Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19

translation:i don't mean what i say i mean.signed,
god.

try again.in exodus 7:3, the verb אַקְשֶׁה (make hard) is a hiphil verb, which indicates CAUSE.the verse clearly indicates with its grammar that it is god manipulating pharoah.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-12-2005 23:04 AM

that's reading a lot into it.again, the hiphil tense indicates that david's action was in some way caused by the anger of the lord. grammar is not on your side today.the introduction of satan occurs later, in order to rectify the very problem we're talking about -- god making people sin. that's the reason for the contradictions, and why your bible tries to sort it out. but that's not how the hebrew reads.

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i HAVE and they are filled with complete ignorance of the subject matter, even after explanation to the contrary by myself and others. in fact, there is not a single point i haven't addressed and DISPROVE

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Repetition of nonsense does not strnegthen your argument.

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you think hospitality is a modern virtue? are you nuts?

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No, idiot, only that it is a PERSONAL virtue in those societies.

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oh, i'm sorry, but capitalist economies and social darwinism aren't. that's right.

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This appears to be idiocy for idiocies sake.

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how is it directly contrary to what i'm saying? i said that the sin of sodom was inhospitality. that was all that i said. you brought up the idea of them being all accountable together. OF COURSE the authors made it so that everyone was sinful, even individually. but is that not a generalization of the whole city? is that not an attack on the people who lived there? is not motivated by some sort of prejudice?

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Your are arguing your conclusion again, and giving me my argument at the same time. The sin of Sodom CANNOT be hospitality because hospitality cannnot be applied to a whole group collectively. *I* did NOT bring up the idea of them being held acocuntable together, I pointed out that was implicit in your argument.

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NO. my position was that it was inhospitality PERIOD. nothing else. no idea of collective, except in the fact that it was supposedly the entire city outside of lot's door.

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Yes - thats exactly why you can't get away from the collective. COLLECTIVE blame is the centre of your argument - and that is why it is invalid.

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but the authors of the text DID generalize the city.

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Yes thats right - thats exactly why we know that the issue could not have been inhospitality - becuase the authors were able to generalise it to all citizens.

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this is not something foriegn at all. genesis does it alot. ezekiel refers to "the sin of sodom" not "the individual sins of each and every one of it's inhabitants."

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Yes thats right - thats why we can be confident that thatever the sin is, its not hospitality.

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no, you've adequately demonstrated that you have no insight at all. you're just making an argument for the point of making an argument. you have repeatedly failed to note that even heroic cultures have hospitality myths, and that the NOMADIC hebrews operate under slightly different rules.

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No no - I am well aware that heroic societies have MANY MANY hopsitality stories of one sort or another. But they are all about the PERSONAL virtues of the individual. YOU are the one claiming that there are THOUSANDS of cillective hospitality myths, and yet when challenged it turnes out you cannot name any nor recount their details and instead refer to a book you once browsed in the library.Your alleged collectiviost hospitality myths remains conspicuous by their absence. On that grounds alone your claim is shown to be spurious - your claim this phenomenon is common, but can't identify any instances of it occurring.

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you have failed to show a reason or proof that the story couldn't have anything to do with hospitality, other than you're assumption that hospitality has to be a collective thing, and the hebrews were not collective. both of which have been demonstrated to be wrong, and another identical tale has been shown from a heroic culture.

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Both have most certainly NOT been shown to be wrong, as demonstrated by your construction above. What do you mean by "the hebrews were not collective"? Of course they were, in the way of nomadic peoples all over. On the other hand, they are a Heroic culture - these are not contradictory. And whats more, I have already debunked the alleged "identical" tale showing it to be nothing like identical.

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that's WRONG on every count buddy. now put up an alternative sin, or stop bickering

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No, YOU have been shown to be wrong. You;re the one interested in sin here, you select another.

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a person with a brain, i hope. do you think the people who read this story 2000 years ago sat around going "well, i don't know what they did, but god was pissed!" what happened to not being "aware of a 'shit happens' attitude to cities being wiped out?" what did they think it meant?

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All I know is, the bible does not appear to refere to their sins explicitly, merely says they were sinful. From that lack of evidence, I do NOT feel entitled to suck definitions out of my thumb, as you and the homophobes appear all too keen to do. I don't feel threatened by the lack of detail.

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and identical myth which is clearly about hospitality has been shown PAGES AGO

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And debunked pages ago.

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and i provided you with a reference to all of the similar stories. if i could find a copy of the darned book on the web, i'd have posted the list ages ago. but the book is six volumes, each quite thick, and it's JUST an index. you honestly think it doesn't have anything similar?

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Completely certain that it DOES have myths in which whole cities are destroyed for sundry sins, quite certain has NONE in which that sin is inhospitality. The Norse poem Grimnisnall, for example, has allegations of inhospitality as a central issue, but the inhospitable one meets a gory end alone.[quotes] whereas, i have demonstrated:
* the hebrew authors generalized on the basis of ethnic origins, especially in genesis (and later refer to sodom as a single entity)
* hospitality does not have be collective
* hospitality myths are not absent from even heroic cultures
* this myth is identical to a greek hospitality myththat makes you wrong in about every way possible, you have failed to substantiate your case.[/quote]Thats good acid your're dropping, apparently.
1) of courese the hebrew authors generalise, that has never been chaallenged and is thereforte irrelevant.
* I never claimed that hospitality myths were absent en bloc, I said COLLECTIVE hospitality myths are absent, so this is also irrelevant,
* and it is NOT identical to the greek myth IMO, as no collective punishment occurs - instead an individual reward is received, just like my model of hospitality myths would predict.So not only are two of your alleged "proofs" irrelevant, the last is wrong.

