Sodom and Gomorrah

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ABRAHAM AND LOT

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Abraham and Lot
After Abraham reached Canaan, he and his men and Lot quarreled over grazing rights. A compromise was worked out in which Abraham told Lot, “Let is part company. If you take the left hand, then I shall go right, and if you take the right hand, I shall go left. Lot headed with his animals to Sodom and Abraham settled in Canaan.” In Chapter 13, Lot heads off for the "the whole plain of Jordan" in which "all of it is well-watered." Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an extensive irrigation system in Jordan that dates back to Abraham's time.

Abraham wandered in the desert with his animals but in time became wealthy, and distinguished himself as a war king and diplomat. After Lot was captured by enemies of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham and his men rescued him during a night time raid.

In Chapter 19, Lot rests at a gateway of Canaanite city with a large chamber where people gathered to hang out, gossip and do business. Many Canaanite cities did possess such a chamber. After the rescue of Lot, the high priest and king of Canaan gave Abraham wine and bread and declared: “Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth, and blessed he God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Websites and Resources: Bible and Biblical History: Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks ; Bible History Online bible-history.com ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org ; Judaism Virtual Jewish Library jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index ; Judaism101 jewfaq.org ; torah.org torah.org ; Chabad,org chabad.org/library/bible ; Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu Christianity: BBC on Christianity bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity ; Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org ; Sacred Texts website sacred-texts.com ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Christian Origins sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Biblical Images: Bible in Pictures creationism.org/books ; Bible Blue Letter Images blueletterbible.org/images ; Biblical Images preceptaustin.org

God threatened to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the people there were so evil. Abraham asked God to spare the cities if ten good men could be found. Ten good men were not found and God carried out his threat by destroying the two cities with fire and brimstone. Lot was considered a good man and he and his family were warned of God's punishment and allowed to flee before the destruction took place .Lot’s wife disobeyed God’s sole command of not looking back and was turned into a salt pillar, which some say stand near the Dead Sea.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: As most Sunday school attendees know, the book of Genesis describes the destruction of two legendary Dead Sea region urban settlements, Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities had a reputation for wickedness. According to the Bible “the outcry against them before the Lord has become so great,” that God sent two angels to destroy them. Upon arrival, the angels were planning to spend the night in the city square, but Lot, the nephew of Abraham, takes an interest in them and welcomes them into his house as guests. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, September 26, 2021]

The city’s residents are curious, they crowd around Lot’s door and demand that he hand the disguised angels over so that they can “know” (i.e. rape) them. God blinds the would-be attackers, so they are unable to storm Lot’s house. The following morning and at the instruction of the angels, Lot and his extended family make a quick exit and “Sulphur and fire” rain down on the two cities. Sodom and Gomorroah are destroyed.

Geologists believe that they have found proof of Sodom and Gomorrah's existence on a peninsula in the Dead Sea that vanished around 1900 B.C. They suggest that the cities were located on soil saturated with bitumen that may have caught fire and liquified during an earthquake Sodom gave birth to the word sodomy and sodomite.

Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot

Genesis 13:10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. 13:11 Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. 13:12 Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. 13:13 But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly. [Source:King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org]

14:1 And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; 14:2 That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. 14:3 All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. 14:4 Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.

14:5 And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emins in Shaveh Kiriathaim, 14:6 And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness. 14:7 And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar.

14:8 And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; 14:9 With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. 14:10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. 14:11 And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.

Abraham Rescues Lot

Genesis 14:12 And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. 14:13 And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. 14:14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. 14:15 And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. [Source: King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org]

Lot flees Sodom and Gomorrah
14:16 And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. 14:17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale. 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 14:19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 14:20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

14:21 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 14:22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 14:23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: 14:24 Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.

Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis: 18:20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 18:21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. 18:22 And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. 18:23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 18:24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 18:25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 18:26 And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. [Source: King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org]

18:27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: 18:28 Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. 18:29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. 18:30 And he said unto him, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 18:31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake. 18:32 And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.

19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; 19:2 And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. 19:3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. 19:4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: 19:5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them....

19:24 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; 19:25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 19:26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 19:27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD: 19:28 And he 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.

Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Lot During the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis 19:6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, 19:7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. 19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. 19:9 And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

19:10 But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. 19:11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door. 19:12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place: 19:13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

19:14 And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law. 19:15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. 19:16 And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. 19:17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

19:18 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my LORD: 19:19 Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: 19:20 Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. 19:21 And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast 19:22 Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. 19:23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

Sodom and Gomorrah, a Condemnation of Rape Not Homosexuality?

