Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor... DRESS? Cross-Dressing in the Bible

Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, by Philipp Veit

Okay, THIS is great.

Insofar as the tale of Joseph plays any role in the religious imagination, it seems to have to do with Joseph's "coat of many colors" (Gen 37:3 KJV), and in some obscure relation to this, Joseph's troubled relationship with his brothers.

But what is this garment with which Joseph is "vested"? In the early part of the tale, it has a strangely prominent role. It is introduced as the token of the special favor with which Jacob, his father, regards Joseph, and it becomes the sign of Joseph's alleged death (37:31-33).

Before looking at the relevant texts, however, it is important to ask about the garment as such. For centuries the description of the garment was translated as the "coat of many colors." More recent scholarship has corrected this to a more accurate "long robe with sleeves." Thus the "technicolor dreamcoat" - the object of lavish description in Thomas Mann's extraordinary novelistic expansion of the story and of the Broadway play that owes something to that retelling - has disappeared in favor of a "long robe with sleeves." With that in mind, we may now indicate the texts with which we must initially concern ourselves.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him (37:3-4)

...Joseph has been sent to spy on his brothers, who are out doing the work of sons by shepherding Jacob/Israel's flocks. From some distance the brothers see Joseph coming - perhaps the robe is a giveaway - and plot to kill him. The eldest son, Reuben, however, suggests that they not shed blood.

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. (37:23-24a)

In the absence of Reuben, the brothers decide to sell the stripped Joseph to some Midianite slave traders. But now the absence of Joseph or his body must somehow be explained:

Then they took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, "This we have found; see now whether it is your son's robe or not." he recognized it, and said, "It is my son's robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces." Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. (37:31-34)

Three times we are told that the robe is "long" and "with sleeves." The first time it signals Joseph's status as beloved of his father. The last time it signal's Joseph's death. What is this robe?

Oscar Wintermute observes that the description of the robe corresponds to the description of the garbing of the king's daughters in 2 Sam 13:18-19. As it happens, this piece of sartorial evidence is found in the story of David's son Amnon raping Tamar, David's daughter. Tamar is reported to the reader as being "beautiful," which 13:1 says is why Amnon "fell in love with her." What follows is an attempted seduction in which Tamar resists, even suggesting that Amnon apply to David for Tamar's hand. But Amnon's impatience brooks no delay, and the result is a clear case of rape. The success of the rape does not, however, endear Tamar to Amnon: "Then Amnon was seized with a very great loathing for her" (13:15) Tamar, whose virginity has been taken by force, seems willing now to remain with Amnon as "his woman," but Amnon's loathing means that she is sent away, again over her protests. As she is dragged from the scene of the rape and loathing, we are informed:

(Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves; for this is how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.) So his servant put her out, and bolted the door after her. But Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore the long robe that she was wearing. (13:18-19)

This is the only other reference in the Bible to the particular sort of garb that Joseph is identified as wearing. This apparently beautiful and luxurious garment that serves as a mark of distinction for the virgin daughters of the king is the same garment with which the patriarch vested his favorite son. The parallels in the garment episodes are quite striking. Both play a role in the distinguishing of the wearer; both are worn by figures to whose beauty the reader is directed, and both wearers are assaulted by their brothers. Both garments become signs of mourning and violation. These multiple resonances of the long robe with sleeves prevent us from supposing that it is simply incidental that both Joseph and Tamar are depicted as wearing the same fashion statement.

But the dress is that of daughters; it is a woman's dress, or rather a girl's dress (the virgin daughters of the king), that Joseph's father gives him to mark him as specially loved. ...

...as Joseph is poised between adolescence and adulthood, he is singled out and vested with a maiden's garment as a sign of the special affection of his father. He is, at least to this degree, transvested and thus transgendered. The remarkably lovely adolescent male is transgendered by the affection of a more powerful male.

