The culture of Paul's time was ambivalent about
homosexuality, as ours is today. Plato was for certain
forms of pederasty in the Symposium but against
it in the Laws, Book VII, and in the
Republic. (Socarides [1995]
40) Paul was most aware of homosexual marriage with
its implied commitment. When Paul was writing his
letters,
At this very time Nero was emperor. He had taken a boy called Sporus and had him castrated. He then married him with a full marriage ceremony and took him home ... and lived with him as wife. [He also] married a man called Pythagoras and called him his husband. (Barclay 53-54)Archaeology has uncovered homosexually erotica from the Jerusalem of Jesus' day. (Stager n14) Plutarch expressed surprise that women instead of men were for loving. (Kroeger & Kroeger 50)
21 August 1996. Copyright information is available.