We often meet with the expression "Sodom and Gomorrah", but few people know about its meaning and origin. In fact, these are the two cities that the biblical story tells about. According to history, they burned down because of the sins of the people who lived there. What sins are we talking about? Did these cities really exist? We will try to answer these and many other questions in this article. So, Sodom and Gomorrah: the meaning of phraseology, biblical legend and history..
Bible legend
For the first time, Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned as the southeastern tip of Canaan, located east of Gaza, while the land here is referred to as the eastern bank of the Jordan River. Here came Lot, Abraham's nephew. The Bible even says that Jerusalem borders Sodom on the south and southeast sides. The inhabitants of Sodom were called Philistines or Hanakites in the Jewish manner, and the king of the city was a monarch named Ber.
According to the Bible, the war that took place between the army of Chedorlaomer and the army of Sodom, which was subsequently defeated, also belongs to the time of Abraham's life, and Abraham's nephew - Lot was captured by enemies. The biblical legends say that Sodom was a rich and developed city, but the Lord God decided to punish the inhabitants because they were extremely sinful and evil, had many vices that righteous people would not accept. Tradition tells that God poured sulfur and fire on these cities in order to destroy both the lands themselves and their inhabitants for their misdeeds. In addition, according to the Bible, Adma and Sevoim were also destroyed, although today there is no evidence that they actually existed. After the fire, the land of Sodom was inhabited by the descendants of Lot, the only ones who managed to escape the fire, and it became known as Moab.
Trying to find cities
Because Sodom and Gomorrah are widely known even to non-religious people, many attempts have been made to learn more about their location and finally find evidence that they existed. So, not far from the Dead Sea, on its southwestern shore, there are mountains that consist mainly of rock s alt and are called Sodomites. It would seem that this should be somehow connected with the biblical city, but in reality there is no reliable data on why this particular name was chosen.
Interest in the biblical story is so wide that only in the period from 1965 to 1979 there werefive attempts were made to find the city that perished because of the sins of its inhabitants, but they were unsuccessful. The history of Sodom and Gomorrah did not leave indifferent Russian scientists who, together with Jordanians, tried to discover what was left of the ancient city.
Michael Sanders Expedition
In 2000, British scientist Michael Sanders became the leader of an archaeological expedition aimed at searching for destroyed cities. Their work was based on images taken from the US Space Shuttle. According to these pictures, the city could be located to the northeast of the Dead Sea, contrary to all data from the Bible. Scientists believed that they had found the most accurate location of Sodom, whose ruins, in their opinion, are at the bottom of the Dead Sea.
Jordan Valley
Some scholars also believe that the ancient ruins located in Tell el-Hammam in Jordan may be the biblical city of sinners. Therefore, it was decided to undertake research in this area in order to confirm or disprove the hypothesis. Excavations led by Stephen Collins, an American scholar who drew on data from the book of Genesis, strengthen the assumption that Sodom was in the southern region of the Jordan Valley, which is surrounded on all sides by depressions.
"Sodom and Gomorrah": the meaning of phraseology
This expression is quite widely interpreted, but most often it refers to a place of debauchery, in which the moral principles of society are neglected. It also happens that this expression is used,to describe the incredible mess. From the names of the city of Sodom in the Russian language, the term "sodomy" appeared, denoting most often sexual relations between people of the same sex, that is, sodomy. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are most often remembered by people in connection with this.
The meaning of a phraseological unit can also imply any non-traditional sexual contacts that are considered immoral in modern society. Such acts include oral, anal sex or any perversion. The Lord, according to legend, having destroyed cities, punished sinners in order to show the whole world what awaits those who resort to non-traditional sexual practices and disobey him.
Sin of Sodom and Gomorrah
According to the text of the Bible, the inhabitants of the cities were punished not only for sexual depravity, but also for other sins, including selfishness, idleness, pride and others, but homosexuality was recognized as the main one. Why exactly this sin is recognized as the most terrible is not known for certain, but in the Bible it is called an “abomination” before the Lord, and the legend calls people “not to lie with a man as with a woman.”
