The Sodom And Gomorra Nightmare
By James Donahue
Among
the strange stories in the Book of Genesis, in the Old Testament, is the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorra.
To retell the story in brief, Lot, a nephew of Abraham and his wife
chose to live in Sodom, one of five early cities said to have existed along the Dead Sea in the Land of Canaan. The other
cities included Gormorrah, Admah, Zeboim and Bela. Bela also is identified in the ancient books as Torah and Zoar.
According to the Biblical account, the people of the area were living
very immoral lives. The very name sodomy, a form of sexual deviation suggesting homosexual behavior, was derived from the
name of the City of Sodom. At one point, God, or possibly some intelligent force that possessed nuclear weapons at the time,
chose to destroy the cities and everybody in them.
Because “God” considered Lot to be a righteous man, he sent two angels to warn Lot and his wife and
two daughters to get the hell out of Dodge before the city was blown to smithereens.
The immorality of that period and that territory was obviously running out of control. The angels no sooner arrived
at Lot’s home when men from all over Sodom were pounding at the door, wanting to rape the angels. We have to wonder
what kind of sex appeal those angels had.
Lot
took the angelic advice, and fled with his family to the nearby hills. They had barely escaped before a giant explosion leveled
Sodom, Gormorrah, Admah and Zeboim. The Genesis account identified it as “fire and brimstone” from heaven. The
sight from the eyes of the fleeing family was that “smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace” and
that all living things, even the vegetation, was consumed.
Lot’s wife, who apparently was the last to leave, stopped to look back. The story implies that she languished
for the sinful life of the city. God then punished her and turned her into a pillar of salt.
Might this not have been the result of a nuclear explosion, or perhaps several nuclear explosions used to destroy
those cities. If Lot’s wife was too close to such a blast, her body might have been suddenly burned to ashes. Her remains
probably looked to the family like a pile of salt. I doubt if anybody went back to find out.
Only the City of Bela was spared. And it was to Bela, or Zoar as it was named in Genesis, that Lot and his family
fled. Because they were afraid to live in the city, they camped in a cave just outside of town.
The insanity of the story does not end with the escape by the family.
There was one more significant chapter to be told. It seems that Lot’s daughters yearned for men, and life in the wilderness
failed to satisfy their lust. So they got their father drunk and committed incest with him.
This behavior apparently went on with both daughters for a while since they both bore children from their father.
The children were Moah, the father of the Moabites, and Benammi, the origin of the Ammon people. Both groups thus became incestial
spin-offs of the Hebrew people, who were direct descendants of Abraham.
Also Abraham didn’t keep his pants on at home which made this family tree even stranger. Because he did
not believe he could bear a son with his aging wife, Sarai, Abraham produced an illegitimate son with the family maid, Hagar.
Thus he fathered Isaac with Sarai and Ishmael with Hagar. And both sons went on to have families that inhabited the area.
And this may help us understand the antagonism that exists between
the Israelis and the Palestinians even to this day. They are all related to the same family, but most of the Palestinians
and perhaps some of the Israelis are descendants of children born out of wedlock or incest. This apparently makes a difference,
especially to the Zionists.
