When a pregnant woman is actually a pregnant man

According to the Feb 9th Montgomery Advisor, Alabama Democrat State Senator Alvin Holmes offered $700 to any legislator "who could find a passage in the Bible explicitly defining marriage as a sacred bond between a man and a woman." Four days later, The Advisor reported that "Holmes is now offering $5,000 to anyone who can cite specific verses outlawing same-sex marriage."

Of course, Holmes never identified the criteria by which he would accept that the Bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

World Net Daily reported that when someone had left a Bible for Holmes opened to a passage regarding marriage but to Holmes "the language of the verses weren't definitive on the subject, however, and ... the passage didn't prove anything."

1 Corinthians 7:2 states: "Since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband." To which Holmes is quoted "OK, but what that says [is] ... if two people should get married and if they are of the same sex then he becomes his wife and he's the husband."

I really hope this is a misquote of Holmes. If not, this shows that he isn't really interested in what the Bible has to say. He isn't interested in what the Bible actually says. He has his position and he will twist language to ridicule and marginalize his opposition. How do I know this? A simple word study of this passage and a little bit of grey matter exercise.

The word for wife in this passage is the Greek word pronounced goo-nay. It is used specifically to describe a wife or a woman throughout this passage (e.g. see 1 Cor 7:3, 4, etc). This same word is used specifically for a wife by Christian writers outside of the canonical writings such the Epistle of Aristeas (2nd century BC) and Philo of Alexandria (1st century AD) [See A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian Literature, Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, 1952].

Of course there is an easier way to expose Holmes' foolishness. The same word that he thinks can be translated as "he becomes his wife" is used by this same author, St. Paul, in Galatians 4:4 so we should be able to substitute the male gender:

"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a [man] ..." Ouch that has got to hurt! Of course, Christ wasn't born of a man which is clear when the actual translted word "woman" is used.

Here's some other passages with the same Greek word. Substitute the terms "man" or "husband" for the bracketed words:

1 Cor. 11:8 - "For man did not come from [woman], but [woman] from man; neither was man created for [woman], but [woman] for man."
Holmes translation - "For Man did not come from man, but man from man; neither was man created for man, but man for man." Me thinketh that Paul does protest too much! Of course, the context for these verses is set in 1 Cor 11:7 where Paul states: "A man ... since he is the image and glory of God but the woman is the glory of man." In Genesis, man was created in the image of God while woman was created out of the side of man.

1 Thess. 5:3 - "... destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant [woman]" Does Holmes really think this passage refers to a pregnant man?

Mt 14:21 - "The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides [women] and children." Or is it five thousand men, besides men and children?

The gospel according to Alvin Holmes makes no sense. But then his point was not to make sense of what the Bible actually says. He already knows what it says. He just doesn't want to abide by it and so he ridicules and marginalizes those who do see the words of the Bible as accurately reflecting the world in which we live.

Mr. Holmes owes someone $5000 but he has neither the courage nor the character to follow through.