CHAPTER 17
The Conclusions the Evidence Supports
The evidence allows us to say several things with confidence, while also showing us where caution is necessary.
Sodom was portrayed as a wicked society before its destruction.
“Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the LORD.”
Genesis 13:13
“The LORD said, ‘Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,’”
Genesis 18:20
Genesis does not introduce Sodom as an innocent city that suddenly became guilty because of one event. These verses establish the city's wickedness and the seriousness of the outcry against it.
The destruction story therefore belongs to a larger biblical portrayal of a society already understood as deeply corrupt.
Genesis 19 contains an attempted sexual assault against male visitors.
This part of the story should not be removed or ignored. The men of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand that the male visitors be brought outside, and Lot's response makes clear that he understands the demand as a sexual threat.
The passage also presents the threatened act as violent and coercive. It is not a description of a modern relationship between consenting adults. The scene involves intimidation, a mob, abuse of strangers, and an attempted sexual assault.
That distinction is historically important. The text clearly contains male-on-male sexual violence, but it does not use the modern categories of sexual orientation or sexual identity.
The story also contains violence, hostility toward strangers, and a serious violation of hospitality.
Hospitality was an important social value in the ancient world. A traveler who entered an unfamiliar community could depend heavily on the protection of a household and its host.
Genesis 19 turns that expectation upside down. Instead of protecting the visitors, the men of the city attempt to seize them. Violence replaces hospitality, and the strangers become targets.
This means the story cannot honestly be reduced to one isolated sexual act. Sexual violence, mob violence, hostility toward outsiders, and the rejection of expected hospitality are all present in the narrative.
Ezekiel identifies pride, prosperity, and failure to help the poor and needy as major characteristics of Sodom.
“Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters. She didn’t strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. They were haughty, and committed abomination before me. Therefore I took them away as I saw good.”
Ezekiel 16:49–50
Ezekiel gives one of the clearest descriptions of Sodom outside Genesis. The prophet names pride, abundant food, prosperous ease, and failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. He then describes the people as haughty and as committing abominations.
This passage is especially important because it shows that the memory of Sodom was not limited to the events of Genesis 19. Later biblical reflection understood the city's corruption in social and moral terms as well.
Leviticus contains laws concerning male same-sex intercourse, although those laws belong to Israel's covenant legislation rather than the Genesis story itself.
“You shall not lie with a male, as with a woman. It is an abomination.”
Leviticus 18:22
“If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”
Leviticus 20:13
These verses contain explicit prohibitions concerning sexual intercourse between males within Israel's holiness and covenant legislation.
Those passages should be taken seriously for what they actually are. They are laws given within Israel's covenant community. They do not retell Genesis 19, and they do not state that these laws were the single reason Sodom was destroyed.
The existence of these laws is historically relevant to the development of biblical sexual ethics, but the passages should not be collapsed into the Sodom narrative.
Jude connects Sodom with sexual immorality and “different flesh” while discussing angels.
Jude 6 describes angels who did not keep their proper position, and Jude 7 immediately turns to Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude describes the cities as having given themselves over to sexual immorality and having gone after “different flesh.”
The Greek phrase is sarkos heteras. The word sarkos means flesh, while heteras means different, other, or another kind. In the immediate context, the reference to angels in the preceding verse makes the connection significant.
A strong contextual reading is that Jude understood the men of Sodom as seeking sexual contact with beings of a different kind, corresponding to the heavenly visitors in the Genesis tradition.
However, the Greek phrase itself does not mean “bestiality.” The word heteras does not mean animal or beast. Therefore, describing Jude as teaching “ontological bestiality” goes beyond what the vocabulary itself establishes.
Peter connects Sodom with ungodliness, lawlessness, corrupt desire, and rebellion.
Second Peter 2 uses the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of divine judgment. Peter speaks of ungodly people, lawless conduct, corrupt desire, and rejection of authority.
Peter therefore preserves several dimensions of the Sodom tradition at the same time. The cities are remembered as examples of moral corruption and as examples of judgment.
Jesus uses Sodom as an example of judgment.
“Whoever doesn’t receive you or hear your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Most certainly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.”
Matthew 10:14–15
Jesus compares towns that reject His messengers with Sodom and Gomorrah. The comparison emphasizes rejection and judgment.
Jesus does not say that rejection of hospitality was the only sin of Sodom. Instead, He uses the remembered fate of the cities to warn people about the seriousness of rejecting the message and messengers sent to them.
David and Jonathan demonstrate an extraordinarily deep relationship between two men, although Scripture does not explicitly identify their relationship as sexual.
The relationship between David and Jonathan deserves careful treatment because the biblical language is unusually strong. First Samuel 18 describes Jonathan's soul as being bound to David's, and Jonathan is said to love David as himself. Their covenant is accompanied by the exchange of clothing and weapons.
After Jonathan's death, David says that Jonathan's love for him was wonderful and that it surpassed the love of women.
These passages have led some readers and scholars to consider whether the relationship may have included romantic or homoerotic dimensions. Others understand the language within the ancient world of covenant friendship, loyalty, kinship, and political alliance.
What the text does not do is explicitly describe sexual activity between the two men. A responsible historical reading should therefore acknowledge the extraordinary intimacy of the relationship without claiming that Scripture proves a sexual relationship.