Monster Villages of the Bible

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Continuing the theme: Monsters of the Bible, I shall turn to two particularly nasty towns.  

One town everyone has heard about and the other, well...probably not.  

Imagine an entire town where every single person is evil.  Is that possible?  In the story of Sodom it is.  We suspect Sodom must be pretty awful when Yahweh tells Abraham that he will spare Sodom if there are ten  righteous people in the town.  

That's right, folks, THE Yahweh: Hebrew sky god too holy for Moses to gaze upon face to face, so holy-other that Moses had to glimpse his glory as Yahweh was departing—that is the deity who stood before Abraham and may have eaten cheese with him.  

While Abraham convenes his tête-à-tête with Yahweh, two of Yahweh's messengers, or angels, go to Sodom.  

Of course, the angels had traveled with Yahweh from Cloud City where the rest of the heavenly host dwells in the sky.  

When Lot meets the angels, he urges them to come to his home.  It was dangerous for them to be outside in the city at night.

The townspeople showed up and asked that the messengers, or angels, be given to them for a night of rape and recreation.  Lot implored his fellow citizens to not act so wickedly.  

Genesis tells us that all the men of the village, young and old, came to Lot's home.  

Genesis tells us that every single man in town was wicked.  

Wow.  I for one have never found an exception where there were absolutely no exceptions to generalizations concerning a group of people.  

Even in evil towns in the United States like Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 or Rosewood, Florida in 1923, there were good people who had to endure and survive the tumultuous violence of evil men and women in their towns.

However, this is story telling at its finest with a message.  The story is so good, it remains with us today.  The message is not so clear to people who know little about hospitality violations.

Lot goes outside and offers his virgin daughters.  No Father’s Day card for Lot next June.  That sigh of relief we hear within would be the not-so-virgin daughters in Lot's home.  

The Sodomites menace Lot.  They press him against his door after uttering ugly words about him.  The angels yank Lot back inside and smite the townspeople with blindness.

And we know the rest of the story with its salt-of-the earth ending.  

There be monsters in that town. 

Next time, a terrible town most Bible lovers have never heard about and probably do not want to know shall be recounted.

Blessings…