My motivation for writing this post is that my previous post on a similar subject, ‘Was Jesus Raped‘, has gotten popular in the wrong way. It’s attracted a lot of spam due to the fact that the title contains two keywords and this has made it difficult to discuss anything in the comments. Therefore I’m going to attempt to close that post for comments and start one here in the hope that it doesn’t get similarly inundated. However, I can’t just replicate the passage, so I’m going to talk about something rather different, though still related to that one.
There are probably three areas which we need to look at here: concrete evidence regarding the sexual assault of Jesus, the motives of people who represent that possibility and the good faith or otherwise of their assertion. I also want to look at atonement and the concept of perversion.
I’ll start with perversion. To many, this is an old-fashioned word which doesn’t have much meaning today. It’s probably similar to the word “fornication”. When I shared a house with a fundamentalist Christian, that is, a Biblical literalist who was a Young Earth creationist and also pursuing a doctorate in genetics, an interesting combination, she used to object to us watching the Channel 4 lesbian and gay magazine programme ‘Out On Tuesday’ in a number of ways, including watching ‘Minder’ of all things, and once said that to her the whole thing was “nothing more than fornication”. Now I will cut her some slack here because she was from Kerala and her English was therefore Indian English rather than British English, which uses words rather differently than we do, but even so, the word “fornication” sounded very old-fashioned to me even back then in 1992. I feel the same way about “faggot” used homophobically. The word has an antiquated feel to me, like using the word “gay” to mean “happy”.
Thomas Nagel wrote a famous paper in 1969 for the ‘Journal of Philosophy’ which was later collected in his ‘Mortal Questions’ (Nagel, T. (2012). Sexual Perversion. In Mortal Questions (Canto Classics, pp. 39-52). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107341050.006). Citation date notwithstanding, Nagel’s essay is a creature of its time, and therefore uses the word “perversion” quite baldly. He begins by raising the question of how we have a concept of sexual perversion. For perversion to exist, there must be sexual desires or preferences which can be plausibly described as unnatural. This raises an immediate problem which I will however breeze past for now. Nagel then states that the main problem is how to make that distinction. Unless one throws out the concept of perversion entirely, and most people wouldn’t although they might call it something else, there’s a core of practices which just are perversions. Nagel lists shoe fetishism, bestiality and sadism. I would take issue with the last one because I think it varies with consent. We might not agree with this list. I personally would consider bestiality, morally speaking, to be morally wrong, and today it seems sometimes that many people almost use the word “perversion” as a synonym for pædophilia while possibly failing to realise that many acts of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by non-pædophiles. If perversions exist, says Nagel, they’re inclinations rather than adopted for other reasons, and this is of course counter to the Roman Catholic understanding of what they were at the time, and possibly still. As a counter-example, using Nagel’s shoe fetishism, someone’s spouse might wear a particular style of footwear in order to turn their partner on or indicate subtly that they were interested in going to bed with them today, but have no direct sexual interest themselves in that item. I mentioned Roman Catholics, and this is harsher in hindsight considering recent scandals in the Church which had yet to come to light in the 1960s. According to Nagel, Roman Catholics consider contraception as a perversion, I presume because they see it as frustrating the divinely ordained function of sex as for procreation, but contraception is not a sexual preference. Many people would, all things considered, prefer not to use barrier methods of contraception for example if they knew conception was impossible anyway. There could be a sexual fetish based on diaphragm use, but that’s not the usual reason people employ them.
Next, other “frustrations” of reproduction are considered. One example of this would be the banana, which has been bred not to have seeds in the fruit and consequently cannot reproduce through fertilisation but has to be grafted. Among humans, there is infertility and miscarriage, neither of which have anything to do with perversion. Mammals and possibly other animals, though, could be considered perverted, such as the famous example of the monkey who was aroused by a zookeeper’s boots. This can happen and does count as perversion. A “radical” argument for the non-existence of perversion is proposed, thus:
Sexual appetite is similar to other appetites, such as that for food. It can have various objects but none are “unnatural”. Sexual desire is defined by the organs and areas of the body where it is felt and the types of sensation which cause it. Some such desires are ethically problematic (i.e. wrong) and others are hard for many to identify with, but as such they’re simply sexual desires and cannot be considered inherently perverted.
