Rating: 
Summary: Hopless
Review: A hopless and feeble attempt to justify homosexual beheaviour by rewriting and falsification of history. It is a typical bad historical revisionism. Strongly not recommended. The book is biased from a fanatical pro-homosexual point of view. A typical form of pseudoscience serving a "higher cause". Put it on your bookshelf together with works of Marxist-soviet apologists or the "Protocols of the wise of sion". Or better put it into the maculature box.
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Summary: The sand that the foundation of gay theology is built on
Review: Boswell and Baily (Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition) are two of the most quoted Bible "scholars" by people in the gay theology movement. Unfortunately, while the language may sound intelligent, the content is totally absent. Boswell tries to come across as basing his conclusions on sound Biblical exegesis. However, he actually ends up giving a good look at how to put your own interpretation into a text instead of pulling out the intended meaning. If space permited, I could easily go through point by point and show the error of his interpretation. While some half-truths do exist, Boswell goes on to base his entire conclusions on them. Read this to undertand the point of view of the gay christian movement, but keep in mind that Boswell's shoddy work points out why gay christian is an oxymoron.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but contains a few errors
Review: Boswell has been attacked ever since this book was written. He was a very courageous historian.However, I believe he is in error in regards to his work on "arsenokoitai", which is the Greek compound word employed by the apostle Paul in Cor. 6:9 and Tim 1:10 that is often translated as "homosexuals". Boswell concluded that this word referred to male prostitutes. The meaning of a word is not determined by its derivation (even it if was that still points away from an anti-gay translation), but by its usage. The word is found 73 times outside of Paul's letter. In almost every one of these occurrences the word appears in a vice list so it is impossible to tell what they mean. The few times it does not appear in a vice list give us a better insight. Arisites' apology uses the word in reference to the time Zeus kid-napped and raped a boy. So although I agree with Boswell that the word does not refer to gay sex, I disagree with him in regards to the word referring to male prostitutes. I still recommend buying this book as it is a good place to start in regards to the homosexual issue.
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Summary: Boswell's book not the work of a credible scholar
Review: Boswell's work is a monumental work in the field of justification and eisigesis! Knowing that Boswell himself was gay, and died of AIDS will only enhace the reader's understanding of the book. If one is looking for justification of the gay lifestyle, this book is a great start. But if one is interested in studying homosexuality in the Christian Church, and interpretatioon of Scriptural reachings on homosexuality, this is not the place to be. Prooftexts abound, as Boswell brings his own agenda to inform the meaning of the history and of the Scriptures. In addition, Boswell's interpretation of relevant Scriptural passages is a very inaccurate treatment of the original languages.
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Summary: Rhetorical tour de force, lacking in substantiation.
Review: Boswell's work is an impressive volume which has all the appearance of a powerful academic treatise, offering a revolutionary new interpretation of the attitudes and practices of the early Christian peroid vis-a-vis homosexuality. Unfortunately, the central thesis Boswell offers, that the virulently homophobic standpoint of the modern Church only makes its entry sometime after the 12th century CE, rests on little more than whimsical interpretation of the evidence and inexcusable omission of contrary data.
Boswell fails to consider the congruence of all available evidence from the periods in question, his coverage of the attitudes of the foundational period of the Christian church is at best sporadic, and is guilty of nothing less than cherry-picking confirmatory evidence to bolster his argument. In an effort to reconcile his own Catholicism with the crimes of the Church, he instead sacrificed scholastic aptitude and intellectual honesty upon a compatibilist altar. More accurate and balanced treatments of the history of homosexuality in this period are to be found, e.g., Crompton (2003). Also see criticisms of Boswell's work, e.g., Johansson et al. (1981, 1985, 2003).
