Le Clerc suggested
that the shock caused by the sight of fire from heaven killed Lot's
wife instantly and made her body rigid as a statue. Eichhorn
suggested that she fell into a stream of melted bitumen. Michaelis
suggested that her relatives raised a monument of salt rock to her
memory. Friedrichs suggested that she fell into the sea and that
the salt stiffened around her clothing, thus making a statue of
her. Some claimed that a shower of sulphur came down upon her, and
that the word which has been translated "salt" could possibly be
translated "sulphur." Others hinted that the salt by its antiseptic
qualities preserved her body as a mummy. De Saulcy, as we have
seen, thought that a piece of salt rock fell upon her, and very
recently Principal Dawson has ventured the explanation that a flood
of salt mud coming from a volcano incrusted her.
But theologians themselves were the first to show the inadequacy of
these explanations. The more rationalistic pointed out the fact
that they were contrary to the sacred text: Von Bohlen, an eminent
professor at Konigsberg, in his sturdy German honesty, declared
that the salt pillar gave rise to the story, and compared the pillar
of salt causing this transformation legend to the rock in Greek
mythology which gave rise to the transformation legend of Niobe.
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