Greetings from a Curious Religious Man

Introduction
81

Do you guys know the story of Jonathan and David in the bible? It strongly suggests a homossexual relationship between them. Conservative christians will strongly deny there’s any hint at homossexuality, and insist it’s just a strong friendship between the two. Still, the verses are highly suggestive.

1 Samuel 18:1-4

“Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2 Saul took him that day, and would not let him go home to his father’s house anymore. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt.”*

1 Samuel 20:17

"Now Jonathan again caused David to vow, because he loved him; for he loved him as he loved his own soul.”

“I am in anguish for you, my brother Jonathan; how lovable you were to me! Your love was more wonderful to me than the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)

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This argument is only convincing to people of our culture, this would not have raised eye brows in ancient culture, or even European history prior to our modern culture. The culture back then favoured emotional expression over repression, and love was thought of to have many different forms.

One of the verses you sited even says: “my brother Jonathan…”, only our culture would ignore this part and conclude that it had to be romantic, because obviously love between two males could not possibly be anything else.

But even if I were to grant you that they were in some kind of relationship, that does not mean anything, David is not the moral example in Christianity, in fact the Bible shows him as a sinning just as everyone else did; he even orchestrated the death of a man so he could have his wife. David having a relationship with Jonathan means nothing; what does matter is what God says.

Trying to find the same sort of relationships you get in our culture in the Bible results in nothing but clutching at straws because all you can do is read them into the text.

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83

And this right here :relieved_face::index_pointing_up:t2: is why it has no use to try reasoning with an indoctrinated believer.

They simply are not able to think outside of they’re tiny world.

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To which side are you levying that comment?

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I am clearly pointing at your post, aren’t I ?

Someone points out a different way of viewing bible verses and then there are you, claiming he is interpreting them wrong. Nowhere do I see any climps of you saying your interpretation can be wrong.

Typical behavior for indoctrinated people. Only the teached view is the correct one. And yes, every believer is indoctrinated. Cause if you’re not, you will stop being a true believer by default.

86

Well I was unsure because you said “tiny world view”, yet my comment include the views of the majority of Christian and Jewish scholars, writers, nations and peoples over the past 3000 or so years, spanning many different languages, cultures and dispositions.

Vice versa the view that David and Jonathan were in a romantic relationship is pretty much only believed by a small number of people today in our modern culture, based on very little evidence.

I have had a cursory look through the Talmud, medieval Rabbinic commentaries, and the early Christian commentaries, and I cannot a single one that interprets the passages in Samuel as being of romantic or carnal love. If however you are able to find any, I would be very interested in seeing them.

I am open to being wrong, but only when presented with evidence, and so far the only evidence presented is re-interpretations of Bible passages from a culture that has a higher emphasis on same-gender relationships than most. Now, obviously I cannot blindly attribute that to bias, as we should always analyse the evidence and not just go with the majority view as that can be wrong; but unless new evidence is presented, then why should I not trust the judgement of people much closer to the writing and culture of the Biblical authors over modern suggestions?

Also, saying that I am indoctrinated is not an argument, it does not mean I am wrong, I could be indoctrinated but still be correct, if I am wrong, it does not matter how I came to have my beliefs, show me the evidence that says they are wrong.

I did say:

“But even if I were to grant you that they were in some kind of relationship…”

which was me open to being wrong. Even if the Bible did say explicitly they had a romantic relationship, that does not mean that within the Christian moral system that is not sinful. I was not talking about the passages that deal with those relationships in general, so I did not feel the need to express that I am open to being wrong about them too.

Just to clarify - as you objected that I did not in my last comment - I am open to being wrong, I hold no ill-will or disdain to anyone who holds a different view, as a Christian I believe I must love everybody as myself - even if I disagree. Please let us stick to just talking over evidence rather than making accusations of bias or indoctrination.

I do have one question, you said this:

“And yes, every believer is indoctrinated. Cause if you’re not, you will stop being a true believer by default.”

By your own view, I take it that you must have evidence to believe what you believe, and if not you must be indoctrinated to believe it instead?
If this is true then I assume you have evidence for your belief in your statement, would you be able to provide it and I would be interested in reading it? How much research have you done into challenging your belief?

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Ok even if there’s no homossexual relationship, the language used is really really suggestive. If the bible wanted no ambiguity, it was not the best choice of words. I still think I have all the right to believe as I do, thank you.

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Oh I agree, it is incredibly suggestive in English, I actually used to believe the same until I started to read the Bible in other languages.
You absolutely have the right to believe as you do, and no one should tell you otherwise.

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In Portuguese it’s as suggestive. (I’m brazilian and my native language is brazilian portuguese).

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Really? That is very interesting, I wonder in how many others it is too, and how recent of a development that is.
I tried to find other examples of people interpreting it that way, but I could only find modern ones, with no historical views at all, so I wonder why it is suddenly become so suggestive in multiple languages at the same-ish time.

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Most of the language is strong, not suggestive. The only part that is properly suggestive would be 2 Samuel 1:26. However, as we have no record of a tryst between the two (and we have records of David’s other sins including but not limited to rape and premeditated murder, so comparatively, assuming homosexuality is a sin, me thinks it not quite so heinous as those two by any metric) and we actually see David wanting to marry Jonathan’s sister and Jonathan helping him do it, I’m inclined to agree with Matthew Henry’s interpretation of the 2 Samuel 1:26 verse.

