Holly Joan Toensing, "Women of Sodom and Gomorrah: Collateral Damage in The War Against Homosexuality?" (2005)

FSR, Inc
Women of Sodom and Gomorrah: Collateral Damage in the War against Homosexuality?
Author(s): Holly Joan Toensing
Source: Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall, 2005), pp. 61-74
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of FSR, Inc
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25002533
Accessed: 28-10-2019 13:09 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25002533?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Indiana University Press, FSR, Inc are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
This content downloaded from 97.76.132.163 on Mon, 28 Oct 2019 13:09:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
WOMEN OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Collateral Damage in the War against Homosexuality?
Holly Joan Toensing
Associating the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with homosexuality

is common among the Christian Right. More specifically, many associate God's
annihilation of these cities with the idea that the men of Sodom and Gomor
rah were gay, engaging in sodomy. Verbal expressions of this association are
used against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals at rallies or functions.
For example, one might see slogans such as "Homosexuality = Death (Gen.
19)" or "God Hates Fags (Gen. 19:24-25)" written on placards held high by
Christian Right groups protesting a gay and lesbian pride parade.
Although they are expressed in more elite discourse, discussions of con
servative biblical scholars also associate Sodom or its destruction with homo
sexuality. For example, Weston Fields states that God's destruction was
brought about by the actions of "the sex-crazed homosexually inclined male
population of Sodom."' More elaborately, Robert Alter argues that "in the
larger story of progeny for Abram, it is surely important that homosexuality is
a necessarily sterile form of sexual intercourse, as though the proclivities of the
Sodomites answered biologically to their utter indifference to the moral pre
requisite for survival."2 He continues: the story of Sodom reveals that "a soci
ety that rejects the moral bonds of civilization for the instant gratification of
Weston W. Fields, "The Motif'Night as Danger' Associated with Three Biblical Destruc
tion Narratives," in Sha'arei Talrnon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Pre
sented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov (Winona Lake, IN: Eisen
brauns, 1992), 28. See also Paul D. Feinberg, "Homosexuality and the Bible," Fundamentalist
Journal 4, no. 3 (1985): 17-19.
2 Robert Alter, "Sodom as Nexus: The Web of Design in Biblical Narrative," in The Book and
the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory, ed. Regina M. Schwartz (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1990),
151. See also Robert Ignatius Letellier, Day in Mamre, Night in Sodom: Abraham and Lot in Gene
sis 18 and 19, Biblical Interpretation Series 10 (Leiden, Neth.: Brill, 1995), 248-54.
62 Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
dark urges can be swept away in a moment; ... the very danger of illicit sexu
ality may blight a kingdom with sterility.":
The Christian Right and conservative biblical scholars share certain char
acteristics and assumptions in how they read and understand the Sodom and
Gomorrah story. First, they focus on the words and actions of the men of
Sodom and usually only as they are depicted in Genesis 18 and 19, even though
these cities and their inhabitants are first mentioned in Genesis 13. Second,
they understand the central proposed action of Genesis 19-all of the cities'
men wanting "to know" Lot's guests-as being what they call "homosexual sex,"
explicitly assuming that the sexual orientation of the men of Sodom was ho
mosexual and implicitly linking homosexual desire with violence. Given the di
vine annihilation of the cities narrated in the text, this is a particularly power
fill and destructive assumption, for it intends effectively to denounce all
homosexual behavior, judging such acts as worthy of God's wrath. As Mark Jor
dan presents it, the prevailing history of interpretation of the Sodom and Go
morrah story abstracts "sodomy" from the geographical reference, "Sodom,"
through a series of processes that essentialize persons, making them identifi
able across time and cultures and further permitting a punishment as near as
one can get to divine annihilation to be pronounced in all cases.4 Indeed, the
assumption that the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were homosexually oriented
likely influences individuals who act aggressively or violently toward gay men,
lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals today. For example, the National Coalition
of Anti-violence Programs reports that "during the second half of 2003-fol
lowing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that overturned the country's sodomy
laws-the country experienced a 24% spike in hate incidents based on sexual
orientation."5 A perceived weakening of national denunciation of "homosexual
sex" seems to have prompted vigilantism among some Americans.
In this article I argue that the views of the Sodom and Gomorrah story
held by the Christian Right as well as conservative biblical scholars overlook
the presence and role of women in the entire narrative about the cities, begin
ning in Genesis 13. As this presence and role are acknowledged, I further as
sert that it is more logical to assume that the sexual orientation of the men and
women of Sodom and Gomorrah is heterosexual rather than homosexual. In
arguing this, I wish to undercut the dangerous understanding that the "sin" of
Sodom is homosexuality in need of annihilation in our society. Instead I assert
that the wickedness of these cities is the inhospitable treatment of resident
3 Alter, "Sodom as Nexus," 157.

