Sodom & Gomorrah - the Stunning Evidence

Doubters and atheists sneer at the Old Testament as 'fairy tales', but a stunning archaeological discovery has provided irrefutable scientific proof that one of the Bible's most dramatic stories is indeed rooted in firm fact. Of course, we have never doubted it, but confirmation that at least two ancient cities were destroyed by 'fire and brimstone' shows that the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was absolutely based on real life.

The biblical “sin cities” of Sodom and Gomorrah could have been destroyed by a meteor “cloudburst” that incinerated all 8,000 inhabitants, a fascinating new study suggests. A giant space rock exploded over the towns 3,650 years ago, creating a fireball. Scientists say the same event might also have given rise to the tale of Jericho’s walls “tumbling down,” as that city was just 20 miles away.

In the Bible, God was said to have been enraged by the wickedness of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, raining “fire and brimstone” upon them. Now there seems to be hard evidence that a “heavenly event” really did happen around that time. The cosmic calamity laid waste to the Jordan River Valley’s northern shore, razing a huge 100-acre city to the ground. It also exterminated other cities and multiple small villages. There would have been no survivors.

The epicenter of Jordan is located at what is today known as Tall el-Hammam. An ancient palace was flattened, along with the perimeter walls and other structures. Detonation occurred about 2.5 miles above the ground.  Even at that distance, the blast created a 740 mph shock wave. It would have leveled most of the buildings. None of the 8,000 residents would have survived the initial blast or the rock melting temperatures that followed. 

The condition of human remains found in the ruins suggests they had been blown up or incinerated, with extreme disarticulation and fragmentation of bones. “We saw evidence for temperatures greater than 2,000 degrees Celsius,” says study lead author Professor James Kennett of the University of California at Santa Barbara, in a statement.

An international team also found building materials and pottery shards melted into glass. Mud bricks had heat bubbles. These are all indications of unusually high temperatures, which would have occurred during the biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. There was no man-made technology at the time that could have produced such astonishing damage.

Tall el-Hamman has been the focus of an ongoing debate as to whether it could be the biblical city of Sodom. In the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God for how wicked their inhabitants had become. One inhabitant, Lot, was saved by two angels who instructed him not to look behind as they fled. But Lot’s wife lingers and is turned into a pillar of salt. Meanwhile, fire and brimstone fall from the sky; multiple cities were destroyed; thick smoke rose from the fires; city inhabitants were killed and area crops were destroyed in what sounds like an eyewitness account of a cosmic impact event.

“There is evidence of a large cosmic fireball, close to Tall el-Hammam,” says Prof. Kennett. He likens the extraordinary event to the 1908 Tunguska Event when a 12 megaton meteor destroyed 80 million trees across 830 square miles of eastern Siberia. It would have also been similar to the impact that did away with the dinosaurs but on a much smaller scale.

Further proof was provided by the identification of melted metals, including iron and silica, in samples of soil and sediments. The settlement had hosted early civilization for thousands of years. At the time it was ten and five times larger than Jerusalem and Jericho, respectively.

“All the observations stated in Genesis are consistent with a cosmic fireball. But there is no scientific proof this destroyed city is indeed the Sodom of the Old Testament,” says Kennett. 

No such proof is needed, of course. The Bible says the city was destroyed in this way, and now the super-heated ruins have been found. So perish the wicked, for God will not be mocked - Deus Vult!

Keep up to date!

Optional email code

Sign up to our newsletter today!

Send me email updates