Lots of goodies in this chapter - angels, hellfire and brimstone, magic turning women into minerals, incest with two nubile, teenage daughters -  I could lose all bladder control!
    As much as I enjoy telling you about the Amurrites (Amorites), and the part they played behind the scenes of the Bible, and as disappointed as I know you'll be, there may not be time and space in this chapter to do so, but we will pick up their trail again at the earliest opportunity.
    In the last chapter, 2 Genesis, Chapter 18, god and a couple of his hiking companions strolled by Abe's encampment on their walk to Sodom, had a bite of lunch, and went on their merry way, enroute to destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But first, Abe extracted a promise from god that if he could find ten good men there (women, as usual, were irrelevant, being non-persons throughout most of the Bible), he would spare the city of Sodom, where Lot lived. Gomorrah, it would seem, was out of luck - rumors were rampant about a Seniors' strip-Bingo game in progress, but those were never confirmed.

    19:1  "And there came two angels to Sodom at even (evening); and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground.

    So here we have Lot, nephew of Abraham, who parted ways with Abe only because each had herds of livestock so large that there wasn't enough grazing land for both, and yet we find Lot, not overseeing the tending of his herd, as would have been his responsibility, but sitting cross-legged at the gate of the city of Sodom. It would seem the writers of the Bible put people where they need to be to advance the story line, and rarely feel that motivation will ever be questioned. Which, if you're convinced god would punish you for questioning, was probably true.

        19:2  "And he (Lot) said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early and go your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night."

    Suddenly, Lot, nomad and owner of a vast livestock herd, has a house in the suburbs. Lot offers these guys all the comforts of home, a little pizza, maybe a beer, and they say, "Nah, we'd rather stand around in the street all night, but thanks anyway --" Make sense? Me neither.

    19:3  "And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread (so what's wrong with leavened bread, Lot can't spare a little yeast?), and they did eat.

    Apparently angels share a great number of biological functions with Humans - stomachs, digestive systems, excretory systems - I'm really not clear on the difference. Which prompts another thought - if we're made in god's image, does god have a navel? If so, why?

    19:4  "But before they lay down (do angels need sleep?) the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house around, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
    19:5  "And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men who came in to thee this night? bring them out, so we may know them."

    I get the feeling that their request didn't involve breaking into a rousing, all-male chorus of "Getting To Know You," from The King and I - I think we're talking about knowledge on a very intimate scale.

    19:6  "And Lot went out the door unto them, and shut the door after him.
    19:7  "And said, I pray you ("you," again) brethern, do not so wickedly.
    19:8  "Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known man,, I pray  you, bring them out, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes (THAT oughta get him a nomination as 'father of the year!'): only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
    19:9  "And they said, Stand back (in unison?). And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.   
    19:10  "But the men (the angels) put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.
    19:11  "And they smote the men that were at the door with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves trying to find the door." (Don't you find it a little unlikely that a man who had just been miraculously struck blind, would still be horny enough to continue trying to find and break down the door?)
    19:12  "And the men (angels) said unto Lot, Hast thou any here besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
    19:13  "For we (not god?) will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.
    19:14  "And Lot went out (what happened to the men surrounding his house, hammering to get in, like zombies from 'Night of the Living Dead'?), and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one who mocked unto his sons in law.
    19:15  "And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed by the iniquity of this city.
    19:16  "And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth and set him without the city."

     So part of Lot's family - some of his daughters who had married, and their husbands - were left in the city, having not believed Lot when he rushed in like a madman, in the middle of the night, ranting that they all had to leave town, as it was about to be destroyed. I can't say I'm surprised. It would appear that Lot had at least four daughters, if not more, but there was no mention of this until it was conveniently needed. Wouldn't those four, and sons-in-law, and grandchildren, along with Lot and his wife, count toward the ten upon which Abe and god agreed? But then, where would be the fun in that?
    I'm also a bit confused as to why the angels were in such a rush to get Lot and his family out of town. If they were in charge of destroying the city, and they clearly stated they were: "For we will destroy this place ...the Lord hath sent us to destroy it" - then they could do their destruction act after they knew the Lot family was safe, but the rush they're in, seems as if there were a timetable with which they had to stick, and if they didn't hurry, they could get caught in the destruction process.

    19:17  "And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he (one of the angels) said, Escape for they life: look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain, escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed."