4 Mark D. Jordan. The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1997), 42.
5 National Coalition of Anti-violence Programs, cited in Christopher Healy, "Marriage's
Bloody Backlash," Advocate, April 27, 2004, 38.
Toensing: Women of Sodom and Gomorrah 63
aliens and sojourners at its worst, through the sexual humiliation of rape, linked
with the wickedness of idolatry.
That I retain the terms homosexuality and heterosexuality as categories of
sexual orientation requires a word of explanation. Some scholars argue that the
term homosexuality cannot legitimately be used in describing ancient peoples,
because it is a modern concept, derived from nineteenth-century forensic
medicine.6 The work of other scholars complicates, even challenges, this as
sertion. Amy Richlin and Bernadette Brooten present evidence from the Hel
lenistic period that identifies categories of persons as having long-term or even
lifelong homoerotic orientation.7 Mark Jordan's detailed investigation of the
origins of the term sodomy considers that medieval theological notions of
"sodomites" performing "sodomy" were a precursor to-though not identical
with-the nineteenth-century medical category "homosexual."8 The work of
these scholars acknowledges possible ancient understandings of sexual orien
tation as identity markers while recognizing that such markers are not likely
identical with modern notions of sexual identity. My work complements that of
biblical scholars who, through their word studies, sociohistorical studies, and
literary studies, challenge conservative readings of various biblical texts that are
known or believed to address same-sex practices.9 This article seeks to desta
bilize prevailing conservative interpretations of the Sodom and Gomorrah
story that have influenced political, religious, and legal matters in Europe and
the United States with the routine associations of Sodom with "sodomites,"
"sodomy," and "homosexuality." My article provides a reading of the Sodom
and Gomorrah story that problematizes or disrupts that chain of associations
while it maintains the possibility that ancient peoples had some concept of sex
ual orientation.
To articulate my argument, I employ both reader-response and feminist
methodologies. Reader-response criticism takes seriously the temporal reading
6 For example, see David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays
on Greek Love (New York: Routledge, 1990), which uses the work of Michel Foucault in The His
tory of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House, 1978).
Amy Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the Cinaedus and the Roman
Law against Love between Men,"Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1993): 523-73; Bernadette J.
Brooten, Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996).
s Jordan, Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology, 163.
9 For example, see Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Back
groundfor Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); Daniel A. Helminiak, What the
Bible Really Says about Homosexuality (San Francisco: Alamo Square, 1994); Donald J. Wold, Ho
mosexuality in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998); Robert L.
Brawley, ed., Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality: Listening to Scriptures (Louisville, KY: Westmin
ster John Knox, 1996); and Martii Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Per
spective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).
process regarding how meaning of a text is created, with both the text and any
given reader exerting a degree of control in that meaning.'0 It asserts that there
cannot be just one meaning to a text that is somehow extracted from the text,
and instead acknowledges multiple meanings-local, ad hoc, and partial
based on how each reader makes sense of a text." Conservative interpretations
of the Sodom and Gomorrah story have long focused on certain details of the
text, believing that only one way to understand those details is correct. My
reading of the story provides another way of interpreting some of these same
details, and it examines other details that conservative readings ignore.
Feminist criticism typically identifies the androcentric and patriarchal dy
namics of biblical texts and their interpretations. As Dana Nolan Fewell states,
"We [feminists in biblical studies] must read ... behind what men have writ
ten. We must deal with texts that are not ours, texts that were not written for
us or by others like us. We work with a feeling of estrangement, reading be
tween the lines of alien texts, looking for invisible women, listening for muted
voices."'1 For those feminists who do not, on this basis, reject the biblical texts
outright but attempt to read and interact with these texts as sacred scripture,
feminist biblical hermeneutics offers several strategies.13 One such strategy
that I specifically use in this article-a hermeneutics of remembrance, follow
ing Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza's schemata-attempts to recover the lives of
women that have been rendered invisible by either the text itself or interpre
tations of the text, even while it acknowledges that the retelling of reality may
not be reality itself. Specifically, my article draws attention to the places in the
Sodom and Gomorrah story where women characters are marginalized by the
androcentric text itself or have been ignored completely by interpreters. I also
aspire to a hermeneutics of transformation, which explores possibilities for
changing relations of domination inscribed in those same texts and interpreta
?0 The theoretical basis for reader-response criticism can be found in the work of Wolfgang
Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1978); and Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).
1 The impact of recognizing that all reading-even of scripture-is situated reading is first
explored by Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds., Reading from This Place (Minneapo
lis: Fortress, 1995).
2 Dana Nolan Fewell, "Reading the Bible Ideologically: Feminist Criticism," in To Each Its
Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and TheirApplication, ed. Steven L. McKen
zie and Stephen R. Haynes, rev. ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 270.
13 See, for example, Mary Ann Tolbert, "Defining the Problem: Feminist Hermeneutics and
the Bible," Semeia 28 (1983): 113-26; Carolyn Osiek, "The Feminist and the Bible: Hermeneutical
Alternatives," in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins, Society of
Biblical Literature Century Publications 10 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 93-105; and Elisa
beth Schiissler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1999), 48-55.
tions. By making visible the women characters of the Sodom and Gomorrah
story, I offer a way for readers of faith to stop using this story to justify the sys
tematic, life-threatening oppression of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexu
als today.
Lot's Wife from the Jordan Plain

