Archaeologists and theologians are working together to analyze recent discoveries and explain what happened to the ancient city of Sodom found in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible.
Dr. John Bergsma, a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, believes that the evidence discovered at Tal Al-Hamam, located in the southern Jordan Valley, may have resulted from the explosion of a very large space rock, according to the American “space” website. Related magazine.
The sudden disappearance of Tell el-Hamam about 3,600 years ago remained a mystery to archaeologists for years. In the ruins of the city, there are no signs of an extended military siege or conflict. However, other indicators point to a different catastrophic cause, the outlet reported.
One thing that caught Bergsma’s interest were the marks left by intense heat on pottery shards, human skeletal remains, and other artefacts. Appropriate mentioned. It is possible that this type of thermal damage was caused by a giant asteroid exploding above the city similar to what Genesis 19:24-25 describes in the Old Testament.
“Then God rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, a river of lava from God from heaven. And he destroyed these cities and all the plain, and everyone who was in the cities and everything that grew out of the earth.”
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Evidence points to a sudden destructive event and a rise in temperature. Smithsonian Magazine She stated that the pottery pieces from the site showed melting on the outside, but were left untouched on the inside.
In addition, pottery sherds found at the Tell el-Hamam site were also covered with trinitite. It’s the glassy remains left on the desert floor after the testing of the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The glass is mainly composed of arkosic sand including quartz grains and feldspar that has been melted by an atomic explosion.
The presence of trinitite adds weight to the theory that a high-energy event, such as an asteroid explosion/impact, occurred in the area, according to Appropriate.
Bergsma also told the outlet about the uniquely gruesome condition of the human remains at the dig site.
“The human skeletons are complete until about the middle of the spine, and then there is only a burn mark, and nothing on the upper body,” he said. “They found enormous evidence that a huge thermal blast from the sky at about 25 degrees Celsius above the horizon burned these twin cities on the Jordanian side of the river.”
The destructive power is several times greater than the Siberian explosion
Stephen Collins, dean of the School of Archeology at Trinity Southwestern University and the lead archaeologist at Tell el-Hamam, has hypothesized that the airburst over the city may have been larger than the airburst that occurred over the city. Tunguska Event of 1908An asteroid exploded over remote Siberia, causing massive destruction, according to the American “space” website. Appropriate. It would have consumed more energy than when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945.
According to NASA, on June 30, 1908, an asteroid fell into the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in the Siberian sky. Local eyewitnesses in the sparsely populated area reported seeing a fireball and hearing a large explosion. They also reported huge wildfires, with trees blown for miles. Due to the remote location, the event did not receive much attention. The first scientific expedition did not reach the area until 1927, but they found sufficient evidence that the asteroid had been destroyed by the shock wave and thermal explosion caused by the atmospheric explosion.
As CBN News reported, Collins co-authored a research paper that asserted that the city was destroyed by a “thermal event.”
He noted, “The violent fire that ended the occupation at Tell el-Hamam produced molten pottery, burned foundation stones, and several feet of ash and debris of destruction turned into a dark gray matrix as if it had been in Cuisinart.”
In another paper he co-authored, archaeologists Philip J. Sylvia and Collins, “The physical evidence from Tell el-Hammam and adjacent sites shows signs of a concussion and thermal event that was as destructive as one would expect from what is described in Genesis 19.”
In that paper, they concluded that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a meteorite explosion.
The research paper was originally published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports in 2021, however It was updated last Maysupports Collins’ theory that the event that befell the ancient city was “much greater in force than the Tunguska event.”
The power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons of energy, equivalent to 15 thousand tons of TNT. Damage in Tunguska was estimated at about 5 megatons, or 5 million tons of TNT, according to the newspaper.
Using a high-speed computer to analyze data at the site, the paper’s authors suggested that the destructive force at Tell el-Hamam was at least as high as 15 megatons Its explosion range is equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT.
Genesis 19:27-28 describes what happened in the valley.
“And Abraham rose early the next morning and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw thick smoke rising from the earth like smoke from heaven.” oven.”
The impact generated large amounts of salt, a historic event
The high-energy air blast also appears to have produced large amounts of salt, reminiscent of the Genesis 19 story of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt. Appropriate mentioned.
“And when they took them out, one of them said: Flee to save yourselves! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, lest they be swept away!” –Genesis 19:17
“The salt was thrown out due to the high impact pressures,” James Kennett, professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of California, told the outlet. “It is possible that the impact partially hit the salt-rich Dead Sea.”
Bergsma told Relevant that he is convinced that what archaeologists have found explains what happened to the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“It really changed my perspective on the Old Testament map because what it pointed out to me were things that seemed too strange to be history… in fact it turned out to be a historical event,” he said.
The archaeologist used composition arithmetic to find the site
As CBN News reported in July, Collins told Joel. Cy Rosenberg in an episode of Rosenberg Report How he and his team found the biblical cities in Jordan.
Collins said he used the scriptures as clues to find the locations of the cities, and focused his research on the Jordan River Valley.
From there he used evidence from the Bible, including the reference in Genesis 13:10 which states:
“And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the entire Jordan Valley was watered like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt towards Zoar. (And this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah).”
“The appropriate question to ask at the site of Sodom is: ‘Where was Lot standing when he looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was watered?’” “They were Bethel and Ai,” Collins explained.
