Comment on community for lgbtq+ christians or those learning about christianity
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 weeks ago[...] Arsenokoitai
Yeah, I read some 3 page essay on how that word was used. I know "every reputable translation of the Bible translates it along those lines" but that doesn't make it correct to translate it to a different word in and view it from a different perspective / a different context 2000 years later. I think it's ambiguous at best. And skipping the 3 pages and making it about todays homosexuals is an oversimplicifaction and simply wrong.
[...] Eisegesis, not Exegesis
I'm not that educated on church doctrine, but do we even have access to exegesis? I mean sure technically the scripture is the meaning by definition. But isn't what Paul writes already something like eisegesis? I mean he's a human and he interpreted and spread the teachings for us.
no evidence in the text anywhere that it could be indicating pederasty
Well, I think pederasty is very wrong. If that part of the Bible fails to recognize or even mention that, I condemn the scripture for that.
Romans 1:26-27
Again, that's Paul's summary of Hellenistic legalism. That's the entire context of that part of Romans.
Trying to claim that Jesus fits in any secular political viewpoint (leftism, conservatism) is a very shallow view and completely incorrect.
I know. The entire left/right spectrum is completely incorrect. But I gave some examples of what kind of person Jesus was and if he advocated for the people and the weak, or for the strong ones and the establishment. He happens to have quite some overlap there with core leftist ideology.
you'd have dinner with the adulterers [...]
And I think here, you're absolutely right. Although [...]
There is no "although". He clearly left out picking on their "sinful state" the way the other people did. He went there and all he had was love. It's not super straightforward but I'm pretty sure we can skip lecturing them on those kinds of "sins".
By reinterpreting the Bible in your own way [...] Essentially, if I disagree with the Bible, then I'm the one who's wrong. Not the Bible.
Yeah I mean good luck with that. It's full of contradictions, stuff that was written after Jesus. You need to believe the earth is 6000 years old and rectancular with angels in the four corners playing the trumpet on doomsday. And you can't even tell whether it's okay to eat Shrimp unless you do Eisegesis. And I'm pretty sure all the raining frogs and so on is made up and not meant to be taken literally.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
By the appointment of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit
You aren’t in any position to condemn the inspired word of God
The “although” I placed there was because I wanted to make sure that you didn’t show Jesus as claiming that sin isn’t sin, and I was agreeing to a misunderstanding of what you were saying.
The Bible doesn’t say that.
It’s not as Eisegesis, it’s covenant theology. The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 also highlights this, as does Paul in several of his epistles. It’s why we don’t circumcise men anymore.
Chattel Slavery that existed in 1700-1800s America wasn’t happening in that society.
Are you talking about the plagues of Moses? If that’s the case, then what do you propose happened?
You are drawing a huge and dangerous brush over here. The Bible is a compilation of 66 divinely inspired books. Some are poetry and some are prophecy, like the imagery in Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Revelation, etc. It is obvious then that stuff like that is up for interpretation. But then when you get to Paul’s epistles which are separate literary works, and he says
1 Timothy 1:9-11 ESV
It isn’t figurative that enslavers, liars, murderers are evil (at least I hope not) so why do you grant homosexuality an exception?
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV
This doesn’t come off as figurative either.
If the whole Bible can be taken figuratively like you argue, then we can discard Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness when someone is a former pornstar, and we can say “oh, you’re too far gone to be forgiven” “Oh, he meant everyone else, not you, sweetie”
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 weeks ago
If it promotes adult men sleeping with underage boys, or is indecisive about it, I'll just refuse that kind of "inspiration". I think it's immoral. God can strike me down for that if he likes, and if he's in a position to do that, still doesn't change my mind about the subject.
Yes, you were talking about something else. People just tend to lose me when talking about God's unconditional love and then following the sentence up with a "but" or "although". I think we agree here. I have reason to believe the New Testament is about unconditional love. And that's reflected at many places in it. Most people add a "but", or "although", an we're immediately in dangerous territory. And the people calling themselves Christians and waving signs with "God hates fags" didn't understand the core of that the New Testament stands for. They're simply wrong. But that's not what you said.
In the old times God was kind of evil. He send plagues, told people to kill each other including all women and children, just the young girls are okay to keep. Nonchalantly drowned pretty much all animals which were pretty much innocent in mankinds wrongdoings. Or he casually dropped them on their heads. It's not like that any more for Christians. That's replaced by Gods unconditional love for his children. And the way of Jesus isn't to blame them and lecture them on how they're wrong all the time. But specifically omit that and show them just(!) the love, and that gets them where they need to be. So that's why I think we should never follow up such sentences with a "but".
I propose it's part of the supposed origin story of a tribe. And the hardships they had to endure. I have no reason to believe superstitious things happen and physics can be contradicted. Plague of locusts exist and all kind of other things. But not random frog droppings.
Btw that's also the source for the (6000 years) young earth theory, because as part of the origin story, it includes a family tree and you can add the numbers up.
I think my main issue is that I completely fail to understand how I'm supposed to know which is open up to interpretation and what's meant to be taken literally. Am I supposed to use reason and my deductive skills here? But that's kind of interpretation again. So I can't do that. And to my knowledge the Bible doesn't really come with an instruction manual what's true and what's over exaggerated or just a nice (but false) story. Or do I just take what some other human said as word for it?
I tried to explain that before. Because it's not there. The text doesn't use the word homosexuality, but "Arsenokoitai". And the passages regularly add constraining adjectives. Which just isn't the case for adultery. The translation is way more forward for that one. And we have more occurrences in the Bible which make it very clear that that one isn't just meant within a certain context, or comes with exceptions. Also Jesus talks about other important issues himself, but for homosexuality that's all in parts added by other people. So that's why I treat that differently.
I mean we have a bit more of an issue here. I started with "depends on whether you ask the church or Jesus". So I'm not really bothered by what Paul thought or wrote down, or covenant theology tells me. If homosexuality were to be important to Jesus, I'd expect it to show up in the Sermon of the Mount or something, and him clearly addressing that big issue. Or I'd like to read some nice parable on how he went to the gay club. But curiously enough, these passages don't exist.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
To which I was never objecting to. I was saying that loving a sinner doesn’t necessarily mean you are loving the sin.
God cannot be evil.
What about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, or the many miracles He performed?
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 weeks ago
Yes, I'm wrong here. I think it's a bit of a technicality. He created evil (Isiah 45:7) and no matter if he commits the same thing as evil, per definition that never makes him be evil.
I think it's a metaphor. And not even the most important one (to me). I think the important part is that he died for us. And then they added some more fluff to the story. It really brings it home and sets him apart as the messiah if there's an added resurrection. And well, I think performing miracles was quite common for prophets back then and paranormal things happened often. Muhammad also performed many miracles including similar ones like providing supernatural food. Various other people did it, too. And people split the sea and did all kinds of things in the Old Testament.
I'm still very unconvinced about the entire homosexuality thing. I mean the Romans text is kind of the God of the Old Testament, needy for valudation and full of wrath. And then he was pissed and gave humans sexual desires contrary to nature. And that and the "shameless acts" are a bit unclear. Whatever that is supposed to mean if I'm not allowed to interpret it. I'd say men loving each other in a genuine way surely can't be that, there's no shame or harm in that.
The Corinthian thing is more it. Still needs context though, since it requires knowledge about sex practices back then and what has been considered immoral by society back then, because it mostly refers to that. And then we have the translation in the way.
My big issue, if that's not concerned with pederasty... What part of the New Testament is? Or is age just not the problematic part of it, ...that'd be completely fine to do for Christians, just that they have the same gender?