"Sodomy is a study of the reception of Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah, together with the parallel story in Judges 19-21, the outrage at Gibeah, in both Christian and Jewish traditions from antiquity through to the Reformation period. The book sets out to detoxify the dominant homophobic interpretation of Genesis 19, in which Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an archetypal story of divine antipathy towards same-sex love and desire, by showing it to be a Christian invention, emerging in the first few centuries of the Christian era."--BOOK JACKET.