Why do gay christians suffer most from their "brothers
and sisters in te Lord"?
The destruction of Sodom
God's wrath against homosexuals (or not)
Why do gay
christians suffer most from their "brothers
and sisters in te Lord"?
WARNING
!!!
Biased
article ahead do NOT continue unless you are
willing to be open for a different view
This is a biased article!
There is no reason to hide
it. This is a biased article on the story of the destruction of
Sodom.
But then, how about you, can you say you are not biased and don't
have any prejudice on this matter? I think you are also biased.
We all learn first about the meaning of this story from our
preachers, parents, friends, books and articles. So no one can
study this story with a clear and open mind.
The same is true for the author of this article.
Conclusion of this article: Sodom was NOT destroyed because of homosexuality
1) Although many christians think that the city of Sodom was destroyed because the inhabitants were (all?) homosexuals there is no such evidence in the Scriptures! As you will see below in detail all the passages in the Bible that refer to the destruction of Sodom (about 24 texts in the Old and New Testament) nowhere clearly state that the reason Sodom was destroyed was because of homosexuality.
2) The real reason Sodom was destroyed was because of the violation of one of the most important rules in the Middle East: the rule to always protect your guests. You will see that when other passages in the Bible refer to Sodom they mention the violation of hospitality as the reason for its destruction.
3) God sent his angels to Lot in the appearance of men. Do you really think that if the angels were female and also almost raped, God would have left the city at peace?! This is not about the sexuality of the angels (male or female) but the threatened guests.
Why gay christians suffer most from fellow christians
This website
receives hate-mail on a daily basis. You might think that this is
sent by non-christians because where in the Bible can we found
Jesus calling christians to hate their "enemies" let
alone their brothers and sisters?
The truth is, almost all the hate-mail comes from people calling
themselves christians.
Why is this? Why are so many christians occupied with trying to
"convert" gay christians, don't they have better things
to do? Why spent so much money, time and energy on campaigns to
fight gay and lesbian rights? Is that something Jesus would do?
It would be very interesting from a psychological point of view
to study these questions. But people are not born with this
gay-hate, it is taught, by preachers and many others.
Many christians
are convinced homosexuality is a sin. But if there is one
"sin" which is very questionable and not even in the
Ten Commandments, it is homosexuality. In other articles on this
site we will show that the Bible is for example ignorant about
loving gay relationships and the texts which seem to deal with
homosexuality are not clear. Above all: Jesus did not say one
word about this (for him unimportant?) subject.
Strange that many
christians use many words to call homosexual "sinners".
Who asked them to do so? Jesus? No, he did not say anything about
it.
Many are led by hate or ignorance but never have searched the
Scriptures themselves. I hope this page will encourage you to do
so. Maybe you will not reach the same conclusions but perhaps you
will see the truth on this matter is not simply black or white as
many want you to believe. So you should be very careful to call
something a sin (is that the job of a christian or God?) if you
are not 100% sure it is. You might be held accountable for that
and can do a lot of harm with that judgement.
It is my hope that maybe one day gay and non-gay christians can
live together as brothers and sisters, making this world a better
place for all people to live.
Inspiritus
The facts about Sodom - Page index:
Well, so much for the Old Testament's linkage of Sodom with homosexuality. Maybe the fundamentalists are referring to something in the New Testament? Let's see...
Conclusion from the OT and NT texts
Well, except for brief mentions of Sodom in Revelations 11:8 and Romans 9:29 (where there are no reference to the city's supposed sins), I'm afraid we've covered them all.
So, what is their reasoning? Why is homosexuality assumed to be the reason behind Sodom's destruction? I haven't a clue. Is it a fact, is it a matter of faith or a matter of fear for everything which is different ? Let's examine the "rules and regulations" of that period's cultural values and belief systems. Perhaps we'll find the answer in there... (then again, maybe not... )
In ancient societies where there were no hotels, no rapid transport and little rule of law. Cultural mores governing hospitality and respect for sojourning strangers were essentials for survival, and therefore of the utmost importance. In the mythology of Greece, next to haughtiness alone, inhospitality provoked the greatest wrath among the gods and goddesses. This was no less the case in ancient Israel.
Hospitality is a very important item in the Bible and is mentioned many times:
At the centre of Sodom's greatest transgression was the violation of that ancient code of hospitality. Jesus, in recalling the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah, says nothing regarding any sexual improprieties. Instead he speaks of these cities exemplifying the fate of those towns which refuse to welcome the apostles.
