There is nothing but a deafening silence in the Gospels on the subject of Jesus’ personal life. Whether He was gay or straight, whether He really loved His mother, whether He liked peanut butter with jelly or plain, whether He “got” Benny Hill–on all these subjects the Bible is completely, totally, absolutely silent.
You can assume and extrapolate all you like–for example, “Somebody who’s 30 years old and hangs around with other guys a lot is probably gay”, or “Somebody who preached a doctrine of simplicity probably preferred a plain PB to a PBJ”, or “Somebody who would make dumb jokes about camels going through the eye of a needle probably would have enjoyed Benny Hill very much”–but there’s nothing in the Bible covering it.
And think about this for a minute: We don’t even have any real, relatively unassailable evidence that Jesus even existed. Period.
I never got the impression that he was much interested in anyone – he always seems more focused on politics and religion. I figured that he was celibate, and that the authors of the gospel weren’t much interested in that side of his life, anyway.
If I was looking for a sympathetic portrayal of homosexuality in the Bible, I think a better case could be made for David and Jonathon than Jesus and John.
Still, this is a very old question. There is iconography from the Middle Ages – sculptures, paintings, etc – that portray John and Jesus romantically, as a married couple. And when King James I of England was asked about his relationship with a certain George, his “gentleman of the bedchamber,” James replied,
Sadly, I don’t have an online cite for these, only hard copy.
My main source is Closet Devotions by Richard Rambuss (Duke University Press), which is devoted to homoerotic Catholic art. The subject is also discussed briefly Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell (Villard Books). I suspect it’s discussed in greater detail in Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, since the author frequently refers the reader to that book, but I have yet to find a copy of it.
As for Doghouse Reilly’s comments, he’s right that the idea of building an identity around homosexuality is relatively new – about 150 old. Few people thought of it as an identity prior to that. One person who’s talked a lot about this is Michel Foucault, who once said, “The sodomite was an aberration, the homosexual was a species.”
However, I take issue with Foucault here and a lot of theorists. I believe that identity is constructed, homosexual desire is not. In a society where there was no persecution, there would probably be no “gay identity” – like left-handedness, the subject would only come up in situations where it was somehow relevant.
Don’t make the mistake that because “gay” didn’t qualify as a category, that there weren’t a comparable number of people who were exclusively homosexual in their desires. Marriages were arranged, people felt the need to make points about their masculinity, etc. The medieval world did not discuss sex as openly as we do, most of them were illiterate and left no documentation, we have no surveys and no medical reports to fall back on.
Just google-ing at random found this article, which I thought was rather interesting:
So cavorting with younger boys was sort of a premarital sport that had its winked-at place in Athenian society, but as far as I can tell, nobody went around bellowing that he centered his whole sense of identity on what might seem a rather arbitrary choice of sport. I wouldn’t be surprised if this description of Athens might generally apply to most ancient societies.
Yeah, but I’d also argue that the underlying concept of centering one’s sense of identity on one’s choice of bedmates is just as recent–or at least, as recent as the late Victorian era.
I hadn’t yet read Hamish’s post when I made my (somewhat redundant?) response immediately above.
Regarding the OP, it would seem now that “gay Jesus” assertion is groundless on two counts: (1) it is impossible to prove, since you would have to demonstrate that Jesus had an exclusive preference for men or boys, such that his preference would differentiate him from what was probably going on all around him more or less openly in ancient society; and (2) the very idea of “gay” didn’t exist at the time–and again, even if you could go back and explain the concept to Jesus’ contemporaries, they would probably find it a little ridiculous.
Not entirely true. Although there weren’t identities wrapped around the various desires, in both Athenian society and later in Roman society, some philosophers did take up the debate of which was the “highest” form of love. There have always been a few people who’ve expressed exclusive preferences for one or the other sex. Once again, I seperate between gay identity – a new phenomenon – and exclusively homosexual desire – which I believe to be a constant.
When I was looking over the history of homosexuality, I found that there several ways societies tended to deal with it. Some persecuted it. Some encouraged it under certain conditions. Some set aside a certain special category, often a religious one, for people who were “between sexes.” And some simply tolerated it, as long as the person in question could fulfil his or her duties, which often included producing children. I suspect the Roman-era Levant fell into this last category.
