Last Updated on July 28, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Biblical arguments for LGBTQ rights and a queer Jesus may seem like new ideas, but they were pioneered about 200 years ago by an influential British philosopher — in writings that were never published until the 21st century.
Philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) presented Biblical evidence for Jesus’ homosexuality as part of his theological defense for same-sex love in “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III.” It was published for the first time in 2013 and is freely available to download or view online. He died on June 6, 1832.
Bentham didn’t dare publish it during his lifetime because he feared being labeled a “sodomite” himself. At the time “buggery” was punished with death by hanging in England.
Bentham’s arguments for tolerance of sexual nonconformity are explored in the 2022 book “Uncommon Sense: Jeremy Bentham, Queer Aesthetics, and the Politics of Taste” by scholar Carrie D. Shanafelt, published by University of Virginia Press. A whole chapter is devoted to “Bentham’s Queer Christ.”
This champion of sexual freedom was far, far ahead of his time. “Not Paul, but Jesus” lays out many of the same arguments that are still used today by LGBTQ Christians and our allies: debunking the scriptures typically used to condemn LGBTQ people and pointing out that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Bentham goes on to present an idea that many still consider blasphemous. He suggests that Jesus had male-male sexual relationships.
Bentham wrote the book so long ago that the word “homosexuality” had not been invented yet. Instead he has a chapter titled “The eccentric pleasures of the bed, whether partaken of by Jesus?” His language may sound quaint, but his ideas are right on target for today. Bentham himself struggled with words for what we call homosexuality, deliberately creating new vocabulary so he could avoid the negative connotations associated with the terminology of his day (sodomy, buggery, perversion, etc.).
Bentham is best known as the founder of Utilitarianism, a philosophy that advocates “the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people” A respected thinker during his lifetime, Bentham was also far advanced on a wide range of other legal, economic and political issues. He coined the word “international.” He was one of the first proponents of animal rights. He supported women’s equality and opposed slavery and capital punishment. He corresponded with various world leaders, including US presidents Jefferson and Madison. Several South and Central American nations sought his advice in creating their constitutions and legal codes. Born and raised in a devout Anglican family in London, he became an agnostic who believed that religion was an instrument of oppression. His solution was separation of church and state.
Bentham sheds light on “clobber passages”
In the third volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III,” Bentham corrects false interpretations of what would later come to be called the “clobber passages.” He identifies the sin of Sodom as gang-rape. He puts the sexual prohibitions of the Hebrew scriptures into historical context, pointing out that many of the other taboos are no longer enforced.
Bentham dismisses Paul’s condemnations of homosexuality as an asceticism not shared by Jesus himself. He sees romantic love between Old Testament heroes Jonathan and David — and possibly between Jesus and his beloved disciple John, noting that the Bible reports their loving touch without condemnation.
Jeremy Bentham engraving by J. Thomson, from a painting by W. Derby (courtesy of the Bentham Project)
Bentham goes on to analyze the account in Mark’s gospel of “the stripling in the loose attire” at the arrest of Jesus — a passage that continues to fuel 21st-century speculations in the LGBTQ community. Now this mysterious figure is often called “the naked young man” and associated with Lazarus or Mark himself. He urges readers to consider the most “probable interpretation” for the nakedness. (In a different manuscript he made it clear that the youth was probably a male prostitute loyal to Jesus.) Bentham even hints that Jesus was killed for homosexuality, asking readers to consider what interaction with a naked man could be “so awful” that it leads to cruel execution.
Pro-LGBTQ Christians today often note that Jesus never said anything against homosexuality. Bentham makes the same point in his own elaborate way, with sentences such as: “In the acts or discourses of Jesus, had any such marks of reprobation towards the mode of sexuality in question been to be found as may be seen in such abundance in the epistles of Paul—in a word, had any one decided mark of reprobation been so to be found as pronounced upon it by Jesus, in the eyes [of] no believer in Jesus could any such body of evidence as hath here been seen [to] present itself be considered as worth regarding.”
