Reading about Sodom and Gomorrah

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I can understand this story from a vigilante point of view. Someone goes into one of these cities, something bad happens, then they talk others into avenging. I am guessing these cities have walls or maybe not? Without walls any city back then was vulnerable to being sacked regardless of how much sin.

What I can't understand is the last part about Lot. Maybe it's revenge for him offering his daughters to the mob? If I think of it like that, makes sense. They got justice for it. It was a way of dishonoring him?

The later stories are a kind of creation myth. The daughters conceive the fathers of the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites. Enemies of the Israelites in real historical time. They may be slandering their enemies with the story. The Moabites worship Chemosh and defeat Israel in battle in one of those strange stories that seems to imply that others gods have power. Both the bible and the Moabite Mesha Stele seem to agree on that point.

And for all the talk about S&G, their deity never uses that method again. In the story he begins using other nations to destroy Israel and Judah when he wants to teach lessons. Events that can usually be confirmed and seem pretty ordinary.

No, what happens, is people use history as they live it, like when they see anther country they couldnt defeat nor defend them selves against, rise or fall. as even those we defeat. they only see the hope that is left in their desperately as they survive those moments that come and go in history. and interpret their own salvation to god wills according to their own survival or that of their enemies. we create excuses for our gods and other humans as our selves, or we condemn them, because we refuse to understand our selves, based upon what we feel are our own prosperities and for our children's prosperities and that of what we consider correct because of them. or that of our own failings.

There is no god, only us. no salvation nor condemnation other then our own of each other and our selves.. oblivion is ours when we die. no hell nor heaven. our future for our children is what we make it. we are evolving from animal, man-up.

There are a few loose ends.

Leave this place now and do not look back. Start walking now.

Lot's wife looks back, and is turned into salt, but unless she was in the lead, how would anyone know?

Her weight in salt would be a high price. Salt was money before money. Salery, worth his salt, derive from this.

Second, where did they get the wine? Did they pay for it in salt?

Even the best of pack daughters cannot haul a lot. Living in a cave in the wilderness they seem to have been well supplied, food, bedding, wine.

Like most, it is from an older story. Sumarians had a slave revolt problem. Raised to positions of trust, the slaves killed the gods and said they were now gods. The first few times, the chariots came and killed most, and put the rest back to work.

About the third time they did nothing, and letters from literate slaves begged the gods to return, and no one prepared the fields, cleared the irrigation ditches, and they spent their time in rape and murder. After twenty years of this the gods agreed to return. Everyone was happy for a hundred years, then they killed all the gods.

The gods no longer trusted the slaves, thought teaching them a waste, and this is when the Semites come into history. They were bandits, stole grain, did some rape and murder of slaves, so they were rounded up, and made and offer. Drive the slaves like animals into the fields for a cut of the production, or we will just kill you now.

Not only did they take the offer, and enjoyed being slave masters and the benefits thereof, but other tribes of bandits who raided them thought it was a great job, so killed them, and showed the gods they were better suited for the work.

The gods smiled upon them, and the killingist bandits took the job as a prize, which reduced the number of bandits.

There is a town in northern Iraq, a work camp, nothing fancy, mud brick, that is vitrified. It takes a lot of heat to melt a town, but someone did. It is the only evidence that has come to light of "Next time the fire."

Perhaps some Semites failed to send the gods their share, as other markets were developing.

The last messengers of the gods, saying where is ours? Things turn bad, Lot gets them out, playing both sides, sells his wife for salt and vanishes in the night. Two daughters loaded down with food, wine, household goods, off to a mountain cave, then the town burns. It would be easy to give the girl wine and take her to bed, and who could they object to? He had just offered them to the whole town.

So Lot gets out, makes some points with the gods, has two girls and a well stocked cave.

The town could have taken Lot, but did not, and the offer of his daughters came with the meaning, and I will kill you. Lot had some cred in town, and likely a cut of the goods stolen from the gods.

Lot got the messengers out, and and said, I will bring goods to the gods and avert their wrath. He left his wife as security he would return, loaded a string of asses, and his daughters, as gifts for the gods. He knew all would die that night,

Once he was in the clear he went into the mountains to a cave, and kept everything for himself.

The original Noah sided with the gods, Gilgamesh, informed them of the evil plans of his people, and was spared when everyone else was killed.

Those who side with the gods survive and prosper.

The original story, Bible, has gods, the sons of god, and the Lord god. Only after leaving the land of four quarters did the have to invent a tribal god who lived in the sky.

While Semites were a cut above the field slaves, the gods chosen people, they still had a nasty job history. They cheated the gods, killed each other for the job of slave overseer, and not only did the gods kill them, so did several slave revolts.

As Babalon developed into skilled trades and a standing army, they were pushed out. People from the north with chariots and iron weapons took over.

Reduced to herding sheep they stole the herd and headed west, and were starving by the time they reached Egypt. The best job they could get was making bricks. That did not work out and one night they made a rapid exit.

Altogether it is a great historical work, a tale that changed in the telling, but did keep true to the original meaning.

Thanks Inventor, that was very informative reading and it helps me understand the story when thinking in terms of the poor actually being slaves and the rich women and men, the slave owners.

Lot's wife just became a pillar of salt which is how they knew she looked back toward the town. The wine might have been purchased at Zoar. Lot asked God to spare this town so he wouldn't be completely lost without any civilization. He questioned his ability to survive without a little town so God spared it.

I notice in the Biblical story Genesis 18 there is no mention of what became of the salt.

Its the survivors tail that is heard while all others fall silent, and the survivors can tell the tail how ever that of those individuals see fit to their needs to be true for them. and back then they had no scientific answers to questions, only that of faith and seeing with their own eyes. what they may have seen for them only translated into what they could understand of it. and their own justifications they felt they had to give others for their own part in it , or that of the failings of others to justify them selves or their believes, for that which had happened.

Even the survivors of Pompeii sought and created their own justification for their gods actions.
as well as for their own during such tragedy.

Right. It's like a Paul Bunyan story to explain a lifeless region. And they kill two mythological birds with one stone. The bible specifically prohibits Israelites from having anything to do with the male Moabites and Ammonites, the descendants of S&G, and that lasts "forever". Peace is not permitted. So they hated them and the Moabite territory included the eastern shore of the dead sea. They hate them not for S&G but for inhospitality during the supposed Exodus. Which is also the primary sin of S&G according to some scholars.

So they are essentially slandering them three times in the bible. Why is a mystery. We do (or might) know that they fought a war in the 9th century and Israel took a beating.

I take it from the comments so far, that no one actually believes that God is real. You're all trying to explain the event via humanistic cause and effect.

If you were to accept that God is real and re-read the account, it would probably make more sense.

Trying to imagine a place like Sodom and Gomorra is difficult for us today. I guess a free love hippy camp where nothing is prohibited, beast, children, each other, and whatever drugs you can get hold of, is as close as I can get.

Towns/cities of any size needed walls, as they were both strategic and a generator of your enemy’s armies. Small towns wouldn't have needed walls, as they are neither. There is always a risk of being robbed or destroyed. I guess it comes down to lifestyle choice.

I think people have the right to disagree. It's their choice.