Quote:
Originally Posted by momonkey
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Not relevant when read in context. Paul was writing to the church in Rome about converted Christian gentiles who had reverted back to worshipping pagan fertility gods in temples. This worship included frenzied sex orgies where everyone would have sex with everyone else - both same-sex and opposite sex. These people were normally heterosexual otherwise the verse makes no sense. It has nothing to do with homosexuals, other than some of the ritual orgiastic sex was same-sex. The letter is about the problems the newly formed Roman church had with people reverting to idolatry.
The transliterated Greek phrase φύσιν παρὰ "para physin" or "para phusin" is explained well by Professor
John Boswell in his well known work "Christianity Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" (Yale historian, language scholar and one of the most cited scholars on this topic).
You can preview read one of his books here which discusses that particular verse in the original Greek as well as the context in which it was written here:
Christianity, social tolerance, and ... - Google Book Search
and here for the 1 Cor 6 and 1 Tim 1 verses also misused to condemn homosexuals in general.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=...um=5#PPA335,M1