To the question of which exegetical tradition names the sin of the
Sodomites as inhospitality, I kindly recieved two replies:
1)Mary Suydam called inhospitality "a standard Jewish Biblical
interpretation to this day," noting that no halakhic argument names Sodom
in relation to homosexuality.
2) Thomas Izbiki noted the possible general violation of hospitality
rules that were current in the Holy Land.
Hertz's PENTATEUCH AND HAFTORAHS (London, 5753), one of the standard
works I was taught from in Hebrew School, notes that the Sodomites
abandoned themselves "to nameless abominations and depravities" (49).
Sodomy is called a "monstrous abomination" (313), and with respect to
Lev. XVIII:22, "the abyss of depravity," and with respect to Is I:10, "an
insult to God." Gen 3:13 does not mention inhospitality. Neither
the commentary nor the text itself mentions sodomy as the explicit sin.
Sodomites were known for their hatred of strangers (65), but see the
commentary to 19:4, "Emphasis is here laid on the fact that the inhabitants
were all addicted to unnatural depravity" In fact, by touching Lot's
tent-rope, the strangers/angels received protection from their host. The
men of the town, perhaps angry that the right had been invoked, swore to
deal then with Lot: "now we will deal worse with thee, than with them."
The point seems to be that the Sodomites are incurably depraved in all
aspects, not merely in either inhospitality or homosexuality (see Isa.
1:9, 13:19; Jer. 23:14; 49:18; Amos 4:11; Zeph. 2:9; Matt. 10:15; Rom.
9:29; Jud 7). As David Lyle Jeffrey points out in his incomparable A
DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL TRADITION IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, the sins of Sodom
in Rabbinic literature are "greed and Procrustean inhospitality to
strangers" (720; see Seder Nezekin, Sanh. 4.6). Philo, St. Jerome, Bede,
and 2 Peter 2:4 all include inhospitality with homosexuality as the sins
of Sodom. Jerome noted especially Sodom's lack of spirituality, which
seems to be one of the points of the Passion of St. Pelagius (s.ix).
Yet, in dealing with Christian tradition, one cannot dismiss the sin of
homosexual acts as alien to the Sodomites. Along with inhospitality,
idolatry, and a number of other sins, homosexual acts are part and parcel
of their moral depravity. (NB the act is differentiated from the person in
Medieval tradition and our own: see THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH, ¤2358. See also McNeill and Gamer's MEDIEVAL HANDBOOKS OF
PENANCE.)
"Queering" the Middle Ages often includes stressing the inhospitality
of the Sodomites sometimes to the exclusion of their homosexual acts, and
allowing a consequent implication of Scripture's ethical ambivalence
towards those acts. My question came in reaction to a post that "corrected" an
interpretation of the sin of the Sodomites as sodomy. In fact, it is just
as correct to claim the sin is sodomy as it is to claim the sin is
inhospitality. But neither excludes the damnable presence of the
other--damnable since God's wrath was visited upon them for both sins.
Thanks to everyone for their kind responses.
Respectfully,
Stephen Harris
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|