Phil Robertson of Duck
Dynasty believes in the Bible and he told Drew Magary of GQ, who
wrote about it in the magazine. Now everyone is shocked, shocked I tell
you, to find out what is in the Bible and what Phil believes. But first
question first: what is Duck Dynasty?
I have never watched the show, but I have heard about it and if you want to be
filled in on what the show is about and what the Robertson clan is about, you
can read the GQ piece. They made
their money, though, and all of the subsequent fame which followed, from inventing
a duck caller and from duck hunting. They are a part of a new type of reality
TV which focuses on southern people who talk funny and, as a result, are
probably “stupid” and ought to be mocked. I do not watch reality TV, any of it,
as I believe ultimately it is about exploitation, even if everyone’s in on the
game: the so-called stars, the TV networks and the people who watch them. The
magazines and TV shows which cover the reality TV stars are also in on the game,
so that they can say things like “far smarter than they appear” and “they
really believe these things.”
Phil apparently crossed a line, however, in his downhome
belief system. What Phil and his family believe in is the Bible. The reason why
Phil hunts, it seems, is even based on the Bible.
Phil knows the Bible. In Genesis 1, human beings and animals
are created as vegetarians:
26 Then God said, “Let
us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created
humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them,
and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue
it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air
and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God
said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of
all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for
food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of
the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the
breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
But after the flood, it all changed. Genesis 9:1-7 says,
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said
to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 The
fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every
bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish
of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving
thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green
plants, I give you everything. 4 Only, you shall not eat flesh
with its life, that is, its blood. 5 For your own lifeblood I
will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from
human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for
human life.
6 Whoever sheds the
blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind.
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind.
7 And you, be fruitful
and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”
You can see the similarities between the two passages, with
the main difference being that instead of just green plants, now “every moving
thing that lives shall be food for you” (Genesis 9:3). It is true that Genesis 9:3-4 commands people
not to eat the blood of an animal, which Acts 15:20, 29 upholds, but that might
be a discussion for another blog post.
Hunting animals, though, is not what got Phil Robertson in
trouble, so no one seems to have brought up his interpretation of Genesis 1 and
9. What got Phil Robertson in trouble, and suspended from A&E
television, are comments which have been interpreted as anti-gay or
homophobic. Here are the relevant sections of the interview.
And:
Phil certainly equates
homosexuality with sin in the first citation (“But hey, sin: It’s not logical,
my man. It’s just not logical.”), but he would not be the first Christian to do
so (see CCC 2357, which references Genesis 19:1-29; Romans
1:24-27; 1 Corinthians
6:10; 1 Timothy
1:10 for support.) His language is crude as he discusses sex,
but he would not be the first American celebrity to speak coarsely about sexual
preferences. It seems to me that the major culprit for the outrage regarding
Phil Robertson is found in the second citation in which he begins to define sin
as homosexuality, but then seems to relate homosexuality to other sexual sins.
I am not certain if he is connecting homosexuality to other sexual sins, or if
it was simply a list of sexual sins that jumped into his mind. It is possible,
of course, that the connection to bestiality was made based on Leviticus 18:
22-23, in a chapter which groups all sexual sins together in one passage, but
in these two verses particularly places homosexuality beside bestiality.
Phil then paraphrases 1
Corinthians 6:9-11, which I reproduce below in the NRSV version:
9 Do you not know that
wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived!
Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves,
the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom
of God. 11 And this is what some of you used to be. But you
were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Phil’s paraphrase from the end of 1 Corinthians 6:9b-10 is
actually quite accurate. He does not miss a category in Paul’s vice list. So
his rendering is fairly accurate, but what are we supposed to make of Phil’s views?
They were the mainstream views of Christianity for over 1,900 years and they
remain so for many Christians today, as official or dogmatic teaching of the
Church or the Bible. No one it seems took any issue with Phil for citing 1
Corinthians 6:9-10 on the sinfulness of theft, drunkenness, and greed, for
instance, but all of the outrage is for his view of the sinfulness of same-sex
relations. Is Phil wrong to hold these views or are TV networks playing a bit
of a game with us? We want you to enjoy these backwoods hillbillies in all of
their down to earth glory, as long as it’s about Louisiana slang and big ZZ Top
beards, camouflage, guns, and dead ducks, but if you actually get to the
content of their Bible belt beliefs, why, who knew they were homophobic rubes?
Off with their show!
The Bible’s teaching on homosexuality is clearly a difficult
teaching for the modern West, but is it possible to oppose homosexual behavior
and still be open and accepting of gays and lesbians? Certainly, Pope Francis
believes so, as CCC 2357 cites the same passage which
Phil does in support of its teachings that homosexual acts are “gravely
disordered” and Pope Francis is Advocate’s
person of the year (though read the
comments to see how people feel about that choice).
