"“Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away.”
Who the hell said that?
My sainted grandmother, rest her soul, was a pillar of her community and salt of the earth. As far as I know she did not become that way after seeing a wicked city laid waste, but it’s not out of the question.
Lot’s wife looks back on the wicked city.
In her fear, awe, and humility, she is turned into a pillar of her community, and salt of the earth.
It’s a stretch, but it’s at least kinda clever.
כד וַיהוָה, הִמְטִיר עַל-סְדֹם וְעַל-עֲמֹרָה–גָּפְרִית וָאֵשׁ: מֵאֵת יְהוָה, מִן-הַשָּׁמָיִם. 24
Then the LORD caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
כה וַיַּהֲפֹךְ אֶת-הֶעָרִים הָאֵל, וְאֵת כָּל-הַכִּכָּר, וְאֵת כָּל-יֹשְׁבֵי הֶעָרִים, וְצֶמַח הָאֲדָמָה. 25
and He overthrow those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
כו וַתַּבֵּט אִשְׁתּוֹ, מֵאַחֲרָיו; וַתְּהִי, נְצִיב מֶלַח. 26
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
The exegesis is pretty straightforward. The content and language, not to mention thousands of years of Hebrew tradition and scholarship, indicate a literal pillar of literal salt.
But Czar, seriously. You know kanic’s ideas, particularly his more…unusual ones, are all his very own and not shared by, well, anyone.
[QUOTE=BIBLE]
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,** please! 19 Your[c] servant has found favor in your[d] eyes, and you[e] 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.[f])
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.** 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.**
27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
[/QUOTE]
a) don’t look back - she looked back
b) So - he remember Abraham and and brought Lot out of the catastrophe - and there is no mention that the Wife was remembered “with honor” or anything.
Trying to think in what world Lot impregnating his daughters is a ‘good thing’.
Thank you for that, well we all know my rep here, but anyway what basis has pillar and/or salt ever been used for death by God?
The cite you mention was made by angels, not God and that is the critical element as I see and understand it.
We, as Children of God, have the right to disobey angels, and also IMHO it is part of our development that each one will decide on a path of love irrespective of what actual angels are telling us to do. That is a making of God’s child, one who follows their own heart regardless, one who knows what is right and is willing to stand up to such powers.
This is the case with Lot’s wife, she knows that it is right to help these people (God is Love, There is no greater Love then dieing for other people), Lot’s wife showed the greatest Love, and that saved the people of Sodom (the physical city may have been destroyed)
But that is where we get into the issue of the Bible. It is looking at God through a patriarchal viewpoint, So it is looking at God however the role of women is diminished in this viewpoint. We rarely hear about how God glorified women here, so we can expect the same for Lot’s wife, and in this believe that Lot was the one who did and God wished, we ignore the results of his actions however (living in a cave and impregnating his 2 daughters).
The quote by andros in your very own post.
Again simster
Czar’s post state God said that, but I see it in scriptures as angels.
I am not doubting that it was said, just who said it.
That is still to be determined here.
The angels are delivering the warning/message from God who is about to destroy the cities.
Unless you’re assume that “the lord” in this context is just another angel* - and God - in all his love - is just sitting aside thinking “its ok, I love these angels, let them have their fun”.
*you’d be wrong of course
That’s an easy one. The entire Bible, esp. the Old Testament, is entire (what’s the word?) male-centric. Females are regarded as property and baby-factories, hence the laws in Leviticus that allow you to sell your daughters into slavery, etc. Even Lot himself offered up his daughters to the wicked men of Sodom who wanted to have sex with his mysterious male visitors.
I don’t know for sure that the event is supposed to be interpreted as a punishment. It might have simply been a consequence of natural law. The ruins of Sodom were so magically “hot” that looking upon it was deadly. A kind of “medusa” effect. I don’t actually believe this interpretation is correct, but it is a possibility.
I don’t believe the story is intended to suggest that God approved of Lot having sex with his daughters. The Bible is full of stories of good people doing bad things. Moses disobeyed God and was excluded from the Promised Land. Noah got drunk. These are God’s favored people…but God almost certainly didn’t intend them to act this way.
You have to stretch the interpretation way past the breaking point to get “Gove is Love.” For God so loved the world…he drowned everyone living there? For God so loved Sodom…he burned the people to ashes? God loved the Canaanites…by ordering the Children of Israel to kill them and dash out the brains of the infants against rocks? How much did God love Goliath of Gath?
The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, not a God of love.
Angels, in the Old Testament, are messengers of God. They say what God tells them to say.
