, "Does this work?" but always, "Do the benefits of this treatment outweigh the risks?" OliviaG
ETA x-post with Croesus. Great minds and all that.
Before I answer this, would you answer these simple questions?
i) What evidential basis would you require to prove that "ex-gay therapies" did or didn't work?
ii) If you want to ban "ex-gay therapies" on this basis (not meeting the evidential criteria in (i) ), would you also want to ban any other therapy that didn't meet the same research criteria you are requiring for ex-gay therapies?
--------------------
Peter Ould
www.peter-ould.net
Posts: 94 | From: Canterbury | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Before I answer this, would you answer these simple questions? ...
Sorry, but I'm not going to play that game with someone who won't acknowledge the difference between medical care and a clinical trial. OliviaG
--------------------
"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The problem with this assessment is that "we don't know" is effectively equivalent to "no" when prescribing drugs or therapy. If you don't know what a treatment is going to do to a patient, it's usually considered malpractice to prescribe it as a treatment and deeply unethical to present it as effective.
Not so. I myself have participated in a trial via my GP where he essentially said "We have no idea if this will work or not, but will you be part of a trial to see if it might?"
First off, I doubt that was strictly true given the levels of animal testing required before human trials are even considered for new drugs. I'm guessing it was more a case of "we suspect what this drug will do (assuming you don't get the placebo), but we're not certain to the degree we'd like to be". That's a far cry from the kind of we-have-no-idea-whatsoever you're suggesting.
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
This is how a huge amount of testing goes on. We're pretty certain something isn't harmful, but we need to test whether it works in the real world.
That's a lot more than we can say about conversion therapy. Most psychological organizations consider it at least potentially harmful. "Is it safe?" is an even more basic question than "does it work?". Given that depression and rates of suicidal ideation among homosexuals have been correlated with lack of social acceptance, a course of treatment based on the premise that gays need to be 'fixed' seems inherently risky.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
i) I think Hawk has done the job I wanted to do on dismantling the claim that Romans 1 refers to cultic prostitution. I did a similar exercise to Hawk a few years ago whilst I was going over the "clobber verses" again to see whether I'd been wrong about them. I was amazed how so many revisionist claims in this area were baseless. This is part of the reason I challenged Doc_tor to actually provide some texts to back up his claim - too many people in this debate simply rely on something they read in a secondary source without checking out the primary sources cited. I wanted to illustrate this by challenging Doc_tor to be sure about what he(?) was claiming.
I will come back on this, albeit briefly.
Firstly, it's not just 'revisionists' who are claiming things about cultic worship practices. It's conservative evangelicals too - which is, as I've repeatedly and inconveniently said, where I heard it first.
Secondly, I am not a Classics scholar. I cannot read Latin or Greek, but I can read English. So obviously, all my sources are necessarily going to be secondary. Chiding a geology graduate for not being able to read Livy in the original is like chiding a media studies graduate for not having measured the speed of light for themselves. We look stuff up in books - that's how knowledge is usually transmitted in our culture.
Thirdly, it turns out that not only are there few actual primary sources that can be trusted regarding Greco-Roman religious practices, but seemingly very few secondary sources. Certainly no one here has managed to point me towards a layman's primer regarding the subject. If it's the case that there aren't any, then demanding I believe X over Y is relying more on assertion than evidence.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
When presented with a question "Does this therapy work", we are (simplistically) looking to discover one of two outcomes - "Yes" or "No". Some here wish us to work on the basis that the default position is "No", but the reality is the default position is "We don't know".
The problem with this assessment is that "we don't know" is effectively equivalent to "no" when prescribing drugs or therapy. If you don't know what a treatment is going to do to a patient, it's usually considered malpractice to prescribe it as a treatment and deeply unethical to present it as effective.
Not so. I myself have participated in a trial via my GP where he essentially said "We have no idea if this will work or not, but will you be part of a trial to see if it might?"
The underlying assumption being that you HAVE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED.
Otherwise, your doctor wouldn't ask you to be part of the trial at all. No-one asks people who don't have cancer to be involved in a trial of a cancer cure.
