"Was Jesus Gay? Probably"

[Miles]

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The disciple whom Jesus loved is referred to, specifically, six times in the book of John.

John 13:23-25
23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
25 He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?

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John 19:26-27
26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

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John 20:1-2
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.

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John 21: 7
7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was
naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.

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John 21: 20-23
20 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?
21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
23 Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

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John 21: 24
24 This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.

As for which disciple Jesus was in love with, in the Wikipdia article: "Disciple whom Jesus loved"; the main candidate is none other than John himself

"Some scholars have additionally suggested a homoerotic interpretation of Christ's relationship with the Beloved Disciple, although such a scriptural reading is disputed . . . . Tilborg suggests that the portrait in the Gospel of John is "positively attuned to the development of possibly homosexual behaviour". . . .

The relationship between Christ and John was certainly interpreted by some as being of a physical erotic nature as early as the 16th century (albeit in a "heretical" context) - documented, for example, in the trial for blasphemy of Christopher Marlowe, who was accused of claiming that "St. John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom, that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma". In accusing Marlowe of the "sinful nature" of homosexual acts, James I of England inevitably invited comparisons to his own erotic relationship with the Duke of Buckingham which he also compared to that of the Beloved Disciple. Finally, Francesco Calcagno, a friar of Venicefaced trial and was executed in 1550 for claiming that "St. John was Christ's catamite".

Dynes also makes a link to the modern day where in 1970s New York a popular religious group was established called the "Church of the Beloved Disciple", with the intention of giving a positive reading of the relationship to support respect for same-sex love."

However, based on John 11:5: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus", and John 11:3 "Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." some scholars feel Lazarus of Bethany is a better candidate,

Others, through a bit of tap dancing, have proposed that the beloved disciple was originally Mary Magdalene

Or, Jesus's beloved disciple may have been "a priestly member of a quasimonastic, mystical, and ascetic Jewish aristocracy, located on Jerusalem's prestigious southwest hill, who had hosted Jesus' last supper in that location"

Whatever the case, none of these scholars seem to have denied a homosexual connection with the Beloved Disciple. Even today there are those who believe Jesus was gay.

"Was Jesus gay? Probably"
.............by Paul Oestreicher

I preached on Good Friday that Jesus's intimacy with John suggested he was gay as I felt deeply it had to be addressed.

Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi. Unusually, he was unmarried. The idea that he had a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene is the stuff of fiction, based on no biblical evidence. The evidence, on the other hand, that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong. But even gay rights campaigners in the church have been reluctant to suggest it. A significant exception was Hugh Montefiore, bishop of Birmingham and a convert from a prominent Jewish family. He dared to suggest that possibility and was met with disdain, as though he were simply out to shock.

After much reflection and with certainly no wish to shock, I felt I was left with no option but to suggest, for the first time in half a century of my Anglican priesthood, that Jesus may well have been homosexual. Had he been devoid of sexuality, he would not have been truly human. To believe that would be heretical.
source

SO, what do you, members of Debating Christianity and Religion, think? Jesus: likely gay or not?


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[2timothy316]

As Strong's concordance explains their usages in John.

agapaō:
"of persons
to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly"

phileō
φιλέω philéō, fil-eh'-o; from G5384; to be a friend to (fond of (an individual or an object)), i.e. have affection for (denoting personal attachment, as a matter of sentiment or feeling;

My emphases. Both of which are applicable to homosexual attachment.


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I have both of these types of love for men and I'm a man. I am both fond of and have affection for my father. I also have personal attachment to him. Yet the idea of having sex with him doesn't interest me at all. Other homosexuals that love in this way doesn't make everyone that loves that way homosexual. This is a logical fallacy called hasty generalization. The rush to conclude that Jesus was gay based on feelings everyone has with no other supporting evidence.

What you'd have to prove is that these types of love are unique to homosexuals only and you have not done that, nor can you.

I don't have to prove bupkis.

You MUST show that Jesus had a sexual desire towards John. Not just a love of him.

First of all, I MUSTN'T do anything. Secondly, if you're under the impression I've said as much please quote me.

