Queer Readings of the Hebrew Bible

Karin Hügel published “A Queer Reading of Qohelet 4,9-12” in Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 28/1 and “Queer Readings of the Song of Songs” in Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research 21 as results of her research into queer readings of the Hebrew Bible.

Qohelet 4,9-12 can be interpreted today as a queer countertext in relation to conservative exegeses of the biblical second creation account. To answer the question, which partners we need in order not to be alone or to be able to survive, Qoh 4,9-12 suggests also other models than an exclusive man-woman relationship. It can be argued from a queer perspective that a sexual relation between men is mentioned in Qoh 4,11: That two men warm up while lying, can imply that they sexually arouse each other. Within the framework of a queer reading Qoh 4,11 may also trigger associations about other, diverse, queer companions, who sexually arouse each other while lying. Various things can be associated with the threefold cord, which is not so quickly torn apart, mentioned in Qoh 4,12. Not only future children, as asserted in the Midrash on Qohelet, may form a basis for partnership – perhaps also queer –, affection and sexual desire also play an important role. It follows from later Jewish interpretations, namely from the Babylonian Talmud Qiddushin, i.e., bQid 82a, and from parallel passages, that Jewish scholars have not previously forbidden that two unmarried men sleep with each other under the same cloak.

Karin Hügel, “Eine queere Lesart von Kohelet 4,9-12”, in: Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament. An International Journal of Nordic Theology, Volume 28, Issue 1, Routledge, London 2014, 104-115, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09018328.2014.926697

Because of its positive, exciting representation of extra­marital sexual desire – not only of a man, but also and in particular of a woman, the Song of Songs can be read today as a queer, biblical counter­text in relation to contemporary conservative ideas of marriage, which are still cemented through certain interpretations of the Genesis creation accounts. Queer is understood in a general sense as “against the dominant norm”. While woman is subordinate to man according to the second creation account in Genesis, the Song of Songs talks about mutual desire and a fundamental enthusiasm for human eros. The Song describes the attractiveness and beauty of the lovers and can be interpreted as a queer counter­text to Gen 3:16­19 in the second creation account, in which pains of birth and of agricultural labour are described etiologically as the consequence of Adam’s and Eve’s eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. In contrast to the mostly androcentric perspective of other texts in the Hebrew Bible, the Song describes female desire from a woman’s point of view, even more often than the male protagonist sings of his sexual passions for his female lover. Paradoxically, feminine eroticism is celebrated, but also controlled in the Song, although the latter is never quite successful. The woman’s incisive self­assertion in Song 1:5: “I am black but beautiful” has become a locus classicus of the Afro­American civil rights movement, whose slogan is: Black is beautiful. This passage from the Song is open to a queer, anti­racist reading. In the Song of Songs, we encounter a different language of eroticism. Queer readers might be particularly interested in the Song because of its mundanity. This collection of non­religious songs among the otherwise religious texts of the Bible can be seen as queer because of its sexual innuendos and metaphorical, often ambiguous descriptions of sexual acts.

Karin Hügel, “Queere Lesarten des Hohelieds”, in: Uta Blohm/Márta Bodó/Sigríður Guðmarsdóttir/Stefanie Knauss/Ruth Papacek (eds.), In-between Spaces: Creative Possibilities for Theologies of Gender/Entre espacios: propuestas creativas para las teologías de género/Zwischenräume: Kreative Möglichkeiten für Gender-Theologien. Jahrbuch der Europäischen Gesellschaft für theologische Forschung von Frauen/Anuario de la sociedad Europea de mujeres en la investigación theológica/Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research, Volume 21, Peeters, Leuven 2013, 169-185.

The author is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam and an external member of ASCA, that is the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, and of ARC-GS, that is the Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality. The provisional title of her dissertation is “Queer Readings of the Hebrew Bible” (“Queere Lesarten der Hebräischen Bibel”) – it will be written in German.

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9104666/huegelkarinarticleqohelet.html

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9104666/huegelkarinarticlesongofsongs.html

https://uva.academia.edu/KarinHügel

http://www.www.uva.nl/profile/k.hugel