Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
muman613:
Some excerpts from Shabbat 108b:
http://halakhah.com/shabbath/shabbath_108.html
--- Quote ---When R. Dimi came,15 he said: No man ever sank in the Lake of Sodom.16 R. Joseph observed: Sodom was overturned and the statement about it is topsy-turvy:17 No man sank [in it], but a plank did?18 Said Abaye to him, He states the more surprising thing.19 It is unnecessary [to mention] a plank, seeing that it does not sink in any water; but not even a man, who sinks in all [other] waters of the world, [ever] sank in the Lake of Sodom. What difference does that make? — Even as it once happened that Rabin was walking behind R. Jeremiah by the bank of the Lake of Sodom, [and] he asked him, May one wash with this water on the Sabbath?20 — It is well, he replied.21 Is it permissible to shut and open [one's eyes]?22 I have not heard this, he answered, [but] I have heard something similar; for R. Zera said, at times in R. Mattenah's name, at others in Mar 'Ukba's name, and both [R. Mattenah and Mar 'Ukba] said it in the names of Samuel's father and Levi: one said: [To put] wine into one's eye23 is forbidden; [to put it] on the eye, is permitted.24 Whilst the other said: [To put] tasteless saliva,25 even on the eye, is forbidden. It may be proved that it was Samuel's father who ruled, '[To put] wine into one's eye is forbidden; on the eye, is permitted': for Samuel said: One may soak bread in wine and place it on his eye on the Sabbath. Now, from whom, did he hear this, surely he heard it from his father? — But then on your reasoning, when Samuel said: [To apply] tasteless saliva even on the eye is forbidden; from whom did he hear it? Shall we say that he heard it from his father, — then Levi did not state any one [of these laws]! Hence he [must have] heard one from his father and one from Levi, but we do not know which from his father and which from Levi.
16 Owing to its high specific gravity due to its large proportion of salt.
17 Lit., 'overturned'.
18 Surely a plank is even lighter.
19 Lit., 'he says, it is unnecessary (to state)'.
20 Its saltiness conferred healing properties upon it; hence the question, since one may not heal on the Sabbath.
21 For it is not evident that one washes himself for that reason. [Healing is forbidden only for fear lest one crushes the necessary ingredients, but it is not labour in itself: consequently the Rabbis did not impose this interdict unless one is obviously performing a cure.]
22 Several times in succession, for the salt to enter and heal them. The purpose is more obvious here.
23 By opening and shutting it. This is similar to Rabin's question, Thus the saltiness of the Lake of Sodom has a practical bearing in law.
24 For it looks as though he is merely washing himself.
25 I.e., saliva of a person who has tasted nothing after sleeping.
26 Of transgression.
27 For the salve to enter right in.
--- End quote ---
It seems that it is correct that the Lake of Sodom is the Dead Sea. To this day the salt content of the Dead sea is great enough that people can float on the surface... But whether the lake existed before the destruction is still a question...
Brianroy:
--- Quote from: Tag-MehirTzedek on April 03, 2013, 07:23:07 PM ---"Would this be an acceptable Torah Study thread to start and discuss? Thanks"
Yes. Perhaps I will look into it later. Also perhaps you can bring the texts of those pages and post them here.
--- End quote ---
[Commentary]
( ) = (enhanced definition}
/ means "alternatively rendered or translated as"
-------------------------------------
Genesis 9:
11 וַהֲקִמֹתִ֤י אֶת־בְּרִיתִי֙ אִתְּכֶ֔ם וְלֹֽא־יִכָּרֵ֧ת כָּל־בָּשָׂ֛ר עֹ֖וד מִמֵּ֣י הַמַּבּ֑וּל וְלֹֽא־יִהְיֶ֥ה עֹ֛וד מַבּ֖וּל לְשַׁחֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
And I will confirm My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off again by the waters of the Flood; and never again shall there ever be a Flood to destroy (with a sinking and bowing down) the Earth.
