Film review: "1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture"

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Source: lgbtq.yale.edu

1946, a documentary film made in 2022 by Sharon "Rocky" Roggio, refers to the fateful decision by the committee producing the Revised Standard Version of the Bible to render two Greek words in I Corinthians 6:9 as the single word "homosexuals," thus including gays and lesbians with "the immoral, nor idolators, nor adulterers" and others as the "unrighteous [who] will not inherit the kingdom of God." I saw her film at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids.

Watching "1946" at St. Stephen's Cburch

1946 is not about the translation itself, the origins of which remain mysterious even in the committee's archives at Yale University, but about those of us who live in its aftermath. We meet Roggio herself, a lesbian who struggles to maintain her family relationship even as her father becomes a prominent anti-gay preacher; Kathy Baldock, whose dogged research provides the basis for the film's argument; Ed Oxford, a gay theology scholar who works with her; and Davis S., whose 1959 letter documented the committee's error, prior to a long career as a pastor in the United Church of Canada. Each suffers some impacts from the dominant theological interpretation.

Their inquiries are supported throughout the film by a number of biblical scholars, most memorably Rabbi Steven Greenberg, author of Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition (Wisconsin, 2004), whose reflection on the phrase "Fuck you" I will be pondering for a long time.

By the time (1969) the RSV committee, spurred by Davis S.'s criticism, voted to change their translation from "homosexuals" to "sexual perverts," the horse was out of the barn. Other versions of the Bible, like the New International Version and the Living Bible, continued to follow the RSV's use of "homosexuals," and today are in much wider use than the RSV and its successor versions. In fact, according to the film, the Living Bible added five more references to "homosexuals" that don't appear in the RSV.

My third grade presentation Bible, Revised Standard Version

The scholars walk us through the context that is often lost when people quote other Biblical passages that have been used to condemn homosexuality: the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 with its echo in Judges 19, a series of verses in Leviticus 18 and 20 known as "the clobber verses," Romans 1:26-27. They argue that the verses condemn sexual exploitation and/or decadent living, not to same-sex relationships.

The personal focus of the film, even as it works through the minutiae of biblical translation and interpretation, is essential. As I wrote concerning Pope Francis a few days ago, so much changes when we make the subject people rather than rules. 1946 clearly shows the damage done by biblical interpretation that casts out gays and lesbians. I don't know, however, that they make the case that the committee "shifted culture" with their decision. As another viewer at St. Stephen's--it was Jonathan Ice, in case you happen to know him--noted, "Homophobia was not invented in 1946." 

But the committee's chosen language was certainly handy in the 1970s when the burgeoning gay rights movement met with backlash. It was 1972, for example, when the United Methodist Church added a statement that homosexuality was "incompatible" with Christian teaching to its Book of Discipline. The 1970s saw the emergence of the Moral Majority, Christian Broadcasting Network, National Christian Action Coalition, and other organizations that the Republican Party led by Ronald Reagan skillfully wove into its electoral coalition. They had the RSV language to draw on, but orthodox Christians and political opportunists probably could have made just as much hay with previous constructions.

I don't know, either, how many minds will be changed by 1946. Textual criticism of the Bible has been suspect in a lot of believers' eyes since its emergence in the latter half of the 19th century. However, I think Sharon Roggio's careful presentation provides a path to reconciliation for those who are increasingly troubled by what they've been taught the Bible says. It surely provides assurance to Christians, like young Sharon and young Ed Oxford, who feel cast out of the presence of God by their sexuality.

So, what did English-language Bibles say before 1946? Fortunately, I have a small collection of my family's pre-RSV Bibles. Here's how they render I Corinthians 6:9-10.

Both my mom and my mother-in-law received presentation Bibles in the King James Version:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

My dad received the Standard American edition of the Revised Version (1901), which varied only slightly from the original King James Version but with possible significance:

Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men...

My copy of The Bible: An American Translation (1935) was formerly owned by my Uncle Ralph and Aunt Margaret:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not have any share in God's kingdom? Do not let anyone mislead you. People who are immoral or idolaters or adulterers or sensual or given to unnatural vice or thieves or greedy--drunkards, abusive people, robbers--will not have any share in God's kingdom.

The oldest non-KJV translation I found at my church's library was A New Translation by James Moffatt (1935 edition):

What! Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Realm of God? Make no mistake about it, neither the immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor catamites nor sodomites nor thieves nor the lustful nor the drunken nor the abusive nor robbers will inherit the Realm of God.

"Catamites" are, it turns out, the victims of homosexual pedophiles. Based on the scholarship in 1946, that is a worse translation of the Greek than the RSV.  

Whatever the translation you're consulting, if you want to find the whole population of gays and lesbians on those lists, you'll find them, however uncharitable your quest. As for the "clobber verses," Leviticus spends at least as much time on menstruating women than it arguably does on homosexual men (not lesbians, interestingly). "If a man lies with a woman during her period, and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has laid bare her flow of blood; both of them shall be cut off from their people" (Lev. 20:18, NRSV). Any attempt to make that the foundation of a doctrinal schism, such as the United Methodists lately have experienced, would be ridiculous. If we as a society can get used to the idea that some of us menstruate, we can get used to the idea of same-sex relationships.

SEE ALSO: "Film Review: Stonewall Uprising," 28 June 2015

"1946" official website: 1946 | The Mistranslation that Shifted a Culture

Movie trailer (1:22):