Compulsory Heterosexuality in Biblical Narratives and their Interpretations: Reading Homophobia and Rape in Sodom and Gibeah (original) (raw)
Related papers
Removing Homosexuality from Sodom: Contextualizing Genesis 19 with Other Biblical Rape Narratives
2017
This analysis disputes common interpretations that the Sodom narrative (Genesis 19) is an anti-homosexual story by presenting it as part of a four-story arc about rape in the Bible. The three other stories discussed in addition to Sodom are as follows: the gang rape of the Levite's concubine (Judges 19), the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34), and the rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13). Each of the four stories discussed in this analysis contain various types of sexual violence, such as male-to-male rape or attempted rape, female-to-male rape, and male-to-female rape; in each case, the rapes or attempted rapes lead to disastrous social consequences, which this analysis concludes is the overarching message to each of the four narratives. In addition, this analysis will consider how the Sodom narrative became incorrectly associated with homosexuality and the negative impact that this misinterpretation in American jurisprudence and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
Reading Sodom through Sexual Violence Against Women
Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, 2017
This article considers how modern attitudes toward sexual violence against women influence the popular reception of Genesis 19. First, rape myths equate rape with sexual desire, supporting the assumption that Sodom is a story about gay sexual attraction and queer identity. Second, rape discourses minimize the threat of violence against Lot’s daughters, ignoring how they may be crucial to the attribution of gay desire in this text. Finally, the normalization of rape influences the traction that this story receives in the Christian imagination in contrast to other stories about the rape of women, like Judges 19–20, which are quickly excused or marginalized. Genesis 19 becomes an authoritative text because it is about what men do with men, while the presence of raped women in other stories has curiously little authority in Christian life. I conclude by imagining how we might read Lot’s daughters back into the text, reconstituting a Christian imagination that combats the normalization o...
Homosexuality and Liminality in Sodom: The Quests for Home, Fun and Justice (Gen 19:1-29)
Old Testament Essays, 2021
This essay explores the first segment of the Lot sub-narrative of the Abraham cycle (Gen 11:27-25:10). The study adopts a narrative close reading approach and canonical theological hermeneutical framework in its reading strategies (with the canon's reception history undergirding its plausibility structures), aiming ultimately at unfolding the world of possibilities of being-in-the-world in the text, particularly from an ethical standpoint. The study shows Lot, enmeshed in his sense of marginality from YHWH's repeated covenantal promises of progeny to Abraham, ditch time-tested tradition and embark on a quest for freedom and a home of his own, consequently, assuming significance and security in Sodom (where he sat on the city council at the gate). His initial assumed marginality in Abraham's home attains reality in Sodom, where the Sodomites desirous of 'having fun' with Lot's angelic guests (who were on a search for justice) reprimands Lot, a mere immigrant-in their view-for his audacity to rebuke them. The visitation of YHWH's justice on Sodom renders the self-serving Lot homeless, driving him to ultimate marginality, as he inhabits the liminal space of an incestuous cave dweller. A theologico-ethical appropriation of the narrative draws attention, first, to the temptation often to be so caring to outsiders and yet be so unkind to those closest to us (like Lot). Second, tradition is a stabilising force in society and jettisoning it unnecessarily creates cascading disequilibria. Third, alienation from God is the grand source of all liminality. Fourth, inordinate desires lead to choices that bring about a breakdown in the social order. Fifth, like Lot, we need to catch heaven's heartbeat for the oppressed and become voices for their justice in our time.
Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies, 2014
The issue of human sexuality is a complex one, and it has been a controversial issue from time immemorial. Scholars have appealed to various evidences to support their arguments for or against any sexual issues they are interested in. One of the passages used to support or argue against homosexuality, for instance, is Gen 19 which contains the story of the destruction of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Traditionally, Sodom and Gomorrah were known and described as cities which God destroyed because of their sin of homosexuality. To call a man Sodomite is to refer to the person as a homosexual. This has been the interpretation of the Church until recently when certain scholars began to challenge this interpretation. Such scholars interpret Gen 19 differently in contrast to the orthodox interpretation. The sin of the people of Sodom is "inhospitality and not homosexuality" as this new interpretation proposes. Hence, this paper examines some of the passages relating to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old and New Testaments in order to assert the rightness or otherwise of the two interpretations given above. The methodology adopted is linguistic analysis and exegetical method. The study maintains that top on the list of sins in Gen 19 is homosexuality as it is clearly stated in the passage. It concludes that since the two angels came to Lot and not to the men of Sodom the people could not have been guilty of inhospitality as being proposed by scholars like Bartlett 1 and Phyllis Bird. 2
2018
This analysis disputes common interpretations that the Sodom narrative (Genesis 19) is an anti-homosexual story by presenting it as part of a four-story arc about rape in the Bible. The three other stories discussed in addition to Sodom are as follows: the gang rape of the Levite's concubine (Judges 19), the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34), and the rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13). Each of the four stories discussed in this analysis contain various types of sexual violence, such as male-to-male rape or attempted rape, female-to-male rape, and male-to-female rape; in each case, the rapes or attempted rapes lead to disastrous social consequences, which this analysis concludes is the overarching message to each of the four narratives. In addition, this analysis will consider how the Sodom narrative became incorrectly associated with homosexuality and the negative impact that this misinterpretation in American jurisprudence and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
