The Bible and Homosexuality

[rockpond]

22 minutes ago, longview said:

I consider the APEX of sins to include murder, fornication, out of wedlock births, homosexual and other unnatural fixations.  It is a progression.  Collectively it leads to greater and greater violence and unreasoning hatred.  The main reason God tearfully had to wipe out Earth with the flood.  Just as He will burn up the world before the Millennium.  Thus adherence to the Proclamation on the Family goes a LONG way to nipping the problem in the bud.  This and other principles of the Gospel provide for greater peace and happiness.

That’s fine if you want to believe that.  Likewise, I adhere to the Proclamation on the Family.  But Genesis 19 doesn’t support the conclusion you claimed it does. 

[JLHPROF]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I don't trust scriptures unless they direct you to do good. When I read the horror of many that hurt women, or children or is racist or homophobic, I don't give them any adherence whatsoever, I attribute those to merely men. 

Except you are using your definition of "good" instead of God's and passing it off as God's will.

Consider for a moment that those things you hate in scripture that are attributed to God are actually perfectly good, right, moral, and loving.

It is not for us to create a God according to our ideals.  It is to understand how we can reconcile our feelings to the God on record.

[aussieguy55]

1 hour ago, longview said:

I consider the APEX of sins to include murder, fornication, out of wedlock births, homosexual and other unnatural fixations.  It is a progression.  Collectively it leads to greater and greater violence and unreasoning hatred.  The main reason God tearfully had to wipe out Earth with the flood.  Just as He will burn up the world before the Millennium.  Thus adherence to the Proclamation on the Family goes a LONG way to nipping the problem in the bud.  This and other principles of the Gospel provide for greater peace and happiness.

The flood was local not universal

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, longview said:

Terrific motto for the Telestial Kingdom!     

7. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

Did Joseph Smith trust them when he gave us this article of faith? 

 

[JLHPROF]

6 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

7. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

Did Joseph Smith trust them when he gave us this article of faith? 

 

Fair point.  But error in scripture doesn't give free reign to fill in the blanks with our socially acceptable norms.

Nor does it allow for a buffet gospel where we can ignore everything we don't like and slap a "man-made" label on it.

[rockpond]

12 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Fair point.  But error in scripture doesn't give free reign to fill in the blanks with our socially acceptable norms.

Nor does it allow for a buffet gospel where we can ignore everything we don't like and slap a "man-made" label on it.

And it doesn’t allow us to take our biases and prejudices and impose them into scripture to create sin where none is defined. 

[JLHPROF]

4 minutes ago, rockpond said:

And it doesn’t allow us to take our biases and prejudices and impose them into scripture to create sin where none is defined. 

I  know you think that is what is happening with the LGBT community but I can't agree.

Scriptures are much clearer than you are willing to acknowledge.

[JLHPROF]

30 minutes ago, aussieguy55 said:

The flood was local not universal

I don't agree.

[rockpond]

7 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I  know you think that is what is happening with the LGBT community but I can't agree.

We just watched it right here as @longview claimed that Genesis 19 rejected the "homosexual lifestyle" and supported the Proclamation.

[Hamba Tuhan]

On this topic, Latter-day Saints are greatly blessed. We don't need to pick apart the words of dead prophets to find guidance. We have living prophets whose words are clear in addressing matters that Biblical figures never even imagined. I feel to shout hallelujah from the treetops to live in this, the dispensation of the fullness of times.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[SeekingUnderstanding]

2 hours ago, rockpond said:

Yes, thousands of years later, Jude cites at least two of their sins as fornication and “going after strange flesh”.  
 

Same sex gang rape (if that’s what he’s referring to with the strange flesh comment) condemns gay married couples in the same way that fornication condemns opposite sex married couples.  
 

Therefore, Genesis 19 does not “reject the homosexual lifestyle” as @longview claimed. 

Or strange flesh could be referring to Angelic flesh...

[longview]

1 hour ago, aussieguy55 said:

The flood was local not universal

It is SAD to see (Sadducci syndrome) the stubborn tendency of several on this board to deny or minimize the power of God.  I fully accept that the crossing of the Red Sea did happen.  I fully expect the entire planet will be bathed in the burning presence of the Lord at His Second Coming.  All the signs and wonders were beyond astonishing that caused Pharaoh of Egypt to free Hebrew slaves.