Said as much to what? If you want your assertion to be viewed as true then yes you must prove your assertion. Debates are used to make a decision on something. If you want people to come the same decision as you then you need to prove that Jesus has a sexual desire toward Jesus. If you refuse to do so then your argument is null and void as it is not a debate it is just your personal opinion.

If you think that love = sexual desire then I'm so sorry you think that way.

If I did I rather doubt you are.


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Actually I really am. The majority of people that think all kinds of love lead to sex have stressful and short relationships. If you do indeed think love = sex that means that you build your relationships on something unsustainable. So when the sex fails the relationship soon follows. That saddens me.

There is so much more to a relationship than sex.

[Difflugia]

IS THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION JUSTIFIED IN USING THE PHRASE "FELL IN LOVE" RATHER THAN LOVED IN GENESIS 24:67?

Yes. The verb love (ahab) used in Genesis 24v67 is in the Hebrew imperfect tense.

Your analysis of the Hebrew here is wrong and I'll get to that, but it almost doesn't matter because you're losing sight of the forest for the trees.

Remember that your argument is that agapao in John's Gospel probably (or definitely?) doesn't refer to a romantic attachment, even though agapao is used in the Septuagint translation of, among other things, "Isaac loved Rebekah." Your argument hinges on the NWT's "fell in love" being not only justifiable, but necessary such that the only alternative is that Isaac nonsensically "fell in 'sexual attraction'" with Rebekah. Even if the the translation "fell in love" were justified (more on that in a minute), you've still only shown that your peculiar understanding of the relationship between the Hebrew, Greek, and homosexuality is, as with so many other apologetic arguments, not impossible.

Leaving aside whether or not "fell in love" is a reasonable interpretation of "love" in the imperfect past tense, the verb in 24:67 isn't imperfect as such. Very briefly, the yiqtol form of a verb is normally translated as future or imperfect past except when it is prefixed with a vav-consecutive, as it is here. In that case, it becomes a "narrative past" in which the action is considered complete (perfect) from the perspective of the narrator and reader, but neither necessarily complete nor incomplete within the narrative itself. This is equivalent to aorist verb forms in Greek and indeed, the Septuagint translator opted for an aorist conjugation of agapao. Once again, however, English lacks such a conjugation. In English, וַיֶּאֱהָבֶ֑הָ could be translated as "and he loved her," "and he would go on to love her," or "and he would keep loving her," but the text itself doesn't make any one more correct than any other.

If you want an illustration of this, the vast majority of verbs in the creation account are yiqtol with a vav-consecutive (usually called wayyiqtol):

And God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated between the light and between the darkness.

Each verb in red is exactly the same verb form (aside from a pronomial suffix) as "loved" in 24:67. Did God perhaps "begin to separate" or "fall into separating" the light from the darkness? The verb forms themselves could support either of those and they're not impossible readings, but the context suggests a simple past tense within the sense of an ongoing narrative.

So, once again, while "he fell in love with her" is not an impossible understanding of what the author meant, it's not indicated in any way by the text itself. The NWT has added information to the text that isn't there and you're arguing as though it is. If the NWT is willing to add information to the text that isn't there (even if it isn't wrong, per se), then it becomes a circular argument to use the NWT as evidence that such nuances are present in the text rather than artifacts of interpretation and translation. That puts the NWT on par with such paraphrases as the NLT or Good News Bible. It's fine for liturgical use when everyone already agrees with theological assumptions made by the translators, but one can't be sure that any ambiguities in the original text have been preserved by the translation as they typically are in, say, the KJV, ESV, or NASB.

[Miles]

As Strong's concordance explains their usages in John.

agapaō:
"of persons
to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly"

phileō
φιλέω philéō, fil-eh'-o; from G5384; to be a friend to (fond of (an individual or an object)), i.e. have affection for (denoting personal attachment, as a matter of sentiment or feeling;

My emphases. Both of which are applicable to homosexual attachment.


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I have both of these types of love for men and I'm a man. I am both fond of and have affection for my father. I also have personal attachment to him. Yet the idea of having sex with him doesn't interest me at all. Other homosexuals that love in this way doesn't make everyone that loves that way homosexual. This is a logical fallacy called hasty generalization. The rush to conclude that Jesus was gay based on feelings everyone has with no other supporting evidence.

