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..

But sir cliff if eunuch is interpreted to mean gay the "and there are eunuchs, which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" must mean that god wants people to be gay and is more impressed with a gay person than a non-gay person? And I don't think that can be right. Or can it - is that what it means?

"as well as eunuchs as we know them today"

I don't know any eunuchs today, it's not something that comes up in conversation

A eunuch is a man who cannot conceive children - usually due to having testicles removed.

The Bible was written after the fact, a long time after, has been translated and meddled with considerably over the centuries, and written/translated to serve the purposes of those doing so. Vast chunks of it have been removed.

There is nothing to say that Jesus didn't marry Mary Magdelene, just as there is nothing to say that he did. I prefer to believe that he did, and that the slurs on her character were later written in by someone working to an agenda. Personally, I find that far more believable than someone having the ability to levitate someone from their sickbed, or feed a thousand people from a couple of fish and a loaf of bread.

SQ - "For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." Is another version. It's all down to the translation and yes, it is very confusing.

From Wiki - the font of all knowledge "The reference to "eunuchs" in Matthew 19:12 has been considered by some Christians as referring to homosexual men, particularly in the case of those eunuchs "so born from their mother's womb".[50][51] Some other Christians oppose this argument and state that the Bible's use of the word "eunuch" refers strictly to men incapable of sexual intercourse or reproduction, through either birth defect or castration."

Course the puritan Christians would argue for the strict meaning of the word eunuch but there is evidence that the actual translation was different. This gay christian site is very interesting on the subject.

SQ - I meant, the definition of eunuchs as we know today.

It doesn't really make sense to say vast chunks of 'it' have been removed ... there's no 'it', it's a collection of writings and different groups have different books included in their 'Bibles'.

Just saying because I don't think there's some secret writing about Jesus's happy marriage and Mary's 'AIBU to wish he'd buy a towel like normal people' threads out there waiting for us to find. Be nice if there were though.

There is absolutely NO evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and the Catholic Church amended its position on this in 1969 by changing the readings for her saintly feast day to a different verse that didn't identify her as a prostitute. No official apology was given at Vatican II.

Pope Gregory I in 597 C.E. started it when he combined three separate women from the New Testament into one. He combined Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany and a woman who is not named but is referred to as a 'sinner.'

www.examiner.com/alternative-religions-in-miami/was-mary-magdalene-ever-a-prostitute

This is interesting I think:

' The oldest available version of Matthew is a translation probably from Aramaic or Hebrew into Greek, and the word used in the Greek translation is eunouchos, from which we get our word eunuch. The word eunouchos comes from eune (bed) and echein (to hold), and most scholars accept that it means "one who guards the bed." But Jesus would not have used the Greek word, since he spoke Aramaic. The Hebrew and Aramaic word for eunuch is saris, an Assyrian loan word that has been interpreted to mean "at the head." an ancient Syriac translation of the Bible used the word mu'omin for eunouchos and saris. Mu'omin means "person of faith" or "person of trust." '

That's from this site, which also has a (long!) list of other uses of the same word in the Bible:

gendertree.com/Eunuch%20Biblical.htm

What a stupid ill thought out thread from someone who is clearly lacking in respect or sensitivity. I'd give you a biscuit but you just ain't worth it.

sircliff the definition of eunuchs as I know it today is a man who cannot have children usually because their testicles have been removed.

Is there a different meaning? I have genuinely never heard one.

And really if in that passage "eunuch" is taken to mean "gay" then it says that men made themselves gay in order to please god. I'm not sure that interpretation sounds right on a number of grounds.

Also the 27 books which make up the New Testament today were decided upon in the late 300s (AD! obviously!) through various church synods and early church fathers writing to one another and compiling their own lists.

There are a huge number of writings which existed at the time and did not make it into the final list because they did not fit the developing theology of the church at the time e.g. Gospel of Philip which presents Mary Magdalene as the disciple Jesus loved more than all the others. Nothing conclusive to point towards a romantic relationship but the church have subsequently downplayed her role because even in the accepted NT Gospels she stays at the crucifixion long after the other disciples have fled (apart from John the Beloved) and she is the first to visit the tomb and the first to witness Jesus' resurrection so in many ways would have been best placed to take up Jesus's ministry and continue his work.

Stark contrast to the woman-hating position of the early church fathers such as Tertullian in 200s AD: "It is not permitted to a woman to speak in church." and on women generally, "The curse God pronounced on your sex still weighs on the world. ?You are the devil's gateway?. You are the first that deserted the divine laws. All too easily you destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because you deserved death, it was the son of God who had to die"

It was the early church fathers who had a vested interest in keeping all religious power (priestly/ministerial) for themselves that seem pretty pathological in their hatred of women and need to keep them down as second class citizens of the church despite many of Jesus's teachings to the contrary.