Later in the interview Phil actually mimics Pope Francis
when he says,
I see what he’s saying and to me it sounds a lot like, “who am I to judge?” Phil suggests that the task of judgment belongs with God. But it seems for many that this stance is not sufficient.
Many Christians, Anglicans, Lutherans and others, formally
welcome open and out gays and lesbians into their churches, marriage and ministry,
but many others, the Roman Catholic Church and many evangelical and fundamentalist
churches included, do not. In those churches which do not welcome open and out
gays and lesbians, there are significant differences of opinion, often breaking
on age lines, among clergy and laity. The issue of acceptance of gays and lesbians
in Christianity and what acceptance means is going to continue to be a major
issue in the years to come. And, realistically, acceptance has a lot to do with
how one reads the Bible on homosexuality.
First, the word homosexuality is a neologism which emerged
in the 19th century. It did not exist in Paul’s day and it is in Paul’s
letters where we find passages which speak against “homosexual” behavior
(Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:10). This means that Paul would
not be aware of sexual identity as we understand it today; Paul simply speaks
against behaviors which he understands to be forbidden in the Old Testament. Second,
the issue has to do with the Bible and its interpretation and the weight one
assigns to the Bible on deciding any particular moral question. Most Christians
understand the Bible as the Word of God, but many do not believe that every
assertion made in or by the Bible is intended to apply in every historical or
cultural situation. Still, many Christians see the claims of the Bible as
having universal applicability – that any attempt to water down the clear
meaning of a biblical injunction is to play fast and loose with the
understanding of the Bible as divine moral guide. When we add to this the Roman
Catholic claim that homosexual relations are “contrary to the law of nature,” we
can see that there are arguments not just from the Bible, but Tradition and the
Magisterium. Third, and finally, we must
nevertheless read and interpret biblical passages in the historical context in
which they appeared and understand the social and cultural context in which
they made sense to their first readers in order for them to make sense to us today.
I want to use 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 as an example where
biblical scholarship helps us understand the ancient context of a passage. There are two words from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 which
scholars struggle to translate. The words are malakoi (male prostitutes by NRSV and Phil) and arsenokoitai (homosexual offenders by
Phil; sodomites by NRSV). These words are found only in this passage in Paul’s
letters. What do these words mean in Greek? Malakoi
means “soft.” Arsenokoitai is a
combination of arsēn, “male,” and koitē, which is a word that stems from “bed,”
but comes to refer to sleeping with someone or having sex with someone. It
appears in a number of verbal and noun forms. Paul’s form is actually a neologism itself:
this is the first appearance of the word in Greek.
John Boswell’s study in 1980 devoted an appendix to understanding
arsenokoitai (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in
Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian era to the Fourteenth
Century. Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1980, 341-353). Boswell concluded that Paul was
referring to male prostitution when he used this word and that it could also
relate to sexual relations of men with boys (353, n.1). John J. McNeill, S.J.
published a few years prior to Boswell, but was dependent upon his conclusions
(The Church and the Homosexual. New York: Pocket Books, 1978). In the
paperback edition, published two years after the hardcover edition, McNeill
notes on page 214, n. 39 that Boswell’s “unpublished research on the Pauline
texts is one of the principal sources of the material I use here.” Fr. McNeill also
claimed that arsenokoitai did not refer
to “homosexuals” or “homosexuality,” but to male prostitutes or “concubines”
(64). With respect to malakoi,
McNeill argued that its literal meaning, “soft,” need not have particular
connotations with respect to male homosexual behavior, but could reflect
immorality in general, including sexual behavior in general (63).
Robin Scroggs believed the word malakos, which he defines as “literally meaning soft and by
extension ‘effeminate’,” referred in Paul’s vice list to those youths who sold
themselves to older men and so represents “a specific dimension of pederasty
which, as we have seen, neither proponent nor opponent of pederasty ever
defended” (Robin Scroggs, The New
Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual background for Contemporary Debate.
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983, 106). Scroggs understood arsenokoites to mean “one who lies with
a male,” but acknowledges the oddness of the term which makes its first
literary appearance in Greek in this passage in 1 Corinthians (107-108). I
believe that Scroggs figures out the origin of this term in Greek by tracing it
to the Hebrew phrase mishkav zakur,
“lying with a male” (108). He believes the word designates “the adult, who took
the active role in the sexual encounter” and malakos indicates the youth who is hired for sex (108). Victor
Furnish follows Scroggs carefully, translating the phrase in 1 Corinthians 6:10
as “effeminate males” and “men who have sex with them” (Victor Paul Furnish, The Moral Teaching of Paul: Selected Issues.
