when ur a real life Biblical scholar but also gay

What if I rejoined Tumblr just to participate in the David x Jonathan fandom... haha jk... unless???? davonati on AO3 | she/him | 25 | Jewish NSFW content found here! No minors allowed!Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[davonati]

Obligatory pinned post

Hello, you can call me Vee (completely fake name) or “tumblr user davonati” if you want. I’m Jewish, brown, queer, and ND. 25 years old. She/her or he/him pronouns are both fine.

Some more things about me:

I got my undergraduate degree in Middle Eastern Studies with a focus on religion, and wrote my thesis on the Book of Samuel. I won’t give any more details because I really really don’t want anyone from real life to find this blog, but I promise I am a legitimate Biblical Scholar™, both academically and through a Jewish lens.

My main fandom activity is writing fanfiction, which you can find on AO3 also under the name davonati or linked from this post here: https://www.tumblr.com/davonati/754854710163521536/my-davidjonathan-fanfics

I’m interested in all sorts of queer Tanakh, obviously focused on David/Jonathan but I also really love transing Biblical characters’ genders. I also have a guilty pleasure special interest in Jesus Christ Superstar, which I love despite having very little interest in the New Testament. Will also include some other mythology stuff, because I am a huge nerd.

Generally I prefer to refer to characters from the Tanakh by their Hebrew names rather than the anglicized versions: David is pretty much just David, but I tend to use Yonatan, Sha’ul, etc. instead of Jonathan, Saul, etc. I guess this is kind of a religiopolitical statement? But I also just like the Hebrew names better.

Despite my love of ancient Israel, I am not a supporter of the modern state of Israel, falling somewhere between a non- and anti-Zionist. I don’t actually want to talk about it, but just know that it’s a relatively recent development (within the last year) and my old work doesn’t always reflect my current beliefs.

[drchucktingle]

tough but fair

[stephenroot]

New type of guy just dropped.

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[vile-things]

[davonati]

ok but maybe some of us WANTED alecto the ninth to be written fully in KJV-style prose

[davonati]

it sucks that I only learned to stand up for myself and be a bitch (when necessary) in the last couple years. I could have had so much more fun in high school instead of torturing myself always being the bigger person and turning the other cheek……

[davonati]

honestly the biggest problem with the vast majority of anti-bullying programming (and I should know, I received a Lot of it) is that the main advice was always “just ignore the bullies and they’ll go away! they just want to get a reaction out of you, don’t give them the satisfaction!” which is actually basically the worst thing you can tell a kid who is constantly getting harassed by their peers. if a single teacher or counselor had told me to just stand up for myself and tell the bullies to fuck off I legitimately think it would have worked! I have no fucking clue why the wisdom is “have the bullied kids act even more passive and helpless, that will definitely make the bullied respect them more” like jeeesus fucking christ

[davonati]

it sucks that I only learned to stand up for myself and be a bitch (when necessary) in the last couple years. I could have had so much more fun in high school instead of torturing myself always being the bigger person and turning the other cheek……

[davonati]

every day I go on the internet and discover a new type of guy

[avi-mation]

Earth’s Scapegoat and her Sacrificial Lamb

[shock]

the wording on this Jack russell vid beamed a permanent mark onto my brain

[davonati]

I love pussy… would love to eat some one day

[jcsfreak]

this fanfic shit is easy

[davonati]

omg I didn’t know Boots Riley was Jewish… best Shavuot gift ever

[davonati]

tired of tall top/short bottom. need more short top content. short top supremacy!!!

[creekfiend]

I think a lot of this 'religion is necessarily oppressive' stuff honestly is kind of like the confusion about ppl thinking that like, slavery and scientific racism and etc came about BECAUSE OF beliefs that Black people etc were not fully human rather than those beliefs -- those ARGUMENTS, really -- being JUSTIFICATIONS that were invented to allow white ppl to continue to engage in slavery which was at its core about economic exploitation. Like that most systemic bigotry serves a Useful Purpose to those in power and that's why it exists; the policies aren't put in place because of the beliefs. The cart isn't pulling the horse. Christian stuff was used to justify the same things that later, "scientific progress" was used to justify in the west (e.g. scientific racism, eugenics, etc. Very very very much rooted in the idea of certain beliefs and cultures as inherently more rational and forward thinking because BEING RATIONAL AND VALUING SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS WERE CULTURAL VALUES AT THE TIME.) (This does not say anything about Science. It says things about Institutes and power and oppression.)

Similarly, you see a lot of people saying "well religion is used to justify oppression by the people in power" and its like yes. Religion is not unique. Beliefs about what is true about the world -- ideology -- can always be used to do this and frequently is.

When there are common beliefs held by a majority of people in a given culture those beliefs will be used by the people in power to explain and justify the things they do to maintain power and control in society.

This isn't a function of religion. It's a function of power.

When people say "well, this religious rhetoric is/was used to justify misogynistic legal standards in this society" the answer is yep. And if it wasn't that it would be something else because that society had an investment in that specific kind of oppression of women. We have seen this morph into 'rational' 'scientific' explanations for women's inferiority and justifications for making women second class citizens once the cultural values swing more towards rationality and science, as well. Thats... regular.

Like... love to have a good faith convo about this with someone who doesn't get weird and reactionary about "Religious People" but sure not seeing much of that going on. Weirdly.

Anyway.

[chamerionwrites]

#i think this can be a tough pill to swallow bc it necessarily involves#accepting that your secular ideology and philosophy can be exploited just as easily for violence and harm#as religious ideology can#because thats humans babey#fascinating also to me is the phenomenon of people believing that bc they do not subscribe to any beliefs that they see as#''religious'' or ''spiritual'' they are immune to magical thinking of any sort.#i promise you that is not true in the slightest.#and also the things that we each identify as SILLY AND OBVIOUSLY UNTRUE FAIRY TALE SHIT is... culturally determined hee hee#im sorry to tell u that no one is objective about reality. thats rough buddy!

[anthraxofeffervescence]

The core conceit of Lord of the Rings is pretty funny. You are a twenty three year old in a suburb of Maine. The little bracelet in your grandpa’s attic has an inscription on it that is the password to the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. It is up to you to walk to the only hydraulic press in the world, located in Arizona, before the FBI finds the bracelet, kills you, and enslaves the suburb of Maine you currently live in

[anthraxofeffervescence]

Also the 90-year old hobo that your grandpa beat in a rap battle for possession of the bracelet while hiding from the Romanian secret police really loved the bracelet because it was coated in small amounts of LSD and tried to hunt and kill your grandpa to get it back. He was then apprehended by the FBI and instantly gave them your grandpa’s address. Seal Team Six is about to break down your door and shoot you, says your local congressman who can also do cool magic tricks

[bloodyraven1001]

There's a guy in NY who MIGHT be capable of destroying the codes but won't coz he simply wants to spend time with his wife. So it's up to your grandpa's old friend in rural Ohio to get you the friends capable of finishing the task.

[ariaste]

And we must not, at any point, remember the existence of aircraft and ask aloud why we can't just fly to Arizona

[davonati]

I need to kiss a girl I need to kiss a girl I need to KISS! A! GIRL!