SALTED SHANKS

[mnoursler]

The following passages are among many biblical  references to the use of salt:

Mark 9:49 For every one shall be salted with fire.
9:50 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?
Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.

Matthew 5:13Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.

Luke 14:34Salt therefore is good: but if even the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned?

Col. 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Sirach 43:19 The hoarfrost also as salt he poureth on the earth, and being congealed, it lieth on the top of sharp stakes.

Lev. 2:13 And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.

Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

Ezekiel 43:24 And thou shalt offer them before the LORD, and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the LORD.

Suffice it to say that the passage of  Sirach quoted above sprinkles some doubt on any assertions that Morton Smith used an anachronism when he allegedly forged  a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria.  Sirach is believed in academic circles to have been written over two thousand years ago.  The New Testament passages quoted above further season the debate.  Perhaps, if the letter by Clement is genuine, he was paraphrasing or at lease thinking about the NT passages above quoted.  Might Clement refer to the idea of salt losing its savor as a “saying” because that idea is found in Mark, Matthew and Luke?  If Morton Smith’s detractors are so myopic regarding this simple textual analysis how might they have they have stumbled elsewhere?

Kind regards,

Mark N. Oursler