The rage of the brothers is thus doubly motivated. Not only is the youth their father's favorite, but he is also deeply troubling for gender roles. Indeed, readers may well expect that the one to be most troubled by Joseph's place as favorite would be Reuben, the oldest. But as the story is told, Reuben is Joseph's defender. Hence, the gender trouble, rather than Jacob's favoring the younger son, may be much more to the foreground. This is emphasized by the way in which the narrative seems to lay the stress on the feminine garment as the pivot of the story. Thus, the feminine apparel bestowed upon Joseph is the sign of the older male's doting upon him. It is the immediate provocation of the brothers' hatred. And this hatred has as its first object the stripping of Joseph; the removal of the infamous girl's robe. He is laid bare, revealed as not a girl but a boy; not different but the same. Hence he is exposed to the elements, bare and alone, in the pit and without water. Finally, it is the girlish dress that is stained in blood, the blood of the goat (the blood of rape? the blood of menstruation?) and presented, without explanation, to the doting father.

WOW. Joseph's technicolor dream coat was actually a girl's dress. He was dressed as a girl!

It's also pretty interesting that throughout history, many painters depicted Joseph as almost feminine in appearance. Look at the painting above (from the 1800s), especially Joseph's face.

And when we use this queer lens to analyze Joseph's story, his refusal of the advances of Potiphar's wife later on takes on a whole new meaning. Maybe it wasn't simply Joseph's loyalty to his boss that made him reject her come-on. Maybe he just wasn't interested in her... in that way!

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dress. Now that's fascinating!

Namaste,
Lee


If you want to read more analysis of Joseph's non-traditional gender role, pick up "Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" by Theodore W. Jennings Jr. The above quotes are from pages 178-182.

Ruth and Naomi - What Happened Next to our Favorite Biblical Lesbians?

It's too good a story to not finish properly. So, Ruth decides to cleave her life to Naomi's, and together they head back to the land of Judah.

Ruth in Boaz's Field
1828 painting by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

Ruth will eventually remarry, this time to Boaz. But this marriage is clearly not a relinquishing of the relationship to Naomi but a way of sheltering that relationship and of giving it security. Ruth and Naomi become coconspirators in snaring the wealthy Boaz. Indeed, Naomi gives Ruth precise instructions for an act of brazen seduction. She is to go onto the threshing floor after all are asleep and crawl under the cloak blanketing Boaz, uncovering his "feet" (3:4). Linafelt points out that here "feet" is likely a euphemism for genitalia and thus implies a fairly direct seduction. When he discovers Ruth snuggling up to his bared flesh, he agrees to cover her so as to hide her (or rather, them) from the eyes of the other men. He appears delighted that she has tried to seduce him, an old man, rather than the young bucks on the floor (3:10). Hence he decides on a way to prevent Ruth from being exposed as a shameless hussy so that he can marry her and have this beauty for himself.

The plots all work out. Boaz acquires Ruth for a wife, and they produce an heir who is David's grandfather. But the fulfillment of this design is itself more than a little strange. It is not only that the whole thing is arranged by women in order to find security for the love that binds them to one another. The way the wording of the conspiracy works is also that Naomi, in telling Ruth what to do, says that she herself will do it. (cf.3:1). Thus, where we read "you," the Hebrew often reads "I." It is as if in some fundamental way Ruth and Naomi are already "one flesh" (e.g., 3:3-4).

Moreover, the birth of Obed should, in patriarchal culture, mean that Ruth has given a son to Boaz. But the text makes clear that the son is born to Naomi. This is, at least, the view of the women of the village, who exclaim, "A son has been born to Naomi" (4:17). In an odd way the text makes Naomi both the mother (for she becomes the nurse of the infant; v.16) and the father (for it is to her that the son is born). This merging and shifting of gender mirrors what has happened earlier in the case of Ruth. Though younger, she leaves mother and father and cleaves to Naomi as Genesis says the man cleaves to the woman.

So interpreted, the story may help us see how the love of women for one another has managed to survive and even thrive under conditions of patriarchy and heterosexism. The obligations of the patriarchal structure are in fact complied with: Boaz has a son. But by this means the women find a shelter within which their love for one another can flourish. It is, after all, this love - the love of these two women for one another - that is the entire motivating force for the plot that unfolds; that is the romantic heart of this short story.

How amazing, and hopeful, that Ruth and Naomi found a way to be together for the rest of their days... and how incredible that the fruit borne of this lesbian love sired, in three generations, King David, who had a queer love of his own!

Ahh, I love learning how our queer love stories are so integral and woven into the quilt of our culture's founding myths!

Namaste,
Lee

The above excerpt is from pgs. 229-230 of "Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.

