Sodom and Lot, historicity and plausibility of Genesis 19

because such was apparently hebrew custom. and the city was not hebrew. i think there's more about clashing cultures than i gathered before. no, you're being argumentative. there's a difference. what you said equated to "god chooses who becomes rich and who becomes poor." that is, by definition, the basis of divine right of kings. divine = god, king = rich and powerful.but either way, either of those philosophies cannot be equated with your proposed social darwinist view of the bronze age, which is still blatantly anachronistic. yes. whipping me indeed. let's what you've gotten right so far:
no myths with whole groups punished for inhospitality? hm, no.
helen of troy = origin of hellenes? no there either.
cultural context of (and time period for) genesis? nope.tell me, really, do you honestly think you're WINNING this debate just because you talk a big game? your points have ALL been disproven. granted, not thoroughly, a counterexample or two should suffice to make you think twice.but, no, you keep rambling on, even when your errors have been pointed out to you. you're being completely ridiculous here, and everyone sees it but you. wow, you picked a FUN example.

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2 Samuel 12:5,6 (JPS)

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"As the LORD lives, the man deserves to die! He shall pay for the lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and showed no pity!"

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david disaproves of the practice. oh, but look, nathan turns it around on him, and explains that, guess what, he's speaking in a big metaphor ON THE CULTURAL LEVEL. so not only do both parties disapprove of the idea, but their talking about something you insisted they didn't.tell me, do you read what you post? cause that one looks really bad. you're quoting way out of context, and i mean WAY out of context. sure you're not a wacky creationist? "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise."and it's new corollary: "if you're sickly, ignorant, and broke, you must stay up too late and sleep in too much."do you not understand how these two statements are different" proverbs is a collection of traditional sayings (exactly like poor richard's almanack, btw) that are the sorts of things people repeat to their children as tacky age-old advise. it's saying "work hard" and not that the poor are just lazy. irrelevant to your point. ahem, forgot some of it, did we?

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Jeremiah 5:5,6

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"But they as well had broken the yoke
Had snapped the bonds.
Therefore,
   The lion of the forest strikes them down,
   The wolf of the desert ravages them.
   A leopard lies in wait in their towns;
   Whoever leaves them will be torn to pieces.
For their transgressions are many,
Their rebellious acts unnumbered.

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the entire point of that verse in jeremiah is that the rich are no better than the poor. quite the opposite of social darwinism. perhaps you should rethink your position a little. just like many of the fundamentalist stuff is easily supportable. in fact, i've even demonstrated with the bible that we should execute people who get divorced. it's not really very hard to defend to positions based on poor readings of the text. sorry, i'm actually taking some classes myself right now, and i'm quite busy lately. although, i might find the opportunity to do some research soon, if i piggyback it onto the other research i have to do. and you've been caught in blatant ignorance of a good many things, as pointed out repeatedly above. yes, actually, it can. and i've explained the conditions under which it can be, and it matches my best timeframe for the authorship of genesis. not proven, but plausible and probable. you really like to quote out of context, don't you? what about the next bit, about genesis being full of such anachronisms? i gave specific examples of several verses that do not and cannot fit the traditional time frame for the book. it had to have been written later than you're assuming. yes, actually you do. it's called "genesis." under this model for it's authorship, genesis was intended to maintain and modify the cultural identity of the hebrews, immersed in babylonian society. it explains the drastic isolationism, the cultural stereotypes, and many many other facets of the book all very neatly. i'm not saying that genesis represents the entire hebrew culture at the time -- quite the opposite. it's trying to stir dissent from the babylonian oppressors. and a good way to do that is to say "they're breaking the rules of hospitality" even such standards did not actually exist.even if it's not the case specifically, it's very obvious to any educated person reading the book that genesis is something we'd call propaganda today. look at what it says -- "this land is ours, god promised us," and "all these other people are bad and god doesn't like them." now look at the propaganda hitler's germany put out. same stuff, basically. now if we wanna get into joshua and judges where it actually says to wipe out whole races.... no, actually it doesn't. just that spin put on it is. maybe the sin was something else originally. maybe it was idolatry, they use that one a lot. it's entirely possible that someone along the way editted it slightly. we do know of other occasions where such a thing has happened. why? it's JUST A STORY. which would be the case in exile, no? that's nice and all, but here's a newsflash for you. genesis was not written during the bronze age. the EARLIEST TRADITIONAL DATE for genesis is about 1250 bce, written by moses, which is right at the tail end of the bronze age. a later more acceptable date is around 1100 bce, just slightly out of the bronze age.textual evidence indicates that it could not have been written by moses, and had to have been written later. which would put it out of the bronze age entirely. my date is about 600 bce, which would be the iron age. want some more proof that you don't know what you're talking about?

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Gen 4:22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain [was] Naamah.

