Sodomy

Sodomy is a term drawn from the name of the city of Sodom in Genesis 19 and used in Christian theology and Western law for sexual acts judged gravely wrong — most specifically anal intercourse, and in many usages same-sex sexual acts generally. The word itself does not appear in the biblical text; historically, it entered English through Latin and Old French ecclesiastical and legal usage as a label for a category of offences rather than as a translation of any single Hebrew or Greek term.

The narrative behind the name is the account of two visitors arriving at Lot’s house in Sodom, where the men of the city surround the house and demand, “Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them” (Genesis 19:5). A close parallel appears in Judges 19:22, where the men of Gibeah make the same demand of an old man sheltering a traveler. Historically, the Hebrew verb in both verses is yada‘, “to know,” used here as a euphemism for sexual intercourse. The word “sodomite” in older English versions at Deuteronomy 23:17 and 1 Kings 14:24 translates Hebrew qadesh, a male cult or shrine prostitute, which is a different referent from the Sodom narrative.

The legal material of the Torah states, “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. That is detestable” (Leviticus 18:22), and attaches a capital penalty to the same act in Leviticus 20:13, calling it an “abomination” (Hebrew to‘evah). In the New Testament, Romans 1:24–27 describes women and men exchanging “the natural function” for what is “against nature,” men “burning in their lust toward one another.” First Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 list among those excluded from the kingdom or subject to the law the malakoi (literally “soft,” rendered “male prostitutes”) and arsenokoitai, a compound of Greek arsen (“male”) and koite (“bed”). Linguistically, the precise reference of arsenokoitai is disputed among scholars, and the rendering “homosexuals” in these verses is a modern translation choice rather than the wording of the Greek.

Christian traditions read this material differently. Catholic, Orthodox and most historic Protestant teaching hold that these texts establish a settled norm that sexual intercourse belongs within marriage between a man and a woman, and treat sodomy as a grave sin, while historically Western civil law used “sodomy” more broadly still, covering various non-procreative acts including some between spouses. Other interpreters argue that Genesis 19 and Judges 19 condemn gang rape, inhospitality and the humiliation of guests rather than same-sex orientation as such, and that the meaning of arsenokoitai is too uncertain to bear the weight placed on it; a number of churches have on these grounds revised traditional teaching and now bless same-sex relationships. Which reading a reader finds persuasive typically rests on judgments about the scope of the biblical prohibitions and the authority of inherited teaching, not on the wording of the verses alone.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.