Reply to Ben W

This is an answer to a comment (c:a nr 59) by Ben W on Thinking Anglicans (klick on the head-line)

Ben W wrote: “On Sodom, the wider issue is hospitality, but as part of that we get the action of the men of Sodom toward "the men" who have come to visit (Gen 19:5). The hospitality is seen precisely in how they responded to these visitors! They demand, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them" (to know here – the same term regularly used when a man and woman have sexual relations). That is the key event here, from it the other terrible events unfold. Lot to avoid this dreadful violation of the visitors – "I beg you ... do not act so wickedly" v 7 – looks for a way out.

So you want say, "The sin of Sodom wasn't sexual...?" Read it for yourself! What happened to Lot's daughters was evil piled on this evil (whether Lot thought that they would restrain themselves because the daughters were part of and so with some support in this community is not clear – he himself was threatened v 9b, clearly a desperate act). We can say the sin was sexual from first to last but hardly "not sexual"!”

Dear Ben W,

This is all wrong, but very often claimed. And this claim is a late modern “Homo”-sexualization. It is absent from all elder translations however. It is the late modern fixation with sex, and anti Modern Social Politics.

It appears for the first time after 1955 (DS Bailey’s book Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition – only that I would say that this tradition is Hellenist/Platonist/Academic, but n o t Christian.

Dr Bailey showed convincingly that the ("hetero"-)sexualization of the Sodom story is “intertestamental”. It appears in Hellenist and Jewish Hellenist literature (which also is Hellenist, but not Jewish) around the year 0, such as philosophical renegade Filon of Alexandria and double-traitor “Flavius” Josephus, né Levi.

The result was that some 45 references to Sodom and Gomorra in both Testaments were changed back in most translations after 1955 from “sexual” to material, including Jesus’ own 2 in the Gospels.

However, from 1961 (Bible de Jérusalem, the translation of the French Dominicans from the Codex sinaïticus; La Sainte Bible, traduite en français sous la direction de l’École Biblique de Jérusalem), to underpin the exploded dogmatisms new passages (which never had been associated with the Sodom story) were “homo”-sexualised, such as Judges 19:5 (gnåmen autois) and (the most scandalous change of all) Gnosticist Letter of Jude verse 7 (sarkòs etéras) (both TEV). Others – namely the Scholastic “proofs” post Lateran II 1139 – followed suit after 1970, being changed from "proving" clerical Abstinences to anti Gay.

However, sun-g-e-nå-me-tha autois in Genesis 19:5 means to say hello to them. It is a different word from the root gnå- than the gnå-men; to know, in Judges 19:22.

The original manipulation (= the false claim that sun-g-e-nå-me-tha autois mean “to know in the Biblical sense”) seems to be Renaissance; Dr Calvinus himself.

The corresponding claim (also wrong) about late Persian Judges 19-20 is post 1970, unheard of before Dr Bailey.

Words from the root gnå- occur 934 times in the OT, euphemistically referring (circumstances permitting) to Hetero-sexual copulation 8 times in the younger parts of the OT, such as Genesis 4:1 “And Adam k n e w his wife Eve…" [probably not part of the original OT because the eldest existing LXX, the Codex vaticanus (early 300s) starts only in Genesis 46:8 Taûta dè tà onómina tån huôn Josäf tån eisälthónton eis Aïgypton… These are the names of the Sons of Joseph who went down to Egypt…) and Kings, and (perhaps) once in the NT (Matt 1:24 “And he didn’t k n o w his wife before she had given birth to a Son…”)].

Thus a possible total of 9 times out of 934. That is a frequency of less than 1 %! So NOT “the same term regularly used“ as Ben W calls it.

But sungenåmetha is a d i f f e r e n t word and a d i f f e r e n t form ; = )

In Matt 1:24 the word used is the aorist e-g-í-nå-sken autón – the change of the -e- to -i- is late Koíne; 2nd century, as is Matt on the whole.

In fact, Dr Calvinus’ innovation “To know in the Biblical sense“ makes this the first Dynamic Equivalence translation.

The Swedish State translation 1981 (made by 2 converts to Rome – one secret ;=) changes also 1 Thess 4:4-8, which in the Danish Bible still refers to Honesty in Commerce, but was used from Lateran II 1139 for Consecrations and Ordinations, “proving” Mandatory Abstinence – and this even in the Church of Sweden after the Reformation (Church Ordinance of 1571).

So Genesis 18 and 19 is about the commandment to Sacred Hospitality “under the shadow of my roof” towards “the Levite, the poor and the Stranger” – practically a condition of survival for peopåle outside the Clans, for those excluded from clannish pre Modern Societies. According to (questionable) legends (folk-etymologies explaining the place-names “the burnt”, the devastated”) the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t.

Consequently, what has been stressed in Jewish tradition is Abrahams repeated pleas to save the City if even there was o n e righteous human in it, not sex. As Dr Bailey showed so convincingly as to de-sexualise most translations of the 45 references to Sodom, the (Hetero)-sexualization is Hellenist. So is the Gnostic idea of the “Wives of Sodom running after strange flesh” (the Angels). Despite Platonist influence, it has never been anything like Kosher.

But to the everlasting shame of Modern Academia the sexualization (and the late modern canonization of Messrs Filo and Josephus as some kind of honorary Fathers of the Church) has survived.

Ben W cites: "I beg you ... do not act so wickedly" v 7”

This is Jewish rhetoric, dear Ben. The Bible comes from a different culture, with different mores (Think the way Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman in the Gospel). The point still is the Sacredness of Hospitality “under the shadow of my roof” towards “the Levite, the Poor and the Stranger”.

So Loot says verse 7 “Don’t do this to me!” This aims to show the inhabitants how absurd it is to infringe on Sacred Hospitality.

Un-surprisingly “so wickedly” is not in the Text; making it an addition by dishonest translators (for obvious reasons ; = )

Genesis 19 does not address the late modern category of “sex” but the pre Modern one of Hospitality “under the shadow of my roof”. There is no rape in the story, only a suggested one (by Loot), which, however – Loot being the Pater familias – isn’t rape according to pre Modern sensibilities, cf. Abraham delivering Sarah to Pharaoh in Genesis 12:15, and to Abimelek in Genesis 20:2, and Isaac delivering Rebecca in 26:7 (also cf. a case when this happened without the Pater familias’ permission in alias John 8, in originally Luke 21:39ff).

However, the rape suggested by Loot in Genesis 19:8 never comes off. To claim that the Sodom story is about rape or “sex” is, resolutely, an anti Modern Academic fantasy. An intentional invention, followed by forging the sacred Text.

Conclusion; in the Bible the sin of Sodom isn't sexual which Dr Bailey showed so convincingly that the translators changed their erroneous translations of the 45 references, from “sex” to material.

Anti Modern Socio-Political Policies (Roman and American Calvinist), of which these un-wisely suggested "moratoria" is a part, are built on very loose sands, indeed.