arndt@lymph.DEC (10/02/84)
Listed below are some references to look up if you are at all interested
in following or adding to the debate over Boswell's claims about the
true Christian view of homosexuality as seen in the proper understanding
of what the Bible says about it. They also deal with other aspects of
Boswell's book and are by no means anti-Boswell. Nor am I. He does
add to our understanding of the topic, it's just that I feel he has not
made a strong enough case to support his premise. (That the Bible, ergo
Western Christian tradition, is NOT homophobic as modern Christians are)
The New York Times Book Review, Aug.10,1980.
High praise, but oddly written by a specialist in 19th and 20th
century European intellectual history who seems to know little
about the middle ages.
Newsweek, Sept.29, 1980.
Communio (can't read my notes on the last two letters of this name - sorry
but you can look it up in Reader's Guide to Religious Periodicals)
Vol.8, 119-138, Sum. '81
A long article by Glenn Olsen, THE GAY MIDDLE AGES: A RESPONSE TO
PROFESSOR BOSWELL. Praises Boswell for his scholorship but feels
he has not proved his point. Worth reading.
Speculum, Vol.56, 350-355, '81.
A review by Jeremy DuQ Adams, Southern Methodist U.
"This book's achievements are numerous and substantial."
He feels however that Boswell has only begun to prove his
thesis and needs further work. ". . . he should go beyond the
work of D. S. Bailey to establish the use of YADAA . . ."
See Victor P. Furnish, THE MORAL TEACHING OF PAUL, Nashville, 1979.
Knew of and mentions Boswell's impending book.
Reviews in The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement (1980).
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For further background reading on the topic see:
Michael Goodrich, The Unmentionable Vice:Homosexuality In The Later Medieval
Period, ABC-Clio, Inc. Santa Barbara, Calif. '79.
The introduction gives a good background to the modern homosexual
rights movement which started in Germany in the last century. Also:
"The evidence presented in this study supports the contentions
of recent historians of sexuality. Until the eleventh century,
occasional voices were heard condemning same-sex relations, but
it was not until the Gregorian reform movement that a determined
effort was made to impose the cannons of Catholic sexual morality
on an often indifferent public." "A second, equally militant wave
of moral "reform" was undertaken in the 13th century."
[So was it something new to the Christain church as Boswell states,
or is what he points to in the later Middle Ages the reform movements
outlined here? Christian leaders acting on what was always understood
to be the Christian position vis a vis homosexuality.]
See the JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY, by itself an interesting source, but for our
purposes see especially "Sodomy in Ecclesiastical Law and Theory", Sum.'76,
427-34 and "Sodomy in Medieval Secular Law, Spring '76, 295-302.
Also, COMMUNIO, Fall'81, pg.212ff, an article on homosexuality by
John T. Noonan, Jr. called interestingly "Genital Good".
For word studies on Boswell's specific claims for the wording of the various
Bible passages referenced by Ron Rizzo in his blockbuster expose (the very
foundations of Christindom are shaking - Baptist ministers are jumping off
chruch steeples all over town) see any number of good sources. Not the
least is Arndt and Gingrich's work. You guess!
Any other sources out there fans?? Please notice I have NOT listed only
those sources that plainly pan Boswell's theory. And I HAVE credited him
with some good work. Again, I just do not feel that he has made his point.
Let's hear from bAgel breath.
Keep chargin'
Ken Arndt