In thinking that Jesus may possibly have been Gay?

[nativitywreck]

I suggested this in another thread and the effect was like a fart at a funeral; it cleared the room!
It's not so far fetched though. He was 33 when he died, and never married. I would imagine that in the year Dot most people were married by the age of 18, so that is one confirmed bachelor.
And then there is the 'tache'n'beard, the sandals and the twelve guys he hung with..

LRD - yes, I was a bit harsh, I know. But really, these issues as to whether Jesus was gay are quite straightforward and are not considered to be valid in the context of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary that we have. The OP seemed to me like the idle postulation of someone who hadn't examined the scriptures nor supporting texts etc and was just throwing it out there to be a bit outrageous.

I don't speak/read Aramaic. My boyfriend before I was married had it as his first language. My husband has an MA in New Testament Greek and Hebrew, so he has plumbed the depths of the Bible and its culture. This makes me sound geekish, which I'm not. However there is a scholarly methodology which the OP needs to apply before making her claims. I think if the OP was to examine the texts further, she'd give up her hypothesis and go home.

Well, I don't personally believe Jesus was gay, and theologically I don't think it's valid. But there have been some quite persuasive arguments put forward, and I think the jury's still out on the historical (as opposed to theological) reasons for thinking it.

I don't think it's that clear cut and it does seem that in a thread on a general website like MN, it's fair enough to start a debate without being a scholar. I'm way out of my depth if we're going to get into Bible scholarship, and I would have thought that goes for most of us. But it's still interesting to share ideas IMO.

I do think it's actually kind of rude to try to shut down debate by insisting the OP develop a 'scholarly methodology', especially when you're saying you don't actually have it yourself, you just know people who do. Why shouldn't she have a chat about it?

(Btw ... sorry ... but an MA is not 'plumbing the depths' of anything, let alone the Bible and its culture. You know, nothing the OP has said has come across to me as quite as offensive to Christianity as that statement - come on, I know it's 4am, but, really?!)

So if I start a thread about an area I know nothing about, will I not get shot down by others who do have a background in that area? Of course I will.

Loads of people on this thread have rushed in to tell the OP masses of things they thought she didn't know, and she's been nothing but curious and engaged. If you wanted to carry on telling her where the holes in her reasoning are, I don't imagine she'd mind.

What's a bit off is saying that she has to be a Biblical scholar before she's allowed to debate - this is not convention of Biblical scholars or even a specialist forum.

And an MA (in the 1980s) from one of the best seminaries in the USA is actually going quite a ways to looking at the fine print.

Added to which I am a historian and have yet to see a viable historical reason for thinking that Jesus was gay on here. I don't have the background in the ancient languages, but I do know how history "works."

I think it is very offensive to suggest that one person's work can 'plumb the depths' of something as massively complex as the Bible and the culture in which it was written. It's crass. It would be crass if someone claimed that as a Professor at the end of their career and it's stunningly crass to claim it of an MA student.

I know how history 'works' too - and I also know that nothing historical we have could ever disprove the claim that Jesus was gay (or straight). We cannot possibly know that.

LRD, you are right. The OP herself is genuinely asking the question. She does NOT have to be a biblical scholar of course, but it may behove her to consider the historical and textual background to her question a little, before posting something so contentious on here. It IS kinda contentious to most Christians and Muslims to suggest Jesus might be gay (on a mere whim). I am simply suggesting, that before she makes such a contentious supposition, she reads about the evidence first rather than go by speculation.

Oh, gawd I only read the first one-and-a-half pages, then skipped to the end to see how things were going.

Jesus lived in very unfeminist times. One of his many outrageous behaviours was to treat women as people. A "wife" didn't mean what it does now. A wife is even referred to in the Commandments as one of a man's chattels, iirc (it's been a while). I remember the bit about god telling his chaps it was okay to go into the fields and rape any women they found there, as long as they made sure the women were all right afterwards. This has been translated as "you may go into the fields and take any woman you see as a wife."

Don't get all ranty at me, please. I'm just trying to point out that Wife wasn't the same thing two thousand years ago, and it was a different thing again when the texts were translated into Latin then English. None of us would have wanted to be a Wife in those days.

I thought Mohammed was married?

^ Missed out important bit: None of us would have wanted to be a Wife in those days.^ - which might even be why he didn't marry Mary M. Perhaps he had too much respect for her.

Or perhaps he was gay.

Oh, hang on a minute, didn't he love everyone? That's settled, then

"I know how history 'works' too - and I also know that nothing historical we have could ever disprove the claim that Jesus was gay (or straight). We cannot possibly know that"

We "know" he supported marriage between men and women from the texts. We know he didn't marry himself.

I'd never thought of that garlic - I like that a lot. Though, couldn't he have married and set an example by treating his wife as a person?

I think we're getting close to 'why wasn't Christ incarnate as a woman', right?

thru - ok, fair enough, I can understand wanting someone to read up before they post. I guess I prefer the 'jump in and speculate' approach because it seems a bit less likely to result in people just shutting up and saying nothing.

But I can see you would feel very differently if you felt under attack for your faith.

We "know" he supported marriage between men and women from the texts. We know he didn't marry himself.'

Which proves what?

LRD, you have no idea how many of my husband's 48 years he has spent studying the Bible and its culture, so how can you be offended by this? He has dedicated his life to the study of these issues since he was 18. It's not crass to suppose that someone who has given their whole life to this discipline might know considerably more than most people who are just having an idle thought about it for some entertainment. I'm not talking a British MA here, but the US equivalent of a PhD from an ivy league school. Sorry if this threatens you, but don't scoff.

thru - did you not read my post?

