WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS
By: J. R. Hyland
Rising early in the
morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before Yahweh and
looking toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and across all the
plain, he saw the smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.[1]
On that morning almost four thousand years
ago, only acrid, sulfurous smoke rising from the Valley of Siddim marked the
place where those thriving Cities of the Plain had lived out their prosperous
existence. And today that land still stands desolate—a brooding place where the
salt flats beyond the Dead Sea give way to a desert that stretches south for a
hundred miles. A dead land riming a dead sea; a place like no other place on
earth.[2]
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a familiar
one and those who have read the bible, as well as those who have not, attribute
the destruction of those cities to the homosexuality of its inhabitants. But
this reflects a human, rather that a biblical, viewpoint.
From antiquity, religious spokesmen have
seemed more concerned with denouncing sexual sins than with censuring those
whose greed deprives the poor and powerless of their social and economic
well-being. And because this value system persists in our own time, the story of
Sodom and Gomorrah continues to be presented as a story of sexual deviance.
But this distorted emphasis on sexuality is
refuted by two of the great prophets of Israel, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Both of
them condemned the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah in their oracles, and both of them
made it clear that it was the abuse of the poor and powerless that was the
besetting sin of Sodom.
The book of the Prophet Isaiah begins with a
diatribe in which he compares the people of his own time and their rulers, to
those who had lived in Sodom and Gomorrah a thousand years before. “Hear the
word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you
people of Gomorrah!”[3]
And the sins that the prophet goes on to enumerate and compare to the sins of
Sodom have to do with oppression and injustice, not with homosexuality. “Take
you vile deed out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek
justice, rebuke the oppressor. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the
case of the widow.”[4]
The prophet then describes Jerusalem as a city
that “once was full of justice…(But now) rulers are rebels, companions of
thieves, they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the
cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.”[5]
And Isaiah goes on to warn the people that their nation will be destroyed, just
as surely as Sodom had been, if they do not correct these sins of social
injustice. “Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling…The look on their faces
testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it.
Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves”[6]
But the warnings of Isaiah and the other
prophets who spoke of the sins of social injustice were ignored. They were
speaking to a powerful nation whose people were convinced that their prosperity
was a sign of God’s blessing. And the establishment priests and prophets who
shared in that prosperity kept assuring the people of the Lord’s favor and
protection. But in spite of such promises, the nation met with disaster. In 87
B.C. Jerusalem was invaded by the Babylonian Army. The Temple was destroyed and
the city was razed to the ground.
The survivors were exiled to Babylon and
during that Exile the Prophet Ezekiel was called to be a spokesman for the Lord.
He reminded the people of the way they had indulged themselves and oppressed
each other in the years before their country was defeated by the Babylonians.
And just as the Prophet Isaiah had done centuries before, Ezekiel compared the
sins of Jerusalem to those of Sodom.
“As I live—it is the Lord Yahweh who
speaks—your sister Sodom and her daughters have not been as bad as you and your
daughters. The crime of your sister Sodom was pride, gluttony, arrogance,
complacency; such were the sins of Sodom and her daughters. They never helped
the poor and needy.[7]
As with Isaiah, there is no mention of sexual
sins in Ezekiel’s indictment of the people of Sodom. Their sin was that “they
never helped the poor and needy.” But in spite of this biblical witness to
the nature of its sins, even those who read the scriptures persist in
attributing the destruction of Sodom to the homosexuality of its inhabitants.
The actual story of Sodom begins with the 18th
chapter of Genesis and tells how the Patriarch Abraham was visited by two
messengers who were sent by God. Although Abraham lived some distance from
Sodom, his nephew Lot lived there and because of this, the Patriarch was warned
that something terrible was going to happen.
Abraham is told “there are terrible
accusations against Sodom and Gomorrah and their sin is very great.”[8]
In fact, things were so bad that both cities were doomed; not even ten
righteous men could be found in them.