Nagel disagrees with this argument, but it isn’t a strawman. He objects to it by using the analogy of hunger. If someone had pica, which I have had of course because I used to eat pencils and wood, or could satisfy their hunger by looking at lavish photographs of food in a cook book, those would both seem to be examples of perversions of appetite. Hence the analogy in the argument breaks down. Sadly, nowadays eating disorders are more recognised and there’s a sense in which these are such perversions, although having called them “eating disorders” I feel that I am reducing the people concerned to their disorder and probably should speak of “disordered eating” instead.
The idea that sexual desire always attempts to achieve the unattainable is then introduced, and this I think is particularly relevant to Christian world views. Perfect love is only possible unaided by the divine. Human love would always fall short in some way unless perhaps, according to Christianity, one was a channel for divine love. Hence the sexual expression of that love could always be perceived as a form of perversion. However, that sets the bar much higher than most people in today’s world are willing to place it, and the majority of Christians probably do see marriage as a good and blessèd thing. There is an issue here with being called to celibacy and there’s also a problem in some churches with there being undue emphasis on the married state, and perhaps even married with children, which tends to exclude singles, willing or otherwise, simply through the assumptions made by such a large proportion of married people. This is a separate issue from extramarital sex, incidentally.
Sartre is then considered. Sartre regards sexual desire as a doomed attempt for embodied consciousness to come to terms with the existence of others. It’s doomed because one will either objectify the other or become an object for them, and one cannot win through by capturing the other’s freedom as freedom. Hence for Sartre there can be no ultimately successful sexual relationship because the deep aim of sexual desire is unachievable. Although Nagel rejects this rather pessimistic idea, he’s still interested in the way Sartre presents it, and proceeds to paint a picture of a scene where a woman and a man notice each other sexually, go on to notice that they are attracted to each other and are aroused by that attraction. Hence there is a mutual objectification here which he understands to be what might be called “vanilla” sex. This he also sees as typical of human relations, in that, for example, anger between people breeds more anger between them and so forth. In the identification of both parties with their bodies, the actions of the body take over and threaten the will, and unlike hunger there is a saturation of the body with sexual desire. This, Nagel claims, is the non-perverted condition of sex.
He then uses a variety of examples of more deviant sexual activities to illustrate where it becomes perversion, noting that it isn’t always black and white. For instance, it probably isn’t ideal for a couple to be privately fantasising during lovemaking but it isn’t perverted either. This lack of interpersonal relationship is, he contends, found in pædophilia, bestiality, fetishism, voyeurism and exhibitionism. I would add necrophilia to that. More controversial cases are found in homosexuality and sado-masochism. Incidentally, it feels a little shocking reading this because it’s pretty cold, as it must be, when pædophilia and bestiality are mentioned and analysed, so in a weird way it is quite a hard read. Sadism seems to fall short of reciprocity, but this assumes there is no consent, but then in some cases a sadist, or even a masochist, would require lack of consent in order to become aroused. This conjures up a couple of odd scenarios. In one of them, the sadist imagines they’re causing suffering when they aren’t, and not through any artifice of rôle-playing. This illustrates a clash between consensus understandings of what constitutes sexual attraction, because if someone’s proclivities are sufficiently obscure or perverse, they undercut any attempt to avoid lust. For instance, it’s entirely possible that some heterosexual men find the burqa more arousing than a naked woman’s body. In fact Rule 34 guarantees that this is so, and from their perspective it means that whether or not it’s forced, women are encouraged to dress in a way those men find more sexually arousing than if they were dressed in a conventional, supposèdly titillating Western manner. Nagel proposes that sadism falls short, and is therefore a perversion, because it lacks interpersonal reciprocity, but the trouble with that is that he seems to assume only a subset of sadists who are perhaps impaired in terms of empathy, or who empathise and despise.
