Hangdawg13 writes:
quote:
The story of Sodom and Gommorah in Genesis 19 describes how the city was filled with homosexuals.
No, it doesn't. It describes how the city was filled with wicked people. At no point is there ever any mention made of gay people living in Sodom. In fact, the story explicitly points out that the townspeople were straight.
Why else would Lot offer his daughters to the crowd at his door?
Oh, you must think that the phrase, "so that we may know them," means they wanted to have sex. Well, no. While it is true that the Hebrew word "yada" can mean having sex (as previously seen in Genesis when it says Adam "knew" his wife), it only means that when phrased in a particular way.
The phrasing used in Genesis 19 is used over 100 times in the Bible and it is never translated as meaning sex in any of those other times. Why is this one, single time different?
In order to understand Genesis 19, you have to back up to Genesis 14. You see, Sodom had just been through a war in which they got their butts handed to them on a plate. Lot's relative (the Bible seems to be confused over whether Lot is a brother or a nephew), Abraham, comes to save Sodom from utter defeat and in the process, publically humiliates the king.
Lot, who is an outsider and not from Sodom, then brings in two strangers into town. What do you think would be the reason the townsmen are at the door wondering who the hell these two strangers are? Sex? Or possibly they're wondering if they're about to be invaded.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the US went to war with Iraq and got its butt kicked. Hussein's brother, who's been living in Washington, DC for the past few years, is suddenly seen with two strange Iraqis who managed to slip past immigration.
Do you think when the INS and the FBI come knocking on the door that they'll have sex on their minds? Or perhaps when they say, "Bring them out so that we may know them," they really mean just that: Bring them out so that we may know just who the hell they are and what they're doing in our town.
Genesis 19 makes it perfectly clear that the townsfolk had absolutely no interest in sex when they went to Lot's door. Lot comes out and offers them his two virginal daughters to rape as they please and they become even more enraged:
Genesis 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.
19:9: And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
There is absolutely no indication of desire for sex upon the part of the townsfolk.
And let us not forget, your implication is not just that Sodom had many gay people. It is that every single person in Sodom was gay:
Genesis 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:
The entire town is outside Lot's door. Every single one. If the claim is that they didn't take Lot up on his offer to have sex with his daughters because they were gay, then that means every single person in Sodom was gay (except the women, who were also there, since why would they turn down an offer of sex with other women?)
So how on earth did Sodom manage to survive with no heterosexuals?
And for that matter, who on earth were Lot's daughters engaged to? They were engaged to other Sodomites, so if all the men of Sodom were gay, how was this going to work? If all the men in Sodom were gay, wouldn't Lot have offered his future sons-in-law rather than his daughters?
quote:
Also, God originaly designed both the bodies and souls of men to love women and vice versa.
And yet, men are quite capable of falling in love and having really good sex with other men. Women are quite capable of falling in love and having really good sex with other women. Ergo, there is no way to argue that homosexuality is some sort of "going against the design." If it weren't designed for that, then you couldn't do it.
You can do it, therefore it must have been designed to allow it.
quote:
If you or anyone is truly interested in the truth and want me to look up the supporting passages for this statement please e-mail me. And don't be afraid to read the primary source: the Bible.
Um, I just did and it actually says the exact opposite of what you claimed.
Sodom wasn't destroyed because of homosexuality. The townsfolk weren't outside Lot's door in order to have sex with the angels.
Instead, the townsfolk were outside Lot's door because he brought strangers into their town.
And in all of the places in the Bible where the "sin of Sodom" is mentioned, not once is sex ever brought up. Isaiah 1 compares Judah to Sodom and Gomorrah and yet not once is the question of homosexuality brought up.
Jeremiah 23 talks about the sexual activities going on in Sodom and Gomorrah, but apparently it was adultery:
Jeremiah 23:14: I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
Ezekiel 16 gets more specific, but again homosexuality is never mentioned:
Ezekiel 16:49: Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
16:50: And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
Even the New Testament can't seem to manage to find homosexuality in Sodom:
Matthew 10:14: And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
10:15: Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Luke 10:11: Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.
10:12: But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.
2 Peter 2 is just vague. The closest we can get is
Jude 1:7: Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Some translators seem to think that "going after strange flesh" means homosexuality, but there's no reason to assume that. "Sarkos eteras" is not Greek for "homosexual."
Rrhain
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