The origins and meaning of the names Sodom and Gomorrah are uncertain, though some scholars suggest they derive fromHebrew andSemitic roots, with Gomorrah linked to the idea of deep or copious water. The Hebrew Bible refers to the cities as סְדֹם (Səḏôm) and עֲמֹרָה (ʿĂmôrā), which were transliterated into Greek as Σόδομα and Γόμορρᾰ in the Septuagint. These cities are depicted as two of the "cities of the plain" involved inAbraham andLot's story, including rebellion againstChedorlaomer and their eventual rescue by Abraham. Sodom and Gomorrah are later destroyed by God after their pervasive wickedness, with Lot and hisdaughters spared whileLot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back.
Biblical and deuterocanonical texts expand on the story, portraying Sodom and Gomorrah as symbols of sin, often linked toadultery,arrogance, inhospitality, and oppression of the poor, rather than explicitly sexual immorality. References in theNew Testament, includingMatthew,Luke,Jude, andRevelation, use the cities as warnings ofdivine judgment, with some interpretations highlighting sexual transgressions, while others emphasizeviolence,injustice, and violations ofhospitality. Scholars debate the precise nature of the sins, noting that the Hebrew term "'yada'" (to "know") in Genesis 19:5 could implysexual assault but may also be interpreted as a demand to interrogate or dominate visitors, reflecting the cities’ moral corruption more broadly.
Historically, Sodom and Gomorrah may have been based on real locations along theDead Sea, with sites likeBab edh-Dhra andNumeira suggested as possible candidates, though archaeological evidence is inconclusive. Religious interpretations vary:Judaism often stressescruelty, arrogance, and inhospitality as the cities' sins, whileChristianity debates the relative importance of sexual immorality versus violent, inhospitable behavior. The Quran similarly recounts the story ofLot (Lut), emphasizinghomosexual transgression and disobedience to God.Gnostic texts, in contrast, present the destruction as a consequence of spiritual ignorance and demonically influencedhuman nature.
Theetymology of the namesSodom andGomorrah is uncertain, and scholars disagree about their origins.[5] According toBurton MacDonald, the Hebrew term for Gomorrah was based on theSemitic rootʿ-m-r, which means "be deep, copious (water)".[6]
They are known in Hebrew asסְדֹם (Səḏôm) andעֲמֹרָה (ʿĂmôrā). In theSeptuagint, these becameΣόδομα (Sódoma) andΓόμορρᾰ (Gómorrha); Biblical Hebrewghayn merged withayin after the Septuagint was transcribed.[7]
Sodom and Gomorrah are two of the five "cities of the plain" referred to inAbraham and Lot's conflict (Genesis 13:12) and the story ofLot's daughters (Genesis 19:29) that rebel againstChedorlaomer ofElam, to whom they were subject. At theBattle of Siddim, Chedorlaomer defeats them and takes many captives, includingLot, the nephew of the Hebrew patriarchAbraham. Abraham gathers his men, rescues Lot, and frees the cities.
Later, God gives notice to Abraham that Sodom had a reputation for wickedness. Abraham asks God "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (Genesis 18:23). Starting at 50 people, Abraham negotiates with God to spare Sodom if ten righteous people could be found.[8]
God sends two male messengers to destroy Sodom. Lot welcomes them into his home, but all the men of the town surround the house and demand that he surrender the visitors that they may"know" them carnally. (Genesis 19:5) Lot offers the mob his virgin daughters to "do to them as you please", but they refuse and threaten to do worse to Lot. The angels strike the crowd blind.
The messengers tell Lot, "For we are about to destroy this place; because the outcry against them beforeיהוה has become so great thatיהוה has sent us to destroy it." (Genesis 19:13). The next morning, because Lot had lingered, the messengers took Lot,Lot's wife, and his two daughters by the hand and out of the city, and told him to flee to the hills andnot look back. Lot says that the hills are too far away and asks to go toZoara in theTransjordan instead. God then rains sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground (Genesis 19:24–25). Lot and his two daughters are saved, but his wife disregards the angels' warning, looks back, and is turned into a pillar of salt.[9]
Sodom's destruction in the background ofMatthias Stom'sFlight from Sodom (1630)
TheHebrew Bible contains several other references to Sodom and Gomorrah. TheNew Testament also contains passages of parallels to the destruction and surrounding events that pertained to these cities and those who were involved. Laterdeuterocanonical texts attempt to glean additional insights about these cities of the Jordan Plain and their residents. Additionally, the sins which triggered the destruction are reminiscent of theBook of Judges' account of theLevite's concubine.[10]
"Sodom and Gomorrah" becomes a byword for destruction and desolation.Deuteronomy29:21–23 refers to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:
And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses wherewith the LORD hath made it sick; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger, and in His wrath; even all the nations shall say 'Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?'
