Sodom

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1832.

According to the Book of Genesis, Sodom —together with its companion Gomorrah and two other towns—was a city destroyed by God for its sins. Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim were destroyed by "brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 19:24-25). Since then, the names of Sodom and Gomorrah have become synonymous with impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of God's just wrath.

Little is known of Gormorrah, but a number of details regarding Sodom are given in the biblical text. Although the city itself has not be rediscovered, several tantalizing archaeological discoveries have been made.

The story of Sodom has given rise to words in several languages, including English: the word "sodomy", meaning acts such as homosexuality and anal sex, and the word "sodomite", meaning one who practices such acts.

The Biblical text

Sodom was one of a group of five towns, the Pentapolis (Wisdom 10:6): Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela — also called Zoar (Genesis 19:22). The Pentapolis region is also collectively referred to as "the Cities of the Plain" (Genesis 13:12) since they were all sited on the plain of the Jordan River in an area that constituted the southern limit of the lands of the Canaanites (Genesis 10:19). Lot, the nephew of Abraham chose to live in Sodom after separating from Abraham, because of the proximity of good grazing for his flocks (Genesis 13:5-11). Abraham later waged a military campaign in support of these cities in order to rescue Lot, who had been taken captive when the Pentapolis was attacked by a rival coalition of kings.

In Genesis 18, God takes the form of three angels and informs Abraham that he plans to destroy the city of Sodom because of its gross immorality. Abraham pleads with God not to destroy Sodom, and God agrees that he would not destroy the city if there were 50 righteous people in it. Abraham bargains the Lord down 45, then 30, then 20, or even ten righteous people. However, when the angels—two of them in this part of the story—arrive at Sodom, only found one righteous person living in Sodom, Abraham's nephew Lot. Consequently, God follows through with his plans to destroy the city.

In Genesis 19:4-5, the final episode in the story of Sodom is described as the angels visit Lot to warn him to flee:

When they had not yet retired, and the people of the city, the people of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, the entire populace from every end[of the city]. And they called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, and let us be intimate with them."

Lot refused to give the visiting angels to the men of Sodom and instead offered them his two virgin daughters. The men refused to accept this compromise. The angels then struck the men with blindness, allowing Lot and his family to escape by leaving the city, and Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire and brimstone by God.

Rabbinical tradition

A rabbinic tradition, described in the Mishnah, postulates that the sin of Sodom was related to property: Sodomites believed that "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" (Abot), which is interpreted as a lack of compassion. Another rabbinic tradition is that Sodom and Gomorrah treated visitors in a sadistic fashion and that it sinned against the tradition of hospitality.

A story goes that in Sodom, every one who gave bread and water to the poor was condemned to death by fire. Pentapolis existed only 52 years, and during the last 22 of them God brought earthquakes and other misfortunes upon it that it might repent. The inhabitants of the cities of the plain worshiped the sun and the moon (Yalḳ., Gen. 83).

Christian views

File:Leyden-Lot.png

In a sixteenth-century depiction by Lucas Van Leyden, a drunken Lot embraces his daughter while Sodom burns in the distance.

Traditional theologians and bible scholars accept that the sins of Sodom were homosexuality and rape. However, these were not the only sins:

Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, 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.

Biblical scholars debate the proper English interpretation of this passage. Most scholars feel that "strange flesh" is a reference to homosexuality, while some (particularly liberal Christians) feel that the "strange flesh" involved refers to bestiality as the men of Sodom were seeking copulation with angels, not humans.

Liberal theologians also refer to the ancient rabbinical text to demonstrate that the sin of Sodom was primarily an economic one. Others take the view that the biblical account of homosexual sin is undeniable, but that it primarily mythological and represents an anachronistic moral attitude since science has shown that homosexuality is not merely an ethical choice but also a genetic predisposition.

Islamic view

In Islamic tradition, the story of the prophet Lot (called "Lut") often used as a reference to show that homosexuality is haraam—against God's law. Indeed, Lut was commanded by God to go to the land of Sodom and Gomorra to preach against homosexuality. His message was ignored and , Sodom and Gommorra were destroyed. In the Qur'anic account, Lut's wife refuses to leave and is left behind to be destroyed, rather than turning into a pillar of salt as she is in the biblical account.

“	And Lut, when he said to his tribe: "Do you commit an obscenity not perpetrated before you by anyone in all the worlds? You come with lust to men instead of women. You are indeed a depraved tribe." The only answer of his tribe was to say: "Expel them from your city! They are people who keep themselves pure!" So We rescued him and his family-except for his wife. She was one of those who stayed behind. We rained down a rain upon them. See the final fate of the evildoers!	”
	— Qur'an, 7:80-84

Another difference between the story of Lut in the Qur'an and the story of Lot in the Bible is that the Qur'anic account does not inlcude Lot's incestuous relationship with his daughters, since, as a prophet in Islamic tradition, Lot would never engage either in drunkenness or incest.

