Sodom and Gomorra were neither Judged by God as wicked nor destroyed because of homosexuality

In one of his statements, Con implies that no one would ever offer sexual bribes, as Lot did with his daughters, if the person being offered the bribe was not intending on committing acts of a sexual nature in the first place. He says, “notice that Lot offers them his two virgin daughters to do with as they please. (Genesis 19:8) No doubt, Lot was offering them to rape his two daughters instead of the two men.” I’m not sure how Con can make such a definitive statement without providing any evidence to back It up. We can just as easily say that there’s no doubt that Lot offered his two daughters to the people as a bribe to protect his guest from being murdered. What evidence can be presented that proves Con’s interpretation to be the correct one? My opponent then goes on to say that “It would be odd to think that Lot would be encouraging them to do the very thing for which they were about to be destroyed.” But this assertion contradicts the fact that Lot didn’t know of any plans by God to destroy his place of residence until after the attack on his guests. So Lot’s actions were not even based on what God found to be ‘wicked’ in Sodom and Gomorra in the first place. Basing his point on the fact that Lot sexually offered his daughters to be raped by the crowd, Con claims that there must have been something more than rape that caused God’s final judgment. He claims the final nail in the coffin was the crowd’s attempt to commit homosexual rape against the angels. But as I’ve already shown above, all of the people, including the women and girls, were a part of the crowd that supposedly attempted to sexually assault Lot’s guests. Which means that if the crowd as a whole called out for Lot to stand aside while they raped his guests, then the females would be just as guilty. Based on Con’s logic, this would be considered heterosexual rape, which contradicts his claims that it was homosexual rape, not just rape in general, that caused God to finally destroy Sodom and Gomorra. Throughout this entire debate the central focus has been on the assumption that the word ‘know’, used by the people of Sodom and Gomorra, was in fact nothing more than a sexual euphemism that implied their intention to rape God’s angels. In round one I questioned this interpretation, and supplied an alternative theory in which the intentions of the people were not to rape the angels, but to kill them. Con takes issue with this assertion, asking me, based on what evidence can I claim this? He raises an important question. Is there any biblical evidence that supports my view that ‘know’ can in some instances have connotations denoting murder? I believe there is. It just so happens that there’s another story in the Bible that directly parallels the events in Sodom and Gomorra. The difference in this story however, is that one of the victim’s shares with us what the actual intentions were of the crowd that wanted to ‘know’ him. Judges chapter 19 tells us the story of a Levite man who was traveling with his wife. Not wanting to stay in a non-Israeli city for the night, the man decided to travel to the nearest Jewish city of Gibeah, which belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. Once in the city, a native Benjamite invited the man and his wife to stay as guests in his home for a couple of nights (Judges 19:1-21). But lo and behold, a group of local men came banging on the door, demanding to ‘know’ the strangers. Judges 19:22-23 says “22Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. 23And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.” Here we see a striking resemblance to the actions of the people of Sodom and Gomorra. The Hebrew word for ‘know’ (yada’) that was used in Sodom, is the same word also used in this verse. Judges 19:24 says “24Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his wife; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.” Just like Lot, the Benjamite man attempts to bribe the men from their ‘vile’ intentions, by offering them two women to abuse for their pleasure. What is this vile thing that the men were trying to do to the Levite? Let’s find out. Verses 25-29 says “25But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his wife, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. 26Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. 27And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his wife was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. 28And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon a donkey, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. 29And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.” Unlike with Sodom and Gomorra, there were no angels to save the woman in this story. She was cast outside by her husband, and given to the crowd of angry men to be sexually assaulted. And they raped and abused her all night. Again, we see here that the phrase ‘knew her’ denotes a sexual connotation, because the text says that she was given to them for a sexual purpose, and then that they ‘abusively’ knew her. But then wouldn’t that mean that the men also wanted to know the foreign man in order to sexually abuse him too? No. In fact, the ‘sons of belial’ wanted to kill the Levite man, not rape him. After sending out pieces of his wife's body, the other tribes of Israel came together in military council near Gibeah (Judges 20:1-3). In Judges 20:4-5, the Levite man tells the Israeli chiefs what the group of men in Gibeah intended to do to him, “4And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my wife, to lodge. 5And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my wife have they forced, that she is dead.” Here, the Levite man says that the men of Gibeah wanted to kill him. If they wanted to ‘know’ him in a sexually abusive manner, then he would have made mention of it in his testimony to the tribal council, instead of just mentioning their intent to kill. If the word know can have a connotation denoting murder in this particular story, then is it not also possible that it meant the same thing in Genesis 19:5? After the Levite man finished telling his story, the tribes of Israel decided to make war on the city of Gibeah, and God agreeing with their decision, told them that He would deliver the Benjamites into their hands. The tribes eventually defeated the city of Gibeah and completely destroyed its walls, and killed all of its inhabitants (Judges 20:11-48). So just like with Sodom and Gomorrah, the city and people of Gibeah were completely destroyed by the will of God, though this time through his people (whom did not yet exist during the years of Sodom and Gomorra). This provides empirical proof that the word ‘know’, when applied to males in a certain context, can be used with a connotation to commit murder, instead of rape. Any argument that Con has based on the assumption that the men of Sodom wanted to sexually 'know' Lot's guests, must be rendered a fallacy due to lack of evidence of a sexual connotation.