101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

yth #51:
Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt.
The Myth: But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of
salt. (Gen. 19:26)
The Reality: This tale attempts to explain the presence of salt in the desolate
southern shore of the Dead Sea. Underlying the story is a myth about an escape from
the underworld.
When Lot and his family left Sodom, the angels told them not to look back lest
they be consumed by the destruction. But his unnamed wife did look back and she
turned into a pillar of salt.
The region around the southern shore of the Dead Sea (which is 25 percent salt)
was a major salt-mining community and it should not surprise us that legends would
evolve from the unusual phenomena of large inland salt deposits. The story of Lot’s
wife is one such tale. But the basic story itself originates from a different mythic idea,
one similar to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydike. In the Greek myth,
Orpheus sought permission to bring his deceased beloved out of the underworld. He
was allowed to do so on the condition that he not look back on his lover until they
arrived above ground. But he couldn’t control his desire to see her and turned around
as they traveled upward. She disappeared and returned to the underworld.
Entering and testing the underworld and seeking favors therein is a common
mythological theme in the Near East, as in the Sumerian story of The Descent of
Innana (see Myth #30). The ancient Greeks had many such legends including the
descents of Odysseus, Herakles, and Orpheus.
The wicked city of Sodom was a stand-in for the land of the dead, and at the end
of the story everyone there is dead. But there is some additional biblical evidence that
Sodom originally signified the underworld.
When the alliance of Mesopotamian kings attacked Sodom and established a
stronghold there, they then went out and conquered several other groups, among
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