What was the actual intention of the prohibitions in Leviticus and Deuteronomy against "males lying with males?" This is an interesting question. Virtually all interpretations that forbid it for its own sake were written well over a thousand years after the original texts were. The earliest interpretations in the Jewish Talmud that forbid it for its own sake or because it "wastes seed" meant to be used in procreation were written after the third century CE (and over two centuries after Paul wrote his letters). The Torah was written between 1000 and 1500 BCE.
What's really interesting is that there is no prohibition against lesbianism in the Torah itself. That prohibition came from the Talmud, and even in the Talmud it was seen as potentially obscene but not worthy of the death penalty like "males lying with males," and specifically because there was no "wasted seed" involved.
The thing about the "wasted seed" and procreation argument is that this is never brought up in the Torah itself. At best, there is a reference to men having emissions of semen at night being ritually unclean until the following evening, but that's about it. Notably, there is no explicit, or even implicit, prohibition against masturbation.
There is the argument from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the men of Sodom trying to break down Lot's door so they could "know" the angels who had taken refuge in his home. But the prophets, Ezekiel in particular, are explicit that the sin of Sodom was pride, refusal to help the poor and needy, arrogance, and "abominations" (16:49-50). An interesting thing about the word for abominations in Hebrew (to'evah) is that it covers a lot of things in Jewish tradition. The chief things among them though are violations with regards to idolatry, worshiping false gods in the temple, and making sacrifices outside of those proscribed in the Torah.
Now one thing that does fit into this which does explain the prohibitions against "males lying with males" is Deuteronomy 23:18 which is an explicit prohibition against temple prostitutes among the Israelite women and an explicit prohibition against temple prostitutes among the Israelite men. This was a fairly common practice in the ancient pagan world spanning from Egypt all the way up to ancient Greece and later in the Roman empire of the first century. The priests of Cybele in Rome itself emasculated themselves, lived as women, and acted as temple prostitutes.
All of the commandments in the Torah were driven by two primary commandments, if you will. The first was “you will worship Yahweh your God and you will serve only Him,” and the same sentiment is repeated as well with “You will love Yahweh your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength.” The second was “You will love the person next to you like yourself.” Every other command in the Torah was essentially exposition and commentary on these two principles. Every violation of the first primary command was punished with death.
The Torah is explicit that the worship of false gods incurs the death penalty among the Israelites. This is repeated over and over and over again. Anything associated with pagan worship was forbidden and punishable by death in the Torah. It didn't matter what it was. It’s the reason why tattooing one’s skin was forbidden. It’s the reason why astrology and being a medium was forbidden. It wasn't the thing in and of itself that was the problem, it was that it was involved in worshiping gods which didn't exist and often demanded horrendous atrocities such as sacrificing one's own child to Molech by burning it to death in an idol's arms.
So, it can safely be said, based on all of this, that it isn't the act of homosexuality, either male or female, that was the problem. It was doing it as an act of worship of a pagan god that was the problem trying to be stamped out by the Torah. It had nothing to do with non-procreative sexual acts, but everything to do with participating in pagan worship which was explicitly forbidden on pain of death. The rationale of forbidding it based on non-procreative sexual acts came over a millennium later. It was an abomination within the cultural context of the time which was pagan worship, that is, a cultural context which realistically no longer exists.
This is what the Torah and the Hebrew Bible say on the subject, and the cultural contexts in which it was placed. The Gospels do not mention it at all. Nowhere in the teachings of Jesus does He mention any kind of homosexuality in any context. Paul writes in his letters in the New Testament repeatedly and with detailed explanations, those who are “in Christ” are not subject to the Torah at all. This sentiment was also clearly expressed in the book of Acts by the Elders and Apostles of Jerusalem at what is commonly referred to as the Council of Jerusalem. They made it clear that the non-Jewish Christians and followers of the Way were not bound by any part of the Torah. They made the request that they abstain from eating blood, eating things which had been strangled and “porneia” in order to keep peace with their Jewish brothers and sisters. Other than that, the non-Jewish brothers and sisters weren’t expected to keep any part of it.