I believe the continents did separate in the days of Peleg (rapidly by the power of God).  There are vast reservoirs of beneath the earth.  It came gushing out in the Great Flood.  It was not a problem for God to cause mountains to "duck" to accommodate the "baptism" process.  Gen 7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

[aussieguy55]

So the Kangaroo made it all the way to Australia. Include the koala bear  and animals unique to Australia. The jaguar had a really long way to go.  And there must have been some incest in Noah's family to be parents of the human race.  http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics  

"No matter how the calculation is done, the big point still holds: humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are more closely related to one another than either is to gorillas or any other primate. From the perspective of this powerful test of biological kinship, humans are not only related to the great apes – we are one. The DNA evidence leaves us with one of the greatest surprises in biology: the wall between human, on the one hand, and ape or animal, on the other, has been breached. The human evolutionary tree is embedded within the great apes.

The strong similarities between humans and the African great apes led Charles Darwin in 1871 to predict that Africa was the likely place where the human lineage branched off from other animals – that is, the place where the common ancestor of chimpanzees, humans, and gorillas once lived. The DNA evidence shows an amazing confirmation of this daring prediction. The African great apes, including humans, have a closer kinship bond with one another than the African apes have with orangutans or other primates. Hardly ever has a scientific prediction so bold, so ‘out there’ for its time, been upheld as the one made in 1871 – that human evolution began in Africa.

[JLHPROF]

4 hours ago, rockpond said:

Same sex gang rape (if that’s what he’s referring to with the strange flesh comment) condemns gay married couples in the same way that fornication condemns opposite sex married couples. 

There is still no such thing as a "gay married couple" in a gospel sense.  You can't compare the two pairings.

One is a union created by God and with a clearly described gospel purpose.  The other is two people pretending to be in the same situation but not designed for that purpose.  It's not marriage.  Not according to any gospel teaching.  Only in the eyes of our modern society.

[JLHPROF]

43 minutes ago, aussieguy55 said:

So the Kangaroo made it all the way to Australia. Include the koala bear  and animals unique to Australia. The jaguar had a really long way to go.  And there must have been some incest in Noah's family to be parents of the human race.

I don't care a whit what science says about it.  The flood was global.

[rockpond]

11 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

There is still no such thing as a "gay married couple" in a gospel sense.  You can't compare the two pairings.

One is a union created by God and with a clearly described gospel purpose.  The other is two people pretending to be in the same situation but not designed for that purpose.  It's not marriage.  Not according to any gospel teaching.  Only in the eyes of our modern society.

That’s fine to hold that belief.  My comment was regarding what is in Genesis 19. 

[InCognitus]

On 10/22/2019 at 2:02 PM, aussieguy55 said:

 I wonder how they deal with Ezekiel  

Ezekiel 16:49-50 New International Version (NIV)

49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen

 

Gnuse in "Seven Gay Texts" says  the text clearly attributes the sin of inhospitality  to strangers as the sin of the citizens of Sodom"

I really don’t have the time to get involved in this, but it pains me to see scripture misused (by Gnuse) like this.  And just so you don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t consider myself to be a “scholar” in these areas.  I’m just a guy who likes to read scripture and the associated historical sources, and ask questions, especially when it comes to comparing sources and things that people say about sources.

Regarding your quote above, my take on this is that Gnuse is using the logical fallacy of causal oversimplification (the reductive fallacy) by suggesting that the sin of Sodom is merely the sin of inhospitality to strangers, using this text and several others referenced in his article.  In each one of the references he brings up to try to make this point (i.e. Isaiah 1:9-10, 16-17, Jeremiah 23:14, the text quoted above - Ezekiel 16:48-50, and Wisdom 19:14, 17) he focuses on only one part of the text and doesn’t evaluate it in the overall historical and textual context or without considering some of the other reasons for Sodom’s sinfulness stated by the respective sources.  

For example, starting with Isaiah 1:9-10, 16-17, Gnuse quotes these selected verses as follows (pp.73-74):

Quote

9 If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.  10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!  Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! . . . 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,  17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow

He then offers this commentary:

Quote

In this text the prophet Isaiah compares the nation of Judah to Sodom and Gomorrah, declaring that they almost became like those two destroyed cities because of their sins.  When Isaiah tells the folk of Judah what they should be doing, the categories are justice for the oppressed, the orphans, and the widows.  By implication the sins of social injustice in Judah are being attacked by the prophet, and the further implication of the comparison indicates that these were the sins of Sodom.

