David and Jonathan

David and Jonathan were, according to the Hebrew Bible's Books of Samuel, heroic figures of the Kingdom of Israel, who formed a covenant, taking a mutual oath.

(Avot 5:16)"[8]Rabbi Shimon ben Tzemach Duran (Spain, North Africa 14th–15th century) delineated the significance of this mishnah: “Anyone who establishes a friendship for access to power, money, or sexual relations; when these ends are not attainable, the friendship ceases…love that is not dependent on selfish ends is true love of the other person since there is no intended end.” (Magen Avot – abridged and adapted translation)[8]In Christian tradition, David and Jonathan's love is understood as the intimate camaraderie between two young soldiers with no sexual involvement.

[9] David's abundance of wives and concubines is emphasized, alongside his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, and that he only experienced impotence as an old man, while having his five-year-old son Jonathan at his death.

[10] In response to the argument that homoeroticism was edited out, some traditionalists who subscribe to the Documentary Hypothesis note the significance of the lack of censoring of the descriptions at issue, in spite of the Levitical injunctions against homoerotic contact.

"[11] Presuming such editing would have taken place, Martti Nissinen comments, "Their mutual love was certainly regarded by the editors as faithful and passionate, but without unseemly allusions to forbidden practices ...

And thus, King Edward II wept for his dead lover Piers Gaveston as: "... David had mourned for Jonathan.".

[14] Similarly, Roger of Hoveden, a twelfth-century chronicler, deliberately drew comparisons in his description of "The King of France (Philip II Augustus) [who] loved him (Richard the Lionheart) as his own soul.

"[15] The Renaissance artists Donatello and Michelangelo both brought out strong homoerotic elements in their sculptural depictions of the youthful David, which were bronze and marble, respectively.

[23] Some also point out that the relationship between the two men is addressed with the same words and emphasis as other love relationships in the Hebrew Testament, whether heterosexual or between God and people, such as ahava or אהבה.‎[24][25] There is more than mere homosociality in the dealings of David and Jonathan, as asserted by two 21st century studies: the biblical scholar Susan Ackerman,[26] and the Orientalist Jean-Fabrice Nardelli.

[27] Ackerman and Nardelli argue that the narrators of the books of Samuel encrypted same-sex allusions in the texts where David and Jonathan interact so as to insinuate that the two heroes were lovers.

transitory, homosexuality, deployed by the redactors as a textual means to assert David's rights against Jonathan's: the latter willingly alienated his princely status by bowing down (1 Samuel 20:41), sexually speaking, to the former.

Susan Ackerman also argues that there is highly eroticized language present in six different sections in the Hebrew Bible in regards to the relationship of David and Jonathan.

[30] Other interpreters point out that neither the books of Samuel nor Jewish tradition documents sanctioned romantic or erotic physical intimacy between the two characters, which the Bible elsewhere makes evident when between heterosexuals, most supremely in the Song of Solomon.

Gagnon[33] and the Assyriologist Markus Zehnder[34] and is consistent with commonly held theological views condemning same sex relations.

In like manner, Jonathan would be symbolically and prophetically transferring the kingship of himself (as the normal heir) to David, which would come to pass.

[39] This event, however, is never described in the Bible, and this particular interpretation has been disputed by Diana V. Edelman, who remarked that, "Such a presumption would require David to have run off with the queen mother while Saul was still on the throne, which seems unlikely.

[46] In platonic respects, such as in sacrificial loyalty and zeal for the kingdom, Jonathan's love is seen as surpassing that of romantic or erotic affection,[47] especially that of the women David had known up until that time.

Keren suggests that David's lament for Jonathan may have been a calculated pose for a people mourning a popular prince.

[50] At his 1895 trial, Oscar Wilde cited the example of David and Jonathan in support of "The love that dare not speak its name": "Such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare.

Here is the Bible bearing witness to love between two people of the same gender.In 1993 a member of the Knesset in Israel, Yael Dayan, provoked controversy when she referred to David and Jonathan in a parliamentary debate in support of gay men and women in the Israeli military.