The story (and the ‘Sin’) of Sodom make several appearances throughout the scriptures. Let’s start with the story of the destruction of Sodom as provided in Genesis 19. In summary: two angels come to Sodom. Lot invites them in (with full hospitality). The visitors express their intent to sleep in the town square, but Lot dissuades them and takes them home. That night, the men of the city surround Lot’s house and demand that Lot send out the men so that they may rape them. Lot pleads with the men and offers to let them rape his virgin daughters instead. The men reject this offer, complain that Lot came in as a foreigner himself, and claim they will do even worse to Lot than they will to the visitors. Ultimately, the angels strike the men blind, announce to Lot that YHWH has sent them to destroy the city, and urge Lot and his family to leave.
Let’s pause to acknowledge that the context of this story is clearly, unequivocally rape. There is nothing in the context of the story that would imply any hint of consensual activity. That, in and of itself, should indicate that the passage is not helpful in determining what the Bible has to say about same-sex relationships. If we were to equate the intended rape of the “male” angelic guests in Genesis 19 as a clear indicator that God is opposed to same-sex relationships, then by the same token, would that lead us to assume that the scriptural accounts of rape of a female (Dinah in Genesis 34 or Tamar in 2 Samuel 13 or the concubine in Judges 19) serve as an indicator that God is opposed to heterosexual relationships? It is very shaky logic to draw the conclusion that condemnation of same-sex rape = condemnation of same-sex relationships.
Furthermore, it is a mistake to inherently tie together rape and sexual desire. While, in some cases, the scriptures may see rape as connected to sexual desire (the examples of Tamar and possibly Dinah seem to link lust and rape), we know that rape is much more often tied to issues of power, control, and violence, than it is sexual desire (an issue I’ll be exploring more thoroughly below).
Having said that, I believe the next task is to ask if the evidence in Scripture warrants linking the rape story in Genesis 19 to any larger thoughts around sexuality.
I’d like to examine three topics: (1) The account of the rape of the concubine in Judges 19 (with specific reference to its parallels with Genesis 19), (2) the references to Sodom in the rest of the Old Testament scriptures, and (3) Jesus’ words on Sodom. I believe these subjects will help inform our understanding of the Sodom story, and whether or not it has bearing on furthering our understanding of sexuality in scripture.
In Judges 19, a Levite is traveling (having had to retrieve his runaway concubine) and decides to stop for the night in the city of Gibeah. As no one had invited them in, they planned to stay in the town square (like the angelic visitors in Genesis). An old man sees them, inquires as to their situation, takes them in and tends to them and their animals. As in the Genesis story, the men of the city show up, pound on the door, and demand the old man surrender the male visitor, so they may rape him. The old man pleads with them and offers his virgin daughter (again, echoing the Sodom story) or the concubine instead. The men reject this offer, but the Levite visitor throws his concubine to them, anyway. They rape and torture her until morning, and the Levite finds her dead on the doorstep.
Obviously the stories share several parallel details (the intent of the visitor to stay in the town square, the one person inviting the visitors to his home and showing them hospitality, the men of the town showing up and demanding to rape the male visitor, and the home owner offering his virgin daughter as a substitute). The biggest difference between them is, of course, there is no rescue for the Levite’s concubine. She is left to the mercy of the men and ultimately raped to death. This story and its similarities to Genesis 19 provide a couple of worthwhile observations: First, it is unlikely (for several reasons) that the passages were written with the intent in mind that the men of the city (in either story) were “gay”. Passing over the idea that sexual orientation is a fairly modern concept, there are good reasons to think that the stories were not trying to describe men who were consumed with homosexual desire. This is sometimes suggested in analysis of the Sodom account, given that the men are not interested in the virgin daughters. Yet, we see in the Judges account that the men, though they claim to only want the male visitor handed over for rape, eventually settle for the concubine. Either the men of these cities (Sodom and Gibeah) are fueled with “gay lust”, and the men of Gibeah only settle for a woman as a consolation to quench their lust, OR something other than lust/sexual desire (regardless of “orientation”) is motivating them.
Let’s continue look at the evidence in the stories themselves, before turning to evidence elsewhere in the Old Testament. Note the defense that each home owner gives to the men of the city. Lot tells the men “only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof” and the man in Gibeah tells the men “No, my fellows, please do not act so wickedly; since this man has come into my house, do not commit this act of folly”. Note what they do and don’t say. In neither case do we see the home owner appealing to the idea that for men to rape men, it would be a sexual abomination. Nowhere do they say “do not do this thing, for it would be utterly unnatural.” Nowhere do they suggest that the men are acting out of an excess of sexual appetite. In their pleas to the men of the cities, sex/sexual desire/natural and unnatural relations are nowhere to be found. Instead, they both plead on the basis that the visitors are their guests, under the protection of their roofs. As we will see with the rest of the Old Testament witness, one of the chief sins of Sodom was inhospitableness/rejection/oppression of the poor, the vulnerable, and the stranger.
This is a curious thought for us in a modern context where hospitality may be associated with good manners, but not likely something we would imagine would be cause for outrage and judgment. But in the context of the ancient Hebrews, hospitality was sometimes the difference between life or death for a traveler. Note that (in both stories) there doesn’t seem to be any sort of inn or public lodging beyond the open town square. If no one were to take the traveler in, that person would be left open to the elements of the weather, wild animals, robbery, theft, physical or sexual abuse, and even death. Hospitality was literally life or death.
