many interesting examples of which have been published by Cheyne in The New World, 1892, 239 ff. It is indeed obvious that no physical explanation of the cataclysm furnishes any clue to the significance of the angels' visit to Lot; but a study of the folklore parallels shows that the connexion between that incident and the destruction of Sodom is not accidental, but rests on some mythological motive whose origin is not as yet explained. Thus in the story of Philemon and Baucis (Ovid, Met. viii. 625 ff.), an aged Phrygian couple give shelter in their humble dwelling to Zeus and Hermes in human guise, when every other door is closed against them. As a reward for their hospitality they are directed to flee to the mountain, and there, looking back, they see the whole district inundated by a flood, except their own wretched hut, which has been transformed into a temple, etc. The resemblance here is so great that Cheyne (l.c. 240) pronounces the tale a secondary version of Gn. 19; but other parallels, hardly less striking, present the same combination of kindness, to divine beings rewarded by escape from a destructive visitation in which a whole neighbourhood perishes for its impious neglect of the duties of hospitality.—On these grounds some writers consider the narrative before us to be a Hebrew adaptation of a widespread legend, its special features being suggested by the weird scenery of the Dead Sea region,—its barren desolation, the cloud of vapour hanging over it, its salt rocks with their grotesque formations, its beds of sulphur and asphalt, with perhaps occasional conflagrations bursting out amongst them (see Gu. 188 f.). Dr. Rendel Harris (Heavenly Twins, 39 ff.) takes it to be a form of the Dioscuric myth, and thus a natural sequel to 181-15 (see p. 302 above). Assyriologists have found in it a peculiar modification of the Deluge-legend (Jast. ZA, xiii. 291, 297; RBA1, 507), or of the World-conflagration which is the astronomical counterpart of that conception (ALTO2, 360 ff.): both forms of the theory are mentioned by Zimmern with reserve (KAT3, 559 f.).—Whatever truth there may be in these speculations, the religious value of the biblical narrative is not affected. Like the Deluge-story, it retains the power to touch the conscience of the world as a terrible example of divine vengeance on heinous wickedness and unnatural lust; and in this ethical purpose we have another testimony to the unique grandeur of the idea of God in ancient Israel.
XIX. 30-38.—Lot and his Daughters (J).
This account of the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites is a pendant to the destruction of Sodom, just as the story of Noah's drunkenness (920ff.) is an appendix to the Deluge narrative. Although it has points of contact with 1-28, it is really an independent myth, as to the origin and motives of which see the concluding Note (p. 314).
Source.—Though the criteria of authorship are slight, there is no
reason to doubt that the section belongs to J: note the two daughters,
