From Sodom to Gehenna: The Old Testament Typology of Sodom and Gomorrah as God’s Eschatological Judgment

Abstract

This thesis attempts to enter the larger scholarly conversation about biblical typology and OT typology specifically. Significant studies have been done on the NT author’s use of typology in explaining the OT and its fulfillment in Christ, but more work is needed in the field of OT typology and the OT’s use of the OT. Biblical typology begins in the OT as an aspect of revelation. Specific types, therefore, can be recognized through the standard use of grammatical-historical-literary exegesis which traces the development of types throughout the canon of Scripture in conjunction with the promises and covenants they are related to. Moreover, since types begin in the OT, they can be recognized through exegesis of OT texts alone. The aim of this thesis is to provide a case study of OT typology by examining the example of Sodom and Gomorrah (S&G) and tracing how the OT itself presents S&G as the event-type of God’s eschatological judgment. To support the argument, I examine the S&G narrative within its wider canonical context of the Torah and argue that the narrative is linked with the flood narrative, the Abrahamic covenant, and eschatological promises of judgment, and that S&G’s relationship with this theological context indicates that Moses intends S&G to be recognized as the type of God’s eschatological judgment. This point is further substantiated by examining key passages in the Former Prophets and Latter Prophets that utilize the S&G narrative to explain subsequent judgments that fall on both Israel and the nations and to prophesy about what is coming upon the whole world in a final judgment. I conclude that the biblical authors understood that the end of the present world would come through a S&G-type judgment and that out of this judgment would emerge a new, Edenic world for YHWH and his people.