Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Jim, Gen. 19:4-5 says that "all the people of Sodom from youth to elder"
came to Lot's house and demanded that he send out his guests "so that we may
know them". What they had in mind may not have been what modern English
calls "sodomy", but "knowing" here has definite sexual connotations. 

 

The rest of you post repeats things that have been said and answered many
times in the past.

 

Yigal Levin

 

  _____  

From: JimStinehart AT aol.com [mailto:JimStinehart AT aol.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 7:17 PM
To: leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fuel for smelting furnaces

 

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

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