Lugubert

For a beginner's exegesis during the second semester of Religious studies, I have chosen Genesis 19:1-29. My first problem was to find out how many men/angels are involved, referring back to ch. 18. Are there three angels visiting Abraham and God appearing later, or are there two angels and God in disguise? If three, does one get lost on the way to Sodom?

The second problem is that I have compared translations into several languages, and find that three of them in 19:4 say the people (or inhabitants), not the males, of Sodom surround Lot's house. Can the Hebrew anshe be interpreted as the people, including women? In that case, I find that the "know" must be interpreted literally as that they just wanted to know who Lot's guests were. They probably just wanted to know what kind of foreigners the foreigner Lot admitted into the town were. I think that I have seen somewhere that the sexual meaning of "know" is rather rare in the Bible, compared to the literal meaning.

If the Sodomites were all homosexual men, it wouldn't make much sense for Lot to offer his daughters to the mob, and besides, there wouldn't be too many women or children there. If not, there goes the allegation regarding homosexual wishes. And I find no place in the Bible (save, possibly, Jude 7) where other "sins" than general haughtiness, pride, idleness and the like are mentioned. "Abominations" (Ez. 16:47) could mean just anything. Jude's "going after strange flesh" (KJV) perhaps means that the wicked Sodomites ate crayfish?

Dean Anderson

Genesis 18 talks about Abraham standing before Yahweh talking to him - which would imply that Yahweh is physically there.

This would seem to suggest that the three men are Yahweh and two angels.

Note that in 18:22, the men move away but Abraham remains with Yahweh. This seems to be agreeing that the three were Yahweh plus two angels. Yahweh stayed with Abraham and the two angels went on to Sodom.

I am no Hebrew scholar, but I am led to believe that anshe is used in a similar way to the way 'men' is used in English (or at least was used in English before the rise of political correctness).

Sometimes it specifically refers to males, but other times it just refers to people of both sexes.

The sexual meaning is indeed used only rarely, and never when the word is spoken by a person. In other words, the biblical authors speak of people 'knowing' each other when they mean sex - but the biblical characters never do.

Don't forget that the people of Sodom had been (according to the narrative in Genesis 14) at war recently - you would expect them to be somewhat jittery with foreigners and the possibility of them forming a lynch-mob demanding to be shown people they suspect are spies would be large.

Ezekiel 16:48-50 makes it quite clear that the sin of the Sodomites was lack of hospitality to strangers, not homosexuality.

Amlodhi

Hello anders,

First, my apologies. I started a response to your previous post on this issue, but there are several complexities and I didn't get around to finishing it. Actually, I'm still not finished with it, but I don't want you to think that I am ignoring you either. So here are some of the things that I think are pertinent.

One of the problems in dealing with this chapter (Gen. 18) is that in verse 3, Abraham is addressing someone in the singular:

After this, the narrative has Abraham addressing the group in the plural:

Now this might appear to indicate that Abraham is addressing YHWH specifically as one member of the group in verse 3. However, we see the same curious switch in (pronomial) number in Chapter 19 involving Lot. Up until verse 17, Lot addresses the two angels in the plural. Then in verse 17:

As a general disclaimer it should be noted that the issue has nothing to do with what may or may not have actually happened but, rather, only with what the author (or final redactor) intended to say happened.

It may be that the author's intention was to indicate that Abraham was addressing YHWH singularly as one of the three. Which case would tend to indicate that, in Gen. 19:17, YHWH showed up in Sodom and Lot began to address him there in the singular.

Or, perhaps the author merely intended to indicate that Abraham and Lot were simply addressing one angel out of the group in the case of the singular pronouns.

But the abrupt, unannounced changes, (especially the mid-sentence switch in Gen. 19:18), has led some to believe that we are dealing with a conflation of two separate traditions. Perhaps one in which YHWH was physically present and one in which he was not.

Though I doubt that the issue will ever be definitively resolved from the extant text, some of the explanations and apologetics I have heard are:

1. That YHWH manifested himself as one of the "men". The apparent contradiction is usually resolved by supposing that Abraham (etal) could look at this chosen physical manifestation, albeit still, no one could look upon the face of God in his essential form.

