Sodom, and its Lack of Hospitality

In this groundbreaking article, Messianic Jewish Rabbi Dr Les Aron Gosling offers sound biblical teaching on a subject that has polarised (and tormented) believers for centuries. It gives tremendous hope for gay and lesbian believers in the Jewish Messiah, who take their faith (and their Bibles) seriously. Shabbat Shalom!   "And there came two angels to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and seeing them rose up to meet them. And he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, Behold my lords, turn in, I request of you, into your servant's house, and stay all night, wash yourself, and you shall rise up early and go on your ways. And they said, No, but we will abide in the street all night. And he attempted to persuade them, and they finally agreed to enter his home. And he made them a feast and provided unleavened bread and they did eat. But before they retired, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both old and young, all the people from every quarter. And they called out to Lot, Where are the men who came into your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Lot went outside to speak to them, and closed the door behind him. And he said, I request earnestly of you, brethren, do not so wickedly. I have two daughters who are virgins, let me, I request of you, bring them both out to you, and do you to them as is pleasing in your eyes. Only unto these men do nothing, for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. And they replied, Stand back! And they said, This one resides as an alien, and he will play at being a judge! Now we will deal worse with you, than with them. And they grabbed at Lot, and came near to breaking the door down. But the men inside put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and they slammed the door. And they afflicted the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great so that they wearied themselves to locate the door" (Gen 19.1-11). Specifically from the twelfth century this story has been used to attack homosexuals. The use of the term "to know" in this account refers to sexual awareness. These aggressive rapists were not looking for an opportunity to introduce these strangers to the local library as a centre of knowledge. The same book of Genesis notes that Adam knew his wife and she conceived (see also Lk 1.34). The verb "to know" occurs 943 times in the Hebrew Bible and a full ten of these occasions it refers to sex.   What is astonishing to realise from the above account is that Lot preferred to lose out financially than to allow his foreign guests to be so abused. How do we arrive at such a conclusion? Recall that Lot's culture was so different from our own. His daughters were his property, and daughters were purchased for marriage. No one would want to buy a girl who had her "use-by date" spoiled! Hospitality was a sacred duty in the ancient world. Travellers at night could freeze to death as temperatures plummeted. They could also fare less well if captured in a nomad attack. Now we happen to know some Arab brethren, and they assure us that even today in Arab countries it is expected that even an enemy should be extended shelter in the evening if he so requested it. There can be no doubt that the convention of hospitality demands it. In the first century it was written, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers. For some have unknowingly shown hospitality to angels" (Heb 13.2). Forcing sex on men was a tried-and-true method of effectively humiliating them. During war, besides slaughtering children and raping women, the captured defeated enemy would be "sodomised" by the victors, thus insulting the conquered by treating them as women. The sin of Sodom, then, appears to be nothing more than rejecting hospitality toward those in need -- the leveling of abuse, offense and insult to travelling strangers. The point of the Genesis account is certainly not sexual ethics! After all "just" and "righteous" Lot (2 Pet 2.7,8) offered his daughters to be raped by the inhabitants of the city -- men and women! Remember, the account tells us that "all" the city was involved. The entire point of the story is about inhospitality in the form of abusive assault. Ezekiel understood that this was the case. He writes that Sodom was condemned and destroyed "because they did not aid the poor and needy" (Eze 16.48,49). Wisdom agrees with the prophet's assessment. The sin of Sodom was "a bitter hatred toward strangers" and "making slaves of guests who were benefactors" (19.13). "Slaves" were used by those who owned them for sexual purposes and they had no real choice in the way their masters treated them. The angels of God were about to be treated in the same aggressive, brutal, abusive manner. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zephaniah refer to Sodom's sin as injustice, oppression, partiality, lies, encouraging evildoers, and -- surprise, surprise -- adultery (Isa 1.10-17; 3.9; Jer 23.14; Zeph 2.8-11). Note that adultery is the only sex sin in the lengthy list. Homosexuality is not even given scant mention! Please note, too, that sex itself is not the concern. For, strictly speaking, adultery is not a crime or offense against a woman, nor is it an offense against the natural intimacy of a marriage, nor yet again against the inherent requirements of sex. The crime of adultery is ever and always an offense against justice. For, adultery offends the MAN to whom the woman BELONGS as part of his total PROPERTY VALUE. But if you won't be convinced by the prophets, can Our Lord Yeshu persuade you? Yeshu tells us what was the sin of Sodom. "These twelve Yeshua sent forth, and commanded them saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans do not enter. