Was Jesus Gay?

[Lexy]

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.  "


"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
"


"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. "

below quotes from

"The most astounding finding from the newly discovered lead codices is that Jesus Christ was unambiguously and openly gay. He and his disciples formed a same-sex coterie, bound by feelings of love and mutual support. There are recorded instances of same-sex activity – the "beloved disciple" plays a significant role – and there is affirmation of the joys of friendship and of living and loving together.

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."


article below

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.



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?"

[personalreality]

lol.

who cares.

people fuss over the most trivial things.

in the grand scheme of your life you really find the investigation of an imaginary figure's sexuality to be important?

come on.

i hear santa clause is a transvestite.

lol.

[Xanth]

Well, honestly... only modern day times have demonized homosexuality and bisexuality.  I believe that back in the Roman/Greek days it was actually quite common and widely accepted.

It's only because of religious fervor that it began to become demonized.

[CANNIBALEX]

lol.

who cares.

people fuss over the most trivial things.

in the grand scheme of your life you really find the investigation of an imaginary figure's sexuality to be important?

come on.

i hear santa clause is a transvestite.

lol.

I think jesus did exist, but what most people don't realise about the bible is that it is a story.  Each 'miracle' has come from word of mouth stories passed on over many years.  The new testament was written between 100 and 300 years after christ died.  Is it so unbelievable that in three centuries there wouldn't be mistranslations.   This also helps as there is a believable story behind eveyr 'miracle'  even in the old testament.  For example moses splitting the red sea to free the slaves from the egyptian army.  The slaves (it goes without saying) had nothing, and thusforth were lightweight, where as the army are on horseback wearing armour.  The army thusforth sink into the sand, and the slaves can walk relatively easily across the marshes.  The book of Exodus dates back (estimate) to 1441BC so is it so hard to believe that this story has been mistranslated over 3462 years?  (This is just an example from the top of my head, obviously not involving jesus)

So i think saying jesus was imaginary is an outlandish statement, he was very real and people of the time (until this day) consider him the son of god, which is even more outlandish, I think he was just born to a, frankly, slutty mother who couldnt admit to joseph that she clearly slept around. 

I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here, but to conclude;  (In my perception)  Jesus was real, Just misguided.  and to bring it back to the real topic, i don't think it matters at all if he was gay.  The dogmatic religious institutions around the world arn't going to open their mind to the concept.

[personalreality]

The story of Jesus is a common story that was hijacked by the ruling class some 300+ years after the man supposedly existed.  The Greeks and Egyptians both had the story for millennia before "Jesus" lived.  In Egypt it was the story of Osiris who was killed by his brother set and was then ressurected as his son, Horus.  In Greece it was the story of the Goodman (though the Greek story includes the Christ's feminine counterpart, Sophia).  You can find this story over and over again in myths from around the world, and from much older epochs than the Christian story.  At the very least the story is little more than sun God worship.  The ONLY mention of Jesus is in the Bible.  There are no other contemporary historical stories of a man similar to Jesus who performed his miracles.  It makes more sense to recognize the story as an allegory for personal transformation or alchemy that was turned into a system of control.  There was no historical Jesus.  Perhaps at some time long before the supposed birth of Jesus a similar man existed, but could we not conclude that he was equally likely to have been the Buddha or Lao tsu, or some other sage?  

I think its absolutely ludicrous that anyone can believe in the reality o

[CFTraveler]

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.

[Lexy]

Jesus observed Judaism...and back then same sex relations was punishable by death for the Jewish. He had reason to make it secret.

Some say the "mystery to the kingdom to God" was a sexual thing done while naked.  ( for the part you did not see as relevent.)

[CFTraveler]

Some say the "mystery to the kingdom to God" was a sexual thing done while naked

I don't understand this.  The word "kingdom" in Kingdom of God in the NT is the same word that says "counsel" or advice.  Which sure, sometimes can be heavenly, but I'm not understanding the relevance or mystery about it.  Would you please explain or spell it out?  (If it doesn't break any rules, of course?)

[Lexy]

They say they were locked up in a room together for a week naked. This makes people think someone else besides counsel was going on. Others places it says they were in loin cloths not linen cloths..... and the part where it says Jesus loved him just like he "loved" John.

[CFTraveler]

Oh, I see.

[Mustardseed]

This has been brought up with fervor my certain groups of people over the ages, especially monks, and other clergy, as well as modern day gay movements of various kinds. I suppose it is a convinient truth for some, to paraphrase the great wooden head.

In order to make a personal decision about this, I think you have to take your own circumstance into account.