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tell me, did they know how to work iron in the bronze age? {edit, to clarify:} not saying that tubalcain did in fact work iron, or even actually existed, just that knowledge of iron work existed at the time of the authorship or redaction of the text, indicating the text to be post-bronze age. like i said, the book is FULL of anachronisms.{/edit}so, in other words, i may be burning some strawmen here, but you're tilting windmills. thank you for playing, have a nice day. i sure am if he can't tell a bronze age artifact from an iron age one! one question at a time: do you deny that in the story of baucis and philemon an entire city is destroyed for their lack of hospitality? that's not the point. i don't care if it is the city sodom was based on or not. i really don't. the point is that it's the city YOU said was sodom was based on, and the proof is that one of two things must be the case:either they changed the story a lot, or this city is not the basis for the sodom. and i don't care which it is. it doesn't show that sodom is fictional or even fictionalized. when did i cite a REAL sodom? i refered to this city that way a few times because the name escapes me at the moment. and at the moment, google is not my friend either. i'm just turning up pages and pages of religious bs on the matter. -- all the archaeology uses the real name of the cities. but fro mthe description of the surroundings, we are talking about the same place. genesis 19 may well be an attempt to explain a natural disastor. but if it is, then it's not that particular city, is it? i gave you the reference. you said that scholars said something. i just asked to see it. or, hell, i'll be fair. give me the title of the book, and i'll go look it up along with stith thompson. or would that still be arrogant? plausibility has been adequately demonstrated in this thread. rrhain posted a similar myth. on the other hand, why should i take YOUR claims seriously? you claimed genesis to be a bronze age book, helen of troy the origin of the hellenes, and claimed there were no myths that punished inhospitality on the city level after one had been posted.so far, you're batting 0. if i bet one baseball, i wouldn't place my money on you here. i'm really fine with it being about homosexuality. i don't have a very high opinion of the book anyways, as you might have noticed. however, a whole city being homosexual? that seems even less likely than the hopsitality thing, for all the same reasons, doesn't it?tell me, did bronze age cultures in the near east, especially the one that wrote the iron age book of genesis, consider homosexuality a corporation? read genesis 19 again. one more time, for old time's sake. you're still missing, oh verses 5-9 or so. while this is undoubtably not the only sin of sodom (later authors mention a bunch of other ones), it is clearly the accusation the author is making against the city.now, is it the intimacy aspect, or the hospitality aspect, do you think? like i said, it makes total sense as a babylon metaphor. it's trying to say that something a city in greater power is doing to foreigners in their land is incorrect. this could concievably have only arisen during the babylonian exile, as minority political stance. a whole society is not represented by one opinion of a single author, in a book of so very many sources and timelines. back to the question then: what is it?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-17-2005 12:20 AM

Review your posts and see if there are portions that are attacks on the individual instead of the message. Do they add to the discussion or would your message be the same even if they were removed.EVERYBODY!Let's try to stick to the issues and quit arguing the individual.

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sorry jar, he's just really ticking me off.the whole damned thing is not on topic, either. i say we end this part of the discussion.

That is certainly within your control.The occasional appropriate use of capital letters might be nice as well.

lol. but i DO use capitals occasionally. SEE?

Well, let me see. Since we're still stringing the gays up to fenceposts and beating them to death, and amending the Constitution so that "equal protection under the law" applies to everyone but them, I just don't see it likely that people are lining up to join the "Homosexual agenda" or whatever.But, I dunno. Maybe the food's better? So how did you know who you wanted to have sex with? I mean, if you aren't it until you do it, you must have tried it with both sexes, right? You must have been attracted to both men and women until you had sex with women, right? ...Are you trying to tell us something, Wmscott? As I said, "homosexual therapy" is a myth. Oh, I'm sure that you have stories from people you managed to guilt into having heterosex. There are usually the people you find in the gay bars in about a year after their supposed "miraculous conversion." Exactly. Just like it was a personal choice for you to be straight? How come I don't think so? I know it wasn't a personal choice for me; being attracted to women and not men was never something I chose. It just worked out that way.I'm supposed to believe that I'm different, though? That it was a choice for everybody else? Even though everybody tells the same story as me, that they didn't choose their orientation?If being gay is a choice, then why are gay people so adamant that it isn't a choice? Like I said, what would it take to turn you gay? Or, if you prefer, what would it take to convince you to choose to find men attractive?I dare you to do it, just for a minute. Prove to me you can. Just for a minute find men sexually attractive. If it's a choice you should be able to do it easily. And since I'm not asking you to have sex with another man you won't actually be gay.Go on, do it. I bet you can't. I further bet you'll claim you're refusing to do it on the grounds that it's a sin. Never mind that it'll completely contradict what you said before:

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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.

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So choose the orientation, just for a minute. Like you said it's not a sin and you won't really be gay. Choose to find men attractive, just for one minute. I dare you. Well, now isn't that interesting? I'm pretty sure that's Rrhain's exact argument to you. How can the Bible condemn something for which there was no word at the time? Don't you think that if people were doing it, which they would have to be if it was such a big deal it needed to go into the Bible, they'd have a word for it?If only to plan the party schedule. Yes. And therefore "lay..as with a woman" specifies the sexual acts you perform with a woman.Two gay men can't do what one man does with a woman; it requires a part neither one of them possess. It's not "splitting hairs", its reading what is actually written in the Bible absent 2000 years of anti-homosexual bias. In the sense that a law against sleeping under bridges applies to rich people, yes. Sure. If either of two gay men in a marriage are non-virginal daughters, I guess the law can apply to them. Or, as is more likely, they simply need less rules because they're not in a procreative marriage. Most of what you deem "marriage" laws are actually laws about inheritance and property.

