Previous | Home | Next

Sodom and Gibeah

 

Sodom – Genesis 19:1-11

Gibeah – Judges 19

 

Summary:

Two similar stories, that of Lot (Genesis 19:1-11) and the unnamed Levite and his concubine (Judges 19), describe threatened same-sex rape. It is commonly accepted that these passages do not concern homosexuality but are about the abuse of hospitality through sexual violence.

 

Neither narrative has anything to do with same-sex inclination. They illustrate homosexual intentions as a weapon, as a tool of power rather than as an expression of desire. Therefore it is inappropriate to use these passages as evidence for an argument against homosexuality

 

Texts:

           Genesis 19:5

           And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us,            so that we may know them.” (NRSV)

 

           Judges 19:22b

           “Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may know him.”

 

Terminology:

yada – literally “know” – here, to have intercourse with.

Semantic equivalents from surrounding cultures: Egyptian rh “to know” is often substituted in texts for nk “have intercourse with”; the Ugaritic yd “know” is used for copulation in a text concerning Baal and Anat; and the Akkadian idu “know” is used in a sexual sense in §130 of the Code of Hammurapi. (Wold 1998:83,84)

 

LXX Gen 19:5 hina syngenometha autois, “so that we might be with them” – syngenometha iused in Genesis 39:10 “to be with her” describing Potiphar’s wife’s attempted seduction of Joseph. Syngenometha is used of sexual intercourse widely in both Jewish and Classical literature (Judith 12:16; Susanna 11, 39; Anabasis 1.2.12; Republic 329c; Plato Laws 930d; Herodotus 2.121 E).

 

Some interpreters focus on the intended homosexual rape of the men and conclude that homosexuality is to be condemned because of this. But on this logic heterosexuality is also to be condemned, because we have the stories of the rape of Dinah (Genesi 34) and of Tamah (2 Samuel 13). Nissinen (1998:51) notes that the account of the heterosexual assault on the concubine in Judges 19 is structurally equivalent to the story of Sodom, however no later interpreter has condemned heterosexual behaviour on the basis of this incident.

 

The suggestion that the interest of the men is merely social is negated by the violence of the story. A further problem lies in the violence of the story. The men force their way into Lot’s house, where they are blinded by the angels. Of this Greenberg comments, “Surely they would not have done so had the mob only wanted to engage in a friendly chat.” (1988:136)

 

The key to explaining the homoerotic references in the Sodom and Gibeah stories lies in a study of the gender and power relations evident in the stories. The locals wanted to penetrate the visitors sexually, to humiliate them. To permit this to happen would have been a breach of hospitality. Instead, Lot at Sodom and the Levite at Gibeah offer their women, for whom it would have been approriate to be sexually penetrated. The prospect of homosexual rape is regarded as more serious than that of heterosexual rape, although both are regarded as evil acts.