Jonathan's Loves, David's Laments

Jonathan's Loves, David's Laments uses early modern musical interpretations of David's Lament over Saul and Jonathan to deepen the historicist foundations of contemporary feminist and gay relational theologies. After laying out how gay theologian Gary David Comstock connects the story of David and Jonathan to the theology of lesbian theologian Carter Heyward, the argument interrogates both theological and exegetical problems in making those connections, which include contradictory theological stances with regard to modernity and history as well as the indeterminacy of the biblical text. Early modern musical interpretations of the text allow for a double move of engaging the texts through a sensual medium, thus reinforcing queer possibilities for meaning-making from the biblical text, and staying attuned to the fact that the history of interpretation reinforces the indeterminacy of the text, thus keeping queer interpretations aware of the relativizing function of historical difference.
""Providing a veritable feast for discerning readers, Dirk von der Horst deftly and masterfully weaves theological insights and musicological analysis, biblical exegesis and cultural critique, historicizing perspective and liberative summons in his tantalizing and immensely satisfying first book. Jonathan's Loves, David's Laments draws from each of these approaches but transcends them all, beckoning readers to pursue promising and audacious new directions for relational, queer theology.""
--Brent A. R. Hege, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana

""This book is an interdisciplinary tour de force. Van der Horst mines theology, musicology, historicist vs. essentialist debates over biblical meaning and sexual identity, and the dialogical dynamics of musical experience to elucidate how musical afterlives of the David-Jonathan story inhabit 'irrefutable' spaces for homoerotic desire and queer identification within the biblical text. These musico-aesthetic riches redefine biblical authority and will allow theologians and activists to deploy 'Jonathan loved David' with even more intellectual integrity.""
--Heidi Epstein, Associate Professor, Department of Religion and Culture, St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan
Dirk von der Horst is Instructor of Religious Studies at Mount St. Mary's University, Los Angeles. He is a coeditor of Voices of Feminist Liberation: Writings in Celebration of Rosemary Radford Ruether (2012).