Rethinking the Gay Centurion: Sexual Exceptionalism, National Exceptionalism in Readings of Matthew 8:5-13//Luke 7:1-10
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Some recent publications suggest that Matt. 8:5-13//Luke 7:1-10 features a couple that engaged in same-sex intercourse: a centurion and his slave. This article examines the subtexts of sexual exceptionalism present in arguments both for and against this reading, as well as their collusions with narratives constitutive of western colonialism. Operative in interpretations both favouring and opposing a homosexual subtext is the assumption that Jesus’ Judaism was somehow unique with respect to sexual mores. For opponents of the LGBT interpretation, this exceptionalism manifests in a homogeneous Judaism that was exempt from the practice of same-sex intercourse; in that Jesus’ Jewishness is not in doubt, nor should his disdain for male-male intercourse be questioned. For proponents of the LGBT interpretation, Jesus emerges as unique with respect to his repressive Jewish context, evident in his attitude of liberal tolerance. I examine these readings through the optic of Jasbir Puar’s work on homonormative nationalism (i.e., “homonationalism”) and conclude that the logic of these readings is inseparable from the demands of neoliberal imperialism.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.010 | 0.032 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".