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so by the same token, evolution is invalid because the creationists poke holes in it? i'm sorry, but illogical and unprovable assumptions aren't exactly holes.

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Nonsense and you know it. IF a creationist COULD poke a hole in it, then there would be a hole, period. Who made the hole is irrleverant, and making such a whole would not necessarily support creationism.A theory has to stand up to all comers. Yours can't.

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these are people trying to rectify their religion with archaeology. there are no signs of an earthquake, or gas explosions. but there ARE signs of a battle, and a fire. that is, if this is even the same city.

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Thats nonsense, I fear. And particularly poisonous, as you are dismissing legitimate archeology mertely becuase you find it displeasing. Showing that a city called Sodom existed and was destroyed would NOT validate the bible in an of itself. It's harder to explain the myths purely as constructs. Thats aid I am not even claiming this argument is true - only that it fits with the prominence of the account and the attribution of godly vengeance better than mere conquest.

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but don't forget, we're talking about a STORY here, remember? not what happened. there's no need to match the bible to reality, especially not in genesis.

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Except that I approach anthropology as a structuralist, and the structuralists insist that no society maintains useless structures.

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genesis is very political, and here it is using this (possible) disaster to accuse the city or it's people of something.

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Indeed. And yet, the myth doesn't appear to have anything to do with hospitality or lack thereof.

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the original question was: what is it accusing them of? what is the evil it says they did? HOW are they trying to defame sodom?

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I don't know, and to be honest, don't particularly care. I'm not sure one is strictly required - if there were some sort of natural disaster, then it could be safely presumed they were guilty of something; this would accord with the biblical account, which refers to but does not discuss their sin. But I am confident that attributing this assumed sin to collective inhospitality is grossly anachronistic and IMO impossible as an interpretation of what the authors meant.

nor do arguments without evidence, and ignoring the evidence presented against your case. you were the one saying it was not. however, the city is painted as sinful as a whole: every individual citizen in the wrong. the sin demonstrated is a breaking of guest-host relations. you claimed that people then viewed the poor as responsible for their own poverty. that's social darwinism by definition, which neccessitates a capitalist economy. it's a blatantly anachronistic way to view this book. and you have repeatedly been shown proof that inhospitality CAN and IS applied to a whole group in this and other stories. you have also been shown proof that whole groups are often generalized far beyond the bounds of reality in the book of genesis, so this is nothing unusual. no, it's not the center of anything. it's quite common in genesis. how about pride? is pride a collective sin? all of humanity is punished for their pride in genesis. where do you get the notion that hospitality can't be collective anyways? you sure as hell haven't shown any evidence, and have ignored the evidence to the contrary. and yet punish the inhospitable group AS A WHOLE. go back and read rrhain's post which you've STILL ignored. have you bothered to go and look if you're so sure of your case? one more time, for the record.

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That's the story of Baucis and Philemon. Zeus and Apollo (though sometimes it's Zeus and Hermes) visit Phrygia and are treated poorly except for this one couple who take them in and share their meager provisions. Strangely, they stretch to feed them all, the food is excellent, the wine never stops flowing, and the couple eventually realize just who it is they are dining with.
Frightened, they beg mercy and the gods laugh saying that they were the only ones who were good to them. They can have anything they wish. Their only wish is that when they die, they die together. So the two gods establish a temple for them to be the priest and priestess of and, when they grew old and their time came, they were turned into trees: He an oak and she a linden tree, their branches intertwined forever.

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http://EvC Forum: Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19 -->EvC Forum: Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19

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the only difference, as he points out, is that the entire society is not punished.

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No, no, no...the town is, indeed, destroyed. The town sinks and becomes a lake (yet another flood myth). Only the hovel of Baucis and Philemon is spared and from that place the temple is established.

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http://EvC Forum: Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19 -->EvC Forum: Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19are you REALLY not paying attention? i've pointed this out a number of times and you've never responded. how is the greek myth, blatantly about hospitality, any different than the hebrew tale? both towns are destroyed as a whole. so, they're collective, but don't have hospitality as a collective virtue? evidence, please. let's see.greek tale:
* two heavenly visitors, disguised as men
* rejected by town, taken in by a couple.
* couple rewarded
* town destroyed.hebrew tale:
* two heavenly visitors, disguised as men
* taken in by family, harassed by town
* family allowed to live
* town destroyed.now, how are they different exactly? maybe i'm not paying attention here -- where did you debunk it? also, curiously, there's a theme of transformation. in one, lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt. in the other, the two are turned into a tree. both tall standing objects. the story is making an accusation against a people, for whatever reason. i'm not the one interested in sin, the people who wrote the darned story are, and OP was. i just provided the best scholarly guess as to what it is, based on surrounding culture and context. you think i made this up? but it does. the citizens of sodom DO something in the story that inspires the angels to think lot's the only one worth saving. what do they do? the story is clearly making a coherent accusation directed at sodom.that's like getting caught with blood on your hands and saying "i never SAID i murdered anyone!" i don't see that post. direct me to it? was it before or after rrhain noted that the town in greek myth was destroyed? because i see one before that no longer applies. not irrelevant, and definitally not irrelevant on the sole basis of it not being challenged. generalization leads to applying individual standards and qualities to a group. making your idividual virtues collective. or at least making the individual LACK of a virtue collective. that's the point. i apologize for not explicitly stating my logic in a manner kindergarteners can follow. and yet this is still wrong. the greek hospitality myth clearly indicates inhospitality as a collective sin, even is hospitality is a collective virtue.

