IMO, the whole David and Jonathan episode is vastly overplayed by both sides of the story. And what happens is that all parties bring their own opinions to the table and try to make the story fit them, rather than working from the story to see what it has to say.
First, David and Jonathan were not gay, in the sense of a Kinsey-6 individual as the term is used today. Ample proof of this can be found in subsequent verses where both marry and have children (granted, that in itself is not necessarily proof of their orientation), and where, Jonathan having died young, David ends up lusting for various women, Bathsheba in particular. (And let’s be clear that his desire is not condemned in and of itself; what’s condemned is his lusting for the wife of another man, and encompassing his death in order to legally get her.)
Now, that to one side, the question of what exactly they did and felt is on the table. And it is clear that they were extremely emotionally close, loving friends, who were unafraid of the physical expression of that love. Granted that male-bonding expression differs across cultural lines, I doubt that any straight man here would be inclined to utilize the methodology that they had no problem with in expressing his feelings for his closest friend. At least in my 55 years of life I have not been accustomed to seeing good friends embracing, kissing, weeping on each other, and professing undying love for each other. On the other hand, to suggest that this went to the extent of sexual release, while a plausible inference, is not borne out from the text. The actual text of Scripture makes no reference to sexual, as opposed to romantic, contact between them. And I do think the distinction is important to make, given the issues at hand.
But to bring the idea that David walked uprightly before God, and all gay men are sinners, so we know he wasn’t gay, is circular reasoning – it’s assuming what you’re trying to prove. The issue at hand is the question of what the commands in Leviticus and the condemnations in Romans, I Corinthians, etc., were intended to apply to. Diogenes has in various threads, with such assistance as I and others have been able to render, explained the reasoning behind the presumption that homosexual temple prostitution was behind some of the passages, and the practice of prostituting enslaved “rent boys” in the thriving red light district of Corinth behind the Corinthians passage.
Now, Talmudic evidence might well be useful in addressing the Leviticus passages, and perhaps the David and Jonathan passage from I Samuel (and the interesting language of David’s lament in II Samuel 1). I’d welcome seeing what it gives. It must, however, be remembered that the Talmud is itself not contemporary with the issues at hand, but compiled over several hundred years overlapping the production of the New Testament – so at best it reflects what the Jewish teachers of later generations made of the passages in question.
But let us not prove our case, either way, by assuming what we seek to prove.