And that little incident brings to mind another point: Harbouring unknown strangers within a city for the night was dangerous. The residents of the city had great reason to demand to see Lot's guests. The Bible has recorded an incident wherein a mere two people were responsible for bringing about the total destruction of an entire city (Joshua, chapters 2 and 6). According to that account, spies were sent to discern the nature of the city and its defences. They were sheltered by a lady by the name of Rahab. And despite the fact that Rahab was a prostitute, and that prostitution was a grave sin: a short time later, Rahab's family was the only one in Jericho which survived Joshua's attack. Why? Hospitality.
City gates were closed at night expressly to prevent lawless or subversive aliens from entering on unknown errands, and travellers carried credentials because they might at any time be asked to prove that they were abroad on legitimate business. Thus we might translate "Bring them out to us, that we might know them" as "We wish to know whom you are bringing into our city".
Now we see why the bringing of strangers into the city, at night, without the approval of the leaders of that city, was a punishable offence. Lot, not being a resident of that city, was naturally not deemed trustable enough to have that privilege. In essence: He insulted the city's inhabitants with his flagrant -- and in retrospect, obviously dangerous -- behaviour. They were out to "learn him a little lesson".
Now, as a host, it would have been a grave offence against the hospitality code to turn his guests over to the mob. But on the other hand their arrival had not been sanctioned by the city elders. Furthermore, Lot's refusal to let the town's people have a look see at his guests only served to further fan the flames of suspicion: Perhaps Lot's "guests" really were enemy agents sent to spy out weaknesses within the city...
The hospitality code regarding guests and practice of humiliating enemies is well documented. From the Texts of Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit from north Syria, circa 1400BC) we read that an ideal son is one "Who would drive away any who would molest his night-guest." The parallel to the Sodom story is not to be overlooked. Indeed, the editor of that text (Winton Thomas) links the passage to the common practice among the Bedouin AND Lot in Genesis 19.
J. Edgar Brun in "Old Testament History and the Development of a Sexual Ethic" cites the practice of raping the defeated male enemy -- especially amongst the Egyptians -- as a form and symbol of domination. He then links this historical fact to the later Hebrew prohibition of male homosexual acts. He states:
"[The Israelites] too viewed sodomy [sic] as an expression of scorn; and in a society where the dignity of the male was a primary consideration, voluntary acts of a homosexual nature could not be tolerated. Both parties would then be undermining the very foundation of a patriarchal society; the one because he uses another as a woman; the other because he allows himself to be used as a woman.
And so centuries passed, and generations of Jewish scholars continued to understand the divine retribution against Sodom and Gomorrah to be a lesson on arrogance and inhospitality. Only later did Church moralists refer to the Sodom story in the context of sexual practices. Such as when, late in the first century A.D., the writer of the book of Jude asserts that Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves over to sexual immorality (Jude 1:7). Still, this is no indictment against the homosexual orientation.
Some translations of the Bible speak of the Sodomites going after "strange flesh" (Greek: "sarkos heteras"). The word "heteras" means "different." As is made clear by apocryphal Hebrew writings, Jude is referencing the Sodomites' attempt to rape angels. It is worth noting that Jude is the only biblical writer who connected the sins of the Sodomites to sexual immorality and still was ambiguous regarding homosexuality.
The word "sodomite" occurs five times in the Bible: Deuteronomy 23:17; I Kings 14:24, 15:12, and 22:46; and II Kings 23:7. In all five cases it translates the Hebrew word "qadesh" which means a male prostitute in a pagan temple.
The part of the story in which Lot offers his daughters to be raped in order to appease the crowd clearly demonstrates that there is NOT a sexual ethic for the 20th Century in this story at all. It abuses the dignity of women, and demonstrates that sexual orientation was not an operative concept at the time the story emerged.
But we're not done yet. The traditional concept of the sin of Sodom arises from the fact that the Hebrew word here translated as "to know" (yadha) is used by itself in ten places in the Old Testament to denote heterosexual intercourse. In five additional texts it is used in conjunction with "mishkabh" (in this context, "to lie") to mean the same thing. But yadha appears by itself no less than 943 times in a nonsexual connotation; meaning simply to "get acquainted with" or "learn of" in a scholarly sense.