It has been argued that in the very early church, women did participate in officiating at services. It's one of the really contentious issues for churches that are trying to decide whether or not to allow women to be priests now.

Btw, are you Russian Orthodox? I'm C of E and we don't have 27 books in the NT ... can't think off-hand who else does but the RO.

Oh, no, I say a lie ... I'm thinking about apocrypha still (with Mary Magdalene).

Ignore me.

No I am a devout atheist who has a peculiar interest in christian religious history and collects iconography. And a deep deep disappointment to those who try to convert me. Go figure! (Russian Orthodox iconography = absolutely lush though )

OP, he was no ordinary man, so you can't expect him to have done ordinary things, like get married.

There is nothing in the bible to suggest he was gay, even in the gnostic gospels.

I know several confirmed batchelors who have no interest in men or women.

Oh, wow ... I would love to collect iconography, I think religious art is fascinating. We have icons at home for my RO DH, but if we had more space I would love to have more stuff (it'd have to be repro on my budget though). My teacher atm is an art historian and her books on religious art give me itchy fingers to grab them!

On the subject of Jesus being gay, there is no evidence he was straight. I can't see why it would be remotely offensive to suggest either.

The decision of the Roman Catholic Church for priests to be celibate only took place in the 12th century (Pope Innocent II 1139 AD) and was primarily for financial reasons because Priests received an allowance for living and it was getting too expensive to simultaneously say no contraception and no masturbation and then have to fund and support the ensuing hordes of mini-priests being produced. Even up until 9th, 10th and 11th centuries Roman Catholic Priests were permitted to take second wives if their first wives got sick.

Catholic Church is really a fantastic example of early organisation, a bit like the first corporate plc and it learnt a lot from Constantine and its origins during the Roman Empire (empires are tricky to run when you think of how far people had to travel just to communicate) - it was even called the Holy Roman Empire (maybe still is?) for a very long time and Popes frequently challenged secular leaders for power. Also very efficient when it comes to building up capital. Could never see how that sat well with the whole easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (reportedly a narrow gateway in Jerusalem walls I think) than a rich man to enter Heaven but hey, religion is all about threading a precarious path through all the contradiction.

I don't think the OP was being offensive.

I suppose the offense comes if you take the OP's question to imply that Christ was not fully divine. IMO, if you believe Jesus had a sexuality, that does rather problematize the idea of him as being fully divine as well as fully human. But if you're just talking about Jesus as an historical figure, or as a character in a book, it's not offensive to speculate.

Oh LRD - all my stuff is sadly repro apart I think from one small expensive silver one from Greece which left me penniless and eating bread for the rest of my cheap package holiday way back when I was 17! Good job Greek bread is so tasty. My favourite place is St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai - second largest collection of icons outside the Vatican. I have never really worked out why I like it except that it is something to do with expression of faith, of which I have none. So I just covet and collect expressions of faith instead. Er.... I'll get my coat!

I think it makes sense to like stuff that expresses faith - it's something people put a huge amount of effort into. Even if you think people were deluded, it's still amazing to see the effort and the emotion, I think.

To be FULLY human (as well as fully divine) would mean to encompass all of human experience and being capable of experiencing it though surely? Which would include human sexuality (if not having sex per se then being capable of sexual desire). (By the power of Mumsnet, we shall solve a religious conundrum as yet unsolved for 200+ years...hmmm...maybe!)

I have a friend who identifies as gay but has never had gay sex or indeed kissed a man. I accept that he is gay though because that is what he identifies as because that is what he feels.

Btw, someone on another MN thread said that the word 'camel' may be mistranslating a word that actually means 'coarse hemp thread'.

Cross-post.

I disagree. I don't think being 'fully human' means Jesus had to do everything a human can do (we could soon reduce that argument to absurdity). I'm sure he was capable of having sex.

But IMO, if he was fully divine, he knew what transcendent love felt like. Sex would feel very imperfect by comparison - why would he bother?

Wow ruder-you know a lot!Very interesting.

See, LRD, I was assuming that JC was in actual fact a bloke, rather than a divine being. I tend to forget that some people believe that he really was the son of God.

I asked my (gay) brother if he was offended by the idea that gay men can sometimes be identified by what they wear and he said "er..have you ever been to Canal Street?!" (Manchesters gay village)

Obviously (or maybe not) I was joking about the sandals thing.
I mean EVERYBODY in the year Dot wore sandals, they were really in.

Apologies for fastforwarding to page 4.. BUT I read a silly book which insinuated he was a vampire...