I’m broadly in agreement with Daniel’s comment. Some time ago (April 2005) a discussion was taking place on this site on a similar theme, and Paul’s coining of the word “arsenokoites” was linked, by Andrew, to a compounding of two words in the Septuagint version of Leviticus 20:13. He said:

“With regard to your point 3: this translation is taken from my post on the other thread: ‘whoever sleeps with a man (arsenos) the marriage-bed / sexual intercourse (koitē) of a woman has done an abomination’ (cf. ESV: ‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination’). The ESV phrase ‘lies with a male’ is more complicated in the Greek: koimēthēi meta arsenos koitēn = ‘sleeps with a male the marriage bed’. You virtually have Paul’s word there: arsenokoitēs.”

This can be found on the two posts “Homosexuality and the New creation” and “Summary, and a surprising conclusion”.

Of course, the subject is in the news again here, with the first of the civil contracts between same-gender people being brought into law and enacted in the UK (in England, in particular, today, with the civil ceremony involving Elton John and his partner). The debate (which has been very muted) is whether this amounts to gay marriage. The political stance was that these ceremonies are not gay marriages, but gay people are treating them as such, though they do not meet what they would have liked (there is no verbal ceremony of vows and exchanging rings etc).

What people do in churches and town halls is one thing; from another point of view it is valid to ask whether solemnisations of marriages or civil contracts equate to a biblical understanding of marriage. Here we are thrown back on Genesis 2:23-24, and the various NT reaffirmations of the covenant given by God between two people. Today’s legal frameworks within which two people link their lives together are a way of bringing social stability and conferring legal rights - for heterosexual and gay people. In the UK, until quite recently marriage has been a means of legalising property rights, and the issue of inheritance. A woman legally had few rights within marriage. Today’s ceremonies and legal frameworks may or may not amount to biblical marriage - according to whether the biblical criteria are fulfilled (and qualified, eg by Paul in Ephesians 5:21-33). A mutually committed cohabiting couple are arguably more ‘married’ in this sense, than a couple who simply go through the motions of a marriage ceremony. And gay people?

My main point was not to open up, indirectly, a new discussion, but to draw attention to a possible derivation of “arsenokoites” as Paul uses it. Depending on your view of things, this could make Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality more absolute, or the opposite: more culturally relative - by limiting the condemnation to particular circumstances that may have been in view in Leviticus 20 (ritual temple prostitution, for example), and which may or may not have been reflected in the cultural expression of homosexuality in the world of Paul’s time.

There is a further perspective on Romans 1:18ff: that Paul is echoing standard Jewish polemic (eg in Wisdom), but that he is also springing a trap: the very people who are making the kind of strictures Paul echoes are themselves guilty of the things of which they accuse others. This becomes clearest if the chapter division between Romans 1 & 2 is removed. Some would then go further, and say that Paul’s perspective does not completely coincide with the apparently straightforward denunciations being made in Romans 1:18ff. (This was also discussed in the aforementioned threads).

My own observation is that those who are loudest in their condemnations of homosexuality are often those who have had least dialogue with gay people - either Christian or non-Christian. Even dialogue is seen by some Christians as compromise. It is regrettable that the division that has opened up in the Anglican communion has done so in blatant rejection of Archbishop Rowan Williams’ plea for different sections of the church to listen to each other.

I also mentioned, in the previous threads, the existence of a group based in the US called “Evangelicals Concerned” - run by Dr Ralph Blair. His approach is basically affirming of the gay orientation, and non-condemnatory of gay relationships. His website www.ecwr.com runs a commentary on the basic biblical passages which tend to be cited in the debate over homosexuality. There are also testimonies of gay people on the site - and some high-profile names, which are worth pursuing. It is worth visiting - if only to be enlightened about a particular perspective.

We had to open a discussion in our church community on the subject, as one of our members runs a ministry for gay people which adopted Blair’s thinking. The church did not go along with this new view - but we managed to square the circle of staying in relationship with the ministry (through the guy who runs it), whilst not endorsing its philosophy. But it did become apparent that the reactions of some church members were visceral rather than considered, although the quality of the discussion was very temperate.