Sodom and Gomorrah

This is a question/thread more for the followers of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) here in the forum but everybody is welcome to enter the discussion.

What is your take on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? What were the terrible sins that the citizens of Sodom and Gomorra commited in order to deserve God's wrath? Is there a message to this story in your point of view?

widows and orphans and were not hospitable to strangers in their towns. In other words, they acted like Republicans.

so seriously.

In fact, I doubt a lot of it.

I take the new testament (at least the gospels - Luke, John, Mark, Matthew) pretty seriously.

And I think Revelations was written by a drug addict.

SO I guess that makes me a crappy christian. But I am one. There were at least a few priests in my family that thought the same way, though.

Tell me who really wrote this - and then we can determine a message. But then, we have no idea who wrote it, do we??

Joe

For a serious, and I mean SERIOUS, book on the subject, read:

Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Emanuel Tov
(Revised second Edition)
ISBN 90-232-3715-3

But to the other extreme, for a very light read on the parts that came from other tribes/cultures that were absorbed and became Jewish mythology, read:
101 Myths of the Bible (how ancient scribes invented biblical history)
Gary Greenberg
ISBN 1-57071-842-3

TRYPHO

thanks for the sources!

It's by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman and it is a summary of what archaeology has to say about the Old Testament. One thing I will say about it: before reading it, I had said that I didn't take the Bible literally, but after reading that, I REALLY couldn't take the Bible literally, even on the stuff that wasn't physically impossible.

the reading I have done shows me well enough how the OT came about and where its contents came from. Having said that I still find it a masterpiece of work for a civilisation of that time. So for its honesty I have no qualms at all in accepting its an accumulation of many many sources and cultures brought together, edited and finalised by some extremely intelligent poeple. But for the messages it carries, I am more comfortable that at the time they were an impressive improvement of rules over "dont do animals or your sister (half-sisters accepted, and ok, do your sister if you're the pharoah, coz you cant do people below the rank of god, and dont do animals if there are humans nearby) and dont kill (anyone important, whilst there are witnesses)".

I have an office FULL of books, they really are an education. I don't know how people can have views without the power that education/reading and evidence offers. Seems to me a fair few people here have strong opinions without the critical analysis behind it.

TRYPHO

We don't know the author of the Three Little Pigs but we can still extract a message from the story. :-)

Anyways, if you are into the Documentary Hypothesis (J,E,D, and P) and see the type of Hebrew, literary evidence, and the name given to God in those passages (YHWH), the authorship is given to J, who is someone (or a group of people) who lived in the Nothern Kingdom of Israel back in 8th or 9th century BCE.

understnad the bias - and if you don't know the bias, you can never understand the message.

DO you believe the earth is 7000 years old?? DO you??

SO who wrote it - you see the point?

There is clearly some amount of license in it - and that is ok - not ok if you do not know where they are coming from. It is the problem, to me, in the entire old testament. I discount it a lot for that reason.

Joe

I don't believe the earth is 7000 years old and I don't see that stuff as literal account of anything. It's fiction. Like any fiction you can read it and come up with your own conclusions of what the author (known or unknown) is trying to convey. I'm not asking for the "right message" I am asking for opinions. If you didn't read the story, don't care or don't have an opinion that's fine.

According to biblical scholarship there is bias in the book of J. The politics from the the book of J (using the Documentary hypothesis) show that this book was written from the perspective from Hebrews in the Nothern Kingdom before they were expelled by the Assyrians. That doesn't really matter here since I am curious of what people have to say about their interpretations of the story they read.

Otherwise, it is just a story.

I have certainly read the story and judged, it is just a story.

I read Luke, for examle - judged it was a first hand account of christ and and made a more serious judgement - you see. One is a basis for a religion and one is a story.

Joe

It's not history and you don't know the author. A book that has it's first historical mention in the end of the 2nd century does not prove it was written by a Luke. Especially when it was originally written in Greek which shows it was not written at the time of Jesus.

In other words, Luke is just a story like Sodom and Gomorrah is just a story. Both stories are base for religions.

I know who Luke was (and the writters of the gospels) - we all do. We understand the bias. We also know it is a second hand account of the teachings of Jesus -and we know historically a lot about him.

Point is - we can make judgements about the writter - at least we have a good idea about them.

I say Luke - I mean all the gospels - and I don't go further. I will specifically exclude revelations, for example.

You say 2nd century - you know that is not correct. The gospels are 1st century- all of them.

And within a lifetime of the death of christ - 30 years average.