My point is not to have a go at your husband - it's that it is quite offensive to suggest that the Bible and the culture that produced it could be understood, to the depths, by any single scholar. If you said your husband was the world leading authority on Biblical scholarship, I'm sure he would still not feel he had 'plumbed the depths' of the subject. It's just incredibly crass and offensive to suggest that.

I am sure your husband's studies were very detailed and of a very high level.

LRD - it suggests that he was too busy being the son of god to marry (healing the sick, curing the blind etc). It also suggests that he considered marriage between men and women to be the way to go, otherwise, why big it up like that???
Extrapolating the idea that he did not marry to that he was actually gay is just illogical.

Suggesting is not really quite the same as evidence, much less proof.

I don't think it's likely he was gay, but as Milly points out, it's not entirely illogical - you could say, if he wasn't gay, why make so much of his love for his disciples?

It is, btw, still perfectly possible to by gay and believe marriage is only appropriate for straight couples (I don't agree, but plenty of people do).

Trust me LRD, it's not half as offensive as suggesting Jesus was gay or even that he was shagging Mary Magdalene/anyone else at all. There is nothing to suggest any sexuality either way and to impose it upon the text is erroneous and suppositional. Ergo tenuous at best.

You are splitting hairs. Of course my husband isn't the world authority But he knows more than most about this, which is all I meant.

I'm not splitting hairs.

You may not find it offensive to suggest your husband, with his little MA, has 'plumbed the depths' of a culture and writings many consider to be sacred and deeply mysterious - but I do.

We obviously differ here, because I don't find the suggestion that Jesus might have been gay remotely offensive. There is nothing wrong with being gay, or with having sex. I think that suggesting Jesus did these things implies a fundamental misunderstanding of divinity, but I don't get offended by people misunderstanding things. I'm not even arrogant enough to be sure I understand them properly - I just have faith.

"you could say, if he wasn't gay, why make so much of his love for his disciples?"

Well I love my girl mates loads, but I certainly would NOT consider snogging their faces off or getting down to boobie action. Come on! That's a crap silly argument.

The point is that all the 'evidence' we can suggest - both yours about marriage and mine about the disciples - is only suggestive. It's not proof of anything. This is my point.

Little MA???? How patronising and very rude!!!! You're harping on and on about plumbing the depths etc. I simply meant he'd actually studied it well, which is more than anyone else on this board. I have already told you it was the equivalent of a PhD.

There is nothing wrong with sex, but it's not something that a Christian believes a divinity enters into in the same way as a human does. That is what you just don't get. Sex is for humans not divinities. Not because it's bad but it's just the way it is.

Why can't you respect people's faith position????

But my suggestion (that he was not gay) is far more likely/plausible than yours in the context of the entire Bible.

Thru: It's your husband who is the bible scholar, yes? Not yourself? Perhaps you & he might consider discussing a couple of contextual facts, which even an atheist non-scholar like me knows to be true?

One: Amongst Romans at the time - who, unlike the Jews, left detailed written histories - homosexuality was a normal part of male life. Generally, subordinate males would offer themselves to superiors. It didn't make them 'gay' in their own thinking, because they didn't polarise sexuality the way we do. As we know non-polarised sexuality amongst men was also accepted in all the other major cultures back then - and still is, in many contemporary cultures - it's fairly reasonable to suppose that the issue of being gay or not would have been neither here nor there to Jesus or his contemporaries.

Two: Marriage was not a bonding ceremony as it is now. It wasn't even in England until about 400 years ago. Rich people were generally told from childhood who they would marry, then moved in together when their families said so. Ordinary people just sort of got together and became an item. That's why there wasn't any fuss about Joseph & Mary registering for the Census together. Translations have put them down as 'betrothed' but, as they were fairly middle-class and hadn't had sex yet, it's most likely they were one of the childhood couples and were basically considered married although not yet consummated.

So, despite my lack of "depth-plumbing" of the bible - unless a British primary education and six weeks of Sunday school matches your H's MA - I deem it unreasonable to insist that Jesus was or wasn't gay (due to cultural context), irrelevant to care whether he had sex or with whom (due to the more interesting stuff he did), and historically absurd to compare contemporary ideas of marriage with modern ones.

It will, seriously, be interesting to hear what your H says and whether you'd admit to any greater flexibility in your views on what the bible means to us in modern times. Having said that, I'm not up for a fight over it. I am fascinated by cultural details from ancient history, mainly in terms of how they inform us today, but pursue no agendas over it.

Yes, I am 'harping on'. I am offended. You have been really quite rude.

Even if I believed that this degree were equivalent to a PhD, I promise you, I would not be in the slightest impressed by a PhD holder telling me he knew all about the Bible and its culture.

You were quite happy to patronize the OP of this thread by dropping in your specialist knowledge (or, apparently, your boyfriend and husband's specialist knowledge ). It is pretty hypocritical to suggest the OP should study up before venturing a speculation, then to object to me saying pointing out the simple fact that no one person, no matter how amazingly talented and studious, can pretend to know so much about the Bible and its culture.

Had you read my whole post, or any of my previous posts on this thread, you would have seen that I have already explained my position on divinity and sex.

I suggest you begin by respecting other people before attributing to me a position I have explicitly disagreed with, and claiming that this is disrespectful.

By the way, you have no idea what anyone else on this thread has or hasn't studied. It is quite possible that some posters you've skipped past do have proper PhDs and more - I'm not an academic but I know a number do post on MN.

I am fairly sure, though, that they would be rather more aware of the magnitude of the subject and the respect it deserves, though.