Jesus the Intersexual
HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE
Key Passages: Luke 1:31,35, 2:21; Matt 19:12, 23:37b; John 8:41b, 13:3-5,23
By Bruce L. Gerig
Jesus’ androgynous birth. Every Christmas we
return again to the Nativity story, which relates how the archangel Gabriel
appeared to Mary and told her, “[Y]ou
will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (Luke
1:31 NRSV). When Mary
asked how this could be since she was a virgin, he explained: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born
will be holy; he will be called the Son of God” (v. 35). Indeed Mary became
pregnant, her womb grew as she hid out with her relative Elizabeth (v. 39), and
nine months later “she gave birth to her
firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger . .
.” (2:7). Now
there is no doubt that the Bible presents this as a miracle; yet can anything
more specific be known about how a woman might give birth to a child all by
herself? In fact,
Edward Kessel, emeritus professor of
biology at the University of San Francisco, has offered just such a scenario in
his article “A Proposed Biological Interpretation of The Virgin Birth,” in the Journal of the American Scientific
Affiliation (9/83), a publication which presents an evangelical perspective
on science and the Christian faith. Such parthenogenetic births (reproduction from a
female alone) have been known for centuries to occur naturally among lower
forms of the animal kingdom (e.g., in bees, flies, ants, fish, lizards, and
beetles);1 and scientists in
the laboratory have observed spontaneous division of unfertilized germ cells
from various kinds of organisms (e.g., in worms, cats, guinea pigs, and humans),
induced by artificial stimuli. While none of these latter cases resulted in a
viable (surviving) young, embryologists are convinced that such unfertilized
eggs could develop to full term and maturity under optimal conditions. Artificial stimuli used in
such cases have included mechanical agitation, temperature shock, and pricking
the eggs with a needle.
Therefore, female unfertilized eggs have within themselves the potential
for successful embryonic development; and various stimuli may trigger cell
division in them.2 Helen Spurway of London University said that she supports the
view that virgin birth is “probable among humans,” and in fact some mothers in
the past who claimed that they gave birth without intercourse with a man could well
have been telling the truth.
R. A. Beatty of Cambridge University agrees that human parthenogenesis is
possible, as well.3
Yet, how could God have
brought about a Virgin Conception and Virgin Birth by using natural
processes? Well, the
Holy Spirit might have provided the environmental stimulus, like a simple cold
shock which has worked so well in animal studies. Lacking male chromosomes, Jesus would have
possessed an XX (female) sex chromosomal genotype, at conception and throughout
his life. But how was he born a male phenotype (with male
anatomical and psychological features)? Geneticists have now discovered two genes that
might explain this:
The histocompatibility-Y (H-Y) gene is believed to direct the first
steps toward testes formation, after which testicular hormones take over the
job of converting the nondifferentiated embryo into the male form. However, the H-Y gene,
normally on the male Y chromosome, can also be transplanted to the female X
chromosome, where normally it is inactivated by a regulatory gene (S) which
suppresses H-Y gene expression in the female. Now if Jesus had developed from a diploid germ
cell (containing all of Mary’s chromosomes), he would have had exactly the same
chromosomal makeup and look of his mother. But if he developed from a haploid germ cell
(containing only a single set of unpaired chromosomes, i.e., half of Mary’s
genes), this could have displayed an Hs genotype (including the H-Y gene but
with the S gene missing), which then split into HHss, lacking the S gene which
had been passed down to Mary so that she formed into a functioning female.4 However, the
masculinizing factor (S) which had been submerged in Mary’s line for centuries
now expresses itself in the embryo of Jesus, producing an individual with
chromosomal identification as a woman, but with anatomical and psychological
expression as a man.