But is this really what Isaiah is saying?  Consider the context of the chapter leading up to why the prophet states that Israel is like Sodom and Gomorrah, starting with verse 2 of the same chapter:

Quote

2  Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.   3  The ox knoweth his owner, and the *** his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.   4  Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.  5  Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. (Isaiah 1:2-5)

This is heavy duty serious stuff.  But Gnuse oversimplifies the matter by focusing only on the things Isaiah says they should be doing (“rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow”) as if these were all the sins in question, and tries to lead us to believe that this is really what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was all about.

Moving on to Jeremiah 23:14, Gnuse continues (p.74):

Quote

The prophet Jeremiah likewise implies that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah may be compared to the sins of Judah, which are described in more general fashion.  Jeremiah 23:14 reads as follows:

Quote

But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a more shocking thing:  they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of the evildoers, so that no one turns from wickedness; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.

Like the passage in Isaiah, this reference is somewhat vague, but as in the passage in Isaiah, no reference is made to sexual activity. 

The preceding verse (13) gives us the comparison being made here:  “And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.”   The implication here is that the prophets of Samaria had been guilty of folly, in that they openly practiced idolatry.  But the prophets in Jerusalem are worse, because they committed a “horrible thing” (KJV) by their habitual adultery (no reference to “sexual activity”, really?) and falsehood, even encouraging the wrong doers by their bad example.   This gives us a better picture as to why they are likened unto “Sodom” and “Gomorrah”.

Now to your verse from Ezekiel 16:48-50, this is Gnuse from page 74:

Quote

The prophet Ezekiel provides the clearest description of how the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were perceived by a later generation.  In Ezekiel 16:48-50 we read,

Quote

48  As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.  49 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.  50 They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

This passage clearly identifies the sin of Sodom as failure to help the poor and needy.  What the passage in Isaiah seems to imply, this passage in Ezekiel clearly states.  In all of these passages there is no allusion to sexual sins or sexual inclination.

First of all, as noted above, the passage from Isaiah was not seeming to imply that “the sin” of Sodom was mere failure to help the poor and needy.  The context of Isaiah 1 specifically described Israel as a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters” that had forsaken the LORD, all words describing their complete moral corruption.  No doubt their lack of support for the poor and needy was among their sins (just as it was for Sodom), but Gnuse doesn’t even acknowledge any of the others (the reductive fallacy in action).  And he does the very same thing with this verse by pointing out the hospitality issues but making no mention of their haughtiness and other “abominable things” they did before God as stated in the same passages. 

It’s worth noting that the Hebrew word translated as “abominable” here is the very same word used in Leviticus 18:22,  “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”   And in Leviticus 20:13  “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

It’s funny (not in a “ha ha” way) that Gnuse tries to get around these verses by insinuating that they are simply referring to cultic or foreign behavior (p. 76), as if that makes it only a sin if it is done for cultic reasons.   But from a Jewish law perspective, these acts are what caused those who practiced them to be classified as “heathen”, as they are considered sins against God’s laws of chastity in general. 

Jewish Encyclopedia article on Chastity (here:   http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4263-chastity ) states the following:

Quote

The unnatural crimes against chastity, sodomy and pederasty, prevalent in heathendom, were strictly prohibited (Lev. xviii. 22, 23; xx. 13, 15, 16; Deut. xxvii. 21).

The sins against chastity were the particular abominations, the commission of which by the former inhabitants had caused the land to become unclean (Lev. xviii. 27). No wrong-doing, excepting idolatry, is more constantly and vehemently forbidden. Four out of the twelve curses which are pronounced in the chapter of curses in the Book of Deuteronomy (xxvii. 20-23) are directed against this vice in one or other of its forms. The Biblical attitude in this matter is perhaps best expressed in the story of Joseph, who, when tempted by Potiphar's wife, refused with the noble words: "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (Gen. xxxix. 9.) Unchastity was primarily a sin against God, the pure and holy.

These are important principles that seem to be missing from all of the discussions on this topic, in my opinion.

