from debate in another thread with rrhain,
starting about here.
i'd like to discuss, in particular, the use of the word "know" in genesis 19:5:
quote:
—-— —, -‘ — ——; —,
v'y'qreu al-lot, v'y'ameru lo, "ayeh ha-anashim asher-bau alik ha-laylah; hutzyem alinu v'nedat otem."
and they called out to lot, and said to him, "where are the people who came to you tonight? bring them out to us and we will know them."
Genesis 19:5
the question here is about "know." the traditional reading, every one that i am aware of, is that this "know" is sexual: rape. grammatically, it is essentially the same as the rather popular biblical euphemism for sex.
quote:
, -
v'ha-adam yada et-chavah ishto.
and the man knew eve, his wife
Genesis 4:1
now, it's important to understand the context of the story, and that involves genesis 14. sodom was just in a war with several other nation-states. sodom lost, and badly at that. lot, who lived there, was taken captive. abram rides in to the rescue, and brings lot and all the wealth and captives of sodom back to the king. the king of sodom offer abram the wealth as a reward, and abram
refuses, lest the king say "i have made abram rich." this is the equivalent of spitting in the kings face. so sodom is not happy with abram in particular.
considering that they had also just lost a war, and narrowly avoided abject poverty, they were also -- according to tradition -- greedy. how does that play in?
quote:
5. that we may know them. i.e. vent our lust upon them (Rashi, ibn Ezra, Rashbam). Nachmanides' opinion is that their purpose was to keep strangers away, being anxious to retain all the wealth of the place to themselves. Although they were wicked in many other waysm their doom was their punishment for this selfishness and their refusal to help the poor.
(footnotes in my chumash)
ezekiel gives the following reference:
quote:
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Ezekiel 16:49
jesus mentions sodom in the new testament, in the context of inhospitality:
quote:
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Matthew 10:14-15
wikipedia contains two quotes from flavius josephus, one mentioning xenophobia and greed:
quote:
Now, about this time the Sodomites, overwhelmingly proud of their numbers and the extent of their wealth, showed themselves insolent to men and impious to the divinity, insomuch that they no more remembered the benefits that they had received from him, hated foreigners and avoided any contact with others. Indignant at this conduct, God accordingly resolved to chastise them for their arrogance, and not only to uproot their city, but to blast their land so completely that it should yield neither plant nor fruit whatsoever from that time forward.
Jewish Antiquities 1:194-195
the other, sex:
quote:
And the angels came to the city of the Sodomites...when the Sodomites beheld the young men, who were outstanding in beauty of appearance and who had been received into Lots’s house, they set about to do violence and outrage to their youthful beauty....Therefore, God, indignant at their bold acts, struck them with blindness, so that they were unable to find the entrance into the house, and condemned the Sodomites to destruction of the whole population.
Jewish Antiquities 1:199-202
josephus is partially wrong in the second quote. it appears to not be about beauty at all. there is no indication in the text that the citizens of sodom had ever even seen the angles. it is, however, about violence. according to the talmud, sodom had a tradition of executing those who would help to poor, and punishing the poor themselves. this could well have meant death and torture for lot, lot's family, and his guests.
rrhain makes the argument that this is merely tradition, a forced reading and abuse of the text through english (nevermind the only differences in the grammar are the conjugation of the verb). he argues that they were simply wary (and justifiably so), and wanted to question the visitors. they might be theives, afterall.
so we are forced to look for other examples, in the bible, that clearly use the word to mean other things, in the same grammatical context. even then, it's hard to say. my hebrew teacher warned us not to say we "knew" someone, because it generally meant something else. i forget, off hand, what she told us to say instead. so let's look at other uses of "knowing" a person in the text. i'll post one, others can feel free to post more that follow the form
[yada] (subject) (person), in any conjugation they can find. here's an example from judges, that spells things out a little more clearly. and has the benefit of being the same story:
quote:
As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain base fellows, beset the house round about, beating at the door; and they spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying: 'Bring forth the man that came into thy house, that we may know him.'
Judges 19:22
in judges, a levite stays in someone's home while on a journey. the angry mob at the door wants to "know" him, so the host opts to protect, by offering his virgin daughter -- and the guest's concubine. they don't want the daughter, but they happily rape the concubine. this the story where the man is so upset he cuts his concubine up into pieces and has her sent all around the country.
but it's also removed from the "revenge for abram" context, and the "fear of strangers" context. why interrogate this man? and why is that bad form to do so -- the host gets to know him, in the other sense, just fine. it describes the crowd beforehand, literally as "sons of wickedness" an idiom meaning "perverse." and why, if they're so insulted at being offered sex, do they decide to spend all night raping the man's concubine? it's also worth pointing out that the "know" presents a symmetry:
quote:
But the men would not hearken to him; so the man laid hold on his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning; and when the day began to spring, they let her go.
Judges 19:25
they demanded to "know" the man, and they "knew" the woman. this is not a coincidence. it's the same euphemism for the same act. it seems clear that this story -- the same story -- is totally removed from any kind of contextual doubt about its nature. and the rape actually occurs. and moreover, this is clearly the same tradition as sodom, told a little differently.
so, what is the sin of sodom? do they rape the travellers who show up on their doorsteps? do they mean to just scare them away? or do they just want to get to know who these people are, and what they're doing in the city, the equivalent of being taken to the side at the airport customs line? is sex, or rather rape, a part of their inhospitality, or is simple rudeness enough?
note for mods: "bible study" please. also, i like to make extra special note that the issue of
homosexuality is not the topic for this thread in the slightest. any gaybashing or fundie rambling to that effect is to be considered completely off topic. this is about whether the people of sodom meant "sex" or something else, not about the genders of the guests or population, which the text in hebrew does not specify. i don't wish for this to turn into another mudslinging match; i'm only interested in honest discussion of rrhain's original claim -- that "know" in this case is not a euphemism for sex, and that the text does not have a sexual connotation in the slightest.
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