Sodom and Gomorrah: Part 2

In my last post I outlined the different verses that might be used to identify the sin that caused God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  From the long list of verses pointing to different sins committed by the Sodomites, it became evident that it's not quite so easy to pin down any single sin as contributing to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This post will outline the main theories on why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and what it means to be a "Sodomite".  But before I go into the theories, I'll first touch on a story that carries a lot of similarity to the Sodom and Gomorrah story.

Judges 19: The Benjamites in Gibeah

In this story, a traveller and his concubine stay a night in Gibeah in the course of their travels.  As in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, at first no-one takes them in but later a man invites them to stay the night at his house.  The wicked men of the city surround the house and demand the traveller comes out so they can rape him, but his host refused and offers up the concubine instead.  The men proceed to rape the concubine to death.  The traveller complains to the tribes of Israel, saying in Judges 20:5 - 'During the night the men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me.  They raped my concubine, and she died.  The Israelites ended up uniting together and almost wiped out the entire tribe of Benjamin!

The resemblance with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is very striking, and in both cases the sins resulted in the destruction of the perpetrators.  However, in the story of Gibeah the wicked men raped and killed the concubine and did not insist on raping the traveller as did the Sodomites. Clearly the sin here was not homosexuality, even though the story is in all other respects very similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. Liberals use this argument to bolster their claims that the story of Sodom was about not be hospitable and mistreatment of visitors.  I'm not sure if I agree with this, but in any case that's not where I'm going with this story.  What is interesting to me about this story is the choice of Hebrew words to describe what the wicked men wanted.

Yada

In Judges 19:22 the NIV translation reads that the wicked men wanted to have sex with the traveller. 'To have sex with him' is actually a translation of a word that literally means 'to know him' (the Hebrew word is yada or in Hebrew script: יָדַע). This is the same word that is used in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:5.  However, the story about Gibeah is not interpreted as a story about homosexuality.  The traveller himself, in his complaint to Israel, does not mention that they wanted to have sex with him, but rather says they wanted to kill him, and then raped and killed his concubine.  Surely, given the very similar circumstances in the stories of Gibeah and Sodom, and the wicked men in both towns wanting to yada the male traveller, it's a stretch to say that in one story yada means 'to have sex with' and in the other it means 'to kill' or 'to know'.  To counter this argument, one could point out that in Genesis 19:8 the word yada is clearly referring to sexual relations.  To complicate things further, the word yada is used around 900 times in the Old Testament and the vast majority of those verses translate it as 'to know' or 'known'.  It is rarely interpreted as 'to know sexually'.

In the context of these stories, a word that literally means 'to know' is applied to strangers who have come to these towns and stayed a night.  The wicked men didn't want 'to know' anyone already living in the town and they didn't go to other towns or villages 'to know' people there... they wanted 'to know' complete strangers that had recently visited their town.  Seems like 'to know' could simply mean 'to know'.  But on the other hand, Lot then proceeded to offer up his daughters for sex, instead of the visitors.  This suggests there could have been a sexual desire on the part of the wicked men (unless this was some random compensation prize... i.e. you want to interrogate my visitor but why not have sex with my daughters instead).

More importantly, given that both Jeremiah and Jude refer to the sin of Sodom involving adultery or sexual immorality (see previous post), I think it is difficult to come to a conclusion that yada is definitely not referring to sexual relations.  I should note here that these verses in Jeremiah and Jude should also not be taken to definitely mean that yada was referring to something sexual.  Ezekiel refers to the sin of Sodom being unconcern for the poor, being overfed etc. but there was no suggestion in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis that this was the case, so equally adultery could have been a common sin in Sodom but was left out of the story.

In summary, I think it's difficult to come to a definitive conclusion either way.  If I had to choose a side, I would say that yada was probably referring to a sexual act, as more evidence seems to point that way.  For the purposes of this blog I'll assume that it is.

Sodomites: the inhospitable?

I have read it over and over again in pro-gay or liberal texts, the Sodomites number one sin was a lack of hospitality.  Sounds a bit far fetched?  That's what I thought the first few times I read it.  But there is actually something to this argument...

Firstly, hospitality was a lot more important in Bible times, with the network of hotels and backpackers not quite so established back then as it is now.  More seriously, without a culture of hospitality many would have starved or dehydrated in the surrounding deserts, or frozen to death at night, or been attacked by wild animals etc.  Another issues was that suspicion of foreigners was higher back then.  This is somewhat understandable in a context where kings would go around destroying and enslaving towns, and send out spies in advance to inform their invasion tactics.  This made people anxious about foreigners.  On an aside, a modern parallel might be the distrust of Muslims in the West out of fears they could be terrorists. 