Homosexual activity, on the other hand, is singled out as being completely non-perverted because the kind of multilayered embodiment and reciprocity involved does not depend on gender or sex. It would only become an issue if the proclivity was absent and at least one of the people involved was a “closet heterosexual”. If the kind of sex involved is a matter of activity and passivity and either is seen as “natural” to one sex or another, that would mean that one party at least would be going against their nature, but in fact this kind of active-passive division is not automatically male and female respectively and therefore there would be many heterosexual acts which don’t conform to this but are unlikely to be perceived as perverted because of that.
In the closing remarks of his paper, Nagel turns to the question of evaluation. The concept of perversion is evaluative and implies that better sex is possible than the kind of sex pursued by the pervert. Subjectively this may be impossible because in physical terms a pervert may be unable to achieve sexual pleasure any other way, but this could be seen as a shortcoming on their part, or perhaps a disability. Certainly there might be a problem with loneliness if the possible pool of people with whom one can engage consensually with is smaller than usual, perhaps even non-existent. However, this idea of better and worse sex may be more æsthetic than ethical, because once one enters the realm of ethics things become more complicated. One is evaluating human beings. Even within the realm of perversion there could be cases of sex which is better than the worst vanilla sex, given that one considers there to be such a thing, and I do think almost everyone would. For instance, there’s consensual homosexual sex and there’s heterosexual rape, and although I’m not in the homophobic camp I would still fervently hope that nobody would consider heterosexual rape of any kind better than loving homosexual sex.
Nagel’s view is not the only one of course, and I also feel it’s quite outdated, not least in his use of the word “perversion”. It might also fail to capture a conservative religious viewpoint on the issue. For instance, he does note that the Roman Catholic Church regards sex with contraception as perverted. I’m not sure what to do with this observation because I find it hard to imagine that the Church would want married heterosexual couples to separate if one of them turned out to be infertile or that they should stop having sex after the menopause. Maybe, but I haven’t come across this and it really doesn’t seem to be what they believe.
Clearly I do believe there’s such a thing as morally bad sex. Zoöphilia and pædophilia are pretty much obviously wrong in the sense that if they were to be indulged in reality they would have devastating consequences for the victims. I feel an æsthetic sense of disgust here but this should not be allowed to interfere with one’s moral judgement. On the other hand, the conscience could be akin to a moral sense. In the case of pædophilia I do think that poorly-drafted legislation could lead to the criminalisation of sex between two people a single day apart in age, which would just be silly, but at least historically in this country age difference has been a significant factor. But that’s an extreme case, and extreme cases make for bad law.
Thank you for being patient with me so far. I shall now discuss the issue of Jesus being sexually assaulted again, though from a different angle than the spam magnet post I wrote some time ago. There could be said to be several camps here, one of which oddly misunderstands the issue. There would be those who say Jesus cannot have been sexually assaulted, and they would make several assertions on this matter. For instance, no gospels, canonical or otherwise, mention a frank sexual assault. Others, and this includes me, maintain that it’s possible that he was sexually assaulted for various reasons, some of which have a Biblical source, and might further claim that thinking of him in this way helps the survivors of sexual assault to bond with him and be aware that he is with them in all circumstances. A further category amounts to trolls, and this is the puzzling category because they seem to have misunderstood the attitude Christians are supposed to take towards the Incarnation. Finally, and this is the reason for the preamble on Thomas Nagel, there’s the category which could be described as “perverts”, which is of course quite a strongly pejorative term. Some might say that these categories are not isolated from each other. For instance, one could take the view that once one has abandoned a particular orthodox view, one would gradually become corrupted in various ways and drift into the “perversion” category. There’s a New Testament justification for this in Paul’s Letter to the Romans 1:18f:
