It has been a while since I last wrote a post for The Sin of Sodomy series, so I think it about time that I add another entry.  So without any further ado let me talk about all those greedy Sodomites.

In my introductory post: The History of Sex – The Sin of Sodomy, I introduced the idea that before the Christian era, Jewish scholars had not equated the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with homosexual sin.   In this post will explore this idea in much more depth and demonstrate the original meaning of this story indeed had nothing to do with homosexual sin.

To start, let us review the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as described in the book of Genesis and retold in Judges.  The story goes as thus:  Lot, the son of Abraham’s brother Haran, had settled in the City of Sodom.  Sodom was located on a fertile plane, an area that Lot and found to be a great place for his shepherds to operate.   However, when God became displeased with the wickedness of the region’s inhabitants, he decided he would destroy the entire area, including the city of Sodom.   God sends two angels to meet with Lot at the Sodom city gates.   Lot welcomes the two angels into his house where they tell him that they were sent by God to warn him about the impeding destruction of the city.

Soon after the angels arrived at Lot’s house, a crowd of Sodomites surrounded his house demanding that Lot send the strangers out into the crowd so that they might “know” them.   Sensing the evil intention of the crown, Lot refused to comply with the request.  Instead, Lot offered the crowd his two virgin daughters, but the crown was not interested.  The following morning, Lot fled Sodom with the two angels and his family.  As Lot was leaving the city, God unleashed his wrath and completely destroyed the evil cities of the plain.

As they were leaving the city, Lot’s wife wanted to get one more glimpse of their former home.  The act of her looking back displeased God so greatly that he decided to kill her on the spot by turning her into a pillar of salt.

One of the difficulties in determining what the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were was that they were not spelled out in the Sodom and Gomorrah story.  Most Christians who read the narrative assume that to “know” must mean to “engage in coitus”.  However, the Hebrew word for “know”, Yadha has a double meaning: “to know” as well as to “engage in coitus”.

Of the 943 times Yadha is used in the Old Testament, 933 times it is used to mean “to know” and only 10 times it is used in the sexual sense.  Furthermore, in all 10 instances where Yadha is used in a sexual sense, it is used to refer to heterosexual sex.  The Old Testament never used the word Yadha to refer to homosexual acts; instead the word Shakhabh was used to describe this act.  Given the word usage for Yadha and Shakhabh, it is virtually impossible that Yadha was ever used in a homosexual sense.

If the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were not homosexual in nature, then what were they?  To find the answer we must remove the layers of Christian homophobia and prejudice that have been wrapped around the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for centuries.  A good way to get a clear picture of what the original intent of the Sodom and Gomorrah story is to read what the ancient Jewish scholars said about the doomed cities.

The Old Testament says very little about what the sins of Sodom were, but what it does say is very revealing.  Only one Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, specified what the sins of Sodom were.  During his ministry in Babylon, he provided a list of Sodom’s misdeeds:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen

— (Ezek 16:49-50)

Did you notice that Ezekiel makes no mention of sexual sins?  He only describes Sodom’s lack of generosity.  Ezekiel described Sodom as a wealthy city whose inhabitants were so selfish and greedy that they were completely indifferent towards the suffering on the less fortunate around them.  Ezekiel’s silence about the supposed sexual sins of Sodom speaks volumes about the importance they played in the original narrative, which is none!

Let us examine some other Jewish writings which are very useful in determining the original intent of the story.  The Babylonian Talmud, compiled around the year 500 CE, provides some fascinating insight into the story.  The city of Sodom is described as a very wealthy city whose residents are so greedy that they refuse to share any of their good fortune:

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…

— Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 109a

Notice once again that the primary sin of Sodom was considered to be their lack of generosity.  There is no mention of sexual sin whatsoever.  Throughout the Jewish commentary on Sodom, the most common criticism of the city is greed and their seeming lack of generosity.

Another place where we can look for clues on what the Hebrews thought about Sodom is through the reading of non religious Jewish literature.  This writing provides us with the expression “in the manner of Sodom” which refers not to any sexual sins but rather to a person who refused to help another in need.

If we turn our attention to the New Testament, we can find more evidence to support the idea that the sin of Sodom was not sexual.  During his ministry, Jesus commanded his twelve apostles to proclaim the gospel throughout Palestine. Jesus carefully instructed his apostles to take little from the locals and rely on the hospitality offered to them.  However, Jesus warned:

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.  I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

— Matthew 10:14-15

Since the New Testament gospels proclaim Jesus as the Son of God, you would figure that he should know better than anyone else what the sins of Sodom were.  Jesus condemns Sodom’s inhospitality and never mentions any homosexual sins.

While, the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah may be been very grave in the sight of a vengeful God, neither the ancient Hebrews or the Biblical authors cite homosexual sins as being among them.  Based on the early Hebrew tests and other biblical references, it is pretty clear that the sins of Sodom were not homosexual in nature but rather greed and inhospitality.

John McNeill, a former gay priest, gives an account in his book: The Church and the Homosexual, of how modern scholars have rediscovered the truth about the reasons behind Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction.  The cities were destroyed for reasons of inhospitality and greed rather than for homosexual sins.   Furthermore, McNeill writes that the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative presents us:

With one of the supremely ironic paradoxes of history. For thousands of years in the Christian West the homosexual has been the victim of inhospitable treatment. Condemned by the Church, he has been the victim of persecution, torture, and even death. In the name of a mistaken understanding of the crime of Sodom and Gomorrah, the true crime of Sodom and Gomorrah has been and continues to be repeated every day.

The Sodom and Gomorrah story is one of those appalling tragedies of human history.  Over the past 1,500 years countless numbers people have been unjustly persecuted or even killed for committing homosexual acts in the mistaken belief that God had punished these cities for homosexual sins.  If the sins of Sodom were not homosexual in nature then how did they become so?  In my next post in the Sin of Sodomy series I will explore how the Sodom and Gomorrah story got sodomized.