The biblical record makes it clear that even
before the messengers of the Lord arrived in Sodom, and were subjected to the
harassment of a mob, its fate had been decided. The Bible also makes it clear
that along with the injustices and the lust for power and wealth described by
the Prophets, the inhabitants of Sodom had become sexually degenerate. But it
was an abusive and coercive sexuality, not homosexuality per se – that
marked the men of Sodom. The Bible describes the scene that took place.
“All the men from every part of the city of
Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 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 went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said
‘No my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 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 any-thing to these men, for they have come under
the protection of my roof.”[9]
offered to turn over his daughters to the mob if they would honor his
obligation to protect his guests. He knew the people who were milling around the
house. They were his neighbors and if they were homosexual he would not have
bothered to make such an offer. The traditional explanation that homosexuality
caused the destruction of Sodom ignores the heterosexual depravity that allowed
a father to offer his young daughters to an abusive mob, “to do with what you
want.”
Until the present time, the interpreters of
the scriptures have all been males and they seem unable to imagine anything
worse—anything more sinful—than the possibility of the rape of other men. They
are outraged by this threat to male autonomy that would render them powerless
over their own bodies. The comment of Adam Clarke LL.D, a much honored biblical
scholar, is typical: “(The crime of homosexuality) is the deepest disgrace to
human nature.”
Scholarly texts label what the men of Sodom
did an “unforgivable sin” because of their “ruthless determination to harm and
molest apparently defenseless people; strangers to whom every hospitality was
due.”[10]
Those commentators, indignant over sexually threatened males, have little to say
about the depravity of a culture in which Lot is willing to abandon his
daughters to the sexual fury of a mob. In fact, he is lauded for his good
manners.
The best selling International Bible
Commentary (IBC), which proclaims itself “an indispensable resource for all
students of the Bible,” offers this comment for the edification of its readers;
“When Lot offers his virgin daughters to the men of Sodom he is being the
consummate host. He is willing to sacrifice his most precious possess-ions to
uphold his honor by protecting his guests.”[11]
The IBC fails to note that after escaping the
destruction of Sodom, this “consummate host” had incestuous relationships with
both of his most precious possessions, each of whom bore him a child.”[12]
So although the Genesis account gives clear evidence that the unbridled
sexuality of Sodom could find a target in either heterosexual or homosexual
activity, religious leaders continue to substitute their own prejudices for the
biblical record. They continue to insist that the sin of Sodom was sodomy.
Along with disregarding the sequence of events
reported in the Genesis story, they refuse to acknowledge the heterosexual
depravity reported in the account. They also ignore the oracles of Isaiah and
Ezekiel which spoke of greed and injustices as the besetting sins of Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Instead of speaking out against the injustices
and suffering caused by the greedy and powerful, preachers and scholars reserve
their indignation for those whose sexual practices they find offensive. The
Bible does not tell us which comes first; unbridled greed or unrestrained
sexuality. But it does tell us that the people of Sodom were condemned because “they
never helped the poor and needy.” And it tells us that rampant social
injustice, not homosexuality, caused the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah.
[1]
Genesis 10:27, 28. JB
[2]
The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the earth’s surface (at its deepest
point, it is more than 1300 hundred feet below sea level).
[3]
Isaiah 1:10. Quotations are from the New International Version of the
Bible, unless otherwise indicated.
[4]
Isaiah 1:16, 17. NIV
[5]
Isaiah 1:23. NIV
[6]
Isaiah 3:8. 9 NIV
[7]
Ezekiel 16:48-50. JB
[8]
Genesis 18:20 TEV
[9]
Genesis 19: 4-8. NIV
[10]
The International Bible Commentary. P,. 128
[11]
Scholars also excuse Lot’s depraved indifference to his daughters by
saying that because the messengers were from God, they deserved special
protection. But a similar story of male protection at the expense of the
female is told in the book of Judges 19:23-25. NIV
[12]
Genesis 19:36 NIV Go on to: JOSEPH
Return to: WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS
|
