What really happened in Sodom?

Non-gay Christians frequently try to deceive gays and lesbians about what really happened in Biblical Sodom.

Do you know what really happened in ancient Sodom?

What were the real intentions of the angry mob in Sodom that dark night so long ago? Read Dr. Chris Heard's assessment of what really happened.

“The mob’s intention to inflict male-on-male rape on Lot’s visitors has nothing to do with sexual desire or sexual gratification. There is no hint here of homosexuality in the modern sense of “sexual orientation.”

The crime has nothing to do with preferring sex with males over sex with females.

Claims that the “sin of Sodom” per Genesis 19 related to homosexual orientation run aground on two ridiculous presuppositions.

First, such claims require us to accept the idea that 100% of Sodom’s adult male population was homosexual by orientation.

In modern studies, figures of anywhere from 3% to 10% are proposed for the fraction of adult US males who are homosexual by orientation, and when figures closer to 10% have been proposed, evangelical Christians have gone into a tizzy of objections that it can’t possibly be that high.

Yet some of the very same people who object that the fraction of modern US adult males who are homosexual by orientation can’t possibly be as high as 10% are willing to believe a 100% figure for biblical Sodom.

It is just too improbable to believe that 100% of Sodom’s male population preferred sex with males to sex with females.

Even if the story is entirely fictional and the people of Sodom just literary characters, the story loses all verisimilitude if we push it to that extreme. Sodom sin.

Second, claims that the “sin of Sodom” per Genesis 19 was male homosexuality require us to believe that either:

(a) the entire male population, every single male in Sodom, had seen the visitors and felt so irresistably attracted to both of them that they felt compelled to rape them in order to gratify their lust, or

(b) all homosexual men are indiscriminately attracted to all other men...

Read the rest of the story here.

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Brothel houses and shrine prostitution

Ashtoreth was a fertility goddess of ancient Canaan and consort of the infamous Molech, Leviticus 18:21

Raycol's comment prompts this follow-up post noting why it is hermeneutically sound to believe that the brothel house activity Ezekiel points out in Ezekiel 16:24, 31 and 39 describes shrine prostitution.

My reasons for pointing out the link Ezekiel makes between brothel house activity and shrine prostitution (sexual worship of false gods) are as follows.

1. In Ezekiel 16:2, God's prophet uses the word abominations, towebah, to begin his description of Israel's worship of false gods, the same word, towebah, which is used to describe the prohibited activity in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.

2. Much of chapter 16 analogizes Israel's behavior with the behavior of harlots while also noting that Israel has forsaken worship of the true God, Ezekiel 16:15, 17, 28, 32, 35, to worship false gods.

4. Ezekiel links Israel's harlot behavior with what God had forbidden in Leviticus 18:3, namely, doing after the religious practices of Egypt, Ezekiel 16:26, and doing after the religious practices of Canaan, Ezekiel 16:29.

5. Ezekiel points out the adultery of ancient Israel in forsaking God for false gods, Ezekiel 16:32. Jeremiah mentions this theme and declares that God divorced Israel for her adultery.

"And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce..." - Jeremiah 3:8

6. Ezekiel 16:21 points out that Israel sacrificed her children, "thou has slain thy children" to "pass through the fire," direct references to Leviticus 18:21, which places the Leviticus 18:22 prohibition in cultural, historical and religious context, as referring to pagan religious worship of the Canaanite fertility goddess Ashtoreth (who was Molech's fertility goddess consort).

7. Ezekiel links Israel's idolatrous activity to the sins of Sodom, describing what really happened in Sodom, again using the word abomination, towebah, Ezekiel 16:49-50, which links at least one facet of Sodom's sin to idolatry and the prohibited same sex activity later described in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.

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