There is no Old Testament text in which yadha refers to homosexual coitus, with the single exception of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah found in Genesis. The less ambiguous word shakab, however, is used for homosexual, heterosexual, and bestial intercourse. Shakab appears fifty times in the Old Testament. If it had been used instead of yadha in the Sodom story, the meaning of the text would have been unmistakable. "Shkobeth" or "raba" could also have been used for their sexual connotations, yet they weren't; lending credence to the theory that sex wasn't what the men desired.
Moreover, even if the fundamentalists must insist (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) that the men of Sodom wanted to have sex with the strangers, that's a matter of rape, not homosexual love. I think we can all agree that rape is right up there on the list of big sins, and further that it is an act of power, control, and violence, not of love between consenting adults.
There's another Old Testament passage that is relevant. The story is found in Judges 19:11-30. It bears a striking resemblance to the Sodom story -- a traveller arrives at the city (in this case, Gilbeah). There he meets an old man who is, like Lot, a resident alien. The old man warns the traveller that he should not stay in the town square, and he extends the hand of hospitality in accordance with Holy law, inviting the traveller to share his abode for the night. And here too, the permission of the city elders is not sought. So, the men of the city surround the old man's house and demand that the traveller be sent out so "that we may know him" (there's that "yadha" again). The old man refuses to send out the guest, but offers his virgin daughter and his concubine to the mob instead. When the crowd rejects the offer, the old man throws his concubine outside as a diversion, whereupon the "base fellows" in the mob rape and abuse her all night, leaving her dying at the threshold. When the Israelites learn of the abuse of the concubine, they rise up against Gilbeah and, with God's help, destroy the city.
Here we have an instance almost identical to Sodom, except that this time we have not mere attempted rape, but actual heterosexual rape combined with murder. Yet no one uses this story to imply God's condemnation of heterosexuality in general, do they? Likewise, it is not possible to say that the story of Sodom is about homosexuality in general. Even if the original intent of both the townsmen of Sodom and those of Gilbeah was homosexual rape, obviously both stories are about heterosexual males who indulge in it as a sport or game of dominance. Otherwise the offers of females as diversionary sexual objects in both stories makes no sense. To extend such an offer to homosexual males would be pointless because it would hold no interest for them.
Those who insist that Sodom was destroyed for homosexuality are denying the very Bible they claim to revere, and attempting to push a laden camel through the eye of a needle. They are required to make five outrageous leaps of faith:
1. Homosexual love is equal to rape
2. "Yadha" meant homosexual acts only once or twice and something else 943 times;
3. All of the other references to Sodom's sins contained in the Bible are in error, incomplete, or obfuscatory;
4. The strict codes regarding hospitality and the safety of travellers were immaterial, and;
5. The concubine of the man of Gilbeah was a male.
Walking the old religious landscape
We should also remember that the monotheism of Judaism was in strict competition with many other religions of the time, some of which practised anal sex as a way to gain their god's favour. Specifically, those gods were: Inana, Anath, Molech, Ishtar, Baal, and Asherah. These gods had both male and female priests and having sex with those priests was an act of worship designed to bring about the fertility of fields and to ensure childbirth.
The Bible even records a specific instance of one of these fertility practices: The use of "love-apples" (or mandrakes) to conceive (Genesis 30:14-17: Rachel bargains with Leah for the "love-apples" so that she might spend the night sexually with Jacob).
These gods were popular. Molech is mentioned several times: Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5; 1Kings 11:5; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35; Acts 7:43.
Baal, next on the "popularity poll," gets a few more mentions: Judges 2:11-13, 6:25-32; 1Samuel 7:4; 1Kings 16:31-32, 18:18&40, 19:18; 2Kings 3:2, 10:18-25, 11:18, 21:3, 23:4-5; 2Chronicles 24:7, 28:2, 33:3; Jeremiah 2:8&23, 7:9, 23:13; Hosea 2:13-17, 13:1.
The most liked of
all -- at least by way of mentions in the Bible -- was Asherah,
sometimes
referred to as The Queen of the Heavens. She was also called the
consort of God or "Elat," which is the female form of
the Caananite's name for God: "El". She gets a direct
mention in 2Kings 23:7. Her worshipers were called the
Ashtoreths, and they and their worship are mentioned a
breathtaking number of times in the Bible: Deuteronomy 16:21;
Judges 2:13, 3:7, 6:28, 10:6; 1Samuel 7:3-4, 12:10, 31:10; 1Kings
11:5&33, 14:15&23, 15:13, 18:19; 2Kings 13:6,
17:10&16, 18:4, 21:3-7, 23:13-14; 2Chronicles 14:3, 17:6,
19:3, 24:18, 34:3-4; Isaiah 17:8, 27:9; Jeremiah 17:2; and Micah
5:14.