Historicity

The historical existence of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists, with some believing they never existed, some believing they are now under the Dead Sea, and others claiming that they have been found (under other names) in the region to the southeast of the Dead Sea. The Bible indicates they were indeed located near the Dead Sea (Genesis 14:1-3, Deuteronomy 34:3).

The Greek historian Strabo (first century CE) states that locals living near Moasada (probably referring to Masada) reported that "there were once 13 inhabited cities in that region of which Sodom was the metropolis". There is a small "mountain", mainly composed of salt, next to the Dead Sea, called in Arabic Jabal (Mount) Usdum, which is similar to the Arabic for Sodom, Sadūm. All of this , however, present a chicken-and-egg dilemma, for the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah is very ancient.

An ancient Akkadian poem describing cities that were destroyed in a rain of fire, written from the view of a person who escaped the destruction, however the names of the cities are not given.

Some modern biblical scholars suggest the destruction of the cities may have been factual, with the account of Lot and the sin of the Sodomites added later as an explanation for a natural disaster. Geologists have confirmed that no volcanic activity occurred in the region within the last 4000 years, but it is possible that the towns were destroyed by an earthquake, especially if the towns lie along a major fault, the Jordan Rift Valley, the northernmost extension of the Great Rift Valley of the Red Sea and East Africa. It is also possible that the sin of the inhabitants appearing in the original text was edited out and lost.

One candidate for Sodom is a site known as Bab edh-Dhra. Bab edh-Dhra was an Early Bronze Age city located near the Dead Sea, and bitumen and petroleum deposits have been found in the area, which contain sulfur and natural gas. The theory is that an earthquake opened a nearby pocket of natural gas. This gas drifted up and reacted with fires burning in the city. As a result, the city was devastated.

Modern Sodom

In accordance with the general Israeli practice of naming places for the cities or villages which existed in biblical times, the site of the present Dead Sea Works, extensively extracting the Dead Sea minerals, is called "Sdom" (סדום). It is not claimed, however, that this is the biblical city. Unlike its biblical namesake, the modern Sodom is not associated with sins but with hard working crews sweating in the summer heat of the Dead Sea shores.

Films

Some films have attempted to portray the Biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, although many of them take liberties with the historical text.

• Sodom and Gomorrah / Sodom und Gomorra (1922) - an Austrian film directed by Michael Curtiz
• Lot in Sodom (1933) - a film that passed the censors because it depicted the wickedness of the sin.
• Sodom and Gomorrah (1963) - a film directed by Robert Aldrich which depicts the destruction of the two cities for their decadence and human cruelty.
• Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975) - an Italian film by Pier Paolo Pasolini. (Not about the historical city. Rather a tale adapted from the novel The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade and set in WW-II Italy.)
• Parts of the The Scorpion King (2002, in effect a fantasy movie) are set in a city called Gomorrah, apparently meant to be the Biblical city before it was destroyed.

Television

• In the Anime and Manga, One Piece, the Franky Family owns two King Bulls called Sodom and Gomorrah.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Gagnon, Robert A.J. (2002), The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, Abingdon Press, pages 71-91.

See also

• Religion and homosexuality
• Vine of Sodom
• Apple of Sodom
• Vayeira, the Torah portion containing the story of Sodom and Gomorrah
• Higher criticism

Refrenced in the movie "Dogma" where, Loki, The Angel of Death was responsible for the havok.

External links and sources

• Wyatt Archaeological Research Ashen city-shaped remains in the vicinity of Masada, that stretch for miles, with deposits of sulphur in 'ball' shapes (i.e. brimstone), a type of sulphur found nowhere else on planet earth. Ron Wyatt's account of his supposed re-discovery of this ancient city.
• Harvard University The 1975–1981 Excavations At The Town Site Of Bab edh-Dhra
• University of Melbourne "Bab edh-Dhra is located on the South-East edge of the Dead Sea in Jordan, not far from Numeira (identified with Gomorroh)."
• University of Notre Dame Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain. "One of the most important transitions in human history involved the establishment of the world's first cities approximately 5,000 years ago in the ancient Middle East. In the eastern Mediterranean region (Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan), people built the first walled cities during a period archaeologists call the Early Bronze Age (EBA, c. 3500–2000 B.C.E.). In the EBA on the southeastern Dead Sea Plain (Map 1), people began burying their dead in extensive cemeteries, creating a landscape of the dead. Interestingly, they soon built two walled towns next to the cemeteries that they had used for a few centuries. In these settlements, called Bab edh-Dhra' (pronounced "bob-ed-draw") and Numeira (pronounced "new-mere-a"), people established the way of life that we read about in the Bible. In fact, for the writers of the Bible, the desolate nature of this stretch of shore along the Dead Sea and the visible ruins of Bab edh-Dhra' and Numeira may have helped them to identify this area with the stories of the ill-fated sites of Sodom and Gomorrah."
• Atlantic Baptist University Sodom and Gomorrah
• Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance This site has an extensive coverage of both the liberal and conservative Christian views of the story of Sodom and Gomorra.
• Sodom and Gomorrah at the Catholic Encyclopedia

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