Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] "Sodomite" in 2 Kings 23.7 & Homosexuality

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: <david.kimbrough AT charter.net>
  • To: Dora Smith <villandra AT austin.rr.com>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] "Sodomite" in 2 Kings 23.7 & Homosexuality
  • Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:09:20 +0000

"Sodomite" in the narrowest sense just means a resident of the city of Sodom.
It has the connotation of homosexuality due to the story of Sodom in Genesis.

However here the word is Kadeshim, or ritual male prostitutes. There is a
female version, kadeshah, the role that Tamar played in Genesis. This is
sometimes translated as "temple prostitutes" but in the Genesis story of
Tamar, she pretended to be a kadeshah far from any fixed temple (assuming her
tent did not constitute a temple). The root is kd#, to sanctify. The
activities of these ritual prostitutes (male and female) may have been
assoicated with the Asherah / Baal cults.

While the kadesh performed homosexual acts as a cultic activity, the
individual may or many not have been of the homosexual *orientation* in the
modern sense. This is to say, given a preverence, the kadesh may have not
engaged in homosexual acts in the privacy of his own home with another man.
Conversely, a lesbian (in the modern sense) may have been a kadeshah and
engaged in heterosexual acts for ritual purposes.


David Kimbrough
San Gabriel





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page