If homosexuality really were the ‘problem’ in the Bible, why does it only mention men, but never women? ​Have you never wondered why there are no lesbians in the entire Bible, and why there is not a single text that would forbid women to have sexual intercourse with other women? Bisexual or homosexual intercourse between women (whether in the presence or absence of their husbands) is a natural occurrence in a polygamous setting. 
It is in fact the exclusive monogamous marriage (only two persons) between heterosexual partners (of the opposite sex), a constraint imposed by the Romans, that makes homosexuality a problem!
If you want to understand the problem of 'homosexuals' in the Bibel, you first have to deal with 'slavery' – a topic that seems to have no connection with homosexuality at all. 
It is a known fact that in the Roman slave markets, there were sellers who specialized in selling boys to paedophile slave owners. Bible translators who translate the Greek word αρσενοκοιτης (arseno-koitês: composed of two words, literally ‘male’ and ‘bed’) in 1 Timothy 1:10 as 'homosexuals' (such as the New American Standard Bible) never took the time to study the historical context thoroughly. Timothy lived in Ephesus, the third largest metropolis in the Roman Empire, where slavery flourished. Correctly translated, the text should read 'immoral men, pederasts and slave dealers', but certainly not ‘homosexuals‘ (pederasts are paedophile men who abuse boys)! Listing pederasts and slave traders in the same breath leaves no room for doubt. 
So Timothy was not dealing with what we today regard as sexual orientation, but with an abominable practice, namely the trafficking of children by paedophile slavers.​
Translating and understanding the Bible is an extremely difficult task. Unfortunately, Christians often approach Bible reading from the perspective of their own challenges. Unwittingly, they thus superimpose their own context onto that of the Bible. It is not enough to learn the biblical languages; one must also be familiar with the cultural context and the issues of the time. In practical terms, one must read historical works written not by theologians, but by historians. In the example of 1 Timothy 1:10, the reader must know, for instance, that Timothy lived in Ephesus, that it was one of the major cities of the Roman Empire, and that there was therefore a slave market there. Furthermore, one must also be aware that there were slave traders who specialised in the trade of young boys for sexual purposes. You will not find most of this information in any Bible. I was always taught that one should interpret the Bible by the Bible; this is a mistake, because often the Bible does not contain, or does not contain enough, contextual clues, simply because at the time of writing, the original readers were familiar with the issues and did not need explanations.
The great classic typically cited by theologians against homosexuals is Leviticus 18:22, which Bibles generally translate as ‘You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination’. This translation is wrong. The more literal translation would be ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination’. The use of the word ‘male’ in this context is unusual and surprising. If Moses had really been aiming at gay men (again, there is not a single verse that prohibits sexual relations between women), the Hebrew legislator should have worded the prohibition as follows: ‘You shall not lie with a man as with a woman’. For a long time I wondered why Moses did not formulate the prohibition as follows: ‘You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female’. If it had been about homosexuality, then he would have had to contrast the same (male) with the same (female), or a man with a woman. But that is precisely the point, the Torah sets two unequal things against each other. Now, the Greek translation of the Ancient Testament called the LXX, which dates from the second century BC and was made by seventy scholars (hence the term LXX) uses the term ‘male’ (ἄρσην) for Leviticus 18:22. It is the same word ‘male’ from which the compound term arseno-koitês (pederast) is formed in 1 Timothy 1:10. We also find the word ‘bed’ (מִשְׁכָּב) used in Hebrew, both in the LXX (κοίτη) as well as in the original Greek text of 1 Timothy 1:10. Now this last verse undoubtedly speaks of pederasts and clearly not of gays, the context could not make this clearer. Referring to the LXX can be in some cases very revealing, because it shows how people in the period of Jesus' time understood the Old Testament. In my book I give a detailed analysis of the verse and demonstrate that the Hebrew term ‘male’ (זָכָר) is used in other biblical texts to refer to boys. I think that Leviticus 18:22 refers to the slavery to which the Hebrew people had been subjected. We read that all Hebrew boys were to be killed. Moses was one of the male babies who had been saved by adoption, in his case by the princess. It is plausible that some Egyptians, instead of killing them, kept Hebrew boys precisely as slaves for sexual purposes. Note that Hebrew women were not enslaved, only men. ‘Male’ would thus refer to any sexual abuse committed with male slaves, which began in infancy and continued to be inflicted into adulthood, hence the vague term ‘male’. This would be consistent with the slavery practised under the Romans, in which sexual abuse began at a tender boyhood age and did not stop as an adult. The two languages (Hebrew and Greek) thus use the same vague terminology to describe the same abomination, practised in two different cultures (that of the Egyptians and that of the Romans), separated by more than a millennium. ​
Bible translators struggle to translate some passages literally or at least have difficulties to convey the initial meaning not because they are so bad at Greek and Hebrew (although, sometimes I wonder...), but because their monogamous obsession forbids them to grasp what really preoccupied the authors of these texts!
​How prejudiced Christian thinkers traditionally think about homosexuality becomes clear with the term 'sodomy'. Sodomy originally stands for anal sex (a common practice among homosexual men), and goes back to the story of Sodom in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 19). Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities that God burned with brimstone and fire as punishment for their wickedness. But the point is: The biblical text does not speak of homosexuality at all and certainly not of anal sex. The men of Sodom wanted to rape two angels (in Hebrew the word מלְאָךְ, malakh – i.e. 'angel' or 'messenger' – is masculine). This gave rise to the word 'sodomy'. As if rapists and gay men were the same thing!
My book will cover this and all the other topics on the website in much more detail and indicate all the necessary evidence, references and sources I rely on. 
* Does Romans 1:26 refer to lesbians? See my book.

Christian LGBTQ+ associations in Switzerland

By Chris Zürcher. Page updated on 27 March 2025