18 αποκαλυπτεται γαρ οργη θεου απ ουρανου επι πασαν ασεβειαν και αδικιαν ανθρωπων των την αληθειαν εν αδικια κατεχοντων
19 διοτι το γνωστον του θεου φανερον εστιν εν αυτοις ο γαρ θεος αυτοις εφανερωσεν
20 τα γαρ αορατα αυτου απο κτισεως κοσμου τοις ποιημασιν νοουμενα καθοραται η τε αιδιος αυτου δυναμις και θειοτης εις το ειναι αυτους αναπολογητους
21 διοτι γνοντες τον θεον ουχ ως θεον εδοξασαν η ευχαριστησαν αλλ εματαιωθησαν εν τοις διαλογισμοις αυτων και εσκοτισθη η ασυνετος αυτων καρδια
22 φασκοντες ειναι σοφοι εμωρανθησαν
23 και ηλλαξαν την δοξαν του αφθαρτου θεου εν ομοιωματι εικονος φθαρτου ανθρωπου και πετεινων και τετραποδων και ερπετων
24 διο και παρεδωκεν αυτους ο θεος εν ταις επιθυμιαις των καρδιων αυτων εις ακαθαρσιαν του ατιμαζεσθαι τα σωματα αυτων εν εαυτοις
25 οιτινες μετηλλαξαν την αληθειαν του θεου εν τω ψευδει και εσεβασθησαν και ελατρευσαν τη κτισει παρα τον κτισαντα ος εστιν ευλογητος εις τους αιωνας αμην
26 δια τουτο παρεδωκεν αυτους ο θεος εις παθη ατιμιας αι τε γαρ θηλειαι αυτων μετηλλαξαν την φυσικην χρησιν εις την παρα φυσιν
27 ομοιως τε και οι αρσενες αφεντες την φυσικην χρησιν της θηλειας εξεκαυθησαν εν τη ορεξει αυτων εις αλληλους αρσενες εν αρσεσιν την ασχημοσυνην κατεργαζομενοι και την αντιμισθιαν ην εδει της πλανης αυτων εν εαυτοις απολαμβανοντες
28 και καθως ουκ εδοκιμασαν τον θεον εχειν εν επιγνωσει παρεδωκεν αυτους ο θεος εις αδοκιμον νουν ποιειν τα μη καθηκοντα
29 πεπληρωμενους παση αδικια πορνεια πονηρια πλεονεξια κακια μεστους φθονου φονου εριδος δολου κακοηθειας ψιθυριστας
30 καταλαλους θεοστυγεις υβριστας υπερηφανους αλαζονας εφευρετας κακων γονευσιν απειθεις
31 ασυνετους ασυνθετους αστοργους ασπονδους ανελεημονας
32 οιτινες το δικαιωμα του θεου επιγνοντες οτι οι τα τοιαυτα πρασσοντες αξιοι θανατου εισιν ου μονον αυτα ποιουσιν αλλα και συνευδοκουσιν τοις πρασσουσιν
In the KJV:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
The process described here is similar to Pharaoh’s heart being hardened before the Exodus, and raises a couple of questions. One is that of the perseverance of the the saints: one cannot lose one’s salvation if one has ever honestly committed oneself to Christ. This also contains the most important “clobber” verse used by homophobes. I personally happen to believe that a literal interpretation of the Bible, and the New Testament, requires one to be homophobic. I’m not in the camp that tries to make excuses or explain away these passages with cultural relativism. However, I also believe that to believe homosexually expressed mutually consensual love is sinful is similar to believing 2+2=5. If you went through a process in maths which led to a result which implied that 2+2=5, you would check your working until you either gave up or found your error. Similarly, if your understanding of Scripture leads you to conclude that homosexual activity is immoral in different circumstances to heterosexual activity, ethical intuition, that is, your conscience, will make you aware that you’ve made a mistake somewhere. However, the problem with the idea of ethical intuition is that one can simply baldly assert that one’s conscience is telling one something without having to justify it, meaning that sensible discussion is impossible, so this doesn’t get anyone very far as far as dialogue is concerned. Anyway, the idea is that if someone strays from the path laid out by Christ and the Word, one will become corrupted even if one has repented and committed oneself, and the belief that Jesus was raped is placed firmly in this category by many people. And it is a very tough thing to come to terms with, or at least it ought to be. It may not be for some people, particularly if they aren’t Christian.
