Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yigal:
I would add to that that population densities were also different at
different periods.

For example, looking at the way conditions in the land of Canaan were talked
about during the times of the Patriarchs, it appears that the land was
largely uninhabited. Places that later had towns and fields were at that
time pastures. Beersheba was apparently merely a well surrounded by
pastures, no town in existence, likewise I get that impression about
Bethlehem too. Therefore a person like Abraham and his sons need not live at
the fringe of the desert. Even so, the land around Sodom would have appealed
to Lot as being more lush.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:

> Jim, Lot was not looking for "city life", he was looking for good grazing.
> The Jezreel Valley is NOT used primarily for grazing, since the fields are
> sown and planted with grain. Most grazing by semi-pastoralists such as the
> Patriarchs was done on the desert fringe, including the Judean Desert. The
> whole point of the story is to contrast Abraham's righteousness with Lot's
> wrong choices - Abraham remains in the "clean" hill-country, while Lot goes
> to live among the Sodomites.
> AND - the area of the Kikar, along the southern edge of the Dead Sea, is
> even today a lush area, watered by several large springs. Most tourists
> don't get to see this part of the Dead Sea shore because it's so close to
> the Jordanian border, but I've done some military service there, and the
> soldiers call it "Vietnam", because it reminds them of movie scenes of
> patrolling through the jungles of southeast Asia.
>
> Yigal Levin
>
>
>