Thus God could have used a natural biological process of sex reversal
which is fully supported by known facts in the field of genetics.5 Jesus
became male not instead of female but as well as female. Although Kessel is careful
to assure the reader that Jesus was not bisexual, nor an hermaphrodite or a
pseudohermaphrodite (all of which he views as pathological and defective),6 Virginia Mollenkott cannot help but
think how Christ reflects the Father, who is imaged in the Bible as both male
(Ps 68:5, 98:20; Isa 64:8; Jer 31:9; Matt 6:9) and female (Gen 3:21; Ps 22:9;
Isa 49:15, 66:13; Hos 11:3-4), and yet is neither (without genitals). God is presented as an
“androgynous” Being, a Creator who made both male and female “in his image”
(Gen 1:27). Yet
Mollenkott asks, don’t intersexuals come closer to a physical resemblance to
Jesus than anyone else, unless we think of a postoperative female-to-male
transsexual?7
Jesus’ blurred gender boundaries. The New Oxford American Dictionary (2005)
defines “intersexual” as “relating to or having the condition of being
intermediate between male and female.”8 Jesus was not a hermaphrodite (displaying both male and
female genitals); and we know nothing about his development as a fetus and how
this might or might not have been affected by chromosomal or hormonal
variations that can lead to homosexual, bisexual or transgendered feelings or
orientations.9 Still, at one point Mary must have told Jesus that he was
“different,” that he was born without a human father; and continuing rumors
about his ‘illegitimate’ birth (John 8:41; and “son of Mary,” Mark 6:3 NRSV10) could only have increased this
feeling in him. One
could forgive Jesus, Mary’s special son who no doubt was especially loved by
his mother, if he felt sometimes like a “momma’s boy,” very attached to her
(cf. John 19:26-27).
Yet during his ministry, Jesus turns away from his biological family and
its patriarchal system, his disciples also become ‘displaced persons’ who flout
traditional gender roles (by not getting married), and the women followers of
Jesus seem most responsible for supporting him as an itinerate preacher (Luke
8:1-3).11 These ‘outsider’ women leave their homes to be with Jesus,
even accompanying him to the cross (Mark 15:40-41); and they are the first
witnesses to his resurrection (Luke 24:1-8). Probably they were not married and didn’t have
children, they were widowed or divorced or older, or they had not wanted to
marry―i.e., they were “irregular women” (Moxnes).12 In any
case, a ‘demasculinized’ Jesus is being supported by women, rather than being a
wage earner. In not
having a household Jesus did not behave like a “real man.”13 He was
‘out of place.’ He rejected marriage (or at least
the Bible does not mention him being married at all), and he abandoned his
family name, power and status. He also called his disciples to abandon their
households (Luke 9:59-62, 14:26), removing them from their normal gender roles
in society.14 Instead of promoting ‘traditional family values,’ when Jesus’
brothers show up, they are not allowed through to speak to Jesus, who tells
those around him that “My mother and
brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:19-21
NRSV). Probably his
brothers wanted to complain of rumors circulating that Jesus had ‘lost his
senses.’15 In fact, he adds: “Whoever
comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers
and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26
NRSV).16
In ancient times it was traditional for women
(or slaves) to wash men’s feet when they came in from outside (1 Sam
25:41, 1 Tim 5:10);17 yet at the Last
Supper, Jesus removes his robe, gets down on his hands and knees, and begins
washing all his disciples’ feet, to Peter’s outspoken rebuke (John
13:1-17). On another
occasion we find Jesus cooking breakfast for his disciples (John 21:9-10).
Jesus’ tender emotions are repeatedly noted in the Gospels:18 He picks up little children in his arms, speaks
softly to them, and blesses them, against his disciples’ objections
(Mark 10:13-16, 9:36-37; Matt 19:13-15).
When Lazarus dies, the crowd marvels at Jesus’ weeping in public,
remarking, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:35). His disciples find him weeping over Jerusalem (Luke
19:41); and he declares to the city, “How
often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood together under her wings, and you were not willing!”