SO - I look at first hand accounts vrs Old Testament accounts of unknown age written by only god knows.

I'll tell you - I am mostly christian because of the most direct teachings, and I understand even 30 years later there is some literary license - and little else sways me.

Joe

that the gospels were written in the 1st century. The first gospel to be mentioned historically was the Gospel of John after 165 CE.

The NT and the OT are not historical books or historical accounts of anybody. They are collections of story books not history books. The only difference is that Christianity seems to require for the stories in the NT to be real accounts otherwise the religion doesn't really work.

Regardless, going back to our initial debate, I don't need to know the author in order to read and extract meaning from any piece of fiction. We can agree to disagree.

apostles - 1st generation.

Unless you believe they had a life span of more than 100 years - are 1st century.

We can surely agree to disagree - but not on fact.

Joe

I'm speking on the basis of historical evidence and not hearsay of who wrote what. I'm saying the apostles you mentioned did not write the Gospels. I'm saying that you think you know who wrote the gospels but you don't. There is no historical backing to say the apostles wrote the Gospels themselves. The evidence goes against your beliefs of what are facts.

For you to be right - each one of the four would have to be wrong.

What are the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads to come up four times in a row??

You are right in saying that christian beliefs are based (largely) on the gospels being first hand accounts.

But they are.

I am curious - what evidence do you have that suggests the gospels were written any later than 40 years after the death - say - 77 AD?

I went thru this once a long time ago -

Joe

The heads or tail coin analogy was horrible and I cannot see your logic on that one. Sorry!

If the gospels were contemporaneous to Jesus and his apostles then they would not be written in Greek. You are trying to prove the historicy of something by asking "how can you prove it was not written by the year ..." and that is ridiculous.

To prove the historicity of something you have to come up with the proof that they were written by a certain date. We only know that the first Gospel was mentioned in 165 CE. Nothing else.

BTW: You couldn't pick a worse gospel to use as an example of a "historical account of Jesus" since Luke supposedly never met Jesus.

So in conclusion we can agree to disagree on this one too. You believe the gospels were written be apostles and that's fine. It's your belief and it's only a belief since you have no proof to show they were written by the time you believe they were written. I have reasons to believe they were not written until later for the language that was used and I believe they were not written by the appostles.

I find it pretty soothing.

Is your premise totally based on the 165 CE Greek writting??

We CAN agree to disagree - no problem with me.

Greek was a common Language in the 1st century-probably the most common written language.

Is your issue there because it was not in aramaic - or hebrew??

I don't understand.

Joe

Jews at the time of Jesus would write in aramaic. But if you say that they would write in Greek then good for you. As long as it works for you! ;-)

Especially if they expected the writtings to go to other lands. Greek was the common.

You are right - hebrew was being generous - Aramaic was possible. Greek is the likely.

Anyway - please explain John, Matthew and Mark.

Joe

"Anyway - please explain John, Matthew and Mark."

The rule works for them all. There is no proof these apostles wrote the gospels.

Apparently you don't want to agree to disagree here. You should convince yourself of the Gospels being written by the apostles but you keep trying to convince me that these guys actually wrote the gospels when there is no historical proof that it happened and you are just anotehr christian who tries to make a case for the Gospels being historical books.

The "most historians" you mention are Christian scholars who want to make a case that these Gospels were actually authored by the apostles. If you want to believe that is true then so be it. But they are not proven until you show concrete evidence.

Judea was a former Greek posession, and Greek was the language used throughout the eastern half of the Roman Empire, after Rome conquered the area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospels

The general consensus among biblical scholars is that all four canonical Gospels were originally written in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Orient. On the strength of an early commentator it has been suggested that Matthew may have originally been written in Aramaic, or the Hebrew, or that it was translated from Aramaic/Hebrew to Greek with corrections based on Mark. Regardless, no Aramaic original texts of the Gospel accounts have ever been found, only later translations from the Greek

Dating

Estimates for the dates when the canonical Gospel accounts were written vary significantly; and the evidence for any of the dates is scanty. Because the earliest surviving complete copies of the Gospels date to the 4th century and because only fragments and quotations exist before that, scholars use higher criticism to propose likely ranges of dates for the original gospel autographs. Conservative scholars tend to date earlier than others, while liberal scholars usually date later. The following are mostly the date ranges given by the late Raymond E. Brown, in his book An Introduction to the New Testament, as representing the general scholarly consensus in 1996 (for a fuller discussion of dating, please see the articles for each Gospel):