15 וְזָכַרְתִּ֣י אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֗י אֲשֶׁ֤ר בֵּינִי֙ וּבֵ֣ינֵיכֶ֔ם וּבֵ֛ין כָּל־נֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּ֖ה בְּכָל־בָּשָׂ֑ר וְלֹֽא־יִֽהְיֶ֨ה עֹ֤וד הַמַּ֙יִם֙ לְמַבּ֔וּל לְשַׁחֵ֖ת כָּל־בָּשָֽׂר׃
I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living soul among all flesh. And the waters shall not again become a Flood (with a sinking and bowing down [of the Earth]) to destroy all flesh.
Psalm 7:16 in Hebrew, 7:15 in English
בֹּ֣ור כָּ֭רָֽה וַֽיַּחְפְּרֵ֑הוּ וַ֝יִּפֹּ֗ל בְּשַׁ֣חַת יִפְעָֽל׃
A (sunken) pit / cistern / well he dug and bored it, and has fallen into the (sunken and bowed down) ditch he made.
Psalm 35:7
כִּֽי־חִנָּ֣ם טָֽמְנוּ־לִ֭י שַׁ֣חַת רִשְׁתָּ֑ם חִ֝נָּ֗ם חָפְר֥וּ לְנַפְשִֽׁי׃
For without a cause they hid for me, (in the bowing down) [the area of darkness in the chasm] (of) a pit / (in) a pit
their net; without cause they have dug for my soul.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 108b
When Rabbi Dimi came, he said: No man ever sank in the Lake of Sodom.
Rabbi Joseph observed: Sodom was overturned and the statement about it is topsy-turvy: No man sank [in it], but a plank did?
Said Abaye to him, He states the more surprising thing. It is unnecessary [to mention] a plank, seeing that it does not sink in any water; but not even a man, who sinks in all [other] waters of the world, [ever] sank in the Lake of Sodom. What difference does that make? — Even as it once happened that Rabin was walking behind Rabbi Jeremiah by the bank of the Lake of Sodom, [and] he asked him, May one wash with this water on the Sabbath? — It is well, he replied.
Shabbat 109a
Our Rabbis taught: One may bathe in the water of Gerar, in the water of Hammethan, in the water of Essa, and in the water of Tiberias, but not in the Great Sea [the Mediterranean], or in the water of steeping, or in the Lake of Sodom.
But this contradicts it: One may bathe in the water of Tiberias and in the Great Sea, but not in the water of steeping or in the Lake of Sodom. Thus [the rulings on] the Great Sea are contradictory.
— Said R. Johanan, There is no difficulty: one agrees with R. Meir, the other with R. Judah. For we learnt: All seas are like a mikweh, for it is said, and the gathering of [mikweh] the waters called he Seas: this is R. Meir's view.
R. Judah said: The Great Sea [alone] is like a mikweh, 'seas' being stated only because it contains many kinds of waters.
R. Jose maintained: All seas [including the Great Sea] purify when running, but they are unfit for zabim, lepers, and to be sanctified as the water of lustration.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding Genesis 13, Verse 10: It seems to me that there is a required bowing of the earth down as a pit for where Sodom was or is in the context that "SHaCHaT" is used in regard to the land that supported Sodom and Gomorrah.
There are those who I personally believe and have debated on-line back and forth in the past with (March 2008 for example) who are promoting great error in denying the witness of the Bible, with a claim to take only these verses of Chapter 13 alone to prove their North of the Dead Sea Sodom theory, as stated in this year (2013) in the Biblical Archaeology Review.
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/where-is-sodom/
Tall El-Hammam rests on top of a hill, while Sodom was upon a plain that lost elevation to such an extent, it can only be located in the lowest elevations upon the Earth (in the Dead Sea Basin) in order to fulfill the Hebrew requirements placed upon it.
So, when we look at the kikar / disc-plain proposed in the Northern Sodom Theory, which runs due East of Jericho and northwards
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/of01-216/
we discover there is NO bowing down of the Earth, especially near or around the Jordan River where Sodom was located and to be watered from. In fact, the NST scam being currently advanced by someone I debated at the Biblical Archaeology Forums along with his fellow archaeologist assistant at great length fails in altitude, proximity to the Jordan River itself, in being repopulated against prophetical and historical requirements, and a whole host of issues. For the purpose of the maps at the U.S. Geological Survey link immediately above, and verse 10 of Genesis 13, I would make the case firstly that the NST clearly lacks a geological fact that there is NO sinking into the earth, which the destruction of Sodom and the entire disc plain region is required to do...collapse as if to create a canyon depression into the Earth, like that of the sea and ocean floors bowed down and collapsed because of the Great Noachian Flood.
