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Homosexuality and the Bible or Queer Reading? A Response to Martti Nissinen

This article offers a response to Martti Nissinen's important text Homo eroticism in the Biblical World. Although Nissinen's research is historical, his analysis of ancient practices is offered as a contribution to con temporary debates on homosexuality within the Church. A powerful case is made that attitudes towards gender relations in the ancient world were governed by assumptions concerning the proper relations between active, 'penetrating', social superiors and passive, 'penetrated', inferiors. The disjunction between this worldview and contemporary contexts and concepts is demonstrated, thus problematizing the notion that contemporary practices can be predicated upon 'biblical' norms.

Despite its significance Nissinen's work cannot be straightforwardly appropriated as a helpful contribution to debate. The very act of con structing a canon of biblical references to homosexuality is problematic. It positions homosexuality once again as the object of research—that which is silent while spoken about. This, in turn, disguises the assump tion that there is an unproblematic continuum in heterosexual relations that endures over time and does not require similar interrogation. Heteronormativity is thus actively sustained. There is a need to go beyond even the apparently progressive forms of biblical scholarship currently being pursued by Nissinen and others in order to develop a 'queer commentary' on the Bible. This will denaturalize the very con cepts male, female and homosexual through which our relations with the text are currently constructed.

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