Sodomite
“I prefer the Biblical term, Sodomite.” A KJV Onlyist has said. This being stated as if the English language has been stuck in 1611 and must continue to be stuck in that Middle English.
Appearance in KJV
The word “sodomite” shows up only once in the KJV.
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
– Deuteronomy 23:17 KJV
And, it shows up in the plural “sodomites” 4 other times but only in the book of Kings.
And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
– 1 Kings 14:24 KJV
And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
– 1 Kings 15:12 KJV
And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
– 1 Kings 22:46 KJV
And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
– 2 Kings 23:7 KJV
The Original Hebrew
The word in the original Hebrew is קדש (kaw-dashe’) which means:
a (quasi) sacred person, that is, (technically) a (male) devotee (by prostitution) to licentious idolatry.
KJV inconsistency
The KJV does not translates קדש as sodomite in Job, but rather as “unclean.”
They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean.
– Job 36:14 KJV
Never in the New Testament
The English word “sodomite” does not appear at all in the New Testament.
Homosexual in the New Testament
The Greek word αρσενοκοιται (ar-sen-ok-oy’-tace) is found twice in the New Testament. This word means “homosexual”. The word “homosexual” does not appear in the English language until about 1892. Thus, the KJV translators could not use this direct rendering of the Greek.
What is interesting is that instead of using the word “sodomite” as they did in the Old Testament they instead attempted to describe the action. In Corinthians they translated αρσενοκοιται as the phrase “abusers of themselves with mankind”.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
– 1 Corinthians 6:9 KJV
In Timothy they phrase this a little differently with, “them that defile themselves with mankind”.
For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
– 1 Timothy 1:10 KJV
Strong Says…
If the Biblical word is “sodomite” one may ask why the KJV translators did not use this word in the New Testament, especially where the word αρσενοκοιται is used.
If you look up Strongs Greek definition you will see that he claims the definition is a “sodomite”.
Thayer broadens his definition a little with:
one who lies with a male as with a female, sodomite, homosexual
השער 