NON-TRADITIONAL EROTICISM IN THE HEBREW BIBLE: MOTIFS, NARRATIVES, AND INTERPRETATIONS
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Abstract
The article concerns the queer narratives and motifs and their interpretation both in the classical Jewish texts and external sources (The Avesta, The Book of the Dead, The Hittite laws) and in the research of the late 20th – early 21st century. The Hebrew Bible reveals a number of queer motives in religious prescriptions (Lev. 18:22) and in the biblical narrative corpus (the stories about Sodom and Gomorrah, Joseph and Potiphar, David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, Daniel and Ashpenaz, etc.). The traditional Judaic notion, e. g., on Lev. 18:22 refers to absolute prohibition of same-sex intercourse, and in the stories of David and Jonathan (as well as Ruth and Naomi) only homosocial relations are considered. However, the intertextual and hermeneutic approaches allow us to look at these stories from a new angle, and to make a conclusion of an extremely high erotic (including homoerotic) register of the biblical language.
How to Cite
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Hebrew Bible, Interpretations, Motifs, Narratives, Non-Traditional Eroticism
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Alpert R. (1994), “Finding Our Past: A Lesbian Interpretation of the Book of Ruth”, in Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story, J. A. Kates and G. T. Reimer (Eds.), New York.
Alpert R. (1998), Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition, New York.
Bamberger B. (1979), The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Vol. 3, Leviticus, New York.
Budge E. A. W. (1898), The Book of the Dead: the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, The Egyptian text according to the Theban Recension in Hieroglyphic, edited from numerous papyri, with a translation, vocabulary, etc., Vol. 1, London.
Countryman W. (2007), Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and their Implications for Today, Minneapolis.
Grabbe L. (2003), “The Priests in Leviticus – Is the Medium the Message?”, in R. Rendtorff and R. Kugler (eds), The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception, Leiden and Boston. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047401643_013
Greenberg S. (2004), Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, Madison.
Horner T. (1978), Jonathan and David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times, Philadelphia.
Hornsby T. (2007), Sex Texts from the Bible: Selections Annotated & Explained, Woodstock.
Jennings T. (2005), Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel, New York.
Kabbala Denudata: The Kabbalah Unveiled. Containing the following books of the Zohar: the Book of Concealed Mystery, the Greater Holy Assembly, the Lesser Holy Assembly (1912), Translated into English from the Latin Version of Knorr von Rosenroth, and collated with original Chaldee and Hebrew text by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, New York.
Milgrom J. (2004), Leviticus. A Book of Ritual and Ethics: A Continental Commentary, Minneapolis.
Nissinen M. (1998), Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, Minneapolis.
Pardes I. (1992), “The Book of Ruth: Idyllic Revisionism”, in Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach, Cambridge.
Robinson B., The Bible and Homosexuality: Same-sex Relationships in the Bible, available at: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bmar.htm
Sacred Books of East (1880), Vol. 4: The Zend-Avesta, Part I, The Vendîdâd, Transl. by J. Darmesteter, Oxford.
Schroer S. and Staubli T. (2000), “Saul, David and Jonathan – The Story of a Triangle? A Contribution to the Issue of Homosexuality in the First Testament”, in Samuel and Kings: A Feminist Companion to the Bible, Sheffield.
Snaith N. (1951), “Loving-Kindness”, in A. Richardson (ed.), A Theological Word Book of the Bible, New York.
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (1980), J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds), Transl. by D. Green, Vol. IV, Grand Rapids.
Zehnder M. (2007), “Observations on the Relationship between David and Jonathan and the Debate on Homosexuality”, Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 69.