It’s also funny (again, not in a “ha ha” way) that Gnues uses the following argument against Leviticus 18:22 (p. 76).  After attempting to dismiss these verses as “cultic behavior”, he states the following:

Quote

If it [Leviticus 18:22] does refer to simple homosexual behavior, then it is in the list because it represents a forbidden form of sexual activity with kinfolk and other sexual actions that do not produce healthy children according to their beliefs.  It is worth pointing out, then, that the prohibition against homosexual behavior in verse 22 follows after a prohibition in verse 19 to avoid having sex with a woman during her menstrual period.  It is interesting that opponents of homosexual behavior do not make an issue of this particular sexual behavior, which some people engage in for the sake of birth control. 

He then goes on to discuss population issues and other theories that are probably inappropriate to quote directly on this board.  But to use his phrase, it’s also “worth pointing out” that the prohibitions against sexual activity during a woman’s menstrual period are merely defined as being “unclean” (see Leviticus 15:19, 24), and in a worst case scenario they may be cut off from among their people (Leviticus 20:18), but if a man “lies with a male as with a woman”, it is an “abomination”, for which the punishment was “death” (Leviticus 20:13).  Therefore there is a huge difference in the degree of seriousness between these two sins. 

And lastly, his discussion on the quote from Wisdom of Solomon (p. 74) (see the full Wisdom of Solomon text here:   https://ebible.org/kjv/Wisdom.htm)

Quote

Though it does not mention Sodom by name, passages in Wisdom of Solomon 19, which speak of the ungodly, make clear allusions to the account in Genesis 19.  We read selected verses of Wisdom 19:14, 17:

Quote

14 Others had refused to receive strangers when they came to them, . . . 17 They were stricken also with loss of sight—just as were those at the door of the righteous man, when, surrounded by yawning darkness, all of them tried to find the way through their own doors.

This text clearly attributes the sin of inhospitality to strangers as the sin of the citizens of Sodom.  A loose allusion is found in Wisdom 10:6-8, which speaks of a “righteous man” escaping “fire that descended on the Five Cities,” which were destroyed because “they passed wisdom by” and thus “left for humankind a reminder of their folly.”  Arrogance, inhospitality, and folly are mentioned in these texts, but no reference to homoerotic behavior appears.

Wisdom of Solomon 19 is a comparison between Egypt and Sodom.  Leaving out the sexual desires of Sodom is only because the wisdom literature in this chapter is focusing on the common points between the Egyptians and Sodomites.  But chapter 10 speaks of the “ungodly” that perished when fire “fell down upon the five cities, of whose wickedness even to this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony . . . For regarding not wisdom, they gat not only this hurt, that they knew not the things which were good; but also left behind them to the world a memorial of their foolishness: so that in the things wherein they offended they could not so much as be hid” (Wisdom of Solomon 10:6-8).  The point here is that the “ungodly” people of those cities did not regard wisdom, and the wisdom defined in the book includes living chaste and virtuous lives.  To quote just a small example of this from chapter 4:1-5:

Quote

1 Better it is to have no children, and to have virtue: for the memorial thereof is immortal: because it is known with God, and with men.   2 When it is present, men take example at it; and when it is gone, they desire it: it weareth a crown, and triumpheth for ever, having gotten the victory, striving for undefiled rewards.   3 But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from ******* slips, nor lay any fast foundation.   4 For though they flourish in branches for a time; yet standing not last, they shall be shaken with the wind, and through the force of winds they shall be rooted out.  5 The imperfect branches shall be broken off, their fruit unprofitable, not ripe to eat, yea, meet for nothing.   6 For children begotten of unlawful beds are witnesses of wickedness against their parents in their trial.

So because of the overall teachings on the wisdom of maintaining chastity described in this book, it is extreme oversimplification to try to reduce the sin of Sodom to a single sin of “inhospitality”, or even the “arrogance” and “folly” admitted to above.  Their total lack of true wisdom includes their disregard for these laws of chastity and the value of virtue as described throughout the wisdom literature (here and elsewhere).