In some cases, the “Angel” may actually be God himself. There is at least some argument to suggest the New Testament’s annunciation to Mary was in the person of God, and not an Angel in the sense of a separate entity. I’ve heard this argued to be true of the figure that Jacob wrestled with also. These are points that are dubious and worthy of arguing about.
That an Angel of God lied to Lot? Not supportable in any meaningful Biblical interpretation.
(That God lied to Adam and Eve is more supportable, but is most easily explained by the idea of metaphorical speech.)
Your interpretations are glaringly heterodox. There is no body of scholarship behind it, only your own, sole, solitary, individual fancy. Your ideas will not be published in any major theological journal. Even Harold Camping had some minimal critical acceptance of his ideas. Your ideas are more far out than his ever were.
Can you bring a priest, minister, or rabbi to the table, and have him explain to us how he things your ideas might be correct?
Otherwise, it’s as if you were refuting Einsteinian relativity with nothing but thought experiments involving rotating mirrors. It’s your word against everyone else in the world.
All that aside, I loved your sense of whimsy and humor in post #209. I think you are one of the wrongest people who has ever been wrong in the history of wrongness – but at the end of the day, you’re an okay bloke.
Kindly provide an example in nature (or even man-made) whereby looking at the event will instantly render your corporeal body into some kind of mineral, while having your back turned has no effect at all. It doesn’t need to be NaCl, I’ll be fair.
You need to keep in mind the historical context of when the Old Testament was written. As I said before, women (at the time) were routinely dehumanized, and in fact the few women of any note, aside from baby-makers, were portrayed as sinister, manipulative, and sometimes downright evil – Jezebel, Delilah, even Eve herself. Also, I find it interesting that you mentioned Noah’s drunken episode – for the mere crime of looking at his naked father, his middle son Ham was cursed by God, him and all his descendants. (An excerpt which is often used by racist Christians to “prove” that Africans are meant to be sub-human, I’ll have you know.)
Definitely a form of “tough love”, yeah.
That was intended within the context of a world where there are miracles. I made the comparison to a medusa, whose gaze turns one to stone.
There aren’t any such things, of course. But within the context of the myth, there certainly are.
Lot’s wife might have been turned to salt by the lingering vapors of the event that incinerated her city. It doesn’t have to have been a deliberate action on the part of God. (However, I think that is very much what the story intends.)
I offer alternatives that I don’t actually happen to believe in.
Look at it this way, God wants to know if His child is ready, are they at the point in their development where they are willing to step out in faith, even disobeying angels, for the purpose of Love.
Abraham (Abram) failed in this, he only got to 10 and called it quits, Abraham could have went further to the point where Abraham said to God, if there is no one of faith then send me and spare the city, but Abraham was scared and his faith not ready yet. Abraham’s faith would be tested again later with Issac’s sacrifice.
Lot’s wife OTOH did and the words used to describe what happened relate to things that are associated with glorification, not death.
The Angels were delivering the rest (Lott’s family), as they were not ready, to their next place.
But that does not produce a God of Love, which is a scriptural requirement.
I guess I’m not making myself clear on this one. Lot’s life seemed to hit a dead end, a unfortunate circumstance where by ‘following the instructions’ of angels he and his daughters end up living out their days as basically homeless (OK they have a cave), but a very unfortunate ending. It would seem in many tellings of the story of Lott’s wife that the ‘moral’ is ‘obey God’, but if Lott did why would he end up in such a unfortunate circumstance? It is questioning if Lott made the correct choice following the words of the angels, and questioning if Lott’s wife made the wrong choice by looking back (which I already went in to).
Moses made it into the promised land (Luke 9:30), and like my contention with Lott’s wife was also glorified.
King David got drunk, Jesus was accused of being a drunkard. I don’t think you can say that God didn’t attend man not to get drunk at times. God may actually use that to get things done that the person may not be able to do when sober. Mind altering substances are used in many faiths as part of a spiritual expernce.
That’s the issue right there, your statement does not agree with scriptures (God is Love, scriptures can not be broken). So given that your ‘god’ that you got from scriptures is not ‘God’, you got a different one.
That’s the issue allright, but it is you that are breaking the scriptures, in order to shoehorn in your “God is Love”. The scriptures do not bear this out.
Again I put this earlier to another poster, then the scriptures (the Bible) may not be the place for you to learn about Love if you are unable to find a God of total Love there. That’s fine, everything is a work of God, what works for one person does not work for another. But only with a Loving God can all people be united and all the faiths combined to reveal the Loving God in all aspects and stripping away the human additions (in this case religion and patriarchy) that we have used to oppress and control people.