The first clue in discovering the presence and role of women in the Sodom
and Gomorrah narrative concerns the origins of Lot's wife. In Genesis 13:1, the
Lord having told Abram to leave the land of his father and go to a land that will
be shown him, the text states, "So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev,
with his wife [int? .] and everything he had, and Lot went with him."'4 The text
mentions Abram's wife, but no wife is mentioned in relation to Lot. Thus, when
Lot departs from Abram (in 13:11), Lot apparently goes unmarried to settle in
the Jordan plain. Jumping ahead in the narrative for a moment, to Genesis
19:15, "the angels urge Lot, saying, 'Get up, take your wife [I.1 ] ... '" Given
this information, it is reasonable to assume that Lot married a woman from one
of the cities, possibly even from Sodom, after he settled in the area. Hence,
early in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the text does not depict the cities as
inhabited only by men, as conservative interpretations imply. That Lot and his
wife proceed to have heterosexual sex is attested to in that they have daughters
(19:8).
What status might Lot, as a resident alien, have gained in marrying some
one from one of these cities? Would such an action have categorically moved
Lot from an "outsider" (resident alien) to "insider" (citizen)? On the one hand,
probably not, for studies of ancient Near Eastern culture indicate that, upon
marriage, the woman became the property of the man.'5 Hence, in the exoga
mous marriage between a woman of Sodom and the resident alien Lot, the
marriage may only have drawn Lot's wife further away from the city's male
structures of power and prestige than drawn Lot closer to such structures.
On the other hand, Aldina da Silva observes that, according to ancient
Mesopotamian texts, when a man paid a large sum for a wife, he increased his
prestige within that community.16 Genesis 13:5-8 states that the land cannot
support all the flocks and herds and tents Abram and Lot each has, indicating
the prosperity of both men. Lot's independent wealth could have afforded him
some degree of power within the community from which his wife came. This
14 All biblical translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

15 Aldina da Silva, "The Condition of Women in Mesopotamian and Biblical Literature," in
Women Also Journeyed with Him: Feminist Perspectives on the Bible, by Gerald Caron, trans.
Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 53-55, 60-61. See also Edwin M.
Yaimauchi, "Cultural Aspects of Marriage in the Ancient World," Bibliotheca Sacra 135 (1978): 243.
16 da Silva, "Condition of Women," 54.
information may give support to Scott Morschauser's claim that Lot, as the man
at "the gate" (Gen. 19:1)-known to be the site of judgment or legal disputa
tion in the Near East-is "an individual of influence and standing within the
social order of Sodom."'7 However, Morschauser himself admits that Lot might
not have been assigned this role but assumed it,18 which I believe then ques
tions Lot's real power within the community. In fact, Genesis 19:9 seems to
suggest that Lot never attains such status with his marriage, for the men of the
city say, "This fellow came here as an alien, and he acts as a judge continually!"
Once an outsider, always an outsider?
Wives of the Men of Sodom and Gomorrah as War Booty