Another problem answering the Is-Jesus-gay question is that these were things nobody cared enough about to set in writing. As John Boswell, whose made a name for himself as the “historian of homosexuality,” pointed out, it’s hard to know anything about the love-lives of anyone before our era, simply because our society is moreobsessed with romantic love than any society previous.
I doubt the population of Roman Palestine would care enough to record Jesus’s romantic life. The idea that anyone would care enough to want to know would probably surprise them.
Hamish, thanks. Although, I have to quibble with you on your statement about people not talking about sex in medieval times. As Maeglin about that-or read some medieval manuscripts.
I’m wondering if they could be refering to depictions of John with his head resting on Jesus’ shoulder or chest. It’s a far cry from depicting them “as a married couple”, but can certainly be perceived as “romantical” if someone is inclined to see it this way…
Anyway, even a painting where John and Jesus are represented as a married couple would tell more about the painter than about Jesus as depicted in the gospels (and given the confidence I have in the gospels being an accurate report about Jesus …) .
If I remember correctly and the incident with John resting on Jesus’ shoulder occurred during the last supper, then I heard an interesting interpretation of that passage recently. This TV show recreated the likely layout of of the banquet, noting that the apostles likely were reclining Roman-style on three couches surrounding a central table, such that they were resting on their elbows. If this were the case, and John were immediately to the right of Jesus, then the only way Jesus could whisper something to John privately (about who his betrayer would be?) would be if John leaned backwards against Jesus’ shoulder.
Seems to me that this is mainly an effort to demonize Christians who advocate for tolerance of homosexuality more than anything else. The notion that Christ was gay is obviously quite radical, and likely to be unacceptable to a great many people. Conflating people who advocate that Christ was gay with people who advocate for tolerance of homosexuals makes it easier to justify refusing to accept tolerance of homosexuality. Very intellectually dishonest, though.
And KellyM gets it in one. Until reading this article I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone seriously propose that Jesus was homosexual. I have heard it suggested lightheartedly, but never as a serious debate topic.
For evidence of the demonization, just reread this paragraph
Wilkins is putting words into the mouths of thousands of gay Christians and then condemning them for those words they never spoke.
This is really one of the more offensive statements in his little diatribe. The editorial twist of “left his wife” is used to imply that he abandoned her and their children. This is inaccurate and dishonest. Mel White tried to be straight for 25 years of marriage. He underwent “ex-gay” therapy, including electro-shock therapy, for many of those years. In the end, he couldn’t fight who he was and he and his wife separated, but he did not abandon her. He remained financially supportive until she could be independent and their children were out of college. He also continued to live nearby and take an active role in their lives until he moved to Dallas to be part of the staff at the Cathedral of Hope, well after their children were adults and Lyla (his ex-wife) was financially independent. They remain friends to this day and she even wrote the introduction to his autobiography.
Well, exactly. I doubt this debate could be resolved. It comes down to a big “I don’t know.” I raised the subject just to show this is a very old debate.
Here’s Dr. Boswell’s word on it:
[sub]Sorry for the long quote, but this is a rather obscure book, and I doubt the relevant passage could be found on the Internet[/sub]
Well, yes, that’s a possibility, but that’s never how it’s portrayed in the medieval art I mentioned.
One of the most common images is John, sitting up, with his head on Christ’s chest, Christ with his arm around John, and the two holding right hands. It’s really the last image that’s most important here. The dextrarum junctio was the symbol of marriage in medieval art, the way putting a ring on the finger would be the symbol of marriage today. It could have other meanings, of course, such as alliance or business dealing, but marriage was the most common interpretation, and any artist sculpting or painting these images would have been aware of the semiotics.
Once again, my point was simply that this was an old debate.
Yeah. Looking over my original post, I realize I was making a fairly gross generalization. There is plenty of literature from the middle ages about sex, but it falls short of the sort of rational discussion one would have about sex, post-Freud.
Most discussions I’ve found of sex in the middle ages are either the Church’s moralizing or burlesque comedy. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue stands out as one of the few genuinely analytical pieces on the subject of sex.
Sermons and sex comedies aren’t necessarily an accurate portrayal of the sexual life of the average man or woman of the middle ages. To make generalizations based on these about the nature of desire at the time is to rest one’s argument on very shaky ground.
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