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no, you're being argumentative. there's a difference.

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Becuase not only can you not support your claims, you are defaulting to bluster to conceal that fact. I am entirely right to call you on your dishonesty.

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what you said equated to "god chooses who becomes rich and who becomes poor." that is, by definition, the basis of divine right of kings. divine = god, king = rich and powerful.

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No it is not. The divine right of kings claims that the universe is ordered into layers, significantly featuring god as the singular ruler at the top. Thus, human society, in order to be godly, also has to have an divinely approved single ruler - whether that be pope or king.The divine right of kings is thus obviously incompatible with democracy. God making the rich rich and the poor poor is NOT incompatible with democracy, and was therefore preserved, in the form of social darwinism.

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but either way, either of those philosophies cannot be equated with your proposed social darwinist view of the bronze age, which is still blatantly anachronistic.

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And I'm afraid you remain ignorantly mistaken and perversely resistant to being corrected. I have now demolished this argument on two fronts - you are flat out wrong to assert this.

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tell me, really, do you honestly think you're WINNING this debate just because you talk a big game? your points have ALL been disproven. granted, not thoroughly, a counterexample or two should suffice to make you think twice.

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Of course I am. You've been forced into a multiple-page defence of the fact that you cannot show the proof you claim exists. Your attempts to conflate modern and ancient social forms have been destroyed. Your temper tantrums and attempts to shift the burden of proof away from the claimant reveal the depth of your desperation. You don't have an argument, and you know it. What you have is an urban myth.

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but, no, you keep rambling on, even when your errors have been pointed out to you. you're being completely ridiculous here, and everyone sees it but you.

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And yet, you still can't provide any envidence of these "thousands" of myths that allegedly exist. All you are providing, still, is excuses. And I'm quite sure that everyone can see that.

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tell me, do you read what you post? cause that one looks really bad. you're quoting way out of context, and i mean WAY out of context. sure you're not a wacky creationist?

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Ha ha ha. I am not quoting out of context - I can demonstrate a position exists by citing its critics, as I pointed out.

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i gave you the reference.

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You gave me a "reference" to a wqork that does not contain what you say it contains. I'm asking you for your evidence - show me some. I am not your personal secretary and do not do your library lookups for you.

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sorry, i'm actually taking some classes myself right now, and i'm quite busy lately. although, i might find the opportunity to do some research soon, if i piggyback it onto the other research i have to do.

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So, like a hit and run poster, when hoist on yourt own petard you make a cheap excuse for your failure to back up your claim and withdraw. Yes, clearly, you MUST be winning this argument.

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yes, actually, it can. and i've explained the conditions under which it can be, and it matches my best timeframe for the authorship of genesis. not proven, but plausible and probable.

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No you have not, because you have failed to provide any supporting evidence whatsoever. Hospitality is not valid as a collective virtue.

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textual evidence indicates that it could not have been written by moses, and had to have been written later. which would put it out of the bronze age entirely. my date is about 600 bce, which would be the iron age. want some more proof that you don't know what you're talking about?

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Oh, yes please. Becuiase of course there is no mechanism to conclusively claim that this story does not have an oral exiostance prior to its being recorded. That in fact is probable. Further, as you acknowledge, this is only just inside the iron age boundary, and so most of the social conventions of iron age societies have yet to appear. And third, seeing as we are not talking about the primary social engines of change in the region at all, it is utterly unsurprising that these peoples are still operating as a bronze age polity even if in contact with some iron age ones.This much SHOULD be abundantly clear becuase you recently acknowledged the period of nomadism. Nomadism can occur in an iron age technology, but is still necessarily a herioc culture. And it is that heroic cutlure specifically that I cite, not bronze age technology. Next!

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i'm not saying that genesis represents the entire hebrew culture at the time -- quite the opposite. it's trying to stir dissent from the babylonian oppressors. and a good way to do that is to say "they're breaking the rules of hospitality" even such standards did not actually exist.

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Now you are directly contradicting yourself. If it were true that the authors were trying to construct a criticism, then they would necessarily have to have been explicit as to their criticism. Because otherwise, there would be no basis for expecting the audience to "get" the message they are trying to communicate - it would be an exercise in futility. And furthermore, the idea that this passage is a form of social criticism doirectloy contradicts your previous claim that this was one of a large number of hospitality myths - now you say its no a generic myth but a specific political criticism! Twist and turn.

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even if it's not the case specifically, it's very obvious to any educated person reading the book that genesis is something we'd call propaganda today.