Genesis 14 provides the second clue to the presence of women in the
story. After the rebellion of the vassal kings, including the kings of Sodom and
Gomorrah, the suzerain kings reconquer the areas and, according to 14:11-12,
seize "all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food... and Lot and
his possessions." Notice that the language of the text distinguishes Lot from the
rest of Sodom and Gomorrah. This could be because Lot carries the narrative
distinction of being the nephew of the main character of the story, Abram. It
could also allude to Lot's marginal status in those communities, not his au
thoritative social standing as Morschauser claims.
When Abram steps in to save the day, Genesis 14:16 says, "He recovered
all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together
with the women [?ni3n] and the people [?yJ]." The Hebrew word ?;,! is
grammatically the masculine plural meaning "people," but, in the context of
the narrative, children as well as slaves are likely to have been included. More
importantly, note that women-or wives, as the Hebrew allows-are also re
trieved as war booty. Because of the proximity of this passage to the mention
of Lot, one might argue that Lot had several wives. The text, however, does not
necessarily support this interpretation. Previously, in verse 12, the phrase "Lot
and his possessions" appears to encompass all that the conquering kings took
with respect to Lot. So when that same phrase is repeated in verse 16, in what
Abram retrieves, one is led to believe that what follows-namely, the "women"
or "wives" and "people"-do not belong with Lot but are from other house
holds of the cities on the plain. Here the text depicts that women other than
just Lot's wife live in these cities. Since the Hebrew suggests that these women
could very well have been wives with children, it is logical to assume that mar
I7 Scott Morschauser, "'Hospitality,' Hostiles, and Hostages: On the Legal Background to

Genesis 19.1-9," Journalfor the Study of the Old Testament 27 (2003): 464.
18 Ibid., 465.
riages and heterosexual sex were taking place in cities such as Sodom and
Gomorrah.
The Fecundity of Sodom and Gomorrah

