Sodom, Genesis and the phallacy of homophobic interpretations of the Bible

Maicol Cipriani (he/him) & Lísa Margrét Gunnarsdóttir (she/her)

In his poetic pilgrimage through the afterlife, Dante Alighieri anathematized the sodomites in the seventh circle of Hell as sinners of violence against nature. Now, in Hell, nature is violent against them. These unfortunates are peremptorily obligated to run aimlessly on a plain of ignited sand under flakes of fire that are falling from the sky “like snow in the mountains without a wind.” This divine chastisement recalls the biblical annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah by “sulfur and fire” reported in Genesis 19.

In the biblical tale, God (Yahweh) apprised Abraham that he was going to extirpate Sodom and Gomorrah because of their grievous sins. However, He did not disclose what sins the inhabitants of those towns had perpetrated to engender his wrath and acrimony. Abraham and God hammered out a deal. God agreed to spare the towns if it was possible to ascertain that at least 10 people were untarnished. Two angels, resembling men, were sent to Sodom and a man named Lot welcomed them into his house. A mob of the city’s people encircled the house and urged Lot to bring his guests out so that they could rape them. The angels told Lot and his family that they are the only righteous ones among all the inhabitants and they should abscond from the town immediately. Burning sulfur rained down onto Sodom and Gomorrah immediately afterwards. The angels warned Lot not to look back while they were fleeing destruction. However, Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.

From the Sodom tale, for centuries Christian doctrine arbitrated that homosexuality is a sin (peccatum Sodomiticum). In his Summa theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) argued that sodomy is a sin against nature (peccata contra naturam). Dante describes the sin of Sodom adhering to the St. Thomas’ conception to some extent. To this day many Christian churches still struggle to approve homosexuality.

However, construing that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexuality is specious and preposterous. First of all, God decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah long before the angels were sent to Sodom, and when He informed Abraham of his plans, He did not mention anything about homosexuality. Second, the men of Sodom did not want to have a homosexual loving-relationship with the angels, they wanted to rape them. That is a completely different thing.Furthermore, according to some modern interpretations, God was outraged by the inhospitality of the inhabitants and not by their homosexuality.

Soaked with the Middle Age theological thoughts, Dante settled the sodomites in the deep seventh circle of Hell. That is pretty bad. On the other hand, Dante treated the sodomites with greater deference than any other sinner. He shows affection, complaisance and courtesy.Among the sodomites, Dante encountered his mentor Brunetto Latini. Surprised to see him there, Dante asked him: “Is this really you here, Ser Brunetto?” (“Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?") In this part of his narrative poem, Dante gave dignity to Brunetto by paying tribute to him and presenting him as a paternal character. Brunetto called Dante “O my son.” Dante conversed with Brunetto showing moral judgment rather than divine judgment. In Dante’s day, while sodomy was sanctioned as a grave sin by the ecclesiastic sphere, it was considered less severe by the civil law. However, the theological formulation of the sodomy sin started to have a big influence on the lay morality and, later on, harsh punishments were introduced in regard to homosexual acts.

Historically, the Christian doctrine obdurately advocated a heteronormative approach to sexuality, and praised penetrative vaginal sex between a male and a female within the bounds of marriage. Any other type of sexual activity, e.g., non-penetrative sex, masturbation, intercrural sex, oral sex and non-heterosexual sex, had been averred as sodomy in the past. Leviticus (18:22), in particular, has been used as rationale to unchurch same-sex relations, as it clearly states: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." However, recent studies regarding this particular verse of the Old Testament have vindicated the translation of said verse. Linguist K. Renato Lings, for example, has brought to light how complex the original Hebrew text is, and in order to translate it into modern languages it is necessary to peruse the context in which the verse is written. Looking at the passage of Leviticus, Lings states that it “deals with various illicit relationships in the sexual realm: one marrying two sisters (18:18), intercourse with a menstruating woman (18:19), infidelity (18:20), and bestiality (18:23).” Furthermore, most of Leviticus 18 bears directly upon incest. Lings’ linguistic study inclines him to conclude that Leviticus (18:22) continues the theme of incestuous relationships. According to Lings, a more accurate translation of the verse passage is something along the lines of: “Sexual intercourse with a close male relative should be just as abominable to you as incestuous relationships with female relatives.”

The abridged and homophobic interpretations of the original Hebrew text in the Bible simply do not stand solid ground. When dealing with biblical interpretation, it’s important to peel away the theological elucubrations and be aware of the history and tradition behind the text, instead of blindly idolizing scripture that originates from very different societal surroundings that has been translated over and over again throughout the centuries. Hanging blindly onto a passage of the Old Testament and utilizing it as a homophobic weapon is unacceptable, because if Christianity is to remain relevant scripture must be put into the context of modern human experience. Christianity can, and should, be queer-inclusive - the core of it, after all, has to do with unity and kindness towards all of mankind.