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Its certainly normative and propagandist, but to assume it is ONLY proapgandist is unfair and IMO wrong; too much of it looks like an attempt to record a national history and identity, and of course quite large chunks of the general context of the bible have been archeologically verified. I don't think propaganda alone is an adequate explanation for the existance of the bible.

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why? it's JUST A STORY.

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Thats what they said about Troy.

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tell me, did they know how to work iron in the bronze age? {edit, to clarify:} not saying that tubalcain did in fact work iron, or even actually existed, just that knowledge of iron work existed at the time of the authorship or redaction of the text, indicating the text to be post-bronze age. like i said, the book is FULL of anachronisms.{/edit}

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That is in fact NOT an anachronism. Of course they knew how to work iron in the bronze age - the terms bronze, iron, and stone ages refer to *the dominant material*, not the only existing material. Iron mines go back to the stone age in certain specific cases, but real iron working as a widespread, common technology requires a great deal of subsequent development. Thus, referring to Tubal-cain working iron does not rule out the origin of the story in the bronze age at all.Its also worth mentiong that in terms of utility, iron is inferior to bronze. But iron is much cheaper to mass-produce than bronze; thats why it is only developed as a dominant material in societies with a certain degree of social complexity and density.

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you said that scholars said something. i just asked to see it. or, hell, i'll be fair. give me the title of the book, and i'll go look it up along with stith thompson. or would that still be arrogant?

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OK. Start with Bronze Age Economics by Timothy Earle, and Cattle Lords and Clansmen by Nerys Patterson. Neither of these are mythological works, obviously, but I can;t prove a negative. What these should do is provide some grounding in the political economy of bronze age societies, and the role of hospitality in those socities. I can make some recommendations for the mesopotamian middle east as well, but not off the cuff.

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plausibility has been adequately demonstrated in this thread. rrhain posted a similar myth. on the other hand, why should i take YOUR claims seriously? you claimed genesis to be a bronze age book, helen of troy the origin of the hellenes, and claimed there were no myths that punished inhospitality on the city level after one had been posted.

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so far, you're batting 0. if i bet one baseball, i wouldn't place my money on you here.

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this is like arguing with a three year old - fingers in their ears and repetition is all they now. 1) Plausibility has not been demonstrated; 2) your reading of the greek myth is anachronistic; 3) there are no myths of cities punished for inhospitality, the very statement remains meaningless.

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i'm really fine with it being about homosexuality. i don't have a very high opinion of the book anyways, as you might have noticed. however, a whole city being homosexual? that seems even less likely than the hopsitality thing, for all the same reasons, doesn't it?

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Agreed - its totally implausible that a whole city would be homosexual. But as against that, some Mesopotamian cults were very sexually liberal, didn't seem to have too much of a problem with homosexuality, and exhibited religious prostitution. A patriarchal society like that of the hebrews may probably be threatened by a city that did not compel all men to copy the masculine archetype that justifies patriarchy. Thus, a "city of homosexuals" could be seen in much the way one might describe San Francisco, or parts of it, as a gay capital or city or similar.**
To destroy, to build up, to tear out and to settle are yours, Inanna
To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna
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tell me, did bronze age cultures in the near east, especially the one that wrote the iron age book of genesis, consider homosexuality a corporation?

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Not at all. But in a society that exhibits a patron city god, as was common, all moral positions are legitimised by the city cult. So there is a track record, in the criticism of Babylon, for biblical authors holding the entire city culture accountable for those things which the city does endorse as "public" policy.But that said, IMO the story is so fragmented that it cannot be taken as a plasuible account of anything in particular. Thats why I'm pefectly happy with the idea that what the story is REALLY about is a natural disater - all the rest is just subsequent rationalisation, including allegations of sinfulness.

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now, is it the intimacy aspect, or the hospitality aspect, do you think?

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Neither is apparent. At no point does Lot protest that what the mob is doing is against the laws of hospitality, or anything else. What he does is try to negotiate and bribe. There is no support or mention of hospitality anywhere in the text.

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ike i said, it makes total sense as a babylon metaphor. it's trying to say that something a city in greater power is doing to foreigners in their land is incorrect.

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Maybe. But look, there is no culture of human rights or anything at all along those lines in the region. The code of Hammurabi was posted at the city gate precisely so that travellers, en route to the square, would be given due notice of the laws they were now under. Theres no real basis for claiming that the Israelites were pursuing a programme of social justice - indeed their own behaviour was precisely the opposite, to make war and massacres against and of other local rivals, and to rule their own territory by their own law. But I will allow that given the bibles discussion of the virtue of the poor, its possible this is a post facto rationalisation of whatever sin it "must" have been that caused the city to be wiped out.

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back to the question then: what is it?