The third clue to the presence and role of women is similar to the second
and can be found in Genesis 19:4. The text uses the phrase "all the men, from
the youngest to the eldest" to describe the males that surround Lot's house.
The precise age of the males indicated by the first word, iY-, is somewhat am
biguous. Most often it simply means young men, in distinction from adult men
and also from old adult men, so it may mean adolescent boys. The other word,
1i2, may represent the eldest men of the community. According to
Morschauser, the entire phrase may refer to an official delegation of male cit
izens of the city, not the entire male population."9
Whatever the precise number of males that surrounds the house, that a
range of ages is implied in the phrase suggests to me that the cities on the plain
are thriving communities, understood in traditional ways. In other words, at
the very least it seems that the men of these cities are regularly having hetero
sexual sex and are populating the city through such interaction. These do not
appear to be blighted communities because of the so-called sterile sex of ho
mosexuality, as the conservative interpretations claim. In fact, the success and
wealth of these cities are alluded to in Abram's response to the king of Sodom's
offer to split the booty after Abram helps defeat the suzerain kings: "I have
sworn to the Lord, God Most High, maker of heaven and earth, that I would
not take a thread or a sandal-thong or anything that is yours, so that you might
not say, 'I have made Abram rich'" (Gen. 14:22-23, NRSV). Are the cities on
the plain in fact so successful that they are perceived to rival the Lord's prom
ise to make Abram a great nation, to make Abram's name great? (Gen. 12:2).
Wicked Men (and Women?) of Sodom and Gomorrah
By considering who is wicked in these cities and the nature of that wicked
ness, a fourth clue to the presence and role of women in this story emerges. All
the males of Sodom and Gomorrah surrounding Lot's house call out to Lot,
"Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we
may know [;731] them" (Gen. 19:5, NRSV). Scholarship on this story has long
pointed out that the Hebrew word ;7.I. has multiple meanings, the most com
mon of which is simply "to know." Related to this meaning, Morschauser ar
gues that in juridical contexts the term means "to interrogate." He claims that
the Sodom story represents such a context and so the men's request to know
19 Ibid., 467.
Lot's guests carries the meaning "to discover (legally) . . . whether they are
friends or foes; whether they truly deserve hospitality, or are to face hostility."20
Less frequently than simply "to know," 7l72 can also mean "to have sex with."
Whichever meaning of' N;73 is intended, the text portrays Lot responding,
"No, my brothers. Please do not do wickedness [EYD ... _K]" (Gen. 19:7). I
am not fully convinced that if the meaning of the men's request was simply "to
get to know" the guests, Lot would have identified this intended action as
wicked. Morschauser's proposal becomes more convincing when he recognizes
that the men's request may imply an insult to Lot's authority and acknowledges
that interrogations in the ancient Near East could often be brutal, even sexu
ally humiliating (e.g., 2 Sam. 10:1-5).21
Studying ancient Middle Assyrian laws, Martii Nissinen observes that
when a man raped another man, the perpetrator (not the victim) was punished
for the deliberate act of disgrace in making the other man take the passive (fe
male) role.22 At issue here are gendered notions of appropriate and inappro
priate uses of bodies with respect to penetration in sexual intercourse.23 How
ever, Nissinen notes the limiting scope of the laws he examined, for the cases
therein concern the rape of a man by another man of equal social standing or
involvement.24 The rape by a man of a man of lower status, such as a defeated
enemy, may have been legal or criminal; the texts are simply not explicit. Nissi
nen finds one example of a conquered king, the king of Arpad, proposing a
curse that he himself "would become a prostitute and his soldiers women" if he
were to break an agreed-upon treaty with the victorious Assyrian king.25 This
curse does not give any indication that the victors' degrading actions would re
sult in punishment.
Morschauser considers it likely that the men of Sodom suspected that
Lot's guests were enemy spies from the suzerain kingdoms recently conquered
by Abram (Gen. 14:1-16).26 If this were the situation, then Lot would have
been worried about the potential shaming through violence, even sexual vio
lence, of his male guests. In other words, violence in order to demonstrate
power and domination over male sojourners or outsiders is what the text em
phasizes as "wickedness," not the so-called homosexuality of Sodom and Go
morrah's men. The intent to do violence may relate to the theory that dedica
tion to destruction (_nn)-the total destruction of cities-was enacted in a
20 Ibid., 472.
21 Ibid., 473, and 474n45.
22 Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World, 25.
23 Ibid., 19-42. See also Ken Stone, "Gender and Homosexuality in Judges 19: Subject
Honor, Object-Shame?" Journalfor the Study of the Old Testament, no. 67 (1995): 97-107.
24 Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World, 26.
25 Ibid., 27.
26 Morschauser, "'Hospitality,' Hostiles, and Hostages," 465-67.
military or political context against those Canaanite cities that were hostile, re
fusing the Israelites' offer of peace.27 The perceived hostility or violence to
ward Lot and those under his protection-especially just after Abram rescued
the people of the Jordan plain from the suzerain kings!-may be interpreted as
being unconscionable.
Yet the complete annihilation of the cities on the plain as punishment for
the wicked actions of their men is difficult to reconcile: "[The Lord] overthrew
those cities and the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities and that which
grew out of the ground" (Gen. 19:25). Earlier in the narrative, in Genesis 18,
God and Abraham converse about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham
approaches God with the question, in verse 23, "Will you cut off the righteous
[p1'rt] with the wicked [It2]?" Grammatically, the Hebrew word for "right
eous" or "innocent" is masculine plural, though in the context of the narrative
it technically may be considered gender-ambiguous. So, although one may
argue that the narrative is talking only about possibly righteous or innocent
men within the cities, one perhaps ought to leave open the possibility that the
question is posed and answered with respect to both men and women. Israelite
tradition did not allow females to sin with impunity; females were just as ac
countable for sins as males, and both were subject to punishment (e.g., Deut.
13:6-11, 22:20-21, 22:22-27, 25:11-12).
If the word righteous applies only to men, are readers to believe that God
destroyed women, children, and indeed even the vegetation along with the of
fending men of Sodom and Gomorrah? If this is the case, the text reveals the
patriarchal context of ancient Israelite society wherein women, as possessions,
did not really "count" and were just extensions of the men. Women, children,
and the environment were the tragic collateral damage in the war to root out
the wickedness of men.
That Lot's houseguests are angels from the Lord may factor into assessing
the wickedness of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah as well. The story
of Achan after the fall of Jericho, in Joshua 7, is instructive regarding this point.
When the Israelite Achan disobeys the sacred ban pronounced on Jericho by
taking a few mementos of the conquest, he, along with the confiscated booty,
his sons and daughters, his animals, his tent, and "all that he has," is stoned and
burned to death (w. 15, 25-26). Interestingly, Achan's wife is not mentioned
explicitly in this list, although one could argue that she is included in the phrase
"all that he has."
27 Harper's Bible Dictionary, ed. Paul J. Achtemeier (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985),
s.v. "ban"; Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), s.v.
"Deuteronomy, Book of'; and Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botter
weck and Helmer Ringgren, trans. David E. Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), s.v
"n11." These discuss texts such as Num. 21:2-3; Deut. 2:34, 3:6, 13:16, 20:16-18; Josh. 6:17; Judg.
20:40-48; and 1 Sam. 15.
Why everything of Achan's is consigned to death by fire is sometimes ex

