The contributions of the Septuagint to biblical sanctions against homosexuality : a study of "know" in Genesis 19:5 and "cult prostitute" in Deuteronomy 23:17-18 and elsewhere, with the implications for English translations, ethics and law

As the public debate over the place of homosexual behavior in Western society intensifies, there are various attempts to justify homosexual behavior on the basis of ethics or religious belief as derived from Scripture. Several writers have sought to "reinterpret" passages of Scripture which seemingly condemn homosexual behavior as a sin and/or a crime.' The reinterpretation of Old Testament passages has included an appeal to the Greek translation, the Septuagint (LXX). On the one hand, it is claimed that English translations have erroneously translated certain O'I passages so as to give them a homosexual meaning when the Hebrew has no such meaning. Appeal is made to the LXX as evidence that these early translators saw no homosexuality in the text and rendered the Hebrew by Greek terms void of homosexual meaning." On the other hand, some hold that where the LXX does use terminology denoting homosexuality it erroneously translates the Hebrew, which lacks any homosexual meaning. At these places the LXX translation was influenced by the antipathy of the Jewish translators toward the expression of homosexuality in the Greek culture around them in the third century BC or later. The net effect of these positions is the same. English translations signifying homosexuality (such as "sodomite" or "have sexual relations with") are in error, it is claimed. Since the claim is that the Hebrew text is void of a homosexual meaning, it is the LXX which is the key to this linguistic debate and its ethical consequences. This study focuses on the meaning of to know" in the account of the sin and fall of Sodom (Gen. 19:5,8) and the meaning of "sodomite" as found in the KJV at Deuteronomy 23:17-18 (LXX 1819) and elsewhere (1 Kngs 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kngs 23:7; Job 36:14) where the term qadesh and its cognates occur," Since these passages describe both Gentile practice (Gen. 19) and Jewish legal proscription (Deut and Kngs)they have significance for contemporary ethics and civil law regarding homosexuality, as well as importance for English translations.