Those Seven References

A Study of the References to "Homosexuality" in the Bible and Their Impact on the Queer Community of Faith

John F. Dwyer

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781640653382
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

A thoughtful analysis of the faulty rationale behind Christian anti-gay bias. There have been enormous strides toward equality for the queer community in recent years. There have also been regressive local legislative actions seeking to limit those national steps toward equality. Many of those who have led these regressive efforts are individuals steeped in purposeful ignorance, bias, tribalism, and a radicalization of faithful beliefs, misleading their congregations and influencing legislators. Personhood, the intense value of our individuality, cannot be made less by these few passages of scripture: God's love for our uniqueness is not compromised by oft misinterpreted verses. Having knowledge and words to counter baseless accusations can disarm those who would use these passages as weapons of exclusion and judgement, and can empower the queer community to live confidently in God's love.

CHAPTER ONE

Genesis 19 AND
Judges 19

Part One: Genesis 19

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground.

² He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” ³ But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴ But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; 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.”

⁶ Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, ⁷ and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.

⁸ Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” ⁹ But they replied, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.”

Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down. ¹⁰ But the men inside reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. ¹¹ And they struck with blindness the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great, so that they were unable to find the door. ¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city—bring them out of the place. ¹³ For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴ So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up, get out of this place; for the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. ¹⁵ When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.” ¹⁶ But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. ¹⁷ When they had brought them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” ¹⁸ And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; ¹⁹ your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. ²⁰ Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” ²¹ He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. ²² Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar. ²³ The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. ²⁴ Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven; ²⁵ and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. ²⁶ But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. ²⁷ Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD; ²⁸ and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled. ³⁰ Now Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; so he lived in a cave with his two daughters.

³¹ And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. ³² Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” ³³ So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. ³⁴ On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” ³⁵ So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. ³⁶ Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. ³⁷ The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸ The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.

Reading this chapter of Genesis on its own while ignoring what surrounds it can lead to an interpretation that misconstrues the complex interweaving of the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah with the larger Abrahamic story that surrounds this chapter. An important concept to understand at the beginning of this discussion is that this tale of Lot and the town in which he lives falls right in the middle of the account of Abraham.¹ In biblical interpretation, this is often referred to as “sandwiching:” where a seemingly disjointed and unconnected narrative interrupts what appears to be the natural flow of the story. When this occurs, the reader should pause and reflect why the flow of the narrative has been interrupted. Abraham is absent from the story of Lot until verse 27, when he reappears to look silently at the destruction wrought by God on Sodom and Gomorrah. What initially appears to be an interruption is an integral part of the larger story of Abraham.

The story of Lot and how he greets and treats the guests to his city has important parallels to what transpired just prior to this story. Genesis 18 and 19, taken together, offer the most comprehensive twenty-four-hour time span in the life of Abraham that is found in the Bible, with the story of Lot illuminating God’s expectations of Abraham and all of God’s people.²

To understand properly the import of Lot’s behavior and that of the townsfolk of Sodom, I offer a brief outline of the events of chapter 18. Abraham is found sitting at the entrance of his tent, hiding from the heat of the day, when he sees three men standing not far from him. He runs to them, bows deeply, and makes an offer of water to wash their feet, shade in which they might rest, and bread for them to eat. Abraham identifies one of these men as “lord,” alerting the reader that these are no ordinary men. Abraham is seen hustling around, asking Sarah to make cakes from the finest flour and taking a choice calf, which is described as “tender and good.” He prepares curd and then brings all these things to the guests for them to eat while he stands by and watches.

The guests then ask about Sarah, who overhears the promise that a son shall be provided “in due season,” at which point Sarah laughs and then denies her laughter. But one of the visitors corrects her lie and repeats God’s promise of a son. Then the men leave the tent area and go to look at Sodom. A remarkable passage then begins where the reader hears God’s inner debate about whether to tell Abraham of the fate of Sodom. God decides to tell Abraham because he is God’s chosen one. God says that “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him” (18:18) and that through Abraham these nations shall learn “righteousness and justice” (18:19). God then tells Abraham of the plan to destroy Sodom because of an unspecified wickedness. Abraham begins bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and the punishment of the righteous with the unrighteous. At the end of this bargaining, God promises that should ten righteous individuals be found in the town, God will not destroy it.

After the negotiation between Abraham and God, the chapter ends and “the Lord went his ways and Abraham returned to his place.” The Sodom saga then begins in chapter 19, with Abraham leaving the stage for twenty-seven verses, returning briefly to view silently the destruction. The focus of the first 26 verses in this chapter is on Lot and Sodom.