The only exception to this is trials of preventative measures. But again, it depends on the idea that it's a trial of a prevention of something undesirable.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
Thanks AB - since we discussed this many times before I'll try not to simply re-cover old ground.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
To look at the text, the exchanging of opposite-gender relations for same-sex relations parallels the exchanging of true worship of God for idolatry.
I'm not sure parallels is the right word here. Paul's argument from verse 18 concerns being able to see God in creation and we respond to him through creation - either we thank him for his creation or we start to worship it. His comments about idols in verse 23 is a third step after the two mentioned in verses 21 and 22.
ISTM that he is painting a broad-brush-stroke picture of the downward spiral of humanity away from God. These are not steps followed by every individual but general steps humanity takes.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Nothing in the passage of Romans applies to people who are erotically oriented towards those of the same sex to begin with. Whether Paul would have favored same-sex marriage as we now think of it is about as anachronistic as wondering if Paul would have approved of teenage dating. The concept of egalitarian same-sex relationships wasn't pervasive enough to warrant his mention.
1. That argument cuts both ways. You are right in that Paul says nothing about same-sex marriage, he does talk about same-gender sex though.
2. Paul is incredibly radical for his day in having both lesbian and gay categories.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I'm buggered if I know what that means,
I thought that was the whole point - you're only buggered if you don't know what it means. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
We can see that what he says about that group isn't obviously true of all gays. It is therefore not necessary to conclude that all gay sex is as vile as Paul thinks that the stuff he is talking about is (whatever that may be). Gay sex may be wrong for other reasons, but the text itself does not force that conclusion. You can properly conclude that Paul thought that sexual debauchery including same-sex fucking was a possible consequence of turning away from God. You need not conclude that all homosexual relationships whatever are debauched.
Ummh. If you can show me how that argument could equally work on the things listed in verses 29-31 then you might have a point.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
2. Paul is incredibly radical for his day in having both lesbian and gay categories.
Only if by "incredibly radical" you mean using categories played for cheap laughs by playwrights and discussed in scholarly works (using, ironically enough, that playwright as a mouthpiece) four centuries prior to Paul's lifetime. That's more or less like a modern author writing an "incredibly radical" play where a woman has to disguise herself as a man or the ghost of the protagonist's father instructs that protagonist to murder his uncle to avenge his father's death.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
I was talking about radical for Judaism.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Firstly, it's not just 'revisionists' who are claiming things about cultic worship practices. It's conservative evangelicals too - which is, as I've repeatedly and inconveniently said, where I heard it first.
I’m not really sure why you think that’s your trump card. Con-evos can be wrong about ancient history just as much as anyone else. Revisionist scholars (and they’ve been around for centuries, it’s not new) make a claim. Then non-specialists accept it as truth since that revisionist wore glasses or peppered his internet essay with an impressive amount of references. Those non-specialists then tell each other and no one bothers to check the facts. That’s how completely wrong but ‘everyone knows’ knowledge gets about. Con-evos aren’t immune to this.
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Secondly, I am not a Classics scholar. I cannot read Latin or Greek, but I can read English. So obviously, all my sources are necessarily going to be secondary.
And I’ve tried my best to show you that you don’t have to be a classics scholar to do a bit of basic research on this. I’m certainly not one myself, just an interested party. Why you think this is a good excuse for believing an obviously biased internet essay by an unknown non-specialist as though it is absolute fact is beyond me. You can’t expect me to believe you’re incapable of checking basic facts on the internet!
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Thirdly, it turns out that not only are there few actual primary sources that can be trusted regarding Greco-Roman religious practices, but seemingly very few secondary sources. Certainly no one here has managed to point me towards a layman's primer regarding the subject. If it's the case that there aren't any, then demanding I believe X over Y is relying more on assertion than evidence.
It’s amazing that for someone so interested in this, you need to be led by the hand to some helpful books. Well, it’s taken me a couple of days to do this for you. Again, just internet research and checking out a bookshop on the way home, no specialist skills required. You could have done this yourself if you’d wanted. Anyway, this is quite an interesting topic so everyone else, please forgive the length of this.
