Now we move to the grand daddy of all Biblical stories used to condemn homosexuality --Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). Both "Yada" and Shakav" occur in this story.
Lot, Abraham's kinsman, lived in Sodom, famous for its depravity. However, its sin was not homosexuality.
Let's look at Sodom using Luther's principle, "The Bible interprets the Bible." Many years after this city was destroyed, the prophet Ezekiel excoriated Jerusalem, saying, "You are more corrupt than they (Sodom and Gomorrah) in all your ways. . .This was the guilt of your sister, Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. they were haughty . . ." (Ezekiel 16:47-50). The " poor and the needy," included strangers looking for a place to stay for the night.
Two angels (in the appearance of two men) visited Lots' home in Sodom. He invited them to stay the night. He even gave theme a feast. Suddenly all the men of Sodom, surrounded Lot's house and cried out, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out, that we may 'know' them!" In other words, "You have violated our customs, Lot, by inviting these dudes to stay the night. We're going to give them an old fashioned Sodom welcome. When we're through, they'll feel like somebody ran 50 Egyptian chariots up their backsides. Welcome to Sodom!"
Yes, the Bible says "Know" them ("Yada," meaning an intimate sexual relationship). This is the Biblical writer's sarcasm to describe what the excellent conservative scholars who put together the Holman Christian Study Bible, call, a "homosexual rape." In the Sodom story we're about as far from an intimate sexual relationship as we can get!
The visual for this blog section shows Lot and his daughters fleeing a Sodom and Gomorrah aflame. Their story rounds off the whole Sodom narrative. The two daughters look around. Mom’s a pillar of salt, and they have no brothers. Their father has no sons to carry on the family name. So they decide to fix that.
They get Dad drunk and sleep with him, one at a time. They both conceive and bear sons who turn out to be ancestors of Israel’s enemies. Their experience with Dad “14 sheets to the wind” the Bible calls “shakav.”
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah ends as it began: violent, demeaning sex! It began with gang rape; it ends in incest. Sodom’s sin was their haughtiness, expressed in sexual violence.