Sodom and Other Tales of Divine Visitors in Disguise
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- Episode 3: Sodom and Other Tales of Divine Visitors in Disguise
• Does the typical understanding of the Sodom and Gomorrah story hold up to biblical scrutiny? To understand how the Bible’s authors understood the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have to look beyond Genesis. Understanding the cultural context and related stories from Greek mythology shed additional light on the story’s intent. I also look into whether Lot is meant to be seen as an evil character in the story.
Hashtags: #Sodom #Gomorrah #theoxeny #Genesis #Baucis #Philemon
Contents
0:00 Logo
0:03 Prologue
1:10 Story recap
3:35 Sodom and Gomorrah beyond Genesis
7:05 Divine visitors in disguise outside the Bible
10:27 The theoxenies of Abraham and Lot
13:28 The story of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19
15:13 The big picture so far
16:30 What was the sin of Sodom?
19:50 Excursus: Is Lot evil?
22:53 End card with Easter egg
Works cited:
⦾ Athas, George (2016), “Has Lot Lost the Plot? Detail Omission and a Reconsideration of Genesis 19”, JHS 16/5, 2016.
⦾ Carden, Michael (1999), “Homophobia and Rape in Sodom and Gibeah: A Response to Ken Stone”, JSOT 82, 1999.
⦾ Carden, Michael (2004), Sodomy: The History of a Christian Biblical Myth.
⦾ Dover, K.J. (1978), Greek Homosexuality.
⦾ Gnuse, Robert K. (2015), “Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality”, Biblical Theology Bulletin 45/2, 2015.
⦾ Gnuse, Robert K. (2017), “Divine Messengers in Genesis 18-19 and Ovid”, SJOT 31/1, 2017.
⦾ Granerød, Gard (2010), Abraham and Melchizedek: Scribal Activity of Second Temple Times in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 (pp. 103-106).
⦾ Hamilton, Victor (1995), The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50.
⦾ Joyce, Paul M. (2007), Ezekiel: A Commentary.
⦾ Louden, Bruce (2011), Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East.
⦾ Morschauser, Scott (2003), “‘Hospitality’, Hostiles and Hostages: On the Legal Background to Genesis 19.1-9”, JSOT 27/4, 2003.
⦾ Mulder, Martin J. ,“Sodom and Gomorrah”, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1992.
⦾ Peleg, Yitzhak (2012), “Was Lot a Good Host? Was Lot Saved from Sodom as a Reward for His Hospitality?”, in Universalism and Particularism at Sodom and Gomorrah: Essays in Memory of Ron Pirson.
⦾ Römer, Thomas (2013), “The Horns of Moses: Setting the Bible in its Historical Context”, translated by Liz Libbrecht. Available online: books.openedition.org/cdf/304....
⦾ Tapp, Anne Michele (1989), “An Ideology of Expendability: Virgin Daughter Sacrifice" in Mieke Bal (Ed), Anti-covenant: counter-reading women's lives in the Hebrew Bible, 1989.
⦾ Zimmerli, Walther, 1. Mose 12-25: Abraham, 1976 (p. 36).
Additional reading:
⦾ Doyle, Brian (1998), “The Sin of Sodom: yāda', yāda' yāda'? A Reading of the Mamre-Sodom Narrative in Genesis 18-19”, Theology & Sexuality, 1998:9.
⦾ Louden, Bruce (2019), Greek Myth and the Bible, 2019.
⦾ Römer, Thomas (2011), “Quand les dieux rendent visite aux hommes (Gn 18-19). Abraham, Lot et la mythologie grecque et proche-orientale”, in F. Prescendi et Y. Volokhine (ed.), Dans le laboratoire de l'historien des religions. Mélanges offerts à Philippe Borgeaud (Religions en perspectives 24), Genève: Labor et Fides, 2011, pp. 615-626.
⦾ Römer, Thomas (2015), “The Hebrew Bible and Greek Philosophy and Mythology: Some Case Studies”, Semitica 57, 2015.
⦾ van Wolde, Ellen (2014), “Cognitive Grammar at Work in Sodom and Gomorrah”, in Cognitive Linguistic Explorations in Biblical Studies, 2014.
Production credits:
Written, animated, edited, and narrated by Paul Davidson.
Music by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) and Fesliyan Studios (www.fesliyanstudios.com).
All photographs, art, and film footage are public domain or are used in accordance with Fair Use provisions.
Related blog post:
isthatinthebible.wordpress.co...
Great work. I love your format and your scholarly approach. I'm just getting started on TH-cam, and I'm trying to learn from your YT and Blog. I'm so impressed that you're able to get this kind of depth as a Japanese-English translator!
Thanks for the nice comment. One of the reasons I do this is that it's a refreshing change of pace from my day job.
Hi Dr. Armstrong, good to see you!
I'm very sympathetic to the IBR's approach to the Bible and LGBTQ-issues, but after study on the subject, as a liberal-leaning pro-LGBTQ agnostic btw, I've come to the conclusion that the two cannot be reconciled.
@@Dr_Armstrong Thanks for the answer, Dr. Armstrong!
True, with the different culture and different. But as far as I can understand, the text is supposed to reflect the unchanging view of Yahweh, meaning that there can actually be no moral reformation or change on the subject among "true Christians".
@@Dr_Armstrong Enjoy? The ancient texts influence a lot of people on how to view other people. I enjoy the debates around YEC vs evolution, but in the end that is kinda irrelevant compared how you view other people and whether they live the right way or not. Talk around LGBTQ and religion can end friendships and relationships. Sorry if that came off as a bit charged.