With that thought in mind, let us turn to the Old Testament references to Sodom outside of the book of Genesis. There are 13 references total. For the sake of brevity (ironic, given how long I’ve written already), I’ll quote from author Matthew Vines:
‘Isaiah…castigated Judah as a “sinful nation,” comparing it to the “rulers of Sodom” and the “people of Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:4, 10). But the sins that Isaiah highlighted were not of a sexual nature. They were sins of oppressing marginalized groups, murder, and theft. Isaiah later prophesied that “the pride and glory of the Babylonians … will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah” (13:19). Jeremiah declared that the adultery, idolatry, and power abuses of false prophets rendered them “all like Sodom” (Jeremiah 23:14). After Jerusalem’s fall to Babylonia, the writer of Lamentations said that “the punishment of my people is greater than that of Sodom” (Lamentations 4:6). Amos and Zephaniah, too, invoke Sodom to describe God’s judgment on those who “oppress the poor” or exhibit prideful and mocking behavior (Amos 4:1–11; Zephaniah 2:8–11). Of the thirteen references to Sodom in the Old Testament following Genesis 19, Ezekiel 16:49–50 offers the most detailed description of the city’s sins. In that passage, God stated, “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.”’
So, let’s summarize: in the rest of the Old Testament, the sins of Sodom were characterized as oppression, murder theft, adultery, idolatry, abuse of power, oppression, pridefulness, and that she was “arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned” with the poor and needy. When we look at this in the context of travelers/strangers/visitors, we should not be surprised that these are cities that people were warned against staying in the square. Cities where every example of abuse, theft, oppression and violence were potential and very real possibilities for travelers.
All of this confirms the details we see in Genesis 19 (and the similar account in Judges 19): that travelers are warned against staying in the open, and the home owners invoke their hospitality as the rationale for protecting the visitors. So how does the rape/attempted rape fit into all of this?* Remembering that rape is rarely about sexual desire, and always about power and violence, we see that the attempted rapes (and the actual rape in Judges 19) as one more extreme example of the people of these cities attempting to inflict power, violence, and abuse on travelers (those who are, by definition, needy and vulnerable). Unless both Sodom and Gibeah were exclusively or almost exclusively populated by gay men, their desire to rape these men is based in their hate, mistrust, and prejudice of these needy and vulnerable outsiders. They intend to inflict fear, abuse, and violence on them, because they are terrorists (not because they are sex addicts, gay or otherwise). They offer oppression instead of invitation, hate instead of hospitality.
*(So why focus on the men and reject the offer of the virgins? To be blunt, men were of higher social status, and to rape them was considered a much greater humiliation than to rape a woman. Rape of men was understood to be an assertion of power and dominance. To be raped was to be humiliated, violated, rejected as someone of value. To rape a visitor was to say “you are not of value and you are not welcome here. Here’s how contemptibly we think of you”)
We see a similar theme in the words of Jesus. In both Matthew 10 and Luke 10, Jesus gives his disciples instructions as he sends them out. He tells them that if a city does not receive and welcome them as they travel, that the city’s judgment will be worse than that of Sodom. The parallels are hard to miss: unwelcoming, rejection, and mistreatment of Jesus’ traveling emissaries will be met with a judgment like (but greater than) that of Sodom, a city whose destruction was preceded by unwelcoming, rejection, and attempted mistreatment of God’s emissaries. Jesus’ implication is that Sodom’s judgment was understood to be linked to refusal to receive a righteous visitor.
ALL of that, I believe, informs our understanding of the story of Sodom and the sin that Sodom was condemned for.
Sodom is also referenced in 2 Peter 2:4-10, where we see two potential references to sexual sin. The first is the word ‘aselgeia’ (wantonness/licentiousness) in verse 7, where Lot is said to be distressed by the wanton conduct of lawless men. The word ‘aselgeia’ is often used in sexual contexts, but is not inherently so. It is defined as “lack of self-constraint which involves one in conduct that violates all bounds of what is socially acceptable, self-abandonment.”
Additionally, verse 10 references those who indulge the flesh with its corrupt desires. For the sake of wrapping up this response (I’ve rattled on far too long), I won’t include a list of the places these terms (“sarx”/flesh, “epithumia”/desire, “miasmos”/corrupt) are used in the New Testament in a non-sexual context, but these are terms that the NT uses to describe sin, broadly speaking, and a sexual meaning is not assured here.
Having said all of that, it is not improbable (and, I would concede, even likely) that the epistle writer has some sexual sin in mind. The reference in verse 4 to the angels who sinned and were punished and then, in the following verses, to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is likely being borrowed from the warnings in the book of Jude. In that epistle the author (in Jude 6-7) speaks of “angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh”.
If we are to understand 2 Peter as paralleling Jude, addressing the idea of sexual sin in these Genesis stories, we must pay close attention to the specifics of the sexual sin that is actually highlighted.
The phrase that the NASB translates “strange flesh” (sarxos heteras) would better be rendered as “different flesh”. The word “different” (heteras/hetero) is obviously the same one we use as a prefix for terms like “heterosexual” (which is neither here nor there, but is an interesting side note to demonstrate common usage of the term “hetero” or “heteras”). Jude is not arguing that the men of Sodom were pursuing flesh too similar to their own, but too different. The “different” flesh is best understood to be the angels they were attempting to rape. Jude’s criticism is that were going beyond the bounds of humanity in their pursuits, a point underscored by the fact that he references “angels who did not keep in their domain” (an allusion to Genesis 6 and the “sons of God” taking as wives the “daughters of men”).
Jude provides both the angels who pursued humans and the humans who pursued angels as a warning to his audience. Using this understanding as a guide for the parallel references in 2 Peter, we are provided with a new angle on the criticism of Sodom, but (having examined the breadth of scriptural treatment of Sodom) we are still not left with a single biblical author whose arguments are grounded in the same-sex nature of the acts.
Caught Between 