Isaiah 1:9–10,[12] 3:9[13] and 13:19–22[14] address people as from Sodom and Gomorrah, associates Sodom with shameless sinning and tellsBabylon that it will end like those two cities.
Jeremiah 23:14,[15] 49:17–18,[16] 50:39–40[17] and Lamentations 4:6[18] associate Sodom and Gomorrah withadultery and lies, prophesy the fate ofEdom (south of theDead Sea), predict the fate of Babylon and use Sodom as a comparison.
As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.
Wisdom rescued a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing; he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities. Evidence of their wickedness still remains: a continually smoking wasteland, plants bearing fruit that does not ripen, and a pillar of salt standing as a monument to an unbelieving soul. For because they passed wisdom by, they not only were hindered from recognizing the good, but also left for mankind a reminder of their folly, so that their failures could never go unnoticed.
Wisdom 19:17[22] says that the Egyptians who enslaved the Israelites were "struck with blindness, like the men of Sodom who came to the door of that righteous man Lot. They found themselves in total darkness, as each one groped around to find his own door."
Sirach 16:8[23] says "[God] did not spare the neighbors of Lot, whom he loathed on account of their insolence."
In 3 Maccabees 2:5,[24] the high priest Simon says that God "consumed with fire and sulfur the men of Sodom who acted arrogantly, who were notorious for their vices; and you made them an example to those who should come afterward".
2 Esdras 2:8–9[25] says "Woe to you, Assyria, who conceal the unrighteous in your midst! O wicked nation, remember what I did to Sodom and Gomor'rah, whose land lies in lumps of pitch and heaps of ashes. So will I do to those who have not listened to me, says the Lord Almighty."
2 Esdras 5:1–13[26] describes signs of theend times, one of which is that "the sea of Sodom shall cast up fish".
In 2 Esdras 7:106,[27]Ezra says that Abraham prayed for the people of Sodom.
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgement, than for that city.
In Matthew 11:20–24,[30] Jesus warns of the fate of some cities where he did some of his works:
And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus will it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
Romans 9:29 refers to the words ofIsaiah 1:9:[32] "And as Isaiah predicted, "If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah."[33]
2 Peter 2:4–10 says that just as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and saved Lot, he will deliver godly people from temptations and punish the wicked onJudgement Day.[34]
Jude 1:7 records that both Sodom and Gomorrah "indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire".[35]
When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.[36]
This wording is rendered "Sodomor Egypt" in some translations.[37]
In the Hebrew Bible, God destroyed Sodom for its sins, but in the Genesis story, no sin is singled out as the cause of this destruction. Other books initially attributed a variety of non-sexual sins to the inhabitants of Sodom. "Unnatural" sex and homosexuality began to be included on these lists, and eventually homosexuality was interpreted as the primary sin of Sodom.[38] Since 1955, scholars increasingly view the great sin of Sodom to be one of inhospitable treatment of guests. Much of the debate in modern interpretation of the greatest sin of Sodom, and relatedly, whether the story concerns or condemns homosexuality, rests upon interpreting the moment the mob from Sodom confronts Lot about his guests.[39]
This is based upon Christianexegesis of the biblical text interpretingdivine judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah as punishment for the sin of homosexual sex.[43][44][45] Byrne Fone, inHomophobia: A History, analyzes the history of theological discourse surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah. He locates the origin of the argument that sodomy was sinful to a contested reading of one word in the story. Citing Sodom and Gomorrah, Christian authorities began to label and condemn acts of sodomy as the worst of all sexual sins, and one of the worst crimes in general. For many centuries, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was used by the church to justify criminalization ofsexual practices between men, and people labeled sodomites were often punished by execution.Western nations followed with similar criminalization of male homosexuality and sexual practices between men, and thousands of people were executed since 1292 under these laws.[46][47]
Later, the termsodomite became an insult used against enemies of the church, regardless of sexuality or perceived sexual activity. The term began to be used on the basis of geography, ethnicity, and religion. Sodomy trials were also used by authorities against opponents, because some laws allowed the seizure of property and assets once someone was convicted of sodomy. Sodomy began to be decriminalized in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment: this process began when writers likeVoltaire and theMarquis de Sade argued for tolerance of sodomy and dropping the death penalty. By the 1900s, the term sodomy began to leave legal discourse, and with the popularity of new terms likehomosexual andheterosexual, people started to debate or condemn same-gender sexuality using the new terms instead.[46]
