Did David and Johnathan Have a Gay Relationship?

[plum]

And you're entitled to your opinion. But I still don't think there's anything in the Davidic legends that show any awareness of the Levitical law, and evidently it kept getting lost and refound again.

I'm trying to understand your point of view. If you could back up your claims with some evidence, it would help.

btw, "Levitical law" is a misnomer, since the whole law is not contained in the book of Leviticus, nor is it only for Levites. So would you prefer to stay with the more inclusive "Torah" perhaps? Or perhaps you mean just the book of Leviticus since that seems to be the book in question?

Lev 27:34 says:
[FONT=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]These are the commands the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites.[/FONT]

My curiosity of your view stems very simply from this.
1) Is this a lie?
2) Do you view all of the Tenakh as "legend"?
3) Do you support the supposition that Scripture is given by inspiration of G-d and reveals His true character?
4) If not, could you clarify your view for me since we don't know each other.
5) Do you think G-d gave the torah or that Moses gave the Torah? also phrased as: Are these G-d's words or Moses's words? Or, if you prefer, Is the Torah a man-made system of commandments or a G-d-made system? I think this will help me see your view.
6) When do you think Leviticus was finished and what evidence from the text helps you come to that conclusion?

you can PM me your answers if you have the time! thanks much

anyway, on with the David and Jonathan argument
[FONT=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica][/FONT]

 

[lilymarie]

Sounds kinky

No, this shows the beginning of submission as when we submit to Christ.

Please be gentlemanly towards the word of God.

Thank you.

 

[lilymarie]

And you're entitled to your opinion. But I still don't think there's anything in the Davidic legends that show any awareness of the Levitical law, and evidently it kept getting lost and refound again.

Simply because David didn't follow all of Torah does not mean he didn't know Torah.

We are all transgressors of the law.

Why do you think God sent his only begotten son to die for us in our stead?

Jesus, the Christ, was the only perfect one.

Okay... back on topic... David and Jonathan... did they have a gay relationship?

Anyhow, regarding the topic, David's sin was his burning lust for Bethsheba, who's husband he had killed so David could have her.

So, thus I say he wasn't gay. He plotted a murder and was a murderer out of lust for Bethsheba.

 

[paleodoxy]

I am familiar with the argument that says that Johnathen and David can't have had a gay relationship, and it has no contextual, grammatical, exegentical or etymological support. It is an argument contrived by modern theological conservatives who construct arguments based on what they want to be true, even though it is textually groundless.

What's wrong with that statement?

The difference is that, two posts later, I backed up my claim with comprehensive documentary evidence. Care to deal with it?

 

[paleodoxy]

It's a book written by a lot of different writers over a considerably long period of time (at least 1,000 years) in languages we no longer speak, to situations and people that have long since passed into history.

I totally agree.

It doesn't - and can't - mean for us what it meant to the people who first heard it.

And that doesn't follow.

Everytime you pick up an English translation of the Bible, you're picking up an interpretation by someone else of what the Bible says (all translation is at least 50% interpretation.)

That's common knowledge.

We don't possess the original (inerrant) autographs. The apographs (copies) do in fact contain - mostly inconsequential - variant readings.

If God inspired the Scriptures (which Christians believe), then God has insured that the texts we possess contain and retain the content of the divine mind and will concerning salvation, faith and life.

By utilizing the hermeneutical principle, analogia Sscriptura (the analogy of Scripture), the Christian is easily able to discern the truth. This is done by comparing and contrasting the less clear passages with those that are clearer - using the clear to interpret the less clear.

Nevertheless, in spite of the existence of minor textual discrepencies, the Bible (if God-breathed) can contain no contradictions. Its comprehensive unity is affirmed, reflecting the oneness of God Himself in His ontological unity.

Nothing that you have said proposes a significant problem for the Christian.

 

[paladin_carvin]

Simply because David didn't follow all of Torah does not mean he didn't know Torah.

We are all transgressors of the law.

Why do you think God sent his only begotten son to die for us in our stead?

Jesus, the Christ, was the only perfect one.

Okay... back on topic... David and Jonathan... did they have a gay relationship?

Anyhow, regarding the topic, David's sin was his burning lust for Bethsheba, who's husband he had killed so David could have her.

So, thus I say he wasn't gay. He plotted a murder and was a murderer out of lust for Bethsheba.