For a long time the Sodom and Gomorrah story was cast as a narrative about God’s condemnation of homosexuality. Many scholars today it a condemnation of rape and sexual violence that appear in the account. Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The exchange between Lot and the inhabitants is darker than the traditional reading admits. In Genesis, Lot’s concern is that the locals are treating two strangers poorly; by threatening the angels they are breaking the cultural norms that governed hospitality and the treatment of outsiders. This was a grave social crime. [Source:Candida Moss, Daily Beast, September 26, 2021]

Lot’s response to their conduct is to offer the mob his two virgin daughters to abuse instead. He feels empowered to do this because they are his daughters and, thus, according to the ancient view, his property. There’s no judgment in the story about Lot’s proposal to pimp out his children. Three millennia of interpretation has breezed past the violence of Lot’s solution in order to focus on homosexuality. That the crowd declines his offer of the girls and threatens to rape Lot instead does not make this a story about homosexuality, it only confirms that this is a story about sexual violence and power. In no reading are the sexual interactions figured in this story consensual. Perhaps that should have always been our focus.

Overlooking the mistreatment of women in the Bible isn’t an isolated affair: a remarkably similar story takes places in Judges 19. A Levite arrives in a foreign city with his enslaved concubine and is offered shelter. The locals threaten to rape the man and his host offers his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine to the rabble instead. In the end, only the concubine is pushed out of the door to the angry crowd. She is gang raped throughout the night and finds her way back to their lodging only to die at the threshold. In the morning the Levite, her slaveholder, finds her lying outside and callously tells her to get up so they can leave. Even without knowing that she is dead there is no acknowledgement of her trauma.

The people of the city are eventually punished but the Levite and Lot aren’t condemned for their cowardly willingness to sacrifice vulnerable women to protect themselves. Nor is violence against women enshrined in interpretive tradition as a crime against God. As Jennifer Barry, an associate professor at the University of Mary Washington and expert in the history of sexual violence told me, “in stories like Sodom and Gomorrah and Judges 19, the sexual violence preserved in the text focuses on the protection of men, while casually handing over women (some of whom are never heard from again).”

Did a City-Destroying Meteor Inspire the Sodom and Gomorrah Story?

Archaeologist Christopher R. Moore wrote:“As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding toward them at about 38,000 mph (61,000 kph). Flashing through the atmosphere, the rock exploded in a massive fireball about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) above the ground. The blast was around 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The shocked city dwellers who stared at it were blinded instantly. Air temperatures rapidly rose above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius). Clothing and wood immediately burst into flames. Swords, spears, mudbricks and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire. [Source: Christopher R. Moore, Archaeologist and Special Projects Director at the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program and South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, The Conversation, September 20, 2021]

Sodom and Gomorrah afire, by Jacob Jacobsz,1680

“Some seconds later, a massive shockwave smashed into the city. Moving at about 740 mph (1,200 kph), it was more powerful than the worst tornado ever recorded. The deadly winds ripped through the city, demolishing every building. They sheared off the top 40 feet (12 m) of the 4-story palace and blew the jumbled debris into the next valley. None of the 8,000 people or any animals within the city survived — their bodies were torn apart and their bones blasted into small fragments. About a minute later, 14 miles (22 km) to the west of Tall el-Hammam, winds from the blast hit the biblical city of Jericho. Jericho’s walls came tumbling down and the city burned to the ground.

“Was there a surviving eyewitness to the blast? It’s possible that an oral description of the city’s destruction may have been handed down for generations until it was recorded as the story of Biblical Sodom. The Bible describes the devastation of an urban center near the Dead Sea — stones and fire fell from the sky, more than one city was destroyed, thick smoke rose from the fires and city inhabitants were killed. “Could this be an ancient eyewitness account? If so, the destruction of Tall el-Hammam may be the second-oldest destruction of a human settlement by a cosmic impact event, after the village of Abu Hureyra in Syria about 12,800 years ago. Importantly, it may the first written record of such a catastrophic event.