(Matt 23:37b NRSV, italics added). He is “[m]oved with pity” when he sees
the sick (Mark 1:41) and feels “compassion” for people in general
(Mark 6:34). He offers gentle invitations
like “Come to me, all you that
are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28 NIV).
So, Jesus was not afraid to do menial tasks, to spend time with children,
to cry in public, to feel empathy for the needy, or to speak tenderly―which
some might consider “feminine” qualities and expectations, rather
than “masculine.” Aristotle (Politics) claimed that men were by nature
more fit to lead, self-controlled, courageous, and rational than women.19 Yet, this
seems like an arbitrary presumption when one views those women who bucked
society’s norms to follow Jesus, who stand bravely near him hanging
on the cross (when all his male disciples, except for ‘the beloved disciple,’
have left him, cf. Matt 27:55-56, John 19:25b-27), and who are the first to
believe that Jesus has risen from the dead, as he had predicted (Luke 24:1-10). Still, Jesus could also show
so-called “masculine” qualities, e.g., when he bluntly denounces
the Jewish leaders who oppose him (Matt 23:13-36), angrily drives out greedy
money changers and animal sellers from the Temple and overturns their tables
(John 2:13-17, Matt 21:12-13), and responds to the Pharisees’ trick
questions with strategic answers, and then with questions of his own which
they could not answer (Matt 22:15-46).
Also, as a carpenter, following in his adoptive father’s footsteps
(Matt 13:55), Jesus worked in a manual trade, requiring physical strength
and stamina and probably giving him muscled arms and calloused hands.20 Phipps notes, “Qualities that many cultures have considered
feminine or masculine were harmoniously blended in his lifestyle,” and
Jesus illustrates the artificiality of gender stereotypes.21 Even though
Jesus spent most of his time with men, he highly respected women, sharing
long conversations with them (as with the Samaritan woman, John 4:7-26), teaching
them as opposed to Jewish protocol (as with Mary of Bethany, Luke 10:38-41),
and defending them in the face of male injustice (as with the adulteress brought
to him, John 8:1-11). In
the end, as Phipps declares, Jesus was both a brawny “he-man”
and a sensitive “she-man.”22
Jesus’ enigmatic sexual nature. Augustine (City of God) believed that Christ had no
strife of flesh and spirit: he had “no infirmity of human nature”
and only experienced emotions “when he chose to.”23 One can recall Jesus’ saying in the Sermon on the Mount,
that “everyone who looks at a
woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
(Matt 5:28 NRSV). Therefore,
a supremely pure Jesus could not have felt sexual desire. However,
as Phipps points out, the Greek verb for “lust” here (epithumeō, G193724)
is morally neutral, and the subject is really adultery.
In fact, “woman” (gunē,
G113525) is better translated as “another
man’s wife,” as in the Renaissance “Great Bible” (and
cf. Strong’s Greek-English dictionary and Van der Pool’s Septuagint
translation).26 John Robinson
notes that “the real difficulty for many is to admit that Jesus had
any sexuality―and was therefore
a normal human being.”27 Yet Tom Driver affirms that Jesus indeed had sexual feelings,
because “Jesus lived in his body as other men do.”28 Phipps notes
that the fact that Joshua (Hebrew: Yehoshua), or Jesus (Greek: Iēsous),
was circumcised (Luke 2:21) shows that he had a penis;29
and Edwin Bennett, in writing about Jesus’ sexuality, adds, “I
would be very surprised if Jesus never masturbated, for example; every boy
does.”30 And Paul Johnson asks, are we to suppose “that Jesus never
had a wet dream . . . ?”31 One can see how much guilt and sin Christians still associate
with even the most basic natural sexual acts.
