Page 6 - Good News April 2019 paper

odom and Gomorrah - cities as the Salt Sea (Dead Sea), the meteor breaking apart three to six kind of heavenly firestorm
utterly destroyed by fire world's deepest hypersaline lake - miles above ground. In 2013, a instantly incinerated not only the
Sfrom heaven. So says the 10 times saltier than the ocean. fiery meteor streaked across cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Bible. And NOW, so says archae- Russia, causing explosions and but all the “other cities and
ology! Archaeological Evidence injuring hundreds. The Tall el- villages of the plain,” carbonizing
Jordan's Tall el-Hammam is a Hammam scientists posit that a them with temperatures perhaps
The Biblical account of Sodom possible location of Biblical similar event must have occurred akin to the surface of the sun.
and Gomorrah's heavenly Sodom. Excavations there have around 3 700 years ago, causing a “[E]very bit of vegetation” was
destruction is legendary. “Sodom revealed utter destruction and an dramatic fireball, a superheated wiped out, and evidence shows
and Gomorrah” is a term instantaneous end of civilization, air blast, and a fallout that wiped that the land remained unculti-
universally understood to dating roughly to the 1700s B.C. out the region below. vatable and inhospitable for the
represent sin, sexual license, More destruction was found at next 500 years (see also Deute-
immorality - and horror and five nearby excavated sites, and Based on research by atomic ronomy 29:23). Even today, the
destruction. The Biblical account indicated by ground surveys at energy researcher Samuel Glad- region remains synonymous with
is, however, far from being merely 120 other smaller settlements in stone, the Tall el-Hammam scien- death.
a fable. Scientists have now found the region. Excavation director tists have estimated that a 10-
evidence of a catastrophic event Prof. Phillip Silvia recorded his megaton airburst yield in the Given that much of the area was
unmistakably akin to the one team's discoveries in a detailed atmosphere would have been blanketed in boiling salt in the
described in the book of Genesis! analysis: “The 3.7kaBP Middle sufficient to cause the destruc- conflagration, it's not surprising
Ghor Event: Catastrophic Termi- tion evidenced on the ground. that Lot's wife would also be
From Paradise to Sheol nation of a Bronze Age Civili- That is just over 666 times the cemented into a superheated
The Dead Sea Zone was once zation.” The details are almost blast yield of the atomic bomb column of salt for her sin of
home to a thriving civilization - incredible. dropped on Hiroshima. While looking back in longing for the
particularly the cities of Sodom scientists can debate whether or depraved cities. And certainly, the
and Gomorrah, according to the Mud brick structures were found not such extraordinary destruc- damage would have created
Bible. Genesis 13:10 describes to have suddenly disappeared, tion was caused by a meteor-type billowing clouds of smoke visible
the location as a veritable “garden leaving only burned stone foun- event or other heavenly pheno- for hundreds of miles around -
of the Lord,” “well watered dations. Bricks showed signs of mena, what is not debatable is the such as what Abraham saw.
everywhere.” incineration. Skeletons lay effect. And that destruction - in
mangled. Clay pottery fragments location, time and description - Why?
Archaeology has revealed flou- were discovered to have melted directly matches the Biblical Why the utter destruction of
rishing prosperity in this area - into glass. Zircon crystals in the event! Sodom and Gomorrah? For
right up until it came to a sudden, pottery, upon analysis, were thousands of years, it was
jarring end around 3 700 years shown to have formed within one Fire and Brimstone believed that the cities were
ago. This is the same period at second, the result of super- To this point, archaeology has destroyed primarily for their
which the Bible places the “fire- heating to temperatures perhaps confirmed dozens of persona- sexual sins, especially homo-
and-brimstone” destruction. In as hot as the surface of the sun. A lities in the Hebrew Bible (53, sexuality. However, due to the
the centuries following this “tidal wave” of boiling hot salt had according to this count), dozens current popularity of homo-
abrupt end of civilization, the swept over the land. There was of places, dozens of wars, etc. sexuality, some Biblical apolo-
territory has remained lifeless evidence that mineral grains had Here, at the northern tip of the gists argue otherwise. They posit
and uncultivatable. To this day it rained down, carried by scor- Dead Sea, we have scientific an alternative interpretation: that
is utterly saline and quite literally ching, high-force winds. Ash and corroboration for a Biblical mira- the prime sin of Sodom was the
dead. debris, several feet thick, were left cle. The New Living Translation of lack of hospitality toward foreign-
behind within the wider 193- verses 24-28 read: “Then the Lord ers.
According to the Bible, because square-mile area of destruction - a rained down fire and burning
of the widespread evil in Sodom, scene of utter carnage of Biblical sulphur from the sky on Sodom Does this explain why Sodom and
God condemned it to fiery proportions! The estimated regio- and Gomorrah. He utterly Gomorrah, above all cities on
destruction, sparing only Lot and nal population of 40 000 to 65 000 destroyed them, along with the Earth, were wiped out? What
his family. “Then the Lord rained people would have been killed other cities and villages of the about those like the Assyrians,
upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah instantly by this strange event. plain, wiping out all the people who lined city walls with the
brimstone and fire from the Lord What could have caused such a and every bit of vegetation. But heads and skins of foreigners?
out of heaven; And He overthrew catastrophe? Lot's wife looked back as she was Why weren't they destroyed by a
those cities, and all the plain, and following behind him, and she nuclear-like fireball?
all the inhabitants of the cities, An Exploding Meteor? turned into a pillar of salt.
and that which grew upon the Silvia's team of scientists Abraham got up early that Several Scriptures make clear
ground” (Genesis 19:24-25). working at Tall el-Hammam has morning and hurried out to the Sodom and Gomorrah were

estimated that the scene of place where he had stood in the glutted with sexual sin - espe-
God demolished the terrain, and devastation was caused by an Lord's presence. He looked out cially homosexual sin - and that
fused Lot's wife into salt after she exploding meteor. They base this across the plain toward Sodom this specific sin is directly related
looked back longingly at the city. hypothesis on the analogous and Gomorrah and watched as to the fiery conflagration. The
The Bible associates salt with event of a massive airburst that columns of smoke rose from the context of Genesis 19 makes this
total destruction; for example, occurred in 1908 in Siberia, cities like smoke from a furnace.” clear. The men of the city
after Shechem was conquered, leveling 772 square miles of demanded that Lot send his
salt was scattered throughout the forest yet leaving no crater. The finds at Tall el-Hammam and “male” guests out to them, “that
city (Judges 9:45). Appropriately, Scientists' best guess at what the surrounding area have con- we may know them” (verse 5),
Continued on p. 7
the area is home to what is known caused this Russian blast was a firmed just such an event. Some Continued on p. 7