Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

I am looking at 18:20, and it says "chatatam" from the root Het, sin. Nothing specifically sexual. Where are you reading something about sexual sin in that verse?

Jude 7: "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

AGAIN, you are quoting a translated version, not the original Greek text, which can be slightly different. I am learning more and more of the slight differences and nuances from the original text to English from my pastor's sermons, and I am a 40+ year, every Sunday, Sunday school teacher, sing in the choir, church goer. There is a lot of "lost in translation" in the current Bible. People need to understand cultural context, as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

I am looking at 18:20, and it says "chatatam" from the root Het, sin. Nothing specifically sexual. Where are you reading something about sexual sin in that verse?

Jude 7: "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leviticus 18:22 is pretty explicit on this point.

Which point? Leviticus is clear that male male sex (of some kind) is sinful, yes. But it makes no reference to homosexuality as a condition. If anything it reads as a warning against male male sex by men who also have sex with women.

No. It makes reference to male on male rape, not sex.

Ive seen the claim for that reading and have also heard serious scholars dispute it, but am not familiar with the terms of the dispute.

Since our modern Conservative rabbis have found a less hermeneutically aggressive way of limiting the applicability of the ban, and thus allowing gay men to marry and become rabbis, I have not pursued it further.

Now can you goyim stop trying to take our text about justice, charity, and love, and perverting it to your obsessions about sex? Go write your own books.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leviticus 18:22 is pretty explicit on this point.

Which point? Leviticus is clear that male male sex (of some kind) is sinful, yes. But it makes no reference to homosexuality as a condition. If anything it reads as a warning against male male sex by men who also have sex with women.

No. It makes reference to male on male rape, not sex.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

Yes there was a great deal of sexual wickedness, and God didn't wipe out a whole town because some men were inhospitable to strangers. The mob wanted to commit buggery, that was the problem.

He wiped them out because they had the chutzpah to murder a maiden for helping the poor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

Yes there was a great deal of sexual wickedness, and God didn't wipe out a whole town because some men were inhospitable to strangers. The mob wanted to commit buggery, that was the problem.

One more time. The previous verses make no reference to sexual immorality.

In the common reading adopted by translators the sin is vague. In the clever reading (which you can't get if you know no Hebrew) of ancient rabbis, its cruelty to the poor - especially to those who would help the poor.

and more thing - its NOT some modern liberal who came up with this reading.

Its rabbis from the time period from 200 to 500 of our era. THEY could see the centrality of justice for the poor. That THAT is why Hashem, blessed be he, would destroy a city.

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

Yes there was a great deal of sexual wickedness, and God didn't wipe out a whole town because some men were inhospitable to strangers. The mob wanted to commit buggery, that was the problem.

Good shabbos.

In short

It was not sexual sins. It was economic sins. In particular cruely to the poor. That is Sodomy.

Note you don't see this because you read "the cry is great"

But the word great is Rabah, Resh-bet-Hey

But resh bet hey can be read as ribah - maiden. The rabbis read it that way, and ran with it. Not the cry is great, but the cry of the maiden. A maiden who was helping the poor.

I know I should respect other faiths, but how you people get along without midrash is beyond me.

What da Jews think:

Part 1.


R. Levi said: [God said]: ‘Even if I wished to keep silent, justice for a certain maiden (ribah) does not permit Me to keep silent.’
For it once happened that two girls went down to draw water from a well.
One said to the other, ‘Why are you so pale?’
‘We have no more food left and are ready to die,’ she replied.
What did she do? She filled her pitcher with flour and they exchanged [their pitchers], each taking the other’s.
When they [the Sodomites] discovered this, they took and burnt her.
Said the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Even if I desired to be silent, justice for that young girl does not permit Me to keep silent.
Hence it does not say, WHETHER THEY HAVE DONE ACCORDING TO THEIR CRY [namely, the cry of the Sodomites]; but ACCORDING TO HER CRY ‘- the cry of that maiden.


Part 2 (from the Talmud)

" A certain maiden gave some bread to a poor man, [hiding it] in a pitcher. When the matter becoming known, they daubed her with honey and placed her on the parapet of the wall, and the bees came and consumed her. Thus it is written, And the Lord said, The cry ( ???? ) of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is great: whereon Rab Judah commented in Rab’s name: On account of the maiden [ribah]"

Part 3

Rabbi Judah said: They issued a proclamation in Sodom, saying, “Everyone who strengthens the hand of the poor and the needy with a loaf of bread shall be burnt by fire!” Pelotit the daughter of Lot was wedded to one of the wealthy men of Sodom. She saw a certain very poor man in the street of the city and her soul was grieved on the account. What did she do? Every day when she went out to draw water, she put in her pitcher all kinds of provisions from her house and she sustained that poor man. The men of Sodom said: “How does this poor man live?” When they ascertained the facts they brought her forth to be burnt by fire. She said: Sovereign of all world! Maintain my right and my cause at the hands of the men of Sodom! And her cry ascended before the throne of glory. In that hour the Holy One Blessed be He said: “I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to her cry which is come unto me” and if the men of Sodom have done according to the cry of the young woman, I will turn her foundation upwards and the surface downward…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

yes. It was about the rampant immoral behavior, not one act.

How do you know it was not rampant inhospitality, or cruelty?

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, you should all read the text. The LORD had already decided to wipe them off the face of the earth for the sin that already existed in them. They were not punished specifically for the episode with Lot and the guests and any inhospitality. It was the sexual sins rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah already that brought God's condemnation down, and it was this sin that led to every thing else recounted in this event. Makes it much harder to argue that the sin was inhospitality.

I am looking at 18:20, and it says "chatatam" from the root Het, sin. Nothing specifically sexual. Where are you reading something about sexual sin in that verse?