Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on March 18, 2012 at 6:42pm Perfectly excellent! And oh, so true. I recently learned that the figure of Moses (Mosheh) never actually existed but was merely an amalgam of various desert warlord tribal leaders of the time, what, 2,000 years back. Made up people don't belong is history books, and if they want to teach fantasies in school they might as well let them watch action movies all day long.
Permalink Reply by ChrisC on March 30, 2012 at 5:38am Makes sense, that's the impression I got while reading exodus et al.
Permalink Reply by David Sensei on April 3, 2012 at 12:28am Well, if you'd seen your wife turned in to a pillar of salt just for looking back at what she'd just been saved from, I guess you wouldn't be responsible for your actions. Too bad they had no rearview mirrors. But if I were Lot, after seeing that I'd wanna be kind of on my best behavior. Oh, I forgot, the only morality in the OT is obedience. And no homosexuality. Now I wonder if he'd have shared the same fate as his wife if he'd done it with his sons.
I think Lot did a deal with God to off the wifey so he had a clear path to his daughters, in return for regenerating humankind. After all, the Big Guy knew what was gonna happen anyway. But there I go again, committing blasphemy for blasphemy's sake and speculating on the logic of these absurd ancient Hebrew mythologies. The story is almost as dumb as the whole Noah's Ark schtick. If that doesn't prove the bible is hogwash and was written by primitive mythmakers I don't know what does.
Incidentally the campus newspaper at Monash Univerity in Melbourne, Australia is (or used to be) called 'Lot's Wife'. It's a great name for a satirical rag and I'd like to know who coined it and when.
Dare to look back! And Christian ladies, keep your hubbies away from the kiddies.
Afterthought - I recall being told the story of Sodom & Gomorrah during 'religious instruction' in Grade 5 (public secular school) by the local Anglican minister. Of course he couldn't go into much detail about what people actually got up to or explain the origins of the word 'sodomy', but my 10-year-old mind was hard put to imagine what on earth people could actually do that could be so bad as to have their whole cities obliterated on the spot, women, children, babies, pets, the lot. I was just glad I didn't live there.
The clergyman did say, however, that when Lot walked through the streets of Sodom he had to put his hands over his ears because the language was so bad. So that was it. So I didn't say 'fuck' for a while after that, and worried that some of the yahoos in my class were gonna bring down the wrath of God on my quiet little home town singlehandedly. I wasn't gonna be the one to tell'em to shut it, and just hoped there were few enough of them to get us let off with a warning. I started to appreciate girls at that point. They never cussed in those days, and therefore balanced things out. 'Thank heaven for little girls', literally!
Such was growing up in the 1950s.
Permalink Reply by Terry Groff on September 11, 2012 at 11:22pm And they forgot to add him offering his "virgin" daughters to the mob to protect the "angels". Lot's daughters were married at the time. (Such a righteous man)
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