* Mark: c. 68–73
* Matthew: c. 70–100 as the majority view; some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.
* Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85
* John: c. 90–110. Brown does not give a consensus view for John, but these are dates as propounded by C K Barrett, among others. The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.
Traditional Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates. Some historians interpret the end of the book of Acts as indicative, or at least suggestive, of its date; as Acts does not mention the death of Paul, generally accepted as the author of many of the Epistles, who was later put to death by the Romans c. 65. Acts is attributed to the author of the Gospel of Luke, and therefore would shift the chronology of authorship back, putting Mark as early as the mid 50's. Here are the dates given in the modern NIV Study Bible (for a fuller discussion see Augustinian hypothesis):

* Mark: c. 50's to early 60's, or late 60's
* Matthew: c. 50 to 70's
* Luke: c. 59 to 63, or 70's to 80's
* John: c. 85 to near 100, or 50's to 70

and it proves nothing! There are plenty of Christian scholars lately trying to come up with "proofs" that Jews in early first century palestine would write in Greek. Please find a historical Jewish scholar who was contemporaneous to Jesus and would write in Greek. And I mean JEWISH SCHOLARS FROM PALESTINE who were contemporaneous to Jesus. The Gospels don't count. I want a document or something that has historical mention from the 1st century on.

I find it odd that you are still trying to convince me that your POV is fact when I have no problems with you having your BELIEFS that the Gospels were written by the apostles. As long as you believe to be true it shouldn't really matter what I think.

You are claiming as proof that the Gospels could not be written by the apostles that they were written in Greek. This is clearly absurd, because you can't prove that the apostles didn't know Greek, which was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. There is little scholarly support for the Gospels being written by the apostles for other reasons, but not because they didn't write in Greek. Greek was used in the city of Sepporis, of which Nazareth was essentially a suburb, so it is entirely reasonable that Jesus knew some Greek.

"There are plenty of Christian scholars lately trying to come up with "proofs" that Jews in early first century palestine would write in Greek. Please find a historical Jewish scholar who was contemporaneous to Jesus and would write in Greek."

What do you mean, lately? This is not a new idea. Jewish scholars from other areas certainly wrote in Greek, the Torah has been translated into Greek centuries earlier. Some Jewish writings were in Greek from the outset, such as Tobit, Judith, and the Wisdom of Solomon. Greek was the language of Jewish scholars throughout the Diaspora.

So, you name some Jewish scholars in Palestine at the time, aside from Josephus.

Sorry, I didn't read the name of who wrote the message and thought I was still talking to Joe for Clark and not with you Kwassa. I think you and I talked about the historicity of Jesus in some other thread and now we are starting with the gospels. :-)

Anyway, you cannot prove the apostles knew Greek so I think the burden of proof is on whoever is trying to convince someone that the gospels were actually written by the apostles. If "evidence" is enough for you then good for you. Just don't try to convince me of it. That's all I ask. If you have concrete evidence please show it so I will have knowledge of it.

Anyhow, Tobit, Judith, and the Wisdom of Solomon were not written at the time of Jesus and I'm not saying that Greek was never used by Jewish scholars. I want evidence that Jewish scholars used greek at the time of Jesus. You only presented books which are not from the time of Jesus.

It's like saying that 20th and 21th century Rabbis from the Central Conference of American Rabbis wrote books of Responsa in German instead of English.

Anyway, nice try! ;-)

"So, you name some Jewish scholars in Palestine at the time, aside from Josephus"

Do you want a Jewish scholar from palestine at the time aside from Josephus? Here are TWO huge ones who were two great rivals: Hillel the Elder and Shammai (50 BCE–30 CE)

How about the sages of the Mishnah (the Tannaim) who lived around 70-200 CE? Have you heard of Yochanan ben Zakai? The main contributor of the Mishnah (written in Aramaic). ;-)

How about the great Rabbi Akiva (also contributer of the Mishnah) who lived around the same time as Josephus? ;-)

"I want evidence that Jewish scholars used greek at the time of Jesus."

What would this prove or disprove?

And if Jewish scholars used Greek before and after the time of Jesus, why not they not use it during the time of Jesus?

Philo of Alexandria, 25 BCE to 40 CE wrote in Greek.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_2_49/ai_64332273

Papyri documents of the Hellenistic Period mention Jews in a variety of livelihoods and at every economic level. Greek became their mother tongue, and most knew the Bible through its Greek translation, the Septuagint. Unlike many native peoples of the East, the Jews did not surrender themselves fully to Hellenism but rather combined Jewish wisdom with Greek literary forms. Thus, Jews wrote in the Greek language on subjects of Jewish interest, including major works of Jewish History and dramas based on Biblical themes and t he like. Philo's synthesis of Jewish and Greek philosophy can perhaps be seen as a culmination of this tendency.


