This article was written by Michael Ruse, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 4th April 2011 12.15 UTC
The question: What would you add to the Bible?
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.
How about we take this to the next level?
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There is at least one new parable, that of the two young men. There are clear echoes of the relationship between David and Jonathan, for Jesus speaks of one young man having his soul “knit with the soul” of the other, and loving him “as his own soul”. Intriguing is evidence that the Catholics might be closer to the truth about the status of Mary, the mother of Jesus, than are the Protestants. She has a much bigger role in the life of Jesus than many hitherto expected, with Jesus frequently returning home and making much of her.
Conversely, there is at least one incident when Jesus quarrels violently with Joseph, who shows great hostility and makes wild claims about “manliness”. Before, one might have thought that, given Mary’s virginity, Joseph’s attitude was reflecting the ambiguities of his status in the family; but now it seems more probable that we have here a classic example of the Freudian triangle: over-possessive mother, hostile father, gay son.
Why have we known so little about all of this before? A newly discovered Pauline epistle, appropriately to the Athenians, suggests a major Platonic influence, particularly of the Republic. The classically educated Paul, who was himself gay, saw that same-sex activity was inimical to the success of Christianity in the highly homophobic societies in which he lived. Hence, same-sex affections and activity were concealed, to be known to and practised by only the leaders in secret – the guardians of Christianity as one might say. Obviously, this is a tradition that has flourished and lasted. It is not by chance that John Henry Newman is being made a saint.
Finally, the most important news is that nothing in the newly discovered codices challenges in any way the essential message of Christianity. Jesus was the messiah; he died on the cross for our sins; and through his death and resurrection made possible our eternal salvation. Our overriding obligation is to love God and we do this by loving our neighbours as ourselves. Christianity will never be the same again. Christianity will go on completely unchanged.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
redmont
weren’t those revealed to be fake?
BamBam
I thought that Greece was suppose to be very accepting back then of gays?
Drake
Where these authenticated by the same guy that did Hitler’s secret diaries?
All Natural Loving
None of the above mentioned assertions regarding homosexuality and Christ are in the cited link. While it would be fun to watch the reaction of fundies to an authenticated text that did express those ideas, it is a little late for an April Fool’s joke.
I’ve been tracking this story on several websites, none have reported any explicit information about the texts themselves.
AFruit4Thought
@All Natural Loving: Yeah, it appears that this is only a piece saying “what if” that can easily be mistaken.
milo
Whatever the truth, those lead codices are cool – possibly the first ring binder?
Kent M
From that second photo it looks like the Flintstones invented the 3-ring binder.
But today’s catholics are ‘going by the book’ on one point: “same-sex activity…known to and practised by only the leaders in secret – the guardians of Christianity as one might say”. Yes, one might say that. Just sayin’…that.
rhen
then of course there’s the issue of it all being complete fantasy, but if you have to believe something about jesus it should be that he was a cross dresser…get it?… “cross” dresser!!! zing!
slobone
Uhh, the linked article was written in response to the Guardian asking a bunch of people, What would you like these newly discovered codices to contain? (Since they haven’t been translated yet.) In other words, it’s purely imaginary. About the level of journalism we’ve come to expect from Queerty…
TheRealAdam
I take exception to the “Jesus in Drag” photo that accompanied this story. Was that really necessary, especially on a gay blog?
Shannon1981
No self respecting drag queen has facial hair! whoever shopped that needs to correct that little detail. Other than that, hilarious. It’ll upset the fundies, and that is always aok with me.
milo
I hope it contains proof that Jesus and the 12 Disciples were really a travelling singing and dancing group. As for what really happened between them – you know what they say – what happens in Nazareth stays in Nazareth.
jonjon1968
Honestly, it makes sense to me that Jesus would be nothing less than bisexual. Think about it. He would love both women and men equally without limitations – including sexual intimacy. As it is emphasized that he was of flesh, I am sure his expressions of affection and love leaned toward the physical, occasionally. He wouldn’t have the stupid hangups we do about masculinity nor find loving another man threatening in any way.
Donna
You put women’s makeup on a picture of a man in order to denote that he is gay? This is the mentality of a middle schooler in the 1970s. It is also the inevitable result of the reactionary and bigoted concept of “LGBT” which explicitly embraces harmful stereotypes and links gays to transvestitism.
kevininbuffalo
@Donna: It’s the Gay = sissy slur.
