@Richard, can I talk to you about a question I'm currently thinking about?

@Ami Sure! :)

Genesis makes very clear that Egypt was an agrarian society with a centralized government, namely Pharaoh...and Genesis also makes clear that the patriarchs in the Bible were nomadic herders of sheep...

What was the economic and political nature of cities in Genesis like Sdom?

Did they have a centralized government like Egypt?

obviously they were a lot smaller

than Egypt

Probably decentralized, I would guess. I would think similar to villages.

Did they subsist off agriculture or were they hunter-gatherer?

In Genesis 14 we have the story of the war between the 4 kings and the 5 king...what kind of kings were these?

Abraham is able to win that war so either God performed a major miracle or Abraham's tribe was really big or those armies were really small

or all of the above

In chapter 17 God says to Abraham: "Kings shall come out of thee," what kind of Kings did Abraham imagine?

(sorry, somewhat afk... phone call.)

It's also interesting the way cities/kings are demonized in Genesis. Sdom is destroyed for their inequity, Avimelech the king of Grar takes Abraham's wife in chapter 20, and Dinah is taken by Hamor the king of Shchem in chapter 34.

no prob.

so I'm that's my question...I'm trying to figure out what these cities were like and how the Patriarchs related to them...but I haven't quite figure out how to organize this into a single coherent question for this site yet.

@Ami OK. I'm back (long conversation) :(

welcome back

I was doing work so it's fine

@Ami I think that this is going to be the key. Any question will have to, per the current meta consensus, relate to hermeneutics or exegesis.

(Please vote for my answer, if you think that historical contexts should be allowed as questions, by the way.)

I still have to figure out where I stand on that question

I probably agree with you though

I think you should probably break these into different questions. I would start with the "story of the war between the 4 kings and the 5 kings" (i'm not sure which that is) and ask what kings were. I would give the basis of this being the agricultural society.

Then I would ask another question asking what type of city Sodom and Gomorah was. Since Genesis 19:4 mentions men from every part of the city, what would that look like? How many?

You could include a question about the social structure, but it'll have to relate to understanding a specific passage.

I don't see a problem with any of these questions. Just try to start out with a question you have, find the passage that you can apply to that, and then formulate the question around the passage.

@Ami This line of questioning will be harder to weave into biblical context, though.

right

I'll probably do this later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for your input.

@Richard, ttyl.

@Ami Seeya.

Yeah, I'm really distracted today... Far more going on at work than normal.

My inspiration for these new line of questions: GOOGLE! XD

I go off to google.com

and type in "What does Romans" and google autocompletes the question with questions that are actively been saught by google users.

> What does Romans 12 mean

> What does Romans 8 mean

> What does Romans 14 mean

Then I check to see see what questions I can gain from there.

The biggest advantage to this is that we know that Google will pick up these questions--increasing traffic to our site and helping this site succeed.

@Richard Good idea. Do we have any way to gauge how much traffic Google supplies at that moment? (My guess is next to none.)

Well, we're not supposed to give exact numbers, but less than half, more than a third. ;) Pretty good, really

The goal is to get to 90% (per Area 51). So, we've got a ways to go.

Oh. It's exciting that you have that info and more exciting that we are getting some traction at all.

Have you seen my answer to the FAQ question yesterday?

I was thinking of asking the two specific questions about aliens in the Bible, but I'm worried they are too kooky.

@JonEricson Yes, I'm really glad you answered that one. I really like it and we can probably add it straight, as is.

@JonEricson I'm starting to think that we need to loosen up a bit. I think questions about aliens would be fun and could attract some google attention.

@Richard Ok. I'll ask 'em. ;-)

:)

I actually listed aliens as one possible understanding of Nephilim on my C.Se answer (here).

I'm tempted to write a "joke" answer stating that they are unquestionably aliens, siting abovetopsecret.com and such as my sources.

@Richard Too bad it's not the first day of April (or even close).

The bad thing is that I would leave it there, accumulating massive negative votes. I might if I have enough coffee and free time tomorrow morning.

Yeah... I better not. Probably wouldn't be wise.

I'm prepared for the negative votes the questions probably ought to receive. Thankfully, a few upvotes easily counterbalance downvotes.