A character from the
Bible around whom there are several amusing and sickening stories.
Lot was the nephew of
Abraham (not, not
Linlcoln, who doesn't show up in most
Bibles). Lot seperated from his uncle and his uncle's
nomadic lifestyle, and settled in the city of
Sodom, where he was pretty unhappy, since the people of that city were
crazy,
pagan, and
decadent. They were so
evil and
decadent, in fact, that
God decided to take the city (along with its sister city,
Gomorrah) out.
Abaraham, hearing of this, feared for his newphew's life, and therefore begged
God to spare the city. He convinced
God to not destroy it if there were 50 righteous people in it. He then negotiated some more, and got the number down to 45. Then he convinced
God to leave it alone if there were 40. Then 30. Then 20. Then 10.
Well,
God couldn't find 10 righteous people in the entire city of
Sodom, so he sent some
angels to warn Lot to leave, since he was going to wreck the place. When the angels got there, they were dressed like ordinary people, and the people of
Sodom wanted to rape them. Lot offered the people his two
virgin daughters with which he said the people could do "whatever is good in your eyes." So, at any rate, Lot and his family wound up leaving the city, with the proviso from the angels that if any one of them should look back, that person would turn to a pillar of salt. Lot's wife looked back, and that's how she became a big chunk of NaCl (this, of course, bears and interesting resemblance to the story of
Orpheus and
Eurydice).
So Lot and his two daughters left the city, and it was razed by
God.
They took refuge in this cave, and his daughters were dreadfully frightened that the whole of the
Jewish world had been destroyed along with
Sodom and
Gomorrah. Thinking they would never find husbands or might have to repopulate their race or something, they got Lot
drunk and had
sex with him.
From their incest, the children Moab, whose line of children would ultimately become the
Moabites, and Ammon, whose line would become the
Ammonites, were begat. The Moabites and the Ammonites were two
Canaanite tribes who were archenemies with the
Jews, and therefore this story provided a sort of justification for the
Jews fighting with them and taking their land, since they arose from an unholy and wicked act.
Also, it allowed the
Jews to make jokes about how they were
inbred hillbillies and so on.