Background
Over the years I’ve dialoged with a great number of people who wish to convert me to King James Version Only-ism. This really was never a topic I thought I would be writing endlessly about as so many great books are already published on textual criticism. Nevertheless, there a contingent of Christians (none of them that actually know the Biblical languages) that continually raise talking points about the evil of modern Bible translations. One talking point that I’ve yet to address but should done so a long time ago is that of the issue pertaining to the KJV’s use of the word Sodomite. I have been told countless times that the modern Bibles are trying to remove references to homosexuality being a sin, despite the fact that all modern translations still openly state that it’s a sin. Part of their reasoning is that the word “Sodomite” has been removed from the Old Testament (OT henceforth).
This article seeks to explain why such a word was “remove” from the Bible and why it was included in the KJV. In reality, the word was neither removed nor added. Rather, it was a mistranslation. Below we still address these three claims.
The use of Sodomite in the KJV and the lack thereof in the NIV
The specific use of the word Sodomite (referring to a type of sinner) in the KJV is rare. It shows up in Deuteronomy 23:17, 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46, and 2 Kings 23:7. These five instances are shown below.
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a Sodomite of the sons of Israel.
(Deuteronomy 23:17)And there were also Sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.
(1 Kings 14:24)And he took away the Sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
(1 Kings 15:12)And the remnant of the Sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
(1 Kings 22:46)And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
(2 Kings 23:7)
For comparison, here are the same passages in the NIV.
No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.
(Deuteronomy 23:17)There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
(1 Kings 14:24)He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made.
(1 Kings 15:12)He rid the land of the rest of the male shrine prostitutes who remained there even after the reign of his father Asa.
(1 Kings 22:46)He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.
(2 Kings 23:7)
By means of mere observation it would seem as though the NIV had changed the word “Sodomite” to “shrine prostitutes”. One does not need a degree in English to know that these two words have different meanings. Thus, only one of them can be a correct translation. In order to figure out which one is at fault lets take a look at the underlying Hebrew of the passages. For reference, the KJV and NIV use the same Hebrew words for Sodomite and for Shrine Prostitute. They differ in how they translate the word. The Hebrew word in question is קָדֵ֖שׁ (Kadesh) and it’s various other forms.
Before discussing the removal of the word, one might ask what the KJV translators meant to convey by translating קָדֵ֖שׁ to the English word Sodomite. It seems from the 1611 margin notes that they wished to explicitly denote Sodomite to be a male homosexual, even though it was clear that it also referred to the “whore” daughters of Israel (Deut 23;17). The margin note of the 1611 points out that word “whore” could also be translated as Sodomite. But if Sodomite meant a homosexual male, how could a female be a Sodomite? The answer is that even the KJV translators knew that Sodomite did not mean a gay male. However, they purposefully use the word Sodomite to refer to the male in this passage because they wanted the reader to associate homosexuality with the word Sodomy.
The NIV and all other modern Bibles use a different translation because the Hebrew word קָדֵ֖שׁ (Kadesh) does not mean sodomite. It means shrine prostitute. The word shows up twice, one referring to the female prostitute and another referring to the male. This is also true in other authoritative OT manuscripts such as the Greek Septuagint. They use “τελεσφόρος” and “τελισκόμενος” to refer the female and male prostitutes in Deuteronomy 23:17. The female and male forms in Hebrew are “קְדֵשָׁ֖ה” and “קָדֵ֖שׁ”. They are the same word, just conjugated in the female and male forms, respectively. Neither form has anything to do with Sodom.
The root word קֹדֶשׁ (Kodesh) just means holy or sacred. The form קָדֵ֖שׁ is a noun referring to a sacred person but was an idiomatic expression in Hebrew culture that referred to a person serving as a sacred prostitute. This is most obvious in Deuteronomy 23:17 where we see the feminine and masculine versions of this word both appearing. The masculine version is קָדֵ֖שׁ. The feminine version is “קְדֵשָׁ֖ה”. Both words referring to shrine prostitutes, not sodomites.
Conclusion
The word Sodomite does indeed appear in the Bible but never referring to a homosexual. Rather, it describe a person from Sodom. The passage in Deuteronomy 23:17 contains a different word than Sodomite. The word Sodomite was placed in the early English Bibles fallaciously. Therefore, the word was not removed from the modern Bible versions but corrected.
All of the modern translations are from corrupted texts. Compare first John 5:7-8 With all the other versions and you’ll find the Trinity is absent. There are other attacks on the deity of Jesus in the modern “so called” Bibles. There are major differences between the KJV and all the other versions.
There are differences because the KJV uses bad manuscripts. We have discovered thousands of older and better manuscripts to use since the KJV was created.