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the town is, indeed, destroyed. The town sinks and becomes a lake (yet another flood myth). Only the hovel of Baucis and Philemon is spared and from that place the temple is established

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hypothesis rejected. uh. no. please actually read the post i've directed you to a half dozen times, and quoted TWICE in this post alone. "show me the transitional species!"
"here's one."
"that doesn't count!"
"here's another."
"that neither!"you don't suppose that the creationists honestly think they really are poking holes, do you? just as you think you're doing. but you're both wrong. yes, it certainly does. but i'm not dismissing it becuase it's displeasing. i'd like very much for archaeology to validate the bible, i really would. it'd make things nice and tidy.i reject it on the basis that it's bad archaeology. it's one person (probably on the history channel) looking at the city and going "oh look, signs of fire. sulfur vents, and geothermal activity next door. maybe that's how god worked his miracle!" it's a supposition, and ignores the fact the city does not show signs of immediate destruction, but a war. they had time to properly bury their dead, for instance.so yeah, a geological explanation for raining fire and brimstone would be nice, but that doesn't seem to be what happened at this particular city.and that's supposing the city IS even the historical basis for sodom. it might not be. it might be several cultural mythologies removed. or the story could be a complete work of fiction. i'm more concerned with what the story means than any real-life counterpart. and in this case a useless structure would be?remember, genesis was likely written at a time of little to no church leadership, and no state. i'm of educated opinion that it was assembled during or just after the babylonian exile (fits all of the anachronisms and coincidences). during this time, a collective mentality would be a needed structure. i thought you weren't aware of the "shit happens" philosophy of literature? except for, you know, the stuff they actually DO in the store. but nevermind that. i'm sure they meant to accuse sodom of a multitude of sins, and not one for the whole city, but the fact remains: the citizens are shown participating in one particular sin in the story. the harass the visitors.what would you call that?

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you were the one saying it was not. however, the city is painted as sinful as a whole: every individual citizen in the wrong. the sin demonstrated is a breaking of guest-host relations.

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How so? Lot fulfills his host obligations perfectly - the guests were previously going to reside in the city square. There was no violation of hospitality in the story.I'm afraid you are suvcking this interpretation out of your thumb. It has no basis in the text or the context.

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you claimed that people then viewed the poor as responsible for their own poverty. that's social darwinism by definition, which neccessitates a capitalist economy. it's a blatantly anachronistic way to view this book.

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I'm afraid that is just completely insanely absurd. IIRC the bible says "the poor will always be with us". Social Darwinism is not in any way causally linked with Capitalism - it is much, much older than that and is expressed quite openly by the medieavl church - the lord in his castle, the peasant at his gate, the lord god raised them high or low and ordered there estate.Merely becuase YOU are only familiar with the ideas of social darwinism in capitalism does NOT mean thats the only place they were expressed. And my hostility to capitalism arises at least in part because it keeps these ancient theological shibboleths hanging around.

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and you have repeatedly been shown proof that inhospitality CAN and IS applied to a whole group in this and other stories. you have also been shown proof that whole groups are often generalized far beyond the bounds of reality in the book of genesis, so this is nothing unusual

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WHERE is it aplied to whole groups in other stories? I have done a net serach to check - all I get is people making THIS argument. Where are these multiple stories? Give me names, give me details. You nkeep asserting this stuff exists SO WHERE THE FUCK IS IT? Put up or shut up.And I have NOT disputed generalisation, I repeat. Please address the issue, and stop attacking straw men.

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no, it's not the center of anything. it's quite common in genesis. how about pride? is pride a collective sin? all of humanity is punished for their pride in genesis.

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Yes, its plausible for pride, not for hsopitality. This is ebcuyase hospitality is an economic action and that action has to be credited to an author.

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where do you get the notion that hospitality can't be collective anyways? you sure as hell haven't shown any evidence, and have ignored the evidence to the contrary.

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Thats becuase you have not SHOWN any eviodence to the contrary despite mny repeated requests.And it comes from my familiarity with bronze age cultures and the role of hospitality in those Heroic cultures. For example, the way in ancient Ireland someone could embarras a lord by whom they were wronged by starving themselves to death at the lords doorstep, thus impugning his hospitality. It would be senseless to see this as applied to the settlement as a whole - its a person to person transaction. And I am not aware of ANY circumstances in which this is not the case. Its completely contrary to the structure of Heroic societies in the bronze age and therefore requires sound evidence for the claim. Your whole model is anachronistic.

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are you REALLY not paying attention? i've pointed this out a number of times and you've never responded. how is the greek myth, blatantly about hospitality, any different than the hebrew tale? both towns are destroyed as a whole.

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Ah, so proof positive after all that you DON'T bother to read my posts. I have dealt with this: the populace are not the Subject of the story, they play a bit part. The whole story highlights the virtues of PERSONAL genoristy, and the rewards attendant on those who are so virtuous. you are massively over-interpreting the content to indicate this is a message about collectievity, when it is in fact a message about indivduality.Nonetheless, your argument would be much more compelling if you could show other precedent. The very similarity of this story and the biblical story raise doubts as to provenance and authenticity. So if, as you claimed, there was a broad-based tradition of collective responsibility stories related to hospitality, it would or should be easy to show the similarities. So why can't you produce any of these thousands for comparison? EVEN IF I granted your one, lonely story shows what you claim it shows - which I certainly do not - it would still only stand as an exception to the general case absence of such stories.

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you don't suppose that the creationists honestly think they really are poking holes, do you? just as you think you're doing. but you're both wrong.

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Don't be pathetic - there is no comparison because unlike other data supporting evolution, there is NO data supporting you. Further, your argument relies on facts that are not in evidence.

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so, they're collective, but don't have hospitality as a collective virtue? evidence, please.

