Does Paul Speak Out about Homosexuality?

In this post, I want to shed some light on the issue. I begin with a sketch of Baldock’s book and the translation question at its centre. I then look at what Paul actually writes and how that relates to what we mean by homosexuality today. Finally, I examine how Dutch Bible translations have handled the passage. One preliminary remark: Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Timothy 1:10 obviously matter in this discussion too, but in this post, I limit myself mainly to 1 Corinthians 6:9.

Baldock’s thesis

Kathy Baldock’s book is about Bible translation, hermeneutics, the history of sexuality, and everything else you need to answer this question: how did the word ‘homosexual’ end up in Bible translations, and does it belong there?

At the heart of her book are the words of the Revised Standard Version (RSV; New Testament 1946, complete Bible 1952): ‘homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 6:9). Here, for the first time in history, the word homosexual appeared in a translation of the Bible. And the RSV was influential. It was the official revision of the American Standard Version of 1901, which in turn was a revision of the King James Version. That single word ‘homosexuals’ rendered two Greek terms: malakoi, often translated as ‘catamites’, and arsenokoitai, often translated as ‘abusers of boys.’ In the next revision, the RSV of 1971, the word ‘homosexuals’ had already disappeared (it became ‘sexual perverts’). Nor did it return in the RSV’s successors, the NRSV (1989) and the NRSVue (2021). The latter translates malakoi as ‘male prostitutes’ and arsenokoitai as ‘men who engage in illicit sex’.

But while the RSV committee retraced its steps, other translations followed the example of 1946. References to homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9 appeared, in turn, in the New American Standard Bible (1971), the Living Bible (1971), the New King James Version (1982) and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (1999). The New International Version (2011) is a little more restrained with ‘men who have sex with men,’ but adds in a footnote that this translates ‘two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.’ The English Standard Version (2001) goes a step further, translating ‘men who practice homosexuality’ with the footnote: ‘The two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts.’

The word ‘consensual’ is typically a word of our own time. Here we see Paul being turned, through translation, into a direct mouthpiece for today.

A fatal choice

Where do these translations come from, and how should we assess them? In her book, Kathy Baldock has investigated everything down to the last detail: the RSV translation archives, our growing knowledge of sexuality in the ancient world, our understanding of modern concepts of sexual identity and orientation, and the hardening and politicisation of anti-gay theology in conservative Christian America. The high point of her work is the discovery in the RSV archive of a 1959 letter by one David Sheldon Fearon, in which this Canadian theology student tactfully and convincingly explains to the RSV committee why they had made a serious mistake. His life story is remarkably intertwined with this translation research.

Around this, Baldock tells a larger story about the Bible and its background. It is an extensive tour that starts with Genesis 2:24, passes the notorious texts in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and arrives at Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10. Baldock explores what these texts were about historically, and shows how most biblical scholars since the second half of the twentieth century have come to read them in their context. She also explores the role sexuality played in ancient cultures. For Leviticus, where the family structure is central, this was different from ancient Greece, and different again in imperial Rome. But an underlying pattern is that of weak versus strong, dominant versus subordinate. There was no equality between man and woman, between master and enslaved person, between teacher and pupil. Sexual activity was never separate from social patterns and structures. Our present-day standard of equal relationships, mutual consent and sexual identity was not merely unknown at the time – it was unthinkable. Of course, there are scholars, such as Robert Gagnon, who dispute this, but in my view Baldock’s study makes a convincing case for this position.

In more than 500 pages, Baldock offers a fascinating history of sexuality, an in-depth exegesis of the relevant biblical texts, and the dramatic dénouement in our own time, with Bible translation as the battlefield. That last part is, of course, very American. So I wondered how things stand in the Dutch-speaking world. Different, but not entirely …

Dutch translations

In Dutch Bible translations, the terms in 1 Corinthians 6:9 have often been rendered as schandknapen en knapenschenders, roughly ‘catamites and abusers of boys’, from the Leiden Translation (Leidsche Vertaling, 1914) to the New Bible Translation (NBV, 2004). In terms of content, that is fine, but these words are no longer in everyday use. Two more recent translations tried to capture the meaning in contemporary language. The Bible in Plain Dutch (BGT) has ‘young men who let themselves be paid for sex and the men who go to bed with them’, and the revised New Bible Translation (NBV21) has ‘men who prostitute themselves or who abuse other men’. This corresponds fairly well with the NRSVue (see above) and follows mainstream scholarly views (Martti Nissinen, Robin Scroggs, and others). Paul uses two terms here that are not sharply defined in themselves, but they refer to the world of his time, and we know enough about the sexual practices of that world (pederasty, prostitution, masters having sex with the enslaved people in their households) to place these terms with reasonable probability. Prostitution and abuse are thus terms that come with the world Paul refers to, while at the same time – especially with ‘abuse’ – our view of that world resonates in them. So this translation is not neutral. Still, in my view it is much better than a translation that suggests Paul is referring here to something from our time – homosexuality in the modern sense – that did not exist in that form in his day.

