Sodom and Homosexuality
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| The destruction of Sodom as illustrated by Sebastian Münster (1564) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Terms of the Text
At issue is the translation of the Hebrew word yādaʿ, commonly meaning “to know.” In the New International Version text for Genesis 19:5 and 8, the words of verse 5, “can have sex with,” and those of verse 8, “never slept with,” are in each case the translation of yādaʿ:
They called 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 said to the men] “Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
Others take the view that the text condemns violence of some sort. Countryman says it is violence, not impurity, for impurity would be irrelevant prior to the giving of the Law in Exodus and Leviticus. There is no basis for finding a “universal condemnation of homosexuality or even of homosexual acts.” Countryman appeals to other writers of the Old Testament who, he claims, do not specify Sodom’s sin.
Even the use of the term abominations is so unspecific that one cannot be sure what it means when used by such writers as Ezekiel.
Edwards, with his grid of liberation theology, says that Sodom represents disregard for the rights of the powerless in “Canaanite statism.” Sodom stands for “violent, aggressive abuse of power and injustice” in the form of “phallic aggression” against subordinates. To link Sodom with homosexuality in general is “essentially heretical.” Similarly, Nissinen adds that Sodom does not help us to know God’s attitude toward same-gender sexual behavior.
So the revisionist approach to Genesis 19 (and Judges 19, discussed below) is twofold. With Boswell and Bailey, some deny that homosexuality was involved at Sodom. Rather, the issue was inhospitality. Others, with Countryman and Edwards, affirm that homosexual rape or violence was involved at Sodom, but they do not regard this as evidence for universal condemnation of homosexual acts.
To prove his position that only inhospitality was the fault, Boswell first appeals to word frequency. Only ten of 943 occurrences of “to know” (yādaʿ) in the Old Testament unequivocally have the sense of sexual knowledge. What Boswell and others neglect to discern is that each of those ten instances is identified as sexual knowledge by context. When a word can have more than one meaning, context, not frequency, is the crucial factor. Word frequency only enables one to weigh the likelihood of a meaning or to consider the range of possible meanings when context is unclear.
In addition, another tool to find meaning is proximity to uses of the same word elsewhere in the text or usage by the same writer. Use of yādaʿ in an obvious sexual sense occurs in Genesis 4:1, 17, 25. The meaning of sexual relations establishes a meaning precedent for the book and argues for the legitimacy of this meaning in Genesis 19:5: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know [have sexual relations with] them.” Since Moses uses the term with this meaning the most frequently, it is at least plausible that such a meaning occurs in 19:5.
The use of know in the context just three verses later (19:8) settles the issue. It is difficult to see how yādaʿ can have anything but the sense of “to have sexual relations with.” Lot says, “I have two daughters who have not had relations with [have not known] man.” In this context a sexual sense in 19:5 is virtually certain. The use of equivalents to yādaʿ in other Near Eastern languages (such as Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Akkadian) shows that a euphemistic sexual meaning was common.
Boswell argues that the term never occurs in reference to homosexual rape. Boswell’s argument has two faults. One is that nowhere else does yādaʿ mean “to inspect passports” (“to act inhospitably”). He also is wrong in asserting that yādaʿ never refers to homosexual assault or rape. We shall see that this is clearly the meaning in Judges 19:22, 25. Both the Hebrew and the LXX Greek say that the men of Gibeah came to “know” the concubine, in the sense of sexually assaulting her: “The men … raped her” (v. 25). Unmistakably, verse 22 relates that the men of Gibeah sexually desired the Levite, not his concubine (cf. Judg. 19:22–24; 20:5–6).
The issue of inhospitality does occur in 19:15, 18, but that evil is something distinct from what happens when the mob of men arrives. Further, it is fair to ask how it was hospitable for the owner of the house to turn over the concubine, who also was a stranger in the city. If the homeowner was defending hospitality and resisting inhospitality, he certainly did not do so with the Levite’s concubine. He gave her over to sexual abuse, even though she was the property of someone else!
The only explanation of his action that makes any sense is that he was trying to prevent a greater crime and evil than inhospitality.
Sodom in the New Testament
At this point, revisionist interpreters appeal to the New Testament, claiming with Boswell that Jesus “apparently believed that Sodom was destroyed for the sin of inhospitality.”30 In Matthew 10:14–15 and Luke 10:10–12, the Lord does not cite the cause of Sodom’s destruction, but He identifies the destruction as a prime example of God’s judgment. The sin in the context is not inhospitality but failure to believe the gospel of the kingdom (Matt. 10:7; Luke 10:9). It is rejection of Christ (10:16).
