“Where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”
This has been a popular Bible reading at Jewish and Christian weddings for thousands of years. Marriage liturgies today still use variations on “until death do us part”.
It is a classic declaration of commitment for life – but what many don’t realise is that it was made between two women, Ruth and Naomi.
Is this an example of a same-sex union in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures? And if yes, so what?
Several countries, including Australia, are debating changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions. Much of the vociferous opposition to change is based on religious belief.
The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney urged his followers last month to “commend the Biblical way of life in our churches and to the community.” His definition of marriage specified “two persons of the opposite sex”.
Scholars now challenge the view that this is the only biblical model. Many no longer believe Scripture condemns all homosexual unions, as the Church has traditionally taught. And some claim there are indeed approved same-sex relationships in the ancient texts.
Biblical times were not much different from today, they say. There were flamboyant queens, male prostitutes, closet gays and unobtrusive monogamous unions.
Professor of New Testament at Melbourne’s Whitley College Keith Dyer believes “mutually enriching same-sex relationships” were known. But not much is known about them: “Such relationships were kept quiet then, as for many today and especially in the Church.”
The story of Ruth and Naomi, above, comes into frame because of the Hebrew word dabaq used of their union. That is the key word meaning “to cleave” in the foundational marriage text in Genesis: “A man shall leave his parents, cleave unto his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
“Whether there existed a relationship of physical love between Ruth and Naomi cannot be demonstrated,” writes Middle East scholar Tom Horner. “However, the right words are there.” The story contains the Bible’s second strongest declaration of love and commitment.
The strongest is in the saga of David and Jonathan. This takes up more chapters than any other Scriptural relationship and includes more intimations of intimacy.
We read, “Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and loved him as himself.” Jonathan “made a covenant with David because he loved him”. Jonathan “took off his robe and gave it to David, along with his tunic, his sword, his bow and his belt”. David took an oath saying, “Your father knows very well that I have found favour in your eyes.”
Jonathan told David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.” Jonathan later “made David reaffirm his oath, because he loved him”. And we read that “they kissed each other and wept together”.
Again, no explicit mention of sex. But clues to the author’s intention are in references to the oath, disrobing and, pointedly, the father’s rage at the shame of it all:
Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you?
Finally, after Jonathan’s death, David wrote of Jonathan, “You were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”
Tom Horner claims there is little doubt, “except on the part of those who absolutely refuse to believe it”, that this was a homosexual relationship.
A third possibility is Daniel and Ashpenaz. We read in the King James Version that God “brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs”. Just how tender this love was we don’t know. The account is frustratingly brief. Its meaning has been obscured by later translations which tone down the “tender love” to “compassion” or “sympathy”.
A fourth is the relationship between a centurion and his child “servant” in the New Testament, recorded by Matthew and Luke. Both authors use the Greek word pais to describe the relationship with the boy who was “dear to him”. Some who have studied these things believe pais in that context has definite same-sex intimacy meaning.
Finally, there are several enigmatic Biblical passages about eunuchs – men whose sexuality was different from ‘normal’.
Was this a generic term for LGBTQ people? Some scholars believe so. If true, this refutes the oft-repeated claim that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. Jesus did affirm that “there are eunuchs who were born that way” when teaching about marriage.
We also read an intriguing account in Acts about a eunuch journeying from Ethiopia who was converted to Christianity and instantly baptised into the new community.
J David Hester claims eunuchs were not celibate and chaste by unfortunate anatomical necessity, “but highly sexual and sexed beings”.
The former academic believes Scriptural references to eunuchs are directly relevant to the current debate:
No matter how you view it, the figure of the eunuch … radically undermines the foundational assumptions used to reinforce the conservative heterosexist reading of the Bible.
Admittedly, these accounts in Scripture are few. But perhaps that should be expected with same-sex and bisexual orientation being minority experiences. And there are no details about actual sex. Again, that should not surprise. There is no reference anywhere in the Bible after the birth of Christ to any married heterosexuals ever having sex either. There was none? Or can we use our imagination?
Progressives within the faith communities do not rely too much on these accounts for validation of their inclusive praxis. They look, rather, at deeper Biblical themes.
These include: all are created in the image of God; we are fearfully and wonderfully made; it is not good for anyone to be alone; life in all its fullness; some are born with different sexuality.
So what of the Biblical references to homosexuality as an abomination? Those passages, progressives claim, condemn coercive, abusive or idolatrous acts – not committed, loving unions.
Amazing variations abound in this extraordinary creation, they say, including in human relationships.
Alan Austin is an Australian freelance journalist living in Nîmes, France. View his full profile here.
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