This chapter is an excerpt from the book "God Is Not a Homophobe - An Unbiased Look at Homosexuality in the Bible" By Philo Thelos
© Copyright 2004 Philo Thelos. All
rights reserved. Trafford Publishing www.trafford.com
(Please note: This work is copyrighted, as indicated above. I do not own the rights to this work.)
(Please note: This work is copyrighted, as indicated above. I do not own the rights to this work.)
What Was The Sin Of Sodom?
The
details of this story, given in condensed fashion, are these.
Male
humans in Sodom attempt to have sex with male angels who visit
Lot, (Gen. 19:4ff). God destroys them. Conclusion by the majority
of readers: God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of
the extreme wickedness of their “homosexuality. ” It may be true that
God destroyed Sodom because of homosexuality, but that fact must
be learned from sources other than the story in Gen. 19. We must
remember that God had already informed Abraham of His intention
to destroy Sodom before the events of Gen. 19 occurred.
God
said He would destroy Sodom, “because
the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very
grave,” (Gen. 18:20-21).
God says nothing here about the nature of this “very grave
sin.” Therefore it is altogether illegitimate to conclude that the
attempt of Sodom’s men to rape Lot’s visitor’s serves to define the
nature of that “very grave sin.” If indeed we can find, from other
Scriptures, God’s own definition of that sin, then we will be on
certain ground. If there is no other evidence to guide us, we must
exercise simple integrity by refusing to draw conclusions from
an incident that occurs after God’s previously stated intention to
destroy those cities.
As
a necessary part of our investigation, we must examine this story
in its cultural context. This story is set in a culture vastly different
from ours. We are horrified that Lot would sacrifice his daughters
in order to protect the strangers staying with him. Yet “hospitality”
in Lot’s time and culture gave protection to guests in one’s
house at the expense, if necessary, of one’s children. Our own intellectual,
spiritual, moral and cultural training will not even allow
us to imagine such a situation. Thus when we interpret this Genesis
account in light of its cultural context, we rightfully decide that
we must not follow Lot’s example today. By following this process
of Biblical interpretation we correctly reject
a clear Biblical “example”
as a guideline for us to practice familial sacrifice in order
to protect our guests. But our inconsistency immediately appears
as we read the rest of the story.
Our
reaction is the opposite when we consider the behavior of the
men of Sodom toward Lot’s guests. We first suppose
that the sin of
Sodom is homosexuality. Then we suppose
that God destroys Sodom
because of that homosexuality. Then our twofold supposition becomes
determinative for our modern stance against homosexuality.
Our
first mistake in reading this section is to take it for granted that
the men of Sodom were homosexuals. Nothing in Scripture makes
this conclusion appropriate. There is no valid way to determine
whether any of
the men of Sodom were homosexuals.
Lot
has prospective sons-in-law, so obviously not all Sodom’s men were
homosexuals. This story is not about homosexuality. It is about
violent gang rape. It is likely that the men involved were very
much heterosexual and that their sexual attempt upon Lot’s visitors
grows not out of homosexual tendencies, but out of horrific anti-social,
violent abhorrence of strangers. The fact that the intended
victims were male, as were the perpetrators, is incidental to the main point,
which is that Sodom was entirely wicked and violent.
They
were committing an aggressive, violent act against strangers, that,
by the standards of their cultural setting, inflicted maximum humiliation
upon them: forcing upon them an act that “made them into
women,” (Chrysostom’s evaluation of such an act, Commentary on Romans, Homily 4). The
ancient practice in the Middle East of subjecting
defeated enemies to anal penetration is well documented,
(cf. Peter Coleman, Christian Attitudes To Homosexuality, pp.
34, 54; W. K. Simpson, The Literature
of Ancient Egypt, pp. 20-2l).
Human societies, throughout history and crossculturally, have
often subjected strangers, newcomers, trespassers and
defeated foes to homosexual rape as a way to demonstrate their
subordination. It was the ultimate emasculation; reduction to “womanhood.”
That this is doubtless the situation with which Gen. 19
deals is largely demonstrable by considering the other passages in
Scripture that refer to Sodom.
We
showed that when God first threatened to destroy Sodom, no
indication was given as to what form their wickedness took. No evidence allows us to automatically think
God destroys Sodom because of homosexuality.
It will surely surprise many readers to know
that no such idea appears in any Scripture that exists. It is an assumption that cannot be verified by any other Scripture that refers to Sodom’s
wickedness. We are helped greatly in this matter by the fact
that, though Gen. 18 and19 do not specify the reason for Sodom’s
destruction, many other Scriptures actually detail the sins for
which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. But our surprise is
that in not even one is homosexuality either stated or implied.
Consider:
In
Dt. 29, Israel’s unfaithfulness to God threatens to bring God’s
punishment upon them as it did upon Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah
and Zeboiim, (vs. 23). The cause of this doom is specifically
stated: abandonment of the covenant, and devotion
to other gods, (vs.
25, 26).
Dt.
32:32, 33 makes reference to the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah,
but with no mention of homosexuality.