I’ve been asked for evidence, and such evidence is forthcoming. Firstly, I’d like to quote the last verse of the Fourth Gospel:
εστιν δε και αλλα πολλα οσα εποιησεν ο ιησους ατινα εαν γραφηται καθ εν ουδε αυτον οιμαι τον κοσμον χωρησαι τα γραφομενα βιβλια αμην
In the KJV:
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
In other words, bearing in mind also that the gospel of John is the most recent canonical gospel, even all of the gospels taken together do not constitute a complete account of Jesus’s life. A notable omission found in all is a complete absence of any account of his life between twelve and thirty. The infancy gospels, generally considered unreliable, do at least indicate the strong desire to know more about his life. The gospels are not a complete biography of Jesus, and perhaps they don’t need to be, if one assumes that all that needs to be known about him is in there. For instance, it isn’t important what he looks like and he isn’t described at any point. Except that in a sense it is. If Jesus is to be the stand-in for any human, maybe his appearance was significant, or would be to us today. For instance, the fact that he was Jewish would mean that anti-semitism in full knowledge of Jesus’s physical appearance could often mean that a Christian is persecuting someone who looks very like him. Although Jesus was not Ashkenazic, Sephardic or Mizrahic, or for that matter Beta Israel, because the different communities had yet to diverge at that point, his appearance is likely to be closest to that of the Mizrahim, and since even Sephardim are perceived by WASPs as non-White, odd though that seems, the chances are that Jesus would be too. Matthew 25:40 of course reads:
καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐρεῖ αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων, ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε.
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
In other words, Jesus acts as a stand in for people and Christians are supposed to see him in everyone. This is where the issue of rape arises too. If it’s a real prospect for Jesus to have been a victim of sexual assault, it means that those who sexually assault others, and rape does occur within marriage of course, might see themselves as sinning directly against Jesus.
I’m not going to deny that it’s shocking and difficult to accept. Jesus is supposed to have a radical influence on one’s life. The evidence is there that this could have happened, and it also makes sense that the gospel writers may have been silent on the matter. However, there are several passages which do appear to allude to it in the gospels. In the KJV, Matthew 26:47-50 reads:
And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.
48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
49 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.
50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus and took him.
In Greek, this is:
47 και ετι αυτου λαλουντος ιδου ιουδας εις των δωδεκα ηλθεν και μετ αυτου οχλος πολυς μετα μαχαιρων και ξυλων απο των αρχιερεων και πρεσβυτερων του λαου
48 ο δε παραδιδους αυτον εδωκεν αυτοις σημειον λεγων ον αν φιλησω αυτος εστιν κρατησατε αυτον
49 και ευθεως προσελθων τω ιησου ειπεν χαιρε ραββι και κατεφιλησεν αυτον
50 ο δε ιησους ειπεν αυτω εταιρε εφ ω παρει τοτε προσελθοντες επεβαλον τας χειρας επι τον ιησουν και εκρατησαν αυτον
Mark 14:43-45 similarly read:
43 και ευθεως ετι αυτου λαλουντος παραγινεται ιουδας εις ων των δωδεκα και μετ αυτου οχλος πολυς μετα μαχαιρων και ξυλων παρα των αρχιερεων και των γραμματεων και των πρεσβυτερων
44 δεδωκει δε ο παραδιδους αυτον συσσημον αυτοις λεγων ον αν φιλησω αυτος εστιν κρατησατε αυτον και απαγαγετε ασφαλως
45 και ελθων ευθεως προσελθων αυτω λεγει ραββι ραββι και κατεφιλησεν αυτον
43 And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
44 And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely.
45 And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, Master, master; and kissed him.
The verb καταφιλέω translates as “I kiss”, “I caress with affection” and “I kiss tenderly”. It doesn’t seem to me to be a stretch that this is the beginning of a sexual assault, although of course it may only appear to be given contemporary Anglo-Saxon mores. After all, in the Arab world, for example, it’s normal for men to hold hands affectionately when walking down the street.
Another important passage is the mocking of Jesus, covered in Matthew 27:27-31 (KJV):
27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.
