When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David

by Susan Ackerman

Toward the end of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh King Gilgamesh laments the untimely death of his comrade Enkidu, "my friend whom I loved dearly." Similarly in the Bible, David mourns his companion, Jonathan, whose "love to me was wonderful, greater than the love of women." These passages, along with other ambiguous erotic and sexual language found in the Gilgamesh epic and the biblical David story, have become the object of numerous and competing...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231132603
• ISBN13: 9780231132602
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 353 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Groundbreaking View of Sexuality in the Ancient World

It seems to be generally accepted that Alexander the Great did not go without love on his wars. First he took several wives, but second he seemed to have a, shall we say, very close companion. ==In our homophobic world, Alexander just simply couldn't be called a queer. You certainly wouldn't want to use such derogatory language to his face, it doesn't seem to have been such a nice person either. In this book Dr. Ackerman examines the epic story of King Gilgamesh and the biblical story of King David in the view of sexual relationships and gender roles that were in place at the time. This was a time before romantic love. This was a time when the present day definitions of the proper roles for males and females shouldn't be applied. She carefully analyzes these tales from a view that she thinks fits the views of the original narrators. We think we live in a time and a culture that must have existed for all time. It didn't. This groundbreaking book helps us to understand the past, and perhaps points to a future that will be different than our present. What the gender roles will be in the future is impossible to say, but they will be different, just as they are different in various parts of the world now.