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Summary: A great work of scholarship
Review: First of all, I cried when John Boswell died. I considered him one of the great, cutting edge scholars of my lifetime. His scholarship made a difference because he uncovered new information which had serious social consequences. Only a few academics in a generation can be said to make a serious difference in society and Boswell was one of them. To read his work and realize the herculean efforts he must have taken in order to bring his books to life made one appreciate this man who worked for the good of others. I will ignore the reviewer below who reveals much about himself when he seeks to dimiss Boswell's work by exploiting Boswell's cause of death. Work of such stature as Boswell's had cannot be dismissed by such oooze and slime. This is a monumental work which challenges the opposition to come up with their own scholarly (not cheap) response, something that has not arrived up to this point-and shows no sign of arriving any time soon
Rating: 
Summary: scholarly work, intimidating, but interesting
Review: First of all, whether you're homophobic or gay or accepting of gays, I really don't care. (I fall in the last category.) I will not presume to judge this book's effectiveness in helping gays understand themselves, or comment on the *modern* social issues it raises. Yes, these are important. But for my purposes in reading this book, they're irrelevant. Why? Whatever sociopolitical agendas are on the table *today,* scholarship is scholarship. I am *not* a scholar of the time periods and cultures that Boswell surveyed. I can't really judge the book on that front, either; I'll leave that to other historians who are knowledgable about the time period and sources. What does interest me is: is this book an accurate or plausible interpretation? Forget the modern debates. People in A.D. 1200 didn't care about *our* viewpoints in the modern era; they had their own. I picked up this book because I wanted to know what was going on historically, not because I wanted to learn about today's politics. I would have looked elsewhere for *that.* History is about interpretation. Throughout the existence of history as a discipline, there have been different interpretations. This is good and proper; without debate there is little progress. If you don't agree with Boswell's interpretation of the evidence, fine. Refute him. In detail. Give your own account. Of *course* not everyone's going to agree, especially on such a charged subject. What is also important to me is: with what biases did he come to the subject? If you write on the same subject but are pre-convinced that the Church never condoned homosexuality, I will be wary of your conclusions. Likewise for the opposite belief. True objectivity is a difficult ideal, especially in something as subjective as history (come look at math if you want objectivity--and even then, mathematicians have their disagreements). Did Boswell attempt to meet that ideal? I don't know. I never had the time to finish the book. But what I did see, I respected. Maybe others do know better how to interpret the evidence. I sure don't; I don't read ancient Hebrew, Latin, Greek, the several other languages from which he drew his sources. But he made a heroic effort in *using* those sources, whether or not you or I or anyone else agrees with the conclusions reached. In the end: read it if you're interested. It's certainly not an "easy" read, and I think reading it for "affirmation of values" is probably not the intent Boswell had when he wrote it, though I could be wrong. If I were a scholar in this area it wouldn't be mine; mine would be to find out, as much as I could as a mortal and fallible human being, what was true (whatever "true" means, a debatable subject in itself). At the least, it's a place to start a debate.
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Summary: You have to read the book.
Review: I am 17 years old and this book is one of the first non-fiction books I have ever read. If all non-fiction books are as interesting and emotionally captivating as this one, then I have a lot of reading to do. This book could be the most important book, second to the bible, that one could ever read; especially for homosexual readers. Modern society has made a world where homosexuality and christianity do not mix. This book shows that even homosexuals can strive to live in the image of god; therefore opening up a [christian]world that millions crave, and desperately need to be apart of. "At the very most, the effect of Christian Scripture on attitides toward homosexuality could be decribed as moot. The judicious historical perspective might be that it had no effect at all. The source of antigay feelings amoung christians must be saught elsewhere."- John Boswell
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Summary: Pro Gay, Pro Christian...a must!!!
Review: I am a gay ordained minister of the Gospel. This book was very helpful to my own acceptance of homosexuality as well as a pro supportive counselling guide. A must for gay ministeres or ministers who work with gays. Subperbly written and researched. Gopd bless John Boswell.
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Summary: A scholarly plea
Review: I have been the teaching assistant for a course entitled 'Theology of the Welcoming Church'; we have had wonderful diverse groups of students, from traditional/conservative to liberal in background, multi-denominational in affiliation. It always promises to be a good course and provide dialogue for better understanding even if it does not resolve the issue for all in one way or the other. Just for the record -- I am trying to stay as objectively neutral as I can be; I have my biases too, but given that I don't have the answers either (how do I reconcile scripture and tradition with the experience of people I know?) I guess mostly what you'll read here are my fumblings in the dark. Boswell's book 'Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality' is an early scholastic contribution to the history of how homosexuality has been treated by the Christian church establishment from the beginning of the Christian era to about the fourteenth century. It won the American Book Award for History in 1981. Boswell (now deceased) was a professor at Yale; I have a friend on faculty at the IU Music School who went to high school with him. Perhaps Boswell's argument can be summed up fairly easily in that, through examples in contemporary literature and records (legal, theological, literary, etc.), homosexuality was not recognised in the same way that it is today, and therefore that it also was not condemned in the way that it is today by much of the church. Friendships and close relationships often developed into sexual ones; these were not considered unusual. There was a variation from culture to culture, but the widespread condemnation of homosexuality didn't begin until thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when tolerance (not only of this, but of religious opinions in general) ceased to be the rule, as the church (a dominant military, political, and social force as well) attempted to consolidate power. Boswell's research is extensive and impressive, but his interpretations have remained hotly debated for the 20 years since this book was first published. One scholar-friend of mine who knew Boswell said that his psychological motivation for writing the book (this is a theme that was not designed to win favour in academia at that point in time) was to confront the Catholic church, in which he as a gay man did not feel welcome. And, there is probably some truth to that. Knowing that framework, it is interesting to re-read passages to see where objective scholarship slips into subtle reframing. Nonetheless, this book provides an excellent historical framework, and cannot be ignored in the current debate. I encountered this book first many years ago when my church was undergoing a discernment process, and it was useful in many ways. Boswell claimed to know of isolated communities and continuing strands where such tolerance continued to the present. He promised on a few occasions (at least semi-publicly) that he would reveal these in the next volume, Same Sex Unions, produced many years later, and an even more controversial text.
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