A3 • NEWS
THE BATTLEFIELD CHRONICLES • FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2013
MALINVESTMENT
Land dispute settled for sheep farmers
Abraham moves to Oak Grove, Lot to Sodom to resolve claims on sheep pasture
STAFF REPORTER
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
An ongoing land dispute between
two prominent citizens has been amicably resolved. We thought a follow up
story would be interesting, seeing that
those two citizens were Abraham and
his nephew Lot, both currently under
suspicion with regards to the destruction of Sodom. At the time of the dispute, both men were extremely wealthy
with ample herds of livestock. But because the land could not support both
Abraham and Lot with all their ever
growing flocks living so close together,
a dispute broke out between the herdsmen of both families. Fortunately an
amicable solution was worked out. They
agreed to separate. The elder statesman
Abraham let his nephew Lot choose
what part of the land he wanted and
Abraham agreed to go in the opposite
direction. Lot chose to move his tents in
the direction of Zoar with its surrounding fertile plains of the Jordan Valley.
Lot moved his tents to the outskirts of
Sodom and eventually Lot moved his
family into the city itself. In retrospect
Lot must be kicking himself now because everything he had, all of his business investments are forever wiped out.
Abraham moved his camp and settled
near the oak grove belonging to Mamre
where his holdings have continued to
grow. Such is fate!
LOT: Moved towards the lush plains of Jordan
Valley and eventually lived with family in Sodom. Now he has lost everything.
ON THE RECORD
A note from the publisher
Oral history now written down by Rabbis gives further perspective on important world events
STAFF REPORTER
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
In our publication, we try to stay with
the facts that are presented in the Bible. Occasionally we will step outside of
scripture (extra Biblical) to fill in some
details as long as we are confident that
there is credibility in our researched
material. Our article on ‘Who Is Abraham’ is from an oral tradition and recognized by most Rabbinical authorities.
The Jewish people received two Torah’s
at Mount Sinai. One was the Written
Torah (a.k.a. the Five Books of Moses)
while the other is known as the Oral
Torah as it was not written down and
was kept as an oral tradition. In time,
because the Jews were being scattered
throughout the world, the Oral Torah
was also committed to paper. According
to Rabbinic Judaism, the oral Torah, oral
Law, or oral tradition was given by God
orally to Moses in conjunction with the
written Torah, after which it was passed
down orally through the ages, later to be
codified and written in the Talmud to
maintain oral traditions. Only the Rabbis gave ideological significance to the
fact that they transmitted their tradition
orally. Rabbis of the Talmudic era conceived of the Oral Law in two distinct
ways. First, Rabbinic tradition conceived of the Oral law as an unbroken
chain of transmission. The distinctive
feature of this view was that Oral Law
was “conveyed by word of mouth and
memorized.” Second, the Rabbis also
conceived of the Oral law as an interpretive tradition, and not merely as memorized traditions. In this view, the written
Torah was seen as containing many levels of interpretation. It was left