Okay so many people today will invoke the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy to justify anti-gay attitudes. What I’m really curious about is this: did gays back in the Old Testament get mistreated the way they sometimes do in contemporary times? I mean, they were closer to the source back then, so I have to wonder. Does anybody know?
Reported for forum change- welcome to the board - this usually goes in the Great Debates since it will no doubtedly end up there.
This is a religious and social debate more than a discussion of literature, so I’m moving the thread to Great Debates from Cafe Society.
I’m no biblical scholar, but I can’t think of any descriptions of explicit homosexual activity in the Bible.
Well, not explicit explicit, but David with both the father and the son…? (Saul and Jonathan)
Be a play-mate to the royal family, and you may just end up as the greatest king the nation ever had! 
This is just a WAG, but I think homosexuality was seen as deviant *behavior, *not associated with specific individuals. I don’t think they had a concept of individuals who exclusively had sex with others of their gender, as opposed to people who were basically heterosexual, but were occasionally on the “down-low.”
It would be analogous to eating non-kosher food. The behavior itself would be forbidden, rather than people who ate exclusively pork and shellfish.
Noone Special:
A pathetic modern interpolation, not a genuine reflection of anything at all implied in the Bible.
Hey now, don’t be knocking my OTP.
Great OP title/username combo.
Dunno about you, but נפלאה אהבתך לי מאהבת נשים* seems pretty explicit to me… It can be *retro-*interpreted away, but it makes sense in the context of the culture of the place and time. That it offends the sensibilities of later scholars and clergy, is another matter.
And there’s nothing wrong with it, AFAIAC
- “Your love was more wonderful to me than the love of women.”
I dunno. Check out 2 Samuel 1:26 -
Obviously that can be interpreted as simply a very deep (but non-sexual) friendship, but it also can be interpreted literally! Which is by no means an absurd anachronism - it has some basis in cultural fact of the time.
Consider the context - assuming of course that the Bible reflects actual history, the (historical) David was in close contact with the Philistines - at one point he worked as a mercenary for them - and his most famous feat was fighting in a one-on-one duel, a very Philistine/Greek cultural habit. So he was very conversant with Philistine military culture - which was, in fact, quite similar to the military culture of the Greeks as described in the Iliad.
Close - and (in some cases) sexual - relationships between young warriors are not unknown in that literature. Consider the relationship between Achillies and Patroclus, which most Greek writers interpreted as (essentially) homosexual. This relationship is, in fact, quite similar to that of David and Jonathan. It ends the same way - with one grieving over the death of the other.
Now, this is not a slam-dunk case, neither the Bible nor the Iliad actually portrays the two heroes ‘getting it on’ as it were. But it is not the case that male-male sexual relationships were unknown in that time and place. and that the moderns are committing a gross anachronism reading it in.
Edit: heh, simulpost.
Noone Special:
Really? The context of Bronze-Age Israelite culture indicates any allowance for homosexual sex? Please present some evidence of it.
The “retro-interpreting away” is what’s being done by those wishing to paint that verse as indicating a sexual relationship, in that modern non-Orthodox Jewish movements (and to some lesser degree, Christian revisionists as well) would like to find some way to paint modern tolerance for alternate sexual modes as consistent with Jewish values.
Your painting the Rabbis of the Mishna and Talmud as “later scholars and clergy” attempts to paint over the fact that there are NO earlier ones on which to base this interpretation. You either have the Mishnaic/Talmudic statements, or you have later, modern ones, but you have ZERO basis whatsoever to believe that Israelites prior to the age of the Mishna/Talmud interpreted scripture closer to the moderns than to the ones you audaciously describe as “later.”
Malthus, much of what you said is covered by my response above to Noone Special. However:
OK, but the literal meaning is “love,” not sex. The Bible uses numerous euphemisms for sex, but “love” has never been used as such.
Mainly in an adversarial role, and when not, only with the king.
This was only AFTER his forced separation from Jonathan, though. And, he never fought alongside Philistine troops. The scriptures are pretty clear on that.
Goliath stood at the battle front and challenged the Israelites daily to a one-on-one duel. The fact that David (who wasn’t even military at the time, but was a shepherd merely bringing stuff to his brothers at the front) accepted the challenge doesn’t even remotely indicate that he practiced any, let alone most, elements of Philistine culture. It’s not like David challenged Goliath to the duel.
What we know of Greek culture of the era comes from the Iliad in the first place. What we know of Israelite culture of the era comes not only from the book of Samuel, but also from the Five Books of Moses, which very clearly condemn homosexual sex.
Which reminds me of the line from Othello: “Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much.” Which is to say, what reason would the Torah have to come out so explicitly against homosexual relationships if the practice wasn’t in fact widespread at the time?!