Wait... how does his burning lust for a woman prove he wasn't gay?

 

[lilymarie]

Wait... how does his burning lust for a woman prove he wasn't gay?

I don't know too many homosexual men who burn with lust for women? If they do, then they are not gay... they would be bisexual more than likely.

Have you ever burned with lust for a woman?

 

[paleodoxy]

Edit: Oh, and how exactly do you know what is 'unnatural'. Many studies, especially ones of animals, find that same sex attraction IS natural. Ooops, science again. I'm sorry, I'll be quiet.

You never fail to amaze, paladin. Interesting criteria for justifying the same human behavior. Some animal species eat their young. Ergo, humans may be cannibals. Same logic.

Do you support cannibalism, too, paladin?

 

[lilymarie]

Oh and Bethsheba was naked and bathing, and David saw her and went nutz out of his mind for her and had to have her, and then he had her husband killed so that he [David] could have Bethsheba as his own wife.

Doesn't sound homosexually inclined to me.

Do gay men burn with lust at the sight of naked women?

 

[Proeliator]

I suggest you begin to investigate the Documentary Hypothesis, eirene. The Torah is a collection of writings not finally completed until after the Exilic period. What it isn't is "written by Moses."

This is, I would say, pretty much taken as read by OT scholars.

It's a book written by a lot of different writers over a considerably long period of time (at least 1,000 years) in languages we no longer speak, to situations and people that have long since passed into history. It doesn't - and can't - mean for us what it meant to the people who first heard it. Everytime you pick up an English translation of the Bible, you're picking up an interpretation by someone else of what the Bible says (all translation is at least 50% interpretation.)

So yes, it can be both.

So then of the 6 study Bibles I own, they are all full of lies, since not a single one of them says that Leviticus comes after the time of David? Or is it that now in, oh say, about the last 100 years, people have felt the need to try and change things regarding scripture so that they can twist warp and shape their heresies into something akin to Christianity? What I find most interesting, is that everyone agrees that Satan is the Father of Lies. And everyone knows that the best lies, are anchored in truth. SO how many people are playing into Satans hands, by spreading these slightly altered scriptures? How many souls will be lost to the Kingdom, because people want God to fit their mold, instead of us fitting His?

 

[akaibara]

Do gay men burn with lust at the sight of naked women?

No, but a man can be attracted to both men and women...being in a gay relationship doesn't mean one is only attracted to the same sex.

Just pointing that out. I'm not saying David was gay or bi--not something I would know.

 

[intricatic]

savedandhappy - we must keep in mind context and language, which the article is trying to explain.

Yes, someone can love someone of the same sex like a brother (their own flesh) - but yet there are hebrew words for love (ahbh) which is used to describe only relationships as intimate as marriage (implying sexual relationships) which is also used to describe the relationship between David and Jonathan.

This was common use of language in Hebrew culture. It didn't imply homosexuality any more than going out to drink beers with the guys implies homosexuality in our culture.

There was no such thing as 'platonic' relationships in Hebrew culture; strongly emotive relational styles were extremely common, but they had far more depth than we'd be accustomed to in the West.

 

[artybloke]

By utilizing the hermeneutical principle, analogia Sscriptura (the analogy of Scripture), the Christian is easily able to discern the truth. This is done by comparing and contrasting the less clear passages with those that are clearer - using the clear to interpret the less clear.

Sounds good on the surface. Problem is that what is "clear" and "obvious" to us might well not be clear and obvious to the people who first heard it. I'll give an analogy from literature: is Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice an anti-Semitic play? Since the 2nd World War, it's been impossible to play without some awareness of this. Before the War, Shylock was your typical villain; afterwards he's much more complicated, much more sympathetic. The obvious plain reading of one generation is not the obvious plain reading of the next.

It doesn't seem on the surface to be exactly pro-Jewish, does it? Yet it's actually highly unlikely that Shakespeare - who as far as I know never travelled abroad - would actually have met any Jews, as they had been expelled from England at least a hundred years before. And yet he still gives quite a sympathetic speech to the Jewish character Shylock. In other words, it's not as simple as it first appears.

The same is true of all texts, including the Bible. When something appears obvious, that's just about when we ought to be questioning it. There is 2000 years of history, of differing world-views, differing understandings of human psychology, science and everything else between us and the Bible.