Now many Jewish scholars believe that Jesus must
have married. Schalom Ben-Chorin writes, “I am convinced
that Jesus of Nazareth, like any rabbi in Israel, was married.” Many notable men of that era
were married and their wives are never mentioned; surely if they were not
married their adversaries would have pointed this out.32 A Talmud
passage notes that the last of the five duties laid down for a Jewish father
was to arrange a marriage for his son, and children were usually given little
voice in this decision.33 Well, according to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus had four brothers
(James, Joses, Judas and Simon), as well as sisters (Mark 6:3), so Joseph
fulfilled his ‘sacred duty.’
Yet maybe Joseph’s premature death freed Jesus from this pressure
(or one can imagine his mother telling Joseph, “Leave Jesus alone!”). Scholars have suggested numerous
reasons why Jesus did not marry. In Jesus’ (in)famous saying about eunuchs
(Matt 19:12) he seems to justify his single life, although Theodore Jennings
notes also that he is “scandalous” in linking a rabbi like himself,
who did not marry for his ministry’s sake, with other “eunuchs”
who would not produce children, like males who had been castrated to become
boy prostitutes or who had cut off their own testicles to honor the goddess
Cybele, or who were those ‘peculiar’ hermaphrodites, or others
who preferred having sex with their own gender rather than marrying.
How “shocking” to link the reign of God to such outrageous
behavior!34 Joseph Blenkinsopp
suggests that “Jesus was celibate because he was too poor to marry,”35
and indeed Jesus noted during his public ministry that he had “no place
to lay his head” (Matt 8:20 NIV), probably indicating that he and his
disciples often slept outside under the stars.
On the other hand, many have proposed that Jesus did marry. “The Gospel of the Holy
Twelve,” allegedly written by Jesus’ disciples, claims that he
married a Jewish girl named Miriam when he was eighteen, but she died seven
years later.36 A more popular
candidate for Jesus’ wife has been Mary Magdalene, who in the Synoptic
Gospels heads the list of women who supported Jesus (Luke 8:1-3; Mark 15:40-41,47,
16:1-8; John 20:1-2,11-18; and possibly Luke 7:36-39, although unnamed here).
Nikos Kazantzakis in his highly-criticized novel on Jesus (1960) describes
“The Last Temptation,” a dream which Jesus has on the cross, after
fainting. It seems that the Passion never happened; and now
a green-winged angel produces Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus kisses passionately,
and then they have sex. However, later when she is stoned to death as a
“whore,” Jesus is transported to the home of Mary and Martha in
Bethany, where he sleeps with Mary; and then late one night Martha slips in,
like Ruth with Boaz (Ruth 3:7-9), and Jesus lies with her as well. Jesus lives to be an old man, while Mary and Martha
compete to give him the most kids. Then, however, when a soldier puts a sponge of
vinegar up to Jesus’ nose, he revives and realizes that he is indeed
on the cross and that he has been faithful to his cause.37
Returning to the Bible, one interesting moment after the Resurrection
is when Jesus tells Mary from Magdala, “Do not hold on to me, because I have
not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17 NRSV), or “Do
not continue to hug me” (Phipps).38 Now in the Gospels there is nothing that indicates that Jesus
felt sexually attracted to Mary Magdalene, or to any other woman, for that
matter; and here at the end, whatever physical intimacy Mary desired, Jesus
backs off. Jesus'
statement here is hard to explain for “spiritual” reasons, since
later he invites Thomas to ‘put his hand into his side’ (John
20:27).
