My question, of course, is not what the given dictionary definition is; rather, I mean to ask what the meaning of ‘sodomy’ should be by challenging its etymology. The word itself is the namesake of the infamous ancient city of Sodom. The most detail we ever get about daily life in Sodom comes from Genesis 19, when Lot takes in two visitors (angels). Upon learning of Lot’s guests, the men of the city come to rape them, and the story just goes downhill from there. Later in the chapter Sodom was destroyed along with Gomorrah because God had heard “the outcry against its people” (v. 13). Over time, homosexual male sex was labeled as “sodomy”, apparently in order to serve as a reminder of the moral lesson we were supposed to draw from the judgment of that city.
But did we get the correct lesson? What was it exactly that angered God to the point of destroying the city? In Genesis 19, there is no description of the offending sin or sins, so we had to wait for the prophet Ezekiel to name the sins in detail:
“As I live, declares the Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. Behold, 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. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it” (Ez. 16:48-50, ESV).
The specific causes of Sodom’s condemnation mentioned are 1) pride, 2) excess of food and 3) prosperous ease, combined with 4) an unwillingness to aid the poor and needy. Whatever else was wrong with Sodom (socially acceptable gang rape?!?!?!) didn’t make the list in a specific form. I don’t know if it’s possible to overstate the implications of Ezekiel's words. The next few posts (largely unplanned, at this point) will be my attempt at making some cultural observations based on these verses. But for now, my proposed amendment to the dictionary:
sod.om.y n. 1. Pride. 2. Excess of food, wealth. 3. Apathy, esp. in respect to the poor and needy. v. (to sodomize) 1. To pass over the poor in an unconcerned manner. 2. Having an excess. Antonyms – see “thanksgiving”