Even More Biblical Homoeroticism: The Love Story (and Lesbian Marriage!) of Ruth and Naomi

There is a famous story of women in love from the Hebrew Bible (or "Old Testament", just as there is the amazing tale of homoerotic love between David and Jonathan.

The story of Ruth and Naomi serves not only as an ancestral prelude to the story of David but also as an essential, if surprising, counterpoint to that saga. The story of David appears to be above all a story for and about men celebrating the adventures and exploits of men among men, in which women play only subordinate and minor roles. The story of Ruth and Naomi is the reverse of this field, focusing as it does on the struggles and the exploits of women in which even the principle male character, Boaz, is reduced to being the mechanism for securing the well-being of an enterprising partnership of women.

The Ruth-Naomi and David-Jonathan stories are also linked together thematically; they both deal with persons of the same gender loving one another. Because of the passionate romance that characterizes the relationships depicted, and the deep feeling and undying loyalty of the love narrated, these two stories have regularly served as models not only of same-sex but also of cross-sex friendship and lifelong loyalty.

The portion of the story that has been most often quoted comes early, after the reader has been told that Naomi has accompanied her husband and two sons to Moab on account of a famine in the land of Judah. As immigrant aliens in Moab, they apparently find hospitality. They settle there for several years, and Naomi's two sons find wives among the Moabites. Her husband has died, however, and soon her sons die as well. Hearing that the famine has passed in her own land, Naomi resolves to return, a lonely and bitter woman, in hopes of finding some kinsfolk to ease her last years. Her Moabitess daughters-in-law have apparently come to love Naomi and resolve to accompany her, themselves to be immigrant aliens in her land, as Naomi has been in theirs. Naomi argues that to do this would be tantamount to never marrying again. Orpah allows herself, reluctantly, to be persuaded, but "Ruth clung to her" (1:14). Naomi tries again to convince her to stay in Moab, but Ruth replies:

Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following after you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall by my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more if even death parts me from you. (1:16-17 RSV)

With good reason this declaration has been taken as a staple of wedding ceremonies. It goes even beyond the "till death do us part" of the wedding pledge to declare an unalterable commitment and permanent loyalty. Nowhere else in the Bible and scarcely in any literature do we find a more affecting exhibition of love and loyalty.

Yet it is the declaration of one woman to another. It is the declaration of same-sex love that has become the model and expression of cross-sex marraige.

Nor is this simply fortuitious or arbitrary. The text itself makes the reader think of heterosexual conjugality. The verb translated as "clung" (dabaq) in the assertion that Ruth clug to Naomi (1:14) is the same verb used in Gen 2:24 to articulate the mystery of (hetero)sexual union:

Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. (RSV)

The extravagance of desire and delight, which the author of Genesis has attributed to the relationship between male and female, becomes articulated in the words of Ruth. Her "cleaving" breaks into speech with this declaration in such a way that it gives voice as well to the longing and loyalty that struggle for speech between persons of the opposite sex.

Moreover, the content of her speaking makes clear that Ruth, like the man in Genesis, is leaving hearth and home in order to embark upon this new relationship. This is underscored by the words of Boaz to Ruth when he mets her in the field and tells her that he knows all she has done for the sake of Naomi, including leaving "your father and mother and your native land" (2:11).

Finally, we have heard from Naomi that the choice her daughters-in-law have contemplated, which Ruth has subsequently actually made, is one that almost surely replaces marriage. (1:13)

In a number of ways, then, the story insistently portrays the relationship between Ruth and Naomi as comparable to marriage and as an embodiment of it.

William Blake's 1795 painting
showing Naomi trying to dissuade
her daughters-in-law from coming with her.
Orpah leaves, but notice how Ruth "cleaves" to Naomi!

There are many sources with information about Ruth and Naomi. The above section is from pages 227-229 of the fascinating "Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" by Theodore W. Jennings Jr.

More Biblical Homoeroticism: The Prophet Elisha and his Resurrection of a boy/youth

The Story of David and Jonathan from the Bible is fascinating and inspiring, especially as it mirrors my own notion of the valor and heroism of gay relationships - two warrior heroes, who fall in love with each other.

But it's interesting to note that often times we look at history - especially hidden history - as a way to buttress up our current concepts of what is "right" and "good." Much of the Bitchin' Queer Quotes and Poems I've selected for this blog so far I chose because they're fascinating and they make me feel that being gay is NOT such an anomaly in our world - that there IS precedent and that there is, in fact, a long, proud tradition of same-sex love that we inherit upon learning about it.