What you'd have to prove is that these types of love are unique to homosexuals only and you have not done that, nor can you.

I don't have to prove bupkis.

You MUST show that Jesus had a sexual desire towards John. Not just a love of him.

First of all, I MUSTN'T do anything. Secondly, if you're under the impression I've said as much please quote me.

Said as much to what?

That "Jesus had a sexual desire towards John. Not just a love of him"


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[JehovahsWitness]

I cannot see that you are arguing anything I am not, save perhaps that English grammar can easily reflect the complexity of nuances found in Hebrew grammar.

A word for word translation of any language would make little sense and make for difficult reading, so adding words is obviously not f itself problematic . In short this is essentially a grammatical rather than a stictly lexical issue and as such often necessitates words being "added" as you yourself illustrate...

... In English, וַיֶּאֱהָבֶ֑הָ could be translated as "and he loved her," "and he would go on to love her," or "and he would keep loving her," but the text itself doesn't make any one more correct than any other.

In your example above, the verbs "to go " or ... "to keep" are no more present in the text than the verb to fall. The words to keep/to go on are "added" to indicate the continuation implicit in the grammar. To "fall in love" is an idiomatic expression that does not, to the best of my knowldge, exist in Hebrew but (withthout being dogmatic), it is arguably superior to "he loved her" as it better conveys the notion of incompleteness of imperfects in the indicative mood.

It is unwarranted to imply the New Word Translation is taking translational liberties and simplistic to do so on the basis of finding a word that is not in the original text (As per your argumentation, which all but ignores the complexities of accurately rendering the Hebrew tenses in Genesis 1::3c in favor of pointing out the obvious, namely the same verbs are present in both the Hebrew nd its English translation). Few translations, including the much revered King James Version would stand if adding words were to become the criteria by which they could be rejected. In short, a case can be made that the NWT choice in Genesis 24:67 is an academically sound attempt to render in understandable modern English the notion implicated by the grammatical structure in the source.



JW

[Difflugia]

I cannot see that you are arguing anything I am not, save perhaps that English grammar can easily reflect the complexity of nuances found in Hebrew grammar.

You are (or at least were) arguing that "Isaac loved Rebekah" somehow precludes a romantic attraction that would be homosexual if applied to "Jesus loved the disciple." If you weren't (or are no longer) arguing that, then we both agree that whether Jesus was gay turns on details other than which words were translated as "loved."

[JehovahsWitness]

You are (or at least were) arguing that "Isaac loved Rebekah" somehow precludes a romantic attraction that would be homosexual if applied to "Jesus loved the disciple."

It might be helpful for you to use the "quote" feature to highlight what I actually wrote to lead you to such a conclusion. I usually write a conclusion to my longer posts that summarize the point(s) I have being trying to communicate. Here is what I wrote in my commentary on the Hebrew (and by implication the LXX)

In short, AGAPE isn't in reality ambiguous (it means affection) but just as in Christian usage AGAPE it may or may not signal friendship or admiration, AGAPE may or may not be accompanied by sexual attraction. So where does that leave us with Jesus sexuality? Right where we started, with a Greek word (eros) that would arguably settle the issue available but never mentioned in scripture, and a dependence on context to dictate what "agape" of itself, cannot.

If you weren't (or are no longer) arguing that, then we both agree that whether Jesus was gay turns on details other than which words were translated as "loved."

See above.

JW

[Difflugia]

You are (or at least were) arguing that "Isaac loved Rebekah" somehow precludes a romantic attraction that would be homosexual if applied to "Jesus loved the disciple."

It might be helpful for you to use the "quote" feature to highlight what I actually wrote to lead you to such a conclusion.

I took this post as an attempted refutation of my earlier statement:

Isaac egapesen Rebekah (24:67), Isaac egapesen Esau (25:28), Rebekah egapesen Jacob (25:28), and Jacob egapesen Rachel (29:18). Since Rebekah and Rachel both conceived children soon after being "loved" by their husbands, I think we can safely assume that those feelings included at least some amount of sexual attraction. It's also worth noting that Shechem egapesen Dinah after he apparently raped her.

