orichalcum | Better than...

When I have the same endorphin-rush reaction to teaching a class as to sex or really good chocolate, I know I'm in the right line of work. This was my first attempt to ever teach a 3-hour class, much less to a bunch of students who I have much less in common with than normally. (City College students vs. Columbia ones). Furthermore, I was teaching Genesis and the Pandora myth, since the class is on Women in Antiquity.

Despite my fears, we had a great class, starting off with a 1.5 hour discussion about the Garden of Eden. I think I really managed to open up their minds. They had a lot of really interesting commentary about certain aspects of the text. For example, the literal Hebrew translation of the word normally rendered as "helpmeet" in "And God made a woman to be his helpmeet" is "an equal companion similar to the person who will provide assistance."

Of course, there were some less than good aspects as well. About a third of my class is seriously homophobic, and it's not like it's a topic that doesn't come up in a class on gender in antiquity. Quote from this week: "If David was gay, God would have just struck him down and we wouldn't have any stories about him." I'm not entirely sure how to deal with this, and I'm worried that any gay students in my class may feel uncomfortable with the clear majority prejudice. OTOH, it's not quite my place to say "You're bigoted and wrong." So my hope is to gradually at least cause them to think more about the issues in question and introduce lots of positive gay figures like Sappho and Plato. I did mention the sweet gay daddy penguins at the Central Park Zoo, but got mixed reactions. Suggestions for how to cope are appreciated - I don't know where the line is in terms of imposing my personal moral sensibilities.

Next week, we discuss Sappho's poetry. I'm a little nervous, but mostly, I'm really thrilled to be teaching a class with students this talkative and interested in really learning. I've rarely had 3 hours go by that quickly. This is definitely what I'm supposed to be doing. Now to work on my dissertation so I can actually get paid a decent amount of money to do it. But first, more Quest writing. We have Saints to name, and props to list.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Honestly, I don't see any reason why a teacher needs to preserve neutrality on controversial issues--I've had quite a few teachers that expressed strong opinions on various topics, and I think it made for interesting conversations and debates. However, there is a line between "this is my opinion, let's discuss", and "this is my opinion and I AM RIGHT and will grade you badly if you disagree". However, if they do say something clearly offensive, there's no reason not to call them on it.

So, from a historical and biblical standpoint, saying David was gay is *really* reading into the text, and in a way that the sort of people who are most likely to object are also most likely to take as particularly offensive (fundies and all that). It might be a good idea to tread lightly on that.

I didn't say David was gay. I said that we should look at this text, which is one of the first descriptions of a really emotional, really human relationship in the Bible*, and think about it, and that him being in a romantic relationship with Jonathan was one of the many possible explanations. It was a student who announced that he couldn't possibly be gay because of God's wrath. (To be fair, we had just gotten out of Leviticus.)

*The Book of Ruth is an obvious exception here, as is arguably the relationship between Jacob and Rachel. But the kind of intense relationship between two people as in the David-Jonathan story is fairly rare up until Samuel or Kings.

Leviticus *is* pretty heavy on the wrath-o'-God stuff :) Besides being uncharitable, however (which he certainly was), the student might have a point...not so much about what God would actually do to gay people, but what the perception of homosexuality was at the time: namely that it was a serious offense against God's intended promise of land and progeny ("be fruitful and multiply" is repeated several times in the OT). It's arguable that saying God would strike David down if he were gay is more consistent with the biblical world view than saying he had a romantic relationship with Jonathan. Offensive to our modern sensibilities, yes, and rightly so. But consistent.

But anyway, certainly the relationship between David and Jonathan is fairly unique (and Ruth was probably written after much of Kings, fyi...). Romantic implications, however, are a very modern interpretation...it is highly unlikely that a post-exilic Jewish audience would have seen the relationship that way. Far more likely is that this is one of many cases of the Deuteronomistic author making a case for David's rightful kingship...David was something of a scoundrel who came to the throne under highly questionable circumstances, which included the violent deaths of both Jonathan and his father. Portraying him as having had a very close relationship with Jonathan may well have been the author's way of saying "see, he wouldn't have had anything to do with the heir's death!"

Sorry for the rant :) I realize that presenting the OT as literature can sometimes be like, say, trying to watch LOTR without color and with the soundtrack removed...it's lacking a lot of depth. It's not just literature, its also at various times history and liturgical manual and religious Truth. One of the results of this is that it is also important to a lot of people in a way that literature is not. Which makes it a touchy subject to teach.

I agree with

jendavis above, I do think you owe it to your class to voice your own opinions. Some of the best teachers I had were great precisely because they told us what they thought. However, talking about homophobia...wow. I do not envy you this. I would try and keep it as light as possible, I mean in the sense that you don't want anyone to 'lose face'. If you like, I can lend you a big stick to tread with, though, while you are walking softly. ^-^;; *grins*

Well, the question in my mind would be, was the student making a commentary on homosexuality in a deliberately offensive manner, or was he making commentary on the likelihood of a gay relationship in the context of the bible? I mean, I could easily see that comment as a clumsy way of saying, "it doesn't make sense that there would be a homosexual relationship portrayed in the bible, because the stance of the god portrayed in those parts of the bible wouldn't allow it." Which is perhaps a debatable point on it's own, but not, I think, inherently offensive.

If, on the other hand, the guy was actually saying god strikes down homosexuals as a matter of course, then he was probably... uh, less than in touch with reality.

In the general run of things, I think it's perfectly fine to react to a homophobic comment with, "You have a right to your opinions, but this is my classroom, and it's my intention that that classroom be an environment that's comfortable for gay students, so I'd like you to keep personal opinions on this subject to yourself during class time. You can discuss this with me after class if you want to."

What she said :)

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You might want to be careful there...

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