From: Ratson Naharadama <yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Sodom's Historical Sin..
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:45:19 -0700
Gary Hedrick wrote:
» They were bisexual, in other words.
If the events of the story are making references to male-on-male sexual
activities, there is another possibility that I have not seen
mentioned. Some peoples in various places and times (including the
Lavant) would sometimes drive out unwelcomed visitors to their territory
via anal rape. These violators would be heterosexual, but the weapon
they would use to humiliate, degrade, and cause-to-be-submited an
unwelcomed person would be to rape them. This still occurs in many
places in the middle east, today. In the Middle East and northern
Africa, this was also very commonly done to prisoners of a defeated army.
In the Genesis Sodom story, *if* this is what was going on in that
story, the male-on-male activity itself isn't what is being frowned on,
it is primarily the violation of hospitality toward guests and strangers
that is being frowned on.
--
Ratson Naharädama
Denver, Colorado