28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.
29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!
30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
31 And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.
27 τοτε οι στρατιωται του ηγεμονος παραλαβοντες τον ιησουν εις το πραιτωριον συνηγαγον επ αυτον ολην την σπειραν
28 και εκδυσαντες αυτον περιεθηκαν αυτω χλαμυδα κοκκινην
29 και πλεξαντες στεφανον εξ ακανθων επεθηκαν επι την κεφαλην αυτου και καλαμον επι την δεξιαν αυτου και γονυπετησαντες εμπροσθεν αυτου ενεπαιζον αυτω λεγοντες χαιρε ο βασιλευς των ιουδαιων
30 και εμπτυσαντες εις αυτον ελαβον τον καλαμον και ετυπτον εις την κεφαλην αυτου.
This, of course, is the point where, if it happened at all, the sexual assault is most likely to have occurred. It’s brutal of course, even as written, but Jesus is stripped naked before being dressed in a robe and mocked. This has overtones of the abuse of power, and it should be remembered that rape is primarily about power, more specifically the abuse thereof, not sex. The New Testament also paraphrases and euphemises sexual acts. I’ve already quoted Romans 1:27 –
. . . αρσενες εν αρσεσιν την ασχημοσυνην κατεργαζομενοι . . .
. . . men with men working that which is unseemly . . .
Other translation of ασχημοσυνη are “shamefulness”, “indecency”, “deformity”, “pudendum” and “nakedness”, the point being that this is euphemised. Elsewhere, in Genesis 4:1 for example, this appears:
וְהָאָדָם, יָדַע אֶת-חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ; וַתַּהַר, וַתֵּלֶד אֶת-קַיִן, וַתֹּאמֶר, קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת-יְהוָה.
The verb יָדַ֖ע here occurs more than five dozen times in the Tanakh, meaning “he knew”, usually with literal connotations, but occasionally referring to sexual relations. Both the Tanakh and the New Testament tend to refer to sex obliquely, not of course not always. However, we are correct in reading both of these passages as referring to sexual acts even though they are not explicitly mentioned. The difference in the gospels, of course, is that any euphemism would range over the entire passage. It would be a hint rather than a euphemism as such.
Paintings of the Crucifixion make concessions to the modesty of the times, just as other religious paintings do. For instance, although I won’t reproduce it here because I’ve posted it before and it will damage SEO, paintings of the resurrection on the Day of Judgement depict the naked bodies of the resurrected with swathes of cloth around their genitals, although this is not how the New Testament describes it. Likewise, the Crucifixion is usually shown with a loin cloth. This is inaccurate, and in a culture when modesty was key, nakedness would be shameful and have sexual overtones. The presence of the loincloth is not mentioned in any gospel account. It isn’t Biblical.
Seneca the Younger, in his ‘Of Consolation: To Marcia’, rails against crucifixion as cruel and unusual, as we might put it today, and talks about victims’ genitals being impaled in some cases. An important element of crucifixion is to shame the victim, and here again the abuse of power is involved. Within the concept of the gospels a man is stripped naked and flogged. This is sadism, and referring to Nagel’s account, is perverted. The perversion is there in the New Testament. It doesn’t need to be stretched or creatively interpreted to be seen as sexualised, and more specifically to do with the abuse of power over someone expressed sexually. Josephus refers to the torture of Jewish rebels by Roman soldiers, including sodomising them with sticks and sticking vetch stalks into their urethræ (from ‘On The Jewish War’). In Gorgias 473C, Plato refers to castration preceding crucifixion. So there’s some chapter and verse for you from external, non-Biblical sources that crucifixions had a sexual element.
Then there’s the circumstantial evidence. We all know that prisoners are raped. Sexual atrocities have been regularly committed by the military throughout history. Anal rape of men by Roman soldiers is an established fact of ancient history. Now put these all together:
- The Tanakh and the New Testament euphemise sexual acts.
- Anal rape of men as a humiliating punishment was common in the Ancient World and was perpetrated by soldiers.
