Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19

lol. but i DO use capitals occasionally. SEE?

yes. and that is the difference i was explaining. i'm flat out wrong to assert that social darwinism didn't exist in the bronze age? do you hear yourself? and which two front? the textual evidence you provided that clearly refutes your point? or the difference in philosophies of rich and poor, which also refutes your point? proof has been given. you're arguing it's existance. social darwinism in the bronze age. that's all i need to say. what you have suggested is even more anachronistic than what i have suggested. stith thompson, "motif index of folk-literature..." so i can demonstrate that i'm right by quoting you? no, i don't think so. you DIDN'T demonstrate that social darwinism existed in the text. in jeremiah's case, he's using a rhetorical question. which you don't seem to understand in my posts either: when i asked you if you wanted more proof you were wrong, you asked me to provide it. if you had kept reading, it was the next thing written. and the verse in samuel is accusing david of a crime on the "corporate" level. and you're obviously not very interested in actually finding anything out, either. you just want to sit there secure in your knowlegde and think you're right. it's not a cheap excuse. i don't have the chance to run out to a library at the moment. and it's quite a big venture, too. here's one of the six volumes:

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Mat 6:7 ...use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

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i've provided textual evidence that genesis was written well into the iron age, and probably in a context that would produce such a collective ACCUSATION. not virtue, accusation. we've been over this. now who's making claims that can't be supported? sure, it might have been an oral tradition long before it was written. in fact, it was probably written down long before its inclusion in genesis. but the fact of the matter is that genesis was LAST modified a lot more recently. we KNOW that because bits indicate a date post 900bc, probably closer to 600. if the stories existed beforehand, they were modified after this date.this shows that you basically have zero knowledge of ancient literature studies. you have to date the book by it's last known modification. that's a basic, basic principle of the field. BY SIX HUNDRED YEARS. no, it just indicates that whoever wrote it down lived during the iron age, and an anachronism made it into the text. changing your tune, i see. you said bronze age. shall i quote you? the fact of the matter is genesis is ABOUT a nomadic culture, not written by one. the end bronze in the near east is actually defined more or less by the traditional date of the exodus, and settling in israel, as well as a few other population shifts. the hebrew who wrote genesis were not the nomadic people in the stories. as i've pointed out, the signs indicate that they were an exiled people.also, you've been shown a group of people collectively punished for inhospitality in a heroic myth. next? being explicit in criticizing and power uh. no. it's called exploring alternatives. i'm trying some different ways of reading the story. nothing satisfies you, does it? whether or not it's a specific criticism, it still fits the general pattern of a hospitality myth. it just might be specifically criticizing a particular culture's treatement of foriegners. these two are not incompatible. strawman: i didn't say it was ONLY propaganda. i hold the opinion that the primary purpose of genesis is to record mythology, and thus cultural identity, in order to preserve said identity in an oppressive foriegn culture. that explains the book as a whole quite well.my hebrew professor, well versed in this field, admitted this was probably correct too, but refused to believe it on a strictly religious basis. really now? like what? here's a challenge for you then. king david is one of biggest figures in the book. the first and most influential king of judah and israel united.show me his name on something archaeology has turned up. not "ben david" but KING david. yes, and guess what? the iliad is still just a story. it's a work of fiction, even if troy really existed and there really was a trojan war. was there a guy named achilles? how about helen? what about the horse? how many years did it last?likewise, sodom is just a story, even if there is a real place that bears similarity to it. on it's own, maybe you have a point. taken with the other anachronisms in the text, you do not. because the bronze age hebrew nomads had not domesticated camels, nore were the chaldeans in ur, nore were there kings in israel. the text was written post-bronze-age. that's nice and all, but as i've pointed out, we're not talking about the bronze age. we're talking about 600 years into the iron age. got an iron age book? i'll look that one up. you say as you repeat: let's review the facts of the greek myth one more time.
two gods, disguised as travellers. shut out by the town. taken in by one couple. the whole town is punished, the couple rewarded.so if the city in that myth is not punished for inhospitality, and that's an anachronistic reading, what ARE they punished for? sounds nice. now what's the difference with hospitality?there's another problem, though. genesis is a book unlike any other in the bible. all of the other books are strictly monotheistic. genesis is henotheistic. they're tolerant of other beliefs. this is a bit of a suprise actually, but it does work with the exile model. isolationism, sure. but start openly knocking the gods of your oppressors, they'll kill you.so, if this is a religious cult sex thing, why the condemnation that's so out of place with the rest of the book? it can't be a religious thing. such as their treatement of outsiders. that's just brushing the story off though. let's assume for the moment that it is in fact rationalizing a natural disaster. HOW is it rationalizing it? what does the story say? how did the people who wrote it view that disaster?

