Ezekiel 16:48-50,
and Jesus himself, when he sends the Apostles out in Matthew 10:1-15
and Luke 10:1-12, compares to Sodom and Gomorrah those who are
inhospitable to his disciples. (In The Book of Judges, 19-21, there is
an account, similar in many ways, where Gibeah, a city of the Benjamin
tribe, is destroyed by the other tribes of Israel in revenge for a mob
of its inhabitants raping and killing a woman.)
Hebrews 13:2
which famously says "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for
thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Is there to encourage
Hospitality, and what Paul mainly had in mind was Genesis 18, which is
part of the same narrative as Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. So
that's two New Testament witnesses that Hospitality is what's in mind
here.
Leviticus 19 also demonstrates how Hospitality was an
important value in the Mosaic Law. It's funny actually how some modern
politically conservative Christians want to impose Leviticus 18 and 20
on modern America, but won't mention the following passage of the in-between chapter when discussing Immigration. Verses 33 and 34. Verse
34 draws on the phrase from the earlier verse 18 that is the only
Leviticus statement ever directly quoted by Jesus, it's what he labels it the second greatest commandment.
"And
if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.
But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born
among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in
the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."
This notion of
reminding the Israelites that they where strangers in Egypt is something
God often does when telling them to be kind to their strangers. This
is why Egypt is paired with Sodom when Jerusalem "spiritually is called
Sodom and Egypt" in places like Revelation 11, where they celebrating he martyrdom of God's two messengers. God is condemning
Jerusalem for it's in-hospitality.
In Genesis 19, a sexual act is
threatened in the narrative, but it's an act of rape, gang rape
specifically, and is thus sinful regardless of the genders involved.
Rape back then as now is more about Power then Sex, male on male rape
particularly is about humiliation. That's the reason for Prison Rape, those men aren't actually of a Homosexual orientation.
Yet I have critics of my view then asking me with a mocking tone"so what it Rape or In-Hospitality". And I just rolls my eyes. Can they really not figure out that raping a guest in your home or visitor in your town is the ultimate in-hospitality?
In various key verses of
Genesis 18 and 19 the word you see translated "men" is actually 'enowsh
(en-oshe') Strong # 582 (in it's plural form). Enosh is not actually a
gender specific term, if the author wanted to be gender specific here
he’d have used either iysh or zakar. Enosh is closer to how Adam is
used, as a references to all humans. Enos was the name of an ancestor
of Noah in Genesis 4 and 5, in other words we are all descendants of
Enos just as we are of Adam. Elsewhere even the KJV simply translated
it "persons".
The Sodom and Gomorrah narrative uses it both of the angel visitors
and those who seek to attack them. Genesis 19:4 says “the
men of the city, even the
men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young,
all the people from every quarter:” The
italics are Enosh, as seen by what I put in
bold,
it’s clearly NOT just the males doing this. I think it’s very
conceivable it’d have been just the women actually screwing them and the
men would have just watched, some people are into that sort of thing.
I've
recently read some of Ken Johnson's material ('
Ancient Post-Flood
History: Historical Documents That Point to Biblical Creation' and
'
Ancient Paganism: The Sorcery of the Fallen Angels'), he has a fixation
on the so called "Book of Jasher" (which he also has an entire book
dedicated to, which I don't have yet but I'm sure he makes the same
statement). He believes the medieval Midrash Jasher is the "Jasher"
mentioned in Joshua and Samuel, but I
the real Jasher we don't have. But at any rate, when mentioning what Chapter 18 of this
Pseudo-Jasher has to say about Sodom and Gomorrah, he unfortunately
shoehorns homosexuality into it. Not even the text as he quotes it say anything emphasizing a homosexual nature to the men of Sodom,
but instead do give many details testifying to their evident
heterosexuality. Jasher 18, verses 13 and 14 reads
"And all the people
of Sodom and Gomorrah went there four times in the year, with their wives and children
and all belonging to them, and they rejoiced there with timbrels and
dances. And in the time of rejoicing they would all rise and lay hold of their neighbor's wives, and some, the virgin daughters of their neighbors, and they enjoyed them, and each man saw his wife and daughter in the hands of his neighbor
and did not say a word." Reading from verse 16 onwards however, the
emphasis is on in-hospitality; it's discussed far more than any sexual
issues. Verse 16 "the people of these cities would assemble, men, women
and children, young and old, and go to the man and take his goods by
force". And it lists many other examples of their ill treatment of
visitors.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/jasher/18.html
This isn't the only thing he gets wrong either. His scholarship is horrible and I absolutely would not recommend his books to any young Christian not already well informed on these subjects.
Another extra-Biblical source would be Clement of Rome, besides the Didache perhaps our oldest extra-Biblical Christian document. He too refereed to Sodom when discussing Hospitality.
Jude
verse 7 is often cited by Chuck Missler and others as confirming the
sin of Sodom was sexual in nature. I’m a fan of Chuck’s but we have
disagreements, and here I’m actually going to use some of Chuck’s own
arguments against him. The sin Jude is concerned with does have a
sexual nature to it, but it’s not homosexual.
