Romans 1:27, examining the translation

Anyone interested in better understanding scripture is going to study the crap out of it with the Holy Spirit, so, my suggestion is to focus on the Holy Spirit and ignore what people, including me, have to say.

That said, most people are really twisted when they interpret what the Bible tells them.  In the first place, they hand defining the words they read over to people.  Does God define the word AND the same way people do?  The ways of God are not the ways of people, so, don't depend on what your second grade teacher taught you for your salvation.  Check everything with God.

Someone asked me about Romans 1:26-7,
²⁶ For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
²⁷ And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Romans 1:27

KJV word	Strongs	Greek Word	Word Translation
And	g5037	τέ	also
likewise	g3668	ὁμοίως	same
also	g2532	καί	and
the men,	g730	ἄρρην	masculine
leaving	g863	ἀφίημι	send away
the natural	g5446	φυσικός	natural
use	g5540	χρῆσις	useful
of the woman,	g2338	θῆλυς	female
burned	g1572	ἐκκαίω	inflame
in	g1722	ἐν	in
their	g846	αὐτός	this
lust	g3715	ὄρεξις	desire
one toward another;	g1519	εἰς	in
↑	g240	ἀλλήλων	each other
men	g730	ἄρρην	masculine
with	g1722	ἐν en	in
men	g730	ἄρρην	masculine
working	g2716	κατεργάζομαι	achieve through labor
that which is unseemly,	g808	ἀσχημοσύνη	nakedness, indecency
and	g2532	καί	also
receiving	g618	ἀπολαμβάνω	grasping
in	g1722	ἐν en	and
themselves	g1438	ἑαυτοῦ	himself or herself
that recompence	g489	ἀντιμισθία	compensation
of their	g846	αὐτός	this
error	g4106	πλάνη	straying
which	g3739	ὅς	who, which, that
was meet.	g1163	δεῖ	seen

Being the kind of guy I am, I do not take anyone's word, except the Holy Ghost, for anything.  I am not saying that the Holy Ghost gave me this specific interpretation, but, I am suggesting that not everything is translated exactly as God would have liked it to be.  If we look at the individual words we can see there was some interpretation of how the Greek was translated into English.  This is pretty common, and when we include how word definitions have changed since King James had the Bible translated it becomes even more important to pray for understanding over every single word of the Bible.

So 1:27 tells us mano-e-mano is a bad thing, right?  I don't think so.  In fact, I translate it (in context with 1:26) a little more like this:

"also Men misusing women, inflamed in lust, with (encouraging) each other to take them (women) immorally and straying from that which is (commonly) seen"

Huh?  What?  You mean, maybe Paul was continuing on with the previous passage and discussing how women are misused and wasn't discussing men misusing each other?  WTF?

Yep, I think this particular passage is mis-translated big time.  In Judaism a Rabbi would often suck the blood off an infant boy's penis during a circumcision.  With all the issues about transmittable diseases and gay politics that is frowned on these days, but, Rabbinical Scholars determined this kind of contact, non-lustful, was permissible and even required at times.

What about when we add in the lust stuff?  Yes and no, lot of disagreement among scholars every where.

I am no Greek scholar, but, I remember reading about this translation and controversy before.  I am not confident this passage is correctly translated. It is not as straight forward as some would make it appear. It is discussing unnatural lusts, and men working together to achieve unnatural lusts, but, I think the exact nature of the immorality is not as clear cut as it sounds.  Since the context of the previous passage seems to be about misusing women, in some vile and unnatural way I'm not sure how the translators jump to the conclusion that men are using each other unnaturally as opposed to encouraging each other to use women unnaturally. It may even be talking about "menage de trois".

Leviticus 18:22 is a better passage against men having intercourse.  The only contact strictly forbidden in the Bible, between males, is intercourse. Anyhow, in my opinion, this passage is not quite as clear cut as it appears.

For your own direction I would suggest prayer and listening to the Holy Ghost. Trusting our salvation to people is never a good idea, even trusting your salvation to me would be a bad idea. Prayer and focus on the Holy Spirit is the only way to Christ and Christ is the way.  :-)