Stephanie Lynn Budin aims to refute all sacred prostitution claims, homo and hetrosexual, in her 2008 book The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. The first ten pages are available as a preview here. Peer reviews of her book are available here and here
Budin claims that “Sacred prostitution never existed in the ancient Near East or Mediterranean”. This is a big claim, but it seems to be gaining traction in modern scholarship.
The text In Search of the Mother Goddess, the Cult of Anatolian Cybele which has been linked to before upthread, has a good bit about how the misinformation about the Cybele cult started. Google Books preview lets you read chunks of it, so search for Graillot and read what comes up. He wrote a very influential book in 1912 which is still quoted extensively even now. He was a little obsessed with the orgiastic, violent and sexual aspects of the cult, and insisted that they were “a cult characterized by orgiasm, ecstasism, and sexual aberration.” He said that these traits were present due to the Oriental origin of the cult, and as such were repugnant to the Hellenic spirit, (as well as the Roman way of religion). Graillot’s denigrations are interpreted nowadays as an expression of Orientalism, the downgrading of west Asiatic culture as degenerate, effeminate and primitive, which characterised a lot of writing in the 19th and early 20th century. This also characterised some (not all) of the Roman satirists’ writing on the cult, since they liked to use the galli as an example of the slippery slope argument. I.e. if you keep on mincing around town wearing fancy clothes and having long hair like those degenerate asiatics, you’ll end up being no better than those Phrygian eunuch priests who aren’t even men at all!
Obviously this overtly racist understanding of Asian culture is rejected nowadays, though Graillot is still cited regularly.
Another interesting analysis of the Magna Mater cult is included in: Foreign Cults in Rome which covers both their historical entrance into Roman society in the third century BC, and their practices, what little is known of them. We have some few primary sources that touch on the galli, which allude to violent festivals, and that the galli castrated themselves. The only aberrant sexual practice mentioned is that of cunnilingus though, touched on by Martial. Galli were known to be particularly attractive to married woman (as though they were able to ‘perform’ they couldn’t impregnate them) and one poem has an amorous man dress up as a galli so he can get close to and seduce a woman he likes. Did the galli also participate in same-sex practice though? There is no evidence that they did as part of their rites, but of course, it is always possible that some individuals were inclined that way – just like the rest of the population.
The galli were upsetting to the Roman mind, which was concerned not with sexuality, but with gender. Read Roman Homosexuality for a good analysis of the subject. For instance in Roman society a man could bugger a boy (as long as the boy wasn’t a freeborn Roman citizen) and still be a man and accepted in society. If a man allowed himself to act the part of a woman though, and be penetrated, this was seen as womanly and degenerate. In Roman society oral sex on a woman was also seen as effeminate. To be effeminately hetrosexual was considered more aberrant than enjoying penetrating other men. So any criticism of the galli’s sexual behaviour therefore by contemporary commentators, would focus on their ‘foreign’ effeminacy (largely due to being a eunuch, though they may have dressed effeminately as well, which in Rome could be done by crimping their hair and wearing their tunics unbelted), not their homosexuality. This was the cause of their denigration by certain writers. The worst insult to call a man was cinaedus, which was perhaps most similar to an eighteenth century fop. Yet to go around buggering boys was not directly associated with being a cinaedus.
Did the galli perform same-sex rituals or temple prostitution as part of their religion? No contemporary writer says they did. It seems to be largely an invention of excitable Victorians and early twentieth century writers (like most modern canards about pagan religion). Indeed, if you understand roman religion, cults weren’t introduced just so people could have wild orgies. Their purpose was, as explained in Foreign Cults in Rome, to look out for prodigies and to expiate them. A prodigy was anything that transcended the cultural boundaries of the time, such as a baby being born hermaphrodite, which transcended gender, a two headed calf, which transcended nature, or other things happening that disturbed the ‘natural’ order of things. The purpose of Roman religion was to reset the boundaries and expiate the unnatural. If cultic priests were going around frenziedly ripping their genitals off, having wild sexual orgies, same-sex or otherwise, or otherwise upsetting the natural order of Roman identity as a matter of course then they would have been acting against their entire purpose.
