Read God's Word the Holy Bible Daily

by Nicodemus 41 Replies latest jw friends

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  Tina

  Greetings,
  
  So Lot had no part in impregnating his daughters? I failed to see the 'comforting' message when reading the story of Lot carefully and in its entirety.
  I can't see how anyone can conveniently 'omit' this part of Lots saga.
  Did Lots drunken stupor exonerate him from any responsibility here?
  If he was the wise patriarch,why did allow this to happen? Why are the girls totally blamed and not he...
  I find it despicable that even today rape and incest are blamed on 'being drunk.....etc' as if that relieves the man of his moral responsibility (but look at this great example to use).

  I asked what was the moral imperative of this? ( The females at fault,right?) yeah yeah. Considering 'all scripture is inspired and beneficial for teaching blah blah blah.....
  No thinking person can read this in its entirety and consider Lot a hero or any kind of exemplar. It shows Lot to be morally bankrupt.
  This is how I read it. Tina
• 

  safe4kids

  Tina, I'm with you on this one...I think ALL parties involved bore responsibility for the incestuous acts. "Lot was drunk", puhleeezzee... that does not excuse his actions. Why was he drunk in the first place?? If he hadn't been inebriated, would it have happened?? Who knows? But it certainly doesn't excuse his part. After all, if he was sober enough to get it up, I have to believe he had some idea of who he was getting it on with.

  BTW...in modern society, being drunk doesn't excuse a person's behaviour and actions...if you're drunk and driving a car that kills someone, you are guilty. If you're drunk and you rape someone, you are guilty. If you are drunk and you have sex with your child, you are guilty.

  Dana

  "A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born."
  Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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  Marvin Shilmer

  Hello, Tina.

  No one disputes Lot impregnating his daughters. Who has omitted the account? I’m not sure what comfort has to do with your question either.

  Apparently you feel Lot was the aggressor or conspirator in the incident, or that he knowingly shared in the acts of incest. The text says otherwise. If Lot had been the type to have sex with his daughters then why did the two girls take measures to dupe him? As a thinking person, according to the text, who duped who, in your opinion?

  About Lot’s intoxication: he was obviously not so intoxicated that he was unable to perform. This means he must have had some sense of awareness. But, for all we know Lot may have thought the female laying down with him on each occasion was some unidentified concubine of his. We don’t know. The incident did take place at night, in a cave. Do you know how dark it gets in a cave, at night? Unless we assume Lot could recognize his daughters by feeling their bodies or their sexual preferences, how can we conclude more than the text says, that he was duped?

  These are reasons why I do not understand why or how you "read it" as you do. It appears to me you read a great deal into the account.
• 

  AGuest

  Hey, Tina-Girl... what's up, sista'?

  Can I take a 'crack' at the Lot vs. daughters - whose responsible - issue? Thanks, sweetie.

  Okay, then... I think there are many who, like you, feel that Lot was not held responsible for what occurred. But in truth, that is not the case. When my Father did NOT hold someone responsible for something such as in this case, either they received a blessing, their progeny prospered (or at least continued without much adieu), or they just went on. That was not the case here, though.

  The sons of Lot by his daughters were named Ammon and Moab, and it is from these two that two MAJOR enemies of Israel derived... the Ammonites and the Moabites. And we know that Lot came from the land of Sodom, near Gomorrah, and what happened to those two cities, yes?

  Well, the same thing happened to Ammon... and Moab. Rather than prosper and become a great nation, both were annihilated from off the face of the earth. Now, I know that this was not a direct hit on Lot, but to men of those times, having your progeny continue was a GREAT thing. Having it wiped out... was an everlasting disgrace.

  And they weren't just wiped out because of Lot and daughter's deeds, but because they pretty much just turned out to be 'bad seed'. Any wonder?

  Hope this help, O Gorgeous Looking As Always One... and peace to you (and your mom and son)... to time indefinite!

  Your sister and a servant of Christ,

  Shel
• 

  Farkel

  Marvin,

  : To me the incident speaks badly of the two girls’ morals and says little of Lot’s. Lot’s daughters dishonestly conspired to commit incest and did knowingly commit incest. Lot drank too much. You apparently believe Lot too was guilty of knowingly committing incest. If so, how do you get this from the reference?

  How many people does it take to "commit incest?" One? Or more than one?

  Secondly, if Lot was so drunk that he didn't know that he was having sex, not once but TWICE with his very own daughters unless he was some superhuman, it is doubtful that he could have functioned in sex well enough to get his daughters pregnant.

  If, after he sobered up the FIRST time, why did he let himself fall into that same state the SECOND time? Surely there would have been enough evidence on his body to let him know what he had done, even if he hadn't remembered doing it.