Many decades ago, even
before Stonewall, Anglican bishop Hugh Montefiore made headlines in 1967 when
he told a conference meeting at Oxford University that Jesus might have been a
homosexual. After all,
he said, “women were his friends, but it is men he is said to have loved
[especially ‘the beloved disciple’].” Another delegate complained that Canon
Montefiore’s words simply “smear our Lord.” Yet Montefiore argued that this view helps
explain God’s efforts, through Jesus, to identify with society’s outcasts, just
as he himself was born out of wedlock.39 In a related sermon preached at Great St Mary’s University
Church, Cambridge, on August 6, 1967, Montefiore explained, “It is precisely my
concern to show Christ’s complete identification with mankind that raises for
me a question about our Lord’s celibacy.” If Jesus was fully a man, which he was, why then
during all those ‘hidden years’ at Nazareth did he not marry? “Could the answer be that
Jesus was not by nature the marrying sort?” This does not mean that he was less than perfect in
any way, and it is important not to confuse temptation with sin. However, this shows “in a
particularly vivid way, how God in Christ identifies himself with the outsider
and the outcast from society.”40 And what it meant for Jesus to be “sinless” was to be
“perfectly and entirely obedient to his Heavenly Father”41―although this often turned out
to be different than what people expected. Of course, there are valid questions to raise
here, and to try to answer. It
is true that Jesus “loved” all his disciples (John 13:1,34, 15:9,12). But with regards to the Synoptic
Gospels, Jesus is only specifically said to have “loved” a young man who came
to him, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life (Mark 10:21).42 And in
the Fourth Gospel Jesus is said (once) to have “loved” the sisters Mary and
Martha (11:5); but then we are told how much more (3 times) he “loved” their
brother Lazarus (11:3,5,36).
Even more striking in this Gospel are repeated references (5 times) made
to an unnamed male “disciple whom Jesus loved” (13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7,20),
held traditionally to be John and the author of this Gospel. Of course, conservative
interpreters are not going to easily acknowledge that Jesus had homoerotic
feelings, or that he felt pleasure from touching another man―although
Catholic theologian James Conn has said, “I have always been intrigued by the
closeness between Jesus and his beloved disciple, John. John was apparently young
and strong and handsome.”43 Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty wrote that Jesus “must have
ached to share love in the most intimate way.”44 One should also remember about “forbidden fruit,” as one New
Jersey psychologist explained (who spent the sixties in a Catholic seminary):
“Celibacy, by its very prohibitions, guarantees a preoccupation with sexuality. You always want what you
don’t have or think you can’t get.”45 In most young people sex is a driving, undeniable force
(which is the why the human race has always so successfully reproduced itself);
and why should Jesus not also have experienced strong sexual, even homoerotic,
feelings if he was fully human?
In summary, Kessel’s
human parthenogenesis theory explains how God the Father could have utilized
natural (genetic) processes in a woman alone with supernatural intervention
(the Holy Spirit) to produce a human body for his Son (John 1:14). Whether by this pathway or
another, Jesus was born, and with a male anatomy (Luke 2:21). Yet in his public ministry
he displayed a surprising “intersex” psychological profile, sometimes
displaying more “feminine” qualities (e.g., a love for children, a nurturing
instinct, and an emotional identification with those in need), and at other
times more “masculine” qualities (e.g., an assured self confidence [in the
Father], a strong assertiveness in his outreach, and a combativeness toward his
enemies). Of course
today we know that both males and females possess testosterone and estrogen, as
well as other sex hormones, in varying degrees, although their interactions are
still not well understood.46 Anyway, Jesus surely felt
“different” (considered illegitimate on the grapevine) and “displaced” (with no
personal home nor income during his public ministry); and he transgressed
patriarchal and gender expectations in his society by criticizing marriage and
family, by accepting women as full members in his new ‘community,’ and by doing
many “unmanly” things, such as washing men’s feet, cuddling children, cooking
breakfast, and crying in public. At the same time, he reached out to sexual
outcasts in his culture, e.g., a woman living with a man not her husband, an
adulteress brought to him for punishment (Jesus had no trouble setting aside
the Law, when compassion and injustice called for it), and “eunuchs,” both
physically and figuratively, who do not marry for one reason or another. Of course, the matter of
Jesus’ own sexuality is a highly controversial subject (as charged as “sex”
itself); and to understand this, one must be willing to set aside one’s
preconceptions and prejudices, speak forthrightly about sexual matters, and
study carefully what the Biblical text actually says related to this
subject. Of course,
Jesus “loved” all of his disciples and followers; yet later in the Fourth
Gospel one special person appears unexpectedly and repeatedly: “the disciple whom
Jesus loved,” and one has to ask what set this love, between Jesus and this
man, apart from the full spiritual and friendly love which Jesus felt toward
all of his disciples?
