Deut 23:17 — KJV translates Hebrew qadesh as 'sodomite,' while NRSVUE has 'illicit shrine' service and NIV has 'shrine prostitute,' implying the KJV imposed an anachronistic or loaded interpretive gloss not actually present in the Hebrew.

Concede that 'sodomite' is an interpretive gloss rather than a literal lexical equivalent. קָדֵשׁ (qadesh, fem. קְדֵשָׁה qedeshah) literally means 'consecrated/holy one' — a cult-consecrated male paralleling the qedeshah, a female cult functionary associated with Canaanite fertility-cult shrine prostitution (cf. Gen 38:21-22, where Tamar is taken for a qedeshah). The KJV translators worked in an era when 'sodomite' functioned as the standard English term for a range of illicit/idolatrous sexual practice, not narrowly as a modern identity category, and their choice tracked older rabbinic and patristic interpretive traditions linking the qadesh role to homosexual cultic acts alongside prostitution. This is an interpretive judgment reflecting genuine ambiguity about the precise sexual practices attached to the qadesh's cultic role, not an invention out of nothing. Comparative ANE study of qadištu/qedeshim cultic personnel in Mesopotamian and Ugaritic texts has since led modern translations to prefer the more literal cultic-office sense, 'one who serves in a shrine' or 'shrine prostitute.'

Whichever English term is used, the moral prohibition is unambiguous and identical across all translations, old and new: Israelites are forbidden from participating in Canaanite cultic sexual practice. The consistent condemnation across four centuries of translation, despite differing precise terminology, shows the text's ethical content is not hostage to a single word choice.