Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi Jim,

there is no mention of selling out to the hittites in the text.

James Christian

2010/1/29 <JimStinehart AT aol.com>

>
> Yigal Levin:
>
> The word YD( is used 43 times in the Patriarchal narratives.  On 39 of
> those occasions, being the vast majority of the cases, the word YD( has no
> sexual connotation whatsoever, and rather means “to have intellectual
> knowledge of
> ”, that is, “to know” in the normal sense of the word “know”.  For
> example, the two uses of YD( that, very importantly, come immediately
> before
> Genesis 19: 5 are as follows:
>
> (1)   “For I [YHWH] know [YD(] him [Abraham], that he will command his
> children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the
> LORD,
> to do justice and judgment….”  Genesis 18: 19
>
> (2)  “I [YHWH] will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether
> according to the cry of it, which is come unto me;  and if not, I will know
> [YD(].”  Genesis 18: 21
>
> YHWH has heard that the people of Sodom have iniquitously sold out to the
> Hittites, and that every person in Sodom has agreed that any resistance to
> the Hittites is futile.  That terrible perfidy, which threatened the future
> of
> all of beloved Canaan, caused “the cry of it”, that is, a terrible voiced
> concern of the people of Canaan that all of Canaan might soon be overrun by
> the dreaded Hittites.  YHWH has heard that every man in Sodom (with the
> sole
> possible exception of Lot’s immediate family) has agreed to sell out to the
> Hittites, so in that famous, strange bargaining sequence between YHWH and
> Abraham in the second half of chapter 18 of Genesis, YHWH readily agrees
> that
> YHWH will withhold his righteous anger if there are at least 10 righteous
> men in Sodom.  “Righteous” in that particular context means any men of
> Sodom
> who have not iniquitously agreed to sell out to the dreaded Hittites.
>
> Your theory that the men of Sodom, though having been Abraham’s fine allies
> in chapter 14 of Genesis (to whom Abraham turns over Lot), have now
> unanimously become, to a man, raving male homosexual rapists, is absolutely
> no
> nsensical.  Such a thing has never happened in history, nor has such a
> ridiculous
> notion ever been portrayed in any people’s literature.
>
> Genesis 19: 5 makes perfect sense on the foregoing interpretation:
>
> “And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which
> came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know [YD(]
> them.
> ”
>
> Every man in Sodom, from the oldest to the youngest, and in particular
> including every single elder in Sodom, demands to know if Lot is harboring
> anti-Hittite agitators in Lot’s house, likely sent to Sodom by Lot’s uncle
> Abraham, who (per chapter 14 of Genesis, in opposing “Tidal”, a ruler with
> an
> historical kingly Hittite name) was well-known as the most prominent
> anti-Hittite figure in all of Canaan.
>
> No, it is not a friendly request.  Rather, it is an outright demand that
> Lot must immediately present his two guests to the elders and other men of
> Sodom, so that the men of Sodom (including all the elders, who would be the
> wisest, and least impetuous, men in Sodom) can interrogate the guests (and
> perhaps Lot as well) to determine if those two guests are endangering the
> safety
> of Sodom by being anti-Hittite agitators (likely sent by Lot’s anti-Hittite
> uncle, namely Abraham).
>
> Why on earth would the most elderly men of Sodom be portrayed in the
> Patriarchal narratives as being raving male homosexual rapists?  Does that
> make
> any sense on any level?  Is there any other passage in the entirety of the
> Patriarchal narratives that shows any concern whatsoever with that bizarre
> topic?  Chapter 19 of Genesis is deadly serious stuff.  All of Canaan in
> the
> Patriarchal Age worried that the mighty Hittites might suddenly do unto
> Canaan
> what they had just now in fact done unto Syria:  force the entire land to
> become docile Hittite vassals, as part of the newly forming Hittite Empire.
>
> It is simply impossible for an entire city to change its sexual orientation
> and become, to a man, raving male homosexual rapists.  No author (or
> authors) would compose such a ridiculous story.  No, this is deadly serious
> stuff.
>  During the Patriarchal Age, the Hittites made several cities near Canaan
> offers the cities could not refuse, pursuant to which the entire city had
> to
> either, to a man, swear loyalty to the Hittites, or else face utter
> destruction by the Hittites.  For example, in Year 14 Qatna was burned to
> the ground
> by the Hittites and never reinhabited.
>
> The scholarly view that chapter 19 of Genesis is a nonsensical,
> non-historical story about an entire city that had become, to a man, savage
> male
