Rape in the Hebrew Bible decried in the Bible's stories. It is not tolerated in the Bible's laws." Sunil Francis concurs in her book "Violence Against Women: A Christian Ethical Analysis on Rape", writing "The Bible always sees rape as violence and sin." Genesis 19 features an attempted homosexual gang rape. Two angels arrive in Sodom, and Lot shows them hospitality. However, the men of the city gathered around Lot's house and demanded that he give them the two guests so that they could rape them. In response to this, Lot offers the mob his two virgin daughters instead. The mob refuses Lot's offer, but
The Story of the Jews (book) review of the first volume for "The New York Times", Dwight Garner wrote: "Mr. Schama’s 'The Story of the Jews' is exemplary popular history. It’s engaged, literate, alert to recent scholarship and, at moments, winningly personal... Mr. Schama is Jewish, but not especially religious... His loyalty is obviously to the hard evidence. At the same time, he declares that “the ‘minimalist’ view of the Bible as wholly fictitious, and unhooked from historical reality, may be as much of a mistake as the biblical literalism it sought to supersede." Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, reviewing "Belonging" for the "New Statesman",