Hope that helps and gives you some good reading material. Again, sorry for the length.
--------------------
“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
Hawk - thank you.
I am surprisingly busy at the moment, but I'll copy-and-paste your recommendations into a file, and see if I can get hold of one or more of them: the Budin book looks particularly apposite.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Ould:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The problem with this assessment is that "we don't know" is effectively equivalent to "no" when prescribing drugs or therapy. If you don't know what a treatment is going to do to a patient, it's usually considered malpractice to prescribe it as a treatment and deeply unethical to present it as effective.
Not so. I myself have participated in a trial via my GP where he essentially said "We have no idea if this will work or not, but will you be part of a trial to see if it might?"
First off, I doubt that was strictly true given the levels of animal testing required before human trials are even considered for new drugs. I'm guessing it was more a case of "we suspect what this drug will do (assuming you don't get the placebo), but we're not certain to the degree we'd like to be". That's a far cry from the kind of we-have-no-idea-whatsoever you're suggesting.
This is mostly right, but it would be a mistake to consider CTIMPs (Clinical Trials of Investigational Medicinal Products, or drug trials in common language) as analogous to behavioural studies, as the issues are very different.
Various types of research can be (and are) conducted to determine the effectiveness of behavioural interventions on a person's mental state, often in the general area of Mental Health, but unlike drug trials, they can't be tested in labs or through a textbook progression through phases of a study as confidence in its safety and effectiveness grows.
This makes ethical approval to run research in this area very demanding. Typically, to run a behavioural study, a researcher would have to demonstrate that there's an important question to be answered, that the scale of the research is appropriate for the current state of knowledge, and that there are effective controls in place to terminate either a specific intervention or the whole study if the outcomes are significantly worse than expected, or actively harmful to participants.
So yes, there has to be a good reason for believing that the treatment will be effective. There should also be checks and safeguards in place, and in this area, it ought to be a basic requirement to publish the study's findings, whether positive or negative.
tl;dr It is positively unethical to recruit anyone onto any study based on a position of "we have no idea what effect this will have".
--------------------
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
We can see that what he says about that group isn't obviously true of all gays. It is therefore not necessary to conclude that all gay sex is as vile as Paul thinks that the stuff he is talking about is (whatever that may be). Gay sex may be wrong for other reasons, but the text itself does not force that conclusion. You can properly conclude that Paul thought that sexual debauchery including same-sex fucking was a possible consequence of turning away from God. You need not conclude that all homosexual relationships whatever are debauched.
Ummh. If you can show me how that argument could equally work on the things listed in verses 29-31 then you might have a point.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean. There isn't really an argument to make about most of those sins, because we mostly think we know what Paul is talking about and agree that what he is talking about is wrong. The words used (at least in the English translations I've seen) are words that mean "doing X in a bad way". Nobody refers to all instances of talking about God as blasphemy. Nobody calls all conversations about others gossip. Those words already exclude superficially similar activities that are not sinful. The distinction which (I say) it is possible to draw on the gay sex one is already written into the words we use for most of the others.
I suppose the one sin where there's an issue to be analysed in the same way is the ‘disobedience to parents' one. Does anyone read Romans 1 to be saying that absolutely any and all cases of not doing what a parent says is an example of depravity? Parents can tell their children to do foolish and wicked things, and it can be a positive duty to disobey them. It's obvious, though, that Paul isn't remotely talking about that sort of hard case. He isn't thinking about how a good person approaches the dilemma of honouring a very imperfect mother or father - he is talking about people who have given up on respectful behaviour and manifest that by scorn for the ordinary filial obligations that all decent people take as given. Does anyone not read Romans in that way, when it comes to that particular sin?
What I'm arguing is that we read the ‘homosexuality' part similarly. An illustration:
Suppose there's a person who has been a Christian from a young age, and, in adolesence, begins to identify as gay. Accepting what he has been taught, he starts of by seeing this as a temptation to sin. He resists the temptation. For years he watches his friends form relationships while he remains chaste. He prays that God will change his orientation. He seeks help and counselling. All the while, he resists faithfully all urges to indulge in any sexual contact - kissing, touching, dating, as well as sex - with the people he is attracted to. He keeps this up, without a break, for the best part of two decades. Then, after much introspection and prayer, reading and thought, he comes to believe that there are possible gay relationships - respectful, loving, committed relationships - that God does not object to, and he begins looking, not for a quick shag, but for a life partner.