Indeed Bentham’s main purpose in all three volumes of “Not Paul, but Jesus” is to show the error in following the ascetic Paul instead of the true Christianity of the more tolerant Jesus, who accepted the human pursuit of pleasure. This concept is introduced in the first volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus” was published in 1823. Fearing hostile reactions, Bentham used the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith. The second volume, which deals with the early church, and the third volume, which focuses on sexual morality, remained unpublished.
Bentham wrote a lot about homosexuality
Bentham wrote more than 500 pages explaining his liberal views on homosexuality during the last 50 years of his life. Some of these documents may have circulated among his followers, but none of it was published during his lifetime.
The first Bentham writings on homosexuality to be published were primarily secular. His 1785 essay “Offences Against One’s Self: Paederasty” is considered the first document arguing for decriminalization of homosexuality in England. He reasoned that consensual sex between same-sex partners should not be punished because it does not harm anyone. The essay was not published until 1931, when a fragment first appeared in print. The full essay was finally published in 1978.
Only now are Bentham’s writings on Jesus and homosexuality coming to light. The third volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus” was not published in any form until 2013. It was released last year by the Bentham Project at University College London, which counts him as its spiritual father.
In January 2014 Bentham’s own overview of the “Not Paul, but Jesus, Volume 3” appeared as a chapter in a book published by Oxford University Press: “Of Sexual Irregularities, and Other Writings on Sexual Morality” by Jeremy Bentham. (More info at: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199685189.do)
A section on “Jesus’s Sexuality” is also included in the 2012 article “Jeremy Bentham: Prophet of Secularism” by Philip Schofield, director of the Bentham Project. He draws on the “Not Paul” book and another set of manuscripts to draw powerful conclusions such as this:
Bentham claimed that, unlike Paul, Jesus did not, according to any account that appeared in the four Gospels, condemn either the pleasures of the table or the pleasures of the bed. On the contrary, Jesus’s opposition to asceticism was shown in his condemnation of the Mosaic law in Matthew 9: 9–17…. Bentham pointed out that Paul’s most forceful condemnation was directed towards homosexuality. Bentham responded that not only had Jesus never condemned homosexuality, but that he had probably engaged in it. There were, moreover, many females in Jesus’s immediate circle, and again Bentham saw no reason why Jesus might not have engaged in heterosexual activity as well.
Bentham’s mysterious life and lasting impact
Although Bentham doggedly defended consensual sexual activity between same-sex couples for half a century, his own love life remains a mystery. The son of a wealthy lawyer, he was a child prodigy who grew up to be a brilliant and eccentric recluse, living alone in London in what he called “a state of perpetual and unruffled gaiety.” He referred to his home as his “hermitage.” He lived there with a “sacred teapot” called Dicky, a favorite walking stick named Dapple, and a beloved tom cat addressed as the Reverend Doctor John Langborn. He declared, “I love everything that has four legs,” and allowed a colony of mice to share his office. One study concludes he had Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Check this link for an 1827 description of Bentham’s eccentricities.
The philosopher’s influence continued to grow after his death as his supporters spread his ideas. Most of what is now known as liberalism is rooted in Bentham’s philosophy. His diverse followers included economist John Stuart Mill and feminist firebrand Frances “Fanny” Wright, who once exclaimed in a poem, “Oh had I but the Lesbyan’s lyre, / Blue-eyed Sappho’s fervid strain, / Then might I hope thy blood to fire…”.
Contemporary queer theologians such as Robert Shore-Goss have recognized him too. Shore-Goss writes a section about Bentham in the chapter on “Christian Homodevotion to Jesus” in his book “Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up.”
During his 84 years Bentham wrote manuscripts totaling more than 5 million words, and many remain unstudied and unpublished. The Bentham Project is busy recruiting volunteers worldwide to transcribe them. More words of wisdom are likely to emerge from this prophet of LGBTQ rights who once summed up his approach to life by saying: “Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove.”
Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III by Jeremy Bentham, edited by Philip Schofield, Michael Quinn and Catherine Pease-Watkin, is now freely available to download or view online at:
http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/2013/04/30/not-paul-but-jesus-vol-iii/
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Top image credit:
Jeremy Bentham portrait by Henry William Pickersgill (Wikimedia Commons)
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Related links:
To read this article in Russian, go to:
Гомосексуальность Иисуса в трудах философа XVIII века (nuntiare.org)
To read this article in Italian, go to:
Il Gesù omosessuale del filosofo Jeremy Bentham (gionata.org)
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered. It is also part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.
This article was first published on Q Spirit in June 2017, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on July 4, 2024.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts
Bentham’s entire argument consists of just making up fantasy – e.g. claiming that the so-called “naked youth” was a “male prostitute loyal to Jesus”, which has no basis in the text whatsoever (and he only became “naked” after the soldiers pulled his garment off). Nowhere does the Bible claim that Jesus had sex with anyone, male or female, and Jesus’ lack of specific condemnation of homosexuality is a disingenuous argument since Jesus didn’t specifically condemn rape, pedophilia, kidnapping, or a host of other things either (that’s probably because there was no need to condemn every single sin and crime that was already condemned by the theology of the time).
To state that Jesus was homosexual is blasphemy of the worst kind. The Bible is precisely clear that Jesus Christ is the hypostatic union or the fusion of two natures “God and man” and he in theological circles he is called the God/man. As God Jesus could not have had sex with anyone male or female. It was totally against his sinless purity to surrender to lust. He was totally pure and spotless as a man which made him the lamb of God without spot or wrinkle and he was beyond human purity and fully holy as God. To assault the character of God come in human flesh is heinous blasphemy and inexcusable.
AND YET God the Father gave his ONLY BEGOTTEN SON who was conceived of the Holy Spirit to a virgin (not human lust but a miraculous inpregnation) the required no sexual activity. So Jesus as God in the form of man walked on earth among us and never had a sexual encounter. If he had it would have been spelled out as are the sexual encounters of other scripture characters.
The person or persons who espouse this blasphemy need to repent in humility and confess this atrocious sin to God and seek his forgiveness and eternal life through the blood shed on Calvary to pay in full for man’s sin debt. Continuing to teach this blasphemous idea and to die teaching it will be a sure fire trip to the lake of fire forever as spoken of in Revelation 20 and verses 11-15. Be warned; “God is not to be mocked.”
For assurance that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh please visit the page https://www.crlord.com/the-deity-of-jesus.html – See also the related pages on this website for further information on this subject.
Rick,
I think I understand your vision of Jesus’ aimlessness but don’t understand why you think sexual expressions are sinful. As you know, there are Saints -married couples such as Louis and Zelig Martin who were the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux. Her parents engaged in sex to have her and their other children too. Can you bring yourself around to recognizing holy sexuality – a mutual loving and caring expression of sexual intimacy between couples -in this case betweeen a married man and his wife, that accords with the mind and will of God? John’s gospel speaks of being born from above and makes it clear that this kind of regeneration transcends the way people are conceived and born into this world.
It seems to me that holy sexuality is capable of being expressed between people of the same or different sex when their expressions are motivated by live, care, and the willingness to bring pleasure into the bonds that unite them.
For the most part, people cannot reconcile the thought of Jesus expressing love to another man as they hold that sex is dirty or filled with selfish passion. However, as I am trying to show there are holy expressions of sex carried out in a living fashion. Jesus, being sinless was also relational and if ever he had sexual intimacy with another person it would have been holy and living. Most Christians have seen the exploitation of sexuality as depicted in sensual scenes in theaters or other art firms but that is not the whole expression if the gift if sexuality. All men and women are capable of sexual relationships that are informed by love and respect and unfortunately this dimension is lacking in a world dominated by greed and lust. And yet, there have been saints who have risen above worldly standards affirming the holiness of sex and sexual relationships. Would you concur?
