Genesis/Judges 19: The Math Doesn’t Work

Studying Genesis and Judges 19, we end up looking at some very heavy topics. Gang rape. God deciding to destroy entire cities. Inhospitality to strangers. Offering your daughters to a mob. It’s a lot. So I thought we’d start with the most simple reason the story of Sodom has nothing to do with being gay.

The math doesn’t work.

Let’s look at Genesis 19:4 in a few translations. The bold text is my doing:

“But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;” (ASV)
“Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population, surrounded the house.” (CSV)
“Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from the youngest to the oldest—all the people from every quarter.” (Darby)

All the people. The whole population.
They all surrounded the house.
If what “Bible believing” people say is true, this is a mighty gay city. Except it’s not.

In the 90s, far right wingers used to refer to San Francisco as “Sodom by the Bay”. So let’s take Frisco, and Cali at large as our anchor for comparison. According to an updated blog post from the Public Policy Institute of California, Cali’s adult LGBTQ+ population is a bit over 9%. That works out to around 2.8 million people. You can read more here.

That’s a far cry from “all the people” or “the whole population”. So what gives then? Rape, demonizing the other, and male privilege. That’s what gives. Let me show you real quick. We’ll go over each of these in more detail in future posts.

It’s been mostly men who wrote, translated, and reinterpreted the Bible. Which means writing scenes of women being tortured, raped, and murdered in great detail was fine. But the idea of men being raped??? Hell no. Let’s read Genesis 19:5 and see some of the euphemisms translators have used over the years to hide the rape of the male visitors.

“And they called to Lot and said, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know (be intimate with) them.” (AMPC)
“Send them out to us so we can have sex with them!” (CSB)
“Bring them out to us! We want to have sex with them!” (CJB)

And I think the Message has done the most gymnastics here:
“Bring them out so we can have our sport with them!” (Message)

These guys didn’t show up to Lot’s house with flowers and candy, asking for permission to take his visitors to the movies. This was rape. Rape, rape, rape. We’ll talk in other posts about what happens when you teach the world that violent sex is all an entire group of people have. How male supremacy turns male rape victims into consenting sex partners.

We’ll also talk about the homosexual/homosexual weasel wording.

Until next time fellow learners! Keep John 3:17 close to your hearts.

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