Sodom and Gomorrah

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For it is so written in

The Bible

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Sodom and Gomorrah were a pair of cities in the Biblical book of Genesis.

Contents

[edit] The Genesis version

According to the Genesis 19, the cities were both exceedingly wicked, with the only exception being the righteous family of Lot. When angels came to investigate, only Lot would offer them hospitality. Moreover, the men of the city sought to commit some form of wickedness with the angels (though it is more ambiguous than most people think). Lot offered up his daughters to placate the townspeople, but they weren't having any of it. God's angels responded to the townspeople by striking them with blindness. This prevented them from performing the act of wickedness they were preparing to commit (commonly interpreted to be rape) with the angels, as they were unable to find the door to Lot's house (of which the angels were within). Oddly enough, the Bible says nothing about the obvious cruelty in the "righteous" Lot's attempting to turn in his own daughters to be raped in the angels's place. Due to the sheer iniquity of their citizens, God, kind and all-loving that He is, destroyed the cities with fire from heaven. He was kind enough, however, to give Lot's family a head start to leave.

One is left to ponder this strange case of group punishment that was meted out to, say, the unborn of the city. Maybe because of Eve they deserved it.

Because some of the wickedness involved sexual practices outside of the good old-fashioned baby-making kind, including man-on-man santorum-generating acts, gay sex has long been called "sodomy". Since then, the term has expanded to any kind of oral-genital or anal-genital contact. [1]

[edit] Ezekiel begs to differ

Although the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:4-29 is the most often cited version of the destruction of the two cities, there is one other notable mention of this story in Ezekiel 16:46-50. In that passage, there is no mention of sex sin -- specifically the intended gang rape of Lot's visitors by the men of the town -- as a motive for God to destroy the cities.

Instead, the main reasons given for the cities' destruction was their arrogance and their enjoyment of abundance while being unconcerned with the plight of the poor amongst them.

Perhaps the two most likely reasons that the Ezekiel version gets so little mention among fundies is because:

  1. it doesn't have any red meat -- i.e., sex -- to throw at the typical bible thumper; and
  2. the reasons listed in this version may strike a bit too close to home for some readers.

[edit] Archaeology

There is no archaeological evidence for either town, [2] however, if such settlements existed a massive earthquake and landslide could have destroyed them. [3]

[edit] Outside the Bible

Sodom is also the name of a killer German thrash metal band fronted by Tom Angelripper. Check out Persecution Mania and Agent Orange if you can.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Lack of hospitality may have been involved as well. The Greco-Roman religion has a similar story where (Zeus and Hermis/Jupiter and Mercury) visited a city and all denied them hospitality except a poor couple who shared what little they had. The couple were spared but the rest of the town was destroyed. Baucis and Philemon
  2. Sodom and Gomorrah
  3. Scientists uncover Sodom's fiery end
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