First, some background etymology from Wikipedia:
Sodomy (/ˈsɒdəmi/) is any non-penile/vaginal copulation-like act, such as oral or anal sex, or sex between a person and an animal. The word is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in chapters 18 and 19 of the Book of Genesis in the Bible.
The term comes from the Ecclesiastical Latin: peccatum Sodomiticum, or “sin of Sodom” and derives from the Greek word Σόδομα Sódoma.[2] The Book of Genesis (chapters 18-20) tells how God wished to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two angels (literally “messengers”) are invited by Lot to take refuge with his family for the night. The men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that he bring the messengers out, so that they can “know” them. Lot protests that the “messengers” are his guests, and offers them his virgin daughters instead, but the Sodomites threaten to “do worse” with Lot than with his guests; whereupon the angels strike the Sodomites blind, “so that they wearied themselves to find the door.” (Genesis 19:4-11, KJV)
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The next time someone tries to tell me that the Bible is the inerrant and true word of God and that it could never lose it’s meaning over it’s many translations and updates, I’m going to ask them this question: Why doesn’t the word sodomite appear anywhere in the NIV translation? I stumbled upon this when I tried to do a keyword search for the term “sodomite” over at Bible Gateway, first in the NIV, which returned nothing, and then in the The Authorized King James Version:
Deuteronomy 23:17
KJV – There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
NIV – No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.
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1 Kings 14:24
KJV – And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
NIV – There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
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1 Kings 15:12
KJV – And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
NIV – He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his fathers had made.
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1 Kings 22:46
KJV – And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
NIV – He rid the land of the rest of the male shrine prostitutes who remained there even after the reign of his father Asa.
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2 Kings 23:7
KJV – And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
NIV – He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the LORD and where women did weaving for Asherah.
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What do you think? Does the act of replacing the word sodomites with the words “male shrine prostitutes” change the message? Why would they take such pains to remove this word and it’s ties to the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah (the destruction of unrighteous men AND women)? In my opinion, it’s a good way to prove that no one should rely too heavily on their personal interpretation of specific verses because at this point, the modern English of the NIV (as one given example) really doesn’t translate well back to the Old English of the KJV, and certainly falls several degrees from the original Hebrew and Greek. This is just one noteworthy example.