Reading about Sodom and Gomorrah

Post Reply New Topic

The story goes the cities were destroyed because of all the gay men but if you read the story, you will see the men in the town wanted to rape two angels who were actually disguised as foreign guests so the angels wanted to destroy the towns.
The men of the town didn't try to rape Lot's son-in-laws or Lot, just the two angels. So it seems to suggest something other than what meets the eye.
So what gives? Were the towns actually destroyed because they were full of rapists?
Agree or disagree?

Hebrew Bible scholars still argue over the cause. Inhospitality or rape. Depends on how you translate the words. In only 1% of uses in the bible is the word "know" used to imply sex but there are arguments for both readings. Different prophets offer different reasons depending on the point they are trying to make.

With all of that was going on there had to be a ton of pregnant women when God decided to kill them all. Juuuust saying.

Ezekiel 16:49-50
New International Version (NIV)
49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

This is why they were destroyed.

That's one view. You can't expect the bible to be consistent. It's a collection of literature.

Some people take it very seriously so it helps to really understand what it means!

That's not the point. It says different things. It's not one author.

That's your opinion based on what you know. Which may I suggest, isn't much.
You dismiss the bible because you are unaware of just what is in it.

The bible is consistent, though it will say the same thing in different ways.

The bible was written by many authors over many hundreds of years, different cultures and different languages. But its use of language and symbolism are consistent. Its presentation of who God is, is consistent. Its underlying themes of sin & redemption are consistent. Its use of numbers (a number has a meaning, 6 is the number of man) is consistent.

It was also written in ancient Hebrew, as well as several other languages. Ancient Hebrew didn't construct sentences the same way we do in Western English. Verb, Noun ect. So the translation between some of the bibles don't always equal. However, original manuscripts in Ancient Hebrew still exist and can be read today. The translations are good enough that nobody has caused another rewrite.

Some of the bible is written in symbolic language. The symbolism is explained elsewhere in the bible, though some scholars forget this point. To understand the symbolic language in the bible, one must read the bible.

Curious that ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo asked the OP question, then gave the Bible's explanation for what went down.
If I wasn't at work I'd research the subject and try to answer it also. But lunch is over.

Thanks for suggesting what I know. Have a nice day angry internet man.

There is, to this day, a disagreement over what caused it. Between scholars who study it. And the prophets have different views from the earlier text. They use the imagery for their own purposes. You could call it artistic license.

So fetuses are responsible for all the sins their mothers commit? Cool, guess the Bible supported abortion all along!

Well, according to this satirical Israeli film, it could be a mix of all of them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Ryo9TrstY[/youtube]

Its not in that of actually happened, its in the concept for the reason why.

Otherwise volcanic activities and earthquakes done them in, and back then they attributed all those sorts of things to gods.

As for rape and sex and stuff, I imagine it was a lot like Pompeii was before it got buried. according to literature and historical records (or what we could find of them) sex was a vary open and common practice so most wouldn't have considered it a sin unless they came from other regions where it may have not been so openly practiced.

I think a case can be made that if the angels had arrived as women, the crowd would still have wanted to rape them. The sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality, but rape and murder.

Interestingly, as it turns out there are several different versions of the Torah, as well as the early Christian bible.
There are lots of apocrypha that were left out of all the various 'official' versions, the most well known of which did not finish being revised until well into the middle ages.

The stories are incomplete, many important writings have been left out, they've been edited by many hands, mis-translated & deliberately altered in various ways so that what modern Christians & Jews consider the Bible and the Torah are definately significantly different from the collections of texts our early ancestors were reading from.

Therefore, regarding either book as the infallible word of God seems kinda of silly to me.

Yes, I know some people take this stuff really seriously, but that's their folly and the rest of us don't have to indulge it.

And it was also a corrupt place where the women, who were traditionally thought of as the caregivers and workers of charity, were only concerned with themselves and self indulgent.

I do have an insight as to why the passages about Sodom are so strange. People who read it wonder how Lot could ever think of giving his unwed, young daughters to the raping mob. He must have not cared about them.
What has to be kept in mind is, the reason for this heinous offering is actually to make Lot look like a more righteous man. He is so determined to care for his guests, he would sacrifice his own flesh and blood to protect them. This is why God saves him and his family, until his wife disobeys God and is turned into salt.
This is why the passage reads the way it does and appears so bizarre and inhuman. It's to illustrate a point. Lot was a righteous man. Lot deserves to be saved. If you are righteous like Lot, God will save you. God favors those who protect others rather than harm, especially those they don't know passing unawares through their town. It is a sacred duty to protect and care for them, not cast them aside, raping them, or throwing them to the wolves just because pressure is applied and coercion is abundant.
So we get the picture of Sodom being a place where people are defiled on a regular basis and the women only care about themselves and their own appetites, not the welfare of others (which was a woman's traditional duty.)

Of course what is written later is even more bizarre. It's like the Bible is giving men permission to copulate with their daughters.

This got me wondering if there are any other places that have had their name given to a sexual act.

French kiss/'frenchie', maybe.