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February 19, 2013

The case of Sodom and Gomorrah

Tue Feb 19, 2013

Editor: The story of Sodom and Gomorrah began in the book of Genesis, where during a conversation with Abraham about his wife Sarah having a son the following year, God appearing in the form of a man said to Abraham: “I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are utterly evil, and that everything they do is wicked. I am going down to see whether these reports are true or not.{{more}} Then I will know.” (Genesis 18: 20 & 21). Note that God did not say that they were homosexuals. What this is saying is that an all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful God did not know for sure what was happening in two cities, and was hearing about it second-hand. He, therefore, had to go himself to check out what was happening. That’s incredible.

Then Abraham asked God if he will destroy the righteous with the wicked. Put another way “Will you kill good and bad alike?” The rest of chapter 18 relates the conversation between God and Abraham about what proportion of the population who are righteous will it take to save Sodom. They started with fifty and eventually settled on ten.

Chapter 19 tells us that one evening, two angels came to Sodom and Lot invited them to his house and was very hospitable to them. However, later in the night, the men of Sodom, young and old, from all over the city, surrounded the house and shouted to Lot to bring out the men to them so they could rape them. They persisted, despite Lot’s protestations, and even attempted to break down the door of the house.
 
They had to be blinded by the angels in order to stop their advance. This had to be a localised fracas between Lot and men who live nearby and should not be attributed to the entire male population of the twin cities. All the men of Sodom and Gomorrah could not have known that Lot had visitors. Furthermore, if all the men of the cities, numbering thousands were involved and stormed Lot’s house, how come they were unable to break down a small door? However, the story ended with God raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah and utterly destroyed them along with the other cities and villages of the plain, eliminating all forms of life — people, plants and animals alike.

In religion today, it is universally preached that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and all the other cities and villages because of homosexuality. They arrive at this conclusion based on the incident at Lot’s house. Furthermore, if homosexuality was the cause of the destruction, how come the other cities and villages of the plains were destroyed when there was nothing linking them to homosexuality? The incident at Lot’s house involved a minority from Sodom only. Isn’t God fair? (Genesis 18: 23-26)

Finally, we should remember that the agreement between Abraham and God was that Sodom will be saved if at least ten righteous persons could be found (Gen chap.18 v.32). We do not know the size of the population of Sodom and Gomorrah, but by reading reading Genesis, we know that they were prosperous cities and from history we know that prosperous cities attract large populations.
 
So if Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities were destroyed because of homosexuality, it had to be that out of every one hundred people, at least ninety-one of them were homosexuals, and the population of homosexuals would have included almost all the women, almost all of the men, almost all of the young children, men in their eighties, the grand- mothers, grandfathers, all adolescents, pre-teens, and the population still in school. How ridiculous and ludicrous could our reasoning be to justify our hate for a segment of the population. Remember Adolph Hitler.

In my next article I will discuss what really happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as what other Old Testament books have to say on homosexuality.

Vincy Man

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