plained by the idea that sacred bans may have originated to control disease, es
pecially the bubonic plague, after warfare.28 According to this understanding,
the ban is placed on all the things and people of Jericho because everything is,
or could be, contaminated with disease. Thus, when Achan takes some of the
banned booty, he may be spreading disease to his household, necessitating its
entire destruction. However, this does not satisfactorily explain why a portion
of the devoted things-all the silver and gold, bronze and iron-are "sacred to
the Lord" and are to be put into the treasury of the Lord (Josh. 6:19, NRSV). If
disease and fear of contamination were the driving concern, these items would
be consigned to fire as well.
Instead I propose that Achan's punishment arises in connection with the
ban's possible origins in the religious sphere. An enemy city's complete de
struction may have been a votary offering to God after a successful Israelite
campaign (e.g., Num. 21:1-3) or a way to prevent the temptations to idolatry,
"so that [those within the enemy city] may not teach you to do all the abhor
rent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your
God" (Deut. 20:18, NRSV).29 In this context Achan shows his wickedness in two
ways: he gives in to his temptation of foreign goods and, in doing so, takes what
was devoted to the Lord-either for destruction (the mantle) or for the treas
ury (some silver and gold). A similarity might be seen in the story of Sodom and
Gomorrah, in that the angels are messengers from the Lord and the males of
Sodom and Gomorrah wish to attack, to show their power over what belongs
to the Lord-these angels. To humiliate agents of God would be to show the
superiority of foreign gods over the God of Abram. In this way the action of
Sodom and Gomorrah's men may have been characteristic of the widespread
arrogance and idolatry among men and women throughout the cities on the
plain.3) Yet, although this interpretation may indicate why the men and women
of the Jordan valley were exterminated, it still does not explain how children
and vegetation might be involved in idolatry and thus also worthy of death.
The Value of Lot's Virgin Daughters

The presence and role of women in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah can
be found in a fifth clue, when Lot's response to the men's request to "know" his
28 Harper's Bible Dictionary, s.v. "ban."

29 Ibid.; and Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Deuteronomy, Book of."
30 Contrast this with the story of king Melchizedek of Salem, one of the other kings and cities
on the Jordan plain that Abram rescued from the suzerain kings (Gen. 14:17-20). An issue of
boundaries between what is human and what is divine may also be at stake here, with similarities to
Genesis 6:1-4, where the sexual encounters between the "sons of God" (angels?) and human
women apparently incite God's utter destruction of the world, save a few, through a flood.
guests continues: "Look, I have two daughters who have not known [2y~'1-X]
a man. Please let me bring them out to you, and you do to them what you see
fit. Only do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the pro
tection of my roof' (Gen. 19: 8). These sentences are crucial for identifying the
nature of the situation at hand as Lot perceives it.
In his counterproposal Lot emphasizes the virginity of his daughters: they
"have not known a man." Morschauser argues that, counter to interpretations
claiming that Lot regards his daughters' lives as being valueless, certainly infe
rior to those of his guests, Lot sees his virgin daughters as exceedingly valu
able.31 In the juridical context of this story as Morschauser develops it, Lot is
proposing a "hostage exchange": his virgin daughters, "technically, legal
detainees/captives-are to be held safely overnight, and are to be released un
harmed, when the two visitors vacate the premises in accordance with Lot's as
surance."32 Thus, Lot is not giving the men free reign to rape his daughters
then and there, as is often interpreted.
Lot's counteroffer brings the sexual meaning of "to know" more to the fore
front than did the men's initial request. Even if a juridical context is assumed, I
cannot agree that a sexual meaning is completely avoidable in this scene, as
Morschauser claims.33 Indeed, even if Lot is not giving the men of Sodom free
reign to rape his daughters then and there but merely offering his daughters as
collateral, the virginity of his daughters is what makes them so valuable and ap
propriate as collateral. Virginity is something that can be "taken away" from the
daughters if any part of the deal goes awry, bringing shame to the father if the
daughters are not married.34 Its loss signifies that the father is not "man enough"
to be able to protect his daughters.3 Therefore, the potential for a forced, vio
lent sexual act thickly hangs in Lot's counterproposal. I do not believe that the
message of Lot's response is "Don't be aggressive" or "Don't rape," for Lot of
fers his daughters as substitute objects for the men's intended violent actions.
Given the gendered notions of appropriate and inappropriate uses of bodies,
the message is more likely "It's better to rape these females than these males."36
31 Morschauser, "'Hospitality,' Hostiles, and Hostages," 474.

