Bible translation debate highlights church teaching on homosexuality

A Bible translation approved for private use by the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference has drawn some objections over the wording of certain verses addressing same-sex relations — but a Scripture scholar and consultant for the bishops told OSV News the text still makes clear the church’s biblical teaching on homosexuality.

The disagreement has also shed light on the laborious — and at times contentious — process of translating biblical texts into various languages, an undertaking that typically involves large teams of scholars, theologians and linguists working over several years.

In a Sept. 30 post on CatholicCulture.org — a lay-administered website operated by the nonprofit Trinity Communications — Peter Wolfgang, president of the Family Institute of Connecticut Action, decried the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ approval of the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition translation of the Bible.

The text, commonly known as the NRSVue, is among the Sacred Scripture translations listed on the USCCB’s website as approved for private use and study by Catholics.

Scripture scholar Father Pablo Gadenz, one of the consultants to the USCCB’s Subcommittee for the Translation of Scripture Text, told OSV News that NRSVue is not the primary translation used by the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Instead, the New American Bible, Revised Edition — released in 2011 after 20 years of work by some 100 scholars and theologians, including bishops — is “the version which is the basis for the Lectionary,” the book of Scripture readings proclaimed at Mass, said Father Gadenz.

The NABRE is the “formal equivalent,” or more literal, “translation of Sacred Scripture, sponsored by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, using the best manuscripts available,” the USCCB notes on its website.

Father Gadenz noted that along with the translations approved by the USCCB, “There are others approved by other English-speaking episcopal conferences or, if before 1983, by individual bishops, as the USCCB page says.”

But Wolfgang asserted the bishops’ approval of the NRSVue is nonetheless problematic, citing the concerns of Protestant Scripture scholar Robert A.J. Gagnon — whose work focuses on biblical sexual ethics — regarding the NRSVue’s translation of two verses in St. Paul’s epistles denouncing homosexuality.

In a 2022 Facebook post, Gagnon said the NRSVue updates served to “‘gaywash’ and eliminate clear reference to homosexual practice” in both 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10.

The Catholic Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that homosexual acts cannot be morally approved, citing both Scripture and tradition, as they “close the sexual act to the gift of life” and “do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.”

At the same time, the church teaches that those experiencing same-sex attraction, like Christians in every state of life, are called to live chastely through prayer and sacramental grace, drawing on “the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom” as they pursue holiness.

Specifically, Gagnon contested in his 2022 post the NRSVue translation of the Greek word “arsenokoitai” as “men who engage in illicit sex” — explaining the term was previously rendered as “sodomites” — with translators providing a note stating the original Greek term was “unclear.”

“It isn’t,” wrote Gagnon, who said the update “does not indicate to English readers the connection to homosexual practice provided by the Greek word, contrary to both morphology and context.”

However, Father Gadenz told OSV News, while the NRSVue’s “original footnotes to ‘arsenokoitai’ in 1 Cor 6:9 and in 1 Tim 1:10 said that the meaning of the Greek is uncertain,” the text and footnotes “have been modified since it was first introduced.”

He pointed out that the NRSVue publisher’s online errata, or list of post-print corrections, now shows the arsenokotai footnote as reading “meaning of Gk,” or Greek, “uncertain, possibly men who have sex with men.”

“So, the footnotes now acknowledge the view in the debate that was previously found in the text of the NRSV for 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10,” said Father Gadenz.

Wolfgang’s column also only partially quoted Gagnon’s Facebook post on one point, saying, “The NRSVue now becomes the first major modern English committee translation of the Bible to eliminate any reference to homosexual practice” — while Gagnon limited that observation to the translation’s rendering of 1 Cor 6:9.

Wolfgang later posted a clarification on his CatholicCulture.org post, saying that “other parts of the NRSVue did not eliminate the references to homosexual practice, as Gagnon’s 2022 post … acknowledged.”

Gagnon had qualified his 2022 criticisms as applying “only to those scholars who had a hand in the translation of 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10.”

He also said in the post that the use of the term “sodomites” for “arsenokoitai” did require an update, since the English word’s inherent reference to the destruction of Sodom — recounted in Genesis 18 and 19 — “destroyed the deliberate echo to the Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse contained in the Greek word arsenokoitai.”