A number of contemporary scholars dispute the interpretation that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah concern homosexuality. Scholars cite Ezekiel 16:49–50, quoted above, and interpret the sin as arrogance and lack of hospitality.[48][49][50] As with Ezekiel, later prophetic reproaches of Sodom and Gomorrah do not condemn, implicate, or even mention homosexual conduct as the reason for the cities' destruction: instead assigning the blame to other sins, such asadultery, dishonesty,[51] and uncharitableness.[52]
Some Islamic societies incorporate punishments associated with Sodom and Gomorrah intosharia.[53]
It has been suggested that if the story does have a historical basis, the cities may have been destroyed by anatural disaster. One such idea is that the Dead Sea was devastated by an earthquake between 2100 and 1900 BC. This might have unleashed showers of steaming tar.[54] It is possible that the towns were destroyed by an earthquake, especially as they lay along a major fault such as theJordan Rift Valley; however, there are no known contemporary accounts of seismic activity that corroborate this theory, and this and the suggestion that they were destroyed by a volcano have been deemed unlikely.[55][56] The hypothesis that the disaster resembled that inTunguska has also been dismissed.[57] Some also argue that the story is a blend of actual locations and events rather than a singular historical incident.[58]
Archibald Sayce translated anAkkadian poem describing cities that were destroyed in a rain of fire and written from the view of a person who escaped the destruction; unfortunately, the names of the cities are not given in the work.[59] Sayce later mentions that the story more closely resembles the doom ofSennacherib's host.[60]
The ancient Greek historiographerStrabo states that locals living near Moasada (as opposed toMasada) say that "there were once thirteen inhabited cities in that region of which Sodom was the metropolis".[61] Strabo identifiesa limestone and salt hill at the southwestern tip of the Dead Sea, andMount Sodom (Hebrew:הר סדום,Har Sedom orArabic:جبل السدوم,Jabal(u) 'ssudūm) ruins nearby as the site of biblical Sodom.[62]
The Jewish historianJosephus identifies the Dead Sea in geographic proximity to the ancient biblical city of Sodom. He refers to the lake by its Greek name, Asphaltites.[63] Some scholars believe that the locations of the two cities are currently flooded beneath the southern basin of the Dead Sea.[64]
In 1973, Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub discovered or visited a number of possible sites of the cities, includingBab edh-Dhra, which was originally excavated in 1965 by archaeologist Paul Lapp, and later finished by Rast and Schaub following Lapp's death. Other possibilities includeNumeira, al-Safi, Feifa (or Fifa, Feifah), and Khirbet al-Khanazir, which were also visited by Schaub and Rast.[citation needed] According to Schaub, Numeira was destroyed in 2600 BC at a different time period than Bab edh-Dhra (2350–2067 BC).[65] However, Kris J. Udd proposed that the date of destruction of Numeira and that of Bab edh-Dhra could be lowered to 2100-2050 BC and 2000-1950 BC respectively.[66]
In the final season of the present series of excavations of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain (1990–1991), the walled site of Feifa was investigated and the EB [Early Bronze Age] cemetery that stretched to its east was excavated. The most recent surveys suggested that the visible structures of the walled site belonged to the Iron Age orRoman period.[67]
At Khirbet al-Khanazir, the walls which Rast and Schaub had identified in 1973 as houses were in reality rectangularcharnel houses marking shaft tombs from near the end of theEarly Bronze Age and not occupational structures.[68][69][70]
In 1976,Giovanni Pettinato claimed that acuneiform tablet that had been found in the newly discovered library atEbla contained the names of all five of the cities of the plain (Sodom, Gomorrah,Admah, Zeboim, andBela), listed in the same order as in Genesis. The namessi-da-mu [TM.76.G.524] andì-ma-ar [TM.75.G.1570 and TM.75.G.2233] were identified as representing Sodom and Gomorrah, which gained some acceptance at the time.[71] However, Alfonso Archi states that, judging from the surrounding city names in the cuneiform list,si-da-mu lies in northern Syria and not near the Dead Sea, andì-ma-ar is a variant ofì-mar, known to representEmar, an ancient city located near Ebla.[72] Today, the scholarly consensus is that "Ebla has no bearing on ... Sodom and Gomorra."[73]
Later Hebrew prophets named the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah asadultery,[51] pridefulness,[74] and uncharitableness.[52]
