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The Sodom and Gomorrah Story
In the book of
Genesis (Chapter 19) the story is told of two
visitors to the city of
Sodom,
who were in fact
angels in disguise, visiting the
house of Lot - a
Jewish, and
hence foreign, inhabitant of the city.
The story
goes:
"Before they had gone to
bed, all the men from every part of
the city of
Sodom - both young
and old - surrounded the house. They called
out to
Lot 'Where are the men who came to you
tonight?
Bring them out to
us so that we can have
sex with them'. Lot went outside to meet them and
shut the door behind them
saying: 'No, my friends,
don't do this wicked
thing......'"
After
this Lot offers his daughters to appease
the crowd.
Eventually the
angels step in and manage to defeat the mob.
Later
on in the story, Sodom is destroyed because of
the
actions of the
inhabitants of the city.
It is interesting to note that Lot is
portrayed as the good man, the
spiritual one, and
yet his actions of
offering his daughters to the
crowd are reported without comment! To
approve of
this is to approve
of rape!
To say the city was
destroyed
because of homosexuality is misleading,
and ignores
other parts
of the Bible and a long
tradition of interpretation of these texts.
Firstly the Book of
Isaiah (1:10 & 3:9)
and Ezekiel (16:49)
claim that social injustice and
oppression of the poor was the root cause.
Other
parts of the Bible say
that it was the city's treatment of visitors
which
was wrong. In the ancient world it was
imperative in
most cultures
to treat visitors with
respect and honour. Gang raping them would be quite
silly! Jesus says, in Luke's
Gospel, that Sodom was
destroyed because of
inhospitality (Lk 10:12).
This interpretation continued in the
Early
Church and also in
Jewish interpretations. The Midrash, a Jewish
commentary, and an Early Church theologian called
Origen, both state that
it was
this breaking of the
rules on how to treat visitors
that got Sodom
into
trouble.
Therefore, it can be argued - from within the Bible
itself - that the destruction of Sodom was because
of oppression of the
poor and
mistreatment of
outsiders: nothing to do with
Lesbians and Gays.
Feminist
theologians will also want to question
Lot's
apparent willingness
to hand his daughters
over to a mad crowd to face certain death. To claim
that trying to commit gang
rape on strangers is
equivalent to consenting
gay or lesbian sex is to
fly
in the face of what the Bible itself says.
The Book of
Leviticus
This book in the Bible
is concerned with
giving huge
chunks of the Law, observed today by
Orthodox Jews. It is concerned
with stating what
behaviour and moral codes
separate out the Jewish
people
from the surrounding nations and is very
clear in prohibiting behaviour
which was part of the
worship of fertility
gods and goddesses.
The
two passages which are used to condemn us
read:-
"Do not lie
with a man as with a woman; that is
detestable"
(18:22)
"If a man lies with a
man as one
lies with a
woman, both of them have done
what is detestable. They must be put to
death; their
blood will be on
their own hands"
(20:13)
The
questions around this
text for us today are
quite interesting. Firstly
there are very few Christians who take this
book
seriously. If we are to
obey these two passages then we should obey
all the
book which condemns: cutting men's hair,
eating meat
with blood in
it (eg: rare steak),
eating rabbit or certain kinds of seafood (like
mussels or shellfish), sexual
intercourse during
menstruation,
cross-breeding cattle, and wearing
garments made out of more than one
material. If we
are quite
happy to do all of the above, then why on earth
should we not be happy being lesbian or gay?
An interpretation
based on feminist thought
would also question the assumptions made in the
text. Firstly, they only apply
to men! Obviously the
writers, having
something in common with Queen
Victoria, didn't think women did things
like this!
Secondly, they
assume that women take the passive role in sex
and
that this is inherently demeaning. The tone of
the
passage is that if
you are passive in
penetrative intercourse you become less of a man and
more like a woman. This is seen as being shameful.
Apart from the fact
that we do
an awful lot more
with other in bed than
penetration, the
passage
assumes that women are less equal than men. This
passage is sexist
and irrelevant. Also it concerns
laws and behaviours
that most people
would not wish, or see any need, to
keep today.
The Book of
Romans
This
book is written by St Paul who was a Jewish
convert
to Christianity and who devoted his life to
spreading the
Christian
message to non-Jews. He
travelled around the Roman
Empire
preaching and
founding
churches. He then wrote to them regularly giving
advice on how to live a Christian life in a
non-Christian secular world.
Some of these letters
have
been preserved in the Bible.
