Sodome

Sodome is a biblical city supposed to be located at the south of the Dead Sea, quoted by the Genèse in chapters 18 and 19.

Sodome is famous to have, according to the Bible, summer destroyed by fire.

Description

The Hebraic Bible describes its crimes and its punishment: God, alerted by “the cry against Sodome”, whose “sin is enormous”, is determined to destroy the city to punish his inhabitants ( Genèse 18:20 - 21). He sends two angels then to check if the “sinned ” is proven. These angels arrive at Sodome and Lot, the nephew of Abraham, invites them to place at his place. All the men of the city surround the house of Batch by asking that it deliver the two foreigners to them so that they “know them” ( Genèse 19:5). In this passage, the inhabitants of Sodome say to Lot: “Where are the men who came on your premise this night? Bring them to us so that we know them. ” Makes some, the translation could be “to misuse”, “to even penetrate” rather than “to know”.

Convinced of their crime, God destroys the city by “sulfur and fire” at the same time as the city close to Gomorrhe. The account tells:

“the sun rose on the ground when Lot entered Tsoar. Then the Eternal made fall on Sodome and Gomorrhe a rain from sulfur and fire; it was the Eternal himself which sent sky this plague. It destroyed these cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of these cities. The woman of Batch looked at behind, and it became a salt statue. Abraham rose good morning and went to the place where it had been held in the presence of the Eternal. From there, it turned its glances on the side of Sodome and Gomorrhe and towards all the extent of the plain; and he saw assembling ground a smoke, similar to the smoke of a furnace. ”

Other passages as of the nonbiblical sources evoke the destruction, in addition to Sodome and Gomorrhe, of the cities pécheresses of Admah and Zéboïm. Only the fifth city of the Valley of Siddim, Zoar, was saved. These five cities are commonly indicated in the Bible under the term of the “Cities of the Plain”. A war is mentioned ( Genèse , 14) during which the kings of the five cities of the valley of Siddim are combined, and face four kings d' Elam, of Goyim, Shinéar and Ellasar.

Thus, in Saint-Coran one finds that the men of Sodome surround the house of Lot.Lot their proposed these two girls for the marriage, but they refused. Then, Allah (the Name of God in Holy Coran) ordered to him to leave the city, and not to be turned over no matter what it is. God, makes reverse the city by sending Djibril (Gabriel Angel), and among those which were punished the woman of Batch, which was turned over while hearing the cries of the inhabitants.

Influence account

Name of this city derive the terms Sodomie and its derivatives, sodomite, sodomist and to sodomize.

In the Christian tradition, these biblical passages are one of the bases of the judgment of the Sodomie and homosexuality. It seems indeed that the inhabitants of these cities lived a life with manners dissolues, but all seems to indicate, in this precise case, that it is specifically about homosexuality because these “angels” were called “men” by the men of Sodome.

Genesis 19:4 et5: " They were not yet lying that the men of the city, the men of Sodome, surrounded the house, since the boy to the old man, all the people in mass. And they shouted towards Lot and said to him: “Where are the men who entered at home this night? Make leave them towards we so that we have relations with them. ”

What implies that they wanted to penetrate these angels that they took for men, therefore it was indeed homosexuality. In the Jewish tradition, the accent is more put on the egoistic character of Sodomites, and their rejection of hospitality: according to a midrash aggadic on the subject, the “clamor” is that of an young girl condemned to be devoured by the corbel X to have offered hospitality to a foreigner of passage.

It is in this direction also that it is necessary to include/understand the aphorism of the Traité Fathers ( Mishna 5:13): “What is with me is with me, which is with you is with you. It is the way of the average man, and some say: it is the way of Sodome. ”

Historical assumptions

If it is exact that Sodome was actually destroyed, various assumptions were advanced to explain its destruction:

according to one of the last stated assumptions, it would be located on the shores of the old salted lake surrounding one of the volcanos submerged by the brutal rise of the Black Sea during the collapse of the stopping of the the Bosphorus approximately 9.000 years ago, by giving rise to the accounts included in the famous epopee of Gilgamesh, having inspired itself the account of Noah in the Hebraic Bible;
certain researchers estimate however that Sodome would have been destroyed by a Earthquake; as the ground of the area is oil-bearing, the oil contained in basement would have spouted out during the seism and would have ignited;
Marie-Agnes Courty, geologist of CNRS, advances the assumption that the fall of a racing car would be at the origin of this cataclysm.

See too

Gomorrhe
Christian Vision of homosexuality

Random links: