RE: The Crazy, Screwed Up Story of Lot
December 4, 2014 at 11:13 am
(This post was last modified: December 4, 2014 at 11:15 am by Tonus.)
In Genesis 18:17 it seems to me that god is thinking to himself whether or not to tell Abraham of his plans. He then decides to let him know. The god of the OT is very human in his ways and manners, and that is not the first time he is willing to discuss his plans with a mere human (as I recall, in another part of the OT Moses manages to get god to change his mind about a plan he had). How does the writer know what god is thinking? Err, well...
The initial meeting between Lot and the angels looks like a way of establishing that Lot was a good guy. He greets them in a polite manner (does them obeisance) and offers the hospitality of his home, even insisting that he will not allow these visitors to sleep outside. When the crowd gathers and demands that he turn them over, he offers up his daughters. This is where we get an understanding of the culture of the time. The scene is meant to show the extent of Lot's generosity and hospitality, in that he places the safety and well being of his guests even above that of his daughters. But it simply serves as a reminder of the role of women in that culture: they primarily have value as property, and in this case, as barter.
One cannot help but note that Lot does not offer up his own wife. He offers up his daughters, who were already promised to two other men as wives (the story refers to them as sons-in-law). In fact, up to this point Lot's wife has not been mentioned at all. When the angels tell him to abandon the city, they say "(w)hom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place." They don't mention his wife at all! She is finally mentioned in the next verse, and only a couple more times after that. Her name is never given. You get the impression that she was added at some later time to give the story a bit of a surprise, some shock value. There is no indication that her death had any impact on Lot or his family-- the next part of the story is where the daughters decide to get him drunk so that he may impregnate them.
So remember, kids-- looking back at the destruction of a wicked city means death. Raping your father? Oh well, girls will be girls!
The initial meeting between Lot and the angels looks like a way of establishing that Lot was a good guy. He greets them in a polite manner (does them obeisance) and offers the hospitality of his home, even insisting that he will not allow these visitors to sleep outside. When the crowd gathers and demands that he turn them over, he offers up his daughters. This is where we get an understanding of the culture of the time. The scene is meant to show the extent of Lot's generosity and hospitality, in that he places the safety and well being of his guests even above that of his daughters. But it simply serves as a reminder of the role of women in that culture: they primarily have value as property, and in this case, as barter.
One cannot help but note that Lot does not offer up his own wife. He offers up his daughters, who were already promised to two other men as wives (the story refers to them as sons-in-law). In fact, up to this point Lot's wife has not been mentioned at all. When the angels tell him to abandon the city, they say "(w)hom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place." They don't mention his wife at all! She is finally mentioned in the next verse, and only a couple more times after that. Her name is never given. You get the impression that she was added at some later time to give the story a bit of a surprise, some shock value. There is no indication that her death had any impact on Lot or his family-- the next part of the story is where the daughters decide to get him drunk so that he may impregnate them.
So remember, kids-- looking back at the destruction of a wicked city means death. Raping your father? Oh well, girls will be girls!
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
