73 ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22 used the word: images of Sodom and Gomorrah, images of outrageous violation of the one-flesh union of man and woman. Jesus would likely have shared Jude’s concern about those who “twist the grace of God into ἀσέλγεια” (Jude 4)18. If Jesus had wished to speak of homosexual behavior in his list of sins that defile the human heart, to what other word could Mark have turned in his translation? Παιδεραστία was too narrow a term. Ἀρσενοκοίτης had barely been coined by Paul. And πορνεία is too broad a concept, although it is the only word Matthew chooses to use in his version of Jesus’ sin list. Ἀσέλγεια was an ideal word for identifying both homosexual behavior and other similar sexual sins of which even the Mishnah was reticent to speak any more than was absolutely necessary. It appears that the situa- tion demanded that the subject be addressed for Mark’s mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles, but not for Matthew’s Jewish-Christian audience. Ἀσέλγεια reveals itself as a shamelessness that knows no boundaries, a shocking, brazen disregard for any kind of morality. Did Jesus use this word as a synonym for homoerotic activity and other similar acts from which Jews (along with many Gentiles) recoiled in horror? One cannot prove beyond doubt that Jesus had this meaning in mind, but a plausible case can be made that he did. The appearance of ἀσέλγεια on the lips of Mark’s Jesus must be accounted for somehow, and it will not do to say that a word of such shock value as ἀσέλγεια was a throw-away detail, or was intended as nothing more than a synonym for πορνεία or μοιχεία. Yes, these three words may overlap in meaning, but in a context where all three are used together as part of a standard trio of sexual vices, and particularly in a first century AD Jewish context, where ἀσέλγεια is virtually always used in a sexual sense, it is likely that all three terms are intended to convey specific meanings: fornication, adultery, and the most shocking sexual offenses named in the Torah. It is argued here that, as he seeks to faithful- ly communicate Jesus’ teaching, Mark found it necessary to emphasize to his readers that Jesus did explicitly reaffirm the Torah’s prohibition of the most shocking sexual offenses, a reaffirmation that Matthew did not find it necessary to make to his readers. J. P. Meier (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus [New York 2001] III, 502- 18 3) writes, “On sexual matters, Jesus and the Essenes tend in the same direction: stringent standards and prohibitions…In a sense, one could call both Jesus and the Essenes extreme conservatives…apart from the two special cases of divorce and celibacy, where he diverged from mainstream Judaism, his views were those of mainstream Judaism. Hence there was no pressing need for him to issue or for the earliest Christian Jews to enshrine moral pro- nouncements about matters on which all Law-abiding Jews agreed. If almost all Jews agreed that acts of fornication and adultery were wrong, there was no reason for Jesus, who shared these views (see, e.g., Mark 7:21-22; Luke 16:18) to exegete the obvious”.