The Greek word arsenokoitai shows up in several different verse in the Bible, but it wasn't until 1946 that it was mistranslated to mean "homosexual." For most of European history, most translations properly understood Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, 1 Timothy 1:10 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 to be discussing "boy molesters" based on the original Greek word
arsenokoitai (for example, the 1674 Swedish translation and the 1830 Norwegian translation).
The verses were meant to address and ancient world practice in which young boys (8-12 years old) were coupled by older men. Ancient Greek documents show us how even parents utilized that abusive practice to help their sons advance in society.
The Greek word
arsenokoitai shows up in several different verse in the Bible, but it wasn't until 1946 that it was mistranslated to mean "homosexual." The Revised Standard Version made an honest mistake in mistranslating.
Had it instead taken the time to do the proper research into the historical contextualization, we would have a more accurate translation. We could have avoided the horrible damage that was done from pulpits all across the U.S. church. Sadly, modern biblical commentaries have adjusted to accommodate the mistranslation.
Interestingly, the German Bible didn't include the word "homosexual" until 1983 thanks to a U.S. company, Biblica, paid for a new translation and influenced it.
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