In
Isa. 1:10; 3:9, 14-15, Sodom’s crime is injustice
and cruelty.
Elders
and princes are condemned for “plunder
of the poor…crushing my people…and grinding the face of the poor,” (vs.14).
In
Isa. 13, God promises to cast down Babylon “like
Sodom and Gomorrah,”
(vs. 19), for aggression against its neighbors, (vs. 1-18).
Again nothing is said about homosexual activity.
In
Jer. 23:14, Israel’s prophets are condemned because “they commit adultery and walk in lies; they also strengthen the
hands of evildoers, so that no one turns back from their wickedness.” Then God
says “All of them are like Sodom to Me, and her
inhabitants like Gomorrah.” Thus Sodom’s
and Gomorrah’s sins are in the category
of general wickedness such as adultery,
lies, and injustice. It is more than
strange that if homosexuality was their primary
sin, it is not listed here along with adultery.
Lam.
4:6 refers to the overthrow of Sodom but without identifying
her sins.
In
Ezek. 16:44 - 59, Israel’s evil is again compared to Sodom’s,
and Sodom’s sins are specified this way: “This
was the iniquity of your sister Sodom; She and her daughter had pride,
fullness of food and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen
the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw
fit,” (vs.
49,
50). Surely it must go without saying that if God Himself states
His reasons for destroying Sodom, that statement outweighs
anything else anyone ever says. In the quoted verses God
says His reason for destroying Sodom was her pride, gluttony, prosperous ease and indifference to the poor and
needy. Not even
a hint of homosexuality here. Not even in the word “abomination,”
as we will demonstrate in the next section.
In
Amos 4:11, chastisement awaits Israel like that visited upon
Sodom and Gomorrah, because of her oppression
of the poor, immorality and injustice, (cf. vs. 1). Similarity in judgment suggests
similarity in sin, yet again not even a hint of homosexuality
here.
In
Zeph. 2:9, 10, Sodom is again a symbol of desolating judgment
visited upon Babylon, Moab and Ammon. God’s stated
reason for this judgment is, “This
they shall have for their pride, because they have reproached and made arrogant threats
against the people of the Lord of Hosts.” If homosexuality was their grave sin,
wouldn’t God have at least mentioned that?
In
Jude’s New Testament epistle, Sodom’s sin is categorized as
sexual in nature, but the problem addressed there is not homosexual
intercourse. Rather, Sodom’s people are said to have
done as the fallen angels who, “indulged
in gross immorality and went after strange flesh (sarkos heteras, D.C.),”
(Jude 7).
Homosexuality
cannot be
the issue here because the “flesh” they were
pursuing is called “heteras,”
which means “other, different.”
This
is the same Greek word from which we obtain the English “hetero” as in heterosexual – the
exact opposite of what we must find
if the sin of Sodom was “homo” sexual! The point is that the men
of Sodom transgressed proper human boundaries by attempting
to have sex with Lot’s angelic visitors, just as angels
transgressed
their proper position to have sex with human women.
Thus it is imminently provable that, whatever the men of
Sodom were doing sexually, they were doing it with “other” – heteras – than their own
sex. They were not seeking to have sex with
those “homos”
– like themselves
– but with those “heteras” - different!
In
Matt. 10:12-15; 11:24; Lk. 10:10-12, the context links Sodom and
Gomorrah to the sin committed by cities in Jesus’ day, of rejecting
the ambassadors He sends to preach the gospel. The problem
is rejection of God’s gospel of the kingdom, not homosexuality.
We
cannot escape the clear truth here: NO
Scripture that actually describes the sins of Sodom
and Gomorrah, makes any reference
to homosexuality.
In every instance the Prophets, Apostles, Jesus and Moses
agree – the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah have nothing basically to do with sex
and everything to do with injustice,
oppression and violence. Thus
in Scripture Sodom and Gomorrah came to symbolize
the sins of greed, injustice, insensitivity to the need and pain
of others, and violent exploitation.
Sodom is repeatedly cited as
an example of God’s willingness to destroy an entire people because
of these kinds of sins, but not once is
homosexuality named as the
particular cause of God’s judgment. Where sexual sin was involved
in their case, it took on the character of violence and injustice,
and the “sexual orientation” of the sinners was as likely to have
been heterosexual as homosexual. How can anyone explain the
total absence of any mention of homosexuality, in any verse that details
any of
the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, if their chief sin was
homosexuality??? How is it possible that their minor sins are specified,
but nowhere does God specify this “chief sin of homosexuality?”
Simple integrity demands that any Bible student honors
what the Bible itself states as the reason for Sodom's destruction.
To ignore the above evidence and continue to claim that
homosexuality was the reason of their destruction, demonstrates
basic spiritual dishonesty. Here's the bottom line:
According to all specific Biblical references, Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed due to homosexuality!!! They were never
even accused of practicing homosexuality!!!
This chapter is an excerpt from the book "God Is Not a Homophobe - An Unbiased Look at Homosexuality in the Bible" By Philo Thelos
© Copyright 2004 Philo Thelos. All
rights reserved. Trafford Publishing www.trafford.com