Hence, based on the Sodom texts relating to a creation of the Dead Sea and an apparent agreement by the rabbinic sages, I would definitely state that Tall el-Hammam, some 8 miles north of the Dead Sea and 8 miles east of the Jordan River sitting on a mound overlooking a plain where they could have seen had those of 2 1/2 tribes of Israel live at its mounds as a resting place for herders, is disqualified.
Brianroy:
The excavators of the Tall el-Hammam
http://www.tallelhammam.com/
mound state that their site, once reinhabited after an absence or extinction in the Middle Bronze Age (they cite as 2000-1550 B.C.) that lasted until the Iron Age 1 (1200-1000 B.C.) or most certainly no further than the beginning of Iron Age 2 (ca. 1000 B.C.). It then flourished as “the big dog” of the area, says Dr. Steve Collins, until after the Muslim conquest in the 700s A.D. That is, starting generally around 1100 B.C. and then for 1800 more years, under one name or other, Tall el-Hammam flourished at a time when the Bible again called the lands of Sodom as a current barren and salted wasteland, where even nomads refused to stop and rest if they found themselves in it.
An example of a partial response I used at a no longer existing Biblical Archaeology Society forum exchange on the Tall el-Hammam threads with Dr. Steve Collins and Dr. Graves, excavators at Tall el-Hammam:
BAS Tall el-Hammam thread, March 24, 2008
Dr. Collins writes: The biblical record does not say all evidence of their existence was wiped from the face of the earth so that the same locale would never be inhabited again.”
Reply:
Isaiah 1:9 implies total annihilation:
“Except the L-RD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”
Deuteronomy 29:23 translates the destruction of Sodom as in the present tense, and on-going: “the whole land thereof IS brimstone, and salt, and burning, that IT IS NOT sown, NOR beareth, NOR any grass groweth therein, LIKE the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the L-RD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:”
Jeremiah 49:18 implies total annihilation:
“As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the L-RD, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.” and implies, no man shall dwell in it ever again.
Jeremiah 50:40 implies total annihilation:
“As G-D overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the L-RD; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.” (again, "ever again" is implied by the text)
-----------------------------------------------
[And separately in another place was this response by me that made Dr. Collins replied that he must insist only on a Genesis 13 reading in locating Sodom, forbidding we refrain from reading any other Bible texts on this issue.]
Witness #1 -
In circa 760 B.C., Sodom is a destroyed place:
Amos 4:7 – it a place of no rain
In verse 9 – it a place of blasting and mildew [hence, moisture of some sort] and the creeping locust
In verse 10 - it is a place forsaken like the plague
In verse 11 – Sodom is an overturned [the use of the word “Hapak” or turned upside down, a plain now a valley in its use] place, a place of burning.
------Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.
Witness #2 - In circa 735 B.C., Sodom was a place ruined since its overthrow over 1200 years earlier, and set forth as an example.
Isaiah 1:7 speaks of how the land of Israel, ravaged by war, is a desolation; and its cities burned with fire.
Isaiah 1:9 Except Y*** of Hosts had left a remnant for us, a few, we would be as Sodom; we would be as Gomorrah
Isaiah 13:19 uses mahpekah to describe Babylon’s overthrow, to describe a destruction as complete as Sodom and Gomorrah…the word picture being to the effect of: 'it shall be taken down with great violence and poured out as liquid from a flask' as the emphasis of the violence of its overthrow. The word picture in reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, suggest volcanic lava or like activity as being the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah. The overthrow of Babylon will be as complete as if Creation and a volcanic disaster had wiped that city out.
Isaiah 13:20 tells us that as of Isaiah’s day, Sodom and Gomorrah were UNINHABITED, and in a place where the Arabian was UNABLE to pitch his tent, and flocks (though they might perhaps step upon), were unable to lie down there. In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah, even under a receding sea due to drought, could well have been known to be under even amounts as little as about a foot or less of water of the Dead Sea consistently in Isaiah’s day.
This points us by markers to the southern regions of the Dead Sea, in a valley that was depressed to be even lower than the Jordan Valley proper, ceasing the river’s former run to the Gulf of Aqaba.