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1979, 67-72). This is also the belief of Frank Matera,
New Testament Ethics. Westminster
John Knox Press, 285, n.25, who wrote, “I am of the opinion that Paul has adult
homosexuals and the young boy prostitutes who service them in view.”
Other scholars saw these translations as too narrow. David
F. Wright argued that arsenokoitai
was best understood as broadly defining sexual relations between two males, not
specifically an act of prostitution (David F. Wright, “Homosexuals or
Prostitutes? The Meaning of Arsenokoitai
(1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10)” in Vigilae
Christianae 38 (1984) 125-153). He, like Scroggs, draws his understanding
of arsenokoitai from Hellenistic
Judaism, particularly the Septuagint, where the two parts of the word, arsen and koitē, appear in conjunction in both Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
(129). He states that “Christian writers and teachers identified arsenokoitai with by far the commonest
form of homosexuality current in the Hellenistic world, that is, the
relationship between an adult male and a youth of teenage years” (136). Wright’s examination of the linguistic
evidence was extensive and he has been followed, and was preceded, by a number
of scholars (Craig S. Keener, 1-2
Corinthians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 54-55; Charles H.
Talbert, Reading Corinthians: A Literary
and Theological Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. New York: Crossroad
Publishing, 1987, 25; Hans Conzelmann, A
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975,
106-07; Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to
the Corinthians, 242-44 wants to see malakoi
as referring to “call boys” and arsenokoitai
as referring to those who perform homosexual acts in general).
The positions I have laid out above are the two basic positions
that scholars take: 1) Paul in 1 Cor. 6:9 refers to a specific form of male
prostitute and the men who have sex with them; or 2) Paul refers to sex between
males in a more general manner. If one chooses the first approach, it makes
sense of the two terms, malakoi and arsenokoitai, as explaining one another,
the one being the partner, thought to be youthful, who sells himself, the other
being the adult partner who purchases the services of the young man. If one
chooses the second approach, one would see the terms more generally, with malakoi referring to the “passive”
partners and arsenokoitai denoting
the “active” partners, with no particular focus on prostitution.
With respect to malakoi,
there are good reasons to see it as referring to younger males, who generally
did function as partners to older males in the common Greek and Roman practice
of pederasty. These boys were often described as ”soft” or “effeminate” (see the
1st century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, Special Laws., 3:37-40; On Abraham 136 ). Bernadette J. Brooten demonstrates
how the “soft” male was viewed in the ancient context as the “passive” partner
(Love Between Women: Early Christian
Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1996, 122, 126, 148, and 256). As Brooten says, “soft” could refer to
effeminate men or women. Women were expected to be “soft,” but “soft” men were
shamed. Stanley K. Stowers in “Paul and Self-Mastery” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook (ed. J. Paul Sampley
(Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003) speaks of ancient peoples being
ranked on scales of “femaleness” and “maleness,” with male being ideally “hard”
and “active” and female being “soft” and “passive,” though full of desire and
passions. Stowers understands malakoi
to reference “soft men.” He states that “male homoeroticism was considered
manly for the active partner and an expression of femaleness by the passive
partner” (544). He adds, though, that malakoi
could also refer to an unhealthy male desire for sex with women also.
So which option do I choose? I accept a modified form of
position one. Arsenokoitai definitely
refers to men who have sexual relations with other males. It seems, however,
that understanding malakoi as only
referring to “call-boys” or prostitutes skips over a large part of the reality
of sexual behavior and social reality in the 1st century. Mark Golden has shown that a slave, whatever
his age, was often considered a “child” (pais)
and called a “child” all of his life (“Pais,
‘Child’ and ‘Slave,’” L’Antiquité
Classique 54 (1985), 91-104). Indeed, the terms “child” and “slave” were
basically interchangeable in Greek. More to the point, Golden has written of
the close relationship between slavery and homosexuality at Athens
(“Slavery and Homosexuality at Athens” in Phoenix
38 (1984) 308-324). This relationship was at the heart of sexual relations
between males across the whole Roman Empire. One of the key elements of the
roles which boys and slaves played in the sexual hierarchy is that male
children and slaves would be “passive” partners in homosexual activity. As
Golden says of ancient Greek sexuality, “homosexual relationships did not
involve equals” (“Slavery and Homosexuality at Athens,” 312). Often this relationship was based on age,
with the younger partner “thought of as subordinate to the older” (“Slavery and
Homosexuality at Athens,” 312).