According to John, Jesus expressed similarly worded love for Martha, Lazarus, and the "beloved disciple." The only other information we have about his relationship with any of the three (or two; there are good arguments that Lazarus himself was the beloved disciple) is contextual. The "beloved disciple," for example, was spooned up in Jesus' bosom at the last supper (John 13:25). After the resurrection in the final scene of John's gospel, the same disciple was so happy to see him that he leaned back onto Jesus' muscular, yet warm and supple chest (21:20).

I assumed that you were attempting to refute my statement and therefore disagreed with it. Your argument wasn't completely clear to me, but it appeared to be that "Isaac loved Rebekah" wasn't meant by the author to imply that Isaac was sexually attracted to Rebekah. It therefore doesn't support the possibility that sexual attraction was included in "Jesus loved the disciple."

I usually write a conclusion to my longer posts that summarize the point(s) I have being trying to communicate. Here is what I wrote in my commentary on the Hebrew (and by implication the LXX)

In short, AGAPE isn't in reality ambiguous (it means affection) but just as in Christian usage AGAPE it may or may not signal friendship or admiration, AGAPE may or may not be accompanied by sexual attraction. So where does that leave us with Jesus sexuality? Right where we started, with a Greek word (eros) that would arguably settle the issue available but never mentioned in scripture, and a dependence on context to dictate what "agape" of itself, cannot.

If you weren't (or are no longer) arguing that, then we both agree that whether Jesus was gay turns on details other than which words were translated as "loved."

See above.

See what above? You implied that I misunderstood your responses and asked me to justify my own statements, but haven't clarified anything. I was responding to this:

I cannot see that you are arguing anything I am not, save perhaps that English grammar can easily reflect the complexity of nuances found in Hebrew grammar.

I was arguing that the meaning in "Isaac loved Rebekah" (or even "Isaac fell in love with Rebekah," for that matter) could mean a homosexual relationship if applied to "Jesus loved the disciple."

It's hard to tell from your response if you agree or disagree, so I assumed you intended to disagree. How about we start here:

1. Do you agree that John 13:23 as written in Koine could (not does, but could) imply a homosexual relationship?

ἦν ἀνακείμενος εἷς ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς.

For reference, here's how the NWT translates it. Note that I'm specifically asking you about the Greek text and not about this or any other translation.

One of the disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining close to* Jesus.

*Lit., “in the bosom of.”

2. If your answer is "no," is it because ἠγάπα can't mean romantic love based on homosexual feelings?

Feel free to expound on any answers, but first, please answer at least the first question and, if necessary, the second with a simple "yes" or "no."

[Difflugia]

I responded to this separately because it's not important to my last response and I didn't want there to be any confusion.

...it is arguably superior to "he loved her" as it better conveys the notion of incompleteness of imperfects in the indicative mood.

To put my earlier explanation in a much more concise and blunt way, you are wrong because wayyiqtol isn't imperfect.

"Isaac loved Rebekah" is not only correct, but captures all of the nuance of the Hebrew because that's all the nuance there is. The argument isn't just about "a word that isn't in the original text," but is about a word that is both unnecessary and potentially changes the meaning of the text.

[JehovahsWitness]

1. Do you agree that John 13:23 as written in Koine could (not does, but could) imply a homosexual relationship?

No more (or less) than two men eating together at a restaurant does.




JW


Are John 21:20 / John 13:23 indicative of sexual attraction?
viewtopic.php?p=768477#p768477

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

HOMOSEXUALITY, HOMOPHOBIA and ...BIBLICAL PROHIBITIONS

[Difflugia]

1. Do you agree that John 13:23 as written in Koine could (not does, but could) imply a homosexual relationship?

No more (or less) than two men eating together at a restaurant does.

OK. So it's possible that two men eating together at a restaurant are in a homosexual relationship. Just to clarify, though, if an infallibly inspired reporter writes that one of the men ἠγάπα the other man, you maintain that it's still no more or less likely that they're in a homosexual relationship, right?

What if it's a woman and a man eating together? If the man ἠγάπα the woman or the woman ἠγάπα the man, is it any more or less likely that they're in a heterosexual relationship?

Incidentally, ἠγάπα is imperfect, indicative. I just thought I'd point that out.