Sodom and Gomorrah- What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

Why did God destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, plus two others, Admah and Zeboyim, which were nearby? Christians who take the Bible absolutely literally will tell you that God did this because the inhabitants of these cities were all gay, or at least most of them. I am humming again my favorite tune 'It ain't necessarily so ...'

First of all, when God informs Abraham of his decision to destroy these cities, he only mentions 'wickedness' and 'great sin' plus he speaks of an outcry of the people living in the area complaining about them to God. Nowhere in the whole narrative is explicitly stated what the exact sin of Sodom was.

The only sin we can deduce from the text itself, is the sin against hospitality to strangers when the men of Sodom demand his guests from Lot so that they may 'know them' aka have sex with them. To understand the gravity of that, you need to have traveled or lived in the Middle East, or in any other part of the world where hospitality towards others is a law-like custom. This was even stronger in the past, when hospitality in those parts of the world was seen as a sacred duty and the host would have done everything, yes, including sacrificing his own daughters!, in order to fulfill his obligation towards his guests. Therefore

The sin of Sodom was NOT homosexuality, it was the breach of hospitality attempted by the inhabitants of Sodom towards Lot's guests!

Gang-Rape, like any other form of rape, has actually little to do with sexuality, as any psychologist can confirm you, but has all to do with violence, power over others and ultimately humiliating the rape victim. And, in the case of male to male rape, about establishing power over another man and emasculating him.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is told in Genesis, the first book of the Pentateuch or Torah, the Jewish Bible, also known to us as part of the Old Testament. Therefore it is only logically to look at how Jewish scholars interpret the described events.

• The Jewish Encyclopedia provides background information about the law regarding hospitality, its sacredness and the duties of host and guest: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7905-hospitality Its articles give a fascinating insight into the understanding of hospitality in the Jewish context from the past to the present. Highly recommended!
• Many rabbinic writers (teachers of the Jewish faith) describe the sin of Sodom with the following words: blasphemy, bloodshed, cruel to strangers and the poor, selfish, without compassion, adultery and many more.
• No Jewish source, that I know of, describes or mentions homosexual acts (other than premeditated gang rape of guests, which is primarily about power and not an indication of the sexual orientation of the people of the city) as the prime sin of Sodom.

There are several extra-biblical / rabbinic stories in existence regarding the behavior of the citizens of Sodom, here some of the more cruel ones:

• They would give money or gold to a poor person with the signature / mark of the giver on them and subsequently would refuse to sell food to the poor that wanted to pay with this money or gold. After the poor had died of starvation they would ask for their money / gold back. - An example of a cruel, senseless act designed with the only goal to make other people suffer.
• Another story tells us that they had special beds for guests and strangers. If the guest was too tall for the bed they would cut him or her to the right size, if the guest was too short, they would stretch him or her until s/he fitted into it. - An allegory to the perceived situation that the guest had to adjust him / herself to the host and not the other way round as it was custom.
• Another, equally apocryphal, story tells us that a servant of Abraham was hurt by a stone thrown by a citizen whilst visiting Sodom and subsequently charged for the service of bloodletting (a common, albeit little effective, medical treatment of the time). - A story about the greediness of the people of Sodom that would charge guests, against custom, for pretty much everything, even for injuries suffered by their hands.
• In the Talmud (Jewish wisdom literature) we can read the story of Paltith, daughter of Lot, that gave bread to a poor stranger and was cruelly punished and put to death for her deed of compassion.

The Jewish writer, scholar and HuffingtonPost blogger Jay Michaelson summed the story of Sodom up in a far better way than I could ever hope to do it:

"Reading the story of Sodom as being about homosexuality is like reading the story of an ax murderer as being about an ax."

The most interesting reference to the events described in Genesis comes from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 16:49-50:

"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 (toevah) things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

For the meaning of 'toevah', often also translated as 'abomination', please refer to >>>this paragraph<<< in one of my previous articles.

No reference to any form of sexual misbehavior here, but a lot of reference to not caring for the poor and needy. A clear reference to the duty of hospitality. Ezekiel lived around the 6th century before Christ, meaning that between the written form of the two books lay less then 100 years.

Other Statements in the Old Testament regarding Sodom:

The prophet Jeremiah (23:14) compares the sins of the Jerusalem of his time to Sodom by using the words 'adultery, lying and supporting evildoers'.

The prophet Amos speaks about the oppression of the poor and weighting down the needy in Sodom.

Because of Sodom, no doubt here ;-) But just because a misinterpretation of a biblical text made it into everyday language doesn't mean that said interpretation is right! The terms 'sodomy' and the subsequently named 'sodomy laws' were used for the first time in the 6th century of our time, meaning a long time after the text in Genesis was actually written! Long as in one thousand years later...

If you want to know more about this word usage, I strongly recommend reading these Wikipedia articles:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law

Frankly, we don't know exactly and actually there is little archeological evidence that points to an exact location for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Biblical sources state that they were somewhere in the region around the Dead Sea. Strabo, the Greek geographer who lived around 64/63 BCE – ca. 24 CE and traveled the area widely believed it to have been in he same region. And many modern-day archeologists also believe them to have been somewhere in that area.

Until somebody finds archeological evidence, we simply can't be sure ;-) But no matter how you look at it, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a powerful one, no matter if you read it as:

• Something that really has happened in the past.
• A composite story of several events that have actually taken place in the past.
• Or an allegory about the human nature and its short comings.

But no matter if you think that these events have taken place in the past as described in the Bible, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was never about homosexuality, but about greed and lack of hospitality and God's disapproval of that attitude!