An Archaeological Find Unearths the Real Life Sodom
Sodom and Gomorrah have long been cautionary examples of divine punishment. In the Book of Genesis, the Lord informs Abraham that Sodom and the nearby city of Gomorrah are to be destroyed for their wickedness. Abraham pleads for the lives of righteous inhabitants, especially his nephew Lot and his family. God agrees to spare the cities if fifty good people could be found in them – a figure that Abraham bargains down to ten. Two angels disguised as men are sent to Lot in Sodom, only for a depraved mob to demand that he hand over his guests so they could slake their lusts upon them. Lot’s pleas are met with deaf ears by the horny mob. So the angels blind the crowd, tell their host to immediately flee the city with his family, and not look back.
As God rains down fiery destruction upon Sodom, Lot’s family flees and is spared the heavenly wrath. Except for Lot’s wife, who looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. All in all, a great story packed with action and drama. Does it have any factual basis, though? An archaeological discovery indicates that there just might be. Not the angels and wives turned into pillars of salt bits, but the fiery destruction rained down upon a city from the heavens part. The inhabitants of a Bronze Age city a few miles northeast of the Dead Sea went about their daily business one fateful day, circa 1650 BC, blissfully ignorant of the doom headed their way. Unbeknownst to the residents of what is now known as Tell el-Hammam, an unseen icy space rock was headed their way at 38,000 miles per hour.