    Now that is one verse that actually lends a crumb of credence to the book, had the two cities been destroyed by a nuclear explosion - and writers of the time would have known nothing of such things - looking at the explosion could result in blindness, and death from radiation fallout could, in fact, kill everything on the nearby plains. But one fact in a pot-full of fiction, does not make for a kettle of truth.

    19:18  "And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:
    19:19  "Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die:"

    So Lot feels that the god who sent two angels, specifically to save him and his family and destroy two entire cities, can't protect him if he escapes to a mountain. How fleeting is faith?

    19:20  "Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live."

    In case you haven't figured it out by now, the above verse should be a dead give-away - this chapter has a moral. It's a ringing condemnation of living in cities, where one can come into contact with all kinds of knowledge and ideas, as opposed to living a pastoral life, free from such contact, holding only such ideas and opinions as you're fed and expected to absorb and pass on. The idea of possessing independent knowledge and free thought was condemned as early in the book as the Garden of Eden, and this chapter is just a reinforcement that belief, rather than knowledge, is Man's saving grace. Basically, the chapter is a propaganda piece, wrapped in an exciting tale - see how Lot wheedles to get the angels' approval: "(is it not a little one?)", which translates to, "It surely wouldn't hurt to live in just a little city, would it?" The entire, illogical possibility of a life-long nomad giving up all of his livestock, for which he separated from his Uncle Abe, was nothing more than a literary device to put someone we know - rather than invent a new character - into a city, in order to illustrate a point.

    19:21  "And he (the angel) said unto him (Lot), See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.
    19:22  "Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
    19:23  "The sun was risen upon earth when Lot entered into Zoar."

    You may recall (though there's no reason you should) from 2 Genesis, Chapter 14, that at the time of that writing, the city of Zoar was called, Bela. I wonder if the citizens of Bela were informed that the name of their city had been changed?
    We have no way of knowing when these people were rousted out of bed by the two angels, and we don't know what time of year it was, and so, have no clue as to what time the sun may have risen. What we DO know, is that recently, some archaeologists/biblical scholars have concluded that the modern cities of Bab al-Dhra and Numeira, in Israel, were the likely locations of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, respectively; we also know that the average human walks at a brisk 3 miles per hour; and we know that Bab al-Dhra is 17 miles from Zoar (modern-day Ghor al-Safi).
    That means that it took Lot and his family five hours and forty minutes to walk from Sodom to Zoar, and that's if they walked five hours and forty minutes straight, without taking a break, which, even at the urging of angels, I would not be inclined to do.

    19:24  "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
    19:25  "And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of those cities, and that which grew upon the ground."

    Why? I mean, even if he had had an issue with the inhabitants of the cities, why destroy the flora and fauna on the ground? Unless this omnipotent god was no more capable of controlling the destruction, than the American airmen of the "Enola Gay" were, in 1945, of protecting rabbits in the suburbs of Hiroshima. In fact, how much more of a miraculous feat would it have been, if both cities were annihilated, yet Lot's daughters and their families walked out of the rubble without a scratch?

    19:26  "But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

    Ever wonder why Mrs. Lot has no name? Because she has no relevance outside of being "Lot's wife," the only name by which she's ever known. With few exceptions, biblical females were non-entities - they had no existence outside of the men with whom they were aligned. In many Islamic countries, girl children are not allowed a basic education and women are not allowed out of the house, unless accompanied by a man, or even a boy.
    We're not much better. In America, the idea of women voting was not even considered, until it was proposed in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention. One woman in attendance was Charlotte Woodward, 19 at the time. In 1920, when women finally won the vote throughout the nation, Charlotte Woodward was the only participant in the 1848 Convention who was still alive to be able to vote, though she was apparently too ill to actually cast a ballot. I'm sorry for your treatment ladies, but it all began with, or was at the very least reinforced by, a misogynistic religion.
    Meanwhile, back on the plains of Mamre --

    19:27  "And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:
    19:28   "And he looked toward Sodom and Gommorah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
    19:29  "And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt."

    Meanwhile, back at Zoar, Lot and Zoar appeared not to have appealed to each other - maybe the residents of Zoar had relatives in Sodom and Gomorrah, and found Lot guilty by association. We'll never know.

   19:30  "And Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters."

    "Hey kids, we're moving, and you'll never guess where!"