The Revised States Translation (HSV, 2010) – a revision of the Statenvertaling of 1637, the Dutch counterpart of the King James Version – has ‘catamites’ and ‘men who sleep with men.’ For the first term, it follows a large group of Dutch translations, correcting the Statenvertaling (‘the lewd’). For the second term, it stays close to the Statenvertaling (‘those who lie with men’). That seems a safe option, since Paul uses an unfamiliar word here, arsenokoitai, which appears to be composed of the words for ‘male’ and ‘bed.’ Many interpreters link Paul’s term to the Greek translation (Septuagint) of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Baldock, however, points in a different direction. She connects Paul’s term with the Greek noun paidophthoroi, ‘abusers of boys,’ and the verb paidophthorein, which occur in early Christian texts. If arsenokoitai means the same thing, the pair of terms Paul uses becomes very telling. The first term, malakoi, then refers to those in the ‘female’ role: the dominated, prostituted males, who were younger, weaker, of lower social status or enslaved. The second term, arsenokoitai, then refers to those in the dominant, ‘male’ role: older, stronger, of higher social status, the master.

From the standpoint of our values, this can only be described as unequal, unsafe, and abusive. Yet that is, in my view, not the point Paul is making. After all, he portrays the young men who were (in our eyes) abused just as negatively as the dominant men who were (in our eyes) abusing them. A painful point comes to light here: in ancient cultures, it was often precisely the (young) man who was penetrated on whom the shame rested. He was the one who incurred guilt, so the thinking went, by taking the receptive position ‘like a woman’ and thereby breaking his gender role.

Homosexuality in Dutch Bibles

The question I kept coming back to was this: are there Dutch translations that explicitly make the link with homosexuality? The answer is yes. In 1976, Het Levende Woord (‘The Living Word’, New Testament) appeared, a Dutch translation of the Living Bible. In 1 Corinthians 6:9 it reads ‘people who engage in homosexual practices.’ This text remained unchanged when Het Boek (‘The Book’) was published as a complete Bible in 1987/1988. In the revision of Het Boek (2008), it became ‘people who engage in homosexual and paedophile practices.’ In my view, that does not make things any better. The practice of pederasty in ancient Greece and later in the Roman Empire is not the same as what is understood by paedophilia today. And by presenting homosexuality and paedophilia here as a pair, the translation plays dangerously with a persistent prejudice of our time.

Het Boek is not the only translation that has Paul speak explicitly and generally about homosexuality. The BasisBijbel (‘Basic Bible’, 2013) also lends a hand, rendering the two terms in 1 Corinthians 6:9 as ‘men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women.’ There is no basis for the latter in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Finally, there is the recent translation Gods Boek (God’s Book, 2025), made to offer a free contemporary Dutch translation on YouVersion, the most widely used Bible app. In 1 Corinthians 6:9 it reads ‘people who engage in homosexual acts.’

Evaluation

In English, there are prominent translations that in 1 Corinthians 6:9 put a general condemnation of homosexual practices into Paul’s mouth. In Dutch, such translations are found on the margins. But if you look more widely, you can see this translation slowly but surely gaining ground in many languages, for example in the Spanish Reina-Valera (since 1977), the French Segond 21 (2007), and many others.

This development is regrettable in light of Baldock’s study. If her work shows anything, it is that sexuality played a fundamentally different role in Paul’s time than it does today. Translations like these of 1 Corinthians 6:9 have Paul pass judgement on something that lay beyond his horizon.

None of this is to say, however, that Baldock’s thesis is beyond criticism. In her book, the gives the impression that the RSV’s mistranslation is the cause of all anti-gay theology. That seems to me far too simple. Many churches have condemned homosexuality or homosexual practices without any explicit reference to it in their Bible translation. But there is a crucial point here. Our time is fundamentally different from biblical times when it comes to sexuality, sexual identity, and types of relationships. It is therefore always our responsibility how we connect the Bible to today on this point. The suggestion that you can skip that step by putting the word ‘homosexual’ or ‘homosexual practices’ into the Bible is a misrepresentation. It is an oversimplification that ignores our own responsibility as readers who interpret the Scriptures and apply them to our own time and situation.