32 Ibid., 477.
33 Ibid., 478.
:34 Anne Michele Tapp, "An Ideology of Expendability: Virgin Daughter Sacrifice in Genesis
19.1-11, Judges 11.30-39 and 19.22-26," in Anti-covenant: Counter-Reading Women's Lives in the
Hebrew Bible, ed. Mieke Bal, Bible and Literature Series 22 (Sheffield, UK: Almond, 1989), 158.
35 Claudia V Camp, Wise, Strange, and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the
Bible, Gender, Culture, Theory 9 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 283. See also
L. William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Impli
cationsfor Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 157-58; and Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament
World: Insightsfrom Cultural Anthropology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 51-54.
36 Judges 19-21 depicts the near annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin for their gang rape of a
protected houseguest's concubine, making this story an obvious choice for cross-reading with the
The value of Lot's daughters' virginity, moreover, assumes a heterosexual

context for the situation. Regardless of whether his proposal gives free reign or
demands restraint, Lot expects that the men will take him up on his offer. In
other words, as Simon Parker asserts, Lot apparently knows the men of the
cities as heterosexuals for whom the offer of two virgin daughters will be seen
as desirable.37 Lot, in his mind, has offered a plausible substitute for the actions
the men propose; either scenario, the rape of his daughters or their use as col
lateral, could potentially bring shame to him-or could it?
The preceding information regarding Lot's counteroffer requires revision
when the men's response to Lot's proposal is examined: "'Stand back! .... Now
we will do wicked [I31] to you rather than them!' Then they pressed hard
against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down" (Gen. 19:9).
Conservative understandings see this insistence as confirmation that the men
of the cities are homosexual: Were the men heterosexual, they would accept
Lot's counterproposal. In contrast, I assert that the men's action reveals little
about any such inclinations; instead, it emphasizes that the men's intent, first
and foremost, is to do violence to the sojourners in some way, bringing shame
to those outsiders and to Lot.
Lot's Virgin, Betrothed Daughters

