The Mistranslation That Fractured Communities

A mistake in 1946 had far reaching consequences for billions of people

Edward Anderson
5 min readFeb 23, 2024

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

A mistranslation from 1946 in translating the Bible has created an opportunity for some church officials and others to hate the LGBTQIA+ community, while using the good book as their defense for bigotry.

Many homophobes point to the passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9. This passage seemingly suggests that if someone lays with a partner of the same gender, they will not be allowed into Heaven. Those who want to hide their hatred, use this as proof that they are the good one in the eyes of their God.

And for 78 years, a mistranslation in the Bible has given them this tool to do this. When any number of gay rights issues came up, they would point to the Christian God being opposed to queer people. Never mind that the United States is not a theocracy. Never mind that the Constitution prohibits the government from declaring Christianity as the national religion.

Those who cling to the belief that the Bible says being gay is wrong don’t care. They will twist themselves into pretzels to defend and find ways to prove that the Christian Deity would not want gay people to exist.

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Edward Anderson

Edward has written hundreds of acclaimed true crime articles and has won numerous awards for his short stories. His most recent book is Barbenheimer.