John
@Drake: let’s not forget the so-called James Ossuary that prominent scholars are still wiping egg off of their faces over (yes, I’m looking at you Ben Witherington III). This find could be as ground-breaking as the Dea Sea Scrolls, something that makes a splash in the press like the Gnostic Gospel of Judas but has nothing to do with the Christianity that developed, or perhaps will be exposed to be a fake a la the aforementioned ossuary. More testing needs to be done first and the text of these alleged codices needs to be released. While I would love it if this were explicitly pro-gay, even if from the Gnostics or some other early sect, I’ve seen nothing to indicate such thus far.
Oscar
Christianity the way it is conducted today has very little to do with Jesus teachings.Christianity today follows the dictates of a guy named Saul of Tarsus aka Paul that made a sect of mendicants into a sect of greeders.Christianity today follows the jewish Temple dictates.Christianity today is not for the poor but all they ask is money.Priests are celibate because the Pope needed money to finance his wars in Italy and to finish the Vatican.Priests with no family can live cheaply and send more money to Rome.Where is the “if you have 2 shirts and you neighbor has none give him one and if it is cold and you have one cape cut it in half and give 1/2 to your neighbor”.Also He said “where any 2 of you gather in my name I will be there and so will be my Father”.No big temple,church or any other physical edificies.Those are for the pleasure and prestige of the Church not of God.The Christian Church is nothing but an extention of the jewish religion with a changed name.
Kev C
Every few years an elaborate archelogical hoax comes along and I suspect this is one. A more interesting story is the Secret Gospel of Mark, which is homoerotic. The existence of the Secret Gospel depends upon the authenticity of the Mar Saba letter. Right-wing scholars say it’s a forgery but many scholars do not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark
codyj
yah know how they separated the men from the bois in ancient Greece? with a CROWBAR!!!! (OUCH) Yeah, its TRUE..the “Bible” told me so
Mike
There is no proof that Jesus ever existed; he’s most likely an amalgamation of earlier god stories. There is no god; wake up and slough off the burden that religion yolks you with.
Alfonzo
It really irritates me when people try to assign human attributes to God. People can have attributes of God, but God does not have attributes of people. For me, it’s right up there with that female deity stuff. Gender is for humans, not for God.
Soupy
I have an issue with the turquoise eyeshadow. Jesus had more taste than that and did not buy his makeup from Walmart.
Superman
Regardless of your religious beliefs, it is truly unforgivable and unwarranted to disregard the beliefs of others. Many Christians–and please make note that there are many gay Christians, like myself–who consider the defacing of Christian images as blasphemous. Perhaps you didn’t create the image yourselves, Queerty, but you are certainly fanning the flames of enmity. That seems to be your true goal with this post.
Ted C.
@Mike: Objectively looking at the evidence, it’s pretty likely that there was a guy named Jesus, and that he had a small group of followers who thought he was the messiah. (Of course, that was pretty common back then.)
The Roman (non-Christian) historian Tacitus mentioned Jesus (briefly) in his writings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ
Shannon1981
@Superman: Yes there are gay Christians, but, let’s face it, if you read this blog at all, you realize that the majority of the readers here are quite anti- organized religion indeed, and anti Christian in particular. So, while I understand where you are coming from, you have to consider the source/readership. And blasphemy is a concept non religious people simply do not subscribe to at all, so using Christian concepts to tell non Christians why they are wrong doesn’t really hold up.
And, furthermore, I think the point was to get the anti gay fundies’ panties in a twist. Nothing more or less.
Aaron
@Mike: Aww, yay! Another hypocrite atheist! If you actually followed the scientific method, you’d know that Jesus’s existence is virtually undeniable. God itself, nobody knows. But Jesus? Yes, he most likely existed.
McMike
Can we just stop our bickering for a moment because this is a very important news item for me since I grew up in the Catholic Church and was taught I was going to hell. However, I picked up the Gospel of John and not only realized the Church wasn’t practicing what Christ taught us but it seemed to me if Christ was in love with anyone it would have been John.
There’s a couple of interesting aspects which backs this up:
1) John was the only disciple who didn’t die as a martyr. When they did try to boil John in oil he survived without a scratch. Now why would Jesus only save John and allow all the other disciples to die such horrible deaths unless their relationship went far beyond a simple friendship.
2) John is the only disciple at the cross where Jesus even states to John and His mother, as He’s about to die, “Woman, behold your son, behold your mother.” It’s obvious Christ is entrusting the two people He cares most about to watch over the other.
3) John is “the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved”. We can either take that “as is” or come up with a back story and a 1,000 word explanation as to how it doesn’t mean Jesus was in love with John.