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Genesis 19:6-8

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So Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him, and said, "I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong. ...do not do anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof."

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you know the story is really interesting. you should read it sometime. possibly. but that's not what i'm saying at all. i'm not talking about violating cultural laws, i'm saying that it's possible the whole bit is about babylon violating judah. not social justice. many other authors of the time (prophets) wrote that israel and judah were well deserving of their fates, but that god would eventually forgive them. i'm just saying that genesis might be a different opinion. there's not an absence of evidence. i'm asking a reading comprehension question. you have the story, you have the context. now, what does it say? but the story is NOT an account of a natural disaster. it's an account of a SUPERnatural disaster. it may have originally been an attempt to rationalize a real natural disaster, but that's not the way the story is written. it's written as: these people are bad, here's something bad they did, boom god kills them all. now, what bad did they do? in science, the best explanation stands until there is a better one. it may be point of fact that people knew the ptolemaic solor system model did not QUITE adequately predict the motions of the planets, yet it stood until copernicus came along. that wasn't perfect either, but it stood until kepler.so, even if my arguments does have a problem or two, it's going to stand until someone provides an alternative that better fits the facts. edited image size to fix page width - The Queenre-edited to fix it even better - arachThis message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-18-2005 02:12 AM

from my last post:

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(fornicators in the corinthians verse is "pornos" or prostitutes)

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pst. it's the same word in greek.

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First Corinthians 5:11-13

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But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

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Matthew 9:10-12

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And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw [it], they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard [that], he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

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i could find you more, but i have to go eat now.

why i asked, wasn't sure.but i'm not totally sure that counts for what i was saying. i know homosexuality was commonplace (especially in spartan military training) but were there consentual adult relationships? were two men ever married? that's a fundamentally different sort of relationship, and fills a different societal role.

oh god, tell that to contracycle. please. my jps tanakh renders the text idiomatically, and says that the townsfolk ask to "be intimate" with the visitors. they seem to be reading the sexual connotation from SOMEWHERE although for the life of me i can't figure out where.yada is used euphemistically for sex alot, but not all of the time. it's clearly used euphemistically in verse 8, referring to lot's two daughters (which have not "known" a man). maybe the sexual connotation is drawn from this verse, in that lot offers his two daughter instead of the angels. i've heard christians espouse that view numerous times on this board. you're suprised now? they insist that they wrote stuff they didn't understand and that christians several thousand years are interpretting it the right way -- when nothing could be further from the truth. well, let's not be misleading here: the bible has always been anti-homosexuality. the two verses in leviticus, nearest i can tell, say about the same thing in every translation i've ever read. but leviticus holds the strictest standards, and is directed at the levites: the priests.it's just that some bits that may or may not have been talking about homosexuality before have been translated a little differently. (such as gen 19) i beg to differ. there's not always a connection between stories. it is a massively disjointed and confounded book. often times, the "connections" are later misinterpretations of an original text. (like all of matthew's fulfilled "prophesies.") there does seem to a connection there, doesn't there? as much as contracycle is going to whine about this, abram seems to be observing some sort of custom regarding a foriegner and the city that hosts him. genesis 19 is the violation of that trust in the other direction. are you reading the levitical verses differently? i'm very curious. i've heard at least one person espouse the view that lesbianism was simply accepted in the society. i dunno if there's any weight to that argument though.

