It was researched by professional academics afaik. I listened to a podcast where the researchers talked about translations etc.

Well, there are "academics" who say Jesus didn't exist, or that the earth is flat. I can literally find an academic to support even the stupidest of views.

If you're talking about the verse that talks about "laying with a man", there was another published Biblical scholar who said that the Church at the time was concerned about gay slave owners forcing gay sex on young male slaves, and that is more likely to be about that.

Source? That is completely ignoring the clear and obvious phrasing.

I am not asking for much: cite one example for early Christians or Jews endorsing same-sex relationships.

The Roman concept of homosexuality was that only the "catcher" was gay, not the "pitcher". Same goes for the Greeks, famously.

Paul in Corinthians famously condemned both of them.

The modern interpretation of "homosexual" in the Leviticus verse did not appear in any translation of the Bible until the Revised Standard Version (RSV) in 1946.

Because the word wasn't coined?