Salt for the earthen oven revisited

Abstract

The symbolic interpretation of the salt sayings in the New Testament (Mt 5:13; Mk 9:42-50; Lk 12:49-53; 14:34-35) is best based on the long-standing cultural practice of using salt as a catalytic agent to burn dung, the common fuel for the typical earthen oven used by peasants even to this day. Seasoning and preservation are culturally inappropriate. © 2011.