Table Of ContentUNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM
AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Ancient Israel and Its Literature
Steven L. McKenzie, General Editor
Editorial Board
Suzanne Boorer
Victor H. Matthews
Th omas C. Römer
Benjamin D. Sommer
Nili Wazana
Number 11
UNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM
AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Essays in Memory of Ron Pirson
UNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM
AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH
ESSAYS IN MEMORY OF RON PIRSON
Edited by
Diana Lipton
Society of Biblical Literature
Atlanta
UNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM
AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Essays in Memory of Ron Pirson
Copyright © 2012 by the Society of Biblical Literature
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by
means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permit-
ted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission
should be addressed in writing to the Rights and Permissions Offi ce, Society of Biblical
Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Atlanta, GA 30329 USA.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Universalism and particularism at Sodom and Gomorrah : essays in memory of Ron
Pirson / edited by Diana Lipton.
p. cm. — (Society of Biblical Literature ancient Israel and its literature ; no. 11)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-1-58983-650-1 (paper binding : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58983-651-8
(electronic format)
1. Bible. O.T. Genesis XVIII–XIX—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Sodom (Extinct
city) 3. Gomorrah (Extinct city) 4. Universalism. 5. Particularism (Theology) I. Lipton,
Diana. II. Pirson, Ron.
BS1235.52.U55 2012b
222'.1106—dc22 2012003015
Printed on acid-free, recycled paper conforming to
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) and ISO 9706:1994
standards for paper permanence.
Contents
Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................vii
Abbreviations .................................................................................................viii
Preface ................................................................................................................ix
Remembering Ron Pirson, by His Life-Partner
Petra Th ijs ...................................................................................................xi
Ron Pirson: Memories of a Former Colleague
Pierre Van Hecke .......................................................................................xv
Ron Pirson: Publications .............................................................................xvii
Section 1: The Ethics of Preference
Th e Eternal Liminality of Lot: Paying the Price of Opposing
the Particular in the Sodom Narrative
William John Lyons .....................................................................................3
Th e Limits of Intercession: Abraham Reads Ezekiel at Sodom and
Gomorrah
Diana Lipton .............................................................................................25
Changing God’s Mind: Abraham versus Jonah
T. A. Perry ..................................................................................................43
Why Did God Choose Abraham? Responses from Medieval
Jewish Commentators
Amira Meir ................................................................................................53
Section 2: Justice by the Book
Outcry, Knowledge, and Judgment in Genesis 18–19
Ellen J. van Wolde .....................................................................................71
vi UNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM
Legal and Ethical Refl ections on Genesis 18 and 19
Calum Carmichael ..................................................................................101
Keeping the Way of Yhwh: Righteousness and Justice in
Genesis 18–19
Megan Warner.........................................................................................113
Section 3: The Ethics of Hospitality
Was Lot a Good Host? Was Lot Saved from Sodom as a Reward
for His Hospitality?
Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg ................................................................................129
Hospitality Compared: Abraham and Lot as Hosts
Jonathan D. Safren ..................................................................................157
Hospitality and Hostility: Reading Genesis 19 in Light of 2 Samuel 10
(and Vice Versa)
Nathan MacDonald ................................................................................179
Beyond Particularity and Universality: Refl ections on Shadal’s
Commentary to Genesis 18–19
Harlan J. Wechsler ...................................................................................191
Does Lot Know about Yada‘?
Ron Pirson ...............................................................................................203
Contributors ...................................................................................................215
Index of Primary Texts .................................................................................219
Index of Modern Authors.............................................................................231
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Dr. Sarah Shectman and Dr. Shirly Natan Yulzary for
their excellent editorial work on this volume. Th ey made my task infi -
nitely less taxing, and working with each of them proved to be a pleasure.
Many thanks also to the SBL team, Kent Richards in particular, who
helped me keep my promise to Ron Pirson to try to publish these essays.
Warm thanks to all the contributors; their patient support throughout
was deeply appreciated. Especially encouraging were Amira Meir and
Itzik Peleg, both of whom had been invited by Ron to participate in the
fi rst of three ISBL sessions whose proceedings are published here. Finally,
warmest thanks to Petra Th ijs for her patience, her trust, and her generous
spirit.
Diana Lipton, Jerusalem, July 2011
-vii-
Abbreviations
Please consult the SBL Handbook of Style for abbreviations other than
those listed here:
ABR Australian Biblical Review
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica. Edited by Fred Skolnik. 22 vols.
Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA in association with Keter,
2007.
FCB 2 Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series
JPSTC Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary
KEHAT Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament
LHB/OTS Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
SBLAIL Society of Biblical Literature Ancient Israel and Its Literature
TBN Th emes in Biblical Narrative
-viii-
Preface
Th is volume began its life as a proposal made by Ron Pirson for three
International Society of Biblical Literature sessions on Gen 18–19. Ron,
a young scholar from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, had
recently published his doctoral dissertation on Joseph’s dreams, completed
under the supervision of Professor Ellen van Wolde. He had a clear vision
of what he wanted to achieve with his proposed ISBL sessions and knew
which scholars he hoped would help him in the fi rst instance to bring it to
fruition: Itzik Peleg, Amira Meir, and Diana Lipton, all, by coincidence or
not, working within diff erent Jewish traditions (Ron was not). His e-mail
to share the happy news that his proposal had been accepted came along
with another bearing infi nitely less-welcome news. At the age of forty, a
lifelong nonsmoker and healthy eater, he had just been diagnosed with
terminal, untreatable lung cancer. Th at was January 2006. By the time the
fi rst session took place in Edinburgh the following July, Ron had died.
His own paper was read by his colleague Professor Pierre Van Hecke,
and the session was attended by Petra Th ijs, Ron’s beloved life-partner
of twenty years. We inaugurated a custom that continued in the sessions
that followed in Vienna and Rome of singing Ps 23 in Hebrew in Ron’s
memory and of saying a few words about him. Not all the contributors to
this volume knew Ron in person, but without exception, I believe, they
formed a strong sense of him at the ISBL meetings at which their papers
were originally delivered. Less easy to explain is the extent to which these
twelve contributors seem to me to have acquired their own particular
distinctiveness as a group, despite their great diff erences—geographical,
professional, religious, and academic. It is a privilege and an honor to
publish their essays, along with Ron’s own contribution, in the form of a
more lasting memorial than the sessions themselves to a wonderfully sen-
sitive scholar and a man of great integrity.
Th is volume addresses the vexed and relevant question of universal-
ism and particularism in Gen 18 and 19. Th e traditional paradigm that
-ix-