Do you really think that this person I've described is more obviously burning with lust than other men? Is he notable for being especially depraved? Would you describe him as shameless? Do you think it at all feasible to say that the attractions that he feels were visited on him by God as a punishment for his idolatry?
I bet you don't. He doesn't look like the Romans 1 pervert at all. If only he were straight, he's the sort of man that you'd be relieved to have your daughter bring home.
So how can we reconcile Romans 1 with examples of gay Christians like that?
We could, of course, conclude that all appearances to the contrary our gay Christian must be, in his heart and known to God, a person of exceptional degeneracy and vice, and a secret idolater. That is plainly how St Paul, in inspired Scripture, charactises homosexuals, and as our man undeniably is one, we have God's word that this is what he is like. We can then metaphorically beat him over the head with this passage and demand that he repent.
Or, we could say that St Paul simply isn't talking about people like him. Our gay Christian isn't a Romans 1 person at all. Romans 1 is talking about other people. If it looks absurd to apply Paul's condemnations in Romans to our example (and it does) then nothing in the text compels us to do so, and truth, justice and charity agree in insisting that we should not. Paul's argument makes perfect logical sense, and the rhetorical effect of it is in no way weakened, by assuming that when he talks about debauchery, his criticisms are directed against debauched persons only. We might still disapprove of our gay Christian's choices, of course, but on other grounds than what Paul says here.
The point where I came into this discussion is that if we had good reason to think that Paul had this specific group of reputed debauchees in mind, it would be interesting to know, but the lack of that knowledge really doesn't affect the argument for the latter reading of the text. There is absolutely no need to apply the passage to people whom Paul's criticisms plainly do not fit. And that includes most gay people. Most gay people are not Romans 1 perverts. Any discourse which treats them as if they were has falsity at its heart.
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
There isn't really an argument to make about most of those sins, because we mostly think we know what Paul is talking about and agree that what he is talking about is wrong. The words used (at least in the English translations I've seen) are words that mean "doing X in a bad way". Nobody refers to all instances of talking about God as blasphemy. Nobody calls all conversations about others gossip. Those words already exclude superficially similar activities that are not sinful. The distinction which (I say) it is possible to draw on the gay sex one is already written into the words we use for most of the others.
I don't follow you at all here.
Why can't Paul be saying that, just as not all speech is wrong but gossip is always sinful so not all sex is wrong but homosexual sex is always sinful.
Exactly how we apply Romans 1 today is a different matter but you need a whole lot of special pleading for your argument here.
As you say yourself the list in verses 29-31 include things that were generally accepted (at the time) as vices. He did not need to explain at what point speech became gossip or at what point envy started. He has come up with a list that his readers are meant to see as being universally wrong. Even the disobedience to parents is meant to fit this character. To argue over occasions when it is possible to do the right thing and disobey your parents (which, as you say, is quite possible) is to miss the thrust of his argument. Verses 29-31 are a list of 'every kind of wickedness' - Paul is putting disobedience to parents as an example.
There is nothing in the context to suggest that when he refers to homosexuals he is referring to some kind of subset. James Dunn, IIRC, is pretty clear on this - that a 1st century Jew with Paul's background would have a very black and white (read black) view of homosexuality. Romans 1 is to be read in that light.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
James Dunn, IIRC, is pretty clear on this - that a 1st century Jew with Paul's background would have a very black and white (read black) view of homosexuality. Romans 1 is to be read in that light.
Sorry, on what basis is he pretty clear on this?
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
James Dunn, IIRC, is pretty clear on this - that a 1st century Jew with Paul's background would have a very black and white (read black) view of homosexuality. Romans 1 is to be read in that light.
