Nude in Jerusalem

I found a rather interesting review of a book at First Things about how Christians should respond to homosexuality, followed by a very long thread with lots of interesting points and arguments on the topic. (I haven't read them all.)

The article does a good summary of the common argument by more liberal Christians as to why even New Testament scriptural condemnation of same-sex behaviour can be ignored in the modern world. I'll extract it here:

Jewish antipathy toward same-sex behavior in the ancient world, according to Selmys, was based on a perception that homosexual relationships were abusive. Selmys describes Greek homosexuality as pederasty. Greeks openly praised love of boys, an older lover and a younger (preferably beardless) beloved. It was mentoring, with sexual dividends for the mentor. So when Seleucid Greeks erected a gymnasium in Jerusalem, recounted in Second Maccabees, Jews were right to be alarmed. The no-clothing policy at the gymnasium provided not only a way for the Greeks to easily identify practicing Jews by their circumcision, but also an opportunity for Greek men to ogle Jewish boys.

Homosexual behavior was also part of ancient Rome, but the Romans, being Roman, skipped the idealism and went straight for virile conquest. Homosexual behavior was tolerated, if one was the dominant participant. The passive role, a decidedly less than virile position, was filled by a slave or by a social inferior, or someone looking to move up the career ladder or someone too intimidated to snub the offer.

Christians inherited the Jewish antagonism toward same-sex behavior. “Sodomy was implicitly connected with sexual predation in the minds of the late Roman, Byzantine, and medieval Christians,” Selmys writes. “This needs to be taken into account when reading the vitriol that is poured out against ‘sodomites’ in the writings of early Christians”—St. Paul included.

The part that I thought most post-worthy was the bit about the Greek gym in Jerusalem. I have a vague recollection of reading something about that before, but it's worth looking into. [Now there's a Two Ronnies double entendre for you, Jason!]

Google quickly turned up a paper by someone from the University of Pisa that's actually called "A Gymnasium in Jerusalem", although most of it is generally about the Hellenization of Palestine. It's pretty interesting. On the gymnasium itself, it notes:

II Maccabees specified that the construction was located near the acropolis of Jerusalem. In general, a gymnasium was an outdoors complex, open to the public at large, and provided space dedicated to sports and cultural activities. A standard gymnasium included a running track, a place for gymnastics, one or more swimming pools, dressing-rooms and other minor buildings...

In ancient Greek the word gymnos (from which gymnasium is derived) means naked, and every participant competed naked. Thucydides, who wrote in the 5th century BC, stated that in Asia this was not the rule, but he referred to an earlier period (8th century BC) and affirmed that barbarians could hardly be expected to follow such Greek customs. However, it is most likely that, following Alexander the Great and his conquests, the situation could have changed.

Most of the young competitors belonged to an association known as the ephebia. This organization included young males between 18 and 20 years (ephebes), who were trained in the use of weapons and prepared for public life. The ephebes were young citizens skilled in war who wore short hair, a little cloak and a petasus, a sort of large hat in order to protect them from the sun. The gymnasium thus served as a training ground for them. But it also had another role: it was considered the defining institution of Greek urban civilization, serving as the ideological and cultural centre of the city.

The gymnasium was the focus for social activities and provided education in writing, literature, and rhetoric. Therefore, the introduction of the gymnasium represented a set of wholly new values for the Jews.

....The gymnasium provoked opposition in Jerusalem because it featured naked competitors. Although the sources do not mention this directly, the various references to circumcision, especially in II Maccabees, may be read as indirect proof. According to Jewish tradition nakedness was looked upon as offensive. This attitude not only reflected moral beliefs. It also highlights the importance that the Jews attached to clothing and specific kinds of dress. Within the Jewish cultural tradition clothing took on specific roles and functions, including its ability to distinguish various categories of persons: the rich from the poor, the religious from the laity, leaders from their supporters. It seems the nakedness of the gymnasium represented a sort of equality in a society that was structured in a strongly hierarchical way. Moreover, Jewish males had serious problems with nakedness because of their circumcision. The Greeks regarded circumcision as an insane and shameful mutilation of the human body. For that reason, Jewish people suffered from their awareness of this physical difference, which sometimes led to mockery by others.

Someone at a Mormon site notes:

The Greeks did their athletics in the nude. The gym in Jerusalem could actually be seen from the temple and the site of men wrestling in the nude was very offensive.

The University of Pisa article I cited at length goes on to note:

The Jews who willingly took part in Greek culture used various strategies to hide their circumcision. The main method was a sort of operation (epispasmos) in which circumcision was disguised by an artificial foreskin. This practice began following Jason’s request to Antiochus IV. It is also probable that during Antiochus IV’s time in Jerusalem the epispasmos was embraced by more conservative people, who feared king Antiochus IV’s hostility toward Jewish traditions.

For those so inclined, there's a whole article about the epispasmos operation on the website of a modern nuttily obsessed anti-circumcision site here. I liked this line:

At a time before effective anesthesia, a man inclined to try this procedure had Celsus' assurance that it was "not so very painful."

Anyway, it's all rather intriguing to think that perhaps the effects of nude athletics in Jerusalem (including even where the gym was built) more than 2000 years ago can still have cultural influence today. (It's also odd to realise the anti-circumcision movement has been around a long, long time.)