Other Sheep - Multicultural Ministries with Sexual Minorities

Section 13: The Thirteenth Young Tree.

13. Excursus: Philip Esler:
Sodom and Gomorrah in Rom 9:25-26——a lost rhetorical opportunity?

Picking up on the reference to the vessels of mercy who are “called” to share in divine “glory” (9:23-
24; cf 8:30), Paul cites two texts from Hosea where the eighth century northern prophet similarly
emphasized God’s gracious and efficacious “call.” However, while Hosea spoke of the restoration of
the northern tribes after their judgment and exile at the hands of the Assyrians (722 BC), Paul takes
these phrases in a wider sense as referring to Gentile believers coming to form part of the people of
God (Wright 2002:643).

25 As indeed he says in Hosea,

Those who were not my people I will call “my people,”

  and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved” (Hos 2:23).

26 And in the very place where it was said to them, “you are not my people,”

  There they will be called “sons of the living God” (Hos 1:10).

Even more surprising, Paul—whom many accuse of being hopelessly rigid in gender matters—first
images all Israel (males included) as God’s beloved wife, thus stripping the males of their superior
status (Rom 9:25 and Hos 2:23; cf Rom 1:27), but then immediately transgenders God’s wife into
“sons of the living God” (females included; Rom 9:26 and Hos 1:19). Obviously, As Bernadette
Brooten emphasizes (1996:252), when his rhetorical purpose required it, Paul pontificated gender
rigidity (1 Cor 11:14-16), but in other contexts he could gender bend as flamboyantly as any modern
queer.

9:27-29 Having followed Hosea’s lead and first transgendering males into God’s “wife” and then
transgendering females into God’s sons, Paul still is unable to let gender matters rest, and so
proceeds to yoke together two citations from the prophet Isaiah, concluding with a flourish about
antiquity’s most infamous gender benders, the males of Sodom and Gomorrah (who had attempted
gang rape of two visiting angels):

27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea,

only a remnant of them will be liberated, 28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the

earth

fully and without delay” [Isa 10:22-23].

29 And as Isaiah predicted,

If the Lord of hosts had not left us sperm/seed (offspring),

we would have fared like Sodom

and been likened to Gomorrah [Isa 1:9].

Israelite males, having been transgendered into God’s wife, and her females, transgendered into
God’s sons, are allowed to rest free from Paul’s surgical interventions for a couple of verses (as
“sons,” 9:27b). Although universally ignored by commentators, Paul’s climactic reference to Sodom
and Gomorrah, which concludes this first section (9:1-29), is important for three reasons.

First, unlike ecclesiastical and political homophobic rhetoric so popular for centuries, Paul
carefully avoided any reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in his rhetoric when he condemned
Gentile sexuality in 1:27 (male-male anal sex).

Second, he incorporates Isaiah’s reference to Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of
devastating divine judgment (as is most common in the Hebrew Bible), not as a cheap shot
caricaturing and denouncing male homoeroticism. In this way, Paul follows the example of
Jesus, who used the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of divine judgment
and to condemn inhospitality (Mat 10:11-15 // Luke 10:8-12). In Romans 9:29 Sodom and
Gomorrah remind readers of a divine judgment so severe that it left no remnant. Paul thus
prepares the way for his climactic exhortation to the Roman house churches to practice
hospitality and be inclusive (14:1; 15:7).

Third, Paul’s choice of the text from Isaiah to introduce Sodom and Gomorrah into the
argument would remind biblically literate leaders in the church how Isaiah refers to the
judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah (1:9) only to immediately spring a rhetorical trap
against the leaders of Jerusalem (Isa 1:10), whom the prophet proceeded to denounce for
their violence (“hands full of blood,” 1:15) and as guilty of injustice and oppression (1:17;
recall Paul’s similar tactic in Rom 2:1). Both Pharaoh (Rom 9:17) and Sodom and Gomorrah
(9:29) thus represent the kind of violent oppressive behavior that properly provokes God’s
wrath (1:18).

The reference to Sodom and Gomorrah that climaxes Romans 9:1-29 thus continues the subversion
and deconstruction of apparently homophobic rhetoric of 1:24-27 (followed by the rhetorical trap of 2:
1-16) and at the same time anticipates the exhortations to tolerance, mutual acceptance, hospitality
and inclusivity in 14:1 and 15:7. As William Countryman concludes:

“Paul…adds a second quotation from Isaiah that includes a threatening comparison between Israel

and

Sodom and Gomorrah (9:29). No doubt, Paul is fully conscious of the irony of this comparison,

since by his

time, the example of Sodom was part of the Jewish polemic against Gentile tolerance of

same-gender

sexual relationships. Paul makes no reference to the Sodom story in his own treatment

of same-gender

sexuality in chapter 1; but here, with Isaiah, he turns it against the Jewish nation”

(2003:193).