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No - YOU are advancing the claim, YOU provide the evidence in support of your claim.Your argument is sturctured as follows:
- there is a known corpus of collective hospitality myths
- this myth is observably similar to those myths.How can you possibly support your claim without showing a) that such a corpus exists and b) what the similarities are?there is NO basis from the text to support interpreting it in the way your propose. There is NO corpus that makes this obviously the member of a set. There is NO basis for this argument apart, as far as I can tell, from attacking certain Christian ideas.

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i reject it on the basis that it's bad archaeology. it's one person (probably on the history channel) looking at the city and going "oh look, signs of fire. sulfur vents, and geothermal activity next door. maybe that's how god worked his miracle!" it's a supposition, and ignores the fact the city does not show signs of immediate destruction, but a war. they had time to properly bury their dead, for instance.

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And again, you leap to assumptions about work you have not examined merely because it does not fit your preconceptions. And if this is supposed to be christian apologetics, why does Ron Wyatt insist the city is not under the dead sea but somewhere else? I'm even quite willing to accept that archeological speculation of this kind can never be conclusive, but I do NOT reject the argument out of hand as "bad archeology".

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the story is making an accusation against a people, for whatever reason. i'm not the one interested in sin, the people who wrote the darned story are, and OP was. i just provided the best scholarly guess as to what it is, based on surrounding culture and context. you think i made this up?

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Yes. Becuase it is totally without precedent, and not at all scholarly.

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But it does. the citizens of sodom DO something in the story that inspires the angels to think lot's the only one worth saving.

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Actually, they don't mention Lot being worthy of anything - they merely give him due warning. And seeing as he was an alien living in Sodom, and known to them, its far more reasonable to see this as an alliance rather than a moral judgement. And the sin attributed to Sodom is attributed long before the angels arrive and meet lot.

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i thought you weren't aware of the "shit happens" philosophy of literature?

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Correct. Myths that say "they must have deserved it" are the opposite of "shit happens".

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i'm sure they meant to accuse sodom of a multitude of sins, and not one for the whole city, but the fact remains: the citizens are shown participating in one particular sin in the story. the harass the visitors.

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what would you call that?

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Warfare.Anyway, the citizens are NOT shown triggering their own demise becuase the angels set off with the intent of smiting the city beforehand.Your interpetation of the biblical sotry is mistaken; your interpretation of the greek story is mistaken; your alleged corpus does not exist; thus no similarity with the corpus can be shown.Your argument has no evidence - it is a joke. Put up or shut up.This message has been edited by contracycle, 03-15-2005 04:54 AM

except in that the city disturbs and harasses the visitors. you know, exept for all the stuff people have posted in this thread. i agree! please take a history class before you open your mouth. divine right of kings. similar idea, but under a feudal state. in this case, the difference is that this philosophy is explicitly religious in nature, and the only person "raised high" is done so by blood and not income. and there are VASTLY more poor than rich.the philosophy is not about spurning the needy, it's about accepting your lot in life, which is a fundamental difference.like i said, take a history class. or two. yes, and i'm SURE they were expressed in ancient israeli myths. wow, google is not your friend. start with this thread, genius. go back and READ that greek myth one more time, because still seem to miss the fact that inhospitable city is punished as a whole. do i need to link you again, or can you find it on your own? i gave you the reference. go look it up. actually, no. your argument was that hospitality as a virtue was not generalized to the city level. actually, i would call building a giant ziggurat an economic venture. in fact, the sole person responsible for funding its rebuilding ~623 bc was king nebuchadnezzar. it's his name that claims responsibility on the plaque at bab-el.now, look at how the bible portrays the same tower: built by all humanity. in other texts it even directs commentary to nebuchadnezzar specifically. the famous lucifer verse, about building a throne above god, and god toppling it? that's probably a reference to bab-el. but GENESIS portrays it as a generalization.genesis generalizes individual sins. this is getting really annoying. you don't read the posts i direct you to, do you?BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. http://EvC Forum: Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19 -->EvC Forum: Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19the inhospitable town is destroyed as a whole. your point is wrong. get over it. yes, and i'm well aware it's anachronistic.

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Gen 36:31 And these [are] the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

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Gen 24:64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.

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Gen 11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

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these three verses are also anachronisms. genesis is full of them. they indicate genesis had to have been written at least in part during or after the foundation of israel as a state. the chaldeans occupied ur from about 900-600 bc. due to all of babylonian references in the text (bab-el, one of the creation stories, noah) i'm tempted to bet that it was at the end of that range, near the start of the exile.when an entire society is opressed, as strangers in a land not their own, that changes the nature of how hospitality is viewed, does it not? it's quite plausible that sodom is a code for babylon. (and i suspect the same for egypt, actually. but that's a different thread) so does the population in the lot story. granted, they play a bit more of a role, but not a lot. i mean, two speaking lines? i've heard people refer to genesis as tales about personal morality. in fact, i think millions of hebrew school children read it that way. when they read the story, they most certain focus on lot.however, i don't think the condemnation is something you're reading into it. but like i said, genesis does that. alot. and it does it whole groups. all of mankind twice, the ammonites, edomites, all of the arabic speaking people, etc. in fact, "they were mean to angels" is the most coherent attack. mostly, it just calls whole groups of people illegitimate bastards. i sure haven't seen any transitional fossils! they were all created that way!don't be ridiculous. i gave you a place to go look up the stories. that's like me telling a creationist to go to a natural history museum. yes, and we've advanced the most commonly known one, and explained its blatant similarities. and i've shown where you can go look the rest up. it's not a preconception. like i said, i'd feel nice and secure in my religion is it rained fire and brimstone and destroyed a city god says we're supposed to hate. but if we're referring to the same two cities, they had time to bury their dead. instruments of war were found.no, i haven't gone and read journals on it. nor have i been to site and investigate myself. but those simple facts indicate that that is not what happened there. and i don't really care to try to rectify a very fictionalized set of ancient mythology with a real place. it might not even be the SAME place, as there's nothing to really indicate that it is.people just jumped to that conclusion when they found two cities within a few miles of each other that both burned down at about the same time. THAT is bad archaeology. ok, show me some scholarly work on it. i'm very willing to read some actual scholarly opinion on the matter, even if it differs with my views. i'm even known to change those views sometimes as a result.so uh, put it up. interesting.same with noah, i suppose, except the bit about "finding favor with the lord." no no no. one follows from the other:shit happened -> they must have deserved -> because they did [this] wrong.so what did they do wrong? here's the question:god says if ten righteous men can found, he won't destroy the city. were the angels there to check, or did they already know and just came to get lot? you might be right, it might be the second.but either way, the story is still accusing the people of sodom. and re-reading it, i think it might be something just a little different. i don't think it's accusing them of a LACK of hospitality, but not recognizing the hebrew hospitality protocol.the words "the fellow came here as an alien, but already acts as a ruler!" stick out in my mind. it seems that it might not be talking about them not meeting standards as whole or individually or whatever, but them not recognizing and allowing hebrew customs. a kind cultural tolerance bit. granted, heavily related to hospitality. but maybe different enough that you'll let it get by. get lost.the greek story is not a matter of interpretation. the people who do not demonstrate hospitality are all punished. and you've been directed to the index of other such stories.

