Defending an Orthodox Reading of Matthew 8:5-13
Defending an Orthodox Reading of Matthew 8:5-13: In Matthew 8:5-13, Jesus heals a Centurion’s servant and in the process it reveals his authority. Matthew’s overall intent is to communicate the spiritual truth of Jesus’ active authority and the Centurion’s faith. However, modern Liberal scholars utilizing Critical Theory, now claim to have discovered a more accurate interpretation and argue that the Centurion was in a pederastic relationship (sexual “boy-love”) with his servant. Their argument for this interpretation is complex, “exploratory” in nature, and operates on several assumptions. The argument of this paper rejects this pederastic interpretation and advocates for a plain reading of this text. In a simplistic form the pederastic argument flows in this manner: The Centurion was in a pederastic relationship with his servant due to the following reasons: - Matthew refers to the servant using the Greek word...