The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament

"This is nonfiction and has received some interest in scholarly circles. It picks away at a very old question. He discusses how King James I of England (and VI of Scotland), as well as various Jacobean playwrights, suggested that Jesus might actually have had male lovers. It’s a controversial work, but it looks at the biblical evidence for this. There are bits I disagree with in terms of its interpretation, but it’s incredibly thought-provoking, particularly in its ability to get us to ask questions about the Greek text. Even if one is not totally convinced by all of the arguments, one comes away from it thinking that if the authors of the Gospels had intended to give us the impression that Jesus was a deeply homophobic individual, they failed to do so. It also raises lots of interesting questions about manuscripts. It discusses the secret Gospel of Mark, the manuscript that was found last century, which seems to describe Jesus falling in love with another man. It makes you question what we have been told about Jesus’s life, when, in fact, Jesus’s life, as it is described to us through the Gospels, is open to an enormous amount of interpretation. This book is not something that you can take as completely gospel, but I think it’s a fun one to throw out there—and certainly one that will get people thinking. The discussion around that is that it may have been John. It’s the phrase in Greek, ὅν ἠγάπα ( hon egapa ) or ‘the man whom he loved,’ which is repeated in the Gospel of John. It supposedly refers to an unknown individual who was supposed to take care of Jesus’s mother after he died. There is speculation by Jennings as to who that might be. There’s been speculation by other scholars as well. But there are other things, other discussions in there, such as those related to baptismal rites and Jesus’s role with other men, involving nakedness in gardens. There’s also a discussion about the young man and his Centurion, whom Jesus heals, which goes into quite how far Jesus might have been involved in potential queer subcultures and communities. As I say, it’s a very thought-provoking book, and not the kind of nonfiction book that you might usually pick up."