If God knows everything, why did he send angels to Sodom to investigate?

tonychanyt said:

Why did God send angels to Sodom to investigate if God knows everything?

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Judgement requires witnesses.

Deuteronomy 19:15 “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established."

This witnesses to adjudicate theme is also repeated in the New Testament as well.

God is a God of order. 2 angels (messengers of God) went and witnessed (experienced) the evil first hand, then passed judgement upon them for their sins.

tonychanyt said:

Didn't God know already?

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People believe that the angels have to witness the events and record them in the book that God uses when He judges people.

Revelation 20:12 (NIV): "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.

God writes the book of our life but we do not always follow His book. This is all determined at conception before we even travel to the womb. God made man and women and then they become united and become one. Weeks 6-7: Around the sixth to seventh week of gestation, the gonads (sex organs) begin to develop. Initially, the gonads are undifferentiated and can develop into either testes or ovaries. Notice how 6 weeks is a reflection of the sixth day we read about in the Bible when God made them male and female.

Psalm 139 16 "
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Hazelelponi said:

Judgement requires witnesses.

Deuteronomy 19:15 “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established."

This witnesses to adjudicate theme is also repeated in the New Testament as well.

God is a God of order. 2 angels (messengers of God) went and witnessed (experienced) the evil first hand, then passed judgement upon them for their sins.

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Let me add one aspect to what you have both written. How can we be so convinced that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah really contains an anthropomorphism? According to biblical chronology, Moses lived in the 15th century BC. According to historians and archaeologists, he lived in the 13th century BC. There is a hypothesis that Catholic theologians and exegetes have been working on since the 20th century. This so-called Documentary Hypothesis states that the book of Genesis is a compilation of the sources Yahwist, Elohist, the priestly source and Deuteronomy. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is said to come from Yahwist, a source from the 10th century BC. Does this mean that Moses did not write the book of Genesis? No. He contributed to Yahwist through early oral traditions that were later written down. Please note that the Catholic Church does not reject the documentation hypothesis, but has not officially endorsed it either. Instead, it views the hypothesis as one possible approach within biblical scholarship. Most importantly, any method respects the divine inspiration and salvific character of Scripture. After Moses spread the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, there were centuries of oral traditions before his narrative was written down in the Yahwist. Keeping in mind that Moses is seen as a leader and mediator between God and the Israelites, it is imperative that he describes God in human terms so that the people can understand him better. So did all the people who spread the word for centuries before it was written down. And here we are with anthropomorphism.

MarkusB said:

Documentary Hypothesis states that the book of Genesis is a compilation of the sources

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Science has a lot to tell us about Genesis chapter one. There are 200,000 science books in the Harvard library that discuss what we read in The First Chapter of Genesis. Even we are told all the books in the world would not be enough to tell us what God has done.

John 21:25​

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books ...