oh, i knew i left out a word: monogamous. granted, this is VERY similar to 1970's closetted homosexual behaviour. marriage for show and to fit into society. quite. you make very interesting points. now, do you think the verses in the bible are talking about this sort of relationship? because i suspect not.

no, YOU claimed the opposite. you said the philosophy pervalent at the time of the authorship of genesis was something very close to modern social darwinism. i said it would have to have been something closer to the divine right of kings. neither philosophy is an accurate description of their society. you're honestly insisting that social darwinism goes back to the bronze age? newflash. i AM a literalist. i think the bible literally means what it says, even if it's wrong. and it's wrong alot. the echoes that you showed are the opposite ideas. in the nathan and david story, what's david's reaction? is it "well, maybe the poor guy deserved it?" no, it's "i'll kill the rich guy!" the actions of the rich man in nathans metaphor are unthinkable to david. and then... then he turns it on david and applies to a societal level.now, tell me, how does that NOT disprove your point two different ways? there's a difference between "if the bible doesn't say it, it didn't happen" and "the bible says exactly the opposite, stop making stuff up." anecdotal story: i brought this up to my mother the other night. she holds a masters degree in classic (greek and roman) literature. her house is filled with books in latin and greek, and books about greco-roman culture. i told her that someone was insisting that bronze age people had no idea of a collective form of hospitality. you know what she did?she laughed.then she started going on about how in the odyssey, telemechus orchestrates the slaughter of a whole group of suitors who have been hounding his mother for the past twenty years, because they have violated the host-guest relationship. actually, that doesn't follow logically. but even if that's the case, it does not show that such a stance was the majority position. most of the evidence in the bible is a very tolerant position of the poor, as you yourself admitted. i have too. and you know what, the internet is useless. did you look up the BOOK i told you to look up? yes, and i've already pointed how lots of other bits of genesis are anachronistic to the context as well. genesis is clearly written much later. that means your argument is pointless. yeah, about 10 pages back in this thread, actually, two examples were given. you've essentially said "i don't agree" and ignored what the stories said, and the majority of academic scholarship. you are showing your ignorance of the field.last modified has to be the effective date for authorship, because that's when the last changes were made. originating in old folk tales and first written down in 600bc, and copied from older manuscripts in 600bc are essentially no different, because whoever did it changed stuff, like adding camels, chaldeans, kings in israel, iron, and maybe in this case hospitality.it's entirely plausible that the story originally said something else until 600bc. uh, completely irrelevant. mesoamerica is not mesopotamia. and the celts didn't live in israel last i checked. the bronze age in mesopotamia went until about 1200, roughly the traditional time of moses. you study something, please. no, i do know. i've explained REPEATEDLY that genesis is full of anachronisms that ALL indicate an iron age society wrote it. every last one of them. so a verse about someone working iron, while not striking on its own, is just one more verse on that pile.in fact, in the first seven books, all supposedly about bronze age people, the word for iron is used 21 times. usually in the context of tools or tooling. whoever put these books together lived in a culture that was using iron tools.that leaves your next argument: possible but presumptious. and remember, as was just pointed out to you above, their bronze age did end 300 years before most other peoples. know what else contradicts the elements of the regional culture?one god.

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And, I have already explained why this does not constitute a rebuttal: my claim is not "generalisation never happens", it is that "hospitality is not generalisable in bronze age societies". You are attakcing a straw man again - please stop doing so and stick to the issue.

