GOP: The Party of Sodomites

[TygrBright]

Genesis Chapter 19 Verses 4-9 (ESV):
But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down.

Yale historian John Boswell argues for this interpretation: "Lot was violating the custom of Sodom...by entertaining unknown guests within the city walls at night without obtaining the permission of the elders of the city. When the men of Sodom gathered around to demand that the strangers be brought out to them, "that they might know them," they meant no more than to "know" who they were, and the city was consequently destroyed not for sexual immorality, but for the sin of inhospitality to strangers."

English theologian D. Sherwin Bailey posited: "The men of Sodom wanted to interrogate Lot's guests to see if they were spies."

Textual references to the Genesis story in other parts of the Bible (there are approximately 27 references, depending on how you count) refer to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah in many ways. "Going after strange flesh" for example (Jude 7) most likely refers to what was eaten in the cities outraging the dietary conventions of Jewish law. Other references to "despising authority", "gluttony", "laziness", and in Ezekiel 16:49:

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Setting aside the obvious disqualification of Lot himself from any kind of morally defensible righteousness in the larger sense (what kind of asshole invites a crowd to abuse his daughters? Please...) the reason he escaped the destruction of those "abominable cities" wasn't (obviously!) any kind of sexual virtue or continence, but simply that he protected strangers from mob violence.

The GOP.

Party of Sodomites.

Any questions?

(Disclaimer: The reason I posted this in GD rather than in the Religion forum is that it is a rhetorical assertion aimed at provoking a larger discussion of morality and public policy, not an exigetical assertion aimed at provoking a theological debate. Anyone who wants to argue textual interpretation and/or the whole question of whether religion and/or the Bible are bullshit is welcome to copy/paste quotes into a new OP in Religion and have at it. Otherwise, let's stick to the policy implications of this particular interpretation.)

provocatively,
Bright

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Good post.

GD seems appropriate. Thanks for the time it took to do that.

[Pantagruel]

3. Nodded off halfway thru

Is he practicing to be a rabbi?

[TygrBright]

6. Thank you. n/t

[Achilleaze]

2. There you have it

Saaaataaaan is well pleased with his KGOP repubbblican acolytes and the misleader they submissively worship, the ignoble & routinely deceitful republican Dirty Donny* himself.

* aka republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief

[virgogal]

4. Maybe it's my thick head but this makes no sense.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. Plz gang rape my daughers.

Thx.

[braddy]

7. Tragically Boswell died of complications from AIDS age 47. I have his book "Christianity, Social

Tolerance, and Homosexuality ".

[struggle4progress]

8. Those old Hebrew stories are quite short and invite disputes about their meanings

We do not hear firsthand versions of these stories and so must pick our way carefully through them

The story indicates that a noisy crowd appeared at the door

Although the story does not clearly indicate what the crowd wants, the word used seems to be one sometimes used as a euphemism for sexual activity: the crowd here seems to be suggesting that the host should hand over the guests so the crowd can have "some fun" with them; but involuntary sexual contact with a crowd is something most people would not eagerly anticipate

Such "fun" from a mob is often abusive, mutilative, or even deadly. Lot may actually be saying something like, "You want me to hand over my guests so you can have 'some fun' with them, yes? Well, why don't you just ask me to hand over my daughters so you can rape them?" The crowd treats this response as insulting and, not getting what it wants, threatens violence

Perhaps this is a story of someone staring down a sadistic mob and miraculously escaping

[TygrBright]

9. And in today's America, the GOP is that mob. n/t

[struggle4progress]

10. Here is a Rabbinical comment:

There are four kinds of people. The first says, What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine; those are the thieves. The second says, What is yours is yours, and what is mine is yours; those are the saints.The third says, What is yours is mine, and what is mine is yours; those are the fools. The last says, What is yours is yours, and what is mine is mine; perhaps those are the ordinary people, but some teach that those are the kind that lived in Sodom

[TygrBright]

11. Interesting. I have never run across anyone teaching that. n/t

[struggle4progress]

12. ...

Behold! here was the sin of your sister, Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, bread, and leisure yet did nothing to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy

[TygrBright]

13. Sorry, not seeing the connection?

I hear sometimes from creepy Christian fundamentalist "prosperity gospel" types who argue that a social safety net is a form of communism that somehow devalues charity, or that taxation is theft.

The story basically says that a community (Sodom) refrained from looking after its most vulnerable people and is therefore subject to Divine sanction.

An individual person who regards their possessions as being exempt from legal or moral claims in the name of charity is not necessarily equivalent.

And while I can make a good case for all wealth being subject to the claims of the community that provided the means for its acquisition, it doesn't seem the sort of thing a rabbinical commentator would be explicitly teasing out of the many strands of this story and certainly not from the Ezekiel verse.

I'd love to see more context from the pilpul, related to whether the commentary is aimed at protection of property rights assumptions or a case for community claim on individual property.

curiously,
Bright

[struggle4progress]

14. The quote about the four kinds of people is from Ethics of the Fathers, Chapter 5

I hope I have not garbled it too much in my memory

Since I am not Jewish but Lutheran, I have a somewhat eclectic view of the Jewish texts: I regard Christianity as an originally Jewish cult, influenced by Greek civilization and Roman cosmopolitanism, that splintered from Judaism at some time in the first century, and I suspect that as a result the Christian tradition may have lost some of the original flavor of its own early texts. So I sometimes amuse myself by reading Midrash (say), in an attempt to jar myself out of my own comfortable cultural complacency. I would not regard myself as competent to discuss any authoritative interpretation of these old writings, since I have neither the training nor the communal experience to do so. But to put it bluntly, I am always inclined to read the texts in light of an ancient church tradition emphasizing social justice, along the lines promoted by Basil of Caesarea in the 4th century CE:

When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor

Much as I admire Greek rationality, it is somewhat difficult for me to view this as having a Greek origin, and I simply cannot imagine that the early Christians could have learned it from imperial Rome, so I suspect this was already a definite thread in Hebrew culture during the Roman colonial period

[TygrBright]

15. Not too garbled, no...

Here it is from the online version of the commentaries:

"10. There are four types of people: One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is a boor. One who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" — this is a median characteristic; others say that this is the character of a Sodomite. One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a chassid (pious person). And one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine" is wicked."

Given the rest of the chapter, particularly this from the immediately foregoing:

"There are four time-periods when plagues increase: on the fourth and seventh years [of the sabbatical cycle], on the year following the seventh, and following the festivals of each year. On the fourth year, because of [the neglect of] the tithe to the poor that must be given on the third year; on the seventh, because of the tithe to the poor that must be given on the sixth; on the year after the seventh, because of the produce of the sabbatical year; and following each festival, because of the robbing of the poor of the gifts due to them."

The interpretation would seem to be weighted in favor of making the case for a community claim on personal wealth, and the denial thereof being a "Sodomite" characteristic.

Thank you for the opportunity of pursuing that further!

appreciatively,
Bright

[Hekate]

16. Hehe. Thank you, Bright.

Exegetically,
Hekate