Old Testament Essays, 2021
This essay explores the first segment of the Lot sub-narrative of the Abraham cycle (Gen 11:27-25:10). The study adopts a narrative close reading approach and canonical theological hermeneutical framework in its reading strategies (with the canon's reception history undergirding its plausibility structures), aiming ultimately at unfolding the world of possibilities of being-in-the-world in the text, particularly from an ethical standpoint. The study shows Lot, enmeshed in his sense of marginality from YHWH's repeated covenantal promises of progeny to Abraham, ditch time-tested tradition and embark on a quest for freedom and a home of his own, consequently, assuming significance and security in Sodom (where he sat on the city council at the gate). His initial assumed marginality in Abraham's home attains reality in Sodom, where the Sodomites desirous of 'having fun' with Lot's angelic guests (who were on a search for justice) reprimands Lot, a mere immigrant-in their view-for his audacity to rebuke them. The visitation of YHWH's justice on Sodom renders the self-serving Lot homeless, driving him to ultimate marginality, as he inhabits the liminal space of an incestuous cave dweller. A theologico-ethical appropriation of the narrative draws attention, first, to the temptation often to be so caring to outsiders and yet be so unkind to those closest to us (like Lot). Second, tradition is a stabilising force in society and jettisoning it unnecessarily creates cascading disequilibria. Third, alienation from God is the grand source of all liminality. Fourth, inordinate desires lead to choices that bring about a breakdown in the social order. Fifth, like Lot, we need to catch heaven's heartbeat for the oppressed and become voices for their justice in our time.
The stories in the Hebrew Bible are written in code. In the case of the Sodom story, the key that enables the reader to detect the message that the redactors of the story wanted to convey, is the practice of the kingdoms of the Ancient Near East to produce fresh citizens and slaves in human breeding grounds. Unfortunately, academics refuse to acknowledge the existence of the human breeding grounds, in spite of the fact that the practice is mentioned in the ancient Near Eastern texts, all relevant details are provided by the ancient Egyptian texts, and Plato devoted a part of his “Republic”, the famous ‘eugenics’ section, in what he calls “something Phoenician”, i.e., an ancient story or a story from the East.
To be Done with Sodom, 2021
NON-FICTION COMIC Forget about the peaceful story of the patriarch tending his sheep. You are about to learn of the untold story of Sodom. The forgotten story that no one knows about because, well, losers don’t get to write history. Still, it is a story everyone needs to come to grips with because, unknowingly, by perpetuating the worship of Abraham’s Lord, it is the oppressor’s memory we continue to celebrate. Ironically, the Sodomite’s cry for freedom, which continues to resonate in the scriptures thousands of years later, enables us to reconstruct the story behind the myth today. This non-fiction comic explores the possibility that Abraham existed and made an earthly covenant with a Mesopotamian ruler who sought to control the valley of Siddim, an important trade corridor between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Such a covenant would have been decisive for the descendants of Abraham. Could the worship of this lord, over time, have turned into a local cult that would have given rise to the God of Israel? This possibility has been neglected for too long. NOTE: This non-fiction comic complements my monograph "An Everlasting Quid Pro Quo"
The Hermeneutics of Abomination: On Gay Men, Canaanites, and Biblical Interpretation
Biblical Theology Bulletin, 1997
A number of readers have claimed that injunctions against male homosexuality in the Hebrew Bible are aimed at cultic prostitution supposedly practiced by non-Israelites. Although several scholars have questioned the historical basis for this claim, less attention has been given to the ideological assumptions that underlie the hermeneutic argument. While cultic prostitutes may or may not have existed, the Hebrew Bible does attempt to link non-Israelite populations to sexual practices that are considered unacceptable by its authors. This attempt is an example of a common rhetorical move whereby the "other" is defined in relation to deviant sexual practice. Ironically, gay readers who rely upon this hermeneutic strategy participate in a process, already begun in the Hebrew Bible and taken further by its readers, in which sexual practice becomes the basis for insult, stereotyping, and condemnation. Since the reliance upon such a common mode ofethnic stereotyping cannot be accepted, gay and gay-affirmative readers need to replace such a "hermeneutics of abomination" with a critical study of the relations between gender ideologies and assumptions about sexual practice that are presupposed by the biblical texts. A f debates about homosexuality continue to take place in religious, political, and social contexts, it is important for thinkers on all sides of the debates to reflect critically on the assumptions that frame the discussion. Toward that end, the present article examines a particular hermeneutic argument that has been deployed by a number of gay-affirmative readers of the Hebrew Bible. Although I raise a number of critical questions about this hermeneutic, my intention is not to attack gay-affirmative readings. O n the contrary, after discussing some of the problems that seem to me to underlie a number of those readings, I return in my conclusions to some brief suggestions about alternative gay-affirmative approaches to biblical interpretation. My focus, however, is on a disturbing hermeneutic practice that has implications far beyond contemporary debates about same-sex relationships. Elements of this hermeneutic practice do appear in some gay-affirmative interpretations ofthe Hebrew Bible, but they can also be found in much biblical scholarship and, indeed, in the biblical texts themselves.