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Michael Abrahams | The strange story of Lot

Published:Tuesday | June 7, 2022 | 12:05 AM

The Bible contains a lot of strange stories, but one of the weirdest is the story of Lot, with subplots that are as cringeworthy as they are bizarre. Lot was the nephew of Abraham (previously named Abram), the common patriarch of the Abrahamic...

The Bible contains a lot of strange stories, but one of the weirdest is the story of Lot, with subplots that are as cringeworthy as they are bizarre.

Lot was the nephew of Abraham (previously named Abram), the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Genesis 18:1, God appeared to Abraham and spoke with him, which is strange, because in the New Testament (John 1:18), it is stated, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”

During the conversation with Abraham, God remarked that sin in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was very bad, and that he planned to “go down” there and see if things were as bad as he heard (Gen 18:20-21). This is also strange, for God to need to “go down” there to check out the situation. Isn’t God supposed to be everywhere? Does He need to “hear” about bad behaviour? Doesn’t He see everything?

Abraham knew God was planning to destroy the cities, and asked if they would be spared if 50 righteous people were found there. God agreed not to do it if that amount was found. Apparently, 50 people fitting that description were not found, although the criteria and the methods used to determine who is ‘righteous’ were not stated. Anyway, Abraham kept negotiating with God until the number was down to 10.

Things get even stranger in Genesis 19. Two angels, in the form of men, came to Sodom and ended up being visitors in Lot’s house. While they were there, all the men of the city, “old and young”, turned up and told Lot they wanted to have sex with the angels. Lot had two daughters, who were married and at the house. Lot refused to release his guests to the perverted throng of men, but instead, offered his two daughters, who he claimed were virgins, to the mob to be gang-raped, telling them to do with them as they pleased.

BIBLICAL VIEW OF MORALITY

In 2 Peter 2:7, Lot is referred to as a “righteous man”. So, if a man who offers up his daughters to be gang-raped, and likely sodomised too, is referred to as righteous, what does this say about the Biblical view of morality? Fortunately, the sexual assault did not take place. According to the story, the angels cast a spell on the men and blinded them all, making it hard for them to find the door to the house. The following morning, the angels told Lot to flee with his wife and his daughters, and to not look back while doing so.

God then rained “fire and brimstone” down on Sodom and Gomorrah from Heaven, killing everyone there (including babies, toddlers and infants), except Lot and his family, who escaped to Zoar, a nearby city Lot had chosen to relocate to. According to the account, Lot’s wife looked back and was converted to a “pillar of salt”. Lot and his daughters later left Zoar and went to live in a cave in the mountains. While there, the older daughter remarked to her sister that their father was old and there were no other men to have sex with, also voicing concern about preserving his “seed”. So she concocted a plan. One night she got her father drunk and had sex with him. The next night she instructed her sister to do the same, and she complied. They both conceived and gave birth to sons, the elder was Moab, who gave rise to the Moabites, and the younger one was Benammi, the father of the Ammonites.

So, Lot was raped by his daughters. Sex without consent is rape. Lot did not consent. Surely, in the account, it was stated that with each daughter, “he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose”. The excuse about no other men being around is not a valid one. When Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, they went to the city of Zoar. It was a city. Men would have been there. Also, Abraham saw the cities going up in smoke, and men would have also been at the location he was at too. And if the daughters even forgot about Zoar, and did not know about Abraham, there is someone else who could have told them there were other men around: God. But God did not tell them, and allowed them to drug (alcohol is a drug) and rape their father.

NO PUNISHMENT

According to the Bible, women should not have sex with men they are not married to. Lot’s wife’s life was terminated because she simply looked back as the city she had lived in was razed. Her daughters raped their father and there was no punishment for the incestuous sexual assault. Not only that, they conceived, and their children survived and gave rise to entire generations. On the other hand, when David arranged for Bathsheba’s husband to be killed because he wanted to be with her, and she had a baby for him, God punished him by causing the baby, who was innocent and defenceless, to become sick and die. To say that morality in the Bible is irrational and inconsistent would be a gross understatement.

Interestingly, in the culture I grew up in, and which still exists in my country, children are instructed to read the Bible, and are told it is ‘perfect’, all the stories in it are true, and it is the ‘Word of God’. In some schools, they are required to recite and memorise verses from it, and punished if they do not.

Seriously, does this make sense to you?

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @mikeyabrahams.