Do you still consider yourself a theist of some sorts? Not to be too personal but I usually want to know what the views of interlocutor are to some extent (not to cast judgement on them, but to know how to engage them)
@@Dr_Armstrong True, I try to avoid to cast too much moral judgement on past figures, but I think it's good to point out what they believed and why we today don't. A lot of people often look back into the ancient world like ancient Israel, Rome or Greece with ideal nostalgia, and ignore the more gruesome or unsettling parts of their cultures.
To extent we should also remember that future generations might/likely will also judge us for things we thought were right.
Another fantastic comparison I certainly did not learn about in church. Thank you for your work.
This was really amazing! ❤
Your content is amazing!!
keep it up, love the blog
Another very hood video. Well done.
Thanks again!
Makes you wonder how well known Greek myth tropes were back in pre-Hellenistic times.
I was really excited to see there's a new one of these!
that was fantastic!
Thanks for taking the time to research and make these videos. Super helpful.
Whoa. "To know" meaning to "interrogate" the angels? As in, "until we figure out what the hell is going on..."?!
Yeah, a few scholars think that's what is intended. I don't think that's accurate, but it wouldn't change the overall moral of kindness and hospitality to strangers.
@@InquisitiveBible off-topic (sorry if it's bothersome), I just re-read your article on the Tribes of Israel in which you mention the aetiological nature of the tale of Esau and Jacob illustrating the relationship between Edom and Israel. I just happened to have a question about that tale: is there any supported interpretation on why Esau was portrayed as being chosen by Isaac and Jacob by Rebecca?
It seems counterintuitive to me, is Isaac not seeing in a positive light for whatever reason or is just a superficial analysis of mine? In such a patriarchal society, I would expect that the support of the father, son of Abraham, would clearly be relevant to legitimise the position of Israel as the chosen people of God. God just gives the blessing to the one Isaac gives it to, even if he's mistaken about his identity.
Then there are (I believe) later traditions about Esau's wickedness that try to contextualise why Esau was not chosen, but that's mostly an after-the-fact, is it not?
I imagine that's more of a prejudice of mine, but I don't know.
@@didack1419 That’s a difficult question to answer. Esau and Jacob represent Edom and Israel of course, but there is also a contrast between the hunting lifestyle of Esau and the semi-nomadism of Jacob. Isaac is said to prefer Esau specifically because of his hunting prowess, and Esau is similar to the hairy, uncivilized Enkidu character in Gilgamesh. The Jacob-Esau conflict also resembles the way the Gilgamesh-Enkidu conflict turns into friendship. I think Isaac’s involvement is mostly incidental to the dynamic between Jacob and Esau that the author is trying to create. The deception motif, which is also present in the Jacob-Laban story, is also focused more on Jacob’s character and less on Isaac, who is too old and blind to deserve any of the blame.
Alternatively, Isaac's original intention to bless Esau might just be an acknowledgement of Edom as an older “sibling” that has failed to obtain God’s blessing the way Israel has.
This is Canadian content. Yes, you guys pretty much all cannot pronounce the word "about". None of the hockey broadcasters know how to say this word. Strange because otherwise, except for the strange spellings, there is some excellent content. I guess there are former fundamentalists in Canada too, or at least Lower Canada, I suppose. Bravo and I await more content to memorize.
Guilty as charged. :) But I'm from British Columbia, not Lower Canada, which is roughly equivalent to modern Quebec.
19:40 I respect your level-headedness, but I fear that your liberal blind spot has prevented you from seeing something so obvious.
You rightly realise that the problem was lack of hospitality towards strangers. You rightly realise that rape was a bad breach of such values of hospitality. You rightly realise that the Sodom story of Lot is an imaginative myth-but yet your completely-modern fear of being homophobic (something embraced by pre-modern authors) has blinded you from seeing the very point that the ancient homophobic author was trying to make: homosexuality is every bit as evil as incest/cannibalism-& is therefore the best plot element to make the men of Sodom look as evil as possible. Why else did he deviate from the Greek template just to introduce the Book-of-Judges template into the plot??? The modern-artificial distinction BETWEEN consensual AND abusive homosexuality simply never occurred to ancient writers. This is the one time your modern blindspots have impaired your academic judgement. On that stories, it is the conservative commentators that are unimpaired by MODERN-liberal blindspots-they recognize that homosexuality was inserted into the myth in order to paint the sin of IN-HOSPITABILITY in the worst possible light to an ancient homophobic audience.
Metatron's TH-cam channel has an educative video on how homosexuality was viewed in classical antiquity Hint / News flash: All Classical Hellenistic physicians-without exception-viewed homosexuality as a mental illness
Honestly could easily turn and flip your argument against yourself. Ultimately, we don’t know so we must just interpret as literally as possible.
@@jenathent4840 we DO KNOW that literally all physicians in Greco-Roman antiquity regarded homosexual desires as a mental illness; we DO KNOW that elsewhere in the VERY SAME Pentateuch, which CONTAINS the Sodom story, all expressions of homosexuality was blanketly punished with the death penalty regardless of hierarchy or slave-non-enslaved status of the men involved (thereby refuting spurious Dr Mclellan's arguments) or circumstance. There is literally no other way to read the story other than casting homosexuality as an abomination befitting for villains who do not show hospitality. To equivocate my assertion, you also need to turn a blind eye to all the infinite rabbinic & late 2nd temple Jewish commentators, some of whom came from the same Hellenistic world that produced this myth, who very consistently & without exception identified homosexuality as a major evil trait for which the villains were punished.
Lot or Laban (the fooled rich) = EL, eloh.
his daughters are the daughters of Allah.
ammon and moab are his Twin (sons).
3 visitors are Lot & sons.
the story is circular ; the Twin
is at the begin and at the end.
Sodom and Gomorrah is names for Twin
hence twin is destroying itselves but
because their immortality
they are born again .