"From Jesus to Christianity" by L. Thomas White, page 87.

There were many other Jewish writings in Greek, suggesting that there was a lively and engaged Jewish literary and intellectual tradition in the Diaspora. The dominant language of Jews living in the Diaspora, including Rome itself, remained Greek throughout most of late antiquity."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

Septuagint

The Septuagint (IPA: <'sɛptuədʒɪnt>), or simply "LXX", is the name commonly given in the West to the ancient, Koine Greek version of the Old Testament translated in stages between the 3rd to 1st century BC in Alexandria. It is the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The name means "seventy" in Latin and derives from a tradition that seventy-two Jewish scholars (LXX being the nearest round number) translated the Pentateuch (or Torah) from Hebrew into Greek for one of the Ptolemaic kings, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 285-247 BC. As the work of translation went on gradually, and new books were added to the collection, the compass of the Greek Bible came to be somewhat indefinite. The Pentateuch always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon; but the prophetic collection changed its aspect by having various hagiographa incorporated into it. Some of the newer works, those called anagignoskomena in Greek, are not included in the Hebrew canon. Among these books are Maccabees and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. Also, the LXX version of some works, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than the Hebrew.<1> Several of the later books apparently were composed in Greek.

I thought I made myself clear about Jewish scholars from Palestine as I asked many times upthread. The time I didn't spell out "from Palestine", you quote me. Nice try! I would like to see examples of Jews from Palestine who spoke and wrote in Greek. And I would like to know the documents and the historicity of these documents. Please do not present a hellenistic scholar from Alexandria. It doesn't count. Nice try again!

You know, Nowadays, Sephardi Jews from the the Iberian Peninsula write their documentation in Portuguese or in Spanish. Not in English like North American Rabbis. Well, correction, Mexican Jews most likely write their material in Spanish.

You see, I need concrete proofs, not data in order to attempt to connect the dots as close as you can with the wishful thinking that it will transform it in fact.

Like I said, you have your reasons to BELIEVE the Gospels were written by the alleged authors and I have my reasons to believe the oposite. You seem to not accept that we can agree to disagree in this one and that's bizarre!

At least believers like Zebedeo are honest about their faith which is based on the book he believes to be the word of God. He will try to convince non-Christians, like myself, that his faith and the book is the right path to follow. You are trying to smear data to prove to a skeptical the historicity of something that cannot be proven to have happened.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

What I see as probable you see as improbable. It makes no sense to me that Jewish scholars would use Greek throughout the Mediterannean EXCEPT in Palestine. This makes sense to you, for some reason.

I also never claimed that the apostles wrote the Gospels.

The Hellenistic writer from Alexandria is a Jew, by the way. Philo of Alexandria, one of the most important scholars of his era.

Palestine had been a Greek colony, like the rest of the Eastern mediteranean. The entire region used Greek. You reject this idea without exact proof. That's fine. I find it highly improbable that at least some of the apostles DIDN'T speak Greek. There is no reason to believe that only communicated in Aramaic, if they wished to function in the Roman-run, Greek-speaking Judea.

You want concrete evidence, but that evidence doesn't exist. Lack of evidence means lack of evidence, and nothing more. We fill in the gaps in different ways. This is what the concept of "higher criticism" is all about, the textual analysis of every scrap of writing relating to the Bible. It is a very valid technique for revealing a great deal of information.

Many scholars think some of the apostles, Paul, and many other Christians spoke and wrote in Greek. Few biblical scholars believe that the Gospels were written by the apostles themselves, though many believers do. I personally don't believe that they were. The Gospels were written down post-revolt, after Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed.

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies By Martin Goodman, Jeremy Cohen, David Jan Sorkin

http://books.google.com/books?id=4me0TRqPOB4C&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=%22jewish+scholars%22+%22greek+language%22&source=web&ots=cG4CPHfhu0&sig=z9y_KMnT7D2RSy5yH1zWNvHbu_M#PPA43,M1

A pdf file, so I can't cut and paste, but an interesting discussion on pages 42-43 about the issues of hellenization in Palestine, and some of the current belief among scholars about it.

Page 43

"That the Greek language was widely used by Jews in this period in the Homeland as much as in the Diaspora is widely agreed."

