CX

I have to say I am in the unprecedented and uncomfortable position of agreeing with you.

SLD

I'm hardley the expert, but I believe that the whole gay/straight thing is a modern convention. The Ancients at that time would not have considered one another as gay or straight. They thought that the Emperor Claudius was odd because he only liked women. Having sex with other men was merely a harmless diversion from having sex with women.

I think that gay and straight come later, when the Christian church, in its zeal to abolish all homosexual practice makes it an unpardonable sin, and only out and out homosexuals practice it.

Therefore a man, possibly even a Jewish man in Palestine, in 1st Century AD had sex with other men, it wouldn't necessarily indicate that the person would be considered "gay" as we would understand that term today.

That's not to say that Jesus actually did have sex with the guy in Secret Mark. If you've ever lived in the Middle East or other Arab country, you see men routinely kiss each other, hold hands, etc., and it is totally non-sexual.

SLD

Toto

That extra-Biblical evidence is even more unreliable than the Biblical evidence.

CX

Not so. The ancient Israelites had a prohibition on same-sex relations centuries before Jesus, largely because it was associated with the gentiles and paganism.

CX

The real question is whether or not the extra-biblical evidence that Jesus was gay is more or less reliable than the extra-biblical evidence for Jesus' existence. What about the extra-extra-biblical evidence that the extra-biblical evidence is non-biblical. I mean...nevermind...my brain just through a tie-rod.

Dean Anderson

I have to disagree with you two, here.

Not about how ridiculous the notion is - yes, it is that ridiculous.

However, I think it is also funny how people on both sides of the issue get so worked up about such a ridiculous concept.

DNAinaGoodway

Ok, thanks everyone, forget the sexuality, I've seen enough to satisfy my tiny mind.

Could someone please post me a link to a thread or two on the subject of insufficient evidence for a HJ? You mean the whole story is just a myth? There may never been a guy named Yeshua or whatever that was the seed for such a garden of stories?

thanks.

Vorkosigan

Start with Doherty's Jesus Puzzle Website.

Lugubert

I'm going to have a look at Doherty's pages. But first, I'll finish a book I just started reading: Jesus. One Hundred Years Before Christ, by Prof. Alvar Ellegård. He argues that the Jesus of the Gospels is a 2nd century AD invention, seeing the Christian movement as originating within the Essenes and referring to a rather old and mythical Messiah character. The movement was propagated by Paul, Peter and others before the Gospels were written.

DNAinaGoodway

Thanks, seems as good a place to start as any. I never noticed that the epistles don't mention the gospel material. Interesting stuff.