There are people who believe Jesus was Gay....there are claims that his sexual lifestyle was censored from the scriptures because it was so unconventional.
quotes below from "In the Gospel of John, the disciple John frequently refers to himself in the third person as 'the disciple whom Jesus loved'." 4 One might argue that Jesus loved all of his followers in a non-sexual way. Thus to identify Jesus' love for John in a special way might indicate a sexual relationship. The disciple was "the" beloved. He was in a class by himself. "
I agree with Xanth, and there other ways to explain (especially if you take the gnostic gospels into account) some of this information.
First of all:
The Gospel of John is believed to have been written as a retort to the
Gospel of Thomas, as it was written a few years after the G.of Th. In this gospel Thomas the Twin is referred to as the beloved and the twin brother many times. Some scholars believe that when John describes himself as the beloved, this is as a direct challenge to Thomas' title.
"The late Morton Smith, of Columbia University reported in 1958 that he had found a fragment of a manuscript which at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. It contained the full text of Mark, chapter 10. Apparently the version that is in the Christian Scriptures is an edited version of the original. Additional verses allegedly formed part of the full version of Mark, and were inserted after verse 34. It discusses how a young man, naked but for a linen covering, expressed his love for Jesus and stayed with him at his place all night
"
This is somewhat accurate. It is believed Matthew is copied from Mark, and Luke and John are later additions. Another gospel that was also suppressed was the
Gospel of Magdalene. In this one, guess what? She was also considered his favorite disciple, his beloved and possibly his wife.
"J Richards" suggested that Mark 7:14-16 shows that Jesus approves of homosexual acts. The critical phrase reads: "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him..." Richards suggests that Jesus gave great emphasis to this teaching, directing it to everyone. Richards suggests that the sentence refers to dietary laws and also extends to "blood transfusions, medication, organ transplants, and artificial insemination" and to homosexual acts as well. "
This can be interpreted many ways, and I do agree that Jesus probably didn't care about homosexual acts, mainly because in those times, it was a non-issue.
Remember that the gospels were written in greek in Roman occupation times- and we know that the greeks had institutionalized pederasty, the famous "social experiment" in Sparta (which makes me laugh every time religious organizations call themselves spartan), and the quotes in the gospels against alleged homosexuality are probably mostly against masturbation (considered wasted seed) and pederasty, not necessarily homosexuality.
But to say that Jesus was gay because he hung out with men mostly is ridiculous- in context- in those times, women were not allowed to hang out with men the way that Magdalen did- if they did, they were either wives or prostitutes. And Magdalen, according to some historical information (I think this came from one of Pagel's books) was known to be the daughter of one of the richest men in the area, and not a prostitute. So if she was hanging out with the apostles, she was probably married to one of them. But probably Jesus. Why else would Jesus be in the Canaan wedding (maybe it was his own, think about this).
Another thing is that Romans loved virgins- they considered them superior (as in Vesta and her virgins, etc.) and the gnostics were bigtime into virginity also (but that's another post). So basically didn't have to be gay way back then to hang out with your buds, even if they were naked. In historical context, that means nothing.
A whole new complexion is given to that rather puzzling passage where Jesus exhorts his followers to break family ties: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14, 26). It seems clear now that this is less a negative repudiation of family and more a positive exhortation to join in affirmation of a gay lifestyle and love."
This is obviously a biased interpretation. What this person seems to have forgotten is that the 'family values' that right wingers nowadays exhort were not even in the ballpark back then- in those times, women had no worth whatsoever (another reason why they had to give Mary the Virgin title even though it was not in the Hebrew Scriptures) and just didn't count except as vehicles for baby birthing and early raising- they were property, and marriage was not what we think it was.
The first fragment of the Secret Gospel of Mark, meant to be inserted between Mark 10.34 and 35, reads:
They came to Bethany. There was one woman there whose brother had died. She came and prostrated herself before Jesus and spoke to him. "Son of David, pity me!" But the disciples rebuked her. Jesus was angry and went with her into the garden where the tomb was. Immediately a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going up to it, Jesus rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb, and immediately went in where the young man was. Stretching out his hand, he lifted him up, taking hold his hand. And the youth, looking intently at him, loved him and started begging him to let him remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus gave him an order and, at evening, the young man came to him wearing nothing but a linen cloth. And he stayed with him for the night, because Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And then when he left he went back to the other side of the Jordan.
Then a second fragment of Secret Mark is given, this time to be inserted into Mark 10.46. This has long been recognized as a narrative snag in Mark's Gospel, as it awkwardly reads, "Then they come to Jericho. As he was leaving Jericho with his disciples..." This strange construction is not present in Secret Mark, which reads:
Then he came into Jericho. And the sister of the young man whom Jesus loved was there with his mother and Salome, but Jesus would not receive them.
I'm not sure what this proves, it just completes a timeline logically.
John 21:20
"Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved. That disciple was following them. He was the one who leaned against Jesus' chest at the supper and asked, "Lord, who is going to betray you?"
And depending on which Gospel you believe, this disciple was either Mary Magdalene, Thomas the Twin or John. My money is on Magdalene, mainly because of the stuff that was said about her in the Middle Ages. But Thomas is another good contender, being that there are many indications that Jesus had a brother, and his name was Thomas. And that one was written before John. In fact, if you look at John and compare it with Matthew and Mark, you'll see how different it is than the other ones- but if you look at Thomas, it has more stories in common with Matthew and Mark than John does.
Could Jesus have been gay? Sure, why not. Last I heard, 10% of males are supposed to be gay. There were 13 disciples, one of them a woman. Could it have been Jesus? I don't know, but those documents don't prove anything to me.
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