2. That this physical manifestation referred to as YHWH was actually the pre-existent Christ.

3. That all the "men" were angels and YHWH was a disembodied voice.

4. That YHWH was not actually present, but only represented in the form of the angels. Advocates of this theory usually refer to Gen. 32:30, "And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved" (And sometimes Judges 13:22) though the term used in both of these examples is Elohim rather than YHWH.

5. Somewhat in keeping with #1, that one of the "men" was the enigmatic "Malak YHWH" (angel of YHWH). Proponents of this theory usually make reference to verses such as Gen. 22:11-12, where in verse 11 the angel of YHWH calls to Abraham, but then, in verse 12, speaks as YHWH himself.

Personally, I tend to agree with the conflation theory in which at least one original "YHWH present" version was combined with another version, thus creating the confusion in pronomial number. Explanation #5 notwithstanding, Abraham is said to be standing before (l'penai, literally "to the face of") YHWH and not the "Malak YHWH". Further, as to counting, the otherwise unexplained absence of one of the "men" in Sodom, following directly upon YHWH's remaining behind to speak with Abraham, cannot be easily discounted.

P.S. Pervy Hobbit Fancier is correct. The term you are transliterating as "anshe" is from the term "enosh" which is properly translated as "mortal". Whether it is intended as "men" or "mankind (people)" must be determined from the context. The term you are seeing, "anshe", is the construct form meaning "men (or people) of . . ."

Thanks for the interesting posts, anders. I hadn't looked at these verses in a while and you have rekindled my interest here. I will be interested in what you and others have to say on this issue.


Amlodhi

Lugubert

Many thanks! I got even more than I hoped for.

First a small correction: I found two languages using 'inhabitants' and 'people' respectively: Russian and Hindi. Chinese clearly uses 'male people', and Swedish männen is unambiguosly 'males', as is Arabic rijaalu and others.

My interim interpretation now, very simplified, goes like this:

During the Exile, a heavily edited version of an old horror story, appearing in an older version in Judges 19, was inserted in the Abraham story, to show that God saves his people from oppressing environments. To get a connection, Lot, being related to Abraham, was made the main character, and the Mamre opening was copied (sudden appearance of men-invitation-bread-eating).

To make it even more interesting, there was added the explanatory legend of the salt pillar.

I haven't decided yet if I will present the following thoughts to my OT Professor:

Several stories are intended to show that Isaac's descendants are superior. Ishmael is chucked out, having a lowly birth compared to Isaac. The Moabites and Ammonites are despised, because of their despicable descent from incestuos relationships. Clearly inferior to the incestuos relationship Abraham-Sarah, producing Isaac. (It is interesting to note that, for example, the Book of Jubilees infers that Lot is the active party: 16:8b-9a "And he and his daughters committed sin upon the earth, such as had not been on the earth since ‎the days of Adam till his time; for the man lay with his daughters‎.")

Hold on tight: the Creator God favours Ishmael, disagrees with the expulsion of I., and wants Isaac killed. The Supreme God, favouring Isaac, steps down in the shape of ml'k YHWH, producing a ram for a substitute.

Vorkosigan

Formal written Chinese uses the male plural for all groups, including those composed only of females. Currently informal usage permits the female only for groups that are all-female. Thus, I believe your conclusion is unwarranted.

Vorkosigan

Lugubert

My translation, a pdf file from World Bible Translation Center, Fort Worth, Texas, writes nánzi, with 男 (the zi did not copy), not 人 rén. All my dictionaries agree that this must mean males.

<added:> Japanese hitobito should mean 'people, everybody'.

Vorkosigan

You're right. I assumed from the information you gave that the plural ta1-men2 was used. My error.

Vorkosigan

Agnostic Theist

Yahweh stayed with Abraham and the two angels went on to Sodom.


Sorry, but :rolling:

Do the angels usually sod Yahweh?