Later articles will explore this enigma, along with other aspects in
Jesus’ teaching and ministry that a growing number of interpreters believe
actually point to a very special (homoerotic) understanding and friendship that
Jesus had during his earthly life.
FOOTNOTES: 1. Kessel, pp.
129-130. 2. Ibid., p.
132. 3. Ibid., pp.
132-133; Spurway, p. 652.
4. Kessel, pp. 133-134. 5. Ibid., p. 135. 6. Ibid., pp. 129, 133. 7. Mollenkott 2001, pp.
105-106; Mollenkott 1977, pp. 56-60. 8. New
Oxford American Dictionary, “intersexual.” 9. Roughgarden, pp. 207-279. 10. Robinson, p. 57. 11. Bohache, p. 509. 12. Moxnes, p. 100. 13. Ibid., p. 96. 14. Goss, p. 536. 15. Scanzoni and Hardesty 1992, p. 200. 16. Cf. Goss, p. 537. 17. Keener, 2, pp. 903-904;
Phipps, p. 112. 18.
Phipps, pp. 112-113.
19. Aristotle, 1.12-13, pp. 21-24. 20. Phipps, pp. 114-115. 21. Ibid., pp. 115, 112. 22. Ibid., p. 115. 23. Augustine, pp.
369-370. 24. Strong,
G1937 (epithumeō). 25. Strong, G1135 (gunē). 26.
Phipps, pp. 91, 94; also Strong, G1135 (gunē), and Van der Pool, Matt 5:28. 27. Robinson, p. 63. 28. Tom Driver, 1965; quoted in Phipps, pp.
95-96. 29. Phipps, p.
35. 30. Edwin Bennett, 1981;
quoted in Phipps, p. 106.
31. Johnson, n.p.
32. Schalom Ben-Chorin, 1967; quoted in Phipps, pp. 58-59. 33. Talmud, Yabamot 62b; noted in Phipps, pp.
39-40. 34. Jennings,
p. 153. 35. Joseph
Blenkinsopp, 1968; quoted in Phipps 1996, p. 67. 36. Phipps, p. 5. 37. Kazantzakis, chaps. 30-33, pp. 444-496. 38. Phipps, p. 132. 39. Anonymous, “Was Jesus
an Outsider?,” p. 83.
40. Montefiore, p. 182. 41. Ibid., p. 179. 42. Jennings, p. 106. 43. James J. Conn, 1991; quoted in Phipps, p.
71. 44. Scanzoni and
Hardesty, 1974; quoted in Phipps, pp. 80-81. 45. Anonymous source, quoted in Ohanneson, p.
104. 46. Cf. Sullivan,
online pp. 4.2-3; and Abrams, online pp. 1-2)
REFERENCES:
Abrams,
Douglas Carlton. “Father Nature: The Making of a
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Anonymous. “Was Jesus an Outsider?,” Newsweek,
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Thomas. “Matthew.” In Deryn Guest, ed., The Queer
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Goss,
Robert W. “Luke.” In Deryn Guest, ed., The Queer Bible Commentary,
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Theodore W., Jr. The
Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament. Cleveland: Pilgrim
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Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary.
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Edward L. “A Proposed Biological Interpretation
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Hugh. “Our Lord Jesus Christ.” In Hugh Montefiore, ed., Sermons
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Joan. And They Felt No Shame: Christians
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Phipps,
William E. The Sexuality of Jesus.
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John A. T. (Arthur Thomas). The
Human Face of God. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973.
Roughgarden,
Joan. Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity,
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TRANSLATIONS: New International Version, 1978.
New Revised Standard Version, 1989.
© 2009 Bruce L. Gerig
