At the moment it is customary to treat the word "sodom" as a term denoting various forms of sexual perversion. This includes homosexuality, pedophilia, zoophilia, masturbation, as well as perverted contacts of the heterosexual plan. Simply put, by Sodom sin, we mean any sexual intercourse not of the vaginal plan, which does not lead to the conception of the child. But are we really so disorganized that we think that as if all the forms of non-vaginal contacts were listed in detail in the Bible that was written before? Is a person even there looking for "strawberries"?
Sodom Sin in Dictionaries
Of course, any solid explanatory dictionary can not escape the term fornication of Sodom. For example, the Great Dictionary of the Russian language explains the term sodomy, as only, anal sex . In different languages, the use of this term can be radically different, especially today, when homosexuality is in every way supported by the world community.
In the German explanatory dictionary "Duden", sodomy, means only contacts with animals, that is, zoophilia. He also indicates homosexual contacts, but only as an outdated understanding of the word.
In the US, the interpretation is more strict - it's both anal and oral contact with people of any gender.
And in jurisprudence the term sodomy is still actively used. Truth denotes unnatural sexual intercourse and incest.
Sodomy in the Bible
In Orthodoxy, Sodomite sin initially meant sodomy. In Catholicism before this came only in 1215 with the advent of the Inquisition. Then the terms "sodomy" and "sodomy" became identical in the name of the royal lawsuit against the Order of the Templars (to which the king owed too much money). The Templars, including, were accused of sodomy, and then successfully burned. Before that, in the Catholic Church, Sodomite sin had to be confessed, even when it meant only the extramarital affair between a man and a woman.
Later, Christians decided to make the concept of sodomy even more extensive. Once in Paris, a man was judged a Christian for sexual contact with a Jew. Having said that it's a soda, after all, sleeping with a Jew is like "sleeping with a dog". Such were the merry times.
By the way about how to profess Sodom sin, the Bible also does not extend, for it modern priests do. For sodomy, communion was forbidden for the next 20 years. Today, this punishment is even broader, and communion is allowed only before death. In the temple, repent of sodomy, should stand in the vestibule, since he is "the worst of all", it is not allowed to touch the shrines. In confession, the priest should not be called the term sodomy, but what you did, for example: homosexual contact or perversion in sexual intercourse, anal or oral sex . At the same time, I must say about the period of being in sodomy and the number of such contacts.
Sexual perversions in the Bible
Contrary to our belief in the correct interpretation of sodomy, the Bible is not in a hurry to expose the literal meaning of the term. So, the term sodomy appeared because of two cities destroyed by the Lord - Sodom and Gomorrah, whose inhabitants were wealthy, impious, inhospitable, in general, forgot about God.
Two angels arrived to the city to "investigate the situation." They stopped at Lot. In the evening in front of the house a crowd of people lined up, just hating strangers, they demanded that Lot take guests out to "know" them. "To know" in the biblical sense really means sexual contact.
Lot refused to do this (although he did not know that men were angels), he offered the intolerant people two daughters of virgins. They refused and began to advance. Then the angels interceded for Lot, made the local population blind and took away from the doomed city of Lot and his daughters.
However, in the Bible it is written that: "This is the sin of Sodom, your sister: proud, fed, happy, carefree, she and her daughters did not help the poor and the poor." In this case, the scripture clearly answers the question of why the city of Sodom was destroyed, and the desire to "know" the guests is not at all a key factor.