Jude 1:7 & 2 Peter 2:10 - Sodom, Part 2

Jude 1:7 - Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. [NRSV]

Commentary - Other translations include "giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh" (KJV), "gave themselves over to fornication and followed after other carnal lusts" (Lamsa from the Aramaic), "became immoral and did all sorts of sexual sins" (CEV), "the fornication of Sodom and Gomorrah" (JB), "acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust" (RSV), "were full of sexual sin and people who desired sexual relations that God does not allow" (NCV), "gave themselves us to sexual immorality and perversion" (NIV), "given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh" (NKJV), "all full of lust of every kind including lust of men for other men" (LB), "indulged in sexual immorality and perversion" (TEV). and "immorality and every kind of sexual perversion" (NLT).

Except for a few who continue to insist that the sin of Sodom was male-male sex, Scripture scholars today simply do not see homogenitality in this text. Nonetheless, like any vague text in the Bible, people can take it to mean what they want, and some modern translations encourage misinterpretation, especially the Living Bible.

Jude faults the people of Sodom for lusting after "strange" or "alien" flesh. That is clearly what the Greek says "sarkos heteras." The King James Version is, surprisingly, the most accurate rendering of this text. The "alien flesh" it is referring to clearly means having sexual intercourse with angels, the true context of the Sodom story in Genesis 19. This text simply cannot be used in any argument against homosexuality.

2 Peter 2:4-10 - [4] For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; [5] and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; [6] and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; [7] and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless [8] (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), [9] then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment [10] especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. [NRSV]

Commentary - Other translations of verse 10 include those who '"walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanliness" (KJV), "follow after filthy lusts of the flesh" (Lamsa), "don’t think of anything except their own filthy desires" (CEV), "are governed by their corrupt bodily desires" (JB), "indulge in the lust of defiling passion" (RSV), "live by doing the evil things their sinful selves want" (NCV), "follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature" (NIV), "walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness" (NKJV), "follow their own evil, lustful thoughts" (LB), "follow their filthy bodily lusts" (TEV), and "those who follow their own twisted sexual desire" (NLT).

2 Peter 2:6 mentions Sodom and Gomorrah in a list of examples of God’s punishment. The text does not say what the ungodliness in question was. But because the text mentions Sodom, some have concluded the sin was homosexuality. Hardly anyone at all would hold that opinion today. The point of the text is that God punishes the wicked. Sodom is simply listed as an example. There is no reference to any sexual offense here. This text does not specify what the sin in question was. If a particular sin has to be specified, scholars would bet on sex with angels (see verse 4). Then we are back to the same situation we saw in Jude 7. The concern is sex between humans and angels not same-sex relationships. Once again, this text simply cannot be used in any argument against homosexuality.