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And as I have already told you, I do not know and do not like to speculate in the absence of evidence. And I have also pointed out that the authors may never even have had a specific sin in mind, if the story is primarily an account of a natural disaster. I do NOT have to propose an alternative to a weak proposition in order to attack it.This message has been edited by contracycle, 03-17-2005 06:04 AM

Dear Brennakimi God never lies, and there are people who never lie. If it can be shown that they never lie, why shouldn't they be believed?
You apparently don't understand what interpretation is. The word interpret is defined as "to conceive in the light of individual belief." When people read something or hear something, they interpret it to themselves in terms of what they believe. Like when the wife's husband phones home and states that he will be working late, she is going to interpret that statement in light of her belief about what he may really be doing. Reading the Bible has some of the same problems of interpretation, people who have preconceived ideas or strongly held doctrines, tend to interpret things in the Bible in a very different way than one would who reads the same verse without those preconceptions.Now lesson one, God is said to things that occur naturally without any direct action on his part because he created them and they continue to operate according to the laws he established.(Psalm 104:14) "He is making green grass sprout for the beasts, And vegetation for the service of mankind, To cause food to go forth from the earth,"
(1 Corinthians 3:7) "so that neither is he that plants anything nor is he that waters, but God who makes [it] grow."
(Matthew 5:45) "he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous."Now as you know, plants grow, rain falls and the sun rises each day with out a direct command from God, yet God can be and is spoken of as doing or causing these things to occur.Lesson two, God is also said to have caused things that he permits to happen. Such as each time he is said to have destroyed Jerusalem and caused the Israelites to be taken captive, he didn't do it, he merely allowed it to happen. It is the same with the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, God let him harden his heart, but he didn't make him do it. If you reread my post on this, you will see that in one verse God is said to have harden Pharaoh's heart, and in the next Pharaoh is said to have hardened his own heart. God hardening Pharaoh's heart is a figure of speech, for God allowing Pharaoh's heart to harden. Just as God can be said to make the sun rise every day and the plants grow, God is sometimes said to have done things that he allows to happen and doesn't directly cause to happen.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Arachnophilia; (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) "What! Do YOU not know that unrighteous persons will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men,"
(1 Timothy 1:10) " fornicators, men who lie with males,"Fornication- consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other. Merriam-Webster dictionary.So yes sex out of wedlock is mentioned in both verses. Now I know you will go on about the Greek word used and claim that it means only prostitution while ignoring the fact that nearly all translations use the rendering of fornicator. It seems that you constantly reject established translations, claiming that they are biased, and when the definition given in the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries disagree with you, they are biased too. It seems that nobody but you knows what they are doing when it comes to biblical translation. I just find that ridiculous to the extreme. Both the Greek dictionaries and many Bible translations use homosexual or 'men who lie with men' rather then your choice of 'men who lay with boys', in fact no translation that I know of uses your wording. If you gave that answer in a biblical Greek class, you would probably be flunked out. If you don't know the difference between obeisance and worship especially in reference to the Bible, you are totally unqualified to be even having any debates over word usage in the Bible, you simply don't know what you are talking about. Then there is your statements that Paul contradicts what Jesus taught, and other such non sensical statements.So considering the magnitude of the obvious bloopers on your part, in the future you will need to quote references to support your opinions since your judgment and opinion on these matters is clearly worthless.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

and you should reread arachnophilia's post and check into hebrew.btw. you are the one with pre-conceived notions about the bible. i was raised strict presbyterian and have since explored the book alone and not the doctrines of others.

the bible says that true religion is "to care for widows and orphans." the word says "if you love me, keep my commandments." obedience is obviously the most right form of worship. sitting in a building chanting ritualized verses with a group of fellows is not what he demands.

yes. and that is the difference i was explaining. i'm flat out wrong to assert that social darwinism didn't exist in the bronze age? do you hear yourself? and which two front? the textual evidence you provided that clearly refutes your point? or the difference in philosophies of rich and poor, which also refutes your point? proof has been given. you're arguing it's existance. social darwinism in the bronze age. that's all i need to say. what you have suggested is even more anachronistic than what i have suggested. stith thompson, "motif index of folk-literature..." so i can demonstrate that i'm right by quoting you? no, i don't think so. you DIDN'T demonstrate that social darwinism existed in the text. in jeremiah's case, he's using a rhetorical question. which you don't seem to understand in my posts either: when i asked you if you wanted more proof you were wrong, you asked me to provide it. if you had kept reading, it was the next thing written. and the verse in samuel is accusing david of a crime on the "corporate" level. and you're obviously not very interested in actually finding anything out, either. you just want to sit there secure in your knowlegde and think you're right. it's not a cheap excuse. i don't have the chance to run out to a library at the moment. and it's quite a big venture, too. here's one of the six volumes:

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Mat 6:7 ...use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

