Jonathan and David A Love Story A Survey of Commentary Interpretation, Textual Evidence, and Historical Background Bruce L. Gerig 2012 Table of Contents Page 3 Chapter 1 Introduction Page 8 Supplement 1A Biological Determinants and Homosexuality Page 26 Chapter 2 Jonathan’s Background Page 33 Supplement 2A Homosexuality in Ancient Egypt Page 44 Supplement 2B Homosexuality beyond Egypt Page 57 Chapter 3 David’s Background Page 64 Supplement 3A Laying out a Time-frame for Saul’s Reign Page 74 Chapter 4 The Two Heroes Meet Page 81 Supplement 4A David’s Beauty and Jonathan’s Love Page 91 Chapter 5 The Pair’s Companionship Page 97 Supplement 5A Saul’s Sexual Insult and David’s ‘Losing It’ Page 109 Chapter 6 The Partners’ Three Covenants Page 115 Supplement 6A Jonathan’s Gifts and Their Secrets Page 127 Chapter 7 Jonathan’s Death Page 134 Supplement 7A David’s Lament, Part 1 Page 145 Supplement 7B David’s Lament, Part 2 Page 155 Chapter 8 Jonathan’s Son Page 162 Supplement 8A The Epic of Gilgamesh, Part 1 Page 175 Supplement 8B The Epic of Gilgamesh, Part 2 Page 187 Chapter 9 David’s Women Page 194 Supplement 9A Greek Homosexuality Page 212 Chapter 10 The Debate Continues Page 222 Supplement 10A Interpretative Issues in the Current Debate Page 243 Supplement 10B Narrative Issues in the Current Debate Page 264 Chapter 11 Conclusion Page 275 Abbreviations Page 279 Bibliography, A-D Page 286 Bibliography, E-H Page 294 Bibliography, I-N Page 300 Bibliography, O-Z Page 308 References Page 319 About the Author 2 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Everyone’s heard of the “friendship” of Jonathan and David, that developed between the older prince and the young hero and that dominates the story of David’s stay in court described in 1 Sam 18–20. Prior to this, Jonathan, King Saul’s eldest son, had gained his father a great victory over the dreaded Philistines, but then was suddenly sidelined by Saul because of his popularity (chaps. 13–14) In fact, Saul’s egotistical behavior and disobedience toward God finally led the Lord to reject his reign and send Samuel the prophet to secretly anoint David, a lad in Bethlehem, to be the next king of Israel (chaps. 15–16). Soon, however, David becomes a national hero after he surprisingly steps forth with only a slingshot (and his faith in God) to face and kill Goliath, the menacing Philistine giant (chap. 17). When the victor brings the great head to the king’s house, Prince Jonathan sees David for the first time and is so drawn to the handsome youth that he immediately makes a “covenant” with him, to express his love (18:1–4). As David’s popularity grows, however, so does Saul’s jealousy; and although Jonathan nurtures and shields David from his hostile father, finally they must part so that David can flee into hiding for his life (18:5–20:42). Later, Jonathan makes a secret trip to see David again (23:15–18), which turns out to be their last meeting, since Saul and Jonathan are soon killed in battle (chap. 31). When David hears of this, in his great grief he writes a public eulogy, which at the end expresses openly his love for Jonathan and his sense of loss (2 Sam 1). The main story of Jonathan and David extends from 1 Sam 13 through 2 Sam 1. Their friendship viewed as nonromantic. Traditional interpreters have either tiptoed around this relationship in silence or with a few vague words or they have been careful to describe their love in non-erotic terms. David Payne (1970) wrote, “It is interesting that David’s stay at Saul’s court is told almost entirely in terms of his relationship with Jonathan”— yet Jonathan’s feelings are simply an “admiration and respect for David.”1 Rabbi Israel Weisfeld (1983) called it the “classic description of genuine unselfish love,” Robert Pfeiffer (1948) “intense and sincere, but nonetheless virile [i.e. manly, and not homosexual],” and J. A. Thompson (1974) “the kind of attachment people had to a king who could fight their battles for them.”2 Stan Rummel (1976) argued that Jonathan’s giving of his robe and weapons to David in their covenant was simply a political symbol for handing the throne over to him.3 Ralph Klein (1983) writes that “Jonathan felt bound to him [David] both by affection and political loyalty,” but does not explain more specifically what this love meant. (Klein, 1 Samuel, 1983, p. 182) Jerry Landay (1998) wrote, “The friendship of Jonathan and David was the embodiment of the sheer love of man for man, an intimacy based on shared experiences and dangers, . a kind of intuitive trust that transcends the taint of ambition, jealousy or the claim of sex.”4 Antony Campbell in his recent commentary (2003) devotes only seven lines to 1 Sam 18:1-4, mentioning simply Jonathan’s “instant bonding” with David and his gifts as a symbolic handing over of his right to the throne. (Campbell, 1 Samuel, 2003, p. 183) Many of the nonsexual observations made here are true, of course, but was that the whole of it? That is the $64,000 question. Their friendship viewed as homoerotic. What can be said confidently at the beginning of such a study as this is that there has been a long-standing suspicion and recently a growing 3 minority confidence that there is a homoerotic subtext in this story. Chrysostom (4th century bishop of Constantinople) interpreted Saul’s outburst in 1 Sam 20:30–31 as condemning Jonathan as “enervated [weak] and effeminate and having nothing of a man” 5―which has the ring of a gay slur about it. On the other hand, Peter Abelard (French theologian, 1079–1142) extended David’s lament (2 Sam 1:25–26) into 110 moving lines, writing that “[T]o outlive you [Jonathan] / Is to die at every moment: Half a soul is not / Enough for life . .”6 John Boswell (1994) wrote that early gay Christians surely found a “hallowed tradition” for same-sex love in the story of Jonathan and David, and notes that the term “brother” (which David applies to Jonathan, 2 Sam 1:26) has long been used in the past with special meaning relating to same-sex relationships.7 One early chronicler of the homosexual love of Edward II (king of England, 1307–1327) wrote, “Upon looking upon him [Piers Gaveston], the son of the king immediately felt such love for him that he entered into a covenant of constancy, and bound himself with him before all other mortals with a bond of indissoluble love, firmly drawn up and fastened with a knot.” Later, the moment Edward set eyes on Piers Gaveston (probably in 1297), says the Cottonian chronicle, ‘he bombarded [?] him with love [amorem] to the extent that he entered into a covenant of brotherhood [fraternitatis fedus] with him. He chose with steadfast determination to tie him to him indissolubly with a chain of loving devotion.’ (Full text given in Davidson, p. 515, p. 586, n. 130) In his Life of Edward II (ca. 1326?), the Monk of Malmesbury further compared Edward’s love for Piers to that of Jonathan for David and of Achilles for Patroclus, only Edward’s love was “incapable of moderate favor.”8 After the publication of Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), some writers began to take a fresh look at the friendship of Jonathan and David. For example, the theologian David Mace (1953) called this friendship a good example of “the comparatively harmless homosexual attachments of adolescence” that sometimes occur,9 while the psychiatrist George Henry (1955) wrote that Jonathan and David definitely had a sexual relationship, in which the love-struck Jonathan was the aggressor and the ambitious David the willing seductee, “unreservedly responsive,” although this would be for David a passing phase.10 Raphael Patai (1960), a Middle East anthropologist, wrote: “The love story between Jonathan the son of King Saul, and David the beautiful young hero, must have been duplicated many times in royal courts in all parts of the Middle East and in all periods”―one example being Amin (in 8th century Baghdad), son of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who fell in love with a page boy named Kautar.11 The first scholar to present a full-blown case for the Biblical text suggesting a homoerotic relationship was Tom Horner (PhD, Columbia) in Jonathan Loved David (1978). He recalls the “world’s first great love story” between Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, his inseparable companion, an epic poem that was widely disseminated and admired in the ancient Near East. “No mourner in the history of the world―except perhaps Alexander at the passing of his friend Hephaestion . ―has ever been more broken up over the loss of his (or her) beloved friend” as was King Gilgamesh over Enkidu’s untimely demise; and David in his expression of love and loss over Jonathan’s death follows in this tradition.12 A crack in biased mainstream commentary occurred in J. P. Fokkelman’s three-volume Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel, where he wrote (vol. 2, 1986): “The love of Jonathan does not have to be nailed to the mast of a late capitalist liberation front whose members, after centuries of sinister suppression of homosexuals, wish to designate homosexual love the highest form of humanity. It would be even less sound to assure us in suspiciously strong tones that Jonathan and David were most definitely not gay.”13 4 Their friendship more fully investigated.