  If he was such a "righteous" man, any reasonable person would conclude he would have learned his lesson. He didn't learn his lesson. He turned right around and did the same thing again.

  I guess elders facing criminal proceedings for raping children can now resort to the "Lot" defense: "I was drunk and therefore it was all HER fault."

  One of the GB members who was aware that a prominent dub in the Org. had been caught molesting a (little) girl stated that it was such a shame that a fine man like that should get into trouble because that little girl chose to sit on his lap in the "wrong" way.

  Dubs just love to blame the victims, and in the case of Lot the Bible praises the incestuous rapist as "righteous."

  In all fairness to Lot though, I can have some compassion. Having sex with a "pillar of salt" cannot be all that fun. I haven't actually tried it, but I can guess it cannot be all that fun.

  Farkel
• 

  Farkel

  Marvin,
  
  : If Lot had been the type to have sex with his daughters then why did the two girls take measures to dupe him? As a thinking person, according to the text, who duped who, in your opinion?

  Who was responsible for how much Lot drank? Be honest. If you argue that it was his daughters, then you would have to show that they somehow physically forced it down him against his will.

  If you agree that Lot was responsible, then it was HIS responsibility for letting himself get in a position to compromise his righteousness. Therefore, he is at LEAST equally culpable and wasn't so "righteous" after all.

  Farkel
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  Marvin Shilmer

  Greetings, Farkel.

  You have not seen how the possibility of Lot knowing what he was doing but not who he was doing it with affects this discussion.

  That Lot participated in an incestuous act is indisputable. This discussion is about whom is responsible for the act. If Lot had a concubine or concubines it is conceivable his daughters essentially gave her the night off and pretended to take her place. Lot could not have been falling down drunk or else he could not have performed sexually. But it was probably so dark in the cave that all they needed was enough intoxication to make him susceptible to their wiles. After the act they probably greased him with more intoxicants so he would not remember a thing. The next night: what worked once worked again.

  To assert the circumstance of a faked concubine is impossible, because the text does not mention it. But it is not necessary to assert this because we do not have to prove Lot’s innocence from being a knowing participant in incest. The text does that for us. The possibility of a faked concubine is enough to dispel assertions that Lot MUST also be blamed for the incest despite what the text says.

  Just how far his two daughters went to pull off their conspiracy is not stated in detail. For a fact none of us knows full details of the incident, all we have is a brief written record. The written record says Lot was duped. Condemning Lot for complicity is reading language into a text. Condemning Lot for intoxication is about as far as you can go. Since the text presents Lot’s daughters as feeling they had to fool their father into having sex with them, it is also reading into the text to say Lot’s intoxication makes him responsible for incest because nothing suggests Lot would have ever thought his daughters would put him in the position. Lot apparently trusted his daughters. Who broke the trust? So far as we know, Lot thought his daughters were doting on him. He accepted it and became intoxicated. The conspiracy was theirs, not Lots.

  If we read into the text that Lot knew his daughters were capable of incest then he would have culpability for incest resulting from him accepting liquor from them. Can we prove this?

  If we read into the text that Lot could recognize who was having sex with him then he would have culpability. Can we prove that?

  If we read into the text that Lot was so intoxicated AT THE POINT OF SEX that he was incapable of performing then the text becomes a myth. Can we prove that?

  Lot was responsible for how much he drank. For this reason, as I have said, we can blame Lot for instances of intoxication. Whether those acts of intoxication made Lot an unrighteous drunkard is another question.
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  Liberated

  Hi Nicodemus,

  Thank you for the well-thought-out post and for the upbuilding comments.

  It's interesting that you mention the CO's blistering talk....because that was my last meeting. I certainly viewed it in the light of the Bible and realized that this so-called shepherd was actually beating the flock. The words "skinned and thrown about" came to mind. He was not a minister of God, showing love and kindness and care. We were scorched for many things by him, from being too talkative---to not having our school guide books.

  For me it was a final betrayal from what I had truly believed was God's organization. Further research since then has shown me that I was being betrayed all along...not by God and his word, but by those who I let take the place of God and the Bible.

  It is certainly a true saying not to place your hopes in mortal man.

  Libby
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  Liberated

  Hi Maximus,

  I just read your comments and was struck by your reference to the recent DC about their imperfection.
  This is something I've been contemplating recently because any problem one has with the organization is met with the phrase "their just imperfect men." And that seems to excuse the problem.

  But.....how would jw's have changed if the men governing them had been perfect?

  Didn't we act as though they WERE perfect? Didn't they expect that of us?

  I wonder what the average jw would say if asked that question: how would you change in your obedience to the org if you found out they were perfect?

  Libby
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  Marvin Shilmer

  Hi, Libby.

  I wonder what the average jw would say if asked that question: how would you change in your obedience to the org if you found out they were perfect?

  Very incisive question!