Dear Crashfrog; Actually we know that there were at least 4 straight people living in the town at the time, Lot's family. Considering that all of the men and young boys showed up to participate in a homosexual gang rape of the two visitors, that would pretty much eliminate the possibility of any other straight men being in town. In the case of the women, we are not told, so maybe they were all straight, we are not told one way or the other. My guess would be that as Sodom became 'gayer' some people left the town while others may have thought, 'while in Rome' so to speak. Since you see being 'gay' as genetic, this would be impossible, while if a matter of choice and the influence of culture, it is very possible. I wonder if we are seeing the same process of change in our world today, with possibly the same end result. Orientation is orientation, acts are acts, you don't truly become thing until you do it. One can have as you say a homosexual orientation and not act on it, while the person still has that orientation, he may not want to be that way and maybe working to change and would not consider himself homosexual. Many young men I hear may go through a period when they maybe attracted to other men, if they do not follow such desires because they don't want to, they are certainly not homosexual, just young. It does support what I am saying that it is a matter of choice, and with effort or in the case of the young just the passing of time, can change the orientation. Actually I have read and heard a number of people relate their personal life story of how they changed from being a homosexual to a well adjusted heterosexual. I have a few accounts at hand here, but they are published copyrighted material so I can't post them, but I could e-mail them to you if you wish to read them. First off, you can't make any one gay, it is a matter of personal choice. As for physiological factors that predispose some towards homosexual orientation, lack of a strong male role model is a frequently cited factor. But no doubt there are quite a number of environmental factors that can effect one's sexual orientation while growing up. As for adults, while we may view ourselves as our sexual orientation being 'cast in concrete', that is not the case as there is considerable plasticness to the human mind. Our out look is shaped by the things we experience as is seen in cultural assimilation, how a person slowly becomes an integral part of a new culture over time. People like to think that they can watch or read what every they want without any effect on themselves, but that is not true. Over time what we expose ourselves to does have a changing effect on us. So basically if you surf enough gay sites, see enough gay films, and hang out with enough gay friends, it will have an effect on you. There is the very real possibility that enough exposure to this sort of thing could alter your orientation. But as I said it is a matter of choice, and even with heavy exposure, a person could still reject it of course, but the environment can be a powerful influence, just look at war fever for example. Of course not, they probably didn't have a word for it, and even if there was it probably wouldn't have meant anything to them. Hence the expression not to lay with a man like you would with a woman. Now you are just splitting hairs. 'To lay with' was a general reference to sexual acts, Rather than make a list of homosexual acts and forbid them one by one, which could have created the mistaken impression that any homosexual act not expressly forbidden was OK, a general reference to sex was used which would include all sex acts between two people of the same sex. So you are saying that the following laws would be just as applicable to Gay 'married' couples?(Deuteronomy 22:13-29) "In case a man takes a wife and actually has relations with her and has come to hate her, and he has charged her with notorious deeds and brought forth a bad name upon her and has said, 'This is the woman I have taken, and I proceeded to go near her, and I did not find evidence of virginity in her'; the father of the girl and her mother must also take and bring forth the evidence of the girl's virginity to the older men of the city at the gate of it; and the girl's father must say to the older men, 'I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and he went hating her. And here he is charging her with notorious deeds, saying: "I have found your daughter does not have evidence of virginity." Now this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they must spread out the mantle before the older men of the city. And the older men of that city must take the man and discipline him. And they must fine him a hundred silver shekels and give them to the girl's father, because he brought forth a bad name upon a virgin of Israel; and she will continue to be his wife. He will not be allowed to divorce her all his days. "If, though, this thing has proved to be the truth, evidence of virginity was not found in the girl, they must also bring the girl out to the entrance of her father's house, and the men of her city must pelt her with stones, and she must die, because she has committed a disgraceful folly in Israel by committing prostitution in the house of her father. So you must clear away what is bad from your midst. "In case a man is found lying down with a woman owned by an owner, both of them must then die together, the man lying down with the woman and the woman. So you must clear away what is bad out of Israel. "In case there happened to be a virgin girl engaged to a man, and a man actually found her in the city and lay down with her, YOU must also bring them both out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones, and they must die, the girl for the reason that she did not scream in the city, and the man for the reason that he humiliated the wife of his fellowman. So you must clear away what is evil from your midst. "If, however, it is in the field that the man found the girl who was engaged, and the man grabbed hold of her and lay down with her, the man who lay down with her must also die by himself, and to the girl you must do nothing. The girl has no sin deserving of death, because just as when a man rises up against his fellowman and indeed murders him, even a soul, so it is with this case. For it was in the field that he found her. The girl who was engaged screamed, but there was no one to rescue her. "In case a man finds a girl, a virgin who has not been engaged, and he actually seizes her and lies down with her, and they have been found out, the man who lay down with her must also give the girl's father fifty silver shekels, and she will become his wife due to the fact that he humiliated her. He will not be allowed to divorce her all his days."(Deuteronomy 25:5-6) "In case brothers dwell together and one of them has died without his having a son, the wife of the dead one should not become a strange man's outside. Her brother-in-law should go to her, and he must take her as his wife and perform brother-in-law marriage with her. And it must occur that the firstborn whom she will bear should succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be wiped out of Israel."So you believe that the above standards applied equally well to Gay couples, so no special mention of such was needed in the law code, which is why they are not mentioned in the law? That would be ridiculous in the extreme, just think of a married man taking his gay brother's partner to perform 'brother-in-law marriage', that would make great sense now wouldn't it! So as I said before, the total lack of laws governing homosexuals clearly shows that they were not allowed under the law code.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Brennakimi Let us see what God really said on the matter of the reliability of his word.