- Roman soldiers sexually assaulted Jewish men around the year 70 CE, i.e. forty years after the Crucifixion.
- The depiction of the stripping and flogging of Jesus is unequivocal sadism.
- Rape is more about the abuse of power than sex, but there was no Roman taboo about homosexual acts.
- Contemporary accounts of crucifixion include sexual atrocities.
- Jesus was naked on the Cross.
I don’t deny that there are people out there who get off on the idea that Jesus was raped but simply because there are doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It’s also true that Jesus needn’t literally go through the exact same sufferings as everyone who ever believes in him, but being the victim of sexual assault is an important category of suffering which people experience, sometimes in religious contexts. Also, the fact that people still use it today to mock Jesus doesn’t mean it’s sullied. In the Middle Ages, some nuns used to have visions that they were marrying Christ with his foreskin used as a wedding ring. This strikes us as peculiar and sexualised today, but it doesn’t irrevocably sully the relationship Christians have with him.
I want to move on now to the way people in today’s world react to this idea.
Before the late, largely unlamented Yahoo Answers succumbed to the malign neglect inflicted upon it by Verizon, there was a flurry of questions regarding the possibility that Jesus was raped. The motivations for many of the posts on that forum, if that’s the word, were often obscure. It was rife with people, myself included, who could probably be seen as mentally ill. For instance, there was a period during which Philosophy was afflicted by incessant questions about the details of the Australian Collins Submarine Project, which seemed to be an attempt by someone to come to terms with the office politics of the organisations involved but came to dominate the section, which one might expect to be about such questions as “if a tree falls in a forest with nothing to hear it, does it make a sound?”. Although there was a time when sensible questions could receive sensible answers there, by the end it was full of trolls and manifestations of mental illness. Hence the questions about Jesus being raped may well have had an erotic component for some of the people asking, but also were, I think, often attempts to upset Christians. The problem is that this approach is ill-conceived. Christians already worship a figure whose humiliation and low social status is for many of them a central part of his identity. He’s supposed to be a King who ruled from below while he was among us, and:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
7 αλλ εαυτον εκενωσεν μορφην δουλου λαβων εν ομοιωματι ανθρωπων γενομενος
8 και σχηματι ευρεθεις ως ανθρωπος εταπεινωσεν εαυτον γενομενος υπηκοος μεχρι θανατου θανατου δε σταυρου
9 διο και ο θεος αυτον υπερυψωσεν και εχαρισατο αυτω ονομα το υπερ παν ονομα
10 ινα εν τω ονοματι ιησου παν γονυ καμψη επουρανιων και επιγειων και καταχθονιων
Philippians 2:7-10.
We basically already know this about him. We may disagree on the details, but there are undoubtedly many examples of the consequences of his humble status which are not mentioned in the New Testament. Constantly bringing this particular aspect to light seems to be a calculated attempt to cause distress, but for many people it probably just makes the person doing this look silly and reveals their ignorance about the nature of the Christian faith. The appropriate response might be to work out a way to evangelise to such people, because their ignorance is a barrier to their salvation, as a Christian might see it.
All that said, I do agree that it’s possible that some of these statements are erotically motivated. I think they probably work because they cross taboos in people’s minds which were instilled early in their life, so the situation may be similar to something like a fetishist taking dirty underwear and masturbating to it. I don’t want to judge people for doing that, although for me it doesn’t sound like it’s just a fetish. It sounds, rather, that they are thoughtlessly or maliciously indulging their paraphilia when they could confine it to something which impinges less on the personal integrity of others. That said, a compassionate approach to someone’s psyche cannot allow one to give in even to moral disgust. I suspect that part of people’s motivation here is that they have been wronged by organised religion in one way or another, although I’m also sure there are many edgelords who are just doing it to get a reaction. And of course we do reward them for doing this when we do react.
That, then, is what I have to say for now, and the purpose, as I’ve said, of this post is to initiate a discussion which doesn’t descend into spam and the kind of silliness which happens on many online fora nowadays. Nonetheless, that’s my position on this. Any thoughts?
A Box Of Chocolates 