While free boys would grow to men and so outgrow the
subordinate role in homosexual relationships, slaves never would. And it was
often slaves with whom owners had sexual relations and who were sold to others
for profit. That is, these boys or men had no choice whether to participate in
this sexual behavior. This was not limited, either, to classical Athens. In Special Laws 3.37-42, Philo of
Alexandria criticizes pederasty. In this extended criticism he discusses both
the pederasts and those young men (neoi)
who were kept in a state of youthfulness by using make-up, braiding their hair,
and wearing perfumes. This is where the connection to “soft” or “effeminate”
youth is made. But who were these youths? In On the Contemplative Life, 48-62, Philo spoke of the banqueting
common with both Greeks and barbarians (48), in which the focus was placed on
beautiful slaves who poured the drinks (50). The sexual nature of their serving
is pronounced in Philo’s discussion as it was in Greco-Roman descriptions of
symposia (Jan M. Bremmer, “Adolescents, Symposion,
and Pederasty,” in Sympotica: A Symposium
on the Symposium. ed. O. Murray; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, 135-148).
Philo describes boys (pais)
who poured the wine, while “older boys,” whose wore make-up, poured the water. In
the background were the “teenagers” (meirakion)
who, according to Philo, recently had been the “pets” of the pederasts. Philo’s
comment that those who were “teenagers” were past prime and standing in the
background suggests that attention was on the younger slave boys. Given that
young boys, who had smooth, hairless skin, were most desirable to ancient
pederasts (see Jennifer Glancy, Slavery
in Early Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002, 23 and Christian Laes,
Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders
Within. Cambridge: CUP, 2011) and that slave boys were no longer desirable
as objects of sexual pleasure when they became too old, Philo may be pointing
at this very constellation of factors in his differentiation of three sets of
boys. It is also clear that these slave boys were not “prostitutes,” in the
sense that this was their profession, freely chosen.
The issue I want to raise is a simple one: the distinction
scholars of Paul have tried to draw between “homosexual activities in general”
and “a specific sort of prostitution” might be misleading. Homosexual behavior
in the ancient Greco-Roman world involved those who were subordinate and those
who were superior. This would often involve younger males and adult males, but
it most often involved male slaves in the subordinate role, whether with their
owners or being given, or sold, to
others by their masters. It is also important to stress that most prostitutes
were slaves. Ancient Greco-Roman “homosexuality” is based to a large extent on
coercion, force and slavery. Does Paul mention both malakoi and arsenokoitai
specifically because he knows that slaves or younger male prostitutes who are
in this subordinate role (malakoi) have no choice over their own bodies
and whether this sexual behavior continues or stops? That is, if slaves are not
free moral agents in this behavior, it is essential for Paul to stress that
those who have control of the behavior (arsenokoitai)
must cease engaging in it. For the Roman world did not think less of a man and
did not see it as morally problematic if he engaged actively in such homosexual
relations with boys or slaves, even if he was married, as long as he was not
the passive partner. For a freeborn Roman man to take the passive role in
same-sex relations was considered dishonorable and shameful (Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010). Those who were “passive”
in such behavior were either boys or slaves who had no control over their
bodies and so had to endure shame.
So, can we tie together ancient sexual practices and the
Bible with Phil Robertson and Duck
Dynasty? There is a transition going on in western Christianity, a
transition some Christians have made with respect to the Bible’s teaching on “homosexuality”
– they have moved beyond it – and a transition others have resisted – they want
to be faithful to what the Bible and their Church teaches. It seems to me that
Phil Robertson is attempting to be faithful to the teaching of the Bible, but
he also seems willing to accept that he is not the final judge on these
matters. It seems possible to me that biblical studies might ultimately play
some small role in opening up people to the patterns of sexuality in the
ancient world which were often coercive and cruel and used those on the lower
rungs of the hierarchy in a fundamentally abusive manner.
Frankly, much of male sexuality in the ancient Roman Empire
of Paul’s day was based upon slavery. I believe that understanding the nature
of ancient sexuality might also help us understand precisely what Paul was
speaking against: the coercive sexual use of boys and slaves. And if we
understand malakoi and arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 in the context I have outlined
here, would we not agree with Paul that such behavior needs to stop? This is
information, though, which usually does not make its way into a broad public
forum; usually this writing appears in academic journals and books. Would it
make a difference to Phil Robertson’s views if he knew it? Would he distinguish
between coercive sexual relationships of the ancient world and consensual ones
today? Perhaps not, but as this difficult transition in understanding is taking
place in the modern Western world, with Christians on both sides of the fence
on the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, we need to recognize that
with few exceptions Christians want to remain faithful to what the Bible and
the Church teaches. Helping everyone understand the Bible more fully can only
be for the good of all concerned. The ancient Roman world did not speak of
sexual identity or preference as we do today. As we come to understand sexual
identity and preference more fully today, we need to accept all people with
love no matter their sexual identity or preference and offer them a home within
the Church.
John W. Martens
I invite you to follow
me on Twitter @Biblejunkies
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This entry is cross-posted at America Magazine The Good
Word
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