#queer bible

[floral-ashes]

I pissed off a far-right Catholic lawyer. 😂

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Sunday, 3/15 — John 9:

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. Jesus’ disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned.” - vv. 1-3a

John 9 tells the story of “the man born blind,” whose social role is to serve as an object lesson about the supposed consequences of sin. But Jesus breaks him free of this role by declaring, “Nobody sinned!”

And I imagine that that Truth spoken aloud — someone finally recognizing that he’s a human being, not sin embodied — brings more healing to this man than the subsequent receiving of sight.

After all, his sudden sighted state subjects him not to newfound welcome, but further suspicion from his society. “Surely” this transformation, conducted on the Sabbath, is the result of sin just like his blindness supposedly was.

But as religious leaders continue to debate his existence while mostly ignoring his testimony about his own lived experience, this man continues to assert his humanity. They can suspect him, judge him, even exile him, but the Truth has set him free: His existence is not and never was a sin.

- Avery Arden

[davonati]

Several years ago I discovered an absolutely brilliant article by Dr. Raymond-Jean Frontain called “The Fortune in David’s Eyes”, basically talking about the history of King David as a queer icon. Unfortunately it’s pretty hard to find unless you have access through a university library, but I really really want more people to know about it, so hopefully these screenshots are legible!

[a-queer-seminarian]

A Queer Look at Hagar's Story

A short reflection on this Sunday's lectionary text, Genesis 21:8-21

Name changes occur throughout scripture, but there is only one instance in which a human being directly names God!

That person is Hagar — the woman enslaved and then cast off by God’s own chosen people, yet who recognizes God's solidarity with her in a way that resonates with many marginalized folk, including queer & trans people of faith.

Back in Genesis 16, Hagar is forced to conceive a child with Abraham — her bodily autonomy denied — and then suffers abuse at Sarah's hand so painful that she prefers almost-certain death in the wilderness. While waiting to die, God comes to her, nourishes her, encourages her with the promise of a better future. For a time, Hagar must return to her oppressors.

This is a hard message, but It may resonate with queer and trans people who make the hard choice to find what safety they can while in the closet, or who choose to remain in relationship with family or faith communities that have caused them harm.

It also isn't the end of Hagar’s story: when the time is right, God leads her out — as told in this week’s text in Genesis 21.

Sarah continues to abuse Hagar, with Abraham as a passive bystander and enabler. In a society where only one of Abraham's sons can inherit his wealth and blessing, Sarah sees Hagar's son Ishmael as a threat to her son Isaac, simply by existing! In our own day and age, this myth of scarcity persists, causing us to hoard resources and compete needlessly.

Sarah cannot stand to see Hagar's child playing with her own son — as if they were equals! As if a slave boy should be having a moment of fun! She reads something sinister into the play — not unlike how some people today read sinister things into queer play, into drag queens and gender expansive youth.

Having convinced herself that Hagar and her son are a threat, Sarah gets Abraham to cast them out.

But again, God is with the outcast; God comes again to Hagar, who in Genesis 16 had given God the name El Roi — "God sees me.” This God is the god of her oppressors, yet Hagar recognizes that this god is her God as well! This god is a God who sees the suffering of the lowest of society, and responds.

God sees queer and trans people, too. God is our God, too — those who hate us do not have a monopoly on the Divine!

And God walks with us through every struggle, fueling us to fight the good fight and promising blessings to come.

___

Questions for reflection:

When have you witnessed God coming to the Hagars in our midst?

When has your community behaved like Abraham & Sarah, hoarding God's love as if there were not blessing enough to go around?

Can you imagine a world in which Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar meet again? What would Hagar need to feel safe to meet with her former abusers? What would Sarah & Abraham need to do to make things right?

___

Further Reading

Queer-specific resources:

Article: Out in Scripture's commentary for Proper 7 of year A, "Claiming God's Promise in the Midst of Exile" — connecting Hagar to supportive parents of LGBT children

Podcast episode: "Hagar and the Caravan" — connecting Hagar's story to that of Latin American trans women se"eking asylum

Essay: "Intersex Foremother and Forefather" — ancient texts suggesting that Abraham and Sarah were intersex

Other resources:

Sermon: "No Good Patriarchs: Solidarity with Hagar" — Exploring the messiness of how one person can embody both oppressor & oppressed, and how "good" people buy into unjust systems

Article: "Jesus and Hagar: the Form of a Slave" — Wil Gafney's connection between Hagar and Mary the mother of Jesus, through a womanist lens

Affirmation of Faith: "God of Hagar, Ishmael, Sarah, Abraham — God of oppressor and oppressed"

Essay: "Hagar and Sarah: Was Reconciliation Ever a Possibility?" — Exploring various writers' visions of what a meeting between these two women could look like

Video: Teaching children the story of Hagar, with an interfaith focus

Essay: connecting Hagar and Ishamel to the Genesis 22 story of Abraham nearly sacrificing Isaac

[caesar-73]

Eve came from Adam’s flesh, so she was XY and therefore the first trans girl ever. In this essay I will...

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Monday, 3/9 — Genesis 24

They said, “Summon the [youth], and let’s ask her opinion.” They called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will go.” - vv. 57-58

Of scripture’s many trans-resonant figures, Rebekah may be the least well-known. This is in part due to editorial work: Where ancient manuscripts called Rebekah na’ar (“boy”) five different times in Genesis 24, medieval scholars added in a vowel to “properly” name her na’arah (“girl”). 

