Hello my lovelies! We are back from visiting The Mouse and I am feeling quite energized by all of you. Thanks to you all Word of a Woman has reached 5000 page views in just under 3 months! I am blown away! Thank you all so much for inviting me into your lives. May I never take it for granted. It is my great honor to be part of your lives even if just in this small way.
Today’s passage comes to us from Jude 7. It is the logical place to go after the Genesis passage as it mentions Sodom and Gomorrah directly.
And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and
Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment
of eternal fire. –Jude 1:6-7
In Jack Rogers book, Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality he states:
This passage is drawing a parallel between the “unnatural lust” of angels who wanted to have sex with human women (Gen 6:1-4) and the men of Sodom who wanted to have sex with (male) angels (Gen 19:1-29). Jude writes that for their transgressions the Lord has kept the angels “in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.” Likewise, the men of Sodom suffered “a punishment of eternal fire”.
In another book I am currently reading, What the Bible Says About Homosexuality by Daniel A. Helminiak Ph.D., he asserts:
Verse 6 of Jude alludes to such a story, quite obscure, in Genesis 6:1-4: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose.” (Sons of God refers to some kind of celestial beings.) Verse 7 of Jude, referring to Sodom, is meant to suggest a similar story. You will remember that the “men” who visited Sodom were really angels sent from God. So the strangeness of the intercourse here does not refer to same-sex relations but to sex between angels and humans.
Scholarly consensus on this passage is that it was a discussion of sex between humans and angels and referred back to Genesis 6:1-4. Many scholars espouse this view, including:
JND Kelly, A commentary on the Epistles of Peter and of Jude
Fred Craddock, First and Second Peter and Jude
Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter
Michael Green, The Second Epistle General of Peter and the General Epistle of Jude
Cranfield, I and II Peter and Jude
Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament
You can read what each of these men wrote on this topic here. I will only quote one here. Dr Richard Hays of Duke Divinity School, who comes down on the side of all homosexual relations being sinful. astutely notes, “The phrase ‘went after other flesh’ (sarkos heteras) refers to their pursuit of non-human ‘flesh’. The expression sarkos heteras means ‘flesh of another kind’; thus, it is impossible to construe this passage as a condemnation of homosexual desire, which entails precisely the pursuit of the same kind.”
I am honestly learning so much as I go through these passages. It is fascinating to learn that scriptures I had always heard used to condemn homosexuality and homosexual marriage are not so clean cut as one might have assumed. In fact each of the passages we have covered so far have been confirmed my multiple scholars on both sides of the debate as not germane to the issue of whether or not homosexual marriage or homosexual acts within marriage are sinful.
word of a woman 
So… the argument here is that the men of Sodom heard that angels came to visit and went to have sex with angels? Okay. Maybe. I always heard that they simply viewed the angels as strangers, and didn’t have a real concept of who they were or why they were there (other than to judge them, but I don’t think they fully understood what the judgment entailed or they PROBABLY wouldn’t have tried to rape the guys). Perhaps I’m wrong about that, so I’ll set it aside.
We’re missing something here.
Sodom and Gomorrah were not condemned and punished simply because of what they did (or tried to do) to the angels. In Genesis 18 God explains to Abraham that “…the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”
Now, the Lord doesn’t tell Abraham that He plans to destroy S&G because of the sin, but it appears Abraham understood that He would anyway. He argues with God that if even 1 righteous man could be found, then God must spare the innocent. So… The angels went to S&G with the idea that if the places really truly were as sinful as God had “heard” that they were to destroy them. So S&G were not destroyed or convicted because they wanted to have unnatural sex with angels. They were guilty of sin long before that incident, and the incident was simply more proof that God’s judgement was righteous and just.
The quotations you include seem to imply or flat out state that S&G were destroyed because of their lust for angel flesh…. That’s utterly illogical. Unless one wants to make a leap and claim that the men of S&G were having sex with OTHER angels, before these particular angels ever came to visit??? And surely no one would claim that; there’s no proof of it. S&G weren’t destroyed because of the attempted angel rape. That was just one more bit of condemning evidence. It was just them acting like they ALWAYS acted, and it makes no sense to say they ALWAYS raped angels.
Like I said, I’m missing something here. I think the argument is misleading and distracting from the real issue. I’m not sure why you’re even still writing about S&G, because I thought you concluded last week that it had nothing to do with homosexuality? I’m just a little lost.
DeeAnna,
I began this series by saying I would cover all the big passages used to condemn homosexuality. That is why I am still covering Sodom and Gommorah. Jude is simply another of these passages. If you go back and reread last week’s post, you will see that I never said the only sin of S & G was them wanting to have sex with the angels. As you say this is only one example of their inhospitable and violent sins covered in last week.
Okay, it’s becoming clearer. I think I’m just over-eager to hear what you really have to say on the topic, rather than what you don’t have to say! LOL.
I’d also like to have a definition of what “condemning homosexuality” looks like to you. I’ve been left with only impressions of what I think it means, not an actual grasp of what you mean when you say it. “Condemn” is a very emotional word, and it means many things to many people. There are a lot of things I’m trying to get a grasp on here.
Reblogged this on A Robin Hood's Musing and commented:
THoughts?
It is not even clear what Jude is referring to as there are other ways to read Gen 6:1-4. In any case, I agree it is not relevant to homosex.
also the hebrew word enoshe is non gender specific it means mortal