Why Is She Salt?

Daniel Beecher (0:01)

As Lot and his family are fleeing, and the Lord is raining down sulfur and fire on these other cities, Lot's wife turns around. She turns into a pillar of salt, and there's no expla- I was so ready for the explanation!

Dan, help me out, I do not- why is she salt?

Daniel McClellan (0:26)

Hey, everybody.

Daniel Beecher (0:27)

Hi, friends, and welcome to the Data Over Dogma podcast.

Daniel McClellan (0:31)

Where we bring you the latest in Biblical scholarship.

Daniel Beecher (0:34)

And do our best to combat the spread of misinformation. With me is Dr. Dan McClellan, Bible scholar and TikTok star, and I'm non scholar and TikTok nobody, Dan Beecher.

Hi, Dan, how are you?

Daniel McClellan (0:48)

I'm doing well. How are you doing today, Dan?

Daniel Beecher (0:50)

I'm doing great.

Coming up on today's show, I'm going to do a little Chapter and Verse. We're going to stick in Genesis, skipping over some stuff. Here's what I thought. I thought I was going to talk about Abraham, but you know what? Abraham is a long and sort of stretched out thing. And there's this thing right in the middle of it that caught my eye. So we're going to go with that.

And then you are going to do a, what does that mean?

Daniel McClellan (1:16)

Yeah.

Daniel Beecher (1:17)

Is that right?

Daniel McClellan (1:17)

Yes. Going to talk about the word provenance, which some people pronounce provenience, but I prefer to pronounce it. Provenance, we're going to talk about what that means and some things that have been in the news recently that relate to why provenance is such a big deal for scholars and particularly for archeologists.

Daniel Beecher (1:37)

Can I call it provenance?

Daniel McClellan (1:40)

If you're nasty, I guess you can do that.

Daniel Beecher (1:43)

And nasty I am. All right. Well, let's dive in.

I wanted to talk about, as I said, I was looking at Genesis. I was looking at Abraham because I thought, you know, Abraham's a big deal. Kind of the biggest deal, the godfather of the whole, of the, you know, the religions of the book, if you will.

But right there in the middle, there's this story about his nephew. And I thought we would check in with that. Because the Abraham, the Abram slash Abraham story is rudely and kind of inexplicably interrupted by this cute little chapter right in the middle about Lot. Now, back in Genesis 13, we reveal Lot. Lot is traveling with Abram at that time. Is that how you would say it?

Daniel McClellan (2:42)

Abram.

Daniel Beecher (2:43)

Abram. And then they find that there's not enough grazing ground for both of their flocks. So Abram takes the high road to a gated community called the Oaks, very fancy. And Lot takes the low road to Sodom. And anyone who's heard of Sodom knows what's coming.

So we get to fast forward to Genesis 18, where Abram, who is now Abraham, but that's a story for another day, is talking to some fellas. They don't really know much about these fellas.

And the Lord jumps in and decides to reveal that Sodom is going to be destroyed because it's wicked. And these guys start negotiating. There's a very interesting negotiation that happens with the Lord, where they're like, hey, what if there are 50 good people in Sodom? Would you save it then? And the Lord's like, all right, if there's 50, if there's 50, it's okay. I'll let them live. And they're like, okay.

Daniel McClellan (3:53)

I'm thinking of Pawn Stars here. Best I can do is 50

Daniel Beecher (3:58)

But it's not because they get them, they're like 45, what if there's only five less than that? 45, come on, and the Lord's like, okay, 45 They keep going. It is the weirdest thing. They just talk him down, 45, 40, 30, blah, blah, blah. They get down to 10 If there are 10 good people in Sodom. And here's the interesting part.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, Dan.

The Lord doesn't seem to know how many good people there are in Sodom. He has to go and check it out for himself.

Daniel McClellan (4:30)

And this is something we find in Genesis a bunch. When the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, the story starts with them going, hey, let's go see what's going on down there. And this is one of those first-person plural verbs, probably a reference to the divine council, but they're like, I heard a weird noise, let's go check it out. They don't really know exactly what's going on. Just like Adam hiding in the garden and God's walking around like, I thought he was...