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The Role of Exchange in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Its Implications for Reading Genesis 18-19

Religious Studies, St Norbert College, 100 Grant St, De Pere, WI 54115, USA

This article reads Genesis 18-19 in the light of the principal of exchange at work in ancient religious belief concerning divine justice. Genesis 18.1-15 and 19.1-29, as examples of the well-worn tale of the divine visitor, are narrative expressions of confidence in a divine justice that rewards the kind and punishes the inhospitable. In the dialogue of 18.6-33, Abraham explicitly raises the question of divine justice, but complicates it by also exploring the possibility of divine mercy. The second divine visitor tale in Gen. 19.1-29, in which Sodom is justly destroyed while Lot is spared out of mercy, shows that Yahweh operates according to more stringent ideas of justice than humanity would wish.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Vol. 29, No. 1, 37-56 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/030908920402900102


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