Sodom & Gomorrah are commonly used as the quintessential evidence of God's wrath against homosexuality. "Sodomy" is used to refer colloquially to homosexual sex (lumped in with many other types of derogatory or illegal sex), and their iniquity has been pointed at for centuries as evidence that homosexuality is immoral and against God. And for little wonder:
Genesis 19:4-5 wrote:But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them [ie. rape them]."
While the homosexual act is mentioned and is the centerpiece of the drama that is Sodom&Gomorrah,
the story is not about homosexuality. Rather, Sodom's sin in the ancient commentaries on the Hebrew Bible was that of inhospitality and non-sharing of their greedy hordes with the poor (a good argument that the sin was
not homosexuality).
PROOFS
Josephus accounts the following:
[url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146&layout=&loc=1.194:39qysu90]Josephus, [i:39qysu90]Antiquities [/i]I: 194-5[/url] wrote:"The Sodomites, overweeningly proud of their numbers and the extent of their wealth, showed themselves insolent to men and impious to the Divinity, insomuch that they no more remembered the benefits that they had received from him, hated foreigners and declined all intercourse with others. Indignant at this conduct, God accordingly resolved to chastise them for their arrogance."
The Hebrew Bible itself has also the following correlating statement:
[url=http://bible.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?word=Ezekiel+16%3A46-50§ion=0&version=nrs&new=1&oq=&NavBook=ge&NavGo=9&NavCurrentChapter=9:39qysu90]Ezekiel 16:46-50[/url] wrote:As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom; She and her daughters had pride, excess of food and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.
Also, sections of the Talmud complete the historical documents:
[url=http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_109.html:39qysu90]Sanhedrin 109a[/url] wrote:The men of Sodom waxed haughty only on account of the good which the Holy One, blessed be He, had lavished upon them...They said: Since there cometh forth bread out of (our) earth, and it hath the dust of gold, why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth. Come, let us abolish the practice of travelling in our land.
There were four judges in Sodom named Shakrai (Liar), Shakurai (Awful Liar), Zayyafi (Forger), and Mazle Dina (Perverter of Justice). Now if a man assaulted his neighbour's wife and bruised her, they would say to the husband, Give her to him, that she may become pregnant for thee. If one cut off the ear of his neighbour's ass, they would order, Give it to him until it grows again.
In the above text, their restriction of immigration was seen as a violation of hospitality as well.
Finally (and least scholarly),
Wikipedia had the following account to say about the linguistics of the homosexuality passage in Sodom.
"Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house"
The traditional interpretation of this story largely stems from the unfortunate translation of the word enoshe (#582) in Genesis 19:4. Most versions say "men", which is incorrect. The Hebrew word enoshe is not gender-specific but indicates mortals or people. The word esh would have been used to mean "man" or eshal to mean "woman" if gender specific terminology was meant. This mistranslation gives the impression that just the men of the city had surrounded Lot's house and the further impression that they were all homosexuals out to have sex with the angels. The word enoshe is used in Genesis 17:23 with the word zechar meaning "male" demonstrates this point.
There is no Old Testament text in which yadha refers to homosexual coitus (intercourse), with the single exception of this disputed Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis. The less ambiguous word shakhabh, however, is used for homosexual, heterosexual, and bestial intercourse. Shakhabh appears fifty times in the Old Testament; if it had been used instead of yadha in the Sodom story, the meaning of the text would have been unmistakable. As it is, we have no grounds to assume that the men of Sodom wanted to rape the visitors. We simply know that their intentions were unfriendly.
Looking at the scriptures in Hebrew, we find an interesting usage of a couple of different words. When the mob cries out "Where are the men who came in to you tonight?", the Hebrew word translated "men" is again enoshe which, literally translated, means "mortal". This indicates that the mob knew that Lot had visitors, but were unsure of what sex they were. The Hebrew word for "man" (utilized in this same passage in Genesis 19:8 ) is entirely different. One has to ask: Why would homosexuals want to have sex with two strangers if they were unsure of what sex they were?