(Isaiah 55:10-11) "For just as the pouring rain descends, and the snow, from the heavens and does not return to that place, unless it actually saturates the earth and makes it produce and sprout, and seed is actually given to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results,"
(Titus 1:2) "upon the basis of a hope of the everlasting life which God, who cannot lie, promised before times long lasting,"
(Hebrews 6:13-19) "For when God made his promise to Abraham, since he could not swear by anyone greater, he swore by himself, saying: "Assuredly in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply you." And thus after [Abraham] had shown patience, he obtained [this] promise. For men swear by the one greater, and their oath is the end of every dispute, as it is a legal guarantee to them. 17 In this manner God, when he purposed to demonstrate more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his counsel, stepped in with an oath, in order that, through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to the refuge may have strong encouragement to lay hold on the hope set before us. This [hope] we have as an anchor for the soul, both sure and firm,"What Joshua said about the reliability of god's word.
(Joshua 23:14) "YOU well know with all YOUR hearts and with all YOUR souls that not one word out of all the good words that Jehovah YOUR God has spoken to YOU has failed. They have all come true for YOU. Not one word of them has failed."What Jesus said about his father's word. (John 17:17) "your word is truth."Jehovah God's word is more solid than diamond. It is just that some have no faith.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Arachnophilia; Yes, but you have failed to adequately consider the context of the word's usage in the Bible, and the way it is translated in many Bibles is still consistent with the usage in the literature you cited. Yes this certainly happens and is a problem, which is why it is wise to use more than one translation. I don't believe it is a factor in this case, because it is not a doctrinal matter, which is what usually alters the perceived context that the translator is working with. Of course it is going to sound different, you can't do a proper translation with just a dictionary, a translator has to take into consideration the context of what the writer was trying to say and how to best express the thought in another language, it is an art not a science. If it was a simple word for word thing, computers would have completely taking over the job long ago. A good example of this is the Greek word "proskyneo" which is generally rendered as 'worship' or as obeisance', the word structure is of little or no aid in determining which English word to use. The translator has to look at the over all context, for example if it is being used in regard to a humans 'obeisance' is generally used while 'worship' if it is used in reference to God. The tricky part is when it is used in regard to Jesus, if the translator is a trinitarian he will tend to use 'obeisance' since he believes that Jesus is God, while a non Trinitarian will probably use 'obeisance' since he doesn't view Jesus as God, but as God's son. There is no way just using a Greek dictionary and looking at the Greek wording used in the verse is going to by itself decide which word to use, the overall context of the entire Bible has to be considered. In this example, the context of translating "proskyneo" in reference to Jesus, one has to consider if Jesus is God or not and if it is in harmony with the whole context of the Bible to translate a verse so that 'worship' is directed to Jesus when Jesus himself said (Matthew 4:10) "It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.'" So the determination of how to render a Hebrew or Greek word can be affected by what is said on that issue in another part of the Bible.That is why the dictionary approach doesn't work, the Bible is far too complex and the topics covered have such fine shades of meaning. Just rendering "proskyneo" as 'worship' at Matthew 28:16-17 is used by many to support the Trinity doctrine which the Bible of course doesn't support, which high lights why Bible Translators have to be very careful how they render the Word of God. And as you pointed out there are translations that for the very same reason; to support no-biblical doctrines, use wording that their readers want to read, but is not in harmony with the context of the Bible. By doing this they also tend to create contradictions in their translations, with one verse saying one thing and other saying the opposite.Think of how often you read something that seemed to be saying one thing, but when you got to the end you realized it meant something else altogether and you had to go back and reread the whole thing from the beginning and it suddenly made much better sense. (some jokes are written that way on propose.) It just highlights why I don't find your way of translating very reliable or impressive. Frankly, you don't know what you are doing and are out of your league, you probably know far more Hebrew and Greek than I, but I know better to try and do what you are doing, and foolishly think that I could get better results than the scholars themselves. Unless you can show solid evidence that they are wrong and you are right, you have nothing, and so far you haven't done that. Your evidence isn't solid or convincing and you have failed to overturn the rending of "men who lay with men" . Paul in using the word obviously would have been referring to the whole thing and not just part, since all sex outside of marriage was forbidden. Since you as pointed out, homosexual acts would have at least been classed as fornication, and all acts of fornication was condemned, it would make no sense for Paul to condemn only a specific type of homosexual relationship. His list of sins in both verses is a sort of catch all, he wasn't trying to list all possible sub types or combinations or situations. So a very narrow interpretation of the word makes no sense in the two verses where Paul used it. Or better translating merely renders Paul closer to the way he wrote than a Greek dictionary word by word approach would do. Paul does view singleness as superior to marriage, but he in no way looks down on or condemns marriage. (1 Corinthians 7:38) "Consequently he also that gives his virginity in marriage does well, but he that does not give it in marriage will do better." (1 Corinthians 7:28) "if you did marry, you would commit no sin." Paul's two reasons for viewing singleness as being better, was greater freedom to serve God, and being free of martial problems and stresses. The Bible actually speaks highly of sex, (just read the book of Solomon) after all God invented it. The whole sex=sin thinking is a creation of the Catholic Church, this particular perversion was even specifically warned about by Paul.(1 Timothy 4:1-3) "However, the inspired utterance says definitely that in later periods of time some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons, by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, marked in their conscience as with a branding iron; forbidding to marry,"So Paul wasn't against marriage, he even said that those who would later forbid marriage, would be following the teachings of demons.Sorry to hear Paul's logic is going over your head, he does take awhile to understand even if you are a 'spiritual man' as Paul would say.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

