Saturday, June 03, 2017

Early Christianity vs. Roman views on adultery

I emphasize again that, more typically in the Roman era, sex with prostitutes and courtesans, and with young boys as well, was not only tolerated but even affirmed as a hedge against adultery—specifically, sex with another man’s wife or with a freeborn virgin. It is noteworthy, therefore, that Paul, with some other ancient Jewish voices, condemns a far wider spectrum of sexual activities, labeling them as porneias, and that he posits marital sex as a hedge against these various temptations to extramarital sex of any kind. In short, Paul reflects a broadening of prohibited sex well beyond adultery. This alone represented a major shift in comparison to the attitudes of the larger Roman world.— Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World, page 165 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Again, the attempts to rewrite biblical morality leave me unconvinced, largely because of this background. To argue that we know more about sexuality than they did is a bit hard to take when you actually dig into the Greco-Roman history. By the way, William Loader, who probably knows more about ancient sexuality than anyone alive, agrees that the Bible is unequivocally against any kind of sex outside of heterosexual monogamous marriage. But he just says that the Bible is wrong.

He's an honest man. You can't have it both ways. Either you agree that scripture is correct or you agree with Loader that scripture is wrong. You can't claim scripture is correct by reinterpreting it on this issue.
</idle musing>

4 comments:

Tim Bulkeley said...

By and large I agree with you, Bill Loader's position seems unsatisfactory to me. I am fairly convinced by his arguments on the position the biblical authors take. I am less convinced the question is settled, though. I am surprised that the NT passages do not seem actually to be teaching about sexual ethics but rather to be teaching about other things and mention sexuality as part of the argument. This seems to me to have interesting similarities to slavery (though the two cases are far from the same).

If the gay Christian community manages to demonstrate over coming decades faithful committed exclusive relationships in marriages (even marriages not blessed by regular churches) I can imagine we might find ways to understand Scripture freshly. It interested me how the passage you quoted puts the focus on faithfulness not on sex.

jps said...

Tim,

Yes. The emphasis is on faithfulness—something the hererosexual communitiy could learn a good bit more of, as well : (

Time will truly tell, but I suspect that just as the North American churches came to accept no-fault divorce as the norm, most will accept gay marriage. At least in North America, culture, not scripture, is the reigning norm for the church. That should be all to obvious by the fact that 80% of white evangelicals voted for the current philanderer who occupies the White House. Scripture certainly didn't influence their vote : (

James

Tim Bulkeley said...

Indeed, on all counts!

I guess for me the most interesting questions are:

- Will those Christians who become accepting of this (as of no fault divorce) discover that their position has more broadly "biblical" support than we now recognise?
- Will Christians in other parts of the world, especially in Africa and South America, where Christianity is a majority faith, also come to be accepting or will they remain true to the current position.

I do not pretend to know the answers, but would love to find out. (I suspect I'll be beyond this world before it becomes really clear!)

jps said...

Tim,

Me neither, but I suspect the global church won't follow the lead of the Western church here. Time will tell—but I suspect you are correct that neither of us will live long enough to see the answer : )

James