Just to point out that Paul's opinions are not Scripture. Even Paul's opinions of things that he's writing about in Scripture are not Scripture. For example, Paul almost certainly believed that Adam was a definite historical individual; for those of us who aren't creationists that in no way means that we can't take the text to use Adam in some figurative sense.
In the case of Romans 1, while Paul almost certainly did think that sex between men was wrong the point of that passage is not to establish the wrongness of same-sex relations in general; but to express the general Jewish opinion of Gentile morality that Paul intends to undercut.
--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Why can't Paul be saying that, just as not all speech is wrong but gossip is always sinful so not all sex is wrong but homosexual sex is always sinful.
He might be saying that - but as that is the main point in dispute, it would be begging the question to assume it.
Gossip is wrong by definition - because (at least, when it is used as the name of a sin) what the word 'gossip' means is a particular sort of wrong speech. Gay sex is not wrong by definition. Now I quite agree that Paul is talking here about the sort of gay sex that is wrong, but the question of whether that is all gay sex is the very thing we're discussing.
quote:
Exactly how we apply Romans 1 today is a different matter but you need a whole lot of special pleading for your argument here.
No special pleading, just one simple observation: which is that most homosexual relationships today look damn all like Paul's description in Romans 1.
That strikes me as being an obvious fact. It would be ludicrous to use Romans 1 language to describe (almost) all the gays I know. So what is there to compel the conclusion that Romans 1 is talking about them at all?
So far, the only reason proffered here is that Paul probably did think that all gay sex was wrong. OK - but if that was because Paul thought that all gay sex was of the shameless/depraved/burning with lust/lost to all decency variety (that is, the only sort of gay sex that he was inspired to write about here), we can say with confidence that he was wrong. We know more than he did on this subject. We know that there are gay relationships that aren't a bit like that. We need not defer to Paul's mistaken assumptions - Dafyd's point that Paul's assumptions aren't scripture, and aren't binding authority is right.
To say that Romans 1 condemns loving, committed, respectful gay partnerships, you have to read much much more into the text than is actually there. And it isn't in the least necessary to do that to make sense of the passage. I choose not to. No special pleading required.
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Just to point out that Paul's opinions are not Scripture.
Wait a sec. I thought the Bible was considered to be the Christian scripture.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Sorry, on what basis is he pretty clear on this?
I don't have a copy of his commentary on Romans to hand anymore. Does anyone else have a copy? I don't want to speculate over the reasons he gave because it was a couple of years ago that I read his take on this passage.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Just to point out that Paul's opinions are not Scripture. Even Paul's opinions of things that he's writing about in Scripture are not Scripture. For example, Paul almost certainly believed that Adam was a definite historical individual; for those of us who aren't creationists that in no way means that we can't take the text to use Adam in some figurative sense.
As I said to Eliab you are now taking us into the territory of how we apply this passage today which I was not commenting on. We've discussed that at length before.
All I was commenting on was what we can deduce about Paul's position (no jokes please) from this passage.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Gossip is wrong by definition - because (at least, when it is used as the name of a sin) what the word 'gossip' means is a particular sort of wrong speech. Gay sex is not wrong by definition.
You are special pleading here. I'm arguing that the context demands that gay sex is wrong by definition. ISTM that Paul puts gay sex in the same category as gossip - something that those he was writing would instinctively assume was wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
No special pleading, just one simple observation: which is that most homosexual relationships today look damn all like Paul's description in Romans 1.
But that is special pleading. I know people who are gossips, slanderers, greedy and arrogant but I probably wouldn't blanket cover them with terms like evil or depraved and yet Paul does.
Paul is not saying that this behaviour is wrong because they have 'given their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies' but the other way round - this is what they are doing because it is wrong.
Verse 1 of chapter 2 is where he is going with all this - we are all sinners. His aim in this list is not to pore over this list wondering at what point it becomes gossip or when gay sex crosses some line and becomes sin, his aim is for all of us to be convicted of sin. Your reading seems to fundamentally undermine the main thrust of his argument.
ISTM that the person who comes to this list trying to justify their behaviour is precisely the person Paul is trying to persuade to change their mind.
[ 07. May 2012, 05:31: Message edited by: Johnny S ]
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
