[B-Greek] ARSENOKOITHS: Did I get this right?

Jonathan Robie jwrobie at mindspring.com
Tue Mar 15 09:41:51 EST 2005


Stephen C. Carlson wrote:

>Although I wrote and posted an essay to B-Greek criticizing
>Boswell's proposal about ten years ago assuming that the first
>definition is correct, I would say that both these definitions
>are not quite right -- unless you also include the portion of
>BDAG's definition that is somewhat hard to find since it
>located after a long parenthetical comment: "of one who assumes
>the dominant role in same-sex activity, opp. MALAKOS."
>
>Otherwise, the first definition would have been too broad in
>that it does not take into account the social role of the male
>engaging in the homoerotic activity.  This problem is present
>in your paraphrase of it as "male homosexual sex."  To use
>one of Halperin's examples, it would be like if someone tried
>to define the English word "burglar" as either the robber or
>the robbed in a burglary.
>  
>
Wright's article, which I read carefully, denies this distinction. Do 
you happen to know where I can find evidence for this distinction? Is it 
largely baseed on 1 Cor 6:9 itse

>As best as I can tell, there was no generic term in Greek for a
>male homosexual that ignored the male's social role just as
>English has no general term covering both parties in a burglary
>that ignored who was the burglar and who was the victim in a burglary.
>It was important to specify whether the male is the dominant partner
>(e.g. ERASTHS, PAIDERASTHS, etc.) or the submissive partner (e.g.
>EROMENOS, PAIS, FILERASTHS, etc.).  The same system is evident in
>1 Cor 6:9 where ARSENOKOITHS corresponds to the dominant partner
>and MALAKOS to the submissive one.
>
>In English "pederast" is too narrow in that it requires the activity
>to involve a person under the age of majority.  Though certainly a
>lot of homoerotic activity among ancient Greeks was organized along
>those lines, the submissive member was conventionally termed the
>PAIS even when the junior member was older than the idealized age
>range of youth for that activity (see esp. Halpernin, p. 160, n.26
>and cited references in Dover, Buffiere, and Kay).
>
Thanks for the references, and for the information!

Jonathan



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