Those who think the Bible condemns homosexuality as sinful often point to Gen. 18-19 and saying, "God destroyed Sodom for homosexuality." Through my study, I've decided that Gen. 18-19 says God destroyed Sodom for a different reason. Below, I gave my reasons for thinking that.

In Gen. 13, Lot and Abraham go separate ways, each choosing a land for himself. Abraham settled in Canaan, Lot in Sodom. With some diligence, you can walk from one place to another in less than a day. Now, consider Genesis 18-19 with this information in mind.

In Gen. 18, around noon, Abraham has a vision of God, then three men approach his tent. He hurried toward them and bowed, offering food for their stomach and water for their feet. Sarah, Abraham's menopausal wife, made leavened bread for them. Abraham's concern for their welfare pleased God, so one of the men told Sarah she would have a child. Sarah giggled, thinking he jested. (After God destroys Sodom, we learn her error when she had Isaac.) When ready to leave, Abraham walked them a short while to point them to Sodom.

In Gen. 19, in the evening, two angels approached the gates of Sodom. (It seems Abraham's visitors consisted of these angels and God.) Lot, seeing them approach, rose to his feet, bowed, and offered food and a place to rest. They reluctantly agreed. After eating and before they would lie to rest, "all the men of Sodom" surrounded Lot's home, demanding he release the angels so they "know" them. Lot offers his virgin daughters, hoping to protect the angels. The mob refused them and threatened him. The mob decided to break down the door, but the angels intervened and blinded them. They decided, God should destroy Sodom, but leave alive Lot and his family. After learning what would happen to Sodom, Lot told his sons-in-law to leave; but they laughed, thinking he spoke in jest or lost his mind. (We learned their error when fire enveloped them.) Lot and some of his family left Sodom for safety. The mother, not following the angels' instructions, looked back and turned to a pillar of salt.

Gen. 18-19 has obvious parallels, between Abraham and Lot and between where they live. Abraham and Lot bowed to the visitors, invited them in, had their wives bake bread, and so on. The parallel focuses on hospitality to outsiders. That parallel continues, but the parallel between their cities offering hospitality abruptly ends when the mob appears. Continuing the parallel of Lot and Abraham, Lot and his daughters prepared to sacrifice their welfare for that of their visitors. Both parallels connect hospitality with virtuosity and inhospitality with wickedness. Ezekiel 16.48 supports this. "The sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy." The story teaches a second lesson with Sarah and Lot's sons-in-law: God does not jest.

I can hear the argument coming, "Men comprised the mob in Sodom. The mob wanted to 'know' the male angels. That seems like a clear-cut case of men wanting homosexual relations and acting on it. The story links God destroying Sodom to what the inhabitants wanted to do. How could you think Gen. 18-19 does not condemn homosexuality?" To answer this, I turn to the Hebrew wording and the literary and cultural contexts.

First, the literary context. On what basis would God destroy Sodom? In Gen. 18.32, God tells Abraham, "For the sake of ten [righteous ones] I will not destroy it." Sodom had fewer than ten. Lot, his wife, his two virgin daughters, and his sons-in-law add to at least six. Could Sodom have, at most, only three others? How does it have so few? Did all the men of Sodom have no children? Would God judged them as wicked for the actions of their fathers? If they had no children, did they have wives? If so, would God judge them as wicked for the actions of their husbands? If they had no wives, why do males predominate Sodom? Did they, as boys, decide at a council meeting to rape travelers homosexually? If they did want homosexual relations, how come they didn't want them with Lot or one another? If the men had no wives or children, the wicked would naturally dwindle to nothingness without reproduction, leaving Sodom to the seed of Lot, so why did God destroy Sodom? The literary context makes little sense from a perspective of condemning homosexuality.

Perhaps the Hebrew provides some answers. Translators offer "men" as a translation of 'enowsh, but what does 'enowsh mean? It means "those of humankind", rather than "men." The women and perhaps children also comprised the mob. Did the children help the fathers know the angels or did they want to know the angels themselves? Did mothers approve? Did the women help their husbands know the angels or did they want to know the angels themselves? If the mature and immature females wanted to know the angels, how does that jive with a condemnation of homosexuality? The Hebrew answers some of our earlier questions, but now women and children form a part of the mob. Now we have more questions!

The solution lies in the cultural context. Why did the mob want to know the angels—the outsiders—but not Lot or one another? I can think of only three explanations. First, the men would help the women to know the angels, thus birthing a small army of Nephilim. Second, the mostly heterosexual men of Sodom, like those of other ancient cultures and modern prisons, sexually assaulted outsiders to assert dominance of strip them of their confidence and make men feel like women. Third, combine those explanations. These all work to answer our questions, but notice that homosexuality itself simply cannot explain the behavior of the multigendered mob. If you remove homosexuality from the equation and look at it as condemning inhospitality, with trying to rape outsiders listed as one of the worst forms, we can answer all the questions. Everything adds up. The conclusion follows the parallels. We reach the view in Ezekiel 16.48.

I have, therefore, decided that Gen. 18-19 says God destroyed Sodom for its extreme inhospitality and does not condemn homosexuality.