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and one more time: the people who wrote genesis were NOT nomadic.sounds like you could use an exercise or two in keeping concept in mind. two individuals rewarded AND THE REST OF THE TOWN PUNISHED. are you still missing that part of the story? it's rather important.and two other examples have been pointed out: troy in the iliad, and penelope's suitors in the odyssey. how many examples will be enough? that's nice, but we're dealing with the hebrews, not the egyptians. and look at how pharoah is depicted in the hebrew literature, for his treatment of foriegners. there, oh look ANOTHER example, because of his unfair treatment of the foriegners (the israelites), he's punished with plaque after plaque, ending with every firstborn in egypt dying. now, do tell me how that's not example of "collective" inhospitality being punished?also: in egypt pharoah's had things called NAMES. only in the hebrew literature is he just refered to as "pharoah." the issue is apparently not defeat, but treatment afterwards. not paying attention again? i said during the exile, not the battle that lead to it. i would hardly call KING DAVID a jot or tittle.but ok. how about:
abraham?
isaac?
jacob?
joseph?
moses?
aaron?
joshua?
saul?where are:
the ten commandments?
the ark of the covenant?
noah's ark?
the tabernacle?these are pretty important parts in the narratice of the origin of the hebrew people. surely, we must have SOMETHING, right? what do we have? we have a few cities that don't quite match the descriptions in the bible, and a rock with the words "ben david" on it. oh, and few things that show the bible is far from complete, like king jehu kissing the feet of shalmanessar iii in defeat, which is NOWHERE in the bible. so tell me, what does exactly verify the bible in archaeology? yes, it would. and i've used this very example in other threads. a long with titanic and leonardo dicaprio, the recent king arthur movie, and the iliad and the trojan war.i'm not saying these things didn't happen, or that these places weren't real. just that stories themselves are fiction. and we need to remember that with sodom. sodom probably was a real place. and something probably really happened to it. however, we've been talking ONLY about the story. but it is NOT merely the record of an event. it's saying something. everything in genesis is saying something. this story is condemning a whole group of people. WHY? what does the FICTION on top of the fact SAY? that's basically what i said. we're looking at the story, not the place. although, granted, the thread is supposed to be looking at place and not the story. that's great and all, but camels were not domesticated in the middle east until a certain of time. you seem to know everything about societal context, you should know that.you also should know that chaldeans did not exist before a certain point, let alone ruling the city of ur, which they did from 900-600 bc.and you should know that israel did not always have kings.it's not that they didn't understand these things. these are actual markers of time. in your example, it'd be like if the trojans hadn't invented the wheel for their chariots when the war actually took place. that's nice, but you said bronze age, and recomended two books on bronze age economics. which doesn't apply. you're changing your argument now. because i refuse to look up books on THE WRONG SUBJECT? christ, man. we're talking about a difference of SIX HUNDRED YEARS. that's well past any "hard cutoff" especially in the state of israel. traditionally, in 600 years, they went from exiled, to nomadic, to official state, to TWO official states in civil war, to double exile. those are all major social changes. being off by a few hundred years changes the entire identity of these people. it's not that i care about the difference between bronze and iron age, i'm pointing out that you're talking about entirely the wrong timeframe. so you can dispute every last one? no lets get the facts on ONE straight, first. one transitional fossil at a time, here. still haven't read genesis, have we? tell me, what about bab-el was just? i would CRINGE to call the god of genesis just. except that baucis and philemon didn't know they were gods, did they? they thought they were two travellers. sure, it might have been lost on the average greek, but it more accurately says "it pays to curry favour with EVERYONE because you never know who might be powerful."also, similarly, genesis seems to be lost on people even 2600 years later. doesn't mean the authors didn't know what they were talking about. most people traditionally get their religion (mythology) from a priest, or some sort of leader. this whole bit about reading it and thinking for yourself is relatively new. martin luther started it, and it still hasn't quite caught on.so yes, one more anachronism in your thought process. well, the point is that genesis does NOT condemn other religions. a condemnation of a religious practice would be quite out of place in the book, even if it's not in the bible. quite confusing the point. that's great but that's not what the story SAYS. lot specifically says the outsiders are NOT fair game. yes, and if anything i think this story is probably a play on foriegn mythology, like the bab-el story. and it's quite possibly an attempt to justify such a disaster, or even modifying another culture's attempt to justify such a disaster.but, now, see, i've caught you in a contradiction: "Greek gods are whimsical, not Just - there need not have been any specific thing." by implication (since we were discussing the differences in the greek and hebrew stories) the hebrew god IS just.so what was his justification? the specific thing that set him off? because although the authors seem to imply that city is rotten for many different reasons, they only show one of them. no, lot is conflict with the city, if you remember. i'm not talking about any universally binding laws, but they take issue with him telling them what they cannot do, since he is an outsider. he never mentions being a citizen in his argument. he just says "MY roof." the citizens do not appear to consider him a citizen either. it's arguable whether or not the author did either. you mean the ones on entirely the wrong society at the wrong time? no, not really. but we're still not talking about celts. genesis does not make unclear accusations. it makes baseless accusations that are VERY clear. even in genesis 6, when it calls all men wicked, it elaborates on the idea, saying that every plan they devised was to do harm. and that's the least clear accusation the book ever makes.it's not "shit happens." it's "this is what these people did, god hates them." sure, if it were, say "judges." but it's not. it's in genesis. tell me you see the difference? yet it portrays them DOING something.