Rictor Norton views classical Jewish texts as stressing the cruelty and lack ofhospitality of the inhabitants of Sodom to the "stranger".[75] Rabbinic writings affirm that the Sodomites also committed economic crimes, blasphemy, and bloodshed.[76] Other extrabiblical crimes committed by Sodom and Gomorrah includedextortion on crossing a river, harshly punishing victims for crimes that the perpetrator committed, forcing an assault victim to pay for the perpetrator's "bloodletting"[77] and forcing a woman to marry a man who intentionally caused her miscarriage to compensate for the lost child. Because of this, the judges of the two cities were referred to as Shakrai ("Liar"), Shakurai ("Awful Liar"), Zayyafi ("Forger") and Mazle Dina ("Perverter of Justice").Eliezer was reported to be a victim of such legally unjust conduct, after Sarah sent him to Sodom to report on Lot's welfare. The citizens also regularlytortured foreigners who sought lodging. They did this by providing the foreigners a standard-sized bed and if they saw that the foreigners were too short for the beds, they would forciblystretch their limbs but if the foreigners were too tall, they wouldcut off their legs (the Greek myth ofProcrustes tells a similar story).[78][79] As a result, many people refrained from visiting Sodom and Gomorrah. Beggars who settled into the two cities for refuge were similarly mistreated. The citizens would give them marked coins (presumably used to purchase food) but were nonetheless forbidden, by proclamation, to provide these necessary services. Once the beggar died of starvation, citizens who initially gave the beggar the coins were permitted to retrieve them, provided that they could recognize it. The beggar's clothing was also provided as a reward for any citizen who could successfully overcome his opponent in a street fight.[80][77]
The provision of bread and water to the poor was also a capital offense (Yalḳ., Gen. 83). Two girls, one poor and the other rich, went to a well, and the former gave the latter her jug of water, receiving in return a vessel containing bread. When this became known, both were burned alive.[81] According to theBook of Jasher, Paltith, one of Lot's daughters, was burnt alive (in some versions, on a pyre) for giving a poor man bread.[82] Her cries went to the heavens.[77] Another woman was similarly executed in Admah for giving a traveler, who intended to leave the town the next day, water. When the scandal was revealed, the woman was stripped naked and covered with honey. This attracted bees as the woman was slowly stung to death (seeScaphism). Her cries then went up into the heavens, the turning point that was revealed to have provoked God to enact judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah in the first place in Genesis 18:20.[83][80] Lot's wife (who came from Sodom) had disapproved of her husband welcoming the strangers into their home; her asking for salt from neighbors had alerted the mob which came to Lot's door. As punishment she was turned into a pillar of salt.[84]
Jon D. Levenson views a rabbinic tradition described in theMishnah as postulating that the sin of Sodom was a violation of conventional hospitality in addition to homosexual conduct, describing Sodom's lack of generosity with the saying, "What is mine is mine; what is yours is yours" (m. Avot 5.10).[85]
Jay Michaelson proposes a reading of the story of Sodom that emphasizes the violation of hospitality as well as the violence of the Sodomites. "Homosexual rape is the way in which they violate hospitality—not the essence of their transgression. Reading the story of Sodom as being about homosexuality is like reading the story of an ax murderer as being about an ax."[86] Michaelson places the story of Sodom in context with other Genesis stories regarding Abraham's hospitality to strangers, and argues that when other texts in the Hebrew Bible mention Sodom, they do so without commentary on homosexuality. The verses cited by Michaelson include Jeremiah 23:14,[87] where the sins of Jerusalem are compared to Sodom and are listed as adultery, lying, and strengthening the hands of evildoers; Amos 4:1–11 (oppressing the poor and crushing the needy);[88] and Ezekiel 16:49–50,[89] which defines the sins of Sodom as "pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and didtoevah before me, and I took them away as I saw fit." Michaelson usestoevah in place ofabomination to emphasize the original Hebrew, which he explains as being more correctly translated as "taboo".[90]
Rabbi Basil Herring, who served as head of theRabbinical Council of America from 2003 to 2012, writes that both therabbinic literature and modernOrthodox position consider theTorah to condemn homosexuality as an abomination. Moreover, that it "conveys its abhorrence of homosexuality through a variety of narrative settings", God's judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah being a "paradigmatic" instance of such condemnation.[91]
Two areas of contention have arisen in modern Christian scholarship concerning the story of Sodom and Gomorrah:[92][39]
Whether or not the violent mob surrounding Lot's house were demanding to engage in sexual violence against Lot's guests.
