The Sex, the Violence, the Hideous Crimes in the Holy Bible: Lot’s Story
Warning: Viewer Discretion Advised
Lot and his daughters. Jan Steen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
[Chu News – Religion / Mark Chu] If I tell you about a book depicting adultery, murders, gang rapes, incest, encouraging human trafficking, among other things, will you agree to ban it from schools in the name of “protecting our children?”
Many would say “No shit” and scream to ban the hell out of it before knowing it’s the Bible. But once they know it’s their religion’s big book, they find all excuses that defy all the logic.
From my personal observation, in general, we can say that two kinds of people defend the Old Testament while banning other books: those who do not read; and those with their own agenda, who have no problem lying through their teeth without blushing.
I actually don’t care about whether to ban the Old Testament or not; I’m just disgusted by the double standard. The blatant hypocrisy stinks more than a rotten egg.
One thing you have to understand is that the Old Testament is a book of history and tales, and if you have a basic understanding of human history, you should know it’s full of good and bad stories because there are good and bad people. And boy, when they are bad, they do a lot of evil things. Very, very evil.
Here, I’d like to give quick summaries of some of the most disturbing stories in the Bible with my opinions. Let’s take a look at Lot’s story (Genesis, chapter 19). The analyses are mainly for readers who aren’t familiar with the Bible, but experts surely are welcome to read and comment.
Seriously, viewer discretion advised.
Lot and His Daughters (Potential Gang Rape, Incest)
The God in the Old Testament is easily angered and bloody. He first creates Eden, but then chases Adam and Eve out because they eat the fruit and become smarter. Though many evangelists and church leaders will tell you it’s all part of the plan, like giving them the opportunity to exercise free agency. But pretty soon God regrets creating humans at all because they are so evil. His solution is flooding the whole earth to kill every single life on earth. My first question is: why other species too? If humans are too evil to live, punish them, but other animals have nothing to do with it; for heaven’s sake, they might also be the victims of humans’ evil deeds, and you murder the victims as well? This is like killing everyone on a cruise ship because there is a serial killer on board. It doesn’t make sense.
Well, years later, the old story: two cities draw God’s attention again because they are evil, and God wants to destroy them. It seems God regrets creating humans a lot. He sends two angels to check on the cities to confirm their evilness (Why though? I thought God knows everything). Lot, Abraham’s nephew, lives in one of the cities, and he welcomes the angels.
Now comes the unsettling part.
The evil people from the whole city come to Lot’s house at night and demand that Lot hands over the angels, “That we may know them.” Every wicked person, young and old, from the whole city, is here! How many of them are there? A city sounds like a lot, maybe tens of thousands? We don’t know, but there are some clues for us to guess.
First, I have a strong feeling that “everyone” refers only to men.
Second, in that era, the so-called “cities” are most likely no more than a village or small town. Not long ago before this, when the four cities’ “kings” fight against the other five cities, and as a consequence Lot is robbed and kidnapped, Abraham leads his 318 men to overcome the four kings’ armies and saves Lot along with all his people and belongings. Merely 318 men can overpower four cities’ joined forces, you can imagine the size of a city. Sure, maybe these men are ridiculously outnumbered but manage to defeat the enemies, but I imagine if that were the case, the story would have mentioned that as a heroic act.
Finally, pure speculation, but how many people are required to surround a house but are unable to break in by sheer manpower? I imagine if a thousand men want to break into a house, and I imagine at that time a house shouldn’t be as strong as a modern average house, the house should crumble in no time. They don’t have to “ask” and try to break down the door.
So, my estimate of the number of evil people who want to “know” the angels is as low as 60 and as high as 200. But I think 100 give or take seems more realistic.
Though not hundreds of thousands, 100 is a huge number for two victims who have to suffer the rape. Now, what does Lot do?
He offers his two daughters to the mob—and he emphasizes that they are virgins. Goodness, sounds like he’s offering them a “better” prize. This demonstrates that in that era, a woman is seen as less than a man; more like a piece of property. Quite likely Lot’s wife is old, otherwise he might have offered her to the mob too. Though a sidenote: the daughters in fact are definitely engaged, and maybe even married already. Maybe they indeed are virgins, or maybe Lot lies to make the daughters “more attractive” to the mob so the mob will spare the angels.
Luckily, the mob refuses, and for some reason becomes even angrier (probably the “You don’t tell us what to do!” attitude). Long story short, the angels save Lot and his family, and then destroy the two evil cities.
Comes the next disturbing part, almost like the storyline from a cheap porn. After the cities are wiped out, Lot and his two daughters hide in a cave. The older daughter tells her sister, “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.” What exactly is she saying? Some suggest she believes they’re the only humans left in the world, but what’s more likely is that she feels there are no suitable men to be their husbands, maybe because she doesn’t like “outsiders,” culturally speaking.
Anyhow, she and her sister conspire to get their father drunk for two nights and have sex with him. They get pregnant and give birth to two boys, who are the ancestors of Moabites and Ammonites.
The Bible emphasizes, “So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.” To me, this sounds like an attempt to “exempt” or “decriminalize” Lot. Well, really though? I’ve never got drunk, but I’m a bit suspicious about it. I could be wrong, but I believe that even if you’re drunk, if you’re capable of intercourse, you know who you’re having sex with. In other words, I believe drunk Lot more or less chooses to have sex with his own daughters. I mean, c’mon, they just go through a disaster that kills everyone, do you think Lot suddenly thinks, “Oh, who is this hottie here? This is my lucky night!”?
On the other hand, however, it’s also possible that he’s so drunk he passes out, and his daughters basically rape their father (note our productive organs are under the regulation of the automatic nervous system, so erection and ejaculation in this situation are still possible).
I imagine: Wouldn’t Lot later wonder, “Why do my daughters get pregnant? Wait… oh, shit”? Though the Bible doesn’t give us an account of what he thinks afterward.
There’s one more thing I simply can’t drop: getting pregnant by just one sex act is surely possible, but the chance is low. How low? According to BBC summarizing a study of 782 young couples, the probability of getting pregnant by just one intercourse between a young couple is only 5%. In fact, even if a couple under 35 is trying, the chance of pregnancy in the first month is merely 30%. Not to mention that Lot is not young, which can even further reduce the chance. So… does the Bible cover up something? Skip some detail? Or maybe this whole thing is just a tale?
I have a crazy theory: Moabites and Ammonites quite often fight against Israelites, is it possible the Bible somehow exaggerates or even fabricates the whole thing to make them look bad? But on the other hand, they’re not always the enemies. For example, King David has Moab blood. So this theory probably doesn’t have a solid foundation.
Either way, this story is wrong on so many levels; if it weren’t from the Bible, we might have dismissed it as a fantasy straight from porn. The Bible prohibits incestual relationships and lists pretty much all specific examples, but never explicitly lists father-daughter relationships. I wonder if this has something to do with it.
But if you think this is disturbing, you haven’t seen anything. There is at least another story way, way more troubling and bloody; if Lot’s story is porn, this story is a war crime. We’ll talk about it next time.