The “sin of Sodom” has become synonymous with homoerotic sexual behavior in modern usage and was derived from an interpretation of the events described in Genesis 18. Even so, does the dominant modern-day usage of the terminology derived from Sodom (e.g. sodomy, sodomite, etc) align with how it was used in the Bible? What was the actual “sin of Sodom” as defined by the authors of the Old Testament and how was it used during that time?
Taking a look a the story of Lot and his family, prior to the arrival of the angelic visitors, Sodom was already condemned for destruction. There are not many details in Genesis as to what the sin of Sodom was specifically, just that it was “because their sin is very grievous” (Genesis 18:20).
Upon the arrival of the angelic visitors to Sodom, Lot invites them to his home. Later, the men of the city of Sodom surrounded Lot’s home and demanded that the visitors be turned over to the mob so that they may “know them” (Genesis 19:5) which was a euphemism that meant to have sex with them.
What specifically is the sin here?
We have a mob of men demanding that two visitors be turned over so that the mob could in turn violate them. This is a story about violent gang rape.
Sodom was wicked, gluttonous, and violent, the genders of the intended victims are beside the point. The mob was attempting to commit an egregious act of violence against strangers in order to inflict maximum humiliation to strangers visiting the city. The practice of subjecting male enemies, strangers, newcomers, etc to anal penetration was the ultimate emasculation to establish dominance and has been documented as having been used by various societies throughout history. The attempt made on the angelic visitors demonstrated how violent Sodom had become.
The story of the Levite’s concubine found in Judges 19 is a very similar story where a mob of men were attempting homosexual gang rape but ended up committing heterosexual gang rape and murder. This, in turn, escalated into the Benjamite war. It is worth noting that in both stories no homosexual act was actually committed. Even if homosexual rape had been committed in either of these stories, using homosexual rape as the justification that all homosexuality is a sin would be the same as arguing that heterosexual rape makes heterosexuality a sin. Both the story of Sodom and the Levite’s concubine are cautionary tales against violence.
We gain further insight into the specifics of the “sin of Sodom” from later biblical prophets as Sodom is used as an example and a warning many times throughout the Bible. Other references to Sodom’s sins include:
- Deuteronomy 29:23-26 - forsaking the covenant of the Lord God and devotion to other gods
- Isaiah 3:9-15 - injustice, cruelty, and “grind the faces of the poor”
- Jeremiah 23:14 - Israel’s prophets are condemned for adultery, lies, and supporting evildoers
- Lamentations 4:6 - iniquity
- Ezekiel 16:49-50 - pride, gluttony, and indifference to the poor
- Zephaniah 2:9-10 - pride and arrogance against the people of the Lord
- Matthew 10:12-15 and Luke 10:10-12 - symbolic consequence for rejecting the apostles
- Jude 1:7 - Sodom is described as “giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh”
- Other symbolic comparisons include Amos 4:11, Isaiah 13:19, Deuteronomy 32:32-33, Matthew 11:24
It is not until we get to Jude that we find anything sexual in nature. Between the authorship of the book of Genesis (6th century BCE) and the epistle of Jude, we have a timeframe that spans hundreds of years and multiple prophets. If you consider when Abraham was believed to be alive (~2000 BCE) then we have a timeframe of thousands of years. The Old Testament prophets did not define the sin of Sodom as being sexual in nature, let alone having anything to do with homosexuality. According to the Old Testament, the sin of Sodom was injustice, oppression, and violence. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah became a symbol of the consequence of greed, injustice, taking advantage of the poor, violent exploitation, and rejecting the prophets.
Jude’s reference to the sin of Sodom appears to deviate from the way that it was used throughout the Old Testament. What specifically was Jude talking about with regards to Sodom “giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh” (KJV)?
Many scriptures are uncomplicated. “Thou shalt not steal” is a simple passage that is easy to understand — do not take what doesn’t belong to you. On the other hand, there are many scriptures that are not straightforward and can be somewhat complicated to understand the intent and meaning of what someone wrote thousands of years ago in an ancient language.
