Gen 19:5: this confirms that the Sodomites’ sin is homosexuality. Here, the Sodomites mistaken the two angels for men and, surrounding Lot’s house, ask to have sex with them. When the yell to Lot “bring them out that we may know them,” the Hebrew for “to know” (yadah) in Gen 19:5 means having sexual relations. See, for example, Gen 4:25 where “yadah” refers to sexual relations between Adam and Eve.
aragonjohn, I’m not disputing that the Sodomites were trying to rape the angels. If you note what I said above, I granted that raping men may well have been seen as more serious than raping women. But to say “the sin of the Sodomites was homosexuality” is at best highly misleading. Rape of a man by another man doesn’t necessarily mean that the rapist is homosexual in our sense today–it is an expression of dominance. In the ancient world, “active” homosexuality wasn’t stigmatized in the way “passive” was. To take the “woman’s role” meant that you were less than a man. Raping a stranger was a way of saying that men from other places were “women”–i.e., inferior to the manly men of Sodom. I think that’s the most reasonable interpretation of the passage in the cultural context. It explains perfectly well why they would turn down the gift of Lot’s daughters. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t sexually interested in women, but that what they were after on that particular night was something different. In the similar passage in Judges, the men of Gibeah
do accept the substitution of the Levite’s concubine–since she “belongs” to a stranger, raping her is still a way of asserting their dominance over the unwanted outsider.
To make either of these passages primarily about “homosexuality” is to distort them hopelessly–and it’s to miss a number of important moral points. Again, I’m not disputing that the same-sex nature of the attempted rape was an aggravating factor.
You weaken the conservative case when you insist on this interpretation of the sin of Sodom. It isn’t very defensible exegetically and it distracts from other, stronger arguments.
2 Pet 2:6-10: Peter also proves that the Sodomites were guilty of homosexuality. He says God condemned them for “licentiousness” and “lust of defiling passion,” which is where we get the title “Sodomite” for a homosexual. The Greek “aselgeia anastrophes” for lustful behavior is also found in Rom 13:13; Gal 5:19; Eph 4:19 and Jude 4.
Peter is certainly focusing on the sexual aspect of the Sodomites’ sin, not mentioned in Ezekiel. I don’t see that you’ve made a case that Peter’s language points specifically to homosexuality–would it be any different if the Sodomites
had been after Lot’s daughters instead? But it may well be–it’s a valid point to complement Ezekiel’s different emphasis.
An interesting implication here is that if he’s focusing on sexual sin throughout, that would mean that he agrees with Enoch’s view that the angels fell sexually, which isn’t generally accepted Catholic teaching. . . . .
Jude 7: Jude also confirms the Sodomites’ sin is homosexuality. Jude says they “indulged in unnatural lust” (Greek, ekporneusasai) and went after “strange flesh” (Greek, sarkos heteras) in reference to their homosexual sins.
I think this is stronger, although still not entirely clear. “Ekporneuo” is an intensifier. It doesn’t necessarily refer to homosexuality, but it refers I believe to “aggravated” sexual immorality of some form. Gang rape surely would count, whether it were homosexual or not. “Sarkos heteras”–which I can’t make sense of grammatically (“other/alien feminine things of flesh”–I think it’s a mistake for “heteras sark
as”–“alien fleshes”), is the best case of all. I’m still not 100% sure, though–it seems to me that it could mean something like “lusting after the bodies of strangers,” which would be true whether the strangers were male or female.
Again, I have nothing invested in saying that the NT writers did not have homosexuality in mind. they are certainly focused on the sexual aspects of the Sodomites’ wickedness in a way that Ezekiel isn’t, and there’s no doubt whatsoever that they would have regarded the homosexual nature of the attempted rape as an aggravating factor. But I don’t think even Peter and Jude justify you in saying simply “the sin of the Sodomites was homosexuality.” The sin of the Sodomites given in Genesis was attempting to rape two male strangers. There are all kinds of aspects to that sin. Ezekiel focuses on the lack of charity; Peter and Jude on the sexual depravity. But it’s a sin with so many levels of depravity that it really doesn’t provide a good basis for arguing about how Christians should view monogamous same-sex unions today.
And that’s the bigger problem–nowhere in the Bible do we find a clear condemnation of anything like the kind of homosexual relationships liberal Christians want to endorse. Indeed, nowhere are such relationships clearly mentioned at all. As you probably know, some gay advocates argue that David and Jonathan had a sexual relationship. I used to scoff at this, but I’ve been reading I Samuel in Hebrew recently, and it strikes me as a possible interpretation. When Saul says to Jonathan in chap. 20, “you have chosen the son of Jesse to your shame,” I’d always interpreted this as referring to Jonathan taking David’s part against his own political interests (the NIV translates the verb as “sided with”). But the verb in Hebrew refers to choosing someone out of love–it’s the word often used for God choosing Israel, for instance. That in itself doesn’t necessarily have a sexual connotation–but he goes on to say “for your shame and for the shame of your mother’s nakedness.” Now that may, again, simply mean “you’re bringing shame on your family by not looking out for our interests over against David’s.” But it could also have a sexual connotation.
I don’t think this is anywhere near certain–but it’s the same kind of exegesis you apply without hesitation or doubt in the case of 2 Peter and Jude, so it’s fair to bring it up!
If David and Jonathan did have (or were rumored to have even if it wasn’t true) a sexual relationship, and if that’s what Saul is talking about, then the reference to "shame’ might count as a negative reference to a same-sex relationship. But on the other hand, Saul’s hardly a person whose opinions we’re expected to respect at this point in the story, and otherwise the David/Jonathan relationship is presented as admirable.
The bottom line is that “homosexuality” in our sense is a modern concept. So we can’t simply take references in the Bible (I’d include the David/Jonathan relationship–I think that one reason modern people jump to see it as sexual is that we have trouble imagining a deep, emotionally significant relationship that isn’t sexual) and stick our categories onto them. Saying “the sin of Sodom was homosexuality” is a particularly glaring example of that anachronism.
As another poster pointed out, the Catholic Church has a broader approach–it doesn’t just prooftext. I understand why Protestant fundamentalists want to build a rock-solid case based on prooftexts–but Catholics don’t need to.
The bigger issue has to do with the Church’s teachings on the nature of sexuality and marriage. You can’t, as far as I can see, fit a same-sex relationship into orthodox Christian teaching on marriage without radically distorting it. The fact that all the clear references to same-sex sexual activity in the Bible are negative certainly is significant, but not the whole picture.
Edwin
! However, I still would say that rape
is worse. How can anyone not think so?!?
