cheenc03a.pdf

SODOM AND GOMORRAH
enough, there war another version in which Abraham
wnr the hero; comparing Gen. 81 ('God remembered
Noah') with 19.9 ('God remembered Abraham'),
one may, in hct, not unnetnrally expcct that Abraham.
no, Lot, silould be the chief personage of the second
stor". The visit of the elahim to Abmham is an
uncfiiced indication that he originally war so. Crrtniniy,
something can still be said for Lot, who may
~~igi,,ally have been greater than he now appears, and
have been a worthy brother (see above) and rival of
Abraham. nut this is a pure con,ectuie. and one
might even infcr fionr 1 3 that ~ Abraham and Lot
origlnnily belonged to the class (well reprelented in
nncicnt legends) of horlile brothers,' snd that Abraham
correspond8 to Abel (cp Remus) and Lot to Cain (cp
Komulur). The legelrd might have taken this tom.
1r is also trur that in chap. 19 there is nowhere any
trace of an underlying reference to the ' bx' or ,chert'
(a term specially characteristic of an inland country) in
which the survivors sere preserved, and that in 194
Abraham is said to have seen ,the smoke of the land
going up as the smoke of ;l furnace.' But on the first
point we may answer that if only Lor and his fanlily
were to be mved, no ark was necessary; the 'Plohim'
would convey the smali party to a place of safety. And
ns for the other point, we must, at any rate, credit the
last redactor with enoueh ca~acitv to adiurt a muti-
"
8, stno ken,S and-Gomorrah-story was originally a
th eOry, a 'dry' Deluge-story-i.r.. a legend of the
'dV. deiUge, dertiuction of me,, by other means than n
Rood ; such a story he finds in the Iranian
iegend of the Vw (or square enclosore) constructed by
Yima iree DELUGE. S zo6i. in the Peruvian and other
a hich make no such reference is either theoretically or
practically justified, may be questioned ; but we may.
:if anv . rate. . admit that if the oresent text of Gen. 1921
correctly represents the original story, the singular
1 Lucken, however (Adrolnrylhrn. 87) points out that the
di,fillcrion between fricndlyind hostile brocherr in mythology is
n fluid onz.
9 Artmlmythm. 96.
3 See Nauillc, TSBA 41.19; cp .Marpero, Dawn o/C;u.
,6417
SODOM AND GOMORRAH
~gpptian story referred to is the nearest pamilel to it.
Here the ' Ulvine eye' is the executioner : it lake5 the
form 01 the goddess Hathor, and slay5 ",en right and
left 'with great strokes of the knife.' It seems to us,
however, (I) that it ir much more probable that the
Jerahmeeiites had two forms of a proper Deluge-story
than that one of the extant Deluge-stories was only such
in a loose sense of the term, especially having regard to
the Rabylonian Flood-stories, and (z) that the difficulties
of Gen. 10x4 f. call loudly for the application ..
of textual
crifici~m.
Stucken seems happier in his explanation' of the
parallelism between Gen. 191-11 and
9, Judg,19
the strange rtory in Judg. 1915-30.
He
thinks that bothstories hsvr the same mythological kerncl-viz..
the tradition of the dividing of the body dthe
primncval beingTiamat (theperronifi&ocean-flood). with
whichcompare also a series of myths of the division ol
the bodies of supernatural beings (e.g.. Oririr). It is in
fact all the more difficult to believe that Gen. 191-n and
Judg 191j-~o stand at all early in the process uf
leeendnrv derclonment. because both the stories to
wiich t&se parriges belong are ultimately of Jernh-
meelite origin. This may be assumed in the former
care (I) from the place which the 'Sodom'-story
occllpier aniong legends that are certainly in their
origin Jcrahmeeiire, and (2) probably from the legend
of the ongin of ' Missur' and ' Jerahmeel' (so read for
Moab' and 'Ammo"' in 193, f ) which is attached to
the 'Sodom'-story. And it is hardly less clear a
deduction in the latter case from the results of tertoal
criticism. For the rtory in Judg. 19-20 cat? be shown to
have referred originally not to ~cnjatnin bur to some
district of the Jernhmeelite Neg~b.~
So hr as the oui\vard form of the story is concerned.
our task ir now finished. Son to resume and, if ileud
be. supplement. Originally, it seems.
there was but one visit of the Zl6hint ;
it is to Abraham, not to Lor, that the visit \\-as
rouchrnfed. Abraham (i.c., in the Jerahmeelite story. n
personification of Jernhmeel) war the olle righteous man
in the land. He received timely warning that those
anlong \vhom he sojourned had displeased God, and the
Plchim took him awayto be with God. Tlren camearninstorm
submerging 3111 Jerahmeel. This original story.
however, received modihcntionr and additions. Lot or
Lotm, the reouted son, nor of Seir the Horite, but "rob-
.,,
the story of I.ot in n manipulated form. so as to explain
and justify the anger of the clohim. After this a legend
was inserted to accourlt frji the name Xlisrur : I.or h;ld
. .
Jernhmeel were descended iron, that righteous man.3
who with his two daughters alone remained (the
rernova1 of the hero to the compnny of the Pluhim had
been forgotten) in the depopulntcd land. (The namcr
were aftervanis corrupted.) Finally, a corruption in the
text of 1914 suggested that the scene of the story must
have been in that 'awful hollow,' that ,bit of the infernal
regions come to the surface' which nnr at the southern
(?) md of the Dead Sea. And the singular columnar
formations ofrock~snlt at Jebel Usdurn (up DEAD SEA.
g 5) to which a myth rerenlbling that of Niohe
(originally a Creation myth ?) may perhaps already have
1 Stuckcn, 0).