Jonathan and david gay
What was the relationship between David and Jonathan?
Answer
We recognize from 1 Samuel 18:1 that Jonathanloved David. Second Samuel 1:26 records David’s lament after Jonathan’s death, in which he said that his love for Jonathan was more superb than the love of a woman. Some exploit these two passages to suggest a homosexual association between David and Jonathan. This interpretation, however, should be rejected for at least three reasons.
First, the Hebrew word for “love” used here covers a broad range of meanings and does not express “romantic” or “sexual” cherish unless the context demands it. Forms of the same word are used for loving God (Exodus 20:6), loving one’s neighbor as oneself (Leviticus 19:18), treating foreigners well (Leviticus 19:34), sharing friendship (Job 19:19), having diplomatic ties (1 Kings 5:1), taking pleasure in the operate of a subordinate (1 Samuel 16:21), and even “loving” inanimate things (Proverbs 21:17).
Second, David’s comparison of his relationship with Jonathan with that of women is probably a reference to his experience with King Saul’s daughters. He was promised one of Saul’s daughters for killing Goliath. The first daughter was abruptly given to a
1 Samuel 18-23: The Queerness of David and Jonathan
Scripture is filled with complex mysteries and modern scholars continue to struggle over the complexity of them. The story of David and Jonathan is one of those great mysteries of homoerotism in the bible. Since this infinity between the two happens prior to the philosophical era, it is complicated to describe or contend if the relationship between these two men was carnal or amicable. This essay identifies challenges in the text, the role King Saul played, and how the relationship amid David and Jonathan is queer. This is further supported by exegesis of the text and accounts from other scholars.
Is there a fixation with the uncircumcised giant, Goliath? In chapter 17 of 1 Samuel, the mystery of how a child killed a giant is recorded. From the very commencing, the infatuation of the phallus is apparent. David, in dialogue with Saul states, “[y]our servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be love one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God…The LORD, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will store me from the hand of this Philistine[i].” Ind
Were David and Jonathan queer lovers?
That‘s a fair ask, though it’s a ask that would have been strange to anyone in the biblical world and really would have been strange to almost anyone until a generation or two ago.
The fact of the matter is that homosexual behavior was almost unheard of within Israel and even revisionist scholars have argued that in ancient Judaism and in early Christianity it would have been completely forbidden and not at all even a matter of controversy that homosexual outing was forbidden by Scripture.
So clearly in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 there is already there in the Torah a proscription against a man lying with a man as with a woman. Homosexuality is listed as one of the types of sexual sin there in the holiness code. So it’s really unthinkable that David and Jonathan would have had a lesbian relationship and that there wouldn’t have been the most extreme form of outrage and judgment either upon them or upon the biblical authors for suggesting at such.
It makes more much instinct to say the only reason that David and Jonathan can be presented with this intense male friendship is because it was so assumed and so understoo
In reading of the bond between Jonathan and David, one is struck by their depth of warmth and commitment to one another:
As soon as 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…Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. – 1 Sam 18:1, 3 (cf. 1 Sam 20:17)
Fearful that Jonathan’s father (Saul) will kill David if he remains, Jonathan and David say goodbye to one another with a moving display of emotion:
David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another, David weeping the most. – 1 Sam 20:41
Later, after David hears that Saul and Jonathan have died, David composes a lyric in honor of them both, at one show claiming:
“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant hold you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.“
– 2 Sam 1:25b-26
This has led some people to speculate that there was an erotic bond between David and Jo
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