Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Banyai AT t-online.de (Banyai)]

Leeroy Malachinski wrote:
> Hi B-Hebrew folks,
>  
> I would greatly appreciate any help on the following.
>  
> Suppose you have two stories in the Bible that clearly bear some kind of
> relationship to each other e.g., Gen. 19 & Judges 19 (Sodom & Gomorrah and
> the awful incident in Gibea) and many others like them. Does anybody know
> of any method(s) or considerations that allow clarifying which story was
> the earlier? Which story is throwing light on the other? Bibliography that
> deal with this question will also be greatly appreciated.

You have an interesting question Leeroy. The similarity between Gen. 19 & 
Judges 
19 is something has long preoccupied me. I don´t beleave there could be a 
general 
pattern how to judge in such cases, my personal opinion is that Gen. 19 is a 
Levitic creation from during the Gibea incident, to offer the ideologic 
platform, 
first for the retaliations against the Benjaminintes, than later for sparing 
the 
lives of the few Benjaminite survivors. 
What would have happpened if God would hae killed even Lot, no Moabites and 
Ammonites more. One has to leave Sodom without looking back, to be spared. 
What 
if the Benjaminites wouldn´t be allowed to marry Israelite women, should they 
come to an incestuous relation like Lots daughters?
Gen. 19 is apparently argumentational help made from disparte stories.

Of course, no minimalist could accept such an interpretation, since Gibea as 
well 
as Lot´s story were no history, and all the Bible is post Exilic.

Sadly you can not demonstrate the historicity of the Gibea story solely out 
of 
the text, so you´ll have a quid pro quod situation.

All the best,

Bányai Michael