Endnote 1 – Homosexuality and the New Testament

Other passages in the Hebrew Bible are sometimes thought to refer to homosexuality. Older English translations (including the King James Version) used the word “sodomite” to translate the Hebrew noun qedeshim, which we now know meant something different, namely, “consecrated ones” (see Deuteronomy 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; and Milgrom’s comments in Readers Reply, BR 10:02). Sometimes the “sin of Sodom” is claimed to be homosexual behavior, but the Jewish tradition consistently understood the sin of Sodom as inhospitality.