What nonsense to suggest that all sex is sinful. This kind of garbage thinking is why Christianity as promulgated by its most famous preachers has lost all credibility.
The Bible says noth8ng about the hypostatic union. That is from the minds of layer generation of Christians trying to work out what they saw in the Bible. What if Jesus had a homosexual orientation, but was celibate? Would you still be ok with him?
It is interesting how Bentham was pre-modern in regarding this whole subject in an almost wholly sexual rather than psychological light. It’s as fundamental a mistake as most gay/queer theologians make today when they keep insisting that Jesus said nothing at all about homosexuality when in fact he did. Not only did he significantly affirm that some people are born different (the eunuch word was the nearest ancient world term for homosexual)but he referred to homophobia and its potential for murderous violence in the Sermon on the Mount using it, I think, as a kind of symbolism of all racisms and prejudices. Amazingly, the Aramaic Raca word which should translate something abusive like “faggot”, is an asteroid notably connected in Jesus’ birth data (that I claim to possess) to Honoria (Honour) and the Part of Sexuality. It is so in a tense way which suggests Jesus probably was insulted in the course of his life by some critics as gay/queer/different, which there are a variety of reasons to suppose he was.
Some people think it doesn’t matter whether Jesus was gay or not which seems as strange as suggesting it couldn’t matter whether Michelangelo was when plainly the orientation influenced his whole output. Gay (and I do mean an essential orientation rather than the fluid identity without essence assumed by queer theory) is however before all else a psychology, a mindset, an outlook. If and why Jesus was gay is an important subject, but as far as sex is concerned almost the most vital question for us today is whether Jesus would approve or tolerate its expression in others. Even though some kind of eros may be assumed to have existed between Jesus and John,(again, the birth pattern supports some kind of relation) for himself as Messiah we can categorically affirm Jesus had intercourse with no one of either sex. Not only is that written into his natus quite descriptively, but this abstention was necessarily the case in cultural and religious context. No matter what anyone’s beliefs and opinions regarding Jesus’ humanity and divinity are, the fact is Jesus was self-understood and understood by his disciples to be what to the OT was the Angel of the Lord, the visible face of the invisible God. Given the sin of the fallen angels who mated with the daughters of men in Genesis, it would be unthinkable for Jesus and his disciples to duplicate something of the kind. (In fact, had not the men of Sodom wished to have intercourse with angels?) So, imagination should not be allowed to get too out of hand in this area after the manner of especially some theological queer theorists who seem to take the liberty to say almost anything about Jesus.
In its details and various implications however this whole subject is so large, complex and controversial one cannot possibly hope to cover it here, but anyone who wants to explore it could usefully read my “Testament of the Magi” (available in book and kindle at Amazon https://goo.gl/I28aCm)and in especially its Part Two which covers a lot in terms of history, psychology and theology. The information here should have been common knowledge and discussed long ago but I have always met almost complete silence and indifference if I have ever approached gay names in religion to the point I have pretty much given up on the subject of Jesus and sexuality and on gay Christians generally. Among other things it seems to be I am dismissed as some non American poaching on territory still after many years largely in American hands.
Rollan, as usual you have insights into LGBTQ spirituality that come from the stars. Thank you!
As a straight atheist … How wonderful !many thanks for this informative piece !
Compliments from those who don’t share my faith or sexual orientation are always a most welcome affirmation. I try to write objectively to inform everyone of all backgrounds and beliefs.
This sounds like a great project, Doug! Please let me know when your graphic novel is published. I already put all the best info I have on the devotion between Perpetua and Felicity into my blog article.
If you want to know more, I suggest going back to the original source: “The Passion of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their Companions,” the original prison diary written by Saint Perpetua and edited by Tertullian. It is available in many versions, including this one:
“ The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity: and other writings ” by Tertullian of Carthage (Author), R. E. Wallis (Translator), S. Thelwall (Translator)