Hittites, Horses, and Corpses

Abstract

I am very interested in bestiality and necrophilia. Under normal circumstances— the common room, a conversation over coffee, a night at the pub, or a simple chat with an attractive friend—such a statement would lead to my interlocutor(s) beating a hasty retreat or perhaps laughing it off a little nervously.¹ But I am very interested in bestiality and necrophilia, especially in the Bible. The reason is that both types of sexual acts are far more important to the Hebrew Bible than a mere ban (in the case of bestiality) and turning a cold shoulder (with necrophilia) would suggest. However, in order to make that argument, I need to look awry, away from the obvious texts in Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 18:23; 20:15–16 and Deuteronomy 27:21, and focus on an unexpected bulge in another place: the connection between Hittites, horses, and corpses, or rather, between Hittites, hippophilia, and necrophilia in both the Hittite law codes and biblical texts. So in what follows we begin with a treatment of some Hittite laws, especially those dealing with horses, mules, oxen, pigs, and the dead. With a reshaped sexual economy so brusquely uncovered, we gallop into the Hebrew Bible find out where Hittites turn up and why. We find them passing over a burial ground to Abraham, in the freshly dead Uriah (former husband of Bathsheba), in the three wives of Esau and in the mother of Oholibah-Jerusalem in Ezekiel. Horses and corpses aplenty, it seems.

On the sexual deviancy hierarchy, it’s widely held that bestiality is worse than humping your relatives.

—Steve Rinella, “Depraved Indifference”

But the vehemence with which this prohibition continues to be held, its persistence while other nonreproductive sexual acts have become acceptable, suggests that there is another powerful force at work: our desire to differentiate ourselves, erotically and in every other way, from animals.

—Peter Singer, “Heavy Petting”