Homosexuality in the Bible: David and Jonathan

[Malthus]

Interesting little issue. Though I guess I'm treading on Marti's turf a bit.  The topic came up in another context, and so i read a bit of my OT and thought I'd mention it here ...

Question is this: where David and Jonathan (the Biblical characters) in fact lovers?

The evidence:

There is nothing in the OT that actually comes out and says that the two got it on. What it says is that they had a very close, loving relationship - so much so that Jonathan turns against his own father when he tries to have David killed (making his father rage at Jonathan's "perversity" ) and that, after Jonathan's death, David laments that their love was "better than the love of women".

All this has lead some folks to assume that their relationship was like that of other such famous warrior-lovers of history, like Achilles and Patroklius. (sp?). Moreover, these are clearly the "good guys". So, by extention, this sort of homosexuality isn't 'bad", unlike (say) that condemned in Leviticus.

Bible references:

1. Jonathan loves David "as himself" and became "one in spirit" with him; takes off his clothes and gives them to David:

1 Samuel 18:

After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. 2 From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. 3 And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4 Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt. 

2. Jonathan saves David's life, and David kisses him and they weep together:

1 Samuel 20:41

After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most. 

3. David's lament, that Jonathan's love was "more wonderful than that of women":

2 Samuel 1:26

grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
you were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
more wonderful than that of women. 

Now, it can (and has!) been disputed that this does not necessarily add up to a *sexual* relationship. The notion that the Bible's greatest hero was in a homosexual relationship, and apparently one approved of in the Bible, is profoundly disturbing to some, for obvious reasons.

Handing over robes and weapons was a common mark of favour (though I think highly unusual to hand over the robes you happen to be wearing!), the kiss is a common greeting used between close friends in some cultures and is not necessarily sexual, and "love" obviously does not necessarily have a sexual component.

Nonetheless, the relationship as depicted is easier to interpret as one of sexual love. Loving a buddy "as oneself' and as "one spirit" implies more passion than a mere friendship; handing over the clothes you are wearing is an unusually intimate mark of friendship; kissing and weeping together implies an intimacy unusual between male friends; and as for "your love for me was more wonderful than that of women " ... that speaks for itself, no?

Not that David at least was "gay" in the modern sense - he clearly and famously had passionate sexual affairs with women - such as Bathsheeba. Plus, he married Jonathan's sister!

[MadImmortalMan]

I'm sure this is enough for Marty. For me, unless somebody digs up a document explicitly stating that historical figure X liked penis I generally don't buy it. There seems to be some sort of swat team out to find historical figures who might possibly have been gay. I think it's a waste of time and serves no purpose for gay rights.

[garbon]

I think that it is totally interesting to seek out new interpretations of old texts.

[The Brain]

-He prefers the company of men.

-Who doesn't?

[Martinus]

I once read an article about this - I think there was even more proofs suggesting that there was an intimate relationship between them. It's definitely a recurring topic in gay culture for at least a couple of centuries, if not more.

Interestingly, I think one of the unforeseen side-effects of gay liberation (at least at the current stage - there is no-one saying this can't change in future) is paradoxically the withdrawal of homoeroticism from many areas of life. "Gay" is such a strong identification label, it forces people to make a choice one way or another and as such removes a lot of homoeroticism from relations between men who do not self-identify as gay. I read an article recently how hugging or even kissing were quite a common expression of camaraderie between soldiers in WW2; and even today in many Arab countries you can apparently see men walking in the street with their arms on each other's shoulder or kissing on he lips etc. I think a lot of ancient homosexuality/homoeroticism was probably like this (with an additional frottage for Greeks).

[MadImmortalMan]

I once read an article about this - I think there was even more proofs suggesting that there was an intimate relationship between them. It's definitely a recurring topic in gay culture for at least a couple of centuries, if not more.

Interestingly, I think one of the unforeseen side-effects of gay liberation (at least at the current stage - there is no-one saying this can't change in future) is paradoxically the withdrawal of homoeroticism from many areas of life. "Gay" is such a strong identification label, it forces people to make a choice one way or another and as such removes a lot of homoeroticism from relations between men who do not self-identify as gay. I read an article recently how hugging or even kissing were quite a common expression of camaraderie between soldiers in WW2; and even today in many Arab countries you can apparently see men walking in the street with their arms on each other's shoulder or kissing on he lips etc. I think a lot of ancient homosexuality/homoeroticism was probably like this (with an additional frottage for Greeks).

That's a really good point.

[Queequeg]

I once read an article about this - I think there was even more proofs suggesting that there was an intimate relationship between them. It's definitely a recurring topic in gay culture for at least a couple of centuries, if not more.

Interestingly, I think one of the unforeseen side-effects of gay liberation (at least at the current stage - there is no-one saying this can't change in future) is paradoxically the withdrawal of homoeroticism from many areas of life. "Gay" is such a strong identification label, it forces people to make a choice one way or another and as such removes a lot of homoeroticism from relations between men who do not self-identify as gay. I read an article recently how hugging or even kissing were quite a common expression of camaraderie between soldiers in WW2; and even today in many Arab countries you can apparently see men walking in the street with their arms on each other's shoulder or kissing on he lips etc. I think a lot of ancient homosexuality/homoeroticism was probably like this (with an additional frottage for Greeks).