Oddly enough, among such an ancient people as the Philistines, homosexuality was a generally accepted phenomenon, and no one condemned it. This probably happened because their ancestors were pagan tribes and peoples living in Canaan, far from a monotheistic religion. According to tradition, the Lord, fearing that the Jewish people might also turn to such a sinfulway of life, sent them to the promised land, and therefore commanded them to destroy the cities so that their inhabitants would not spread over the globe. There are even lines in Genesis that say that debauchery was so widespread in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that it crossed all boundaries, so they had to be destroyed.
Reflection in art
Like many other myths and legends, the story of the two cities of sinners has been embodied in art. This biblical story was also reflected in the work of the great Russian writer Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, who wrote the poem "Lot's Wife". In 1962, a film was even made, which, in fact, is a fairly free interpretation of the biblical legend about the city of the fallen. So, Marcel Proust in his famous cycle "In Search of Lost Time" has a novel of the same name, which tells about the morally degraded bourgeoisie - "Sodom and Gomorrah".
Pictures depicting depravity and other sins also often remind of the inhabitants of these cities, which the Lord himself decided to burn. There are at least a dozen paintings depicting Abraham's nephew, Lot, and his daughter, with whom, according to legend, he had sexual liaisons. Oddly enough, according to the legend, the initiators of incest were the daughters themselves, left without husbands, who wanted to continue the race.
Lot, Abraham's nephew
The oldest surviving painting is the work of Albrecht Durer, which is called "The Flight of Lot". Here is an old man whoaccompanied by two daughters, and his wife can be seen in the distance, and everything looks pretty decent. However, in the later works of masters of various eras and trends, one can come across a radically different interpretation. For example, the work of Simon Vouet en titled "Lot and his daughters" shows us an already elderly man playing with his half-naked daughters. Similar paintings are also found in such painters as Hendrik Goltzius, Francesco Furini, Lucas Cranach, Domenico Maroli and a number of others.
Interpretation of the biblical legend
According to the Book of Genesis, Sodom and Gomorrah are cities that the Lord punished for disobedience and non-observance of worldly laws. How is the legend interpreted now? What do scientists think about the causes of the death of these sinful cities? Now some scientists who are somehow connected with religion believe that in reality our modern world is mired in vice and depravity, but we are so used to it that we no longer notice it. They believe that modern people have become so accustomed to what is contrary to the Lord that all these perversions and vices have become habitual. They believe that we are actually on the road to death, accepting everything that happens around us. So, for example, one of the Russian scientists, Doctor of Technical Sciences V. Plykin, writes in his book that, not knowing the laws of the Universe, modern people have created their own laws, which, in fact, are artificial and, not being a righteous life, lead society to death.
The same scientist believes that negatively affects the moral foundations of mankind andscientific and technological progress, which only aggravates everything and brings people closer to the world of vice. What is Sodom and Gomorrah in the modern world? Some also believe that due to the fact that people only care about how to get the most out of life, not caring about the consequences, humanity produces negative energy. To believe or not in such an approach is, of course, everyone's business. Maybe we should not shift ancient laws to modern society.
Truth or fiction?
The Biblical story of the cities of sinners is known all over the world. Such vices as sodomy, idleness, pride, selfishness caused the death of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The legend tells of the people of the Philistines, who were so mired in sin that they became unworthy to walk on the land of the Lord God.
Now, after so many centuries after the events described, it is impossible to say whether these cities really existed, and whether they were burned by "a rain of sulfur and fire" for the misdeeds of their inhabitants. A huge number of attempts were made to find the remains of these settlements, but in reality none of them were successful.
Conclusion
According to legend, when two angels came to the city to find at least ten righteous people, they saw only vice and debauchery there. And then the Lord, angry, decided to burn the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. That this happened in this way is written in the book of Genesis, but the legend remains a legend, and no archaeological evidence has been found to prove it. However, did this happenin fact, whether this, like many other ancient legends, is an absolute fiction, is not so important. The most important thing here is to be able to learn a lesson from this story so that modern people do not wallow in the same vice and debauchery and are not punished in the same way as the ancient Philistines, who caused the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah - two cities overflowing with sinners.