Using “sex” here would not make any sense in context - it’s a lament. He’s lamenting the death of his (friend or lover, depending on how you interpret it), not the loss of a good lay! 
No-one doubts that, whatever their relationship, it was portrayed as deep and meaningful, not superficial lusting. The issue is whether it had a sexual element or not.
I’m not claiming that he specifically practiced a Philistine lifestyle, only that he was, as a result of circumstances, familiar with it and exposed to it. It would not be something wholly alien to Hebrew tribesmen, a poor shepherd boy, who had dreams of becomming part of what would be a military caste lead by a king, to adopt or “acculturate” elements of the foreign warrior culture he was fighting against.
As you know, the Hebrew tribes at issue were undergoing at that very moment a quite profound social change - from a rather socially primitive set of tribes, largely classless (except for a tribe of heriditary priests) and lead by charismatic “Judges”, to a full-blown early state, complete with warrior class and a King (the Bible is very explicit about how radical this change was - Samuel’s reaction to being asked to create a king is very instructive!)
In that setting, which the career of David epitomizes (from shepherd to warrior to mercenary to king), it would be terribly surprising if David (and others) adopted lots of cultural traits from the very people whose presence as it were inspired the transformation in the first place by their military threat - the Philistines.
Nor would this be unusual in the Biblical setting. Biblical monarchs were castigated all the time for adopting foreign ways. It is not absurd (though of course not proven) that a relationship between two young Hebrew warriors would have been similar to a (reasonably contemporary) relationship between two young Greek warriors, as the two societies were in contact (and conflict) and clearly a certain amount of cultural diffusion was happening between Hebrews and their surrounding societies (much lamented in the OT!).
Mind you, even if David did have a homosexual relationship, it does not follow that this would have been seen by the priests (or anyone) as “good”. David did a lot of things that were not “good” - remember Uriah the Hittite? (perhaps another foreign warrior in David’s employ?)
It is unknown when the various bits of the five books of Moses were composed. It could be that they represent society much earlier or much later than the historical David.
Aside from being stoned to death?
panache is right on; there was no concept of sexual orientation back then so no “gays” or “straights.” Homosexuality was a behavior, not an identity.
cmkeller is also in the academic mainstream by dismissing the perceived homoeroticism in the David & Jonathan story. It reminds me of folks claiming that Jesus and John were getting it on because John is called “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
Noone Special:
Because it was a practice that they were familiar with from Egypt, and which they would encounter in Canaan (Leviticus 18:3, which is introductory to the whole listing of sexual prohibitions). It’s a physical desire that some portion would be attracted to.
Malthus:
Which is fine, but when your earlier message suggested that “it could be interpreted literally” you’re ignoring that the literal meaning does not relate to sex. Or you’re using the word “literally” wrong.
Except that their demand for a king wasn’t based on external Philistine threats (thought admittedly the Philistines were the most obvious external threat looming, but Samuel’s leadership had effectively subdued them at the time), but on the fact that Samuel was old and his sons were corrupt.
Yes, there was absorption of foreign practices, and much such sin was lamented in the OT. The problem with supposing it in David and Jonathan is that the OT does not in fact lament their relationship.
Indeed. And what happened? A prophet admonished him, he repented, and accepted his penance. Did that happen in relation to his relationship with Jonathan?
Or it could be that it represents exactly what it claims to represent. Any guesses that the laws contained in the five books of Moses do not represent the religious ideal that ancient Israelites described in the historical books of the Bible felt bound by (granted that they lapsed frequently, but their leaders held them to these standards) are unsupported by any evidence at all.
When you refer to someone as your “lover”, you are not necessarily stating anything X-rated. It is the relationship you are referring to, not the physical act - although it certainly implies that it is the sort of relationship that includes (from time to time) the physical act.
The issue here is whether David, speaking with Jonathan, is referring to him as a “deep friend” (implying no physicality) or as a “lover” (implying physicality) when he says “Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”.
Taken literally, the phase certainly implies a “lover” relationship, not a “friendship” one.
Consider that phrase for a second. What relevance has “love for woman”, outside of the concept of “lover”? Particularly in the context of the times, where (platonic) friendships between men and women would have been vanishingly rare?
We have to agree to disagree on this. The crisis that required leadership in the first place was external threats. The foremost of those was the Philistines.
Irrelevant, unless you are taking the position that every time a Biblical king did something later people would consider immoral, they were admonished and repented. Which is demonstratably not the case. In many cases, the Biblical monarchs are portrayed as doing things we (and presumably Biblical moralists) would consider “bad”, without any commentary at all.
A prime example of this is David’s dying instructions to Solomon - which essentially consist of a “hit list” of people David wanted murdered, but for whatever reason David did not get around to it! The Bible is totally silent on the morality of this.
