Thursday, December 10, 2015

Craig Keener on Homosexuality and the Bible


New Testament scholar Craig Keener has written two articles on homosexuality and the Bible. The first deal with the textual issue - viz., what does the Bible say about this? The second concerns how Jesus-followers are to respond to gay-oriented persons.


Highlights of the first article include:

  • "My primary vocation is as a Bible scholar, and I need to explain the text faithfully." Right. The issue here is: what does the biblical text say, as opposed to what we might wish the text would say.
  • "I believe that the biblical passages about homosexual behavior are fairly clear... most exegetes, whether they agree personally with Paul or not, still regard Romans 1 as disagreeing with homosexual practice."
  • "I would be happy to be persuaded otherwise, but so far it continues to appear to me that this is where the exegesis strongly points."
  • For more read the article in its entirety.