Keep funding him
When a Queensland doctoral candidate, Rollan McCleary, proposes that Jesus was gay, the reaction is not difficult to predict. Ken Parish scoffs, “Your higher ed tax dollars at work”; Alan Anderson is similarly disposed; Tony exclaims, “Jesus Christ!”; and Angela Bell reckons he studied in Queensland to avoid Jensen and Pell.
(Personally I think Brisbane ABC listeners were much more entertaining than the bloggers: “Why do people have to dismantle everything? Look what they did to Noddy!”; “Tell Rollan the moon is in Saturn, which tells me he is a pratt!”; Give me some 50,000 dollars and I too will prove that Mohammad was a robot and that Buddha was an alien, based on a weather dance and voodoo.”; “It explains why we say ahhh men!”)
What disappoints me is that so many people dismiss the suggestion out of hand — and I’m not talking about the flipside of ABC’s audience, such as Rodney’s “Jesus was not gay! He was God and God detests homosexuality.” Let’s not pretend he’s the first person to make this claim. In Chicago, a Methodist minister named Theodore Jennings Jr has just written a book called The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament:
Some theologians have argued for decades about the sexuality of Christ and a new book penned by a noted Methodist theologian says not only was Jesus gay, but he had a boyfriend, too.
… He writes that the “the disciple Jesus loved” who is mentioned in the Gospel of John was Jesus’ boyfriend. He also claims the centurion’s servant who was healed by Jesus actually was the centurion’s boyfriend and that Jesus did not denounce their relationship.
Even the astrology doesn’t necessarily preclude the study from being worthwhile — the Bible is filled with astrological references (such as the star in the east), and a knowledge of the astrological beliefs of the scriptures’ authors can help to extract useful knowledge from the text.
That’s not to say that I agree with the “gay Jesus” theory. Its interpretations of the biblical texts are challenged by other scholars. Robert A.J. Gagnon, for example, takes issue with Jennings’ reading of the Last Supper:
Gagnon says Jennings misunderstands ancient culture. Banquet guests would recline while eating, so the man ‘’lying close to the breast'’ was simply located next to Jesus, with no homoerotic implication.
I’ve heard that idea before (somebody was criticising a certain famous painting of the event), so Gagnon may be right.
Similarly, Jenny Stokes questions the etymological basis of McCleary’s work:
In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, there are four words for love — agape (spiritual, unconditional love), eros (erotic love), philia (love between friends) and storge (familial love.)
Stokes pointed out that all of the references to “the disciple whom Jesus loved” use the word “agape.”
On the other hand, Stokes also suggests that McCleary’s work is necessarily flawed because he is gay, so she has an obvious homophobic motivation to dismiss him.
At the end of the day, the kerfuffle is about the money, and I think it was probably worthwhile. Although it might not interest some people and it might sit uncomfortably with others, this is valuable research into a topic we don’t know nearly enough about: the historical Jesus.
Even if all of McCleary’s theories are disproved, we will have filled a gap in our collective knowledge — and that’s precisely the point.
Rob, I kinda agree. It would be my observation that most PhDs don’t make huge breakthroughs in human knowledge; many, many of them are of marginal interest.
In the Gospel of Mark there is a weird passage about a naked young man in the Garden of Gethsemane while Jesus was being arrested.
The Young Man Who Fled
51 And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:
52 and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
What could this mean?
Jesus? Gay? My reading of the bible was that he was a carpenter and may have even lived in Balcatta, WA, for a period back there in ancient times.
Sure he liked to put an arm around his mates after a few too many Swan mids at the Carine Tavern on Friday arvo, but that’s because he was a friendly bloke.
Well, we know the nude man who fled wasn’t McCleary himself — he’d stay around and take the beating (good on him).
I was surprised to see it in the paper over morning coffee. I don’t dismiss the idea he might be gay. That’s been suggested for years and I have no knowledge to the contrary. I couldn’t care less anyway.
Regarding any assertions that uni study is a waste of money, well, I couldn’t care less what uni types study. As long as they’re studying something. That’s what they’re supposed to do isn’t it?
long hair, long flowing robes, riding on donkeys and rinking wine isntead of beer - anyone who is anyone knows that jesus was a trannie.
I hope you are joking when you say that the money spent was probably worthwhile. It’s nearly impossible to get a PhD scholarship in science in this country. And that projects like this can get funding is a slap in the mouth to every hardworking student who excelled in their undergraduate degree only to be informed that there simply weren’t enough places. Not because they weren’t producing world-class research. But because there were insufficient funds.
Are we a society that values philosophising over some ancient figures sexuality as more important than curing cancer?
“[T]his is valuable research into a topic we don’t know nearly enough about”. Why should that research be publicly funded if it provides no real, tangible benefits to anyone but a few homosexual philosophers? We have a finite amount of resources here, so the test isn’t even whether the research will “fill a gap in our collective knowledge”. The test is whether it is superior to research that isn’t being funded.
If Barry Jones’ meant fulfilling demand in science, medicine and engineering before money went to projects like this when he talked of ‘knowledge nation’, maybe I should have voted Labor.
My solution is to increase education funding, but you already know that. We shouldn’t be putting one thing before another, we can do both simultaneously.