Good question. As far as the gospels go, the answer is nada, given that the claim has not been made that the writers of the gospels were "Jewish scholars." During the Seleucid period, Greek became the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean, just as it did in Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies. (Kleopatra VII was remarkable among her family for actually speaking Egyptian.) Greek remained the language of merchants, professionals and the educated classes in general throughout the Roman Empire until the onset of the Dark Ages, and then was replaced by Latin only in Western Europe. The Eastern Empire, centered on Constantinople, went right on speaking Greek.

Paul did write in Greek, to the Greek-speaking churches he established, but it's fairly obviously a second language with him, hardly
"scholarly." Luke and Matthew are both much more polished, but Luke almost certainly was not a Jew, and Matthew was quite likely a member of the Jewish colony at Alexandria. Mark's original provenance appears to have been southern Syria, which had been at the heart of the Greek-speaking Seleucid kingdom. No conivincing argument has been made that any of the gospels were first written in Aramaic. It doesn't make any particular sense that they would be, given that very few Aramaic speakers could read, and that at least three of the gospels date after the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction/exile of the Jerusalem church and the near-obliteration of the Judean nation.

wrongly dated - in a row - and in contradicition to most "scholars" of the period.

Ignoring the message - I do not believe you will find more than one period historian that agrees with your premise that they were writtng more than a 100 years AD.

And many that agree the writtings occured in 1st century - you want examples??

Joe

But only a few mention Jesus (not the gospels!) and proves nothing, except that Christianity already existed.

You can skip the examples since I have seen them all and it doesn't prove anything it just helps you believe in your hypothesis. It doens't prove anything to me.

In this case, err, 100%. Absolute proven.



They aren't Joe, really. If I put some links to websites will you look at them? Will you STUDY them. Will you read them? Do you want to know what the scholars, scientists, archelogists, historians and church leaders all know? If you don't want your faith broken or mutated then thats fine, but I am afraid there is more than enough factual information at hand for you to appreciate that the books of the New Testament have names attributed to them, but were not written by the people's who's names they hold.

Don't moan about who wrote this, the facts are the facts!
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Bibaccuracy.html

This one is enormous, and written in dated English, but makes the case from day 1 to current:
http://jbrooks2.tripod.com/ra1fic0a.htm

And this site, which is slightly easier to follow:
http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/partone.htm

Oh , and one site to prove a point against Mr Wiggles to show I'm a fair man!

"All three fragments fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and the position of all the letters corresponded correctly with Greek text of I Enoch as found in the printed edition" From fragments found in GREEK at the qumran caves as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection:

http://www.breadofangels.com/7qenoch/synopsis.html

TRYPHO

...my error (weakness in my argument) in this sequence of messages, Trypho! And thanks for the very informative message and links. :-)

Trypho said:

"...Oh , and one site to prove a point against Mr Wiggles to show I'm a fair man!

"All three fragments fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and the position of all the letters corresponded correctly with Greek text of I Enoch as found in the printed edition" From fragments found in GREEK at the qumran caves as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection:

http://www.breadofangels.com/7qenoch/synopsis.html "

Most of the fiction I read I know very little other than the author's name. And the older the work is, the less chance I have of really ever knowing anything of substance about the author.

Joe

Reform, Conservative, and Reconstrucionalist Judaism use the Torah as the holy book but they are well aware that the books in the torah are fiction. They believe in some form of the Documentary Hypothesis but they see the stories as divinely inspired (not a literal word of God). These books are not supposed to be read literally. The Talmud says that the Torah is to be read like a shirah (a poem) and that the Torah has 70 faces, meaning that there are 70 ways to interpret each story and each sentence and each word. The Zohar says that only a fool reads the Torah literally and only a fool cannot see the soul of the Torah (the soul being the different meanings of what is written).

So even orthodox Judaism don't read it literally. However they do believe the torah was literally given by God to the Jews at Sinai and since there were 700,000 Jews witnessing the event it had to be true since it would be impossible to throw 700,000 coins up in the air and they all fall on "heads". Just kidding about the coin thing! :-)

But there is a religion based on these fictions and they admit these stories to be fiction.

you can do that.

I was speaking of dates possible for the gospel writtings- and that was all.

Joe

But I really know nothing about the authors of my religious beliefs. I mean, other than the Gospel authors.

Yet you don't dismiss it the same way as you do the OT.

Fascinating.

After all, He knew exactly what they would do, even before he created them. If God is all they say he is, then he can't be surprised or outraged.