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i've provided textual evidence that genesis was written well into the iron age, and probably in a context that would produce such a collective ACCUSATION. not virtue, accusation. we've been over this. now who's making claims that can't be supported? sure, it might have been an oral tradition long before it was written. in fact, it was probably written down long before its inclusion in genesis. but the fact of the matter is that genesis was LAST modified a lot more recently. we KNOW that because bits indicate a date post 900bc, probably closer to 600. if the stories existed beforehand, they were modified after this date.this shows that you basically have zero knowledge of ancient literature studies. you have to date the book by it's last known modification. that's a basic, basic principle of the field. BY SIX HUNDRED YEARS. no, it just indicates that whoever wrote it down lived during the iron age, and an anachronism made it into the text. changing your tune, i see. you said bronze age. shall i quote you? the fact of the matter is genesis is ABOUT a nomadic culture, not written by one. the end bronze in the near east is actually defined more or less by the traditional date of the exodus, and settling in israel, as well as a few other population shifts. the hebrew who wrote genesis were not the nomadic people in the stories. as i've pointed out, the signs indicate that they were an exiled people.also, you've been shown a group of people collectively punished for inhospitality in a heroic myth. next? being explicit in criticizing and power uh. no. it's called exploring alternatives. i'm trying some different ways of reading the story. nothing satisfies you, does it? whether or not it's a specific criticism, it still fits the general pattern of a hospitality myth. it just might be specifically criticizing a particular culture's treatement of foriegners. these two are not incompatible. strawman: i didn't say it was ONLY propaganda. i hold the opinion that the primary purpose of genesis is to record mythology, and thus cultural identity, in order to preserve said identity in an oppressive foriegn culture. that explains the book as a whole quite well.my hebrew professor, well versed in this field, admitted this was probably correct too, but refused to believe it on a strictly religious basis. really now? like what? here's a challenge for you then. king david is one of biggest figures in the book. the first and most influential king of judah and israel united.show me his name on something archaeology has turned up. not "ben david" but KING david. yes, and guess what? the iliad is still just a story. it's a work of fiction, even if troy really existed and there really was a trojan war. was there a guy named achilles? how about helen? what about the horse? how many years did it last?likewise, sodom is just a story, even if there is a real place that bears similarity to it. on it's own, maybe you have a point. taken with the other anachronisms in the text, you do not. because the bronze age hebrew nomads had not domesticated camels, nore were the chaldeans in ur, nore were there kings in israel. the text was written post-bronze-age. that's nice and all, but as i've pointed out, we're not talking about the bronze age. we're talking about 600 years into the iron age. got an iron age book? i'll look that one up. you say as you repeat: let's review the facts of the greek myth one more time.
two gods, disguised as travellers. shut out by the town. taken in by one couple. the whole town is punished, the couple rewarded.so if the city in that myth is not punished for inhospitality, and that's an anachronistic reading, what ARE they punished for? sounds nice. now what's the difference with hospitality?there's another problem, though. genesis is a book unlike any other in the bible. all of the other books are strictly monotheistic. genesis is henotheistic. they're tolerant of other beliefs. this is a bit of a suprise actually, but it does work with the exile model. isolationism, sure. but start openly knocking the gods of your oppressors, they'll kill you.so, if this is a religious cult sex thing, why the condemnation that's so out of place with the rest of the book? it can't be a religious thing. such as their treatement of outsiders. that's just brushing the story off though. let's assume for the moment that it is in fact rationalizing a natural disaster. HOW is it rationalizing it? what does the story say? how did the people who wrote it view that disaster?

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Genesis 19:6-8

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So Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him, and said, "I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong. ...do not do anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof."

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you know the story is really interesting. you should read it sometime. possibly. but that's not what i'm saying at all. i'm not talking about violating cultural laws, i'm saying that it's possible the whole bit is about babylon violating judah. not social justice. many other authors of the time (prophets) wrote that israel and judah were well deserving of their fates, but that god would eventually forgive them. i'm just saying that genesis might be a different opinion. there's not an absence of evidence. i'm asking a reading comprehension question. you have the story, you have the context. now, what does it say? but the story is NOT an account of a natural disaster. it's an account of a SUPERnatural disaster. it may have originally been an attempt to rationalize a real natural disaster, but that's not the way the story is written. it's written as: these people are bad, here's something bad they did, boom god kills them all. now, what bad did they do? in science, the best explanation stands until there is a better one. it may be point of fact that people knew the ptolemaic solor system model did not QUITE adequately predict the motions of the planets, yet it stood until copernicus came along. that wasn't perfect either, but it stood until kepler.so, even if my arguments does have a problem or two, it's going to stand until someone provides an alternative that better fits the facts. edited image size to fix page width - The Queenre-edited to fix it even better - arachThis message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-18-2005 02:12 AM

from my last post:

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(fornicators in the corinthians verse is "pornos" or prostitutes)

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pst. it's the same word in greek.

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First Corinthians 5:11-13

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But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

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Matthew 9:10-12

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And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw [it], they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard [that], he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

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i could find you more, but i have to go eat now.

Arachnophilia responds to me:

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did they HAVE homosexual relationships like we have today?

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Yes. Sparta was full of them, given the societal traditions on sexual activity. All the males were separated from their families at seven years of age to go to the mess where they would live and train solely among other men. They didn't get married until they were 30 or so. And when they finally did, the new groom would leave the celebration to find his wife, consummate the marriage, and then return to the mess to be with his fellow soldiers. Since they had been living with men for over two decades, it was well understood that a new groom might be shy around his bride and there was little shame in him coming back to the mess and staying with his brothers.Some men would stay in the mess for years after they got married. They had sex with women in order to fulfill their obligations to have children, but they stayed with the men because their sex-for-pleasure was with other men.Let's not forget the Sacred Band of Thebes.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

wmscott responds to me:

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Or do you wish to claim that this theory comes straight from your personal study of the Bible?

