“Two of Every Kind” Intercourse texture in Noah’s Ark

Ms Cherry of the queer spirituality blog “Jesus in Love” asks in a recent comment:

“I love the picture at the top of the gay couple with the animals outside Noah’s Ark. Where does it come from? I would love to contact the artist.”

Well the banner artwork was sourced from this blog which is dedicated to the children’s artist Cathy Heck. The picture is from a series of rather joyful nursery illustrations which queerly depict the story of Noah’s ark from the book of Genesis chapters 6-9.

This classic Sunday school tale includes a number of LGBT motifs, my favorite being the command from God to Noah to “take two of every kind” on the ark (6:20), presumably this would include couplings of heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, and pan-sexuals. Now I sense some of you biblical literalists out there will be wondering: If Noah took homosexual animals on the ark, then how did they reproduce after the flood?

The answer to this queery is relatively straightforward and comes in two parts. Firstly, it would explain why some species died out so soon after the flood (for example, dinosaurs, unicorns, woolly mammoths, etc). Secondly, we must look to the often neglected verse in Genesis 7:2 which reads:

“Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate.” (NIV)

Being able to take seven pairings of each of the clean animals would mean that Noah could include a healthy diversity of sexualities. As a result, these “clean” groups of animals would have had little trouble reproducing after the flood. As objective queer Bible scholar Dr Michael Carden observes: “Fourteen individuals allow for many more sexual combinations than do two” (QBC p31). The text also implies that if any of the unclean animals were homosexual they would (probably) not survive beyond the flood (because there would be only one pairing). Ultimately, then, any gay animals which continued to procreate after the flood must have been “clean” and not “dirty” as they are sometimes labelled by so-called “hardcore” Christians!

I hope you enjoyed this ride on Noah’s ark. In a future post I will more clearly outline the Sexio Rhetorical category of “Intercourse texture” as it thrusts in and out of the biblical text. One last note: Ms Cherry kindly linked to a post on her blog on the topic of “Noah’s gay wedding cruise” which showcases some very intriguing artwork. Do check it out!

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