Jude 7 – ‘So also Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, since they indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire in a way similar to these angels, are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire.’

The expression sarkos heteras is, lit., ‘other flesh’.  It is variously translated:-

ESV, NET  – ‘unnatural desire’
NIV, Good News, – ‘perversion’
NASB – ‘went after strange flesh’
RSV – ‘indulged in unnatural lust’
NRSV – ‘pursued unnatural lust’
AV – ‘going after strange flesh’

1. Some think that it refers to the Sodomites lusting after the flesh of angels:-

Green:

‘Jude may mean that just as the angels fell because of their lust for women, so the Sodomites fell because of their lust for angels (sarkos heteras indeed!).’

So also NBC.  Hillyer appears to favour this view.

In favour of this interpretation is the fact that Peter has just referred to the sexual sin of angels for human women, and it would make good sense to move on to an instance of human lust for angels.

It is also to be noted that the phrase often translated ‘unnatural flesh’ might better be rendered, ‘other/different flesh’.  As Preston Sprinkle points out, homosexual intercourse is condemned in Scripture precisely because it is sex between two people who have the ‘same flesh’ in common (i.e. that of two men or two women).

Bauckham writes:

‘In Jewish tradition the sin of Sodom was rarely specified as homosexual practice (though PhiloAbr 135–36 is a notable account of Sodomite homosexuality, and cf Mos. 2.58). The incident with the angels is usually treated as a violation of hospitality, and the Sodomites are condemned especially for their hatred of strangers (Wis 19:14–15; Josephus, Ant 1:194; PirqeREl 25), their pride and selfish affluence (Ezek 16:49–50; 3 Macc 2:5; Josephus, Ant 1.194; PhiloAbr 134; TgPsJ Gen. 13:13; 18:20), or their sexual immorality in general (Jub 16:5–6; 20:5; TLevi 14:6; TBenj 9:1). So it is not very likely that Jude means to accuse the false teachers of homosexual practice…”

It is urged against this interpretation that

(a) we would not expect angels to be referred to as being, or having, ‘flesh’;

(b) the Sodomites did not know that they were lusting after angels: they thought that Lot’s two visitors were men.  Lucas and Green are clear that ‘the sin intended by the men of Sodom was emphatically not that of lust after angels, since they had no idea of the spiritual significance of their visitors.’

2. Many commentators think that it refers to the homosexual lust of the Sodomites:-

Davids:

‘It is…likely that Jude too is thinking of homosexual activity as the “different type of flesh” (different, not from themselves, but from the women they were supposed to desire). This would be in line with the general Jewish rejection of homosexual relations.’

Lucas & Green:

‘it seems inescapable that the sin of Sodom was an attempted homosexual gang rape.’

In either case, a homosexual element is present, in that the Sodomites desired sex with persons they supposed to be men.