I think - if god is so mean - to do half the stuff he is supposed to have done in the old testament,

Then he sure isn't my god.

You know what you allude to is the free will doctrine and all that.

Then I read the sermons on the mount and I simmer down again.

Totally understand your point.

Joe

...and not a literal story about a historical event, the character of God can be surprised and outraged.

Hospitality was a very serious thing in the Middle East of old. People were--and in some places, still are--obligated to accept any visitor to their home for three days. This makes a lot of sense if you think about the fact that living in areas that are largely desert, refusing hospitality to somebody could be the equivalent of a death sentence.

Now, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were already not exactly nice, so the story goes. They were prideful, and had essentially grown corrupt and selfish. In come the two angels, who are sent to recon the town, because Old Testament God (being rather a wrathful fellow) was thinking of burning it to the ground as a lesson. The townspeople observe these angels accepted into the house of Lot: two aliens, being put up at the home of another person they considered an alien. It's unclear whether they thought that these men might be spies for a forthcoming invasion, or if they simply disliked immigrants, but they got together a gang, and said to Lot "Give us these two men, we want to know them." The conventional interpretation of this is that this gang wanted to rape the two men. It sounds strange, but this actually makes a fucked up kind of sense by the rules of old. A man who had had that done to him was considered no longer a man at all. To do that to the scouts for some perceived invasion would be seen as a sign of strength and viciousness, and doing it to some immigrants would dissuade more immigration.

Lot instead offers the gang of townspeople his two virgin daughters to gang-rape instead, which they decline, and shortly thereafter the hellfire and slaughter begins.

As to a message to the story, you can extract a nugget of "be nice to others," but mostly I would see it as a scare story of the type common in the OT, meant to make people fearful and humble.

Luke 10:10-12:

But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.'I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

Also, in the OT, this passage from Ezekiel is illuminating:

Ezekiel 16:49-50:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

Interesting commentary on Sodom and Gomorrah at
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/sodomg.html
http://www.whosoever.org/v2i3/sodom.html
http://www.libchrist.com/other/homosexual/sodom.html

a new testament version of the story.

You should be careful the way you pass between the two.

They are very different things.

Joe

I'm providing a passage that many people have studied in reference to the story and which some suggest may support the "hospitality" theory. Thought you might be interested in learning what others have said. Guess I was wrong.

TheWraith writes:


well, I have footnote at the bottom of my copy of The Amplified Bible which says one of the guests was the Lord, and since God the Father was never seen in bodily form (John 1:18) only the "Angel of the Convenant," Christ Himself, can be meant here.

So I should think the prospect of your Lord Jesus Christ taking one for the team was probably going to cause, as we say in Little Britain these days, a bit of a kerfuffle.

Why do you say "The New Testament says" when its not in the new testament? Oh, and according to The Amplified Bible its because the shriek (of the sins) of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is exceedingly grievous.

And another footnote later says that in addition to S & G being blazing ruins, so too were Amdah and Zeboiim, as well as all the towns in the Valley of Siddim; Zoar ws the lone exception - must have worn a condom :-)

TRYPHO

in these particular sects of monotheism. Sexuality is one of the basic drives, like the need for food, shelter and so on, but unlike them, a person can refuse sex (indeed, celibacy is common among dwevotees of all kinds)...since yer standard sex as certain religions see it, is between men/women, 'marriage' is prescribed to make the act legit- in the same vein, maybe same sex pairs, because they can't result in conception, is seen as an extreme example of indulging themselves in a common activity religious types want to control, cuz they want to dictate how kids are trained and how society functions, and same sex activity undermines the 'conventional wisdom' as they've defined....
It dovetails neatly with those who want to keep people on a short leash so they will work work and provide for the upper class twits thank you, instead of becoming beats or hippies etc (it's these powerful upper classmen who secretly encourage the religious nuttery, while enjoying all the kama sutra stuff meanwhile!)
i think it annoys alot of uprighteous types that some men are very pretty and some women extremely handsome ie attrative to same sex....and their defined 'god' might have trouble explainng such people as shemales etc except by damning it all regardless of nature(?)
:shrug:
then you factor in hypocrisy, and you get sodom and gammorah type stories (??)

which reads:

1 And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. And seeing them, he rose up and went to meet them: and worshipped prostrate to the ground,

2 And said: I beseech you, my lords, turn in to the house of your servant, and lodge there: wash your feet, and in the morning you shall go on your way. And they said: No, but we will abide in the street.