“So, yes, there should have been a revision, but not in the direction of eliminating any reference to homosexual practice,” wrote Gagnon.

Father Gadenz told OSV News that the translation as “sodomite” (which is retained in the NABRE version) presents a “challenge,” But he explained the reason is because “the Old Testament background that Paul has in mind when he’s using this word is Leviticus 18:22, not Genesis 19 with Sodom.”

Wolfgang — who told OSV News he has “an amateur interest in English translations of the Bible,” although he does not read biblical Greek — believes the USCCB approval of the NRSVue is “a really serious matter” that “needs to be resolved.”

“I mean, this is the word of God that we’re talking about,” he said.

In his CatholicCulture.org post, Wolfgang pointed to his 2022 article for Catholic Answers, which warned “how the changes in Mainline Protestantism’s flagship Bible always seem to reflect whatever ideological crusade happens to be au courant at a given moment,” such as “gender-inclusive” or LGBT-friendly language. He explicitly urged the USCCB not to greenlight a Catholic version of the NRSVue until its “errors are corrected.”

But, explained Father Gadenz in an email to OSV News, the NRSVue’s translation of “key verses” on homosexuality — Rom 1:26-27 and Lev 18:22 — leaves “no doubt that the NRSVue renders the biblical prohibitions against homosexual acts clearly.”

Father Gadenz also added that “it is interesting to note how some older versions that are still used today render arsenokoitai” — which he said “may be a word coined by Paul, based on words for ‘male’ (arsen) and ‘bed’ (koite).” It has been rendered in English as “abusers of themselves with mankind” (used in the King James Version of 1 Cor 6:9) and “liers with mankind” (as the Douay Rheims version, which has slightly different verse numbering, translates 1 Cor 6:10).

“Moreover,” Father Gadenz said, “it is helpful to note that in 1 Cor 6:9, the word arsenokoitai is generally understood as being the second in a pair of words,” with the other being the Greek word “malakoi.”

Literally meaning “soft” — “as in ‘soft garments’ in Lk 7:25” — that word “is translated in 1 Cor 6:9 in various ways,” he said, listing “effeminate” (as in the King James Version and Douay Rheims texts), “boy prostitutes” (NABRE) and “male prostitutes” (NRSV).

Still another version, the Common English Bible, “renders the two words malakoi and arsenokoitai with the phrase ‘both participants in same-sex intercourse,'” wrote Father Gadenz.

“The variety of translations for the two terms points to a debate that is discussed in commentaries on 1 Corinthians regarding the proper context for understanding these verses,” he wrote.

Father Gadenz stressed that available translations of the Bible may reflect various translation principles: formal equivalence, which produces a more literal rendition, and dynamic equivalence, which generally results in a less word-for-word, although still accurate, result.

He also said that translators may account for “awareness of different reading levels” as well as “different approaches regarding the use (or not) of horizontal inclusive language.”

And, he cautioned, “There is no perfect version … so there will be some pros and cons to each version.”

As an example, he noted “a current, popular version among Catholics nevertheless incorrectly translates Luke 1:34 as saying that Mary has no husband, which is wrong because Mary is betrothed to Joseph, which means there exists a written marriage contract: biblical betrothal is much more than modern-day engagement.”

“So, it is advisable to choose a Bible version (from those approved) that one will read, and this will be different for different people because of their own preferences,” said Father Gadenz.

He also said while NRSV and NRSVue editors aimed “to have a common text and footnotes across the editions,” that was not the case with the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. That Catholic bible, now in its second edition, “has some differences with the RSV” that are listed in its appendix.

Although Catholics and Protestants do differ on their Scriptural canons, “it is a worthy goal to have a Bible translation that is used by Catholics and other Christians,” said Father Gadenz — something the Second Vatican Council called for in its dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, “Dei Verbum.”

He also explained that the imprimatur (Latin for “let it be printed”) — official permission from the relevant Church authority that a work is free of doctrinal or moral error — does not imply the granting authority necessarily agrees “with the contents, opinions, or statements expressed.”

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