I wish I had more time and space to discuss Gnuse’s treatment of Genesis chapter 19 in comparison with Judges 19.  In brief, I’ll touch on two things.  First, Gnuse references Victor H. Matthews’ 1991 paper on Hospitality and Hostility in Genesis 19 and Judges 19.   I think Matthews does a good job explaining the protocol of hospitality customs and how (and by whom) they are followed or violated in Genesis 19 and Judges 19.  But in doing so, Matthews does not make any claims about the sins of Sodom, he simply approaches the hospitality customs in a scholarly way, without making any judgment one way or another.  Matthews takes the view that Judges 19 is a later text, and that the construction of the story in that chapter may “be part of an attempt . . . to portray a ‘topsy turvy’ world in which all customs are ignored or corrupted in an effort to justify the establishment of the monarchy in Israel” (p. 3).  He says that “it can be concluded that the narrative in Judges 19 is in large part dependent on the narrative found in Genesis 19” (p. 10).   But Gnuse assumes the opposite view, claiming that the Judges 19 text is earlier because it is “rougher” and because it contains “greater violence”.   Gnuse elaborates on his reasons for this view, but they are simply not convincing.  But taking that stand is necessary to his attempt at downplaying the sins of Sodom as merely inhospitality. 

The second thing I wanted to point out (in the Genesis 19 compared to Judges 19 discussion) is this very odd argument that Gnuse makes (on p.72):

Quote

Popular piety has maintained for years that the Sodom narrative is about homosexuality and that the narrative condemns it.  But Genesis 19 is the same account that we read in Judges 19.  In Genesis 19 the townsmen try to rape two angels, who are presumably male, but in Judges 19 it is a woman who actually gets raped.  If Genesis 19 condemns homosexuality, then clearly Judges 19 condemns heterosexuality.  People who love to use Genesis 19 to condemn homosexuals have to avoid Judges 19 because it destroys their argument.

This argument simply astounds me.  It clearly demonstrates that Gnuse totally misunderstand the laws of chastity at stake in both stories.  The issue is not whether one is a homosexual act and the other is not, but that the laws of God regarding sexual relations were violated in both cases.

Another observation is that Gnuse, and others who try to diffuse the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, tend to focus on the events as they unfold in Genesis 19 without considering some of the references to their behavior leading up to their destruction in chapter 19. 

For example, Genesis 13:13 states that, “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.”  And when the LORD brings the issue before Abraham, he says:   “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;  I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know”.  (Genesis 18:20-21)

So the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was known far and wide before the events detailed in Genesis 19.  And while it’s true that “inhospitality” was among their many sins, it is a gross oversimplification to reduce their behavior down to this one thing, totally dismissing their immoral behavior or denying it altogether.

I’ll close with a quote from Josephus, because I think he more realistically provides the “clearest description of how the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were perceived by a later generation”, and he lists some of their behaviors, including their lack of hospitality.  After discussing some of the events related to Abraham’s dealings with the king of Sodom and battle of the kings, he includes this description of the Sodomites:

Quote

How God Overthrew The Nation Of The Sodomites, Out Of His Wrath Against Them For Their Sins.

About this time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, insomuch that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers, and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices. God was therefore much displeased at them, and determined to punish them for their pride, and to overthrow their city, and to lay waste their country, until there should neither plant nor fruit grow out of it.   (Josephus, Ant., 1.11:1)

That should be long enough 

Edited October 24, 2019 by InCognitus

[aussieguy55]

 

Leviticus 18:22 (Luther Bibel 1545)

²² Du sollst nicht beim Knaben liegen wie beim Weibe; denn es ist ein Greuel.

Leviticus 20:13 (Luther Bibel 1545)

¹³ Wenn jemand beim Knaben schläft wie beim Weibe, die haben einen Greuel getan und sollen beide des Todes sterben; ihr Blut sei auf ihnen.

Edited October 24, 2019 by aussieguy55
update

[longview]

11 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

11 hours ago, aussieguy55 said:

So the Kangaroo made it all the way to Australia. Include the koala bear  and animals unique to Australia. The jaguar had a really long way to go.  And there must have been some incest in Noah's family to be parents of the human race.

I don't care a whit what science says about it.  The flood was global.

Do not forget the continental separation that happened in the days of Peleg.  This occurred AFTER the Great Flood.  Between the flood and the separation, the dispersion of species was unhindered over the course of centuries.

[CV75]

16 hours ago, aussieguy55 said:

Is there any manuscript or legend evidence for Smith's revision? 

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/the-papers/revelations-and-translations/jsppr5

In the event one doesn't accept Joseph Smith's version as setting the record straight, biblical accounts like these are often so scanty it seems reasonable to allow various alternative re-imaginings. I think the thousands of years of religious and spiritual understanding on the part of the Jews allows for this particular story to support condemning many kinds of sins connected with Sodom and Gommorah (including men having sex with men, whether with violence or not). I think that because there are so many ways to commit adultery and fornication, many descriptive terms have been coined.

