1 Kings 14:24, 15:12 & 22:46
2 Kings 23:7
Deuteronomy 23:17 states (in the King James Version) "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel . This is an "error" by the authors of the KJV. The word qadesh in the original text was mistranslated as sodomite. Quadesh means "holy one" and is here used to refer to a man who engages in ritual prostitution in the temple. There is little evidence that the prostitutes engaged in sexual activities with men. Other Bible translations use accurate terms such as shrine prostitute, temple prostitute, prostitute and cult prostitute.
The translators of the KJV made an error in this verse when they mistranslated the word "qadesh" in the original Hebrew as "sodomite". One source speculates that the translators in 1611 CE believed that "qadesh" was in some way related to the sexual practices of Sodom as described in Genesis 19. 2 "Qadesh" literally "means 'holy one' and is here used to refer to a man who engages in ritual prostitution" in a Pagan temple. 3 Among Pagan religions in the Middle East, worship often involved ritual sex in the temple, "often with a sacred prostitute who was like a priest or priestess. This sacred sexual activity was believed to encourage the god(s) to bestow fertility on the earth and its creatures." [Typo corrected]. 7 There is no indication in the Bible, in other documents of the time, or in the archeological record, that these male prostitutes serviced other males. When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into the Greek Septuagint during the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, the translators used six different terms for the one Hebrew word. None "would have suggested homosexuality to the theologians of the early [Christian] church."
The same translational difficulties also appear in:
1 Kings 14:24, 15:12 & 22:46
2 Kings 23:7
Some Bible translations of this verse are:
ESV: (English Standard Version): "None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute."
KJV: (King James Version): "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel."
LB: (Living Bible): "No prostitutes are permitted in Israel, either men or women."
NIV: (New International Version) "No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute."
NLT: (New Living Translation): "No Israelite man or woman may ever become a temple prostitute."
RSV: (Revised Standard Version): "There shall be no cult prostitutes of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a cult prostitute of the sons of Israel."
Scroggs even suggests that it is a strong possibility that the male temple prostitutes spoken of here serviced females, rather than males. (Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 13.
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