Your enclosure is a summary from D. A. Helminiak’s What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality (1994) 107-109: “The sin of Sodom was inhospitality, not homosexuality . . . . And from the bible’s positive teaching about heterosexuality, there follows no valid conclusion whatsoever about homosexuality.”

To correct and refute this distortion, this Q/A limits itself to the Sodom passage in Gen. 19:1-29. No attempt is made here to review the other negative biblical condemnations of homosexual acts in Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom. 1:26, 27; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10; Jude 7.

First, it’s important to read Genesis 19 even in translation. I cite here the revised New American Bible (1987); the townsmen of Sodom come out to the house of Lot and demand: “Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them”; (Gen. 19:5) and Lot responding: “I have two daughters that have never had intercourse with men” (19:8).

The opinion that this refers to inhospitality instead of homosexuality is not a recent opinion. This “revision” was once suggested by the Anglican author D. Sherwin Bailey in his book: Homosexuality and Western Christian Tradition first published in London in 1955 and reprinted in 1975 (p. 155).

The thrust of Bailey’s argument is to question any reference to homosexual sin in Gen. 19:5. He argues that the Hebrew word YADA (“to know”) although sometimes means to “have intercourse with” (e.g., Gen. 4:1 and Gen. 19:8) may only mean “get acquainted with” in Gen. 19:5. Thus, the demand to “know” the visitors Lot entertained would imply a serious breach of the rules of hospitality rather than any sexual connotation at all. The popular reach of this “revision” has gone far beyond any biblical evidence to support it.

Bailey’s interpretation is open to profound criticism and refutation; cf. D. J. Wold, Out of Order (Homosexuality in the Bible) (1998) pp. 77-89.

1. 1) It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand the weight of biblical tradition re the “sin of Sodom” in terms of the rules of hospitality; consider, Gen. 13:13; 14:11; 18:20; Deut. 29:23; 32:32; Isa. 1:9; 13:19; Jer. 49:18; 50:40; Lam. 4:6; Ezek. 16:46-58; Amos 4:11; Zeph. 2:9; these are not references to inhospitality!
2. The New Testament refers to Sodom as a pointer to divine judgment: Matt. 10:15; Luke 10:12; 13:19; 17:29; 2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 7: “Sodom, Gomorrah . . . indulged in lust; they practiced unnatural vice. They are set before us to dissuade us, as they undergo a punishment of eternal fire.” These passages, and many others, do not refer to inhospitality, the “sin of Sodom” is seen in the Bible as the proud defiance of God-given norms, with a clear sexual component.
3. 2) It is not acceptable to decide the meaning of YADA (“to know”) by statistics, lest the less common meaning would never be the probable meaning of the word. The word (YADA) does have a range of meanings in the bible: to know; have experience; be wise; have relations with; sexual intercourse; etc. This word appears 943 times in the Old Testament: 17 refer to sexual intercourse; 28 times it means get acquainted with. Thus, only the context can determine its meaning in a given passage. Since everyone, even D. S. Bailey, admits that YADA can only refer to sexual intercourse in Gen. 19:8, it is difficult to deny the same meaning to the same word 3 verses earlier (19:5) in the very same passage. The Brown, Driver, Briggs, Hebrew-English Lexicon (1962) p. 394, and, G. Botterwick’s Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament v. 5 (1986) p. 464, both make this exegetical point.
4. 3) Whatever questions might be raised or suggested concerning the historicity of the event (Sodom), it is part of the canon of Scripture, and the moral judgment conveyed is no less valid regardless of the form used to convey that judgment. It is true that there are various literary forms of expression in the Bible (e.g., poems; song; saga; prose; tale; story; etc.) but the point here and in every other mention of homosexual acts in the Old or New Testament is the moral judgment conveyed in a negative judgment of prohibition.
5. 4) The punishment (rain down “sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah” [Gen. 19:24]) makes no sense if the offense is merely one of inhospitality. Where else in the Bible do you read of effectively “nuking” a city for a breach of hospitality? This makes no biblical nor logical sense. Inhospitality is not a “crime that cries out to heaven” (cf. Catechism #1867, esp. footnote #140) rather it cries out to Barnes and Noble for a copy of Emily Post.

In a remarkable and authoritative Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued “The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” (PCHP) on October 1, 1986. This CDF “Letter” addresses both the generic question of the misuse of Scripture and this particular text itself (Gen. 19).

For authentic “pastoral care,” the CDF correctly notes we should first identify sources of confusion that undermine Church teaching. “One (source of confusion) is a new exegesis of Sacred Scripture which claims variously that Scripture has nothing to say on the subject of homosexuality, or that it somehow tacitly approves of it, or that all of its moral injunctions are so culture-bound that they are no longer applicable to contemporary life. These views are gravely erroneous and call for particular attention here” (PCHP, no. 4).

The CDF correctly notes “that the biblical literature owes to the different epochs in which it was written a good deal of its varied patterns of thought and expression” (PCHP, no. 5). Truly, the Church today addresses the Gospel to a world different from the ancient world. Indeed, the world in which the New Testament was written was already diverse from the situation in which the Hebrew Scriptures were written and compiled.

But what is crucial here is that “in the presence of such remarkable diversity, there is nevertheless a clear consistency with the Scriptures themselves on the moral issue of homosexual behavior” (PCHP, no. 5). This is quite true. The narrative form of Gen. 19 differs from the Holiness Code of Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, both of which differ again from the Epistles of St. Paul (Rom. 1:18-32; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10). All these Scriptures were written from and for diverse situations, but the remarkable truth is all of them convey the exact same negative moral judgment on homosexual behavior. There is then a “constant biblical testimony. The community of faith today, in unbroken continuity with the Jewish and Christian communities within which the ancient Scriptures were written continues to be nourished by the same Scriptures and by the Spirit of Truth whose Word they are” (PCHP, no. 5).

Above, D. Helminiak asserts: “And from the Bible’s positive teaching about heterosexuality, there follows no valid conclusion whatsoever about homosexuality.” That assertion is gravely erroneous. Authentic positive teachings clearly address and refute their negative contradiction.

As the CDF “Letter” teaches: “Providing a basic plan for understanding this entire discussion of homosexuality is the theology of creation we find in Genesis. God, by His infinite wisdom and love, brings into existence all of reality as a reflection of His goodness. He fashions mankind, male and female, in His own image and likeness. Human beings, therefore, are nothing less than the work of God Himself; and in the complementarity of the sexes, they are called to reflect the inner unity of the Creator. They do this in a striking way in their cooperation with Him in the transmission of life by a mutual donation of self to the other” (PCHP, no. 6).

In Genesis 3, this truth about persons being an image of God is obscured by original sin. Inevitably there follows a loss of awareness of the covenantal character of the union these persons had with God and with each other. “The human body retains its ‘spousal significance’ but this is now clouded by sin.” And thus to the very text we have examined: “in Genesis 19:1-11, the deterioration due to sin continues in the story of the men of Sodom. There can be no doubt of the moral judgment made there against homosexual relations” (PCHP, no. 6).