It mentions somewhere in the Bible, where it says Christians are the salt of the earth or whatever, that salt can lose its saltiness.
Is this true?
It says this nowhere at all in Scripture.
What it says is something to the effect of “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
The meaning of this (let he who has ears hear) is that it is not enough to simply take on the trappings of holiness but to become and remain imbued with the essence of holiness–the true “savour” of the teachings. Likewise, Christ’s followers are not to hide their blessing from others.
Based on your own account, one can only conclude that it does. “If the salt loses its flavor” clearly implies that salt can lose its flavor, otherwise why bring up the possibility, and what is the flavor of salt other than saltiness?
It implies no such thing. It could be merely metaphoprical, like asking “How shall I eat my sausage, if my sausage turns to gold?” Clearly, sausage cannot turn to gold, nor must the question necessarily imply that it does.
Look, the salt you put on your table is probably thousands of years old to begin with.
It’s rock. There are no essential oils or chemicals to evaporate. It is purely a compound on sodium and chlorine. IIRC, it’s the chlorine that gives it its flavor, and chlorine is always chlorine, short of an atomic reaction.
The Bible, as is its wont, is dealing in metaphor.
Can salt lose its saltiness?
This is an easily misunderstood verse of the Bible. Here “salt” means “the stuff you use to season food”, and “saltiness” means “the flavor of the seasoning”. So, the question is really “Can this seasoning lose its flavor?”.
When “salt” is understood to be “sodium chloride” and “saltiness” the “flavor of sodium chloride”, the the verse borders on non-sensical. So don’t interpret it that way.
It’s no metaphor, the ancients did not nessesarily have access to chemically pure salt. The average Bible time schmoe might have cheap salt that had several other minerals mixed in with it. It would have been brownish colored and would still have tastted “salty”. But, if it got wet (through, say, poor handling) the water-soluble salt would be washed away and what was left would have looked the same but would have no salt to it.
Here is a photo of a piece of rock salt. The site also has some history on the mining and processing of salt.
And Pleonast, my greek bible text (which I’m trying to learn) seems to show that the original word for “salt” is the greek word for salt. Not a different word meaning “something we spice foods with”. I’ll check my lexicon tonight when I get home and follow up tomorrow.
Yes it must!
There is the reductio ad absurdum argument “If A, then B” in which A need not be possible. The absurdity of A is demonstrated by showing that B, which logically follows from A, is absurd. Example: “If perpetual motion machines existed, then the laws of thermodynamics would be wrong.”
A less logical variant in which A need not be possible is simply a humorous way of making a point: “If bodily hair were gold, then I’d be a millionaire.”
I don’t think this verse falls into either of those categories.
I know what the verse means, but the relevant disanalogy is too great. Christians might lose their zeal, but salt will never lose its savor. This reminds me of some song lyrics that have always annoyed me:
Sometimes the snow comes down in June OK, sometimes, maybe if you live really far north or in the Southern Hemisphere
Sometimes the sun goes ’round the moon Never!
Just when I thought our chance had passed
You go and save the best for last
“Save the Best for Last” - Vanessa Williams
In fact under relativity the sun does go around the moon, or around the Earth, or around whatever point you care to define. All motion is entirely dependant on FOR. For a person on the moon the sun does indeed go around the moon.
If you are going to get pedantically silly about pop lyrics you would do well to remember that not all facts as are as they seem.
This is taking this thread into an entirely different direction than it is going but we were just learning about the sense of taste in physiology this week.
Humans have 4 tastes, everything that you tase is a combination of these 4:
[ul]
[li]Sweet[/li][li]Salty[/li][li]Bitter[/li][li]Sour[/li][/ul]
(‘Spicy’ is not a flavor, but rather a pain reaction. Different nerves are stimulated.)
You can lose your sense of ‘salty’ temporarily by overloading the neurons that are activated by salty flavors (Na+) and permanenetly by causing permanent nerve damage. But salt itself cannot lose it’s ‘saltiness’.
Most scientists now recognize a fifth taste, called umami which is the taste of MSG and similar chemicals.
Which was exactly my point. When the ancients say salt, they do not mean “sodium chloride”, but are instead referring to that composite substance they evaporated from the ocean and subsequently used to season their food. And by saltiness, they are refering to the primary flavor of that substance, not to the taste of sodium chloride specifically. So the verse is asking whether a particular seasoning can lose its flavor.
Or, to put it as simple as possible: salt (sodium chloride) cannot lose its saltiness (the flavor of sodium chloride), but salt (a specific seasoning) can lose its saltiness (one of the fundamental tastes).
The salt saying appears in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.
My commentary on Mark didn’t address how salt can loose its flavor.
The commentary on Matthew traslates the saying as “salt becomes insipid,” i.e., useless. The commentary points out that while salt can not actually stop tasting salty, it can become unclean. The commentary doesn’t say how it can become unclean, but I suppose if one cuts one’s finger while opening a salt casket and bleeds on it, it’s now unclean. Once unclean, it can’t be cleansed (how can you clean salt, given their level of technology?) Then it’s no good “except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot,” as Jesus says in Mt.
The commentary on Luke suggests that the salt has become rotten. (Insects, moisture…?). Again, the difficulty of seasoning the seasoning which is supposed to season and purify other foods.
Peace.
I have trouble seeing that salt or heavy seasoning (a brick of various salts, or just lumped in a jar) would go rotton. The entire point of things like jerky is that even at that level of concentration the microbes become dehydrated when they touch that much salt and die.
Doesn’t have to be really far north at all - i’ve seen snow come down in June at my location. In fact, I’ve seen it come down at least once in every month but July.