cheenc03a.pdf

SODOM AND GOMORRAH
' Sodom and Gomorrah ' 1 (virtually equivalent to
'Sodom'): (I) the circumstances leading up to the culminating
act of wlckednrsr committed in Sodom : and
(3) the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and other
cities, and the escape of Lot and his two daughters.
The sin of Sodom is oftrn referred to as typical of
horrible and obstinate wickedness, Is. 1 lo 39 Jer. 2314
Dt. 3231; and its destruction as a warning, Is. lrg 13.9
Jrr 4918 Zeph. 29 Dt. 2822 Am. 4n Lam. 46 (for EV's
iniquity' and 'sm' read 'punishment '). Sometimes,
too, it is mentioned alone ar the destroyed guilty city,
Gen. 19x3 ('this place'=Sodom) Is. 1739 Lam.46 (cp
Gen. 141~s
[bnt in v. ~~B~inrertsxalpoc. yop.], where
the king of Sodom figurer alone) ; hut Gonmrrah
is often mentioned too, Gen.1310 18- 192428 IS.
Ip f. 1319 Jer. 2314 Am. 411 Zrph. 29 Dt. 3231.
'Neighhour cities' are also referred to in Jer. 49.8
6040: cp Ezek. 16.6s ('Sodom and her daughters').
In Hos. 11 8 Admah and Zeboim, and in Dt. 29 1) [a=]
Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zebaim are given as
the ruined cities ; cp Gen, 10.9 and 142. where in like
manner these four citier are mentioned together. In
Wird. 106 the inexact phrase ' Pentapolis' in used (see
RV). The description of the sin of Sodom in Ezek.
16r$ioa is evidently based on the legend known to us
from Gen. 19, and similarly that of the punishment in
Dt. 29x3 [ax] agrees with that given in the traditional
text of Gen. 19~4-26. Allusions to the fate of Sodom
appear to occur in PE. 116 [but see below] 140xo[rr]
Job 18.1 Is. 349 f: Jer 20x6 Ezek. 381%. Curiously
enough. in a geographical passage (Gen. 10~~).
Sodom
and Gomomah and Admah and Zehoim are spoken of
as if still in existence. These are the data relative to
the hirforv of Sodom and the other citier suoolied ..
bv
the tr;iditassage which revenis the existence in the writer's mind
>f doubts ar to the divine justice, s~ich as \re know to
lave been felt among the Jews in later times. There is
,b0 reason to think that the references to Lot's wife
19 rif. n6 ; contrast v. 12) and the whole of the Zoar
:pirode, together with the account of the birth of Moah
ind Ben-ammi (?), are later insertions, though by no
means so late as the two insertions in ch. 18 melitioned
~bove.~
Here, however, we are chiefly concerned with the
:ontents of the Lac-story (ch. 19). We are told that as
a pmishment for disregard of the sacred
storg
3, not law of horpitulity, and for a deadly sin
oriciDsl, committed at least in intention, 'Yahwe
rained upon Sudom and upon Gomorrah
>rimstone and fire from Ynhw& our of heaven, and overhrew
those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabit-
~nts of the citier, and that which grew upon the ground'
:I924 f RV). Is it possible to explain the origin and
lieaning of this story, accepting provisionally the form
n which it ir given in the traditional text?'
That the story is historical (however laxly the word
>e interpreted) ought to be at once denied by those
rho have read the earlier legends of Genesis in the
ight of the comparative critical method. If the Deluge
E not historical, and if Abraham and Lot are ultimately
:he creations of the popular imagination, how can the
itrange story in Gen. 19, for which, as ~,e shall see,
rhere are so many parallels in folk~lore, be regarded as
historical? If is surely no answer to appeal to thr
accordance of the phenomena of the catastrophe of
Sodom with those which have happened elsewhere in
'similar geological formations,' or to the justification
~f the tradirional description of that catastrophe by
'authorities in natural science' (but not in historical
xiticism) and by some competent critics of the Or.
For the narratives of the Hebrew On@nci must he ac-
:epred or rejected an whoirs. Plausible as Darson's
view4 may he, that the description of the catastrophe
3f Sodom is that of 'a bitumen or oefroleum eruotion.
similar to those which on a snlall scale have been so
de~frucfive in the region of Canada and the United
states of America.' and the more ambitious theor" of
~1anckenhoin.bhat the catastrophe, which war a &a1
though not a historical event, began with an earthquake,
continued with igneous eruptions, and ended with the
:overing of the sunken cities by the waters of the Dead
Sea, it \rould require great laxity of Literary interpret;$ion
to assert that this is what either the Yahuist,c
narrative, or the earliest references in the prophetr.
intend. As Lucien Gautier remark5 (above, col. i046).
'The text of Genes15 speaks of a rain of fire and brim-
$tone and a pillar of smoke rising to heavm, but neither
1 Cm#asifiazglfhBeoh ojG#n~lis, 50-~3(1892),andZA Ti+'
12238 (r892).
1 In m essay in the Nm World l?+j> only the geological
rn)-fh in Y. 26 relad~e to the pillar of salt rr regnrded,sr an accretlon.
Gunkel (HKGen. 1888) holds that Lot's vlfe played
no part in the original story. and that the 202111 epilode is =Is0
r later insertion, but he clrlmr 7n.. id-38 for the orlp~nal stow.
3 Knobel har,rr any rate,iioticed rhnt thc Sdom cat%~.\trophc
ciorer the wcond stage in thc early narrative, corresponding to
the Deluge.
E~poositm, 1886 (z), p. 14 ; Mvdrrn Science in Bilir Lands,
486.
0 ZDPl'(ree end of article).
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