Sex in the Bible Part 3: Sodom and Gomorrah & Sodomy
The truth about the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah and the writings of the New Testament
Last month, I wrote two parts to what is now a three-part series on sexuality in the Bible. I’m thrilled to report that those articles were wildly popular. The feedback I got was overwhelmingly positive.
I never went to theology school, but I have a decent enough understanding of the Greek and Latin languages and, importantly, knowledge of sexuality in the ancient world. The fact that I got a glowing review from
, himself a theologian, made me feel like this has been a worthwhile series. Frederick, I appreciate your kind words.Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here for those who missed them.
Next, I want to tackle two oft-misunderstood subjects. The events and meaning of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (as the ancients understood it) and what the New Testament says about sexuality, particularly LGBTQ+ sexuality.
The New Testament piece will be published soon.
First, a tale of two cities.
The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
Approaching the story of Sodom and Gomorrah without context feels like a bizarre plot of a surrealist novel. Like most biblical tales, it’s clearly a product of the Iron Age in which the Bible was assembled.
A quick recap for those who missed Sunday school:
Sodom and Gomorrah are two cities where a vague “wickedness” is pervasive. God sends two angels on a mission to rescue Lot and his family, descendants of Abraham. Humans demand to have sex with angels. Lot offered up his daughters to have sex with the townsfolk instead. The two cities were subsequently nuked. Lot loses his wife because she looks back at the destruction at the last moment (Genesis 19:1-29), against God’s command, and she’s turned into a pillar of salt.
Then, one of Lot’s daughters complains to the other that no man wants to have sex with her. The sisters trick Daddy Lot into getting passed out drunk and have sex with him while he’s unconscious before having his kids (Genesis 19:31-38).
Dare I say, it’s a LOT for the modern mind to process.
The story has so many sexual overtones it’s become a symbol of sexual excess of all types. You may have heard people say that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sexual indiscretions and homosexuality (here and here, etc.).
It’s been wielded as a persecutory tool to shame and intimidate LGBTQ+ people and an anti-sex cautionary tale for children, “This is what happens to the lustful!”
Sodom, after all, is where we get our word sodomy from, sodomy being the highest sexual crime for millennia (considered worse than bestiality). Sodomy was a capital offense for a very long time, thanks to this interpretation of the story.
In the 16th-century Republic of Florence, politician and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli was accused of sodomy, one of the things that brought down his career. He was subsequently exiled.1
The link between the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and human sexuality feels inextricable.