| aurora_borealis |
05-26-2004 08:20 PM |
If you happen to be interested in any academic historical written matter about homosexuality in early Europe, and the Christian west, your local University library would likely have a copy of John Boswell's "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality". It is published by the University of Chicago Press, in 1980. This book is 24 years old, and Boswell has many interesting points. Boswell was a hsitory professor at Yale, and was a scholar of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and read original texts and translated himself.
The part I have found most interesting, was the biblical translation in relation to language. In my "History of Sexuality" class we brought in varying versions of the texts (Hebrew Bible, King James, NRSV, NIV, ASB etc), and compared the language of the same verses. For those of us with a knowledge of these languages and root words, it was obvious that many times the word in text may not be the most accurate. One student commented "depending on the translation, people can use the bible to further their agendas".
Just something to read if you're interested...
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