45spacer

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum and I'd like to throw this topic out for others to comment on. This point comes from a good friend of mine who is a former Catholic, now atheist/agnostic.

I don't have the exact verse of Genesis but its the famous part where God decides he is going to smite Soddom and Gomorrah. To paraphrase the exchange: God goes to Abraham and tells him he is going to destroy the cities. Abraham questions God and asks "what if there are innocent people that would be killed?" Eventually Abraham bargains God down to "what if there is only 1 person worth saving?" God agrees and decides to spare this person, Lot. From here I think we all know where the story goes from here.

Here's the interesting part. Abraham has just proven that human morality is not dependent on God. Abraham is in the higher moral position by convincing God to spare the innocent.

I'd be really interested to here other people's thoughts on this. Also, are there any books, papers, etc. that discuss this that someone could direct me to? And, what might a Judeo/Christian response be to this reasoning?

Thanks.

show_no_mercy

That does question God's omniscience. He should have known that there was at least one innocent person. Of course, a Christian could simply spin it to say "he was testing Abraham to see if he could find Lot".

storytime

Good point. God should have known that at least one person was worthy of life. But the writers contriving their reasons for their own benefit excused Lot while condemning his wife. Again the female takes the fall. Probably because she was not part of the "clan".

Lot is a weird character. He doesn't really want to leave his Sodomite buddies and the angels have to literally pull him out and run for their lives. After the death of Lots wife, Lot and his daughters have a roll in the hay, so to speak. Lot is not condemned in either old or new testaments for his incestuous behavior; although the new testament story gives Lot an excuse, that he was "vexed" in his spirit, and by this situation he was portrayed as the "righteous Lot".

Somehow, Lot being the son of Sarah, keeping it all in the family was seen as proper form for kinsmen. Sarah was Abraham's half sister, not by his mother but by his father Terra. Lot was Abraham's nephew.

Susan2

On the contrary, I think it shows God is omnipotence. If God is omnipotent, God is capable of both good and evil, right and wrong. Equally then, God is capable of knowing and not knowing and capable of being present and not present. If mankind is made in the image of God, mankind is capable of Good and evil, knowing and not knowing, present and not present. If mankind is made in the image of God, then mankind is the image/likeness/clone of God. To understand this God, look to mankind, look to the self.

Through the course of evolution, Lord God comes along. He is titled the existing God. As mankind changed, so did God, for better or worse because God is defined through mankind.

Adam & Eve were told not to eat of the TOK, of good and evil. I would argue that the tree is Adam, and Eve, respectively. Each are a tree of knowledge of both good and evil. The source of their knowledge is what they are told/taught, and what they observe/experience. Conflict.

The snake is not another human, it is Eve’s own consciousness/subconsciousness. It is Eve’s own knowledge, of the things she has been told and the things that she has observed/experienced.

Eve can be seen as Adams own subconscious, molded and shaped by Lord God, or as traditionally taught, a separate human being, of Adam’s own faith/religion.

Adam/Eve, or Adam and Eve, can do anything they want to do, eat anything they want to eat, buy anything they want to buy, but they are not allowed to think for themselves, or speak for themselves (which goes to a story in the NT). No contrast and comparison, no debate, only literal interpretation, perfect obedience.

Impossible.


I don’t agree that Abraham was in the higher moral position. Perhaps, in his defense it could be said that he was a man of his time, dealing with the Lord (existing) God of his time, otherwise I think he could have spared a lot more people by his willingness to debate God, as to the morals or not of the people of Soddom Gomorrah, just as atheist’s and some theist do today.


Perhaps a mistaken message in the story is to care about your own, however, to care about your own is to care about others for your own lives amongst others.


Eve took the fall, then Hagar took the fall, then Lot’s wife took the fall, then Lots daughters took the fall. It was a domino effect for thousands of years.

I think Sarah is a metaphor, if that is the correct term, for Abrahams subconscious. Abraham is a cattleman. Cattlemen drive cattle forward, from behind, to the side, circling, encompassing the herd. The days of Rawhide ( an old TV program), guilt and shame, especially towards women, which just as sadly abuses, is detrimental to men. When their families aren’t perfect they feel like failures, which causes them to try harder, but without the skills for success.

Anyway, just a thought.

John Kesler

You are thinking about Genesis 18, but Yahweh never agrees to spare Sodom for the sake of one righteous person. The lowest number negotiated is 10 (v:32). In Genesis 19, angels warn Lot to flee with his family.

As far as Yahweh's omniscience is concerned, look at 18:20-21:

Susan2

I find it interesting that Lot’s wife has no name. I am not sure if the daughters do, though I think not. they are referred to as the older and the younger (an allusion to the OT & NT?). Are they of such little consequence that they have not even a name? Perhaps the answer to that is found in 19:8.



Lot is willing to allow his daughters to be done as the men pounding at his door would like, just don’t touch the men in his house, specifically the angels, i.e. the message. Of course that begs the question what message?

Later we see that Lot’s wife, who has not even the dignity of a name, is turned into a pillar of salt for having looked back. Did she listen to her own conscious? Did she hear the cries of the people?

Does she have her own knowledge? Did she have friends in her former community? Cherished friends, good people? We know that she had two son-in-laws left behind because they thought that Lot was joking (Gen 19:14). Did she love them? Were they good son-in-laws? Did they have a name?

Why did she look back? We don’t know, we are traditionally told that she was struck dead because she didn’t listen, obey the message. Of course by tradition, we are not allowed to think. I presume that the son-in-laws who ‘thought’ that Lot was joking were, left behind and killed for thinking.

Later we see that the daughters are shamed for thinking.

Certainly, our thinking can sometimes lead to trouble, embarrassment, even shame. I am not sure that anyone would deny that, or hasn’t experienced just that. We are human creatures, vulnerable, fragile and sadly these are the stories that have driven our thinking to date because we either didn’t know how to question them, or were taught that we can’t question them, or were afraid to question them.

Lot’s wife was not afraid. She stands there as a monument, a remembrance of injustice, perhaps even ignorance of the times.

Perhaps she can be likened unto the woman in the NT who had an issue with the tribes of Israel. She yearned to touch the hem of Jesus, a son of Israel. A son who is often angry. The hem is an allusion to ‘fold’/bent/demon, if those possessed were considered bent. A hem is a fold. In the process of touching his hem, she heals herself, and the power goes out of him.

For all we know, she, Lots' wife, is the rock of which he speaks. And for all we know she longed to touch him to remind him that Israel are her children. Perhaps she hoped to soften his heart toward them.

45spacer

Thanks for all the responses and I apologize for being a bit free with my paraphrasing.
Still though, I think this passage shows us that humans can be moral without divine instruction or the threat of punishment. I realize I have taken the passage out of context and I don't have much of a background in biblical textual criticism, however, to me this passage is in essence one being trying to talk another out of indiscriminate killing.

steve_bnk

Didn't abraham essentialy pimp out his wife, as we would say today?

Newfie

By "vexed" don't they mean seduced, Lot's daughters did get him drunk with the plan to get pregnant, didn't they? I mean, that kind of behavior is even frowned on in Alaska!

spamandham

Well, the relationship between God and Abraham is dysfunctional at best. Abraham is willing to kill his own son just because the Godfather asks him to, and this is deemed some kind of virtue on the part of Abraham!?

What a sick fucked up twisted tail.