The flip side of uncovering hidden history is that there are going to be things that are historical that don't exactly feel "good" to us today.

Ancient Greece had a history of cross-generational eroticism and relationships between men and boys (youths) that might seem to be fodder for today's religious right's accusations of equating homosexuality with pederasty.

But to ignore the uncomfortable historical facts makes our view of history's spectrum of sexuality as limited as the heterosexist historians who eliminated positive same-sex references in the first place.

Having said this, check out this fascinating bit from "Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. It's about the prophet Elisha and how he brought back from the dead a child/boy/youth:

Before we come to the actual resuscitation, Elisha sends his servant Gehazi to the boy with his staff, which is to be laid upon the boy. Despite the haste with which Gehazi complies with the strange orders of the prophet, the use of the staff as a substitute for the body (?) of the prophet does not meet with success. But Elisha is already on his way in person at the insistence of the Shunammite woman:

When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and closed the door on the two of them [Gehazi and the mother], and prayed to the LORD. Then he got up...and lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and while he lay bent over him, the flesh of the child became warm. He got down, walked once to and fro in the room, then got up again and bent over him; the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. (4:32-35)

...This later story fairly bristles with a barely suppressed eroticism. There is the staff as a possible phallic signifier, whose ineffectiveness seems to call out for the "real thing." The intimacy of lying on the boy (mouth to mouth, eye to eye, hand to hand) is underlined with the addition of the sexually charged verb, "bent over him." We notice the warming of the boy's flesh and, oddly, that the boy "sneezed" and did so seven times. What is going on here? We may take these elements in turn.

To what extent should we read the "staff" as a phallic substitute? If this is a phallic substitute, then the report that it does not work even when laid on the face (or front) of the child suggests that this resuscitation may only be done in person with the real body of the prophet. This would be the body with a real as opposed to a virtual phallic member attached.

The English translation seeks to soften the action by inserting "on the bed" when Elisha gets up on the boy and lies on him and bends over him. The triple underlining of the action of Elisha only makes more emphatic the quasi-sexual nature of this lying upon the boy that had been expressed in the earlier account (concerning Elijah) as "stretching" upon him. The triple verb is accompanied by the triple designation of body parts in proximity: mouth to mouth, eye to eye, hand to hand.

In this narrative the erotic character of Elisha's action is answered by the response of the lad. After the first intimate action in Elisha's bed, we are told that the lad's flesh becomes warm. At first this may seem an innocent if puzzling detail - until we recall an episode from another story, this time from the last days of David. The king's diminishing potency has alarmed his advisors, and they select and send a beautiful young Shunammite girl, Abishag, to lie in the king's "bosom" in order to warm him (1Kgs 1:1-4). And we recall that in the story of Elisha, we are in the home of a Shunammite woman. But now it is a boy in bed, and it is his body that is being made warm by the man who lies upon him. In each case the warming of the body by bodily proximity seems to aim at sexual arousal as the sign of bodily vitality. Unfortunately for David, Abishag is not as successful as Elijah. [or Elisha.]

But Elisha is not yet finished with the boy. He gets up and walks to and fro. Thus refreshed, he rises up upon the boy in bed again. And this time the boy not only responds with the warming of his flesh but also "sneezes" and does so not once but an astonishing seven times. Why is sneezing here the sign of new life? And why are we told that he does so seven times? The commentators regularly assert that this sneezing is a sign that the boy is breathing. But there would scarcely be any need to make use of a word that does not otherwise occur in Hebrew to signify breathing.*

*The word occurs in biblical Hebrew only in this passage. One wonders how the translators decided on "sneezing" as its translation.

There are other ways to say this; for example, the way it is said in the story in which Elijah has restored the boy. Sneezing is after all not associated with life but with a sort of convulsion more like death. But sneezing is like another act - the act of ejaculation. That is why we get the otherwise inexplicable "seven times." Sneezing seven times is not a good sign of vitality. But ejaculating seven times is a sign of rather extraordinary vitality.