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor a staff (for the workman is worthy of his meat). And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy. And there abide till you go thence." [In other words depend on your host's hospitality.] "And when you come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Truly I say to you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom...in a day of judgment than for that city" (Mt 10.5-15). Get the point? The helpless, virtually destitute disciples had to depend on the hospitality of others. Those who would not show them hospitality would come under a judgment that will be more fierce than that experienced by Sodom, for the same crime. What then of Paul's statements in his letter to the Romans? As the passage is rather lengthy we will not reproduce it here (Rom 1.18,22-28). But a careful examination of the text shows clearly that Paul has certain, specific men in mind. They are philosophers! Not just any philosophers, but those who have at some time rejected the Creator and all knowledge about him, and who actually know better. They were men who were secret devotees of a mystery religion of idolatrous worship which involved bestiality (sex with animals -- Rom 1.26). Bestiality is still practiced today in parts of India and Africa, and, according to Kinsey, is more widespread on American farms than we would care to admit! Catherine II, Empress of all Russia and a deeply "religious" woman, died attempting to accommodate the penis of a horse on November 6, 1796. (Some modern historians are busily rewriting and revising this period of Mother Russia's past, but truth will "out" eventually.) But these men Paul referred to were, in fact, high-priests and initiates of a religion of idolatry which had its centre in Alexandria in Egypt. Paul is not discussing those males who are naturally inverted, never "surrendering," "leaving," "giving up," or "exchanging" the natural use of a woman for that of another man. Far from it. Paul is here ascribing the exchange of the true God for IDOLS, sexual confusion being the outcome of idolatrous confusion (Rom 1.20-25). Paul bases his view squarely on his understanding of the Purity Code of Leviticus 15.18 which refers to the ceremonial uncleanness of cultic, sacred or temple male prostitution (in the homogenital sense), a passage which is not to be confused with that which constitutes sin. Again, in our society today we hear (as in the Dark Ages) of Satanic rituals that include sexual acts either for fertility or some sort of sacrifice. Now all of us should object vehemently about such sex rites. We would even decry it if the sex acts involved were engaged in by a married couple only. And why is this? Certainly not because sex in itself is wrong but because the sex was used in the worship of the Dark Lord. And so with Paul in Romans 1. Idolatrous religious concerns, not sexual ethical ones, are the reason for the objection. Paul is not making use here of classic Stoic concepts, though ignorant Christians claim this is what he is doing. For, they claim in Romans 1.28, that we do locate a standard Stoic formula ("things that should not be done" -- ta me kathekonta). Nothing could be further from the truth. While the formula is there, Paul was a Jew. Above all else gross ignorance by Christians of Jewish thoughtforms and Jewish Scripture creates more problems than they are worth. Paul is not writing to the Messianic Community at Rome by appealing to pagan Stoic reference works. Romans 1 is entirely based on Jewish Scripture. Proof? The Wisdom of Solomon 12.23-15.13 is the basis of Paul's argument in Romans the first chapter! Get yourself a copy of the Apocrypha (it is Scripture) and read it for yourself! But we shall still get arguments that laws under Moses forbad homogenital contact. It is intriguing that fundamentalist believers, and others, admit that the Levitical purity codes are "all done away in Christ," and all Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant authorities say that this is so. And yet for some reason all that Leviticus or Deuteronomy states about sex is yet still valid! Sex laws and tithing laws are still in current use -- and all other laws, rules, statutes and regulations are definitely out! Unbelievable! The Levitical code is irrelevant in deciding whether gay sex is right or wrong and all arguments concerning sex based on Moses must be discarded. Recall that if Abraham, the father of the faithful, had lived in the days of Moses he would have been stoned to death for having sexual relations with his sister, Sarah! There is also another factor to consider when we read in the Levitical code the words "unclean" and "abomination." And that is, neither of these concepts are to be equated with "sin." What the teaching of Leviticus is stressing is ceremonial wholeness or ceremonial completeness in the worship of God. We can ascertain that this is the case easily enough by referring to a section dealing with leprosy. Now having leprosy is not a sin, as even Blind Freddy will admit. Now consider the following Levitical purity code: "Then the priest shall consider: and behold if the leprosy has covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that has the plague. It is all turned white, so it is clean" (Lev 13.13). If a person had leprosy that person was called "unclean." He was not called a sinner. Sin had nothing to do with it. But if the leprosy spread right over his or her body so that it covered it entirely, the person was no longer considered "unclean." Believe it or not! Note the injunction: "since it has all turned white, he is clean." The Hebrew word for uncleanness or "abomination" (in the quaint Old English) is toevah. And it has to do with cultic, ritual or religious situations. The author of Leviticus could easily have used another word, zimah, for injustice or sin -- that which is wrong in itself. But Moses doesn't do this. Nor does Ezra who, after the Babylonian captivity, updated the Torah for his day and age. My stand on this finds confirmation in the LXX (the Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures). The committee which put the LXX together, 200 or 300 years before Mashiach, could have used any number of Greek words to translate toevah as sin if the issues of Leviticus involved sin. Indeed anomia could have been used for it means the violation of a law. But in no way did the committee use such a word. They knew better! They chose the Greek word bdelygma -- and what does this word mean? Nothing less than ritual impurity, a matter of ceremonial uncleanness. The same principle applies to Leviticus 18.22, "You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." Ritual or ceremonial uncleanness is in view. And frankly, if we cannot accept the obvious reading wherein the LXX uses bdelygma for "abomination" then look at the