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by CV75

[longview]

11 hours ago, rockpond said:

11 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

There is still no such thing as a "gay married couple" in a gospel sense.  You can't compare the two pairings.

One is a union created by God and with a clearly described gospel purpose.  The other is two people pretending to be in the same situation but not designed for that purpose.  It's not marriage.  Not according to any gospel teaching.  Only in the eyes of our modern society.

That’s fine to hold that belief.  My comment was regarding what is in Genesis 19. 

7 hours ago, InCognitus said:

It’s worth noting that the Hebrew word translated as “abominable” here is the very same word used in Leviticus 18:22,  “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”   And in Leviticus 20:13  “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

I think it is pretty clear that the men of Sodom wanted to have sexual intercourse with the angels (referred to as "men" also).  Lot was extremely fearful of offenses being thrown at the powerful angels.  So he said to the homosexuals:  "do not do SO wickedly".  This is exhibit A indicating the greater perversion of unnatural relations.

Edited October 24, 2019 by longview

[CV75]

16 hours ago, rockpond said:

Yes, thousands of years later, Jude cites at least two of their sins as fornication and “going after strange flesh”.  
 

Same sex gang rape (if that’s what he’s referring to with the strange flesh comment) condemns gay married couples in the same way that fornication condemns opposite sex married couples.  
 

Therefore, Genesis 19 does not “reject the homosexual lifestyle” as @longview claimed. 

I think it noteworthy that this religious/spiritual value (as well as others) had carried on among the Jews, even through their conversion to Christ, for thousands of years.

From what I can gather from scripture and religious and spiritual tradition, "strange flesh" or male-male fornication (whether a gang rape of not) is condemnable. Whether it is "worse" than male-female fornication would depend, I think, on how liberally or strictly one views marriages in cultures other than his own, and the terms and conditions one places on what constitutes marriage along the gamut from life partnership to temple marriage. Coming up with a name for it of course indicates there is some reason to distinguish and by extension, rank it.

It seems clear from all the posts so far that Genesis 19 rejects all sorts of sins, including men having sex with men (whether as a lifestyle, for recreation, or as a hobby, or on a whim or as an experiment or to win a bet or to do a favor or as part of an Akish-like intrigue....).

[CV75]

15 hours ago, longview said:

I consider the APEX of sins to include murder, fornication, out of wedlock births, homosexual and other unnatural fixations.  It is a progression.  Collectively it leads to greater and greater violence and unreasoning hatred.  The main reason God tearfully had to wipe out Earth with the flood.  Just as He will burn up the world before the Millennium.  Thus adherence to the Proclamation on the Family goes a LONG way to nipping the problem in the bud.  This and other principles of the Gospel provide for greater peace and happiness.

And I think Genesis 19 conveys the message that everyone can agree on, that God's principles provide for greater peace and happiness. For some reason supporting the practice of men having sex with men is a popular movement.

[rockpond]

26 minutes ago, CV75 said:

It seems clear from all the posts so far that Genesis 19 rejects all sorts of sins,

It has been interpreted that way, likely due to the conclusion that the people of Sodom were destroyed for a lack of righteousness.

26 minutes ago, CV75 said:

including men having sex with men (whether as a lifestyle, for recreation, or as a hobby, or on a whim or as an experiment or to win a bet or to do a favor or as part of an Akish-like intrigue....).

If we're going to use Genesis 19 to condemn sexual acts by married gay couples then we'd also have to use it to condemn sexual acts by married straight couples.

The men outside Lot's house wanted to have forcible sex with both the male angels and Lot's daughters.  And they were destroyed.

[InCognitus]

5 hours ago, aussieguy55 said:

 

Leviticus 18:22 (Luther Bibel 1545)

²² Du sollst nicht beim Knaben liegen wie beim Weibe; denn es ist ein Greuel.

Leviticus 20:13 (Luther Bibel 1545)

¹³ Wenn jemand beim Knaben schläft wie beim Weibe, die haben einen Greuel getan und sollen beide des Todes sterben; ihr Blut sei auf ihnen.

I don't understand why appealing to Luther's translation is helpful to the discussion.  The Hebrew word in question (zākhār) is normally translated as male, or mankind, and it's the exact same word used in Genesis 1:27:  "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."