Lot’s Wife is Still Standing: In Search of the Pillar of Salt

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Low
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Sexual Trauma ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Gender Theory ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

Abstract This article explores how readers search for Lot’s wife at the shore of the Dead Sea and how they use the pillar of salt as a destination, as a symbol, and as a lasting memorial. Whether Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt that travelers to the Dead Sea can visit today is not relevant for this analysis. Spanning many centuries, this reception history of Lot’s wife argues that readers use her for their own interests to address their own cultural concerns. Three chronological areas are addressed for a broad-sweeping coverage of some trends and traditions about Lot’s wife. While the Hebrew text remains ambivalent about memorializing Lot’s wife, Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian sources reveal a concern to remember Lot’s wife in terms of God’s final judgments. The article then turns to medieval Christian travel narratives and maps that use Lot’s wife to mark the borders of Christendom, with pilgrims seeking her amid Crusades-era concerns. Finally, modern sources are discussed that deal with Lot’s wife in terms of symbolizing sexual trauma, deviance, and danger. Gender theory and queer theory are utilized in the article as secondary ideological lenses through which to engage reception history. What results is a complex picture regarding how people use Lot’s wife to negotiate boundaries, engage biblical myth, and further their own agendas.

The Damascus Document

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Fraade
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Ancient Text ◽  
Cairo Geniza ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The Damascus Document is an ancient Hebrew text that is one of the longest, oldest, and most important of the ancient scrolls found near Khirbet (ruins of) Qumran, usually referred to collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls for the proximity of the Qumran settlement and eleven nearby caves to the Dead Sea. Its oldest parts originate in the mid- to late second century BCE. While the earliest discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls occurred in 1947, the Qumran Damascus Document fragments were discovered in 1952 (but not published in full until 1996), mainly in what is designated as Qumran Cave Four (some ten manuscripts altogether). However, it is unique in that two manuscripts (MS A and MS B) containing parts and variations of the same text were discovered much earlier, in 1896 (and published in 1910), among the discarded texts of the Cairo Geniza, the latter being written in the tenth-eleventh centuries CE. Together, the manuscripts of the Damascus Document, both ancient and medieval, are an invaluable source for understanding many aspects of ancient Jewish (and before that Israelite) history, theology, sectarian ideology, eschatology, liturgy, law, communal leadership, canon formation, and practice. Central to the structure of the overall text, is the intersection of law, both what we would call “biblical” (or biblically derived) and “communal,” and narrative/historical admonitions, perhaps modeled after a similar division the biblical book of Deuteronomy. A suitable characterization of the Damascus Document, to which we will repeatedly return, could be “bringing the Messiah through law.” Because of the longevity of its discovery, translation, publication, and debated interpretation, there is a long history of modern scholarship devoted to this ancient text.

A New Theory on Aṣḥāb al-kahf (“The Sleepers of the Cave”) Based on Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls (dss)

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-47
Author(s):  
Rashid Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Innovative Method ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (dss) in 1947 substantially transformed ideas surrounding Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Up to now, Islamic scholars have paid little attention to dss, primarily because of the perception that dss are an exclusively Judeo-Christian matter. However, a common research field has grown out of dss, one that compels an Islamic response that will answer certain unaddressed queries. Therefore, in this hermeneutic synopsis, nature, history and an exposition of Aṣḥāb al-kahf are expounded in the light of references from dss, Second Temple Judaism, early Christian history, the history of the Roman Empire and astounding connections found in the Qurʾān. This delineated and innovative method may be called the “Five-Pronged Juxtaposing” approach, and it is entirely different from existing perspectives.1

VII.—Note on Mr. I. C. Russell's Paper on the Jordan-Arabah and the Dead Sea

1888 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 502-504
Author(s):  
Edward Hull
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Rock Salt ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Salt Rock ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
Geological Magazine

I Have been very much interested in reading Mr. Russell's two communications published in the Geological Magazine for August and September last. The analogy which he draws between the history of the Dead Sea valley and that of some of the lake valleys in the western part of North America is instructive as showing how similar physical features can be accounted for on similar principles of interpretation over all parts of the world. Mr. Eussell very properly draws attention to the paper by his colleague Mr. G. K. Gilbert on “The Topographical Features of Lake Shores,” in which principles of interpretation of physical phenomena are laid down applicable to lakes both of America and the Jordan-Arabah valley. With some of Mr. Russell's inferences regarding special epochs in the history of this valley I am very much disposed to agree; more particularly in reference to the mode of formation of the Salt Mountain, Jebel Usdum; or rather, of the salt-rock which forms the lower part of its mass. If this interpretation be correct, it removes the difficulty of understanding why the rock-salt is confined to one small corner of the lake, which, at the time the salt was in course of formation, was vastly more extensive than at present.

Late Quaternary Geological History of the Dead Sea Area, Israel

1993 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Yechieli ◽  
M. Magaritz ◽  
Y. Levy ◽  
U. Weber ◽  
U. Kafri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Thick Layer ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Geological History ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Sea Area

AbstractA 34.5 m borehole, which was drilled near the Dead Sea coast (altitude -394 m) in the southern part of the fan delta of Wadi Zeelim, reveals the geological history of that area from the latest Pleistocene to present. The depositional time frame is based on six 14C dates and two U-Th dates. An erosional (or nondepositional) period is implied by the hiatus between 21,100 yr B.P. (U-Th age, depth 33 m) and 11,315 yr B.P. (14C age, depth 32 m). A subsequent arid phase is recorded by a 6.5-m-thick layer of halite; based on 14C dates this phase relates to the abrupt Younger Dryas cold period reported in temperate to polar regions. The fragility of the environment in this region is indicated by the fact that the region experienced such a severe, short aridification phase (less than 1000 yr), evidence of which is found widely in the desert fringes of the Middle East and North Africa. The aragonite found in most of the Holocene section indicates that the well site was covered by the lake for most of the Holocene. Exceptions are the intervals at 0-3 and 10-14 m depths which represent low stands of the lake.

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