In OtherWise Christian, Chris Paige suggests that na’ar may have functioned similarly to “tomboy” today, conveying a “youthful gender ambiguity” one was “supposed to” grow out of. But throughout her story, Rebekah shows agency that the Bible rarely gives women — including here where she interacts with a strange man while out by herself; plus, rather than her father and future husband negotiating her marriage, she chooses it. Later, she favors her feminine second son Jacob, perhaps seeing her own gender nonconformity reflected in him.

Even when we have to dig deep to find ourselves, queer folk have belonged to God’s people from the beginning.

Even when they erase us from the story, queer folk have been part of God’s activity in the world.

- Avery Arden

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

[image description: a blue square with brown banners reading “Gender Diversity Pre-Patriarchy: what Genesis 24 reveals” and Blessed Are the Binary Breakers, a multifaith podcast of trans stories.” In the middle of the square is an illustration of a person with light brown skin and long black hair carrying a water jug; to the side of this image is a quote reading “...Among them is Rebekah - who is described in the text’s original Hebrew not as a young woman, but as a young man.” / end id]

My latest podcast episode! Listen wherever you get your podcasts -- for a full list of where to listen as well as a link to the episode transcript, click here.

_________

Avery brings the story of Rebekah and her mother's household told in Genesis 24 into conversation with social anthropologists' understandings of the communal, cooperative societies that preceded the birth of patriarchal, patrilineal societies across the globe. 

Ze draws from Leslie Feinberg's text Transgender Warriors to explore how the rise of patriarchy and class impacted ancient persons whom we might identify as trans or otherwise gender diverse -- including the biblical character Rebekah, whom the original Hebrew text identifies as a na'ar, a "young man."

Other texts from which this episode draws are Mx. Chris Paige's OtherWise Christian and Joy Ladin's The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, as well as An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible by Gravett, Bohmbach, Greifenhagen, and Polaski.

[a-queer-seminarian]

My favorite images of Joseph of Genesis - the colorful, gender-full hero of Egypt and Israel

So I just published an episode of Blessed Are the Binary Breakers that includes a look at Joseph of Genesis. I drew from Jewish writers who make a case for a queer / trans reading of Joseph.

You can also read my little article on Joseph if you scroll to that section of this webpage.

Anyway, I also wanted to share some lovely images of Joseph I’ve found online. The artists didn’t necessarily intend a gender nonconforming Joseph in their pieces, but that’s what I see when I look at them. How about you? Do you have a favorite piece of art centered around Joseph of Genesis?

"Joseph Receives his Coat of Many Colors" by Shoshannah Brombacher. The vibrancy and dreamlike swirls of this piece are simply gorgeous. Truly, Joseph is the Keeper of Dreams. And as the Jewish Midrash on Genesis 37:2, Bereshit Rabbah 84:7, says, Joseph curls hir hair and seems to have used pencil to line hir eyes.

Not a fan of the whitewashing in this image, but I like that when I first looked at it, I misinterpreted the image as Joseph’s mother Rachel while she’s pregnant with Joseph, dressed in the same dress Jacob would one day gift to Joseph. According to the Hebrew of Genesis 29:17 with Genesis 39:6, Rachel and her child Joseph are both “beautiful of form and appearance.”

And then there’s these lovely old paintings from the 1800s by Owen Jones. I adore his long-haired Joseph who holds hirself gracefully, delicately. Here ze is describing the dreams of two Egyptians in prison. While their chests are bear, ze keeps hirs modestly covered.

Another one! Just look at Joseph, receiving Pharoah’s signet ring as a woman receives a trinket from a suitor! After growing up with brothers who didn’t appreciate hir gifts, Pharaoh is in awe of Joseph’s power to interpret dreams -- so much so that he elevates hir to the highest status imaginable.

Look at Egyptians lining up to show Joseph in gifts -- fine linens and gold chains for hir neck, as described in Genesis 41. Finally, I see a slightly lifted heel -- just as Bereshit Rabbah 84:7 says Joseph tended to do, a habit meant for young boys and women.

Okay, the way Joseph’s old garment is drawn in this one is just beautiful. I like how it looks like ze’s wearing lipstick and some eyeliner -- which is totally possible now that ze’s in Egypt, where such things were done! Also the like, power and determination in hir gaze, tempered by some gentleness...that’s exactly what I like to see in Joseph once ze’s come into hir own in Egypt. Able to dress and express hirself in ways that feel right, honored instead of reviled for hir gifts of dream interpretation...ze is powerful, sure of hirself, but compassionate. 

Finally, another painting from Owen Jones, this one showing Joseph in all hir Egyptian finery, overseeing the sharing of resources with people of other nations during the great famine ze predicted. Hir own brothers have fallen at hir feet! The ones who did not want a sibling like hir now desperately need hir help!

But they do not even recognize hir. Perhaps they expect Joseph to be enslaved, trapped in the condition into which they sold hir. Perhaps they expect Joseph to be bearded as an Israelite man as old as Joseph should be. They don’t expect a Joseph wearing fine linens and jewelry, smooth-faced and wearing eyeliner. Ze will test them, see if their hearts have changed; and when ze determines it safe to come out and does so, they will embrace all that Joseph has become with joy and remorse.