Sodom & Gomorrah – The sin of pride?

Here’s a fun bible story that’s used against people all the time… both in legal courts and in general moral discussions. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah. It inspires the term “sodomy”, which in many states is a legally punishable crime, although usually selectively enforced only against groups who are socially unpopular. Let’s take a look at the actual sin, or “iniquity”, of the Biblical city of Sodom.

Ezekiel 16

49 – Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

50 – And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

Hmm… so God didn’t destroy Sodom because of it’s sexual practices exclusively. The main sin of Sodom was pride, idleness and inhospitableness. So actually, the term “Sodomy” should mean “the act of being prideful, idle or inhospitable.” Very interesting. Of course there’s much more to the story… God could not find any people in the cities he thought were worth keeping alive, for a multitude of reasons, I’m sure. So, in traditional Old Testament style, he smote them, minus Lot and his disposable daughters. But it just goes to show that the Bible is an interesting book, and one that pulses like an animal heart at the core of some of the world’s most powerful ideologies. It’s worth understanding, if only so you can defend yourself when the need arises. Nothing flabbergasts a fresh-faced, white-shirted foot soldier in the neighborhood Army of God like a target who can quote back verse and chapter.

Lot – “Just and Righteous”

As many people know, God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah after judging that every single human being and animal in them deserved fiery death – except for Lot, his wife and his daughters, of course! But after the drama of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction, the story doesn’t end with our hero Lot. First let’s flash back and check out a little scene from the family life of the only man God considered good enough to be spared:

When God sent some Angels to inform Lot that he should run because the cities were about to be destroyed, a crowd of freaks assembled outside yelling for him to send out the strangers that they might ‘know them.’ In the Bible, ‘knowing’ someone usually means having sex with them, kind of how it means that in West Hollywood. In this case I wonder if the townspeople didn’t really just want to know who these Angelic strangers were, but who am I to question centuries of accepted perverted Biblical translation? In any case, pretty bold townsfolk, I’d say… In the Bible only male angels are ever mentioned, if they are gendered at all, and when in human form they’re usually described as being beautiful, so it must have stirred everyone up to see them coming in. In Biblical days you were probably considered hot if you had at least one tooth in your mouth and only a few visible plague boils, so the Angels were surely quite stunning. Although I can’t imagine them walking in through the city gates… You’d think they would have materialized inside Lot’s house a la Star Trek or something, but they walked in, everyone saw them and supposedly wanted to have sex with them.

In a town with Sodom’s reputation I guess you went through the locals pretty quick, so they were probably starving for fresh meat by then. At any rate, Lot knew it would be horribly sinful to send the Angels out to be assaulted by an angry, sex-crazed mob of gay men. Not to mention inhospitable. So what’s a man of God to do? The only righteous man in two cities, according to God?

Lot: “Bang my daughters! I’m going to! (But I wuz drunk, so actually my daughters raped me!)“

Why, Lot did what any “righteous man” would do… offer to toss his virginal daughters to the perverted mob instead! But why would Lot think a crowd of rapacious gay men would want his daughters, virginal or not? Why was Lot living in a city with roving bands of gay rapists? Seriously… why does no one ever ask these questions? Of course, the gay mafia of Sodom unsurprisingly gives a thumb’s down to the idea of “knowing” Lot’s poor daughters and clamors for Angel lovin’ all the more. Anyway, after the angel escapade, the only family God considers worthy of his love (Lot’s) gets out of the doomed city. We all know what happened to Lot’s wife… she looks back after being told not to, and is turned into a pillar of salt. Oh well. Now it’s just the loving Dad and the girls. But ‘loving Dad’ is just what these girls do… while holed up in a cave, the daughters get Lot drunk, have sex with him and bear him sons! “Previously, on Desperate Housewives”, much? Read all about it!

Genesis, Chapter 19

19:1
And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

19:2
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

19:3
And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

19:4
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

19:5
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

19:6
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

19:7
And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

19:8
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

(God smites the cities and they all escape, minus the wife, and end up shivering in a cave somewhere. You know how natural (or unnatural) disasters can bring on a wave of physical passion in some people? Well it hit the Lot family in spades. Those virginal daughters get Daddy all liquored up and go to town.)

19:29
And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

19:30
And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

19:31
And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:

19:32
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

19:33
And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

19:34
And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

19:35
And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

19:36
Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

(Lot probably said, “Uh, I was so totally drunk I thought that chick was totally, like, some other chick from the, uh, barren mountains and cave occupied by only me and my daughters. Oh, yeah, the second time, too.”)

19:37
And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

19:38
And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

Remember, God saved Lot because he was the only righteous man in a city of wicked men. And thus, another “The Bible Scrap” moment from Calpernia!