Another piece of historical context was that back then it was sometimes the practice for men to rape another man in a display of physical dominance (e.g. after they had a fight the winner might rape the loser) - which was apparently common in ancient Egyptian culture.  I don't have much academic evidence to back this  up though, so feel free to disregard that bit of historical context.

Liberals point out that when Jesus talks about Sodom in Mathew 10:15 and Luke 10:12 it is in the context of towns who do not accept or welcome his disciples.  The story itself also lends itself to this interpretation.  As I mentioned above, the wicked men of Sodom did not want to know each other or Lot or anyone else in the town... they wanted to know the strangers.  Given the historical context of this story, especially in what could be described as a culture influenced by 'desert culture', there seems to be a certain degree of credibility in saying that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is about hospitality.  However, other than what I've written here, most writers on this subject don't have many other arguments in favour of the hospitality interpretation, but instead proponents of this interpretation seem to have a lot more to say about why it's not a 'homosexuality' interpretation.

In summary, while reading the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as being about hospitality is not ridiculous at all, it still seems like a rather weak argument.  So let me turn to the more widely accepted interpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah story:

Sodomites: the homosexual?

It's all about homosexuality.  The wicked men of Sodom didn't want Lot's daughters, they wanted the male travellers.  This was what was wicked about their behaviour, deserving destruction.  Jude 1:7 refers to Sodom and Gomorrah as 'giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh' (KJV) or alternatively translated as 'gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion'.  Seems like a solid argument so far... but the problem is it doesn't go much further than that.  I should note here that a lot of conservatives believe that homosexuality was just one of the manifestations of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Liberals point out that Bible passages throughout the Bible traditionally understood as dealing with homosexuality never actually refer to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  If this was what the story was all about, then one would expect it to be referenced by anti-homosexual Bible passages.  A related issues is that, of the 20 or so verses (outside of Genesis) that explicitly refer to Sodom, only Jude 1:7 refers to something that could be interpreted as homosexuality ('perversion' or 'going after strange flesh').  If the writer of Jude had of wanted to refer to homosexuality, there were clearer ways of doing this.  As it reads, it seems to be more about breaking God's natural plan for sexuality.  Some liberals also refer to the fact that going after strange flesh could be referring to the fact they desired to have sex with beings that weren't human - angels (although I don't really buy this argument personally).  

I think it is important in this context to remember the historical context of homosexuality.  Men were married to women and reproduced.  If the Sodomites were all homosexuals, they would have died off in one generation.  If half of them were homosexuals, they would have died off eventually too (given mortality rates back then).  The fact is they didn't die off because they continued to have heterosexual sex.  Back then homosexuality was usually an extramarital activity... i.e. adultery.  

The important point though is, as discussed above, that other verses say Sodomites were guilty of adultery, 'living a lie', unconcern for the poor and needy, overfed etc.  It seems if we use other Bible passages to interpret the sin of Sodom, it would be difficult to single out homosexuality as the main culprit.

Sodomites: the sinful?

That brings me to my final point about this topic.  I don't believe there is no single sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.  

First, lets go over the story one more time.  The wicked men of Sodom notice some strangers (angels) staying with Lot and the demand to "know them", which I will assume means they wanted to gang rape the strangers.  Was their mistake that they behaved this way towards male visitors, and if they had of asked to gang rape some female visitors that would have been fine? Or if they had raped Lot's daughters that would have been okay?  Did the fact that they tried to force sexual intercourse without the consent of their victims have nothing to do with their sin?  I think to pin it to homosexuality alone is a stretch.

Second, looking at what the Bible says about Sodom and Gomorrah it seems like they had an awful lot of sins, but homosexuality is never explicitly attributed as a sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.  To me, these Bible verses are a clear and plain argument for why no single sin should be attributed as being the sin of Sodom.

Conclusion

Based on the reasoning above, using the story of Sodom and Gomorrah together with the other Bible verses that mention Sodom, I believe there is no single 'sin of Sodom and Gomorrah' but rather there were several sins.  This conclusion is true irrespective of whether or not the wicked men wanted to have sex with the travellers (depending on your interpretation of yada) or whether or not God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah due to their lack of hospitality.

The important point to take away from this is that it is not possible to say that homosexual sex is a sin because of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  To define 'Sodomites' as those practicing anal intercourse, particularly male to male anal intercourse, is a gross misrepresentation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Whether or not homosexuality was one of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is a different question that would depend on your interpretation of other Bible verses.  There are several other verses in the Bible that are used as part of more persuasive arguments to condemn or justify homosexuality.  I will research and explore these verses one by one in my next posts.

But for now, I am pretty confident that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah does not condemn homosexuality.