So, what we have here is the authors of the Old Testament expressing a demand that the Israelites give their loyalty to the ONE GOD, lest they face judgement. This was to be accomplished via the Holiness Code; whose one major emphases was to protect the Israelites from idolatry and help them distinguish between magical and faithful thinking. This was indeed a problem, as can be witnessed by at least one incident involving Jacob's wife and some terafim, or small idols, in Genesis 31:33-35.
The Holiness Code had nothing to do with homosexuality as we understand it today. The prohibitions against homosexual sex acts were meant to keep the people on God's path and note that there are no prohibitions against homosexuals themselves anywhere in the Bible. Generally speaking, Old Testament proscriptions against homosexual behaviour are culturally bound, serving a distinct purpose whose time has passed. They stem from the times of the Hebrew tribes wandering in the wilderness and settling in Canaan. The Hebrews needed strict moral laws governing social behaviour, dietary habits and social interaction to enforce their distinct uniqueness as a group of people. The laws separated the Hebrews from the rest of the world. These proscriptions were later codified during the crisis of the Babylonian Captivity, when the Jews needed strict religious laws to insure their cultural survival as a separate ("holy") people in an alien land, nothing more, nothing less.
An example of this may be found in Deuteronomy 23:17-18:
"None of the daughters of Israel shall be a temple prostitute; none of the sons of Israel shall be a temple prostitute. You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to the Lord your God."
Many early gods -- Molech for instance -- had "temple prostitutes" which one could obtain "blessings" from for a bit of coinage. There were both male and female qadeshim available for different types of blessings. Most of Molech's male temple prostitutes were young boys, since youth was important. Most of the "customers" were heterosexual, and it was easier to entice them with effeminate adolescents.
For a man to seek the "blessings of Molech" with one of Molech's male temple prostitutes was rather common. Bolstering that admonition, we have Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 which read:
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination... If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."
The operative cultural bias here is that it is an abomination to treat another man like a woman. Males were thought to be made in the image of God; thus homosexual behaviour would be seen through the heterosexual majority's eyes as violating the image of God. Furthermore, the "detestable" nature of lying "as a woman" refers to a male's assuming the PASSIVE role in intercourse, which was held to be an "abomination" since a male was taking on the inferior status of women. Apparently it does not view the "active" role in intercourse as an abomination, nor other homosexual acts.
It's important to note that these verses, and all the others condemning homosexual sex, are denouncing the act of male-male sex. They do not, however, cast sentence on what we refer to in modern times as homosexuality. Note the lack of any mention of two women having sex being and act worthy of death for instance. Fundamentalists using Leviticus to condemn homosexuality are missing the point.
The verses in question are chastising those who are male, and who choose to seek the blessings of any deity other than God (thus ruining the concept of monotheism). Now since Molech was one of God's competitors, and since Molech had male prostitutes, it is only logical that such items should be mentioned as being "bad things." It is a prohibition against seeking blessings from Molech, not a condemnation against seeking the love of another human being.
The Holiness Codes, and similar systems that are found in the Old Testament, were there to make absolutely certain someone converted to Judaism did not stray into pagan religions of the time. Same-sex intercourse was practised by some of the pagan religions, and thus we see the Old Testament condemning that act because of what it represents in the eyes of the authors: straying from the loyalty to God. Not only did the ancient religious leaders seek to keep the Israelites from participating in temple prostitution, they sought to eliminate ALL such pagan practices, regardless of orientation.
More to the point: the Israelites were instinctively concerned with maximising the probabilities of procreation. Religious laws governing sexual practices reinforced that basic tribal concern. Centuries later, when the Jews were enslaved in Babylon and the Holiness Code took the form we know today, such religious laws reinforced the Jews' sense of being a people set apart from the cultural practices around them. Today we understand the dignity of women, human sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular in ways inconceivable to the ancient priests who compiled Leviticus. Is it also inconceivable to fundamentalists ?
