“Consequently, you have homosexuality being condemned in both testaments, a direct linking of the New Testament condemnation to the Old, and the New Testament condemnation being done by apostles who either knew Jesus personally during his earthly ministry or, in Paul’s case, were called directly by Jesus after his resurrection.”
Good point for continuity.
“The only way the “savage text” argument works is if the author proves that the apostles (who collectively authored all of the text of the New Testament) were themselves ignorant of the “loving nature” of the Lord they served.”
The writer of the book The Savage Text states that the passage “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.” seems to be gay-friendly. He also states there are four references in the Gospel John (13:22-5, 19:26-7, 21:20-3) where Jesus has a particular love for a disciple that seems different than just a general love for all. He quotes another author, Theodore Jennings, who suggests that this might be “love characterized by erotic desire or sexual attraction.” There are other examples that the author uses that suggest the apostle writers knew that something was up with Jesus.
Yes, this opens the door to the slippery slope argument where other perversions raise their nasty heads in hopes to be “normalized” and accepted into the community.
Unfortunately for them, analysis of the Greek text shows that the word we translate as “love” in English is actually three different words in Greek:
Agape - the reverent and pious love of a believer towards God;
Philos - brotherly love (non-sexual love between relatives and friends); and
Eros (sexual love).
Of the three, Agape is, not surprisingly, the the most frequently used, followed by Philos, and Eros runs a very distant third. BTW, Eros is always used in the context of heterosexual relations between a man and woman. IIRC, Philos is the Greek word used in those references between Jesus and the disciple(s).
However, if you are a sexual pervert (or one of their enablers) looking for validation of your deviance in scripture, you are unable or unwilling to accept that the same warm but nonsexual feelings of affection that kin and close friends of the same sex can have for each other also existed between Jesus and the Apostles. Then every mention of “love” must be interpreted through the distorted lens of their own unnatural and unholy sexual desires.
Their presence corrupts everything else. We should not be surprised at their attempts to corrupt scripture as well.
They are to be pitied as the unrepentant sinners they are. Their sin, like all sin, is to be despised and thwarted whenever and wherever possible.