Sodom in the Septuagint
One of the strongest supports for the traditional interpretation of what happened at Sodom comes from the LXX translation of Genesis 19:5, which uses the term syngenōmetha. Boswell believes that this use supports his interpretation. He points out that this word simply means “becoming familiar with” or “making the acquaintance of” in Genesis 19:5, whereas egnōsan and chrēsas clearly refer to sexual behavior in 19:8. However, in the parallel of Judges 19:22, the LXX uses another form of egnōsan, gnōmen, in the request of the men of Gibeah to “know” the Levite. It plainly has a sexual sense.
Also, Boswell has not given all the information regarding the term in 19:5. The word syngignomai, which later came to be spelled synginomai, can mean various things, including to
(1) “be born with,
(2) associate or keep company with or hold converse with, or to
(3) become acquainted or conversant with.”31 Under the second meaning, various ideas are possible, including “come to assist,” “come together with,” “meet,” or “have sexual intercourse with.”
The last meaning occurs in the fifth to fourth centuries B.C. in Xenophon’s Anabasis 1.2.12 and in Plato’s The Republic 329c and Leges (Laws) 930d. It is also found with that meaning in an undated Greek inscription, in writings by Herodotus (2.121.e; 5th century B.C.) and Epidaurus (4th century B.C.), and in Plutarch’s Solon 23 (A.D. 1st–2d centuries).32 These several references, most of them from shortly before 250 B.C., which was the era of the LXX translation, argue that a sexual meaning for the term is probable in Genesis 19:5.
In addition, A Concordance to the Septuagint by Hatch and Redpath cites two occurrences of synginomai in the canonical Septuagint (Gen. 19:5; 39:10) and one occurrence in the Apocrypha (Judith 12:16).33 These occurrences are in sexual contexts. Genesis 39:10 relates to the attempted seduction of Joseph by Potiphar’s wife. The last words are the translation of this term: “And it came about as she spoke to Joseph day after day, that he did not listen to her to lie beside her, or be with her” (emphasis added). The New International Version translates the last portion: “He refused to go to bed with her or even be with her” (emphasis added). The final words could just as well be in apposition to the earlier ones: “he refused to go to bed with her, to have intercourse with her.” Indeed, William L. Holladay cites this verse as an instance in which the Hebrew hayaʿim means “to be with someone at someone’s house sexually.”
The above data rather convincingly supports a sexual meaning for synginomai in Genesis 19:5. Indeed, the translators of the LXX might have deliberately desired to make the sexual reference more explicit, not weaker, than the Hebrew yādaʿ or the Greek ginōskō would suggest. This and other evidence from the LXX is compelling.
Revisionist interpreters do acknowledge that Lot’s offer of his daughters to the men in Genesis 19:8 must suggest some sexual meaning for yādaʿ. Boswell believes that the connection with 19:5 is purely imaginary. Lot was speaking impulsively, “on the spur of the moment.”35 That argument is irrelevant to the point that the same term yādaʿ occurs in verses 5 and 8, in such proximity that the assumption can hardly be missed: Both instances mean “to have sexual relations with.” Boswell cites examples from Roman literature in which fathers offered female children as bribes in nonsexual contexts, but this is beside the point. He already has admitted the strong sexual behavior belonging to the verbs used by the LXX in verse 8.
The Hebrew yādaʿ occurs here as a euphemism, one of four occurring in the Pentateuch as references to sexual intercourse. The others are “to come near or approach” (Gen. 20:4; Isa. 8:3); “to lie with” (Levit. 20:11); “to take (marry) a wife” (Levit. 20:21); and “to uncover the nakedness” (Levit. 18:14). All of them have the same meaning.
Sodom and the Disgrace at Gibeah
Boswell and others argue that the account in Judges 19:22ff. also refers only to inhospitality or violence. We all can agree that the writer of Judges has clearly modeled his telling of the story on Genesis 19, and we should interpret them the same way.36 Although Boswell claims that “Jews and Christians have overwhelmingly failed to interpret this story as one of homosexuality,”37 he fails to back up this claim with any sources. A footnote admits that some sources have interpreted the act as sodomy. Although the definitions for sodomy have been wide enough to include several sexual vices, no one has tried to include inhospitality as a possible meaning, except in the sense that all sexual attacks are inhospitable.