please.(rrhain, help?)

he hasn't forgotten it; he's IGNORING it.he refuses to recognize that an entire township is destroyed at the end because they were not hospitable to travellers. he keeps telling me he's pointed out the differences, which just aren't there.i think i've disproven him on about every basis possible, but he won't give up.

kjv renders it like this:

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Hbr 13:4 Marriage [is] honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

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there's nothing in that or any verse to indicate one translation over another. no, it's a very basic point that YOU don't get. it's the same word in greek. people have been rendering it two different ways in english for dogmatic reasons, but the meaning of the word hasn't changed -- because it's still the same word in greek. whoever did the english translation was uncomfortable with the notion of one man worshipping another, because that concept had taken on a new meaning in the religion. tell me, do you just make this stuff up as you go along? while true, these verses are still in conflict, because like above, they are the same concept. jesus is saying that we should be compassionate and friendly with the people who need us, and paul is saying we shouldn't hang around that sort. it's not "they get one chance, and we cut 'em loose after that." paul's recommendation is against the entire spirit of christianity. actually, i do understand. quite well. i've just let go of the notion that it's one book and agree with itself. what you're doing is called apologetics. you're distorting the meaning of both texts to meet somewhere in the middle so they agree, when in reality they are two extremes that are incompatible. you cannot both keep away from sinners, and help them at the same time. and you cannot push them out of the congregations without first judging them. need i find the verse on that?paul goes to great lengths in multiple letters to instruct on male dominance and avoiding effeminancy. here's one example:

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1Cr 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?

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tell me, as an orthodox jew, how did jesus wear his hair do you think? no, i'm well aware paul is against homosexuality in all forms. i would go so far as to say he's against sexuality period, but cannot find a way to logically condemn heterosexual sex. i am in no way defending paul. i think he's the reason there's so much wrong with the christian church today.

i dunno, i woke up this morning and decided i'd be straight. [/sarcasm]seriously, i don't know where people get this idea. do they like, not think?

no, it's a blatant double standard."i didn't choose my sexuality, because i'm just doing what's natural and god-aproved! but you, you're doing something different, so you must have made a choice."doesn't make sense to me. think, people. if you didn't make a decision on this kind of matter, chances are it's not something most people sit around and decide. but yourself in someone else's shoes. that is what christianity is about afterall.do unto others...like i've said before. christ was ahead of his time. and he's ahead of ours too.

oh, because that's only for people who have honestly repented, not people who are living in sin!also, what happened to "judge not."

what would jesus do? they that are whole have no need of the physician.

actually, i was sort of thinking maybe you'd finally conceeded the point. why should i post more when you can't even seem to get the point of ONE? tell me. the town in the story. what happens to it?