The story of the relationship between David and Jonathan has been seen by some as an “obvious” point for gay men in particular and non heterosexual people more broadly, to relate to scripture. Jonathan's declaration of his love for David, their covenant together, the account of their kiss (which takes place after what some have interpreted as an erotic farewell scene with phallic symbolism, including the "shooting of arrows") followed by David's lament after Jonathan's death (in which he declares that Jonathan’s love for him surpassed that of a woman) perhaps just some of the more “obvious” inferences of a homoerotic relationship between the two. Many strongly disagree with any such suggestion - and some bible commentaries ignore the issue entirely.
So did Jonathan and David have a gay
relationship or not?
You won't find out by reading this book -
and I think that's the point. What you will discover is that any answer seems
to depend on the relationship between the scriptures and who is asking the
question, when and where they are and why they are doing so. This ambiguity
sounds obvious when you consider the challenge of understanding our own
relationships today, let alone one that took place between two other people
three thousand years ago.
But where does the rejection of certainty
leave gay readers seeking a personal relationship with this text? And why
should that matter?
One reason I think it matters is that the
scriptures provide all of us with a way of relating to God. So how we hold
divergent perspectives in tension in a constructive way matters to us all. This
isn’t about devising a coping strategy for gay men - it’s about how we all
encounter the most important relationship of our lives.
Furthermore, we might say that one way of
describing what it means to be fully alive is that doing so involves a freedom
of awareness not only of our own presence in the world but that our point of
view is one of many. The process of moving from a determined view to an
undetermined possibility gives us the freedom to be fully alive - the results
of which are evidenced by our actions in the present. So exploring the issue of
differences of interpretation might help us live “more fully” in the here and
now.
Dirk von der Horst - a gay academic from
Los Angeles - explores the issue of David and Jonathan's relationship in his
book, adapted from a dissertation. He moves away from binary judgements of
identity (were they/weren't they?) through which, he claims, we
"narcissistically seek the self in the other," towards a more nuanced
approach focussed on relationship. He does so by leaving the disputes about
exegesis and semantics to one side and turning instead to musical compositions
based on the story of David and Jonathan and the wider narrative within which their
relationship takes place. This approach is validated in part by David’s own
prowess as a musician (he is credited as author of the psalms and healed Saul
with his musical gifts).
But Von der Horst discovers that music is
far from being a “universal language” - with disputes abound! However (and
perhaps this is common to all the arts?) as it is a genre in which the
exploration of love (in all its forms) is more palatable, these disputes of
interpretation focus on performance rather than the text itself - which makes
music a medium through which controversial or contested passages of scripture
can be explored more freely.
He draws interesting parallels between
the debate around the quest for 'authenticity' in period performances of Early
Music and the quest for 'truth' in scriptural studies (in this case were David
and Jonathan an "authentic" gay (von der Horst prefers the term
queer) couple?). In doing so, he finds a resonance between those who conduct,
perform and also listen to music composed in the past, and those who engage
with scripture today. However, in the case of the former, more freedom seems to
be granted, allowing for divergent interpretations (even in the context of
period performances) - and it is these "differences that reveal relation rather
than identity."
Von der Horst's contention is that the
use of a non-literary lens can help us to reconcile a plurality of views about
controversial and contested passages of scripture, such as Jonathan and David's
relationship - and in doing so strengthen our relationship with God with each
other.
Different perspectives
The first half of the book is a
no-holds-barred critique on a range of answers to the question : ‘Did David and
Jonathan have a gay relationship.’
Anthony Heacock has suggested that
Jonathan represents gay men and David represents straight men. Some see the
friendship between the two as being analagous to the friendship between God and
his people. Others find meaning in the covenant between Jonathan and David.
Gary David Comstock, whose work is influenced by Carter Heyward, has said that
the love between Jonathan and David ‘is God’. God is not a party to the
covenant (not named in the contract) but is the love between them. God is “not
a faciliator of mutuality but mutuality itself.” Dirk von Der Horst finds this
wider mutuality (Heyward was a committed socialist) absent in Jonathan and
David's relationship, which he says could be summarized as : "Boy meets
boy, love at first sight leads to an ethically shady takeover of one monastic
dynasty by another and subsequent establishment of state centralization.” Von der Horst is also critical of Comstock's suggestion that the covenant between
Jonathan and David is coded so as to appeal to both a gay and a non gay
audience, dismissing the idea of a “knowing wink across the generations” which
fails to account for the differences in our understanding of sexuality that
have developed over the past three thousand years.
The book also critiques those who do not
find an erotic reading in the text. Markus Zehnder explains that love can mean
many things and suggests that none of the biblical terms that unambiguously
denote sexual activity are present in the passages describing Jonathan and
David's relationship - therefore any homoerotic reading can be by inference
only. David Halperin, who also favours a non erotic reading of the text,
compares Jonathan and David to the "heroes and their pals" in other
ancient texts, such as the epic of Gilgamesh. But since the hero in our case is
a shepherd's son and his pal is the son of a King, Von der Horst questions this
parallel as it overlooks or ignores the social hierarchies of the time.