context. Verse 21 right through to verse 23 is discussing nothing less than temple prostitution! Get the point? Some people interpret Paul as indicating that homosexuals are condemned to hell, but a cursory reading of Paul without a knowledge of Jewish thoughtforms (of any writer in the Bible) is a prime danger that can lead us into error (and often has). Certainly Paul based his judgment on the law. When we realise this we can better make sense of his statements. The texts in Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13 are often used by fundamentalists to speak out against homosexuality but they are, in fact, part of a larger ceremonial purity code, or holiness code. The fact is Israel as a nation was separated from the other nations of the world, and they had to do everything differently to the practices of the countries surrounding them. Among other things, [1] they had to eat different foods (but fundamentalists are not against eating these foods) [2] they could not wear any clothing of mixed fabrics (but fundamentalists wear polyester) [3] and a man had to sleep in another bed in another room if his wife was menstruating (this is not an issue to fundamentalists -- as far as I know) [4] and if you happened to sleep in a wet-spot you'd be unclean until the evening (fundamentalists are silent regarding this aspect of their lives. I'm assuming that fundamentalists still do engage in sex). Why are all these points (and there are tonnes more) not a worry to fundamentalists? Simply because they know that the purity code of the Hebrews has been done away, unless you are an Orthodox Jew. Cultic or ceremonial prostitution is being discussed. The term "abomination" is a word always linked with, and meaning, temple sexual idolatry. In Romans 1 Paul condemns the Gentile world by using an illustration of God-rejecting idolatrous homogenital or homosexual philosophers which would immediately have gained the sympathy (along with a willing ear) of the Jewish Christians who were among those he was addressing in Romans. But if you read Romans you will notice how, in the following arguments, he shows that the Jewish Christians were equally guilty as far as the law was concerned. Before God nobody could lift their heads with spiritual pride. But then he goes further and argues that in the Messiah all the Jewish ceremonial law was superseded. Clearly his psychology is to make the Jewish Christians aware of the need that now existed to accept the Gentile believers without looking down their noses at them. And finally, Paul rebukes the Gentile Christians for any smugness or intolerance they might be feeling or exhibiting toward the Jews. In fact, summing up his case for the Gospel of Grace, Paul informs both the Jewish and Gentile Christians "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Yeshua that nothing is unclean of itself" (Rom 14.14). But we can still hear the protests! What about Sodom and Gomorrah going after what Jude called "strange flesh" (Jude 7)? This was not some sin involving homosexuality. These people and the inhabitants of "the cities of the plain" were involved in sex with angels (aliens). There was a great deal of extra-terrestrial visitation of planet Earth at that time and it wasn't just the men of Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain that were entangled therein. After all, the women of Sodom were demanding sex with the "angels" in Lot's house (Jubilees 7.20,21; 20.5,6). And quite frankly, I won't lower myself to get involved in a public discussion (let alone a public debate) with representatives of the Moral Majority on the proper translation of the Greek words arsenokoitai and malakoi. These words occur in two lists of sinners but they have no actual context to help suggest an appropriate meaning (1 Cor 6.9,10; 1 Tim 1.9,10). Arsenokoitai in Corinthians appears as oute malakoi oute arsenokoitai and has been translated variously as "sodomites," "homosexuals," "practicing homosexuals," "male prostitutes," "perverts," "sexual perverts," "people of infamous habits," and "child molesters." One authority suggests the word here means a male prostitute who cultivates the elderly as that they might inherit their estates. Malakoi has been translated as "catamites," "the effeminate," "boy prostitutes," "sissies," and, until the Reformation in the 16th century and in Roman Catholicism in the 20th century, "masturbators." Of itself malakos (the plural of malakoi) literally means "soft." It is used of clothing (Mt 11.8). One authority suggests it should be translated as "loose," "wanton," "unrestrained," "undisciplined." And this would seem to be the case. At their core, both Greek words suggest exploitation, inequality, abuse and unbridled lust. Even the contemporary homosexual subculture has derogatory terms that apply to some of the abuses contained in those Greek words. "Chicken hawk" refers to men who prey on attractive young boys. "Slut" and "whore" are both insults aimed at the wildly unrestrained, promiscuous man who will take on all "comers" (so to speak) -- what we would call "toilet hoppers." One thing for certain, there will continue to be an enormous range of interpretation in future versions of the Bible because both words cover an enormous acreage of meanings. And nobody quite knows what Paul was getting at. Paul could have had some practices of S&M in mind. This would satisfy the implication of payment that is inferred in the word arsenokoitai with its accompanied "abuse." And, really, nobody in their right mind (in our opinion) could justify some of the brutal savagery included in the S&M range of torments. The Bible, above all else when referring to human relationships, calls for concern, love and caring, mutual respect and responsible sharing -- not a blood-stained whip, dripping candle wax, and slavery. It is the violation of these principles of love which the Bible condemns, not homosexuality. Again, we are not necessarily implying that the Bible teaches homosexuality. Personally, I am not homo-anything! We are just being honest with the biblical record and stating that it does not teach against it. If people want to hate homosexuals and homosexual behaviour, they have to look elsewhere other than the Bible to find justification for so doing.

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