Excellent!

Another bit of knowledge-based argument might come from historical-critical examination of the ancient texts, themselves. Many of the people who wrote the texts that became the Bible must have been well aware of gender variance in the ancient world.

I’m not saying people identified as “transgender” then, but in many part of the world known to the authors of the books that became the Bible, alternative gender expression was normal and even institutionalized. (Persia, Babylon, parts of the Hellenized world, etc.)

Yet it doesn’t appear that anybody cared enough to write about it. Surely Paul, prude that he was, would have seen fit to mention the phenomenon directly, if it mattered to him.

Sure.y somebody would have over the course of centuries.

But the only references the Bible contains are hazy and tangential at best.

So while conservative Christians may think they understand what’s in the Bible, ask them if they really have any historical-critical expertise by which to analyze it.