Here are both
verses 6 and 7 as they read in the KJV “And the angels which kept not
their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner,
giving themselves over to fornication, and going after
strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
I
have put "strange" in bold for a reason. The irony of trying to say
this is condemning Homosexuality is that the word translated strange
here is Heteros (het'-er-os) Strong # 2087, which is the word the hetero
part of the word Heterosexual comes from. Homios means the same kind
while Heteros means a different kind. In New Testament times neither
was combined with a word meaning sexual to imply orientation, that is a
modern development. Both words are commonly translated "another".
Chuck Missler will often make points about there being 2 different
words for "another" in Greek, Homios meaning "another" of the same kind,
while Heteros means another of a different kind. But he fails to
acknowledge that they're not always translated "another", and that
Heteros is used here.
Homios is part of what’s translated “like
manner” to indicate this being the same kind of sin addressed in the
previous verse. I personally would in this verse translate Heteros as Alien, “
Alien
flesh” (Some scholars have already suggested that before me). Essentially it can be taken to mean foreigner, and thus consistent with the issue being their in-hospitality to strangers.
Secondarily, if you believe the Angel view of Genesis 6. We do
know from various references to the Raphaim that the region where Sodom
and Gomorrah was located was a center of Nephilim activity, the servants
of Satan trying to repeat what they did before The Flood as explained
in Genesis 6 which Jude alludes to in verse 6. 2 Peter 2:4-10 also
mentions that and Sodom & Gomorrah together in the context of
explaining the signs of the end times. Chuck talks about this subject a
lot, including “As in the days of Noah” from the Olivet Discourse, but
the Luke account of the discourse adds to that a reference to Sodom and
Gomorrah in 17:28-30.
I don’t believe these were the
first Angels the people of Sodom had encountered, just the first not fallen ones. And
I believe Human and Angel interbreeding is what Jude was referring to.
It was rather the opposite of homosexuality; it's how the intended
victims were different from their attackers that is the concern.
The
Testament of Naphtali refers of the
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs 3.3.4-5 refers explicitly to the Women of Sodom having Sex with Angels, with terminology that is similar to Romans 1 interestingly.
But I'm not so convinced of the Angel view of Genesis 6 as I used to be.
Another common mistake on this passage, do not leave it with the conclusion that God approves of Lot offering his Daughters. He has the key value the Sodomites do not, Hospitality. But he goes about that in the wrong way. Lot is NOT meant to be an ideal role model, he's consistently depicted as a worldly believer. God never condones what Lot did here, in fact the Angels there as God's agents who clearly understand God's will better then Lot does made sure it didn't happen.
What is a
Sodomite?
The
word Sodomite, both singular and plural, often occurs in the KJV of the
Hebrew Bible. This term derives from Medieval interpretations of Sodom
and Gomorrah being about male homosexuality. The way it’s used in many
verses in the KJV and some modern Bibles makes it look like the text is
referring back to Sodom and Gomorrah. Problem is that’s NOT in the
Hebrew text at all.
The first occurrence is Deuteronomy 23:17
“There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of
the sons of Israel.” The reason why this is such an obviously bad
rendering, is that in the Hebrew the word rendered Sodomite (Qadesh
(kaw-dashe') Strong # 6945) here is actually just the masculine form of
the word rendered whore (Q@deshah (ked-ay-shaw') Strong # 4948) . And
it’s the same word all 5 times Sodomite occurs, the other 4 occurrences
are all in Kings. Once the same word is translated differently by the
KJV, in Job 36:14 it’s rendered "unclean". The feminine form is also often rendered "harlot".
The
feminine form is closer to being translated accurately but not quite.
It doesn't refer to just any prostitute (there were other Hebrew words
for that), but specifically to Temple prostitutes engaged in ritual
prostitution in the cults of goddesses like Astarte and Qedeshtu. The
root of the word is "Qedosh" which means "Holy". Every time you see
"Holy" in the OT it's "Qedosh", and "Holy One" (a title of the God of
Israel) is it's noun form. It derives from similar practices involved in
the worship of Inanna in Uruk of ancient Sumer, who later became known
as Ishtar in Babylon. The prostitute (male or female) in question
played the goddess while a male played the goddess’s husband and they
then engaged in ritual sex.
From my studies of the contemporary
equivalents to this kind of pagan practice, I've coined my own word to
be a translation of the term. "Hierogamist" from "Hieros gamos" (holy
marriage). It means one who engages in a ritual goddess worshiping sex
act.
But I will add for the most radical KJV onliers reading
this, that in 1611 "Sodomite" and "Sodomy" did not exactly refer to what
we today call Homosexuality or even specifically male Homosexuality.
The term simply meant Anal sex and could include heterosexual anal
intercourse. There will be more on that in the next part.
But
regardless of how the word is translated. The context of it's
occurrences in Kings tell us it's about Canaanite pagan practices.
Because it's linked to the tearing down of the Groves (phallic obelisks,
named after the goddess Asherah) and High Places.
