Lot's daughters

Jan Matsys, Lot and His Daughters, 1565.

Lot's daughters are four women, two unnamed people in the Book of Genesis, and two others, including Paltith, in the Book of Jasher.[1] Only two daughters are mentioned in Genesis 19, while Lot and his family are in Sodom. Two angels arrive in Sodom, and Lot shows them hospitality. However, the men of the city gather around Lot's house and demand that he give them the two guests so they could rape them. In response, Lot offers the mob his two daughters instead, noting that they are virgins (verse 19:8). The mob refuses Lot's offer, but the angels strike them with blindness, and then warn Lot to leave the city before it is destroyed.

Genesis 19:14 indicates that Lot has sons-in-law. The Hebrew text indicates that they are married to Lot's daughters, while NIV interprets the expression as "pledged to marry" his virgin daughters. Robert Alter suggests that verse 19:15 ("your two daughters who remain with you") indicates that Lot's two virgin daughters left with him, but that he had other, married daughters who stayed behind with the sons-in-law.[2]

Lot's wife turns into a pillar of salt, but Lot and his daughters escape to Zoar, and end up living in a cave in the mountains. In Genesis 19:30-38 Lot's daughters get their father drunk, and over two consecutive nights have sex with him without his knowledge. They both get pregnant. The older daughter gives birth to Moab, while the younger daughter gives birth to Ammon.

In 1783, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau described his daughters both feared that the fire and brimstone of Sodom was the end of the world (religion), despite that it lasted only twelve hours. Mirabeau notes that the daughters did not "anticipate the consequences of their desecration of their father." The eldest daughter decided to be the first to commit the act. The excessive use of alcohol was used to be able to psychologically endure the abhorrent situation. The youngest daughter committed the abomination the following night. One son became the leader of Moab and the other, Ben-Ammi, became the leader of Ammon.[3]

Many scholars have drawn a connection between the episodes of Lot's daughters. Robert Alter suggests that this final episode "suggests measure-for-measure justice meted out for his rash offer."[4]

A number of commentators describe the actions of Lot's daughters as rape. Esther Fuchs suggests that the text presents Lot's daughters as the "initiators and perpetrators of the incestuous 'rape'."[5] Ilan Kutz suggests that today it would be called "drug rape", but concludes that it was actually Lot who abused his daughters, and this was covered up by the biblical narrators.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Book of Jasher.
  2. ↑ Alter, Robert (2008). The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary. p. 93.
  3. ↑ Mirabeau, Honoré (1867). Erotika Biblion. Chevalier de Pierrugues. Chez tous les Libraries.
  4. ↑ Alter, Five Books of Moses, p. 92.
  5. ↑ Fuchs, Esther (2003). Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew Bible as a Woman. p. 209. ISBN 9780567042873. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  6. ↑ Kutz, Ilan (2005). "Revisiting the lot of the first incestuous family: the biblical origins of shifting the blame on to female family members". BMJ. 331 (7531): 1507–1508. doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1507. PMC 1322245. PMID 16373732.
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