Sarah’s Laugh, Sodom’s Sin, Hagar’s Kin: Queering Time and Belonging in Genesis 16-21

Abstract

The story of Sodom’s destruction bears the weight of a long history of violence against queer people. The now-standard revisionist view argues the story has nothing to do with sexuality, but rather the ancient ethic of hospitality toward strangers. This article reconsiders both Sodom’s sin and the hospitality ethic of “inclusion” through a series of tropological readings linking Sodom to Sarah’s laugh and Hagar’s wandering. Parts 1 and 2 suggest that, in Sarah’s cynicism and Sodom’s violent grasp for control, the text shows readers competing modes of response to the temporality of strange flesh—to queer futures arriving as wandering divine visitors. Part 3 examines how this reading recasts contemporary debates among Christian interpreters concerning sexuality and among queer theorists concerning temporality and inclusion. Part 4 on Jude’s reinterpretation of Sodom and Part 5 on Hagar imagine ethical possibilities otherwise—beyond “including” strangers, toward undermining the logic of estrangement itself.