    19:31  "And the firstborn said to the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:
    19:32  "Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
    19:33  "And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she rose.
    19:34  "And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
    19:35  "And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she rose.
    19:36  "Thus were both daughters of Lot with child by their father.
    19:37  "And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.
    19:38  "And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

    First, note that like Ms Lot, the young ladies with "Daddy issues" had no personal names, only "the elder," "the first born," and "the younger," primarily because, also like Ms Lot, the girls were non-persons.
    Also note that on both occasions, the girls got Lot drunk (though it could be said he under-declined). This was a necessary part of the plot, because as in the Garden of Eden, it's important that the woman be blamed for the sin, which further serves as justification for the domination of women. You might also note that in the verse where Lot's wife was turned to salt, the author wanted us to have no glimmer that it could in any way have been Lot's fault for not protecting his wife - he was quick to clarify that, "his wife looked back from behind him" - from behind him, Lot couldn't see what she was doing and prevent her from doing it, thus the fault was her own. Some interpreters have implied that Lot's wife looked back because she was having second thoughts about leaving her material goods, and even Jesus will be seen to have admonished, "Remember Lot's wife," but one must recall that - at least according to the Bible - she had daughters and possibly grandchildren in Sodom. Her only fault, if any there was, lay in caring more about those she loved than blindly obeying orders, and I can find no fault in that.
    The New American Bible relates that this tale was told regarding Israel's neighbors to the east of the Jordan River and the Dead sea, the Moabites and the Ammonites, in part to ridicule those rival nations for being inbred and racially related, but it would be difficult to find any group more inbred than the Hebrews we've thus far met.
    Before we go any further, let's lay poor Ms Lot to rest. Below is a photo, of a monolith located on a Mount Sedom (a derivative of 'Sodom'?), in the vicinity of Zoar. The monument is known as "Lot's Wife," and is composed almost entirely of a mineral known as halite, which is - yes, you guessed it - rock salt. (Shhh - I thought I heard the "Twilight Zone" theme, was it just me?)
    You're free to judge for yourself and draw your own conclusions, as always, but I see only a natural outcropping, I'm guestimating about 18-20 feet high, that unless Ms Lot was one of those Genesis 6, "giants in the earth in those days," and found a reason to climb a mountain on her hike from one plain city to another, 17 miles away, the likelihood of that monolith being the missing Missus, is slim to none.
    As for the actual destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which we'll address this time in lieu of Amurrites (Amorites), The New American Bible has this to say:

    "19:25  'Overthrew': The consistent use of this term, literally 'turned upside down,' to describe the destruction of the cities of the plain seems to imply that their upheaval (v.29) was caused primarily by an earthquake; this would naturally be accompanied by a disastrous fire, especially in a region containing bitumen (cites 14:10) and its accompanying gasses."

    Let's take a look at exactly what we're discussing. First, let's have an overview:

    Above is the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, where the mineral content is so high, you literally cannot sink in its waters - not sure you could walk on it, but if you fell in the effort, you couldn't sink - in fact, it's difficult to swim there, as the buoyancy lifts one so high in the water, it's not easy to execute a good swimming stroke. The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan river, which flows out of the Sea of Galilee, about center-picture. The coast of the Mediterranean Sea, dark blue, can be seen, upper right.
    Around three million years ago, what is now the Jordan River Valley was repeatedly inundated by waters from the Mediterranean Sea, which formed in a narrow, crooked bay (see red outline, above), that was connected to the sea through what is now the Jezreel Valley. The floods of the valley came and went, depending on long-scale climate change. The lake that occupied the Dead Sea Rift, Lake Sedom, deposited beds of salt that eventually became 2 miles thick. About two million years ago, the land between the Rift Valley and the Mediterranean rose to such an extent that the ocean could no longer flood the area, thus, the long bay became a lake.
    The first such prehistoric lake was named Lake Amora (anyone suspect a relationship to the Amorites), a brackish lake that extended at least 50 miles south of the current southern end of the Dead Sea and 60 miles north. As the climate became more arid, Lake Amora shrank and became saltier.
    In prehistoric times, great amounts of sediment collected on the floor of Lake Amora. The sediment was heavier than the salt deposits and squeezed the deposits upward into what are now the Lisan Peninsula and Mount Sedom (on the upper side of the lake, in picture). Geologists explain the effect in terms of a bucket of mud into which a large flat stone is placed, forcing the mud to creep up the sides of the pail. When the floor of the Dead Sea dropped further, due to tectonic forces, the salt mounts of Lisan and Mount Sodom stayed in place as high cliffs. And as part of Mount Sedom, that, boys and girls, is how the monolith, Lot's Wife, came to be.
    Now let's zoom in and take a look at Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zoar: