Divinely inspired text needs some correction

I came across Dr. Robert Gagnon and his anti-gay diatribes several years ago in a book with a title something like "Two Views on Homosexuality." Not a book I can recommend. The pro-gay guy did little to support the cause and Gagnon seemed to think that the Bible definitely condemns gays because so many other ancient texts do so as well. Gagnon, of course, is still at it, the guy to turn to for the biblical "scholarship" needed to bash gays. The latest flap is the Presbyterian Church, the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 it uses to teach doctrine, and the 1962 translation from German into English. The issues is that this translation uses the phrase "homosexual perversion" in the same manner as 1 Corinthians 6:9 in the New English Bible, which came out in 1970. But this verse, while it talks about several nasty things we shouldn't do, has a couple words that don't translate from the original Greek. All we know for sure is they talk of sexual perversion involving men, perhaps male prostitutes. Through the ages translators have decided what kind of sexual perversion those words were supposed to mean. So, back to the Heidelberg Catechism. The original German said nothing about homosexual perversion. Presbyterian scholars want to correct the translation. Gagnon, of course, declares they are agents of the Homosexual Agenda and the translations of both the Catechism and New English Bible are true to the spirit of the original text, even if not true to the text itself.

I've heard this next little tidbit before, but didn't quite understand this new way of looking at it. The story is in Matthew 8:5-13 (also in Luke). A Roman captain comes to Jesus in a panic about a sick servant. Jesus offers to come to the house to heal him, but the captain doesn't want Jesus to go through so much trouble. He, like Jesus, is a man of authority and he knows Jesus only needs to say the word and the servant will be healed. Jesus praises his faith. Scholars have puzzled over the language in that passage (rarely are masters that distraught over a servant and a Roman conqueror would not come to a Jewish rabbi to help a mere servant) and have concluded that the word servant would be better translated as "boy-toy," meaning they were gay lovers. And Jesus blesses both the servant (with restored health) and the Roman captain. This link may not work right, but you should be able to click through appropriate buttons.

Gagnon, of course, says that Matthew got the details all wrong (the captain really wasn't Roman, as a start). So much for a book that is supposedly divinely inspired.