Philip Esler, however, proposes a radically different reading (“The Sodom Tradition in Romans 1:
18-32.” Biblical Theological Bulletin 34, 2003:4-16). He points out that scholars have sought to
identify some particular "major metaphor” underlying Romans 1:18-32:

Adam’s fall (Morna Hooker 1960 and others);
A “decline of civilization narrative” (Stanley Stowers, Dale Martin 1995 and others);
The Sodom tradition of Genesis 19 (Philip Esler 2003).

Each hypothesis can explain certain features of the text but all are contradicted by other features,
which suggests that Paul may be working without any “major metaphor.” Perhaps as in the case of
the famous “I” of Romans 7, a combination of influences best explains the complexity of features.
Thus, in the case of Philip Esler’s hypothesis, he is able to point to several similarities and parallels
with the Sodom tradition. However, the following differences seem even more striking:

When Paul refers to same-sex acts (Rom 1:27) he makes no mention of Sodom, but later,
when he makes the only reference to Sodom in all his writings (9:29), he says nothing about
same-sex acts. Same-sex acts and Sodom thus do not appear to be linked in Paul’s mind, as
we would expect, given their common linkage in Jewish intertestamental literature. In fact the
two themes seem to be intentionally separated by a rather wide gulf with eight chapters
functioning as a kind of sanitary cord or firewall to keep readers from relating, confusing or
equating them.

Paul’s only reference to Sodom (Rom 9:29) follows the common Hebrew Bible pattern, and
says nothing about same-sex acts, but simply cites Isaiah’s reference to Sodom as a paradigm
of severe divine judgment (Isa 1:9).

The Sodom narrative in Genesis 19 refers only to the males of the city (who attempt gang
rape of the two visiting angels); however, in Romans 1 Paul refers first (1:26) to women
engaging in sexual acts “against nature” (probably anal sex with males to avoid procreation).
Scholars remain puzzled about the priority Paul gives to women’s unnatural acts, but the
problem is only heightened, not solved, if Paul’s “major metaphor” is the Sodom narrative.
Esler thinks Ezekiel’s six references to the “daughters of Sodom” (16:46, 48, 48, 49, 53, 55)
explains Paul’s prioritizing and emphasis on women, but this seems rather farfetched.

Esler finds his closest parallels to Romans 1:26-27 not in the Hebrew Bible, but in
intertestamental texts such as Naphtali 3:2-4, but Paul overwhelmingly cites the canonical
books of the Hebrew Bible and (unlike Jude) largely ignores the intertestamental traditions.

Like the Hebrew Bible, other New Testament references to Sodom (Jude 7 excepted) avoid
any link with sexual offenses, but refer to Sodom simply as a paradigm of severe divine
judgment, or focus on the sin of refusing hospitality (Luke 10:12; Matt 11:23-24). Jude’s
exceptional reference to the sexual expression of Sodom’s sinfulness reflects the narrative in
Genesis 19, where the gender of the two visitors is not the issue, but the attempt to rape
“strange/other” [angelic] flesh.” Paul’s separation of male-male anal sex (Rom 1:27) from his
single reference to Sodom (9:29) thus fits the pattern of Jesus’ teaching and that of the
Hebrew Bible about Sodom, not the unique reference in Jude 7 that focuses on the sexual
expression of Sodom’s sin.

Paul speaks of God’s wrath revealed from heaven (Rom 1:18), but Genesis 19 and other OT
references to Sodom make no reference to God’s wrath. For Paul God’s wrath is provoked by
sins of idolatry and oppression, the abuse of power (1:18-23, 25, 28-32), as in the Hebrew
Bible (Ex 22:21-24). The sexual sins referred to in this context (1:24-27) are thus to be
understood as occurring in idolatrous contexts (pagan temple prostitution) and involving
abuses of power that harm the neighbor (Rom 13:8-10). If Sodom were one of the metaphors
behind Paul’s thinking in Romans 1, it would only be as a symbol of such idolatry and violent
oppression (see Jerusalem as “Sodom and Egypt, the city where the Lord was crucified,” Rev
11:8).

Were Esler correct, of course, it would only strengthen the case for understanding the rhetoric of
Rom 1:24-27 as directed against acts of oppression and violence (attempted gang rape of angels),
not against expressions of love between consenting adults.

A Gay Apostle’s Queer Epistle for a Peculiar People: Romans 1:24-27 in its Context
Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks

Part 2
Introduction:
Twelve Young Trees That Make a New Forest

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