Insights into my book Homoeroticism and the Hebrew Bible
By Karin Hügel
Before I began the research into my book I was already interested in homoerotic theological approaches, but also happened to find such topics, e.g. when I was concerned with the Christian antique sarcophagus within my studies of Protestant Theology at the University of Vienna and investigated the so-called "brother sarcophagus"(1). There are located two male portrait busts in the conch, which is the basic pattern for the portrayal of a married couple. Thus for spectators the two men don’t appear like brothers – as it is asserted in the scientific literature – but they are seen as a homoerotic couple, which obviously was intended by the orderers, too.
My book Homoeroticism and the Hebrew Bible (written and published in German as Homoerotik und Hebräische Bibel) is the first, which discusses the Hebrew Bible associated with queer theory as a whole. In contemporary usage, queer is an inclusive, unifying, sociopolitical umbrella term applied to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersexual, genderqueer, asexual and autosexual as well as those who question their sexual orientation or their identification with the sociocultural gender assigned to them. It can also include gender normative heterosexuals whose sexual orientations or activities place them outside the heterosexually defined mainstream (e.g. BDSM practitioners or polyamorous persons). These people took the previously abusive word "queer" – which means "strange" or "odd" – for their affirmative self-designation and use it in the sense of "positive perverse".(2)
Within English-language scientific literature, there have been far more publications in this subject area than exist in German literature, which is why most of the secondary literature used in my book is in English.
In the first part of my publication, I discuss the controversy of scientists who deal with "sexuality" relating to antiquity, about similarities and differences between past and present concepts of sexualities, and about the question of whether it makes sense to talk about "homosexuality" (in the modern sense of exclusive sexual orientation toward partners of the same sex) when discussing premodern times. Then there is given an overview about the construction of the sociocultural gender as working hypothesis with definitions of terms. I avoid the term "homosexuality" because it is tied to modern concepts of sexuality. Instead I use the word "homoeroticism" and refer to the often anachronistic use of terms of the second half of the
Because of the ongoing danger of anti-Judaism, I employ the term "Hebrew Bible" instead of "Old Testament." In the more frequently used term "Old Testament," a resonance of a hostility against Jews cannot be ruled out, namely, that within the Christian doctrine and annunciation the Christian relationship to the Jews is described as a contrast and that the Jews are so declared degraded, inferior and superseded.
Furthermore, I pursue the questions of the so-called "homosexuality" and biblical interpretation and the interpretation of same-sex relationships once and now in the first part of my publication. In several parts of my book statements of religious organizations are quoted to show their positions for which I asked by letter.
In the second part of my book I deal with all the passages in the Hebrew Bible relevant to homoeroticism – namely the legal texts
In dealing with the subject of homoeroticism and the Hebrew Bible, it is not correct only to refer to the legal texts
I point out that in the Holiness Code it is not intended to protect the young and weak, because in these laws of the Book of Leviticus incest prohibitions of a father with his daughter and with his son or son-in-law are missing. In contrast to heterosexist positions, I suggest explicitly that the biblical material doesn’t contain anything directly relevant concerning different relationships of queer persons for contemporary disputes. For women, there is strikingly no prohibition of female homoeroticism in the Hebrew Bible and none in the Holiness Code. Moreover, I ask why the prohibitions regarding male homoeroticism are only handed down in the Holiness Code and not also in one of the two larger, older collections of law of the Hebrew Bible, namely the Covenant Code
The legal texts
Other "texts of terror" in the Hebrew Bible for queer people are the stories of Sodom in
The word "sodomy" was derived from the biblical city Sodom in the Christian Middle Ages. It had a number of different meanings, and referred to a whole series of certain sexual practices that did not answer the purpose of procreation. Regarding the story of Sodom, it must be said that the key Hebrew word yāda in
Also, the story of Noah and his son Ham in
I come to the conclusion that there are many various references to male homoeroticism in the Hebrew Bible: I compare the legal texts
In my book I discuss if the affairs of the kings Saul and David and of the king’s son Jonathan can be comprehended as a loyal relationship among comrades-in-arms and nonsexual male bonding or as an example of homosociability or of homoeroticism. Not only have scholars since the latter half of the twentieth century interpreted the narratives about Saul, David and Jonathan in both Books of Samuel in a homoerotic way, but there was already a long tradition of literary homoerotic receptions and appropriations of visual arts and of music about the biblical figures Saul, David and Jonathan. Additionally, there is a small number of progressive works of the
While reading the Book of Ruth, I focused on the portrayal of Ruth’s relationship to a woman – namely Naomi – and on this relationship of women as a subsequent subscription of the way of affidamento. I also pointed to the blurring of sexually defined roles in the Book of Ruth. In particular, Ruth’s words of her liaison to Naomi in
My research goes on to place "homoeroticism and the Hebrew Bible" within the framework of queer readings to avoid heteronormativity. Interpretations based on "queer commentaries" contribute to the goal altogether of producing more queer ways of living. There is not only one queer method to read biblical text passages, but a great variety of queer approaches that are grounded in certain interpretations of the term "queer". I introduce different meanings of "queer" and give a summary of currently known queer ways of readings of these and other texts of the Hebrew Bible. So I investigate the creation accounts among others.
At the end I get into a predecessor of queer readings alluding to the Hebrew Bible in the
Different reactions to my book followed. While writing the text of Homoeroticism and the Hebrew Bible, I had difficulty finishing my study of Protestant Theology. The paper that I handed in for my thesis, however, was met with approbation. In the meantime, I gave workshops to different audiences in Germany and Austria based on the contents of my book. I provided a survey of my research at the second network congress of Christian Lesbian and Gay groups in Bielefeld in October 2008. My lecture "Homoerotik und Hebräische Bibel" ("Homoeroticism and the Hebrew Bible") has been published in
footnotes:
(1) The sarcophagus known under the designation "brother sarcophagus" with two men in a conch before the upper frieze’s zone can be seen in the museum Pio Cristiano in the Vatican.
(2) An affirmative reinterpretation of swear words like the term "queer" is not new, there are also e.g. French "huguenot", Dutch "geus" and "boer", English "Quaker" and so forth. In linguistics such words which actually are used to insult people but are converted positively are called in Dutch "geuzennaam".
(3) Cf. e.g. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357 resp. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (ed.), Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.
(4) Arabic words like lūtī or liwāt derive from Arabic qawm Lūt which is the exact counterpart of the "Sodomites".