Very good post.  You see a lot of man-man contact in Istanbul that really, really confuses me. 

[Martinus]

For the record I am not saying they were "not really gay" - probably if they lived today, many of these guys would be gay. But in their culture, this was probably the expression of man-on-man love that was both socially acceptable and sexually satisfactory.

[The Brain]

Yes everyone was gay, whoop de doo. STFU Mart.

[Malthus]

I once read an article about this - I think there was even more proofs suggesting that there was an intimate relationship between them. It's definitely a recurring topic in gay culture for at least a couple of centuries, if not more.

Interestingly, I think one of the unforeseen side-effects of gay liberation (at least at the current stage - there is no-one saying this can't change in future) is paradoxically the withdrawal of homoeroticism from many areas of life. "Gay" is such a strong identification label, it forces people to make a choice one way or another and as such removes a lot of homoeroticism from relations between men who do not self-identify as gay. I read an article recently how hugging or even kissing were quite a common expression of camaraderie between soldiers in WW2; and even today in many Arab countries you can apparently see men walking in the street with their arms on each other's shoulder or kissing on he lips etc. I think a lot of ancient homosexuality/homoeroticism was probably like this (with an additional frottage for Greeks).

It's pretty clear David wasn't 'gay' in the modern sense of exclusively preferring men. One of the most famous Biblical stories about David is his scandalous affair with Bathsheeba (he orders his general to have her inconvenient husband Uriah the Hittite "accidentally" killed).

[Martinus]

-He prefers the company of men.

-Who doesn't?

It's actually funny how, rather than gays having an agenda to "gay up" historical figures, such often obvious references from chroniclers and the like are spun off in the most incredible ways, just to avoid saying someone was a homo.

For example, we have a Polish King (Ladislaus III, who died during the battle of Varna), about whom a contemporary chronicler wrote that he "shunned the company of women", and "preferred to give in instead to frolicking in the company of men, especially a page that was his favourite". So a lot of conservative historians are bending over backwards to interpret "frolicking in the company of men" as meaning he liked to play cards and drink booze. 

[Malthus]

I'm sure this is enough for Marty. For me, unless somebody digs up a document explicitly stating that historical figure X liked penis I generally don't buy it. There seems to be some sort of swat team out to find historical figures who might possibly have been gay. I think it's a waste of time and serves no purpose for gay rights.

Seems to be a tad more substance to this one than to most - the "your love was better than that of women" bit  ... also, speculation along these lines about David & Jonathan isn't a modern thing.

[The Brain]

Bas reliefs or it didn't happen.

[Queequeg]

It's actually funny how, rather than gays having an agenda to "gay up" historical figures, such often obvious references from chroniclers and the like are spun off in the most incredible ways, just to avoid saying someone was a homo.

Same with literature.  Always wanted to sit in on a lecture on Moby-Dick at BYU or some bullshit Evangelical school.

[Sheilbh]

There seems to be some sort of swat team out to find historical figures who might possibly have been gay. I think it's a waste of time and serves no purpose for gay rights.

I think this is a common view, but is such nonsense.  The gay swat team have, overwhelmingly, targeted figures whose sexuality has been doubted for a very long time.  King James I was known as Queen James and suffered frankly libels about his relationship with Villiers - something similar existed with Edward II and in the Elizabethan period there were sufficient rumours for Marlowe's play to hint rather strongly.  From that period Shakespeare's sonnets were suspect very shortly after publication.  Of the 150- something sonnets about 120 were addressed to a man the 'fair youth' after the 17th century almost all of those sonnets had the pronouns changed to make them more sexually acceptable.  Tennyson said he like the sonnets and was warned off them because they were terribly 'Hellenic' and there have long been rumours about Tennyson's relationship with Hallam.  Byron's a bit of a given.

The thing is history is full of cheerful heterosexuals about whom there are no gay theories because there are no contemporary sources that suggest anything else.  No-one would allege, for example, that Charles II was a little bit queer or Henri IV for that matter.  Ben Jonson is safely straight and John Donne prodigiously so.

This isn't about gay rights - neither are feminist histories about womens' rights - this is about history and improving it through a multitude of perspectives on the sources we have.  However, of course, homosexuality is a recent invention and the best we can say is that there have been long-standing historical rumours in all of the cases I mention above.  But it has nothing to do with gay rights whether Shakespeare was a knob-jockey or not, it has everything to do with conventional readings of the sonnets.

Incidentally on the whole man-man contact in England I believe it was really disturbed in the 17th and 18th century.  The conventional reading has been that it was, with the reformation and the emergence of the middle class you had the rise of a more personal faith and a more stringent moral code, with the attendant imposition of more strict social roles on women and more sexual prohibition than the, presumably, free-and-easy late Medieval and Tudor England.  As ever the bourgeois fuck everything up.