If you believe that Jesus was the son of God, he is in a manner of speaking all the good you see in the world around you. If you see love between 2 humans, no matter how it is expressed, you see God, for the Bible says God is Love.

If you do not believe in the divinity and I am not saying one thing is better than the other, but if you don't then it is the same scenario, he will be whatever you say he is, and you will BELIEVE that.
The FACT of the matter is that... NOONE knows, and if we cannot as humanity even decide or be agreed that He was even real, ....then it seems to me , that discussing if he was Gay, it is rather like masturbating a mosquito,  a lot of work, I am doubtful that the result will lead to anything worth the effort.

For the record. My opinion is that if he was God, or Gods son whatever he was, it would be logical that he was bi, seems selfish and unfair  that only half the world could make out with Christ. I vote for equality, incidentally it also says "There is no male or female in Christ", indicating that the sexes and the consequent division and tension between them is a thing of F1 , the Bible calls it worldly affairs or the things of this world.

Just a thought

Regards Mustardseed

[Xanth]

Hi there Mustardseed, welcome back. 

In order to make a personal decision about this, I think you have to take your own circumstance into account.

In all honesty, the question is impossible to answer... and in the end, it really doesn't matter anyway.

[CFTraveler]

Well, I think it does matter in the sense that nowadays gay people are mistreated and victimized in the name of scripture.  And for the record, even though I don't see the above readings as significant in whether he was one way or the other (I see it as irrelevant, as I said before) I do think that if he would incarnate nowadays, he might be, only because of the stigma associated with homosexuality- remember the "what you do to the littlest one of you you do to me"?  He might come over to straighten us up about our ridiculous prejudices and what's important.
But that's just my mental meanderings.

[Xanth]

Makes sense. 

To me, that just points to yet another reason why Religion has no place in our society anymore.  But meh... that's just my personal opinion talking.  LoL

[Mustardseed]

CT .......you had a brilliant thought (notice i Said HAD A THOUGHT) for such wisdom commeth down from above  very good point I am sure, and I know his style  ofcause hé would

[personalreality]

this thread would have been way cooler if the title was "Was Jesus A Gay?  That's Right, I said A Gay!"

lol.

[CFTraveler]

Was that from Seinfeld?  I remember a standup routine Rosie O' Donnell did when she did standup, and it was hilarious.

[personalreality]

Was that from Seinfeld?  I remember a standup routine Rosie O' Donnell did when she did standup, and it was hilarious.

it might have happened on seinfeld, but i was quoting zach galifianakis from one of his old stand up routines.  i think he did the joke on late world many years ago.

[SomeRandom]

I sometimes have the thought maybe Jesus wasn't real, but will be. The story of Jesus is everywhere like someone mentioned about the Greeks and Egyptians having  a prophet with almost the exact same story of Jesus, but there is other ancient societies not even close to Egypt, Greece, middle east with the same story of Jesus
I may be wrong but I believe I read that Quatzequatel also had the same story of Jesus. Maybe some of the story of Jesus is a prophecy?

[CFTraveler]

Archetype.

[Stookie_]

The only thing I get out of this thread is that anyone can interpret the bible however the hell they want to. You may as well title it: Did Jesus invent the airplane? Was Jesus a Headbanger? Could Jesus levitate? Was Jesus a peanut salesman? I'm sure with a little imagination anyone could relate scripture to those things. It's also a sort of lazy speculation because you can't be proven false.

[CFTraveler]

The only thing I get out of this thread is that anyone can interpret the bible however the hell they want to. You may as well title it: Did Jesus invent the airplane? Was Jesus a Headbanger? Could Jesus levitate? Was Jesus a peanut salesman? I'm sure with a little imagination anyone could relate scripture to those things. It's also a sort of lazy speculation because you can't be proven false.

^ This.   

[Xanth]

Wait... wait... wait...

Jesus was a peanut salesman?! 

[Rudolph]

It's also a sort of lazy speculation...

Exactly.

And just fyi;

People keep claiming that no one mentioned Jesus outside the Christian scriptures but that is not true. Two almost contemporary writers DID mention Jesus. Josephus and Tacitus (? I think it was).

The Dead Sea Scrolls mention several characters that comport with the narrative we have. "The Teacher of Righteousness" was in opposition to some other guy who was leading the people astray, etc.

One reason Jesus' life followed a set script?... well, he did say often that he was doing 'such n such' in order to fulfill the prophecy so that might explain some of that.

There were words in both Koine Greek and Aramaic to identify gay behavior. None of those were ever used to describe Jesus. Even the Gnostic writings which ran from mundane to ozone layer type content never mentioned such a thing. Referencing vague descriptions of mystical ceremonies is grasping at straws.

[personalreality]

maybe someone just made it up?