-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.
Witness # 3 - In circa 620 B.C., Sodom is desolation and uninhabited:
Zephaniah 2:9 …surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and a pit of salt, and a ruin forever
-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.
Witness # 4 -
In circa 590 B.C., Sodom is still a destroyed place, having only bitter and poisonous waters, and visibly ruined: Jeremiah 23:14 “They are all of them like Sodom to Me, and those living in her like Gomorrah.
Jeremiah 23:15 So Y*** of Hosts says this concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water…”
Jeremiah 49:17 And Edom shall be a ruin, everyone who goes by it shall be amazed and shall hiss at all its plagues.
Jeremiah 49:18 As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and its neighbor, declares Y***, no man shall remain there, a son of man shall not live in it."
-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.
Witnesses #5 and #6 -
In circa 47 and 57 A.D., at the very time period of when the Tall el-Hammam excavators claims that their city thrived under the name of “Livias”, and was greatly inhabited, Jude and the Apostle Peter both testify that Sodom is a current example (current in the 1st Century A.D.) of everlasting destruction upon a location, suggesting its ruins were both still visible and uninhabited, and example of what everlasting fire will do:
Jude 1:7 “as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in like manner to these, committing fornication, and going away after other flesh, laid down an example before-times, undergoing vengeance of everlasting fire.”
2 Peter 2:6 "and covering the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with ashes, He condemned them with an overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly.”
According to the historical testimony of 2 Peter 2:6, all the cities of the Sodomic Pentapolis are designated as being covered and/or reduced to ashes in the use of tephrosas. The cities were covered with ashes and condemned. In order to FIND Sodom, it must be located from under a great coat of "ashes".
-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.
-----------------------------------------
Yet, in spite of such clear refutation that anyone at the Biblical Archaeology Society could offer, the Tall el-Hammam fiction that it is somehow even conceivably Sodom, despite Biblical Historical rebuke that it can in no way be the Sodom of Genesis chapters 13 and 19, still it is that fairy tale (that Tall el-Hammam "might" be Sodom) that rests on the cover of the March/April 2013 issue as its feature article.
muman613:
Brianroy,
I sure hope you are not a Christian missionary because some of the stuff you are posting here in the Torah section contains things which are not so Jewish. We know no Paul, as that is a follower of the cult of Christianity and the writer of a antisemitic book of the so-called new testament. Obviously we have a reason to reject that book as divine, and anything which is learned from it is not accepted from a Jewish standpoint.
Also you did not provide a link to the source of the translation which you are using, which is another reason I suggest that maybe you have alterior motives in posting here. The KJ translation is known to be wrong in several places according to standard Hebrew translations. As I posted above, the Chabad translation indicates that the Genesis quote had nothing to do with a 'pit'.
Also the quotation from Talmud Shabbat 108a has to do with Jewish law concerning what is permitted on Shabbat.
I don't know where the translation of Shechat (Destroyed) means to sink or bend down..
The word שַׁ֣חַת means 'to destroy':
--- Quote ---http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8173
יא. וַהֲקִמֹתִי אֶת בְּרִיתִי אִתְּכֶם וְלֹא יִכָּרֵת כָּל בָּשָׂר עוֹד מִמֵּי הַמַּבּוּל וְלֹא יִהְיֶה עוֹד מַבּוּל לְשַׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ
11. And I will establish My covenant with you, and never again will all flesh be cut off by the flood waters, and there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth."
--- End quote ---
The word for Pit or sunken is Beor... בֹּ֣ור
Here again in Devarim is the word Shechat שַׁ֣חַת meaning destroy:
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9996/jewish/Chapter-32.htm
--- Quote ---Dueteronomy 32:5
ה. שִׁחֵת לוֹ לֹּא בָּנָיו מוּמָם דּוֹר עִקֵּשׁ וּפְתַלְתֹּל:
5. Destruction is not His; it is His children's defect you crooked and twisted generation.
--- End quote ---
muman613:
Though there is a similarity in the word for destroy and to bow...
The word for bow is קשת Keshet...
Although we talk about bowing in the Aleinu prayer, but we say "Venachnu Korim Umishtachuvim Umodim" (We bend our knees and bow with thanks)
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