Science of the City-Destroying Meteor That Ravaged the Holy Land 3,600 Years Ago

Moore wrote: “It all sounds like the climax of an edge-of-your-seat Hollywood disaster movie. How do we know that all of this actually happened near the Dead Sea in Jordan millennia ago? Getting answers required nearly 15 years of painstaking excavations by hundreds of people. It also involved detailed analyses of excavated material by more than two dozen scientists in 10 states in the U.S., as well as Canada and the Czech Republic. When our group finally published the evidence recently in the journal Scientific Reports, the 21 co-authors included archaeologists, geologists, geochemists, geomorphologists, mineralogists, paleobotanists, sedimentologists, cosmic-impact experts and medical doctors. [Source: Christopher R. Moore, Archaeologist and Special Projects Director at the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program and South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, The Conversation, September 20, 2021]

“Here’s how we built up this picture of devastation in the past: Years ago, when archaeologists looked out over excavations of the ruined city, they could see a dark, roughly 5-foot-thick (1.5 m) jumbled layer of charcoal, ash, melted mudbricks and melted pottery. It was obvious that an intense firestorm had destroyed this city long ago. This dark band came to be called the destruction layer. No one was exactly sure what had happened, but that layer wasn’t caused by a volcano, earthquake or warfare. None of them are capable of melting metal, mudbricks and pottery. To figure out what could, our group used the Online Impact Calculator to model scenarios that fit the evidence. Built by impact experts, this calculator allows researchers to estimate the many details of a cosmic impact event, based on known impact events and nuclear detonations. It appears that the culprit at Tall el-Hammam was a small asteroid similar to the one that knocked down 80 million trees in Tunguska, Russia in 1908. It would have been a much smaller version of the giant miles-wide rock that pushed the dinosaurs into extinction 65 million ago.

“We had a likely culprit. Now we needed proof of what happened that day at Tall el-Hammam. Our research revealed a remarkably broad array of evidence. At the site, there are finely fractured sand grains called shocked quartz that only form at 725,000 pounds per square inch of pressure (5 gigapascals) — imagine six 68-ton Abrams military tanks stacked on your thumb. The destruction layer also contains tiny diamonoids that, as the name indicates, are as hard as diamonds. Each one is smaller than a flu virus. It appears that wood and plants in the area were instantly turned into this diamond-like material by the fireball’s high pressures and temperatures.

“Experiments with laboratory furnaces showed that the bubbled pottery and mudbricks at Tall el-Hammam liquefied at temperatures above 2,700 F (1,500 C). That’s hot enough to melt an automobile within minutes. The destruction layer also contains tiny balls of melted material smaller than airborne dust particles. Called spherules, they are made of vaporized iron and sand that melted at about 2,900 F (1,590 C). In addition, the surfaces of the pottery and meltglass are speckled with tiny melted metallic grains, including iridium with a melting point of 4,435 F (2,466 C), platinum that melts at 3,215 F (1,768 C) and zirconium silicate at 2,800 F (1,540 C). Together, all this evidence shows that temperatures in the city rose higher than those of volcanoes, warfare and normal city fires. The only natural process left is a cosmic impact.

“The same evidence is found at known impact sites, such as Tunguska and the Chicxulub crater, created by the asteroid that triggered the dinosaur extinction. One remaining puzzle is why the city and over 100 other area settlements were abandoned for several centuries after this devastation. It may be that high levels of salt deposited during the impact event made it impossible to grow crops. We’re not certain yet, but we think the explosion may have vaporized or splashed toxic levels of Dead Sea salt water across the valley. Without crops, no one could live in the valley for up to 600 years, until the minimal rainfall in this desert-like climate washed the salt out of the fields.

Questions About Science of the City-Destroying Meteor Study

Since this study was published in Scientific Reports a number of academics have dissected it and raised questions about its credibility. Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Bioarcheologists Megan Perry and Chris Stantis criticized the presentation of the biological remains; Matthew Boulanger expressed concerns about the C-14 radiocarbon date reported in the study; microbiologist Elizabeth Bik expressed concerns about the use of edited images in Nature; and physicist Mark Boslough described the analysis as “riddled with errors.” Together with archeologist Austin “Chad" Hill, Anthropologists Morag Kersel and Meredith Chesson published a detailed examination of the study and its ramifications for looting in the region in Sapiens magazine. The evidence supplied by these scholars is compelling and suggests that the Scientific Reports article on which this report is based not only erodes scientific integrity, it also leads to the destruction of archeological sites. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, September 26, 2021]

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible in Bildern, 1860

Text Sources: Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Old Testament Life and Literature” by Gerald A. Larue, New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024