#1.do you trust everyone who say that they never lie?#2.you just got done telling me that the bible doesn't mean what it says. if the book says god hardened the man's heart then it means it. it may be wrong, but it means what it says.

Except in cases like Isaiah 55:10-11 where it is simply wrong. LOL

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

as i said. it means what it means. sometimes it may be wrong lol.

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1Cr 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

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1Ti 1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

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and that's all the bible writes. the context of BOTH is a list of kinds of sinners, and that's all. neither verse is surrounded by any description of sexual sins.it's conspicuously absent when paul talks about homosexuality:

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Rom 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

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the outside contexts are all older male and younger boy. so no, not consistent at all. and like i said, i don't care if paul is condemning consenting homosexual relationships. he clearly is in the romans verse. but i'm not so sure he is in the other two. do you live in america? homosexuality certainly is a doctrinal matter. so is evolution. you can find bad translation software on the internet. i'm reasonably sure good translation software could be written, and probably is. it's just not free.however, you missed the point of what i was trying to say. christian translators seem to be toning dowm paul a little to make him more appealing. worship is one of those words that's been used so often it's lost meaning. in reality, worship and obeisence should mean the same thing. no, i know. and bible dictionaries should usually not be trusted. but when you look up words like "paradidomi" and discover the greek has absolutely no connotations of betrayal, it sort of changes how the book is read, doesn't it? it hints at jesus orchestrating his own martyrdom. but for various religious reasons, this word will still be translated as "betray." no. my point was that "scholars" and "people who translate the bible" are not one and same. most people who translate published editions of the bible have religious goals. there are some scholarly translation i've seen that often say very, very different things.for instance, the hebrew of genesis 1 does not have god creating the universe. and yet every translation i've read seems to indicate that he did. someone before showed how that wouldn't be fitting with grammar, and uses the wrong case of arren. i've also demonstrated that a cler meaning cannot be determined from context alone, and provided evidence that all other usage applies to a specific type of homosexual relationship.i'm just saying it should mean "men who lay with boys." yes. and oddly, sex out of wedlock isn't mentioned in either verse.(fornicators in the corinthians verse is "pornos" or prostitutes) yet he is only listing specific sins. THREE of which are sexual in nature. if he was trying to be general he could have just said "those who sin in a sexual manner" and saved some time. no, he's picking random specific examples, and probably tailoring them to what he thinks are the city's biggest problems. i was just reading the english. he does say being single and celibate is better. uh, no, it's based heavily on 1 corinthians 7. i've literally seen its impact first hand in churches i've attended. because it's not ALL sex=sin. but it is strongly taboo. that verse is not talking about the catholic church. note the word "forbidding." his logic is not going over my head. you can argue the finer points of what he says, and be a paul apologist all you want. but the fact remains. i have seen the effect of these verses firsthand. and they are not inconsistent with paul's teachings. but paul is inconsistent with jesus's teachings, and the entire history of the jewish church.i didn't mean to say he "condemns" marriage and heterosexual sex in terms of it being sinful. he just recommends against it.

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except in that the city disturbs and harasses the visitors.

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Yes, and even more curiously, no reason was given. And, why should a city have any obligation NOT to harass visitors?

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you know, exept for all the stuff people have posted in this thread.

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... which does not stand up to scrutiny. This looks more and more like an urban legend to my eyes - everyone "knows" it but cannot explain how they came by that knowledge. That SHOULD set off a bunch of alarm bells.

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please take a history class before you open your mouth

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Ha ha ha. Now thats arrogant indeed - I have taken many.

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divine right of kings. similar idea, but under a feudal state. in this case, the difference is that this philosophy is explicitly religious in nature, and the only person "raised high" is done so by blood and not income. and there are VASTLY more poor than rich.

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There are similarities, but Divine Right is a specific doctrine and cannot be conflated with the general case of the lord god making people rich or poor. That is, the manifest destiny doctrine can coexist with, or exist independantly of, divine right of kings. You might know that if you took the odd history lesson.Ands its not by blood necessarily - Wulfnoth Cild was a sussex thegn of no reputation; his son Godwine become a powerful landholder through loyal service to the king; his son Harold become king of England briefly. Where's the blood? What determined Harolds candidacy was wealth and power.

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like i said, take a history class. or two.

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Why would I, when I'm whipping you with one hand tied behind my back?

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yes, and i'm SURE they were expressed in ancient israeli myths.