Note that these women that Lot offered were virgins. Note also that the Sodomites were pagans. Virgin sacrifices to idols were a common practice in Sodom. Therefore, it can be concluded in another way that Lot was offering his daughters as a virgin sacrifice to appease the mob in an effort to protect the visitors. By 50 AD we find the first time the sin of Sodom is associated with homosexual "acts" in general. In the Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin ("Questions and Answers on Genesis") IV.31-37, Philo interpreted the Genesis word yãdhà as "servile, lawless and unseemly pederasty."
Interesting, though the sources are not verifiable on the internet.
Therefore, the sin of Sodom was their refusal to be hospitable and welcoming to those less fortunate than themselves, even to give food to the poor. They surrounded the house because Lot and his angel friends had violated the power structure, and because their "might makes right" according to the Talmud, then they get violence sexually against them by the Sodomites.
One final tradition is that there is a series of legends regarding Sodom's hospitality, but these are apparently borrowed from Greek mythology. One example is the story of the "Sodomite bed" that guests to Sodom were forced to sleep in: if they were too short they were stretched to fit it, and if they were too tall, they were cut up. This is an adaptation of the Greek myth of Procrustes. However, it speaks to Sodom's disregard and malevolence to those who were different, or less than they were.
DISPROOFS (and responses)
The first disproof is that Jude has counterdictory evidence. Jude 1:7 reads "
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion." Was this sexual immorality homosexuality? Was it this encounter with Lot?
- COUNTER: I would respect the Hebrew Bible sources better than the understanding of the much-later Christian writers. Hebrew Wisdom tradition states "Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." No mention of sexual immorality.
Another disproof is that Sodom's main problem, and the reason for their destruction, was their lack of obedience to God, period. This is evidenced by their disregard for the poor, their oppression of people, their pride and their tolerance of sinful acts (like homosexuality). Therefore, no one particular sin, like homosexuality was the cause of their destruction.
- COUNTER: If that's the case, then God would have destroyed A LOT of cities worldwide during that time without any specific reason (Genesis 19:25). S&G were destroyed for their lack of hospitality and their greed and some forms of sexual immorality...not just general disobedience. There should be reasons for the destruction more specific to both cities, not just evidence "of"...rather, the specific sins become evidence "for"...and I contend homosexuality is not one of them.
A final disproof is that regardless of the analysis, S&G were destroyed directly as a result of their "homosexual advances" towards Lot's visitors.
- COUNTER: That is false according to Biblical Tradition. Note the sequence of the text. We find out about God's awareness of the "sin of Sodom and Gomorrah" (Genesis 18:20) BEFORE the attempted gang-rape (Genesis 19:5). As well, Abraham seems to understand right away that God intends to destroy Sodom & Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23). Therefore, to understand God as to destroying S&G because of the gang-rape encounter is counter to the understanding of the author(s) of that section of Genesis.
CONCLUSION
Understand I am not justifying homosexuality, or questioning biblical literalism/authority. I am not denying homosexuality is denounced elsewhere in the Bible. What I am stating is that Sodom & Gomorrah are used over and over to justify (a) God's wrath upon gays, (b) God's disapproval of gay acts, (c) that Sodom & Gomorrah were destroyed by God for their gay acts, and more extremely (d) that God calls for the death of homosexuals (Jimmy Swaggert, anyone?). The above posts, in my opinion, disprove all 4 of the justifications using biblical texts and biblical tradition. In my view, Sodom & Gomorrah was destroyed for their inhospitality to those who were different, and their disregard for the poor because of their greed, which are much greater sins than gay acts.
SPECULATION
In taking this interpretation and running with it, is the dominant anti-gay culture in America the New Sodom (in mentality not in actuality)? America's modern culture reflect the Sodom and Gomorrah spirit of hatred and hostility towards those who are different. If Sodom's sin was exclusion of the oppressed, desire for conformity, and their idea of "might makes right", then how also is America's exclusion of gays from civil rights, the desire for uniformity of the institution of marriage to male-female, and finally the idea of "our might makes right" in religious politics that forces conformity from the top down...how is that substantially any different?
Just a few thoughts on Sodom & Gomorrah. I haven't had this discussion with a forum of biblical literalists before, so I'm anxious to see what discussion arises. What do you think?