What do you think ?
This article was contributed by Lisa, a visitor of Inspiritus. The article was first created by Deacon Maccubbin on March third, 1995. It has been changed from its original form and now includes not only my own comments and additions, but also those of other writers and visitors who posted particularly well-crafted and researched messages on the subject. Several volumes of historic and religious texts have also been perused and consulted. (See: Bibliography) Careful examination of the document is encouraged and discussion is welcome. You can leave your own thoughts behind in the dreambook or mail inspiritus and ask for your contribution to be added to this page.
Input from visitors
1) Peter: "...are the 'sodom angels' men or women?"
"You may have seen this already, but
the general consensus has been that the homosexuality is in
Chapter 19, when the "men" of the city surrounded Lot's
house and demanded that he hand the angels over to them, that
they might "know" these pople.
Lot offered to let them have his daughters (!!!), but they wanted
the angels, so, the theory goes, that's homosexuality.
This scares me; you have an angry mob wanting to rape *ANGELS* to
show power over them, and the first question people ask is
"were they the same sex?".
I mean, really. I don't think that God would have approved
of the men of Sodom raping His angels if the angels had been in
female bodies. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
;-)" Peter S.
2) Jill "...the sodom theme is also known in mythology"
How wonderful to see someone else who sees
the S&G story as what I saw it as, reading it for the first
time as a college student... The sin involved being one of the
attempted violation of the xenios(stranger)-host/guest
relationship.
I have no idea whether you've heard this comparison before, or
whether you've considered looking at other, more-or-less
contemporary faiths (though I think the following story is from a
bit later, at least in theory.)
In Roman mythology there's the story of Baucis and Philomon, in
which Jupiter and Mercury come down to Earth to... you guessed
it... test humans regarding their basic level of
sinfulness. When they get there they go to three or four
homes (depending on the version you read) and are turned away
from all but the last, which is the abode of a very poor farmer
and his wife. After passing a fine evening with the couple,
who go out of their way to be *extremely* hospitable (including
killing a goose, if I remember it right, which they'd been
fattening up for some holiday or other or at least for winter)
the two gods send them up the side of a mountain in order to get
them out of the way when they drown the world to make room for
new people who are hopefully less sinful.
After having a history class where we discussed
stranger-host/guest relationship and its implications for a
variety of ancient stories. A host implicitly promises that
no harm will come to the guest by his hand or by those of others
while the guest is under his roof. Similarly, of course,
the guest implicitly promises not to bring harm to the host, or
steal his things (or women, or whatever... which is why was Helen
of Troy so important that all of Greece would go after her?
Violation of the host/guest convention...Bad Paris... stealing
someone's wife is a *big* no-no, right up there with stealing his
horse, though not as bad as his sword, I suppose.)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah instantly struck me as
being of the same vein. Lot couldn't turn the angels over
because of his duty as a stranger-host. From a modern
standpoint it is impossible for me to even being to discuss the
offering of his virgin daughters, though in many cultures they
would definitely have had less value than the lives of the
strangers within his home. I have to admit that I was
surprised by the information about the translation of 'know' --
but I have to say that it makes more sense to me than some random
decision to surround some guy's house and demand sex from his
guests. That's a pretty big no-no and I'm fairly certain
that the man's neighbors would have known that.
Tangentially, I find it interesting that they would go to such
lengths, or that Lot would go to such an extreme, himself.
He could have taken his guests to someone in charge/power and
vouched for them instead of hiding them away in his home
first. While I won't argue that two men could scout out the
defenses of a city in order to bring it down, setting everything
up in such not-quite-enough secrecy seems rather like setting
people up for predictable failure. But that's a whole
different set of arguments. Anyway, it was neat to run into a
site where someone else saw it. :).
Bibliography
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong. (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993)
The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead by R. O. Falkner. (Brittish Museum, London, 1985)
The Dictionary of World Myth by Peter Bently, general editor. (Facts On File, Duncan Baird Publishers 1995)
The Holy Bible, 3rd Edition by White Harvest Software, Inc. (White Harvest Software, 1995)
The Larousse Desk Reference, James Hughes general editor (Larousse Kingfisher Chambers Inc., 1995)
The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (versions 6.03 and 7.05) by Grolier Inc. (Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1993 and 1995)
The World of the Bible by Roberta L. Harris. (Thames and Hudson Ltd. 1995)
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