SOME ARE EUNUCHS: Jesus Christ's ONLY Comment on Human Sexuality
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How, then, are we to comprehend the following passage if we abide by the fundamentalists' demand for a literal interpretation using King James era English?
The meaning of the lesson becomes much clearer with this modern translation:
There is certainly a physical meaning that can be
understood from this: Some people may have some sort of genital deformity leaving them incapable of sex; some are born hermaphrodites; some conjoined twins are incapable of sexual activity, just to name several examples.
But there is a non-physical meaning that can be understood as well. For if God would create some people without the physical equipment for heterosexual relationships, it is not unreasonable to assume that He would create some without the physical desire for it as well. Many, many gay persons will tell you that they have, throughout their entire lives, had very little desire for the opposite sex.
Some have absolutely no desire. Some find the idea utterly repugnant.
Jesus didn't expect that everyone would understand this. It is indeed a difficult lesson -- and that is precisely why He prefaced it and ended it with this caution: "This teaching does not apply to everyone, but only to those to whom God has given it.... Let him who can accept this teaching do so."
I am one who can accept this teaching -- and I hope you will also. Some of us are born to be, in a figurative sense, "eunuchs." Today, that is certainly a clumsy way of putting it -- but it was seemingly the only word available in the Koine Greek language of Jesus's day to convey the meaning of someone not capable of heterosexual marriage.
Some people are born that way: "Jesus said it, I believe it, and that settles it!" as some of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters are so fond of saying. Let him who can understand my message do so.
We know full well that Jesus's messages were meant for all humanity, men and women, even though frequently the terms "man," "men," and "mankind" were used in the Gospels (indeed, throughout the entire Bible). For example, let's rephrase this famous lesson: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man or woman to enter heaven." That is certainly a legitimate paraphrase. In fact, to not clarify the passage to include women would be to murder its meaning.
The actual Koine Greek word used in the oldest known texts was "eunouchos," which does indeed mean the same as our english word "eunuch," literally, "a man with no testicles." That the word had the same literal meaning in Jesus's day is clear when you read Acts 8:27 with the reference to an Ethiopian eunuch. But in Matthew 19, Jesus was explaining that some people were not meant for marriage. Remember -- we cannot restrict Biblical lessons to only men, so the message in Matthew 19 must apply to women as well -- after all, marriage is a two-person proposition. Therefore, His use of the word "eunuch" in that context must have been figurative, not literal. To insist upon a literal meaning would mean Jesus imagined there were some men who make themselves eunuchs. Who in his right mind would amputate his own testicles -- particularly in Jesus's time, when there was no such thing as a local anesthetic? That's crazy enough. But crazier still -- how do you have a female eunuch?
In the above case, we can now easily use "man" or "woman" interchangeably and reach a valid conclusion. And look very carefully at the contrasting words "do not marry" (by choice) vs. "cannot marry" (for various reasons). This clearly seems to be an oblique -- and more importantly, a sympathetic, not hostile -- reference to persons of a different sexual orientation; people who were simply "born that way."
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