If one surfs the Internet, one may find a number of sites through key words like “gay Jesus.” But does that suggestion have any solid biblical support? This book is an attempt to carefully and patiently explore texts from the Gospels that suggest something about Jesus’ own erotic attachments and the attitude toward same-sex relationships that may be fairly extrapolated from the traditions about Jesus. What emerges is evidence for the “dangerous memory” of Jesus as the lover of another man and as one whose attitudes toward such relationships, as well as toward gender and what are today called “marriage and family values,” are incompatible with modern heterosexism and homophobia. I hope that this study will provide support for continuing attempts to produce significant and enduring change in church and society toward the affirmation of gay, lesbian, transgendered, and bisexual people.

      I began work on this project many years ago and had in fact written much of the material in part 1 when it was interrupted by other projects and responsibilities. Many people—especially James Creech, who read that early draft, and Ronna Case—encouraged me to return to this project to complete it. How good to recall that both were there to encourage me when I undertook to write my first book more than two decades and several books ago. Friendship is truly life’s greatest blessing.

      I am grateful to the Chicago Theological Seminary, which not only invited me back to teach more than ten years ago but also has been strongly supportive of my attempt to develop a program of gay and lesbian studies as an integral part of the seminary curriculum. Within that program I have had the opportunity to teach several seminars, but the one that has most affected this study is one on “Homosexuality and Hermeneutics.” The students in that seminar have made invaluable contributions to the work that I have undertaken—listening to my ideas, challenging them, and offering ideas and suggestions of their own. I am deeply grateful to them. The manuscript has also benefited from the careful reading and thoughtful suggestions of several of my colleagues on the faculty, including now President Susan Thistlethwaite, Dow Edgerton, and Ken Stone.

      An earlier version of chapter 2, “The Lover and His Beloved,” appeared in the Chicago Theological Seminary Register (vol. 91, no. 3, 2001), and the discussion of Markan texts on marriage and family in chapters