Whether it was homosexuality or another transgression, such as the act of inhospitable behavior towards visitors, the act of sexual assault, murder, theft, adultery, idolatry, power abuses, or prideful and mocking behavior,[93] that was the principal reason for God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The first contention focuses primarily upon the meaning of the Hebrew verbHebrew:ידע (yada), translated asknow in theKing James Version:
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
Some Hebrew scholars believe thatyada, unlike the English word "know", requires the existence of a "personal and intimate relationship".[96] For this reason, many of the most popular of the 20th century translations, including theNew International Version, theNew King James Version, and theNew Living Translation, translateyada as "have sex with" or "know ... carnally" in Genesis 19:5.[97]
Those who favor the non-sexual interpretation argue against a denotation of sexual behavior in this context, noting that while the Hebrew word for "know" appears over 900 times in the Hebrew Bible, only 1% (13–14 times)[75] of those references are clearly used as aeuphemism for realizing sexual intimacy.[98] Instead, those who hold to this interpretation see the demand to know as demanding the right to interrogate the strangers.[99]
Countering this is the observation that one of the examples of "know" meaning to know sexually occurs when Lot responds to the Genesis 19:5 request, by offering his daughters forrape, only three verses later in the same narrative:
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
TheEpistle of Jude is a major text in regard to these conflicting opinions:
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Many who interpret the stories in a non-sexual context contend that as the word for "strange" is akin to "another", "other", "altered" or even "next", the meaning is unclear, and if the condemnation of Sodom was the result of sexual activities perceived to be perverse, then it is likely that it was because women sought to commit fornication with "other than human" angels,[102] perhaps referring to Genesis 6:1–4[103] or the apocryphalBook of Enoch. Countering this, it is pointed out that Genesis 6 refers to angels seeking women, not men seeking angels, and that both Sodom and Gomorrah were engaged in the sin Jude describes before the angelic visitation, and that, regardless, it is doubtful that the Sodomites knew they were angels. In addition, it is argued the word used in the King James Version of the Bible for "strange", can mean unlawful or corrupted (e.g. in Romans 7:3, Galatians 1:6), and that the apocryphalSecond Book of Enoch condemns "sodomitic" sex (2 Enoch 10:3; 34:1),[104] thus indicating that homosexual relations was the prevalentphysical sin of Sodom.[105]
Both the non-sexual and thehomosexuality view invoke certain classical writings as well as other portions of the Bible.[106][107]
Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Here the nonsexual view focuses on the inhospitality aspect, while the other notes the descriptiondetestable orabomination, the Hebrew word for which often denotes moral sins, including those of a sexual nature.[109][110]
The nonsexual view focuses on the cultural importance of hospitality, which this biblical story shares with other ancient civilizations, such asAncient Greece andAncient Rome, wherehospitality was of singular importance and strangers were under the protection of the gods.[111] James L. Kugel, Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University suggests the story encompasses the sexual and non-sexual: the Sodomites were guilty of stinginess, inhospitality and sexual license, homo- and heterosexual in contrast to the generosity of Abraham, and Lot whose behavior in protecting the visitors but offering his daughters suggests he was "scarcely better than his neighbors" according to some ancient commentators, The Bible As It Was, 1997, pp. 179–197.
Within the Christian churches that agree on the possible sexual interpretation of "know" (yada) in this context, there is still a difference of opinion on whether homosexuality is important. On its website, theAnglican Communion presents the argument that the story is "not even vaguely about homosexual love or relationships", but is instead "about dominance and rape, by definition an act of violence, not of sex or love". This argument that the violence and the threat of violence towards foreign visitors is the true ethical downfall of Sodom (and not homosexuality), also observes the similarity between the Sodom and Gomorrah and theBattle of Gibeah Bible stories. In both stories, an inhospitable mob demands the homosexual rape of a foreigner or foreigners. As the mob instead settles for the rape and murder of the foreigner's female concubine in the Battle of Gibeah story, the homosexual aspect is generally seen as inconsequential, and the ethical downfall is understood to be the violence and the threat of violence towards foreigners by the mob. This Exodus 22:21–24 lesson[112] is viewed by Anglicans as a more historically accurate way to interpret the Sodom and Gomorrah story.[92][113]
Scholar in history and gender studies Lisa McClain has claimed that the association between Sodom and Gomorrah with homosexuality emerged from the writings of 1st century Jewish philosopherPhilo, and that no priorexegesis of the text suggested such a linkage.[45]
Lut fleeing the city with hisdaughters; hiswife is killed by a rock.