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Duh, of course they were:# 2 Samuel 12:4
"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."Proverbs 10:4
Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.Proverbs 22:
2 Rich and poor have this in common:
The LORD is the Maker of them all.7 The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is servant to the lender.Jeremiah 5:4
I thought, "These are only the poor;
they are foolish,
for they do not know the way of the LORD ,
the requirements of their God.
5 So I will go to the leaders
and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the LORD ,
the requirements of their God."Now admittedly, most of the bibles references to the poor are sympathetic, but Calvinism is easily able to support its social darwinism from biblical references.

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i gave you the reference. go look it up.

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And its not acceptable - I am not going to go running around just becuase you can't be bothered to do the necessary research. I already know what the conclusion will be, after all. YOU are presenting the arguemnt - YOU have to support your argument. Anything else is intellectually dishonest.The fact of the matter is you CANNOT support your claim. You have been caught out propagating an urban legend you adopted uncritically.

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genesis generalizes individual sins.

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I never claimed it did not. Hospitality, however, is not among them, and cannot be.

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yes, and i'm well aware it's anachronistic.

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So withdraw the claim then.

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when an entire society is opressed, as strangers in a land not their own, that changes the nature of how hospitality is viewed, does it not? it's quite plausible that sodom is a code for babylon. (and i suspect the same for egypt, actually. but that's a different thread)

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No - why would it? Such a change would require quite a lot of "social engineering" and I do not see that. Furthermore, as a rule oppressed societies don't have much room to construct an ideology. And thirdly, your argument now requires many many assumptions not in evidence - that the whole story is anachronistic, thats its a different city, that its a different political context. Thats too much special pleading, especially when your claim is that it is OBVIOUS that this is one of a (non-existant) mass of hospitality myths.

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however, i don't think the condemnation is something you're reading into it. but like i said, genesis does that. alot. and it does it whole groups. all of mankind twice, the ammonites, edomites, all of the arabic speaking people, etc. in fact, "they were mean to angels" is the most coherent attack. mostly, it just calls whole groups of people illegitimate bastards.

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And, I have already explained why this does not constitute a rebuttal: my claim is not "generalisation never happens", it is that "hospitality is not generalisable in bronze age societies". You are attakcing a straw man again - please stop doing so and stick to the issue.

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don't be ridiculous. i gave you a place to go look up the stories. that's like me telling a creationist to go to a natural history museum.

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And as I have already told you - I HAVE looked, and there AREN'T ANY. You are trying to lecture the curator of the museam as to what the museum contains.

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yes, and we've advanced the most commonly known one, and explained its blatant similarities. and i've shown where you can go look the rest up.

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At this point it is the ONLY known one, ever - and you have mistaken its interpretation, and continue to do so despite being corrected. All I have asked you to do is justify why you think there are so many, when none can be found.

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no, i haven't gone and read journals on it. nor have i been to site and investigate myself. but those simple facts indicate that that is not what happened there. and i don't really care to try to rectify a very fictionalized set of ancient mythology with a real place. it might not even be the SAME place, as there's nothing to really indicate that it is.

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Indeed. And UNLESS you CAN say that the city found WAS Sodom, specifically, the presence of weapons in the found sity is not conclusive.Its clear to me know that we are referring to different investigations; that is not surprising. What is surprising is that you seem to cite a "real" Sodom when it suits our argument, and deny Sodom existed at all when it suits your argument. And its not even particularly relevent, except inasmuch as you affected incredulity regarding the recording of natural disaters.

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ok, show me some scholarly work on it. i'm very willing to read some actual scholarly opinion on the matter, even if it differs with my views. i'm even known to change those views sometimes as a result. so uh, put it up.

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Ha hah ha - here you persistently refuse to show your own work, demonstrate the invisible evidence you claim exists, and yet you are arrogant enough to demand evidnece from me? My doesn't that remind you of someone demanding that evolutinists myst definitely disprove god, and that theists have no necessity to prove god at all?YOU are advancing the claim - YOU must support it. I do not have to take your claim seriously, and neither does anyone else, until such time as you can show that it is even plausible at all, let alone true. Inasmuch as this argument appears to be advanced to "prove" that the sin committed by Sodom was not homosexuality it is manifestly failing, because no other precedents for this kind of alleged myth can be found. You cannot make your case as it stands - as this poor argument must necessarily strengthen the other position. This argument is bogus.

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no no no. one follows from the other:
shit happened -> they must have deserved -> because they did [this] wrong. so what did they do wrong?

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Now you are playing linguistic games. "shit happens" is mostly iused to dismiss concern about an event. But nevermind.Why do you expect me to be able to tell you what the alleged sin was if it was not mentioned specifically in the bible? Once again, I do not need to do so to debunk the silly notion that the alleged sin was hospitality, because you simply cannot support that claim. This is an urban legend, as far as I can tell.

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the words "the fellow came here as an alien, but already acts as a ruler!" stick out in my mind. it seems that it might not be talking about them not meeting standards as whole or individually or whatever, but them not recognizing and allowing hebrew customs. a kind cultural tolerance bit. granted, heavily related to hospitality. but maybe different enough that you'll let it get by.

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That seems even weaker to me. They seem to be saying that Lot, as an incomer, has not right to go telling the locals how to behave. "They come over here and take our jobs and run the place" yada yada.But, then again, there is no expectation whatsoever in the region that cultural tolerance is a virtue. So, the suggestion that Sodom's sin was "cultural insenstitity" cannot fly without some sort of support to show that is a reasonable conclusion. There isn't any.The sin of Sodom simply cannot be said to be hospitality with any honesty. The text itself cannot be read that way; there is no supporting data; its anachronistic to the region and culture. It Cannot Be.so uh, put it up.