I'm sorry, but the age-old principle of interpretation is wrong. You cannot depend on common sense.

 

[artybloke]

So then of the 6 study Bibles I own, they are all full of lies, since not a single one of them says that Leviticus comes after the time of David?

I find it odd that you think the only alternative is that they are "lying". Surely they could just be "mistaken?" If the study Bibles are written by fundamentalists, then of course they have convinced themselves they are right; it doesn't mean they're lying. Fooling themselves maybe, but not lying.

 

[gwdboi]

This was common use of language in Hebrew culture. It didn't imply homosexuality any more than going out to drink beers with the guys implies homosexuality in our culture.

There was no such thing as 'platonic' relationships in Hebrew culture; strongly emotive relational styles were extremely common, but they had far more depth than we'd be accustomed to in the West.

Proof please

 

[lilymarie]

Proof please

I'll let intricatic answer also, but he is right.

Men of different cultures, European and others kiss each other on both cheeks. Men in sports give each other a pat on the buttocks when they win in their sport. Men are just weird like that --lol. (that's just a joke because I don't care for sports that much)... but in America to even see a man kissing another man on the cheek now is considered weird and isn't really practiced in American culture.

Asians cultures bow to each other is another cultural thing.

Americans and a lot of other cultures, men use the hand shake as a greeting now.

The type of "holy kiss" the Bible speaks about between men is well documented and is no way to be taken of as "gay" oriented. They most definately did used to kiss each other on the cheek. It was and sometimes still is a cultural thing.

Sorry for answering your post intricatic, but I was going to agree with what you said anyhow.

 

[plum]

sometimes I wonder why guys are so afraid of a little show of affection and devotion. what have we become? a society that only allows gay males to express love physically? and i don't mean sex, folks. i mean hugs, kisses, etcetera. We're so caught in our assumptions of masculinity that guys aren't allowed to do these things at the risk of appearing homosexual. It's completely normal to show love, but we've twisted it so that at any sign of true brotherly devotion and deep intimate friendships we assume it's homosexual.

how awful for guys. i truly feel sorry for men who don't feel free to get close and vulnerable with one another.

 

[MarkEvan]

I doubt it very much. Leviticus hadn't yet been written.

Hi Artybloke, I noticed that others hadd already replied to this but I thought I would give my own standpoint on it.
Although I personally do not accept that leviticus had not yet been written, for the sake of the discussion I will take it from the standpoint that it hasn`t.
What we do know is that God commanded those who left Egypt to tell there children the Law to repeat it to them everyday, this would of been a command that Jesse kept and the reason why David was so strong in the LORD from an early age. Samuel also will of told David to obey the ordinances of the LORD.
And David did for the most part obey these laws of God, because he knew both through the law and later his own expierience the consequence of disobediance.

That is why even were Leviticus not yet written David would of had the law taught him, and why God therefore called him a man after His own heart.


Mark

 

[akaibara]

sometimes I wonder why guys are so afraid of a little show of affection and devotion. what have we become? a society that only allows gay males to express love physically? and i don't mean sex, folks. i mean hugs, kisses, etcetera. We're so caught in our assumptions of masculinity that guys aren't allowed to do these things at the risk of appearing homosexual. It's completely normal to show love, but we've twisted it so that at any sign of true brotherly devotion and deep intimate friendships we assume it's homosexual.

how awful for guys. i truly feel sorry for men who don't feel free to get close and vulnerable with one another.

I totally agree. I was just thinking that as I read.

 

[Proeliator]

I find it odd that you think the only alternative is that they are "lying". Surely they could just be "mistaken?" If the study Bibles are written by fundamentalists, then of course they have convinced themselves they are right; it doesn't mean they're lying. Fooling themselves maybe, but not lying.

You know, I have to say that once again, you disgust me more than I thought possible.

Thomas Hobbes: Political Philosophy
Isaac La Peyrère: Wrote a book that there were people before Adam
Benedictus de Spinoza: Ethics and Philosophy
Richard Simon: Biblical Critic
John Hampden: Politician

These are the men that"founded" the "Documentary Hypothesis". Which is what you are referring to when you question the authorship of Leviticus. These men know better than all the others that have studied the Pentateuch over thousands of years? Once again, courtesy of you arty, the truth of Paul's words to Timothy rings true:

2nd Timothy 4:3 · For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, ·