Bible and Homosexuality: the "infamous passions" in San Paolo

Reflections sent to us by Massimo Battaglio, sixth fourth

Among the verses that are obsessively repeated every time we speak of faith and homosexuality, and which, according to the bureaucrats of Catholic orthodoxy, should be enough to throw the cross on the shoulders of three hundred million people without minimally wondering if such a monstrous attitude can really be in the design of God, there are above all some statements by Saint Paul:

“For this God abandoned them to infamous passions; Their women have changed natural relationships in relationships against nature. Equally also men, leaving the natural relationship with the woman, turned on with passion for each other, committing men with men with men, thus receiving in themselves the punishment that adhered to their transfer "(RM 1,26-27).

Let's analyze them phrase for sentence: "God abandoned them": Who has abandoned? Homosexuals? No! The object of the phrase lies on verse 18, that the reactionaries always look very well from mentioning, and that speaks of the "men suffocating the truth in injustice".

God leaves the unjust, not gays! And what is the "this", that is, the cause of god's abandonment? Homosexuality? No! It Is located at versetto 21, which says:

"While knowing God, they did not give him glory nor made him thank him as To god, but they varred in their reasoning and their obtuse mind has been obtained."

It is the "vagueness", Selfishness, to produce strange behaviors, including going against one's own nature. Paul alludes to heterosexual people have dedicated themselves to homosexual practices for pure transgression taste. They let themselves go to "passions", that is, to acts not supported by love. If the author of the letter to the Romans had had some slightest scientific notion on homosexuality (which could not have because he had not read Freud or Ulrichs or Kinsey, which does not laid in his favor but I would tend to apologize) would have spoken equally badly of other categories of people. For example, he would have condemned those homosexuals who hide for convenience in heterosexual behavior, fake choices of chastity, facade weddings. Everything has its opposite. The "traviation" does not consist in going against an abstract "nature", but against one's own nature: in not accepting it serenely while knowing it.

I climb the glass? No: it is precisely the reactionaries who pretend to do it, concealing the wonderful complexity of the Scriptures and drawing only what is comfortable. That is, to put it with Saint Paul himself: "declaring himself wise but showing himself foolish"(RM 1,22).

I said "the author of the letter to the Romans"And not"Paul"Because it is not clear that San Paolo is the one who wrote this document. In closing (RM 15,22) it is said in fact:

"I greet you in the Lord I too, third, that I wrote the letter."

It would be said that the opening verse, "Paul, servant of Christ Jesus, apostle by vocation"(RM 1,1) does not evoke the apostle as an editor of the letter but only as a sender. Which can only suggest that it is a document in which a debate already underway continues. A debate of which the different positions are exhibited and then reconciles them. And the synthesis point lies in the declaration, lapidary, contained in the first verse of the next chapter (RM 2.1):

“You are therefore inexcusable, whoever you are, or man who judge; Because while you judge others, condemn yourself; In fact, you who judge, do the same things "

Do they do not want to stop condemning themselves?

In any case, Paolo speaks of a sexuality that has nothing in common with the affection between people. Rather, it alludes to a costume of certain pagans, who live sex as mere practice without love, a compulsive response to bestial instincts, who does not take into account the object of desire. In fact, the apostle does not speak of men who feel oriented to other men, or women who love other women. It speaks of beings who, drunk with arrogance, "have fun" to experiment with homosexual practices as the maximum gesture of adultery.

Still San Paolo, in the first letter to the Corinthians, adds:

"Do not delight yourself: neither immoral, nor idolàtri, neither adùlteri, nor effeminate, neither sodomites, nor thieves, neither avari, nor drunk, nor mistial, nor birds of prey will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6, 9-10).

Very clear: Effaminati and Sodomiti are out of paradise. Except that we are faced with a sensational case of incorrect translation of the terms used by the author, who does not write at all "effeminate" nor "sodomiti" (word that no inhabitant of Corinth would have understood, since, not being Jewish, he did not know the story of Sodoma), and do not adopt even the term that the Greeks used to indicate those who practiced homosexuality, that is παιδεραστής (paverestes). The terms that can still be read today in the Greek text of the Bible (text that would be enough to consult before emitting sentences) are respectively μᾰλᾰκός (malakoí) and ἀρσενοκοῖται (arsenokoitai), which mean respectively "spoiled" and "old from the mountains" (pedophiles and rapists, just to be clear).

Going back to the right terms also helps us to better decipher the sense of all the verse. In which it was not clear why the Apostle, filling in a list of behaviors attributable to a theme of social injustice, had suddenly inserted two elements of a sexual nature. Paolo's meaning of Paul's speech is now clear. To enter paradise you have to start taking our responsibilities on Earth. We must work honestly, without apologies, avaries and robberies, and without squandering the fruits of the work between wine and whores. He has a logic, right?

In conclusion

I am afraid that those who use the Bible to condemn homosexuality, and focus on four verses of the thirty -two thousand that it contains, continues to behave as those emperors who wanted to Christianize Rome did and ended up paganing the Church. Look for a sacred justification for one's prejudice, of which you do not want to take responsibility. Be he a religious fanatic or a pious person or even a pope, he is acting in bad faith, because he denies that God is and wants love.