On this reading, what has happened here? Elisha's act of getting upon the boy, lying on him, and bending over him is an action of sexual arousal, whose success is represented not only by erection (getting warm or even "hot") but also by multiple ejaculation. The boy near death or already dead has become a sexually potent young male through being sexually awakened by Elisha.

WOW. Now THAT's fascinating - and with Easter coming up, it adds a lot of texture and interest to the notion of resurrection - or perhaps I should use Theodore's pun: (res) Erection!

Namaste,

Lee

The quotes above are from pages 102-104

The Homoerotic (and Naked!) Ecstacy of the Prophets of Ancient Israel

David and Saul (1885) by Julius Kronberg.

Get ready for this amazing Queer interpretation of the Old Testament, which comes from "Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" by Theodore W. Jennings Jr.

Saul was told, "David is at Naioth in Ramah." Then Saul sent messengers to take David. When they saw the company of prophets in a frenzy, with Samuel standing in charge of them, the spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also fell into a prophetic frenzy. When Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they also fell into a frenzy. Saul sent messengers again a third time, and they also fell into a frenzy. Then he himself went to Ramah.... He went there, toward Naioth in Ramah; and the spirit of God came upon him. As he was going, he fell into a prophetic frenzy, until he came to Naioth in Ramah. He too stripped off his clothes, and he too fell into a frenzy before Samuel. He lay naked all that day and all that night. Therefore it is said, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" (19:19-24)

When Samuel told the youthful Saul that he was the Lord's chosen, Samuel also told him that he would receive three signs that he was indeed the one favored by Adonai. In the third sign, Samuel said:

You will meet a band of prophets coming down from the shrine with harp, tambourine, flute and lyre playing in front of them; they will be in a prophetic frenzy. Then the spirit of the LORD will possess you, and you will be in a prophetic frenzy along with them and be turned into a different person. (10:5-6)

The Queer interpretation Theodore makes of these Biblical passages is scholarly and fascinating. Here are some highlights:

The element upon which I want to particularly focus is the notice that Saul stripped off his clothes and lay naked for a day and a night. What has nakedness to do with prophetic frenzy?

...we may also note an intriguing parallel between the initial description of the band of prophets and the description that anticipated David's dancing before the ark. In both cases we have groups of men dancing; in both we have them accompanied by the wild music of lyre, flute, tambourine, and harp. Is the whole tale of David's dance before the ark modeled on the behavior of these ecstatic "prophets"? Is David, who is king and who will act as priest when the ark arrives at its destination, also taking the role of prophet in his own ecstatic dancing before the Lord?

There too we are told through the words of Michal that David's dancing was a naked cavorting. That is, nakedness seems to be a part of the ecstatic response to being possessed by YHWH.* It was the nakedness of David there that signaled to Michal his unfitness to be king, or so she said. But more than that, it was the naked cavorting that had awakened her sexual jealousy.

This brings us back to Saul dancing, throwing off his clothes in orgiastic ecstacy, and then falling into a swoon where he lies naked for a day and a night. We first observe that Saul's stripping off his clothes is identified as something that he has in common with the others who are in ecstatic frenzy: "He too stripped off his clothes." Getting naked is not something that distinguishes Saul from the other cavorting nabi'im but rather his identification with them. Naked cavorting is something "prophets" do.

What this episode is suggesting is that being possessed by Adonai leads males to whirl and writhe in naked ecstasy. The possession by the spirit of the Lord is an overpoweringly erotic, indeed sexual, experience.

I was raised in a Jewish household, dutifully went to Sunday School (though I often complained about it being boooo-ring), and at 13 was Bar-Mitzvah-ed.

Somehow, this fascinating and homo-positive history of what these Ancient Prophets of Israel did (the naked-ecstatic-dancing-cavorting-gay-orgies part...) was left out of my education.

What a shame. It would have made things a lot more interesting back then...

Well, at least we know about it now, right?

Hope you enjoyed learning about this as much as I did.

Namaste,
Lee





*YHWH is an intentionally un-pronounceable acronym for "God," which is part of the Jewish tradition of not writing out the word "God" but using other symbols and words to represent that idea. Other usages you may see include "G-d" and "Yahweh" instead of the Hebrew word for God, "Adonai." In Theodore's text, he distinguishes the character of God as portrayed in the Bible from the concept of God, and his use of YHWH represents the character of God in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament.

The quotes above are from pgs 83 - 93.