I don’t really understand what you are trying to get at here. Are you saying Lot did more because of this?
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it-it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar. )
And you’re saying that is better than what Abraham did? First off, I think if Abraham had lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, it wouldn’t have been destroyed, but Lot was not as righteous as Abraham. Lot’s desire to save the city was for his own sake, while Abraham’s was for others. Abraham was pleading for the righteous in the city, Lot was pleading for a short walk.
As for whether the son’s were there with the mob, it is my belief they were. I believe this because:
Gen 19
14So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had **married his daughters **
vs 8
8See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish
I’m just saying that it’s ironic that Abraham, who was righteous and was asking God to spare the cities of the plain for selfless reasons was not successful, while Lot, who wasn’t righteous and was asking God to spare a city for selfish reasons, was successful.
Actually, it was Abraham who stopped pleading with the Lord about destroying the city. Maybe he thought there were at least ten righteous in the city. But I don’t know if the city Lot went to was to be destroyed, as when I read it, I thought the angel was saying he wouldn’t destroy the city Lot was going to, not because of Lot, I understood it to be that it was going to be destroyed in the first place. I’m not totally sure about this, so I’ll have to check the ref again.
That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. People were often married as children, especially if there were property and financial concerns. Lot’s daughters might have been married while still infants.
It was customary, though, to wait to sexually unite the couple until at least after the first menses. Sometimes, daughters might remain even longer with the family, depending on the eagerness of her husband’s family for heirs. If the husbands came from a fertile family, there was really no need to rush things. They could wait until the girls were older.
[quote]
*Originally posted by NaSultainne * **
Lot clearly begs his two guests to stay with him, indicating what is clearly a reasoned fear for their safety.[/'quote] **
Not necessarily. If Lot suspected the visitors were of high status, it would bring honor (and possibly commerce) to his household to be their hosts.
Hosting guests was a sacred trust at the time. (Which is why the wedding hosts at Canna freaked when the wine ran low. If a guest who had brought a gift felt shorted by your hosting, they could legally sue you.) The host was responsible for the guests well being. This is the reason why Lot offered his daughters to the men. In his eyes, it would be better for his daughters to be raped than to renounce his duty and responsibility to his guests.
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If I had just witnessed everyone around me struck blind by soe mysterious force, you bet your bippy I’d listen to my father-in-law and get the hell out of Dodge. That’s another reason why I think they must not have been part of the mob. It’s not credible to me that they could witness something that supernatural and simply laugh off Lot’s concerns.
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He’s no hero, but he’s not painted as entirely evil, either. If the story related that Lot had raped his daughters, he would lose all sympathy. As it stands, the people I call “Lot apologists” consider him a good man who made some mistakes. I doubt he would get that much leeway if the story painted the daughters as unwilling victims of his drunken lust.
As you yourself said, the daughters were quite well aware that there are other men, so what’s their motivation for seducing their father?
Women led sheltered lives in these times. They wouldn’t have socialized much, especially if they had servants who fetched the water, and such. Thier primary companions would have been their mothers, father’s additional wives or concubines, and sisters, if any. Is it realistically possible for them to be so corrupted by such limited contact with outside society as to *want to sleep with their father? *
It doesn’t make sense, which is why I’ve always wondered if the story wasn’t slightly altered to make Lot less of a monster. “He was drunk,” is a piss-poor excuse at best, but it’s better than saying he’s a molester.
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Again, babies could be married. Just because Lot’s daughters were wives doesn’t mean they weren’t children.
(The Virgin Mary seems to be such a case. She was a wife, but too young to live with her husband Joseph.)
Actually, Mary wasn’t a wife, and it is possible to translate Lot’s daughter’s as being betrothed, which is not the same. And correct me if I’m wrong, but in Jewish customs, they don’t marry children and wait until they’re older. But I wouldn’t die for my belief that Lot’s daughter’s were or were not married or just betrothed, I just believe they were married.
Oh, and why slightly alter the story? If that was the case, wouldn’t you think they’d just totally alter the story and take it out? Kind of funny if he actually raped his daughters, instead of it happening exactly like it says.
Yes and no. At the time the King James Version was written, a betrothal was a legally and spiritually binding contract. Betrothed couples were “married” but not sleeping together. “Betrothed” is not synonymous with the modern term “engaged.”
Breaking a betrothal was the same as divorcing a partner, and re-marriage required a dispensation from the Pope. (Henry VIII used it as an excuse as to why his marriage with Anne of Cleves was invalid. She was legally “married” and thus any other union without the permission of the Pope was bigamy.)
The actual “wedding” as we think of it wasn’t necessarily a ceremony. When it was time for the couple to become truly husband and wife, the woman and her possessions were moved to the husband’s house. There was often a feast celebrating their union. The couple would then conumate the union, and were husband and wife.
In some documents of the time (again, I’m refering to the reign of James I) “betrothed” and “wife” are sometimes used interchangably. If the couple slept together, it was frowned upon, but not considered fornication, because they were legally bound.
Even without a sexual union, betrothals carried the same weight as a full marriage. If one partner died before consumation, it was still required that a dispensation be sought if the survivor wished to marry the deceased’s sibling. (As I said before, marriage made your sister or brother in-law your blood relative for purposes of defining incest.)
The translators of the King James Version used the word “betrothed” intentionally, in my opinion. The reader of their day would have understood the implication of the term.
If you’re interested in ancient marriage customs, and how marriage has changed throughout the years, I recommend highly the book *History of the Wife * by Marilyn Yalom.
I am not familiar with modern Jewish custom, but Yalom’s book has a wonderful section on marriage in the Biblical times.
Waiting until children are fully grown before marriage is a custom that developed fairly recently in Judeo-Christian cultures. Marriage was seen primarily as a union between families. As soon as the opprotunity presented itself in a new child, the family would begin to search out candidates for a spouse, which equalled family advancement.
For example, let’s take the example of a family of millers, and the family of a baker. The baker has a three year old son, and the miller’s wife has just given birth to a daughter. The next time the baker purchases flour, he mentions this fact.
After discussing the matter, it is decided that if these the children marry, the two buisnesses will work for mutual benefit. The families begin working out the details, such as the bride-price, and the dowry. The haggling over these details could go on for a long time-- in the case of the very wealthy and royalty, sometimes years.
A tentative date was set for the couple to move in together. In the age of the King James Version, that could be as young as fourteen for boys, though sexual relations in extreme youth were sometimes condemned as being dangerous to the health. (Very young girls were sometimes mated anyway if the families grew impatient for heirs. Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, became a mother at thirteen.)
IIRC, Yalom indicates that consumation of Biblical marriage was delayed until the girl was fully grown. I’ve seen some scholars argue that Mary, mother of Jesus, was probably around 14 years old at the time of Jesus’ birth. Considering that Mary was apparently sexually mature enough to give birth (and was definately of marriageable age by later standards), it seems likely that Joseph’s family intended to wait a few more years until she was older.