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Oh, hell...you're talking about stuff I haven't actively studied for over 20 years. But in general, yes. This comes from my own reading of the Bible and my readings of other texts from the period. I also look at the original languages used (or, as original as we can get it considering that we don't have a single "original copy" of any of the books of the Bible anywhere) so that I can have some idea of what might have been screwed up in translation.

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I will have to go along with the far more knowledgeable biblical scholars on this point.

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But that's the point. The "far more knowledgeable biblical scholars on this point" don't agree with you. Judaism does not consider the sin of Sodom to be sexual immorality but rather inhospitality. Who better to understand the Jewish story of Sodom than Judaism?

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Checking both verses I find the same Strong number 3045 for 'yada' and in both cases it is rendered as 'know' or knew' and in both cases it is the context that tells me it means sexual contact.

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Why? Where? I have given you the direct transliteration of the Hebrew into the Roman alphabet both for a phrase that uses "yada" to mean having sex, Gen 4, and for the specific passage in question, Gen 19, and asked you to show me precisely where this context of yours is that lets you know that it's dealing with sex.I've done this more than once.You have yet to do anything more than simply assert that it does. Now get off your duff and do the work. Where is it?

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Judaism doesn't consider the sin of Sodom to be homosexuality. It considers it to be inhospitality and pride.

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That would be news to me that they could be so far off, will have to check on this.

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?Are you seriously claiming that Judaism is not equipped to understand its own religion?

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Sooo, you are saying that all the Bible Scholars and Translators are part of a giant conspiracy against homosexuals. Spanning hundreds of years, untold numbers of these respected scholars have gotten together to change the Bible to make it look like God condemns homosexuals when he really doesn't.

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It isn't like they were gathering at midnight in darken places wearing hoods, but that is pretty much what happened. Again, you have to remember that the Bible was not something that the average person had read. It still isn't. Not even by those who claim to be Christian. Until recently, it was considered a sin to read the Bible if you weren't a priest. The only way you knew anything about what the Bible had to say was because the priest told you what it said.What do you think that's going to do to the interpretation of the Bible should someone have a bug up his butt about something? Why do you think the King James Version has such a big thing about the divine right of kings? Because King James wanted it that way.Let's not forget, the Catholic church up until very recently had rites of marriage for same-sex couples. There was a very significant shift in social attitudes and the leaders of the church made sure that "the Bible said so."

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And this sounds like a believable theory to you?

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Of course! It happens all the time! You've heard the cliche: History is written by the victors.Tell me, if you weren't allowed to read the Bible and someone told you that the Bible said thus-and-so, how would you ever show them to be wrong? And would you even dare if doing so meant you would be killed?

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Even with all those homosexuals which have undoubtably staffed the Catholic church and other churches, they were all biased gay bashers?

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(*chuckle*)Right...the Church has never been anything but a great big man-on-man orgy, right?

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Covering up the biggest secret of all time, that God really loves gays?

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(*sigh*)Is everything always so black-and-white with you? That if we show that something is not X, that necessarily means that it is Y? It never occurs to you that there might be a third option?I never said that the Bible says god encourages homosexuality.I said that it never talks about it. We have no idea how god feels about it because the Bible never says anything about it. How could it when there literally were no words to describe what we call "homosexuality" today? There is no term in Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Greek, or Aramaic for "homosexual." The words literally do not exist. They didn't think about sex in the same way that we do. Therefore, why on earth would any of the Bible talk about a concept they never talked about before?

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There is always some connection, between things and all verses in the Bible

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...except when you don't want them to be.Like Genesis 14 having nothing to do with Genesis 19. You cannot understand Gen 19 without having read Gen 14.

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There is no evidence that there was any kind of restriction of interpretation on the verses,

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?So if I said that I interpret the entire passage to be metaphorical and is talking about those who would keep their money to themselves rather than sharing it with the world around them, then I would be justified in doing so because there wasn't "any kind of restriction of interpretation on the verses"?

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they are very straight forward,

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Indeed.And they do not mean what you think they mean. You do not understand the context in which they were said. You are applying a modern sensibility to an Ancient worldview and that is ludicrous in the extreme if you are trying to gain comprehension.

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One of those detestable things was homosexual acts

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Where? Where do we find anything about homosexuality as we understand it today? Temple prostitution, yeah, but the only priests I know of who force the congregants to have sex with them are Catholics of late. Gay people, on the other hand, tend not to do that.

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We can also turn this around and look at it the other way, for instance, if homosexual acts were not condemned, where are the laws governing them?

