Genesis 19:24 Then the LORD rained upon
Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.
Human Remains Found at Sodom!
In a
culture that generally believes that science and faith in the Bible are
incompatible, once again scientific evidence has been discovered that supports
the Bible’s testimony of a real historical event. The April 2013 book entitled Discovering the City of Sodom by Dr.
Steven Collins and Dr. Latayne Scott published by Howard/Simon and Schuster
details how Dr. Collins came to believe Tall el-Hammam in Jordan was the
location of ancient Sodom. Dr. Collins made
this determination based on Genesis 13:10 which placed Sodom and Gomorrah in
the “plain of the Jordan (River),” an area that it describes as “well
watered.” In an otherwise arid land, this
same area that remains well watered even today could only be the somewhat circular plain at the southern end of
the Jordan River before it enters the Dead Sea.
Dr. Collins, an archaeologist at
Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has excavated in this
area for seven years. However, his breakthrough
discovery came in 2011 when he found
human skeletal remains and an unusual potsherd at the site of Tall el-Hammam. While the unusual potsherd hardly
compares in sheer visual drama to the
obvious glories of Stonehenge or the pyramids, it is turning out to be an
artifact of monumental importance. The discovery and analysis of
this potsherd provides physical evidence for what caused the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven.
Dr. Collins
found the 4,000 year old potsherd that would fit in the palm of your hand in an undisturbed layer of hardened black
ash. One side is typical of ancient
pottery, but the opposite side is coated with a thin layer of a beautiful
translucent greenish glass called trinitite. The trinitite tells us
that one side of this clay potsherd was briefly subjected to an extremely high
temperature, which caused the silicon of its clay to melt and be converted to
glass. Trinitite gets its name from the first atomic bomb test in 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico whose code name was Trinity. Trinitite was formed when the sandy clay
soil at the test site was drawn up and melted by the explosion, then rained
down and solidified into glass.
We now know
that a comet or large comet fragment exploding in the atmosphere can produce
the same effects as an atomic explosion, including the very high temperatures
necessary for the formation of desert glass such as trinitite. This trinitite coated potsherd corroborates that
the brimstone and fire Genesis 19:24 says rained out of heaven came from a
comet fragment that exploded in the atmosphere over Sodom and Gomorrah. Like an atomic explosion, this comet explosion over Sodom and Gomorrah
would have caused a fiery column of
smoke, dust, ash and debris to rise up (possibly looking like a mushroom
cloud). Genesis 19:28 tells how Abraham
“looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and
beheld, and lo the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.”
The
same black ash that contained the “Trinitite Potsherd” also revealed the
partial skeletal remains of three individuals who were found huddled together in this black ash. Their bones were abnormally extended and
twisted. The leg of one was charred off
at mid-femur. While the intense heat
generated by the fireball of a cometary explosion would literally vaporize
everyone it directly hit, these
people somehow were partially shielded. The macabre scene speaks of the sudden
death and extreme trauma that engulfed these three people who were among those
alive at the time the Bible says Abraham
negotiated to save the city.
I am
particularly excited by Dr. Collins’ discoveries because my book The Comets of God published in 2010
(www.thecometsofgod.com) analyzes the Old Testament catastrophes and their
connection to cometary activity and impacts. I detailed how the scriptures make it clear that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by cometary activity. On page 416 I wrote, “The destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah, where fire and brimstone (burning sulfur) rained from
heaven (Genesis 19:24 and Luke 17:29), is an accurate description of airburst
explosions.” I explained how “Airburst
explosions were not recognized until after the 1908 Tunguska Event in Siberia
had been intensely studied by scientists.
The Tunguska event is now believed to be the result of an airburst
explosion high in the atmosphere of a small asteroid or cometary fragment approximately
100 meters in diameter.” Since comets
are rich in sulfur, cometary
material can release brimstone or burning sulfur as it comes in on fire.
Today a
number of astronomers believe that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
involved comet activity, but until
now there was no evidence for this event.
In my book (page 149) I wrote that: “The most definitive evidence for
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah would come from physical evidence
associated with cosmic impact. Core
samples from buried sediments dating to the time these cities were destroyed by
fire should contain high concentrations of cosmic dust with very high
concentrations of iridium, nickel, and other elements rose at impact. There could also be grains of shocked quartz, whose
structure stems from the high pressures of impact or tiny spherules of fused glass
like material that stems from the high temperature of impact…. The bottom
line is this: if the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was caused by cosmic
bombardment as the Bible indicates, there should be evidence waiting to be
found.” Little did I know that at the
time I wrote this in my book Dr. Collins had already located Sodom and had
begun to find significant evidence
for cosmic impact.
Since the
initial discovery, four more trinitite coated potsherds have been
excavated at the Tall. In addition, a
number of small lumps of desert glass have been found at different locations
within five miles of the Tall. While the
brief heat flash or thermal pulse from the cosmic airburst was hot enough to
melt and convert the outer surface of these clay potsherds into glass; this
thermal pulse was also able to convert some of the silica of the sand on the
ground into what geologists call “desert glass” which is not unlike
trinitite. Geologists have come to learn
that the creation of desert glass is typical of cosmic airbursts over sandy
areas. It has not yet been confirmed how
large of an area was affected by the cometary blast above Sodom.
As far as I
know, Dr. Collins has yet to do a mass spectrometry analysis of the ash itself
to see if it has a definitive “cosmic fingerprint” of specific elements brought
in by the cometary material. This “cosmic DNA” test could provide the most compelling
evidence of all. The ash might even contain nanodiamonds, microscopic diamonds
that cosmic impacts can sometimes produce. It would be nice if a pollen study
was done in the area to provide scientific evidence to confirm that the plain
of the Jordan was then indeed “well watered.”
A null hypothesis could also be employed to further establish that the
Sodom of the Bible has finally been found. For example, pollen studies at the
other proposed locations for Sodom should
show that they were not in a “well watered” area. Likewise core drilling and analysis of the
soils at the other proposed locations for Sodom should show that they do not contain evidence of fire and
brimstone as a result of a cosmic airburst.
Interestingly
the thick hardened black ash Dr. Collins found at the site sheds a different
light on what happened to Lot’s wife.
Genesis 19:26 should now be translated to read, “But his (Lot’s) wife
looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of hardened ash (not salt).
The Hebrew word usually translated as “salt” is the word “malach” (#4417
in Strong’s Concordance) which means “powder” as in something “pulverized” like
salt, ash or dust.