> homosexual predators makes no sense on any level.  Why would Abraham ally
> with
> such men in chapter 14 of Genesis, and return Lot to a city of such men?
>  Why
> would Lot live the good, soft life in such a place for many years, and
> prosper among such men, and marry off his two oldest daughters to men of
> Sodom?
> That scholarly view of chapter 19 of Genesis is totally inconsistent with
> what the Hebrew text of the Patriarchal narratives portrays.  Although it
> is
> true that the word YD( can on occasion be a euphemism for having sex with a
> woman, which it is on three occasions in the Patriarchal narratives,
> context
> determines everything.  YD( is never used in the Patriarchal narratives as
> a
> euphemism for a man having sex with another man (or with an angel, or with
> an animal, etc.).  Rather, in the context of Genesis 19: 5, YD( has its
> normal meaning:  “to have intellectual knowledge of”.  The people of Sodom,
> to a
> man, were rationally terrified that if Lot was harboring two anti-Hittite
> agitators, then the dreaded Hittites might take terrible revenge on Sodom
> for
> that, and perhaps burn Sodom to the ground, which indeed had recently been
> the awful historical fate of Qatna north of Canaan.
>
> The future viability of all Canaan rested on whether the people of Canaan
> would righteously and stoutly resist the dreaded Hittites, keeping the
> Hittites from expanding south of Syria, or rather would cravenly, to a man,
> sell
> out to the mighty, ever-expanding Hittites (with that latter course for
> several years being a very realistic and terrifying possibility).  It’s not
> a
> silly story, and it’s not non-historical.  Rather, chapter 19 of Genesis
> beautifully matches the well-known secular history of the Late Bronze Age,
> in
> dramatically capturing the terror of the people of Canaan in Years 14-15,
> as
> they profoundly worried whether their entire way of life would soon be
> wiped
> out by a devastating Hittite onslaught.
>
> It is absolutely impossible that the text of chapter 19 of Genesis would be
> saying that all the elderly men of Sodom had become predatory male
> homosexual rapists.  That is a nonsensical interpretation of this deadly
> serious,
> historical text.
>
> And why, pray tell, was Gomorrah destroyed?  Had it also, to a man, become
> a city of raving male homosexual predators?  It wouldn’t be, would it, that
> it was another in a series of cities that historically decided to sell out
> to the seemingly ever-expanding Hittites?
>
> Professor Yigal Levin, how can the academic community feel good about
> n-e-v-e-r  having considered an historical interpretation of chapter 19 of
> Genesis?  No scholar has ever noted the important absence in chapter 19 of
> Bera,
> the former anti-Hittite ruler of Sodom with whom Abraham properly allies in
> chapter 14 of Genesis.  No scholar has ever considered the one and only
> transformation that historically could realistically affect an entire
> city-state
> in the Bronze Age -- a unanimous decision, in the face of an ultimatum from
> the imposing Hittite war machine, to change political loyalties, so that
> former opponents of the Hittites suddenly agreed, in desperation and to a
> man,
> to become (and forevermore be) docile Hittite vassals.  We know that,
> historically, that was the terrible choice faced by five rebellious
> princelings
> in Year 14, as historically accurately portrayed at Genesis 14: 1-11.  A
> somewhat similar choice was famously forced upon Aziru [Biblical
> Amrapel/)MR-PL/“
> Amorite/)MR Splittest/PL”], who eventually decided to “split off”/PL the “
> Amorite”/)MR state of “Amurru”/)MR from the rest of Canaan and sell out
> all of northern coastal Lebanon to the Hittites in Years 14-16.  Why has no
> scholar ever considered an historical interpretation of chapter 19 of
> Genesis?
>  Why do university scholars teach that every single man in Sodom, to a man,
> including in particular all the wise elders of Sodom, is portrayed in the
> text as having become a savage, predatory male homosexual rapist?  That
> interpretation is inconsistent with the actions reported in the text for
> Abraham,
> Bera, Lot, and Lot’s two oldest daughters, and it is utterly nonsensical to
> boot.
>
> I do not understand why university professors so enthusiastically embrace a
> nonsensical theory of chapter 19 of Genesis, based exclusively on sexual
> predation (a theme never touched upon in the rest of the Patriarchal
> narratives), while so resolutely refusing to even  c-o-n-s-i-d-e-r  an
> historical
> interpretation, based on the pervasive theme throughout the Patriarchal
> narratives of the early Hebrews’ historical great fear of the dreaded,
> expansion-minded Hittites.  What gives?
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
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