Now, “porneia” literally means “prostitution” in Greek, though a better translation might be “whoring” in that it can refer to either paid or unpaid sexual services outside of marriage or concubinage. What it also encompasses, and may be a direct reference to with regards to those non-Jewish brothers and sisters, is temple prostitution of both the male and female variety, that is, the same kind of temple prostitution forbidden by the Torah.
The next passage in the New Testament which does speak specifically about “males lying with males” is in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he says (traditionally translated), “For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.” (1:26-17, WEB)
Now, we know that there was no prohibition against lesbianism in the Torah. There wouldn’t be any prohibition against it in Judaism for at least another two hundred years. So what is Paul actually referencing here? The first passage in the Torah which forbids “males lying with males” is Leviticus 18:22, but the sentence immediately following this prohibition in verse 23 is “You shall not lie with any animal to defile yourself with it; neither shall any woman give herself to an animal, to lie down with it: it is a perversion [to’evah].” There were cults in the ancient world in which bestiality was practiced as a form of worship. One in particular was centered in Egypt (though the cult was found in many places) with the worship of Serapis where one of the priestesses would “marry” a ritual bull and copulate with it. There is another passage in the Torah as well demanding that not only the woman be put to death, but also the animal which was used in the sex act. In the context of the first chapter of Romans which began with Paul relating human beings’ descent from worshiping the Creator to images of created things, it’s not that much of a stretch to say that Paul had pagan temple prostitution and ritual bestiality in mind when he wrote these words.
The next passage which is interpreted to bring up homosexuality is in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 which is frequently translated to state that neither homosexuals nor sodomizers will inherit the kingdom of God. There are two problems with the translations of the two words as “homosexuals” and “sodomizers” in a generalized sense.
The first is that the first word does not actually mean “homosexual.” It is the Greek word “malakos” which in both first century Greek and modern Greek means “soft” in a wide variety of contexts. One’s clothing might be “malakos” for example. One’s bedding might be “malakos.” One might speak “malakos” words, that is, “gentle” words. But one might also be morally “malakos,” that is, morally soft or weak. One might be “malakos” in that he is cowardly. It might be used as an insult towards a man giving it the meaning of “effeminate,” but it never specifically refers to someone being a homosexual of any kind. This English translation was never even used for it until the twentieth century or so, and without real justification linguistically.
The second problem is that while the second word, “arsenokoites,” does mean a man who penetrates males, there was a specific Greco-Roman cultural practice it is likely that Paul was referring to. This is the practice of pederasty which is where older men would penetrate younger boys. It is a well documented practice which from Paul’s time dates back at least centuries and was even encouraged by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The Republic.” When Martin Luther translated his Bible into German, he used the German word for “pedophiles” in order to translate this word from the Greek, clearly understanding this to be Paul’s meaning.
Given that both words are masculine gender thus excluding women from them altogether, and the actual meanings of the words in question and the cultural contexts in which they were used, it’s actually a deliberate mistranslation to render these words to mean homosexuals in general. It is telling that another word in the list in which these appear is also frequently mistranslated. The word “pornos” is usually translated as “fornicator,” a word which is quite frankly archaic at best in 21st century English. What it actually means is “male prostitute,” probably hearkening back to the temple prostitutes, though “male whore” is also a valid translation. It is however a masculine gender noun specifically, and does not refer to female prostitutes, which would be “porne,” unless it is referring to prostitutes in general.
In conclusion, in spite of the way the Bible is traditionally translated and interpreted, when it speaks of or forbids homosexual acts, it has cultural contexts and practices in mind which were specific to the time period and place in which these texts were penned, most of which no longer exist. It never addresses lesbianism as a rule, and when it addresses male homosexuality it does so in the context of pagan worship and temple prostitution (or in the case of Lot’s guests in Sodom and pederasty, rape). The text of the Bible literally has no opinion on stable, committed, consensual homosexual relationships because these were not a part of the culture of the period.
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