The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:
Did it Really Happen?
The first thing to say when investigating things like this is that we must have realistic expectations of what evidence might be available. These events took place around 4,000 years ago, so we are hardly going to find ruins with a sign post on the main road saying ‘here lays the remains of Sodom.’ Having said this, it is also fair to say that there is no agreement among archaeologists, scientists and biblical scholars that Sodom and its sister town Gomorrah existed at all, let alone came to a sudden and apocalyptic end.
Interestingly however, evidence seems to be mounting that such a thing did actually happen. Back in 1996 two geologists, Graham Harris and Tony Beardow, argued in the US Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology that the land near the Dead Sea on which the cities could have stood may have been literally liquefied by an earthquake. They argue that this would have been similar to an even that occurred in China in 1920, where loosely packed waterlogged soils liquefied under seismic force and destroyed 30,000 square miles.
And then this was picked up on 18th August 2001, where the BBC reported in an article entitled, Scientists uncover Sodom’s fiery end, that ‘scientists believe they may have found evidence to support the Bible’s account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah … a retired British geologist, Graham Harris, believes he has proved that the two cities really existed, and may have explained why they perished.’
The Bible places Sodom and Gomorrah in the region of the Dead Sea, between what is now Israel and Jordan in the Middle East. Harris spent a decade working in the area and became convinced the conditions were right for a huge earthquake that would trigger a massive landslide.
Professor Lynne Frostick, a geologist from Hull University in England, and Jonathan Tubb from the British Museum, decided to investigate Harris’ claims. They travelled to the Middle East to pursue their research, and their findings there enabled Dr Gopal Madabhushi, at the Cambridge University Centrifuge Laboratory back in England, to build an accurate scaled down model of the buildings in Sodom, and the ground on which they stood. Dr Madabhushi then subjected the model to a simulated earthquake – and his data provided the ultimate proof that whole towns could have been destroyed in this way.
Others have discovered interesting remains in the area of the Dead Sea. Ron Hyatt and his team of investigators found ruins of cities in the area that were covered with ash, and also millions of sulphur balls (sulphur is brimstone in the King James version of the Bible). These balls were composed of pressed pure powder sulphur. Checking with volcanic experts from around the world, they discovered that nowhere else in the world, even around volcanic activity, were any balls of this composition found. It was estimated that originally these balls would have been around 5,000 degrees Celsius. . The balls were surrounded by a glassy casing of melted and re-solidified ash After consuming everything that was around them, the heat melted the ash that had formed on their surface, vitrifying it, that is, turning it to glass.
Another archaeologist, Bryant Wood, states that he believes that the cities have been discovered ‘southeast of the Dead Sea. The modern names are Bab edh-Dhra, thought to be Sodom, and Numeira, thought to be Gomorrah.’ He also reported that ‘Startling discoveries in the cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra revealed the cause’ of the destruction. ‘Archaeologists found that buildings used to bury the dead were burned by a fire that started on the roof.’ This fits exactly with the biblical account that ‘the Lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah.’
Dr Wood says that there is sufficient evidence of subterranean deposits of a petroleum based substance known as bitumen in the area of the Dead Sea, and that such a substance normally contains a high percentage of sulphur. A geologist called Frederick Clapp has postulated that pressure from a seismic shift in the ground could have caused the bitumen deposits to be forced out of the earth through a fault line and that as it gushed out of the earth it could have been ignited by a spark or surface fire. It would have then fallen to the ground as a fiery, burning mass.
Bryant Wood goes on to tell us that, ‘It was only after Clapp formulated this theory that Sodom and Gomorrah were found. It turns out that the sites are located exactly on a fault line along the eastern side of a plain south of the Dead Sea, so Clapp’s theory is entirely plausible. There is some evidence for this scenario from the Bible itself. Abraham viewed the destruction of from a vantage point west of the Dead Sea. The Bible records what Abraham saw: “He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Genesis 19:28). Dense smoke suggests smoke from a petroleum-based fire. Smoke rising like smoke from a furnace indicates a forced draught, such as would be expected from subterranean deposits being forced out of the ground under pressure.’
When all this is put together there seems to be ample circumstantial evidence that collaborates the biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is therefore a wake up call for us to take sin and God’s judgement seriously. Ezekiel 16: 49-50 tells us, ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.’ Peter tells us in the New Testament that if the Lord ‘condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what will happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men … then the lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgement.’ And then Jesus himself warns that if we ignore the gospel ‘it will be more bearable for Sodom’ than for us on the Day of Judgment.