The Epistle of Jude was originally written in Greek, specifically Koine Greek. The author of Jude is known as having a command of the language, meaning that he was fluent. Yet, the translations of Jude 1:7 vary enough that the meaning is not clear and the interpretations thereof also vary. Essentially, even with Jude’s fluency some of the language used is not usual and warrants a closer look.
There are two things that are referenced in regards to Sodom in this verse. First, the phrase “giving themselves over to fornication” is a translation of the Greek compound word “ekporneusasai” (ἐκπορνεύσασαι) which only appears one time in the Bible. This verb is understood to mean to “utterly give oneself over to prostitution or fornication“ (Thayer, Strong) which is a condemnation of taking sexual gratification to an all-consuming extreme. This would apply to all sexual behavior; whether heterosexual or homosexual is irrelevant here.
Second, “going after strange flesh” is the element of this verse that receives a variety of interpretations. Strange flesh comes from the Greek “sarkos heteras” (σάρξ ἕτερος). Sarkos translates as “flesh” and in this instance is consistent with other instances of the word in the New Testament, of which there are many. Heteras appears about one hundred times in the New Testament and normally translates as “other” or “another,” and sometimes as “different.” The translation of heteras in Jude is unusual as it is the only instance that is translated as “strange” in the King James Version of the Bible. Other biblical translations do translate this instance as ”other.” A more accurate translation of “sarkos heteras” would be other flesh.
So what did Jude mean by other flesh?
Jude is only 25 verses long, so there is not a lot of context within this specific epistle to draw from. Turning to another reference from this general time period, Paul also talked about types of flesh:
All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. (1 Corinthians 15:39)
When Jude is talking about other flesh, it is most likely that he is talking about just that, other types of flesh, flesh that is not “of men.”
Furthermore, Jude 1:7 begins with “Even as”, which can also be translated as “In a similar way” (NIV), and connects it to the previous verse that describes angels “which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation.” Another example of angels giving up their position or station (i.e. first estate) is Genesis 6:2-3 where angels took human women as wives.
The ancient understanding of the difference between angelic beings and human beings is different than the modern Mormon understanding of angels and humans. Angels were seen as a divine type of being that was separate from that of mere mortal human beings. As such, angels and humans were not supposed to intermingle. Essentially, what we see in this passage is Jude referencing two juxtaposed examples where angels should not cross the boundaries set by God to pursue relations with humans, just as humans should not cross boundaries set by God and attempt to have sex with non-human beings, angelic or other.
Even with Jude describing the Sodom’s sin as sexual in nature we still do not find anything specific to homosexuality, only sexual gratification in the extreme, which would apply to all sexualities, and the crossing of human boundaries.
In addition to the references to Sodom’s sins, we also find references to individuals called “sodomites", first mentioned in Deuteronomy 23:17. The translation to "sodomite" is not completely accurate as the words "whore" and "sodomite" in Deuteronomy are the female and male words for "sacred prostitute" in Hebrew (qedesha and qedosh). 1 Kings 14:22-24 and 15:12 describe how Judah had built many idols and the sodomites were committing abominations. As such, the Lord was provoked to jealousy. The sodomites were male prostitutes associated with idol or cult worship. Regardless of the sodomite’s sexuality not being mentioned, whether the sexual act was heterosexual or homosexual is irrelevant. As discussed in the previous segment, it was the idol worship that was the abomination. In the Old Testament, God does not get jealous of human sexual activity, He gets jealous when His people start worshiping other gods or idols.
Based on all of the instances of when and how the Sin of Sodom is referenced in the Bible we can understand what it was, and what it was not.
The Sin of Sodom was not homosexuality, let alone anything to do with LGBTQ+. It has nothing to do with a person's sexuality.
The Sin of Sodom included a number of things such as idol worship, rejecting the prophets, lust, gluttony, social injustice, cruelty, and indifference to the poor or marginalized. It has very much to do with how others are treated.
When it comes to injustice, cruelty, and indifference who would actually stand in judgment of the sin of Sodom?
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