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There are four of them. Six, depending on how you translate. There's pretty much only one rule: Don't have sex with the temple prostitutes.As I said before: There are over three hundred prohibitions against heterosexual activity in the Bible compared to the four prohibitions against homosexual activity. This doesn't mean god loves straights any less than gays.They just need more supervision.But on a serious note, you are still stuck in this idea that the ancients knew what homosexuality was. They didn't. There is literally no word for "homosexual" in any of the langauges in which we find the Bible.How do you regulate that which you have no words to describe? The reason why the Bible doesn't talk about homosexuality is because they had no concept of what it was. How do you regulate that which you can't understand as existing?

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Strangely, though, there is no mention of lesbianism in Lev 20. Does the mean it's OK for women to be gay?

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What is good for the gander is good for the goose.

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No, not good enough. The Bible goes into great detail about the sexual activity of women. You're not allowed to have sex during menstruation. After bleeding stops, you're still unclean for a certain period of time and you aren't supposed to have sex. On and on and on, but it never seems to ever get around to talking about lesbianism. Why might that be?Oh, that's right: There's no concept of what we call "homosexuality" in the time period, so how could there ever be any comments about it? How do you describe what you have no words to talk about?

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There is no evidence of this giant anti-gay conspiracy that you keep referring to every time the biblical evidence disproves your pet theory

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(*chuckle*)Then why did the Catholic Church perform same-sex marriage up until a couple hundred years ago?

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Now if it was as you say, then Lot could not have done what you say and still be counted a righteous man.

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When did contradicting itself ever stop the Bible? Don't forget...right after this event, Lot gets drunk(!) and has sex with his daughters(!!) How's that for a righteous man?And again, you are applying modern sensibilities to an ancient world. The sexual rights of women, especially daughters, were not the same as they are today. The Bible tells you how to sell your daughter into slavery. Is that the act of the righteous?

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It would be one thing if he was trying to distract a sex crazed homosexual group would be rapists which included his future son in laws,

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Huh? I thought you said they were homosexual. How could they become his sons-in-law?

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by offering them his daughters while knowing that hearing him make such an offer would move the two angels to intercede in his family's behalf,

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Lot is trying to play the angels? Is that the act of a righteous man? I notice it is very convenient for you to understand what Lot was thinking when all I have ever done is go with what was directly said.

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but if the crowd only wanted to ask a few questions, Lot's actions become very unrighteous and ridiculously inappropriate.

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To a modern audience, yes. But in a culture where you can sell your daughters into slavery, things were different.And it is very interesting that you find it unrighteous for Lot to play his daughters but not unrighteous for Lot to play the angels. Different rules for sacred cows?

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Genesis 19:4: But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

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Now tell me what "all the people from every quarter" might possibly mean?

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The phrase "all the people from every quarter" is referring the group mentioned in the first part of the sentence,

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?"All the people" doesn't mean "all the people"? It really means "only some"?And you wonder why I claim there was a concerted effort to make the text mean what those in charge wanted it to mean. You're a classic example. When given a direct statement that ALL THE PEOPLE showed up, you say it doesn't actually mean that but rather it means only some.By your logic, this means that the entire town was filled with gay people. Every single one of them. Not a heterosexual person in the bunch.Then how on earth did they have a town? What did they do? Steal babies from neighboring villages? If all the men in the town were gay, how did any woman ever get pregnant?

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the men of sodom, they were all there from every quarter or the whole town, all of them. This is a basic sentence logic construct that you are tripping over here.

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But that isn't what the sentence says. It starts with a small set, nay, bigger, nay, everyone. It's poetic. The imagery and specific words used clearly indicate that the entire town showed up outside Lot's door.That's what "all the people" means.

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Yeah, right. "Sincerely." You condemn me as a psychotic and then try to get all polite.

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It is called curtesy,

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"Courtesy," and since when did condemning someone as psychotic become an example of polite behaviour?You have no courtesy.

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and no I did not condemn you as a psychotic, I gave you a warning of the grave moral danger you are in.

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BZZZZT!Pascal's Wager. I'm so sorry, wmscott. Johnny, tell him what parting gifts he has!Well, Bob, wmscott has won himself a lifetime of anguish in someone else's hell! Yes, that's right. After spending all of his life fighting against Satan and worshipping the Christian god, wmscott gets a reward of going straight to Hades for his hubris. He'll be sentenced to solve a series of puzzles for which the instructions can be read in many ways. Every attempt to glean more information will be met with "Since it would just be a waste of my time to tell you, I won't." Of course, every proposed solution will conflict with something in the contradictory instructions. This being for his continued insistence that those around him are unworthy of explanations.But, he won't get hungry because he'll have an afterlife-time supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.You didn't really think that the god that truly exists is the Christian one, did you?You condemn me to hell and you think you are being polite? You think you are being sincere? Who died and made you god? You are in no position to tell me that I am in "grave moral danger." That is up to god and last I checked, you aren't the Head Honcho.Didn't Jesus say something about not judging others lest the punishment you mete out be brought upon you? It's amazing how many people remember Matthew 7:1 but never seem to remember Matthew 7:2. It is not enough simply to live a good life. You must also refrain from ever making a judgement about others for if you do, you will receive the same punishment you would hand out to others, regardless of whether or not you "deserved it."

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!