Xref: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu soc.religion.christian:21789
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!magnesium.club.cc.cmu.edu!pitt.edu!gatech!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian
From: revdak@netcom.com (D. Andrew Kille)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Homosexuality
Message-ID: <May.23.04.55.12.1993.19971@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 23 May 93 08:55:14 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Lines: 48
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

Bryan Whitsell (whitsebd@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu) wrote:
: Recently an e-mail to me mentioned:

: (Technically, the messengers aren't even human so
: it *can't* be a case of "homosexuality" -- even of rape.) [...]

: The Jude reference to Sodom is also meaningful only in the context of
: the Sodomites' "lust" for the "other flesh" of angels.  Again,
: application to homosexual behavior in general, or to the position of
: gay Christians is largeely specious.
: ***
: Are angels "flesh"? No. I feel that this is saying that it was because
: of their lust after other men, who are flesh( or of this world).

: what are other opinons on this? I haven't heard much about this verse  
: at all.

Bo Reike in the Anchor Bible volume on _James, Peter, and Jude_ points
out that all the examples given in this section of Jude are distinguishing
the elect from _apostates_, not just the wicked in general.  Hence, those
who were delivered from Egypt, but did not follow Moses (and, by extension,
God); the apostate angels; and Sodom and Gomorrah.  Quoting Reike:

	"Fornication may here, as often in the New Testament,
	refer to idolatry, while "flesh" (as in I Pet 1:24) 
	denotes human society and its violent attempts at self-
	exaltation.  Sodom and Gommorrah represent the leaders
	of apostasy, and the surrounding cities correspond to
	their followers." [p. 199]


There is no inherent reason to read this verse (7) as literally referring
to actual sexual lust for "alien flesh".  Nor is it inherently necessary
to understand it as referring to homosexuality, outside of the circular
reasoning that has already concluded that the sin of Sodom is the sin
of homosexuality.  The only place that the sin of Sodom is specified, and
not merely inferred, is in Ezekiel 16:49 "This was the guilt of your sister
Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease,
bit did not aid the poor and needy.  They were haughty, and did abominable
things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

For the same reason (overliteralizing the text) your correspondent's
suggestion that the reason the passage doesn't deal with homosexuality
is because the guests were angels and not men is just silly.  There 
are much more solid reasons for pointing out the irrelevance of the
Sodom passages for dealing with homosexuality per se.

revdak@netcom.com