Paul's
point in the Book of Romans is
to show that God has
made salvation
possible for all humanity and starts
out by highlighting the need the
human race has for
this
salvation. He speaks, at some length, on his
perceived evils of the world
and in this context his
words on lesbians
(well done, you've made it into
the Bible at last - 1,000 years after the
first
mention of gay men) and
gay men appear:
"Because of this
God gave
them over to shameful lusts. Even their
women
exchanged natural
relations for unnatural
ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural
relations with women
and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men
committed indecent acts with other men and
received
in themselves the
due penalty for their
perversion." (1:26-27)
Much has been
written on what Paul might
have meant here and many
folk go to great
lengths to show that Paul did not
mean homosexuality. I think that this is
intellectually dishonest. It
is obvious that Paul
thinks that Lesbian and
Gay sex is unnatural. It is
also obvious from reading other writings that
he
thinks that having women
preach in church, or to be ministers is wrong,
(because it was a woman who led Adam astray in the
first place) and that
they
will only be saved by
childbirth (1 Tim 2:9-15).
Paul states in his
first
letter to the Corinthian church (11:14) that it is
unnatural for men
to have long hair! In this last
passage Paul uses
the same Greek words
(para phusin) as he does when
condemning Lesbians and Gays.
If
traditional
churches wish us
to follow Paul's words about Lesbians and
Gays then
they will also have to condemn men with
long hair,
women
ministers, and state that women
will only get to Heaven if they have
babies (I think
someone should
tell Mother Teresa!). Until the main
Christian churches start
preaching Paul properly I
see no reason why we
can't say that he was biased by
the prevailing sexism and homophobia of
his
background and his words
should be taken with a pinch of salt (albeit
a very
large one!).
The Letters to the
Corinthian Church and
to
Timothy
The
church in Corinth had
written to Paul for
advice on
some particular issues and whilst the original
letter is lost,
Paul's answer has been preserved for
us in the
Bible. Likewise, the letter
to Timothy was advice
from
Paul to a young Overseer, or Bishop, who was
responsible for spreading the
Christian message. In
both letters Paul uses
a word to describe gay men
which is very unusual and which modern Bibles
cannot
agree on how to
translate into English.
The word
("arsenokoitai") appears in 1 Corinthians
6:9-10 and 1 Timothy
1:9-10.
Many think it just
means homosexual men. If this is
the case then
the
arguments
presented above about the passage in Romans still apply
here. However, some scholars, notably the late
Professor John Boswell of
Yale
University, have said
that the word refers to sacred
prostitutes.
These
would have
been young men who worked in the temples of the fertility
gods popular in the ancient world. Their function
was to play the part of
the
god whilst the
worshipper/client had sex with them.
This was supposed
to ensure a good harvest and was
seen as a form of
worship! Obviously Paul
would not recommend such
interesting worship services to those who were
committed to following the
life and example of
Jesus.
The Letters
of Jude and
Peter
There are two
texts, one in the Letter of
Jude and one in the
Second Letter of Peter, which are clearly
related
to each other - in fact the text in 2
Peter is
dependent on
Jude. Both take their
examples from the Sodom and Gomorrah
story and
both are designed to
show how God will destroy those who do not
believe
(Jude) or those who teach heresy (2
Peter).
The relevant texts
are:
"Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and
the surrounding cities, which,
in the same manner as
they, indulged in
sexual immorality and pursued
unnatural lust, serve as an example by
undergoing a
punishment of
eternal fire." (Jude 1:7)
"...and
if by
turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to
ashes he
condemned them
to extinction and made them
an example of what is coming to the ungodly;
and if
he rescued Lot, a
righteous man greatly distressed by the
licentiousness of the lawless ..., then the Lord
knows how to rescue the
godly
from trial, and to
keep the unrighteous under
punishment until the
day
of
judgment - especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved
lust, and who despise authority." (2 Peter
2:6-10)
The
irrelevance of the
'unnatural
lust' and 'depraved lust' in the
texts with regard
to modern-day gay and
lesbian relationships is
affirmed by the arguments
applied to the Sodom and Gomorrah story which
have
already been put forward
above.
Summary
To say the Bible condemns
lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender
people, and that such
condemnation should be
followed today, is to oversimplify a complex issue.
Parts of the Bible
do appear
superficially to condemn us but,
when compared
with other,
equally problematic and often sexist passages,
it is
clear that the phrase, "the Bible says..." is
not a
sufficient
argument for anything. When dealing
with the Bible we need to be aware of
what it says
about itself -
especially in the story of Sodom and also to
see how
it has been used over the ages. We need to
develop,
what feminist
theologians call, 'an
interpretation of suspicion' which questions how
texts either affirm or condemn
women, lesbians, gays
and other
minorities.
We invite you read through the following short articles
which offer some more detailed insights into this
whole area of "The
Bible
says...".
What to
say when the Bible is used as a weapon -
Does the whole village
really
need to stone my
neighbour to death, or can we
nominate a few
people
to do it
for us?
Some surprising things to ponder - What does
textual study tell us about Ruth and Naomi,
David and Jonathan, the
centurion and his slave?
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