> Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 13:05:51 -0600
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] From the KS: was New Society Youth initiative
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Once again, Franz, you surprise me. Very interesting concepts. Thanks.
>
> Eleanor Deyeson
>
> On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:27:09 -0600, john heitman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> >Now, as to my interest in the passage..... Salt comes in a rocks, or in
> >gravel if you have a lot of it. larger towns pave their streets to stave
> >off the mud. Spreading gravel is the equivalent of paving. If you have a
> >large salt mine to hand (like you know, the Dead Sea, maybe), it is easier
> >to mine the salt than it is the limestone, and break it into gravel. This
> >is very dirty salt, pretty much the equivalent of our road salt, and
> >definitely not fit for eating, or preserving food FOR eating. For that
> >purpose it has to be washed and refined several times. That refining is
> >what makes salt so expensive. This raw stuff is literally dirt cheap.
> > Road engineers will use whatever gravel is closest and easiest to access.
> > Sand stone, limestone, granite, broken reef, coal cinders, what ever they
> >can get cheaply.
> >
> >Why would Jesus have used this visual if the common culture was not
> >familiar with the image?
> >
> >From an engineering perspective, this has some really interesting
> >characteristics. Rain does not percolate down through the soil like it
> >does here. It evaporates back UP out of the soil in that region. So the
> >cycle would be.... Salt the road, rain falls and dissolves the salt,
> >enters the earth to a depth of no more than 18", then evaporates leaving
> >the salt behind. The Salt then hardens the soil, creating a hard surface
> >that is more impervious to rainfall than the surrounding ground. IOW, it
> >creates a hard pack road NATURALLY!!!!! in *my* book, that's pure
> >f*****g GENIUS!
> >
> >Cultural support for this theory comes from a practice distinct to the
> >region. EVERYbody goes barefoot everywhere around the world. Indians,
> >American Indians, Polynesians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Mayan.
> > Everybody. But the ONLY place that has a ritual foot washing with oil is
> >the Holy Land.
> >
> > Normal dust does not dry out the feet severely. Salt dust will cripple
> >the feet in less than a week because it will dry the skin and make serious
> >bleeding cracks. The only way to correct that is to wash the salt dust
> >off, and rub oil into the skin. And this practice is documented not once,
> >but several times in the gospels. Mary does it to Jesus. Jesus does it to
> >the disciples, widows to saints.
> >
> >At least, that is MY take on it.
> >