‘Knock,Knock,Knockin’ on Sodom’s Door’: The Function of [ILLEGIBLE]/[ILLEGIBLE] in Genesis 18-19

The history of research into chs. 18-19 of the book of Genesis has tended to be a history of entrenchment and the provision of support for a ground-text which can be employed for the biblical condemnation of same-gender, genitally expressed sexuality. A close reading of the narrative reveals, however, that the story has been peppered with a number of clues consciously designed to lead the reader to a more or less comprehensive interpretation of an otherwise ambiguous text. This article contends that the ‘sexual’ reading of the Mamre-Sodom narrative is thus by no means the most comprehensive and that its author’s use, among other things, of the key words [ILLEGIBLE] and [ILLEGIBLE] further support an alternative reading in which sex and sexuality have no significant role to play.