There is an argument that continues to be used that says
that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality.
This is supposed to be of some consequence since many of those making
this argument seem to imply that if Jesus had mentioned homosexuality they
would change their views to match his.
Even if it be granted that Jesus didn’t specifically mention
homosexuality there is still the need to accurately place Jesus in his first
century Jewish context. Consider
these words from J. P. Meier:
On sexual matters, Jesus and the
Essenes tend in the same direction: stringent standards and prohibitions… In a
sense, one could call both Jesus and the Essenes extreme conservatives … apart
from the two special cases of divorce and celibacy, where he diverged from
mainstream Judaism, his views were
those of mainstream Judaism. Hence
there was no pressing need for him to issue or for the earliest Christian Jews
to enshrine moral pronouncements about matters on which all Law-abiding Jews
agreed. If almost all Jews agreed
that acts of fornication and adultery were wrong, there was no reason for
Jesus, who shared these views (see, e.g., Mark 7:21-22; Luke 16:18) to exegete
the obvious.[1]
Nevertheless, it may be the case that Jesus did speak directly to the issue of
homosexuality in his teaching.
Below are some excerpts from an article by G. Thomas Hobson, “ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 21 (2008),
65-74. (A pdf of this article can be found HERE).
It is commonly claimed that Jesus never speaks one word about
homosexuality. However, one can
argue to the contrary that he actually speaks two. As we look at his list of sins in Mark 7, we find two words
that arguably include homosexual behavior within the scope of their
meaning. One is the term πορνεία
(sex outside of marriage), a word which has been much studied and commented
upon. The other is the word ἀσέλγεια, on word on which precious
little study has been done. (p. 65)
Hobson
mentions William Barclay’s comment that ἀσέλγεια
may be possibly the “ugliest word” in the list of New Testament sins. Hobson comments:
It’s a word that Jesus (translated through the tradition that
Mark presents) could easily turn to as a synonym for homosexual activity and
other similarly shocking behavior forbidden by the Jewish law. (p. 65)
Hobson
goes on to engage in a lexical study of the word looking at its usage in
classical Greek, pre-New Testament, and post-New Testament contexts.
Jewish writers almost always use this word in its sexual
sense. It appears that what βδέλυγμα
was to idolatry, ἀσέλγεια was to πορνεία: sin taken
to its most disgusting degree… The term may have been used to refer to what
were regarded as the most shameless violations of the sexuality taught in the
Torah. (p. 67)
Hobson notes that ἀσέλγεια is used ten times in the
New Testament: Mark 7.22; Romans 13.13; Galatians 5.19; 2 Corinthians 12.21;
Ephesians 4.19; 1 Peter 4.3; 2 Peter 2.2, 7, 18; Jude 4. The references in 2 Peter are
especially noteworthy, as Hobson points out:
Second Peter uses ἀσέλγεια
more than any other NT document.
It links ἀσέλγεια explicitly with the sins
of Sodom and Gomorrah, picturing Lot (2 Pet 2,7) as “greatly distressed by the
licentiousness (ἀσέλγεια) of the wicked” around him
(probably not referring to their failure to show hospitality). (p. 68)
Hobson
notes that Jesus’ usage of this term only appears in Mark. Hobson takes the accepted view of
Mark’s audience that it was primarily a Gentile audience.
Only Mark has ἀσέλγεια
on his list also. It would appear
that the writer of Mark, writing for a general audience, saw a need to spell
out an element of Jesus’ teaching that addressed a sexual lifestyle issue among
Gentiles, a matter that was less of an issue for Matthew’s predominately Jewish
audience. Furthermore, for some
reason, neither πορνεία nor μοιχεία specifically addressed the sexual sin he
had in mind. It is likely
(particularly in light of a text such as Melito, De Pasc. 389-94) that Jesus was speaking of violations of the Torah
such as homosexual behavior, incest, or bestiality, rather than comparatively
less shocking sins such as adultery and fornication. (p. 70)
Hobson
ends his article with these thoughts:
Exactly what did Jesus consider to be “utter
shamelessness”? What did he
consider too far “over the line”?
The danger is to impose twenty-first century AD politically correct
ideas on Jesus. It is unlikely
that Jesus used the word to describe the scandals of poverty and
injustice. It is unlikely that he
was speaking of mere affronts to “common decency” (whatever that means). In context, it is far more likely that
Jesus had in mind what his fellow Jews (like the author of 2 Peter) meant when
they used the word: images of Sodom and Gomorrah, images of outrageous
violation of the one-flesh union of man and woman. Jesus would likely have shared Jude’s concern about those
who “twist the grace of God into ἀσέλγεια”
(Jude 4).
If Jesus had wished to speak of homosexual behavior in his
list of sins that defile the human heart, to what other word could Mark have
turned in his translation?
Παιδεραστία was too narrow a term.
Ἀρσενοκοίτης had barely been coined
by Paul. And πορνεία is too broad
a concept, although it is the only word Matthew chooses to use in his version
of Jesus’ sin list. Ἀσέλγεια was an ideal word for
identifying both homosexual behavior and other similar sexual sins of which
even the Mishnah was reticent to speak any more than was absolutely
necessary. It appears that the
situation demanded that the subject be addressed for Mark’s mixed audience of
Jews and Gentiles, but not for Matthew’s Jewish-Christian audience.
Ἀσέλγεια
reveals itself as a shamelessness that knows no boundaries, a shocking brazen
disregard for any kind of morality.
Did Jesus use this word as a synonym for homoerotic activity and other
similar acts from which Jews (along with many Gentiles) recoiled in
horror? One cannot prove beyond
doubt that Jesus had this meaning in mind, but a plausible case can be made
that he did.
The appearance of ἀσέλγεια
on the lips of Mark’s Jesus must be accounted for somehow, and it will not do
to say that a word of such shock value as ἀσέλγεια
was a throw-away detail, or was intended as nothing more than a synonym for
πορνεία or μοιχεία. Yes, these
three words may overlap in meaning, but in a context where all three are used
together as part of a standard trio of sexual vices, and particularly in a
first century AD Jewish context, where ἀσέλγεια
is virtually always used in a sexual sense, it is likely that all three terms
are intended to convey specific meanings: fornication, adultery, and the most
shocking sexual offenses named in the Torah. It is argued here that, as he seeks to faithfully
communicate Jesus’ teaching, Mark found it necessary to emphasize to his
readers that Jesus did explicitly reaffirm the Torah’s prohibition of the most
shocking sexual offenses, of reaffirmation that Matthew did not find it
necessary to make to his readers.
Jesus says that both πορνεία and ἀσέλγεια come from the heart, along
with murder, theft, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, envy, slander, pride,
and foolishness (Mark 7,21-3). As
the debate about sexuality continues in today’s society, Jesus’ words about
shameless disregard for boundaries in the area of sexual behavior deserves
further consideration in this debate. (pp. 72-74)