The Quran contains twelve references to "the people of Lut", the biblical Lot, the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah presumably, and their destruction byGod which is associated primarily with theirhomosexual practices, which the Quran states they were the first creatures to commit such a deed.[114][115][116][117]
The "people of Lut"transgressed consciously against the bounds of God. Lot only prayed to God to be saved from doing as they did. ThenGabriel met Lot and said that he must leave the city quickly, as God had given this command to Lot to save his life. In the Quran it was written that Lot's wife stayed behind, as she had transgressed. She met her fate in the disaster, and only Lot and his family were saved during the destruction of their city,[118] with the understanding that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are identified in Genesis, but "the location remains unnamed in the Qur'an"[119]
So the (mighty) Blast overtook them before morning, And We turned the cities ˹of Sodom and Gomorrah˺ upside down and rained upon them stones of baked clay. Surely in this are signs for those who contemplate. Their ruins still lie along a known route.
Commentary: This was his wife, who was a bad old woman. She stayed behind and was destroyed with whoever else was left. This is similar to what Allah says about them in Surat Al-A`raf and Surat Hud, and in Surat Al-Hijr, where Allah commanded him to take his family at night, except for his wife, and not to turn around when they heard the Sayhah as it came upon his people. So they patiently obeyed the command of Allah and persevered, and Allah sent upon the people a punishment which struck them all, and rained upon them stones of baked clay, piled up.
A different idea is found in theParaphrase of Shem, aGnostic text from the literature of theNag Hammadi library. In this narrative, the figureShem, who is guided by a spiritual savior named Derdekeas, brings his universal teaching of secret knowledge (gnosis) to the citizens of Sodom before the city is unjustly destroyed by the base nature of thedemon of human form.[123]
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^Loader, J.A., A Tale of Two Cities (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology, 1; Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1990)
^Hospitality and Hostility: Reading Genesis 19 in Light of 2 Samuel 10 (And Vice Versa). Universalism and Particularism at Sodom and Gomorrah: Essays in Memory of Ron Pirson. Edited by Diana Lipton. Series: Ancient Israel and Its Literature. 2012. Society of Biblical Literaturehttps://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt32bz0d
^Kawashima, The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation (SVT 152), Brill, 2012. “The entire episode centers on the theme of hospitality, the very foundation of civilization… Lot in effect wins his family’s salvation by protecting the strangers who have come under his roof, even at grave risk to his household—arguably outdoing his uncle’s hospitality in the previous scene (Gen 18). If Lot thus maintains the sanctity of the guest-host relationship, the men of Sodom subvert it instead, seeking to rape the strangers who have entered their city’s gates.”
^Bert de Vries, "Archaeology in Jordan", ed. Pierre Bikai,American Journal of Archaeology 97, no. 3 (1993): 482.
^Bert de Vries, ed., "Archaeology in Jordan",American Journal of Archaeology 95, no. 2 (1991): 253–280. 262.
^Burton MacDonald, "EB IV Tombs at Khirbet Khanazir: Types, Construction, and Relation to Other EB IV Tombs in Syria-Palestine",Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 5 (1995): 129–134
^R. Thomas Schaub, "Southeast Dead Sea Plain", inThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. Eric M. Meyers, vol. 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 62.
^James Alfred Loader (1990).A tale of two cities : Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, early Jewish and early Christian traditions. Peeters Publishers. p. 28.
^Rogers, Jack Bartlet (2006).Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the myths, heal the church. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. p. 139.ISBN9780664229399.
^Bailey, Homosexuality and Western Tradition, pp. 1–28; McNeil, Church and the Homosexual, pp. 42–50; Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, pp. 92–97
Greene, Joseph A. (2004)."Sodom and Gomorrah". In Metzger, Bruce Manning; Coogan, Michael D. (eds.).The Oxford Guide To People And Places Of The Bible. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-517610-0.
Map of the Dead Sea from a book byChristian van Adrichem, 1590, depicting Sodom and Gomorrah going on flames in the sea, called (in Latin) 'Dead Sea, Salt Lake, Sea of Asphalt', Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, TheNational Library of Israel
