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..

The second, Milly.

mincepie - not really. The point is that the whole concept of the Bible is only held by those who are Biblical literalists. Everyone else is well aware that the Bible is made up of various books, and different Christian groups include different books, and translate them differently, and give the different weight. Some groups think that the words of the Bible are the most important source of information, and/or that these words are self-explanatory. Others give some weight, or equal weight, to tradition and to the interpretations of influential believers.

'Accuracy' is, IMO, too simple a word here. What do you mean by 'accurate'?

For example - this debate we've been having over the verse sbout the camel passing through the eye of theneedle. To some,the most 'accurate' version of this verse involves a gloss to tell you what is meant is the gate in Jerusalem, or a re-translation of 'camel' as 'hemp thread'. To others, not so - they keep the verse in its traditional form, and accept it as a vivid hyperbolic image rather than seeking a literal meaning. Which is more 'accuate'?

Dan Brown has a lot to answer for!

It was fiction, people!

sircliff - I don't think Jesus needed to 'forsake' a sexual nature; I think he just loved people so much he didn't need sex. But I suspect you and I are quite close in beliefs here?

i read that as marriage was the norm it would not have been mentioned in the bible.

HOWEVER being single as his age was most definately unusual and so would have been very much mentioned

i think the absence of any mention means that he was actually married or we would have heard about it in a big way.

I think the issue over the sexual orientation is rather less important than the idea of Jesus having a special bond with one other person. I think that Jesus having an intimate relationship with one person is helpful for a lot of people in imagining their own closeness to God. Apparently (according to Wikipedia!), some people think that the identity of the beloved disciple may not have been John, but is deliberately made ambiguous so that the reader can identify more with that beloved disciple.

I have heard similar about Hinduism; that people are encouraged to imagine a very personal relationship with a particular God. I don't know anything about the context of this though.

I think - for me anyway - that is where the whole genre of imagining Christ in other people comes in.

There all that very rich literature and imagery of Christ as a human lover, mother/father or friend, which I think is often how people seek to understand divinity. We fix on a facet of human love because that's our best way of understanding what divine love might be.

However, IMO this is a tool to help humans understand, so does not mean that we need to believe that an actual human Christ had actual human relationships of the particular kinds that make most sense to us.

This kind of devout imagination is fundamentally opposed to the concept of historical accuracy, but has been and still is a huge part of many orthodox (small 'o') Christian communities. There's nothing theologically wrong, in many Chrisitan churches, with imagining bits of Jesus's life that you know rationally never happened.

Dating of NT is v. debated, but there are usually a couple of different, historically plausible dates for the books / letters (e.g. two main dating theories for Revelation). Most scholars agree that Mark was the first gospel to be written (before 70CE), but Paul's letters earlier than that. James is hugely disputed, and 2 Thessalonians. Theories abound as to the earliest written sources about Jesus.

seeker the idea of Jesus being married has been around a lot longer than Dan Brown. Like many people who are interested in the history of the Bible and the Apocrypha, I was rather surprised that some of the ideas in The Davinci Code were not more widely known. I know many of my Christian family members had no idea that there were books left out of the 'official' Bible. So just because you don't believe alternative propositions for Jesus' domestic arrangements doesn't make it 'fiction'.

True, LRD. And lovely post.

Seeker - this is where my 'aha, but you're saying that as a modern / postmodern westerner' response kicks in. Are you saying that fiction = untrue? If so, untrue how? Factually? Historically Scientifically?

This is where all my Historical Jesus research unravels a bit, really, not at the point at which i say 'Well it's not historically verifiable possible / plausible' (because it is, actually), but at the point at which I have to say that my neutral data cannot be whatever I construe historical accuracy to be (iyswim), because neutral data does not exist within human endeavours - we are all invested in whatever it is we work on, give our lives to one way or another... The thing with saying 'it's fiction' is that it presupposes a prior trust in something other than 'fiction' (post-Enlightenment, that thing is usually physics. Wheel on Prof. Brian Cox and his goofy grin as Example A). But is there really any neutal data? And that's when theology starts to get really interesting...

Thanks holofernes.

The issue over Jesus having a beloved disciple doesn't require alternative books though; it is in the mainstream bible.

I don't think Jesus did love people just as God though. I don't see the point of either the incarnation or the crucifixion if he was not in every sense, human with human emotions. It isn't really a sacrifice if God turns up, doesn't experience things as other humans do, and then pushes off back to heaven. What makes it such a sacrifice is all the human emotions he experienced - loss, abandonment, fear, anger, grief and intense, specific attachment to other individuals.

I think Jesus being fully God and fully human is the whole point of Christianity really.

It's a leap from 'beloved disciple' to sex, though. IMO.

I think the problem with the idea of Jesus's Incarnation necessitating that he experience every human emotion is that it's too easy to reduce to absurdity. Is it Catharism, which said you must participate in every depravity (or deparvity according to morals of the time), in order to be fully like Jesus, who expereinced everything?

Do we then think Jesus had to be jealous, petty, spiteful, too?

And if He had to experience every human emotion, he missed out bigtime not being a woman and never getting periods, giving birth, etc.

So to me, this argument misses the point of what being 'fully God and fully human' means ... it doesn't mean he had to experience every human emotion or engage in every human act.

Yes, I don't think the sex bit is essential. But I do think that having strong attachments to other human individuals is fundamental to human experience.

Yes, I'm sure that's true. Sorry, I am ever so slow today, but I hope it goes without saying that I'm really enjoying listening to what you're saying.

You're not been slowing. And I have also enjoyed this thread.

I'm not sure it is true about the cathars. I think that may have been a justification for their treatment. I seem to remember that some cathars believed heterosexual PIV sex was wrong because it brought my children into existence. I may be wrong though.

You're not being slow, was what I meant. Goodness knows how that became so garbled in the previous post.

I think you're right about the Cathars. People say all sorts of rubbish about them, though. There's a rumour they justified anal sex by saying PIV brough into existence more sinners, I think. But who knows really?

I think it probably is possible to know. There are quite a lot of historical documents relating to it. But because they now have a pop culture standing like the Knights Templar, half the stuff turns out to be part of modern myth.

And I can't be bothered to look up right now what is documented and what is all a bit Dan Brownish. I also can't remember which bits apply to them and which bits are from other Gnostic type groups.

I think we have a different definition of "Biblical literalist" then LRD. There are many liberal Christians who accept that the mainstream Bible contains the most relevant selection of books, but nevertheless we're not fundamentalists who take the whole lot literally.

Ok, I think I misunderstood you mincepie, sorry. I understood you to be saying that it'd be 'sinful' to accept an inaccurate version of the Bible, and implying by that that there existed an accurate version somewhere. I take it you're not implying that?

Actually, I'm not quite sure what you are implying because I've no idea what 'the mainstream Bible' is?

hackmum I don't understand your points either

Being both divine and human, wouldn't he have transcended sexuality??

Like A-sexual kind of thing?

By "mainstream Bible" I'm referring to the collection of books as used by the Church of England, Baptists, Methodists, United Reformed church etc, so that decided by the Early Church with the Council of Nicea.

I don't quite follow. What makes those denominations 'mainstream'?
The two Christian denominations with the most members worldwide are, respectively, teh Catholics and the Orthodox Church, who don't agree with each other about which books are to be included, and neither of whom agrees completely with the denominations you mention.

Moreover, I think there were several decision making processes between the Council of Nicea and the C of E decisions, not to mention the other later denominations.