In ancient Israel, where wood was relatively scarce, they used camel and donkey dung for fuel. Every young girl learned how to gather the dung, form it into patties, dry them in the sun, then store them for fuel as needed.
UPI
Photo, Milwaukee Journal, February 2, 1981. A village woman in rural
India
makes dung "cakes" and stacks them to dry in the sun. Sometimes
these
cakes are used like bricks to build homes.
Pioneer women in the United States engaged in the same practice.
Photo from the Bettman Archive. Gathering "chips" on
the Plain.
Dried dung patties burn better when they are salted and placed on a block of salt in an earth oven.
Photo
copyright, Zev Radovan, Jerusalem
"The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure,
silver refined in an earth oven
purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6)
"As for the earth oven,
out of it comes bread;
but underneath the fire is turned up." (Job 28:5)
Because you (Jeroboam) have done evil, "therefore behold, I will bring
evil upon the house of Jeroboam ... and will utterly consume the
house of Jeroboam, as a man
burns up dung until it is all gone." (1 Kings 14:10).
Eventually, the salt loses its ability to make the dung burn.
The salt is no longer good for anything and is just discarded.
All
this information is needed to construct the proper reading scenario for
the "salt" passages in the New Testament.
"You are the fire making and sustaining agent in the earth oven.
But
if that agent has lost its ability to maintain a fire, how shall that
ability
be restored? This salt is no longer good for anything except to be
thrown
out. People can step on this solid block of salt in an otherwise muddy
road." (Matt 5:13, with a very logical lead into "light of the world.")
"For every one will be salted in order to burn. Salt is good, but
if
it has lost its ability to start and maintain a fire, how can that
ability
be restored? Be salty, but stay at peace with one another." (Mark
9:49-50.
Notice the repeated mention of fire in the context from v. 42 to these
verses. Another logical lead into the salt statement.)
"I came to light the earth oven; would that it were already
kindled"
(Luke 12:49, then notice the subsequent discussion of family conflict
and
division, vv. 51-53).
"Salt is good. But if salt has lost its ability to start and maintain fires, how can that ability be restored? This salt is fit neither for the earth oven, nor for preparing the fuel (the dunghill). People just throw it away." (Luke 14:34-35).
Throughout the gospels, Jesus is ever in conflict, a "salty," that
is,
fire stoking character.
For additional information, see SALT, pp. 4-5 in The
Cultural Dictionary of the Bible. The Liturgical Press, 1999
R. De Langhe, "Judaisme ou Hellenisme," in L'Attente du Messie (Recherche bibliques) Louvain: Desclee de Brouwer, 1953, pp. 165 ff.
E. H. Riesenfeld, "Salz als Katalysator und Antikatalysator" Naturwissenschaft 33 (1935) 311-320.