The Levite could hardly view the interest of the men of Gibeah as simply an inhospitable act. In Judges 20:5–6, he recounts that the men of Gibeah came after him intending to kill him. It is a “disgraceful” and “lewd” act. In 19:22, the men demand to have sex with, “to know,” the Levite. The host called this a “disgraceful” and “vile” thing (vv. 23–24 NIV). If the men’s aim was only to become acquainted with the Levite, why do they “rape” the concubine?38 Note again that to know is translated “rape.”
Boswell makes the amazing claim in his treatment of the account in Judges that it is anachronistic to view sexual matters as very important to Old Testament stories. However, the most cursory examination of the narratives of Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament shows a decided interest in sexuality and sexual expression of every sort. Sexual concerns arise as early as Genesis 2 and 3 and are quite clearly related to the cause of the universal flood of Genesis 6–8: “The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” (6:2). Throughout the Pentateuch’s historical narrative, written before Judges, the author assumes certain sexual standards. Far less attention is given to hospitality. In Joshua 6, Boswell thinks the Jews spared Rahab the prostitute because of her hospitality because he sees parallels between that story and Genesis 19 and Judges 19–20. However, the story is not parallel. Rahab was spared because of her faith, not her hospitality. Without exercising faith, she would not have shown hospitality and would have perished. The reason God destroyed Jericho was not inhospitality. It was rather the inhabitants’ refusal to worship Yahweh and their resulting sins (Josh. 2:8–11; see also Gen. 15:16–21).
Boswell seeks to show from secular and biblical sources (for example, Genesis 18; Deut. 23:3–4) that inhospitality was such a grave offense to that culture that it warranted the destruction of a city. The text never even hints that this was the reason for the judgment. Inhospitality did characterize the Sodomites because they pursued homosexual attack. As Thomas E. Schmidt observes, it is even a false dichotomy to distinguish inhospitality from sexual sin.39 The issue is whether this interpretation limiting the sin to inhospitality is plausible and fits the text and context. Is it possible that God would destroy an entire city and culture simply because the men wanted to “know” who the visitors were? Note that the Scriptures seem gender specific; the men sin in both accounts (Gen. 19:4; Judg. 19:22). The text of Genesis 19:4 and 11 emphasizes the role of men. It is the men of Sodom, “both young and old, all the people, to the last man (i.e., from every quarter).”
Does inhospitality meet the demands of such characterizations of the sin of Sodom given as early as Genesis 13:13: “Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord” (NIV)? The author describes the sin as directed against the Lord, not people. Also, Genesis 14:21 depicts the king of Sodom expressing gratitude for deliverance. He seems capable of hospitality.
Finally, does inhospitality meet the description of Genesis 18:20ff? The passage reads: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know” (vv. 21–22 NIV). God sends the angels as men to Sodom to validate the outcry against its people (19:13). The text specifies only one sin relating to the angelic visitors, so only one sin exposed the wickedness and validated the outcry. That one sin is the demand “to know” the male visitors (19:5). In the entire context, this is the only deed that the writer considers to be wicked (v. 7; cf. Judg. 19:23–24). It is sin, not merely some impure act, that the texts condemn.
The revisionist view asserts that early Christian writings, such as Jude, distorted the original meaning of the story of Sodom.40 This writing, which Boswell characterizes as less “authentic” than others, supposedly refers (in Jude 7) to a Jewish legend that the women of Sodom had intercourse with angels! However, verse 7 does not mention women. Verse 8 refers to men who “in the same way … pollute their own bodies.” Also, Jude is part of our canon, whereas what Boswell considers the “more authentic interpretations” of Origen, Ambrose, and others are not. Jude 7–8 read (NIV):
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.
The attempt to set Origen, Ambrose, and other later Christian writers at odds with Jude’s “homosexual interpretations” is an argument from silence. Subsequent writers do not deny that homosexuality was involved. Rather they follow the pattern of most of Scripture and stress the other sins at Sodom.
Boswell and other revisionists fail to cite all patristic evidence. Indeed, in his review of Boswell’s book, J. Robert Wright notes that Boswell makes no use of the extensive patristic biblical indexes that were available. In the first three volumes of Biblia Patristica: Index des citations et allusions bibliques dan la literature patristique are 157 references to Genesis 19:1–29 and 140 references to Leviticus 18 and 20. Boswell makes no use of these sources. His use of two or three church fathers hardly constitutes sufficient research on which to base a substantive conclusion about the early church fathers.
De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 32–38). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