The two men accompanying the Lord at Abraham’s tent are now identified as two angels. Only these two go on to Sodom. Lot, who is sitting at the gate, rises and bows when he sees them. He insists that they stay with him and he feeds them unleavened bread and “a feast.” Before they lay down, the men of Sodom surround Lot’s house and demand that the guests be sent out so they can “know” them. Lot begs the townspeople to leave the visitors alone and offers his two daughters instead. Lot is threatened, but he and his two daughters are saved by the angels who strike the men of the town blind. The angels ask Lot to gather his family and get ready to leave because they are going to destroy the city. In the morning, the angels tell Lot to leave immediately with his wife and two daughters. Lot does not comply and the angels drag him from the city. Lot is not allowed to flee to the hills but is permitted to go to the small nearby city of Zoar. After Lot’s family reaches Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by the raining down of sulfur and fire, killing all the inhabitants of the cities and the surrounding plain. Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back, while Abraham silently views the destruction. The chapter ends with the seemingly odd and disconcerting story of Lot’s daughters conspiring to get their father drunk and have sexual relations with him. We are told they bore him two sons, one the ancestor of the Moabites and the other the ancestor of the Ammonites.

There are sharp contrasts when we compare Abraham’s greeting of the guests at his tent and Lot’s greeting of the two guests at the city’s gate. Abraham is portrayed in an altogether positive light.³ Although Abraham is old, he runs to greet the visitors, and he makes a banquet using the best bread and the best food. Lot does not run to greet his guests, and he provides them unleavened bread and a feast that is not described. The implication in the lack of description is that Lot’s greeting is something less than that of Abraham.⁴ There is an important nuance here: Abraham treats his guests in a better manner than Lot does.⁵ This sets the stage for the demands made by the townspeople.

The odd story of Lot and his daughters’ behavior in Zoar seems abhorrent to modern sensibilities. When the actions of Lot’s daughters are taken with Lot’s offering them to the towns-people of Sodom in place of the visiting angels, it makes the story even more incongruous. But there is another parallel occurring here, like the Abraham-Lot encounters with the visitors. In the chapter following the story of Lot, Abraham and Sarah enter as aliens into the region of Negeb. Abraham tells the king that Sarah is his sister and not his wife, and the king takes her away from him. God intercedes before the king has sex with Sarah, and she is restored to Abraham as his wife. At the beginning of the following chapter, Sarah conceives and bears Isaac. Abraham and Sarah are shown as upright and proper, made to appear even more so based on what had just transpired in the previous chapter between Lot and his daughters.

The sandwiching of the story of Lot and Sodom in the middle of the Abraham story allows the reader to more fully understand Abraham’s journey of faith, highlights the way Abraham treats guests, and emphasizes God’s keeping of the covenant promise made to Abraham.⁶

With that wider understanding of the passage, the Sodom and Gomorrah accounts takes on a different meaning. Genesis 19:4–5 says, “But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; 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’” (emphasis added). Not all translations of this sentence utilize the word “know” to describe what the crowds of men are demanding. Others say (with emphasis added):

NASB: Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.

NIV: Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.

The African American Jubilee Edition (CEV): Send them out, so we can have sex with them.

The Message/Remix: Bring them out so we can have our sport with them.

The Hebrew word that is utilized is in the imperfect tense, is in the first person common plural, is cohortive in both form and meaning, and is defined as: to know, to make known, to cause to know. The root of this Hebrew word refers to sexual relations. Based on Lot’s reaction and his offering of his daughters who had not “known” a man, the implication of the word is that the men of the town were looking to have forced sexual relations with Lot’s visitors: to gang rape them. The violence of the situation makes clear that the text is referring to multiple forced and violent sexual encounters. The translations other than the NRSV are not incorrect and appear to be attempting to make the text clearer in meaning and intent. But it is inaccurate to refer to the demands of the townspeople as “sex” or “sport,” as rape is not sex in the mutual connotation of the word. Rape is violent assault.

Keeping in mind the wider story of Abraham, the account of Lot and Sodom performs the task of highlighting the differences between Abraham’s generous and appropriate treatment of his guests as opposed to Sodom’s. Although Lot himself was respectful to his guests, it is certainly not a response that our time and culture can understand.

Lot’s offer makes graphically clear the value of women relative to men. The practice of hospitality is a practice of men protecting men from men. Women are not protected, and women can be the means by which men are...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Genesis 19 and Judges 19
• Chapter Two: Leviticus 18 and 20
• Chapter Three: Romans 1
• Chapter Four: 1 Corinthians 6
• Chapter Five: 1 Timothy 1
• Conclusion
• Endnotes
• Bibliography