Given what I have argued in the preceding paragraphs, Lot seems to as
sume that his virgin daughters are his to offer and that he would be shamed if
they were raped outside of marriage. Are they, and would he? The sixth and
final clue to the presence and role of women in the story is related to, but ac
tually modifies the entire discussion of, the fifth clue. Genesis 19:14 indicates
that Lot's daughters are betrothed to men of Sodom. Quite literally, then, the
cities on the Jordan plain cannot be full of only homosexual men, for at least
two of them are portrayed as committing themselves to marriages with women.
Biblical tradition and ancient Near Eastern literature agree that betrothal was
basically tantamount to marriage. If a daughter was betrothed to a man, she
was technically his property and no longer her father's.'3
If reexamined in this light, Lot's offer is problematic, as several scholars
have observed,39 though not one of those scholars has explained why in the
Sodom and Gomorrah story. Nevertheless, Mark Jordan incisively articulates key differences in de
tails between the two stories as well as between their histories of interpretation (Invention of
Sodomy in Christian Theology, 30-32). Acknowledging these differences only intensifies the need
to examine each story carefully, on its own. Thus, I do not include a detailed comparative analysis of
the Judges 19 story in this article.
37 Simon B. Parker, "The Hebrew Bible and Homosexuality," Quarterly Review 11 (1991): 6.
3s da Silva, "Condition of Women," 53-55; Yamauchi, "Cultural Aspects of Marriage," 243.
39 Alter, "Sodom as Nexus," 151-52; Cheryl J. Exum, "Desire Distorted and Exhibited: Lot
and His Daughters, Psychoanalysis, Painting, and Film," in "A Wise and Discerning Mind": Essays
context of the narrative itself. The men of the city would be bringing shame not
to Lot, in fact, but to two men of their very own community if they were to rape
Lot's virgin daughters! This, I assert, is why they reject Lot's offer and move to
threaten Lot physically. Any suggestion that the message of Lot's response is
that it is wicked to rape men but not virgin daughters ignores the cultural code
wherein female virginity was a potential source of shame to either the father
(before betrothal) or the fiance (from the time of betrothal onward).
In the end, the precise intent of Lot's counterproposal in Genesis 19:7-8
remains ambiguous. Was it an "honest mistake" on his part, an instance of
cross-cultural miscommunication, because his betrothed daughters still lived in
his house? According to Aldina da Silva, ancient Near Eastern documents
claim that "the nuptial ceremony par excellence is the entrance of the bride
into her husband's house."4" However, da Silva notes a case in the Code of
Hammurabi that identifies the husband as having power over the betrothed
daughter in the liminal stage of being married yet not cohabiting with her hus
band.41 Although it is impossible to know the precise relationship between ex
tant laws and the lived experience of those in antiquity, one might suggest that
enough questions and concerns had been raised about this liminal stage to
prompt a code to be written for clarification. Hence, Lot might have innocently
believed or assumed that he had responsibility for his daughters and thereby
could sincerely offer them as collateral.
Or was Lot trying to "pull one over on" the men of Sodom in order to save
his own life and honor, much as Abram had done with foreign rulers regarding
Sarai (Gen. 12:10-13:1, 20:1-18, 26:6-11)? Did he hope the men did not know
about his daughters' betrothal and thus would accept his offer, thinking that
Lot had the most to lose, only to realize later that the "joke" was on them be
cause the two of them would be shamed rather than Lot, a resident alien?
Still further, was Lot intentionally leveling a challenge to the men of
Sodom, in essence saying, "Go shame yourselves!"? Lot might have been fully
aware that he could not be shamed by any harm brought to his betrothed
daughters by the men because his daughters were technically no longer under
his protection but under that of their husbands. According to this interpreta
tion, Lot did not offer his daughters as collateral for safekeeping, as
Morschauser proposes. Had Lot offered a true substitute-one that could have
brought shame to himself if harmed by others in some way-he would have of
fered himself or his wife, for she was his responsibility. Lot could not honor the
men's request and give up his houseguests, for he specifically states in Genesis
in Honor of Burke 0. Long, ed. Saul M. Olyan and Robert C. Culley (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic
Studies, 2000), 90; and Tapp, "Ideology of Expendability," 168-70.
4o da Silva, "Condition of Women," 60.
41 Ibid., with reference to article 161 of the Code of Hammurabi.
19:8 that his guests have come under his protection, alluding to the ancient
code of hospitality. Instead he proposed to surrender the individuals of his
household for whom he had the least responsibility but who could bring the
most shame to a number of the men of the city if harmed. Lot may even have
felt he could risk leveling this challenge because these very people had already
seen firsthand how Abram stepped in to save them and Lot when Lot was
threatened and taken captive by the suzerain kings.
Conclusion
Through this analysis I have been able to render visible possible daugh
ters, wives, and mothers from the cities on the Jordan plain-women whom
the general public and conservative biblical scholars usually overlook. In so
doing, I have highlighted the patriarchal cultural context of the narrative itself,
for the women of this story emerge only as possessions of heroes and husbands,
as war booty, as bartering commodities in social or political deals, and as pawns
in theological challenges. Acknowledging their presence, I have argued, weak
ens the position that homosexuality is the central concern of the narrative and
the key to why God annihilated the cities. If anything, the text more strongly
implies that the men and women of these cities were heterosexual. Finally, in
my analysis, these women-with the exception of Lot's daughters-emerge
from the background only to be found dead. This forces readers to consider at
least two questions. First, does God annihilate innocent women (and children
and vegetation) in order to root out the sins of their husbands and fathers? Sec
ond, to what degree are women just as accountable to God as men for inhos
pitable treatment of resident aliens or sojourners or for idolatrous behavior?
One thing is certain: neither question can avoid encountering the perennial
issue of God's justice versus God's mercy.

Holly Joan Toensing, "Women of Sodom and Gomorrah: Collateral Damage in The War Against Homosexuality?" (2005)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Holly Joan Toensing, "Women of Sodom and Gomorrah: Collateral Damage in The War Against Homosexuality?" (2005)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

FSR, Inc

Associating the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with homosexuality

3 Alter, "Sodom as Nexus," 157.

Lot's Wife from the Jordan Plain

14 All biblical translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

Wives of the Men of Sodom and Gomorrah as War Booty

I7 Scott Morschauser, "'Hospitality,' Hostiles, and Hostages: On the Legal Background to

The Fecundity of Sodom and Gomorrah

Wicked Men (and Women?) of Sodom and Gomorrah

Why everything of Achan's is consigned to death by fire is sometimes ex

The Value of Lot's Virgin Daughters

28 Harper's Bible Dictionary, s.v. "ban."

31 Morschauser, "'Hospitality,' Hostiles, and Hostages," 474.

The value of Lot's daughters' virginity, moreover, assumes a heterosexual

Lot's Virgin, Betrothed Daughters

You might also like