Absence of evidence is, as the phrase goes, not evidence of absence. It is a commonplace of Biblical scholarship that various bits of the Bible were written at different (and widely-seperated) times. The society of Hebrew tribesmen as depicted in Genesis is clearly different from the early state as depicted in Samuel and Kings. It would be very unusual to say the least if the Hebrew religion and social rules did not also evolve, considering its society evolved from a loose collection of essentially bedouin-like tribesmen to a centralised state centered on a Temple.
Certainly it is possible that the story does not represent a homosexual relationship, but rather a deep friendship. I have never discounted that possibility. Indeed, it is quite possible.
My point is not that the “David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship” is the only possible interpretation. Indeed, I rate the chances at about even. My point is that this interpretation, given what little we know about the context of the times, is not a “liberal anachronism” based on the permissive mores of the 21st century – that there are sound historical and anthropological reasons, rooted in the evolving nature of Hebrew society at that time, in contact with the larger early iron age world, as to why the story may have that interpretation.
Malthus:
It does not, because “lover” as meaning “sexual partner” is an English idiom, not a Hebrew one.
That’s not what it says in I Samuel 8, when they made the request. Also, while the Philistines were a persistent source of trouble, the actual next threat came not from them, but from the Ammonites.
Why would you conflate “we” with “Biblical moralists”? A case in point is what you cited below:
That’s because the Bible recognizes a monarch’s right to execute those who rebel against his wishes. The hit list in question was composed of two people, both of whose transgressions against David are clearly noted. This sort of absolute power is unthinkable to us modern democrats, but the Bible certainly believed in the “Divine Mandate” of kings.
Even if I were to grant that the morals and ethics underwent some degree of “evolution” between the disorganized tribal days and the more formal Israelite state, you’d do well to remember that evolution is a process where there is some ancestor not entirely dissimilar to its descendant. Even if you can definitively state (which you really can’t - absence of evidence, as you said) that the Torah is the product of evolution, it is still the ONLY guide we have as to what the prior moral-ethical-religious system might have resembled.
But that’s just not true. The conjecture over David and Jonathan is based on a series of tenuous connections, such as:
- Israelite warrior culture, about which we have no extra-Biblical knowledge, might have been similar to Philistine warrior culture, about which we have no knowledge
- Philistine warrior culture might have been similar to Greek warrior culture, since there is some evidence of Greek art-forms in ancient Philistine archaeological sites
- Greek warrior culture of that age might have been similar to the Greek warrior culture that we only know of from a good four hundred years later (where’s the readiness to believe in changing societal mores there, eh?), which included some form of male homosexuality, between adults and young boys
And based on something like this, you’re willing to lay 50-50 odds that the relationship described between David and Jonathan, (two males of roughly equal age, not an adult and a young boy) included sex.
The above hardly constitutes “sound historical and anthropological reason.” It’s more of a textbook case for Occam’s razor.
I don’t know. Put a bunch of guys together in large groups and for large periods of time, and some are going to get it on.
Look at the Samurai warrior culture as well.
You will have to argue that one out with Noone Special.
I’ll refer to the text:
[Emphasis added]
Hence the conclusion that this is an example of cultural diffusion. The reasonable assumption being that the Israelite nation was undergoing considerable cultural change - much of it inspired by those “other nations”.
On the contrary, the passage clearly indicates some rather “sharp dealing” on the part of David. For example:
Here he’s saying that he swore not to kill this man - but he’s encouraging his son to do so. That’s not an example of the divine right, that’s an example of bad faith. It would be the same if (for example) David had the guy drowned and then said “well, I swore not to put you to death by the sword, right? :D”
The ancients knew perfectly well the difference between good faith and bad.
I’m not the one “definitively asserting” anything, so I can agree with this whole-heartedly. Yes, it is the only evidence. No, that does not mean we have to assume it’s a unified whole.
This interpretation is not “based on” those connections - it is firmly based on the Biblical text.
The issue is how that text is to be interpreted. Either way requires some form of outside analysis, since the text as written is ambiguous.
You are insisting that the text must be interpreted in one way, based on the Levite description of male homosexuality as an “abomination” - a prohibition that may, or may not, have existed at the time of David, and which may or may not be related to priestly antagonism to temple prostitution (and so may, or may not, be relevant). I am stating that throughout the area existed parallel examples of relationships between young warriors which have been interpreted as sexual contemporary with David. The Greek example is the most obvious, but there are others (for example, the epic of Gilgamesh - much older but still popular at that time). Point being that it is hardly unknown, and would not be utterly foreign, to have sexual relationships between young warriors in that time. So when interpreting “your love was better than that of women”, it is not necessary to resort to inappropriate modern “liberalism” to see one possibility as that this may refer to an erotic relationship.
Occam’s Razor does not figure into this.