Where is Sodom (of “& Gomorrah” Fame)?

Do you know where Sodom was/is?

I do.

I’ve known for years. It’s located northeast of the Dead Sea.

How can I be so sure?

I read the book Discovering the City of Sodom by Dr. Steven Collins and Dr. Latayne Scott.

I know one of the authors.

Nature Magazine recently highlighted the where and the how.

What? Was Sodom a real place?

Why yes.

For the longest time, the site has been known as Tall el-Hammam.

But the idea it might be Sodom only occurred to archaeologist Dr. Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University, during a Biblical tour in 1996.

As he read Genesis 10-19, describing the Biblical story, he was struck by a description of the

“great city of Sodom located on a ‘bread-disk’ in the well-watered Jordan Valley.

The original language spoke of a fertile breadbasket, a circular setting.

A place that was as lush as Egypt’s ever-green Nile Valley, and as prolific and luxuriant as the very Garden of Eden.”

Discovering the City of Sodom p 20-21

This sounded to Dr. Collins more like the Kikkar of the Jordan, the “breadbasket of the Jordan Valley” just north of the Dead Sea.

The Jordan River often overfloods its banks and the valley “widens into an almost circular area.” It even has its own microclimate.

Tall el-Hammam sits off to the side of the valley, where Collins, based on his reading in the book of Genesis, expected to find Sodom.

He’s been leading expeditions there ever since.

But how was Sodom destroyed?

How indeed?

When archaeologists examined Tell el-Hammam over the years, they noticed an unusual (in thickness) 5-foot layer of jumbled charcoal, ash, melted mudbricks, and pottery.

Obviously, a very hot fire burned the massive city, but the amount of burned debris and the material destroyed was incomprehensible. How could such a fire have occurred?

Science has now verified what Dr. Collins has argued for years.

As explained on “The Conversation” website, 3600 years ago, an “unseen icy space rock” sped toward the earth at 38,000 mph.

Once it encountered the earth’s atmosphere, It exploded into a “massive fireball” about 2.5 miles above the Kikkar of the Jordan. Temperatures rose to above 3600 degrees Fahrenheit in a blast more powerful than 1000 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

“Clothing and wood immediately burst into flames. Swords, spears, mudbricks, and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire.

Moving at about 740 mph, a massive shockwave smashed into the city [Tall el-Hammam]. It was more powerful than the worst tornado ever recorded.

The Conversation, September 20, 2021

No one–animals or humans–survived, of course, and the winds leveled every building.

(The article noted that a minute later, the walls from the blast traveled 14 miles west to the biblical city of Jericho. Jericho’s walls came tumbling down and the city burned to the ground.)

Did this only happen once?

No, a similar but smaller asteroid knocked down 80 million trees in Siberia in 1908.

So what?

As author Eric Metaxas argues in his new book, Is Atheism Dead? science increasingly demonstrates the oft-maligned truth found in the Bible about the origins of life, and Biblical miracles in general.

Inspired by Dr. Collins’ work and nanotechnologist Dr. James Tour, Metaxas wrote the book telling stories of scientific discoveries pointing to God. He discussed the ideas behind the book here.

(Or, you can listen to his discussion with my friend Chase Replogle on the Writer-Pastor podcast.

(Dr. Tour explains his understanding of the Bible and science on his Youtube channel).

(Here are two podcasts Metaxas did with Dr. Tour).

And, of course, it never hurts to review all the material available at Reasons to Believe.

S/he who has ears to hear, let them hear–what science really confirms about the Bible.

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Tweetables

Is Atheism Dead? Gone underground with the discovery of nanotechnology and Sodom? Click to Tweet

Why yes. Scientists have discovered–and proved–Sodom’s (of Gomorrah fame) location. Click to Tweet