3 He pressed them very much to turn in unto him: and when they were come in to his house, he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread and they ate:

4 But before they went to bed, the men of the city beset the house both young and old, all the people together.

5 And they called Lot, and said to him: Where are the men that came in to thee at night? bring them out hither that we may know them:

6 Lot went out to them, and shut the door after him, and said:

7 No not so, I beseech you, my brethren, do not commit this evil.

8 I have two daughters who as yet have not known man : I will bring them out to you, and abuse you them as it shall please you, so that you do no evil to these men, because they are come in under the shadow of my roof.

9 But they said: Get thee back thither. And again: Thou camest in, said they, as a, stranger, was it to be a judge? therefore we will afflict thee more than them. And they pressed very violently upon Lot: and they were even at the point of breaking open the doors.

10 And behold the men put out their hand, and drew in Lot unto them, and shut the door:


Lot and his family, of course, do escape from Sodom before God rains down fire and brimstone on the city, but his wife disobeys God's instruction and looks back, and is immediately transformed into a pillar of salt.

DemBones DemBones writes:




Well again my Amplified Bible says not only did she turn around, she lingered and the fire and brimstone overtook her, so I'd argue the use of the word "immediately" in your sentence (and I am using the Christian Bible's notes here, not the Old Testament).

Anyway, Lot and his two daughters go up the mountain, find a nice cave, and .... begat the Moabites and Ammonites - not that anyone would be likely to mention they are a descendants in public!

The story is clearly to show the negative effect of alcohol.

TRYPHO

I did, and I knew what happened anyway. I just thought that would confuse the issue of what the sin of the Sodomites was, being concerned with the sins of Lot's daughters.

I think it's best to begin with primary sources, like the Old Testament, not with secondary ones such as commentaries on the Old Testament. That's why I posted from Genesis, so people could read the primary source themselves.

Nor did I assume YOU hadn't read it. I've read enough of your posts to know better. I mentioned the commentary because I find great (hmmm.....pleasure, fun, derision, interest, humour....) interest in seeing the lengths the Christian organisation will go to to find proofs and validations of Christs presence in the Old Testament. That really has been a revelation to me to discover! Every page or two has PROOF, absolute and rock solid. Amazing.

Anyway, I apologise to you for my generalised comment and will try and be more careful about such things in future - of if not, i'll suffer in the next life an extra 10 seconds and think of you will a smile under my agonised grimace.

TRYPHO

of an angel was their sin. That hardly equates to homosexuality or non-missionary position sex.

This story has always disgusted me, that the "upright" Lot's heroic act was to offer his virgin daughters to be gang raped instead, because that was far preferable to males being subjected to such indignity.

One of the reasons I am no longer a Christian.

edited for typos

Lot and his daughters hole up in a cave and Lot impregnates both daughters. The offspring grow up to be tribal leaders.

The rationale for this behavior is that Lot was too drunk to know what he was doing.

My questions: Who remembered to grab the wine as they were fleeing? If Lot was too drunk to know what he was doing, how was he able to do it? How would this story go over in today's courts? Was the high station of the offspring a sort of reward for Lot and his daughters getting it on?

I'll think of more.

weren't they?

Nice guy.

Another Bill C.writes:


The wine was in the cave, it was where the hippies used to go to smoke hashish and listen to loud flute and lyres. (By the way, people were really really ugly in the old days: http://www.ancientmusic.co.uk/ancientinstruments/page5.html )

In court Lot pleaded complete ignorance, since he remembered nothing of the first daughters activities on the following evening.

What "high station" was that? That they were infamous by birthright as cave-dwelling drunken incestous tarts? Those Moabites got revenge in Dune though*.

TRYPHO
* - thats the funniest line I've ever written here, and NO ONE's going to get it.

but like most fables, there is a grain of truth. Most likely there were two towns that were a bit, shall we say, festive in nature and something awful happened to them and everybody pointed fingers and said, "see, we told you you'd get smote (smitten? smited?)" and then oral tradition passed the story down and elaborated on it and the rest is... history?

...and according to biblical scholarship this story was written in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. That's the book where God is mentioned as Yahweh (Jahweh in German so this writer is known as "J") throughout the book and some historians think this author probably meant to write a poetic story and not a religious story. Some say that there is a possibility that J was a female because the book of J is more favorable to women.

The book of "E" (since it refers to God as Elohim) was written in the Southern kingdom of Judah around the same time as "J". And when the Hebrews from the Northern Kingdom were exiled to Judah the books of J and E were merged and the book of "JE" was created.

