Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Yigal Levin:
 
You wrote:  “His messengers were capable of blinding the Sodomites (and 
would-be sodomizers?) and when Lot's wife looked back she turned into a 
pillar 
of salt.”
 
(a)  Speaking of what the words in the Hebrew text say (as you mentioned in 
your prior post on this thread), there is nothing about sodomizing in the 
text.  How could  a-l-l  the people of Sodom turn into sodomizers, since we 
are expressly told that all the people of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house?  Why 
would Lot have remained in Sodom, and married off his two oldest daughters 
to men of Sodom, if all the people of Sodom were sodomizers?  There is  
n-o-t-h-i-n-g  in the Hebrew text to support that reading of chapter 19 of 
Genesis.  Rather, Bera, the former princeling ruler of Sodom, who had 
righteously 
opposed a military force that included a leader with a kingly Hittite name, “
Tidal”, in chapter 14 of Genesis, is now conspicuously absent in chapter 19 
of Genesis.  A-l-l  the people of Sodom, rather than nonsensically changing 
their sexual orientation, have now decided that resistance to the Hittites 
is futile.  They fear that Lot’s uncle Abraham (with Abraham being a known 
anti-Hittite figure based on his actions in chapter 14 of Genesis) has sent 
two anti-Hittite agitators to Lot’s house in Sodom.  A-l-l  the people of 
Sodom are rationally terrified that the powerful Hittites might accuse the 
people of Sodom of knowingly harboring anti-Hittite agitators sent by the 
most 
prominent anti-Hittite figure in Canaan:  Lot’s uncle Abraham.
 
Why do you always dismiss these profound, historical stories, which are 
very closely based on the well-documented secular history of the Bronze Age, 
with a wave of a hand and the following “explanation”:  “they are a literary 
device, which is not necessarily based on any reality.”  True, a story about 
a whole town of people who became sodomizers would not be “based on any 
reality”.  But the Hebrew text of the Patriarchal narratives says no such 
thing.  If we pay close attention to what the Hebrew text of the Patriarchal 
narratives actually says, we see that chapter 19 of Genesis is in fact very 
closely “based on…reality”, namely, the Bronze Age historical reality that 
many 
places in and north of Canaan were, from time to time, historically 
pressured by the mighty Hittites to become Hittite vassals.  
 
(b)  As to Lot’s wife, she had borne Lot four daughters who lived at least 
into their teenage years, she had not borne Lot a son, and yet, based on the 
age of her youngest daughter (who we soon find out is old enough now to get 
pregnant), there is an implication that Lot’s wife has ceased trying to 
bear her son-less husband a son, on the grounds that trying to bear more 
children at her fairly advanced age would be dangerous to her health.  We 
begin to 
realize that it had been Lot’s wife -- not Abraham or Lot or Sarah -- who 
had insisted that Lot’s family separate from Abraham’s family in chapter 13 
of Genesis.  Sarah’s super-controversial situation in Egypt, where Sarah at 
a fairly old age could have gotten pregnant, is never criticized by either 
Abraham or Sarah, but was absolute anathema to Lot’s wife’s way of thinking. 
 Lot’s wife and Sarah are presented as being opposites.  Sarah will 
righteously consider doing anything to bear her husband a son, even if she 
risks 
her own life by giving birth at an advanced age.  Lot’s wife, by stark 
contrast, unrighteously refuses to jeopardize her own life expectancy by 
trying to 
get pregnant at a fairly advanced age, though she has borne only daughters 
to her sonless husband Lot.  Lot’s wife’s situation is thus identical in all 
respects to the situation of the main wife #1 of the first monotheistic 
leader in secular history.  Note that they also share the  i-d-e-n-t-i-c-a-l, 
truly bizarre, fate:  each is righteously made into a type of royal/salt 
[MLK/MLX -- being clever Hebrew wordplay] statue, never being seen alive 
again, 
and then her young teenage daughters righteously insist on trying to bear 
their still sonless father the son/grandson he so desperately wanted.  Why 
would the early Hebrews care about that historical fact, which might seem to 
affect only Egypt?  Who do you think was the only human being on planet Earth 
at the time who was capable of defending the Hebrews’ beloved Canaan from a 
possible onslaught by the seemingly unbeatable Hittite King Suppiluliuma I?  
(That’s Biblical “Tidal”, which is an appropriately nasty Hebrew nickname, 
reflecting the fact that Suppiluliuma came to the Hittite throne by the 
dastardly expedient of murdering his own older brother named “Tidal”
/Tudhaliya.)
 
Why do you always dismiss these profound, historically-based stories with a 
wave of a hand and the following “explanation”:  “they are a literary 
device, which is not necessarily based on any reality.”  If you would pay 
close 
attention to what the Hebrew text of the Patriarchal narratives actually 
says, and focus on the themes that keep being emphasized over and over and 
over 
again in the text, you would see that these are not miracles that are “not…
based on any reality.”  The early Hebrews’ historical fear and hatred of 
the mighty Hittites, which is the historical underpinning of both of the 
above two stories in the Patriarchal narratives and is important to the 
historical birth of Judaism, is stated clearly at the end of chapter 27 of 
Genesis, 
in Rebekah’s heartfelt outburst:  “I loathe my life because of the Hittite 
women!  If my son Jacob marries a Hittite woman, from among the local girls, 
my life will not be worth living!”
 
If you do not appreciate the historical, heartfelt antipathy of the first 
Hebrews to the Hittites, an antipathy which the Hebrew words of the text 
clearly convey, then you will not understand the historical nature of the 
Patriarchal narratives, which is not a collection of colorful, non-historical 
miracles.  
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois