A Literature Survey of the History of Interpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah Incident of Genesis 19:1-29, With Special Reference to the Homosexuality Debate
Rogers, Gregory Garnet
A Literature Survey of the History of Interpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah Incident of Genesis 19:1-29, With Special Reference to the Homosexuality Debate - Johannesburg, South Africa South African Theological Seminary 2011 - 52p PDF A4 Abstract.Table of contents. Works cited.
The homosexuality debate is fast proving among the most divisive in the Christian world today. The Sodom account of Genesis 19:1-29 is perhaps the most famous in this regard. For most of church history this account has been interpreted as a condemnation of homosexual activity. In recent decades, however, this traditional interpretation has been challenged. In 1955 Derrick Sherwin Bailey produced Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, a work that started the revisionist move toward reinterpreting the Bible‟s stance on homosexual behaviour. Bailey‟s argument concerning the Sodom account focused on a re translation of the Hebrew word yada. Usually translated „to know‟, but understood as „to have sexual intercourse with‟, Bailey reinterpreted the word to mean „get acquainted with‟, in the sense that the Sodomites merely desired to get to know their visitors in the context of hospitality. Bailey‟s views have been largely discarded by Traditionalist and Revisionist alike, but newer revisionist arguments were developed from the 1980‟s. The new arguments did not deny the presence of homosexual activity in Sodom, but merely redefined the framework, averring that the Sodomites were not homosexuals themselves, but heterosexuals with motives to humiliate the guests sexually, outside of any sexual desire per se. This view has gained more credibility than that of Bailey, though is not universally embraced. Evangelical and Traditionalist scholarship began to appear from the 1980‟s, but at this stage representatives of this camp are outnumbered by their revisionist counterparts. Such works concentrated on expounding and re-affirming the traditional view, and on rebutting the revisionist arguments from in hospitality and culture. At this point in the debate, then, there is still very much division among scholars on the issue.
Christian ethics--Homosexuality --World wide
A Literature Survey of the History of Interpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah Incident of Genesis 19:1-29, With Special Reference to the Homosexuality Debate - Johannesburg, South Africa South African Theological Seminary 2011 - 52p PDF A4 Abstract.Table of contents. Works cited.
The homosexuality debate is fast proving among the most divisive in the Christian world today. The Sodom account of Genesis 19:1-29 is perhaps the most famous in this regard. For most of church history this account has been interpreted as a condemnation of homosexual activity. In recent decades, however, this traditional interpretation has been challenged. In 1955 Derrick Sherwin Bailey produced Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, a work that started the revisionist move toward reinterpreting the Bible‟s stance on homosexual behaviour. Bailey‟s argument concerning the Sodom account focused on a re translation of the Hebrew word yada. Usually translated „to know‟, but understood as „to have sexual intercourse with‟, Bailey reinterpreted the word to mean „get acquainted with‟, in the sense that the Sodomites merely desired to get to know their visitors in the context of hospitality. Bailey‟s views have been largely discarded by Traditionalist and Revisionist alike, but newer revisionist arguments were developed from the 1980‟s. The new arguments did not deny the presence of homosexual activity in Sodom, but merely redefined the framework, averring that the Sodomites were not homosexuals themselves, but heterosexuals with motives to humiliate the guests sexually, outside of any sexual desire per se. This view has gained more credibility than that of Bailey, though is not universally embraced. Evangelical and Traditionalist scholarship began to appear from the 1980‟s, but at this stage representatives of this camp are outnumbered by their revisionist counterparts. Such works concentrated on expounding and re-affirming the traditional view, and on rebutting the revisionist arguments from in hospitality and culture. At this point in the debate, then, there is still very much division among scholars on the issue.
Christian ethics--Homosexuality --World wide