Because of politics between the Prophet class and the Priests at the Temple in Jerusalem, the book of "D" (most of Deuteronomy) was written at a later date (probably in the 7th century BCE) and added to JE in order to balance the power between the priests and the prophets. When the prophets were not willing to share power with the priests, the priests added the book of "P" (as in priestly) and finalized the Torah (the first five books of the bible) as J,E, D, P, and R (R being the redactor), taking over complete power over the religion and getting rid of the prophet class.

You can actually buy a translation of the torah with the text color coded with green text being J, blue text being E, another color as the things added by a first redactor to put JE together, another color for D, another color for P, and a color for the final redactor.

You can read the first five books of the bible continuously or read just J or just E or just P or just D and see that they make sense on their own and that they have their own literary style, different names for God, and different politics.

J is more of a poetic book and Sodom and Gomorrah, for example, is in J. E shows more of the anthropomorphic God walking around and wrestling with Jacob. E is written in the point of view of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. D is very law oriented and P has the more harsh not so compassionate version of God. P gives more political power to the Aronides priests by making Aaron a more relevant figure so his descendants would be considered the important priestly dynasty and gain political power.

This hypothesis divides the authorship based on the age of the hebrew used in each book, the politics, literary evidence, where it was written, archaeological findings, etc.

The Elohist was from the northern kingdom, the Jahwist from Judah.

Good catch! Thanks!

On edit: not the first time I have switched J and E. :-)

which, as I understand it, was considered something almost sacred in those times. There is evidence, I believe, around the Dead Sea that there was a volcanic eruption or an earthquake in the past--I forget the details--but the other point of the story might be to explain why the cities were destroyed. In those times, natural disasters were attributed to God (or gods); since the Bible was first an oral tradition, this story could just be one of those types of explanations.

And the righteous man followed the envoy of God,
Huge and bright, over the black mountain.
But anguish spoke loudly to his wife:
It is not too late, you can still gaze

At the red towers of your native Sodom,
At the square where you sang, at the courtyard where you spun,
At the empty windows of the tall house
Where you bore children to your beloved husband. . . .

Who will weep for this woman?
Isn't her death the least significant?
But my heart will never forget the one
Who gave her life for a single glance.
--Anna Akhmatova
trans. Judith Hemschemeyer

Over the centuries it got twisted by nomadic herders whom used the story to bash city-living as a cause of immorality.

Because gay people are all evil and want to rape angels.

And the gaytheists--well, what we want to do is simply unmentionable. :evilgrin:

Here's Lot, supposedly the only righteous man in the city, quite willing to toss his young daughters out to be gang raped.

I've never heard a sermon or a church-based analysis of this story that even comments on the stunning lack of morality this demonstrates! Because they're always trying to derive some other "lesson" from the story, whether it's "God hates homosexuals" (the fundamentalists) or "it shows how seriously this desert culture took the rule about hospitality to strangers" (the moderates). I can agree with the latter but STILL note that the story illuminates the core of OT sexual mores, which we've largely inherited. Basically they felt that a woman's sexuality was always the property of some man - father, husband, brother, whatever -- who was free to dispose of it as he wished.

To this day we still have traces of this in our own attitudes toward sex. That's one reason the "traditional" rules of Christian sexual morality need re-examining. Instead, they seem to be stuck in stone. (Can't speak for Judaism or Islam though I suspect the same is true of these faiths.)

"Can't speak for Judaism or Islam though I suspect the same is true of these faiths"

In main stream of Jewish tradition the evil of the men of Sodom had nothing to do with sex. Instead, the understanding is that it's about Sodom residents lack of concern and even hatred for those in need.

The Talmud goes on to say that the residents of Sodom were comparatively wealthy, since the valley of Sodom was the most fertile land in Israel (Gen 13:10). Knowing that those in need seek help from those who have resources, the Sodomites passed laws prohibiting any citizen from welcoming visitors for fear that one poor person tell another that there was charity in Sodom and the city be flooded with poor people.

Simply put, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone because they were more concerned with protecting their wealth than with protecting the needy. They were destroyed because they were acting like the Republicans.

Before my wedding my wife and I attended wedding classes at the synagogue. It was made abundantly clear that the role of the man is to satisfy his wife and pleasure her, on her demand. Also to look after her, provide for her, and respect and love her. She just has to cook and clean and bring up the spawns of Satan that are called my children. Trust me I got off lightly.

TRYPHO

if you can continue to read after that. I was forced when I was a kid in Christian school. I still can't get over that. He was upright and righteous in so many people's eyes. Shudder.