Others neither support nor reject the
idea of a homoerotic relationship but find meaning in the ambiguity itself.
Susan Ackerman suggests that David himself occupies a ‘liminal position’ – a
King in the eyes of God but not in the ruling hierarchy. David and Jonathan's
relationship exists in this liminal space. Once David becomes King, David
returns to an unambiguous heterosexual identity.
Von Dee Horst’s analysis concludes by
challenging the “presentism” implicit in many of these points of view and
remarking that using exegesis and semantics as a tool to answer the ‘were
they/weren’t they’ question will not lead to an acceptable universal
understanding . Another vehicle is needed.
A different lens
In the second part of the book, the
author turns to address the related issue of how we can hold divergent
perspectives on controversial passages of scripture in tension in a healthy
way.
Partly inspired by David’s skills as a
musician, Von der Horst uses to music as a lens through which to explore the
text - not as a vehicle to discern a consensus but to explore difference in a
“less wounding way than through biblical exegesis.”
This part of the book is more
self-analytical than the first, a description of the author’s responses to
different recordings and an analysis of how these affect his relationship with
the text - focussed on the points where Jonathan’s love of David is
expressed.
After noting that the story has long
inspired gay composers, even before ’gay lib’ (he references works by twentieth
century artists Ned Rorem and Lou Harrison), Von der Horst listens to different
recordings of O Jonathan by Thomas Weelkes
and ‘Thy Beauty Israel’ by Orlando
Gibbons, taken from Hymns and Songs of the Church - the text by George
Wither.
Whilst there is disagreement about the origin of these pieces - and many other settings of David’s lament which appear at this time - the consensus is that they were composed to mark the death of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of James I, in 1612.
Von der Horst notes that some recordings
of the latter miss out the parts of Withers text that describes Jonathans love
for David, even though the original may have had homoerotic overtones - it is
dedicated to King James whose fondness for male companions not a secret.
The author explores his feelings as he
listens to the counterpoint and cadences, noting particular emphasis on certain
words or phrases and how these engender a sense of the erotic.
This leads to a discussion of the Early
Music movement in creating a relationship between past and present (he uses the
term historicity) and the role of performers - and the listener - in mediating
this (what he refers to as embodiment). Despite the overarching quest for
authenticity within the movement, he notes more freedom is possible for those
engaging in musical performances (rather than with scripture) - evidencing this
by reference to the use of female voices rather than castrati and examples of
texts being amended to remove offensive (for example anti-Semitic)
references.
Von der Horst’s engagement with Handel’s
Oratorio Saul finds no “queer meaning” in the relationship between Jonathan and
David at all. This, he remarks, seems particularly unusual given Handel’s
assumed (but never confirmed) homosexuality. He goes on to apply the critical
analysis explored in the first section of the book, to explore why (although I
felt his thoroughness was diminished here).
He finds meaning in the context in which
the oratorio was composed - Handel had turned to the genre after composing
Italian operas which, according to Von der Horst, were used as a vehicle by
critics who claimed the Italian cultural influence led to the introduction of
sodomy to England (this was the era of the “Molly House”). This leads the
author to suggest that ”the very genre in which Handel sets a possible moment
for homoerotic encounter is therefore a capitulation to homophobic discourse.”
He evidences his contention using the
writing of Ruth Smith, who notes the absence of the farewell scene of 1 Samuel
20 in the final copy even though there is evidence that Jennens wrote a
libretto and Handel set it to music.
Whilst Von der Horst finds no “queer
meaning” in the relationship between David and Jonathan, he acknowledges that
others find meaning in the relationships between other characters in the
oratorio - including echoes of the issues surrounding the rise of the middle
classes in Eighteenth Century England. In Jennens characterization, Merab (one
of Saul’s daughters) acts as a foil to Jonathan. Where Jonathan argues on the
basis of virtue (associated with the middle classes), Merab argues on the basis
of rank (the aristocracy).
Von der Horst notes that, like the work
of relational theologians, the oratorio moves the relationship of Jonathan,
David and the other characters in the story into a moral/political
argument.
Finding more emphasis on this further
political dimension (rather than the queer meaning he set out to explore)
strengthens Dirk von der Horst’s belief that using music as a lens to explore
the text is beneficial. He concludes:
“By exploring multiple possibilities we
find that turning to the past generates diversity rather than locking us into a
tyrannical and authoritarian prescription that forecloses the possible futures
new desires are always creating.”
Von der Horst's belief is that the use of
a non-literary lens can help us to reconcile a plurality of views about
controversial and contested passages of scripture, such as Jonathan and David's
relationship - and in doing so strengthen our relationship with God with each
other.
Let us hope more people find the freedom
his approach offers.
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