“He had reason to say that Jonathan’s love to him was wonderful; surely never was the like, for a man to love one who he knew was to take the crown over his head, and to be so faithful to his rival: this far surpassed the highest degree of conjugal affection and constancy. See here,
[1.] That nothing is more delightful in this world than a true friend, that is wise and good, that kindly receives and returns our affection, and is faithful to us in all our true interests.
[2.] That nothing is more distressful than the loss of such a friend; it is parting with a piece of one’s self. It is the vanity of this world that what is most pleasant to us we are most liable to be distressed in. The more we love the more we grieve.”

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Ok but there’s still this mistery, even with Saul (the father of Jonathan) telling him he has disgraced the nakedness of his mother (refering to his relationship with David) and other equally suggestive passages. But who knows? All I know is the ambiguity will always exist and maybe in the past people weren’t enlightned enough to accept that God is against homossexual lifestyle, but he’s not necessarily against homossexual romance. After all, gay people deserve their dignity and respect as well. But that’s just my understanding of it.

Let’s remember that church tradition also doesn’t hold a favorable view of heterossexual anal sex, so maybe it’s not just gays that are not seen in a good light but also heterossexual men and women who have alternative lifestyles. For my part, I know I’m not guilty of feeling the way I feel about sex.

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I am not so sure it is a mystery, I think it is reasonable to study the writings of the culture and then making an educated inference on what they were trying to say, based on the original Hebrew words used, but that is just my view.

In Christianity, God never once says anything positive about same-gender romances so at best it is an argument from silence to say He is fine with it. There are however multiple times where he speaks about marriage or romance between a man and a woman as if it is exclusive, although I will grant that in some of these cases, He is speaking against polyamory instead.

Technically, according to the Christian view, no body deserves dignity and respect, we all have fallen short and all need saving from our sins, men desiring men is not treated as a sin different to another other sinful desire (within Christianity). We are given dignity and made worthy of respect purely from the Love of God, not because we deserve it, in fact, we can only get it, if we give up living for ourselves, and live for him instead.

I do not understand your point on Church tradition, would you mind clarifying?

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I think if someone sees homossexuality as something always negative there are good chances he won’t see nothing good in heterossexual being AO either. Maybe he will just see it as another abomination. And let’s remember that sexual desire is not a luxury, it’s a necessity of the body. How’s someone with same sex attractions supposed to live. Well, it’s complicated.

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That certainly does happen, as is still the case in some Churches, although not as many as you might think. Most Churches that disagree with AO do so because they believe every intimate session should always be for producing children. (This traces back to St Augustine)

The Jews have been fine with it for centuries though, and they have the same Old Testament scriptures as Christians.

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I’m going to disagree on your point that nobody deserves dignity and respect. Nobody gets a free pass to heaven, but as we’re all made in the image of God, that instantly grants dignity and respect. I believe we see what with not just the life and ministry of Jesus but also in His words with things like, “if you hate someone, you’ve already murdered them in your heart” (being a violation of the commandments “thou shalt not kill”) and His command to love your neighbor as yourself, after demonstrating everyone is your neighbor. Furthermore, the Great Commission mandates we go to every tribe, tongue, etc., to preach the Gospel. Everything about the Gospel shows God places inherit worth in people, therefore showing that we all deserve some respect and dignity. We’re not righteous enough to make Heaven on our own, but we’re valuable enough to bring God down to Earth in the flesh to live as us and die for us.

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Yes! And let’s remember God is not some kind of gang leader. He’s a merciful and loving God, who understands all the nuances of a human being and therefore is not some kind of wrathful or unflexible judge.

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This is the kind of Christian theology I can get behind.
Love people and you’re halfway there.

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What I find interesting, and I freely admit that I’m not capable of reading the original text, so I have to rely on translations, is the laundry list of “things you should not do with female (blood) relatives”, followed by two general prohibitions not dealing with relatives, one about sacrificing children and THEN the part about “not having sex in the ways you do with women when dealing with males.”
LEV 18:23 is a general prohibition again.

It’s a strange order, wouldn’t you say?

So where does 22 fit in?
It can be both, part of the laundry list and 21, dealing with “what not to do with children”, kind of like an addendum: “All those things I said about daughters? Don’t do them with sons, either”, OR it could be grouped with the rest and read “Fucking dudes is as bad as having sex with animals.”

I can’t say I find one argument necessarily more convincing than the other, if I follow the translation notes on “zakhar” vs. “is”, as given in the article I linked.

That being said, may I ask you something? The thing about Christians quoting LEV 18:22 that bothers me is how there’s a prohibition against sex while someone’s on their period right there, LEV 19:19, but you don’t get people protesting against that. Do you feel, personally, that this law applies to you or other Christian couples you know?
Because it seems people ignore most of the prohibitions in Moses (of which there are, as you know better than me, a lot) unless they want to use them as a proof of their already established prejudice.

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Let’s go with your assertion that only people from our culture could see a romantic relationship between David and Jonathan.
I will grant you that, from the text, it’s hardly conclusive to say there was a romantic relationship. However, the way we read this passage may be very different from the way people read it back when it was written. Like you said, ancient cultures were very different than they are today.
For example, ancient Greek and Roman culture did not look down on homosexual acts; in fact, they did not care, did not make that distinction. (What they cared for was who was doing the thrusting; if you’re the one penetrating, being fellated, etc … it’s all good. Being the receiver, though, or giving cunnilingus (in Rome, your oratory skills were highly important, so you were not to dirty your mouth with any kind of active oral sex) would have lowered a man’s value in the eyes of the populace.) That being said, there still was a lot of male-on-male action happening both in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. And people knew of it, it was simply a fact of life.

You say it wouldn’t matter if Jonathan and David had a romantic relationship, and that only the words of God matter. What about Christ healing a centurion’s male lover?