Homosexuality. The big scary sin. The thing Christians whisper about in hushed tones when they find out so-and-so's daughter is a lesbian. Or their neighbor is married to a man. Or when their son wants to start wearing girl's clothes.

Growing up, I was taught by my parents and by the church that homosexuality was a disgusting abomination. That it was an unforgivable sin. Which is false because according to the Bible, the only unforgivable sin is worshipping Satan. Blaspheming against the holy spirit, which basically meant claiming the works of God were actually Satan's.

Out of shame, I shoved down my attraction for women. It was a sin after all, and I didn't want to go to hell.

In acts chapter ten, Peter is granted a vision of animals that at the time were considered unclean. In the vision he was instructed to kill and eat the animals, which horrified him. He referred to them as 'impure' and 'ritually unclean.' He states that he would never eat anything like that.

He hears a voice telling him that God has not made these animals unclean. He tells Peter not to call them impure.

Those animals were God's creation and were clean. So why would certain people be considered 'unclean.'

The word homosexual didn't appear in any Bible until 1946.

1946!!!! It first showed up in the RSV Bible, where there was a translation issue between the words malakoi and arsenokoitai.

Malakoi is a great word that can mean soft, weak, or sometimes male prostitute. Arsenokoitai could translate homosexual offender, sexual offender, or effeminate. However there are many scholars who disagree on these translations. Arsenokoitai is also believed to mean man-bedder, or the equivalent of womanizer. It could just as easily be referring to women who sleep around with a lot of men.

The group in charge of translating this version of the Bible attempted to correct their mistake, but it was too late. Evangelical Christians had taken the verse and run with it.

Let's go to Leviticus 18:22. The classic verse that states 'man shall not lie with man.' I'm going to link an interview below if you want to read more in depth on this.

https://um-insight.net/perspectives/has-"homosexual"-always-been-in-the-bible/

This man by the name of Ed was visiting Germany and asked a German friend to help translate some of his German Bibles from the 1800s. They came across Leviticus 18:22 and found that when translated into English it read 'man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman.'

They found the same thing in Leviticus 20:13

The 1 Corinthians verse condemning homosexuality translated into 'molesters will not inherit the kingdom of God.'

It is terrible how a mistake led to such hate an anger towards the LGBT community. I wonder how many other errors in translation there have been over the thousands of years.

I am searching antique stores for a Bible from before 1946 and hopefully when I get one I can share it with all of you.

I am now openly bisexual so this issue is very important and personal to me.