4) John has his head on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper and it’s a very intimate moment. In my opinion, the most passionate moment between to people would have been the moment John asks Jesus if he (John) will be the one who betrays Jesus and ultimately leads Jesus to His death.
I know some of you are trying to make light of this but there are some of us who actually believe in God and if anyone has ever read the Gospel of John it seems to give a clear indication if Jesus was involved with anyone it would have been John. btw, there is not one single hint anywhere in the Gospels that Jesus was romantically with any woman.
Also, Jesus ran across a homosexual, via the Roman Centurion trying to heal his younger male slave, and said of him, “Never have I seen faith greater than this.” I bring this up because Jesus said this after Jesus offered to come over to the Centurion’s house to eat and the Centurion said “I am not worthy.” They mention the society back then was homophobic, like ours, and I had thought the Centurion probably said this because he was ashamed of his “gay lifestyle” although I did not know, until now, that society too was homophobic.
McMike
btw, a thought came across my mind the other night the way to prove Jesus was a homosexual was to research which people were allowed to be at the cross. I’d bet they allowed John to be at the cross because John was His lover (ie, they would not have allowed John to be there unless that was the case).
milo
@Ted C.: Actually, Tacitus was born years after “christ” supposedly lived and merely mentions him in the context of early christian canonical writings. Let me reiterate: there is NO anecdotal evidence, writings, or historical record of Jesus having ever existed by people who were alive during his purported lifetime. This is highly unusual because the Romans kept meticulous records.
Jeffree
@McMike: You might want to check out Elaine Pagel’s books on the “gnostic gospels,” (the non-canonical books of the Bible) if you haven’t looked at them yet.
I haven’t read her in awhile, and didn’t read everything she wrote, but it’s amazing to see what didn’t make it into the “officiâl” New Testament.
McMike
@Jeffree: Yeah, the Secret Gospels of Mark where a naked boy runs out of a room Jesus is in.
There’s a lot of evidence to suggest Jesus was a homosexual and not one to suggest he wasn’t.
Jeffree
@McMike: Yup. I read that stuff for a class & so don’t remember all the details, but Thomas and (maybe?) James fell into the mix. What was eye-opening for me was the description of how Book A was admitted, parts of Book B were censored, and Book C was buried.
[Sigh] When I get done with college, I have so much to re-read.
As for the Codices, I’ll reserve judgement until more scholars weigh in on their being genuine & how they shed light on Christianity’s earlier days.
Shannon
1. Jesus ( real name YESHUA) Google the name was NOT….NOT WHITE!!! In fact he was the polar opposite of white! He spoke Aramaic which is an ETHIOPIAN language…they still speak to this day! There is NO such animal as a white ‘Jesus”
2. these were revealed to be fake…another culture stealing anothers and trying to get rich…
3. The real artifacts are collected and hidden in the Vatican…
Jeffree
Has anyone seen those paintings of Jesus in which he has blond hair & blue eyes? Where Mary is rockin’ the goldilocks? My first view of those was in an art museum, the 12-19th-ish Century paintings done in Holland, Italian city-states, Spain, etc.
Fast-forward to a “Christian bookstôre” about 1997 or so and I saw many depictions of him equally arýan looking: soft features, blond, blue-eyes and pale as Nicole Kidman!
I’m neither Christian nor a historian, but I was shocked & offended…. Any Yeshua who walked the earth was not Icelandic.
Oops, off-topic. Mea culpa.
prohomo
@Superman: Unforgiveable and unwarranted to disregard the religious beliefs of others, really? Oh, I could think of alot of worse things than to disregard people’s fictions. C’mon now, don’t be such a wuss!
B
No. 18 · Kev C wrote, “Every few years an elaborate archelogical hoax comes along and I suspect this is one. A more interesting story is the Secret Gospel of Mark, which is homoerotic. The existence of the Secret Gospel depends upon the authenticity of the Mar Saba letter. Right-wing scholars say it’s a forgery but many scholars do not.”
While hoaxes are always a possibility, early Christianity was more like a bush with way too many branches (beliefs all over the map), with a lot of the branches eventually trimmed. Occasionally, one of the more obscure branches surfaces when some ancient text is uncovered – its hard to suppress every last copy.
Some early Christian sects had something like 30 gods. Most of what is known about the “Secret Gospel of Mark” is from writings by other Christians lambasting it. Finally Constantine brought some order to mess by pushing them to come up with a set of orthodox beliefs (he didn’t want religious quarrels causing any political instabilities).
Jeffree
@B: if I haven’t told you lately that I admire your depth of knowledge & keen reasoning skills, well, consider this paragraph a thank you note.