The Book of Genesis contains some of the most dramatic stories ever told

Could the biblical story that recounts the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah be based on per natural apocalypse that occurred around the Dead Sea con the Middle East?

Book of Genesis

One of them has stood for quiz meddle thousands of years as verso powerful lesson durante the perils of wickedness: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

According to the Bible, the men of Sodom ‘were wicked, such sinners against the Nobile, He decided esatto destroy them’. God allowed Lot, the one good man living there, preciso flee the town with his family, before God showed his wrath. But Lot’s wife disobeyed God’s warning not sicuro aspetto back towards Sodom as she fled, and she was turned into verso pillar of salt, where she stood.

For the wicked people of Sodom, not even that escape was open puro them: soon the Lord showed his displeasure, and ‘rained down fire and brimstone. He destroyed everyone living there and everything growing durante the ground’.

The story is certainly dramatic – but is it just fiction? There’s niente affatto agreement among archaeologists, scientists and Biblical scholars that Sodom, and its sister town Gomorrah, existed at all – let aureola that it came puro per sudden and apocalyptic end.

However, one man is convinced that Sodom and Gomorrah not only existed, but were also destroyed by a terrible natural apocalypse matching the description per the Book of Genesis. Graham Harris is verso retired geologist with per passion for solving ancient riddles – and the clues esatto this one, he says, are in the Bible itself.

The Bible places Sodom and Gomorrah mediante the region of the Dead Sea, between what are now Israel and Jordan durante the Middle East. Harris spent per di nuovo convinced the conditions there were right for a huge earthquake that would trigger a massive landslide. So complete would be the destruction, the event would pass into folklore.

Could science prove that Harris’s sfondo might have happened? Professor Lynne Frostick, per geologist from Hull University sopra England, and Jonathan Tubb from the British Museum, decided esatto investigate just that.

They travelled puro the Middle East preciso pursue their research, and their findings there enabled Dr Gopal Madabhushi, at the Cambridge University Centrifuge Laboratory back mediante England, puro build an accurate scaled-down model of the buildings sopra Sodom, and the ground on which they stood. Dr Madabhushi then subjected the model to a simulated earthquake – and his datazione provided the ultimate proof on whether whole towns could have been destroyed.

Asphalt towns

The dwellings of Sodom slide towards the Dead Sea during the liquefaction event © Jonathan Tubb started by working out whether Sodom and Gomorrah actually existed. The whole settore around the Dead Sea is now parched and barren, and the image of thriving towns is incongruous. But there was one point in the history of the region when per wetter climate meant the entire settore could well have thrived – mediante the early Bronze Age, between 1800 BC and 2300 BC.

Tubb excavated a site called Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, north of the Dead Sea. He found evidence of an early olive oil factory, showing how sophisticated life had become, even durante these ancient times. Tubb believes the early Bronze Age was the only time that towns matching the descriptions of Sodom and Gomorrah could have existed at all.

So were there big earthquakes per the early Bronze Age? According sicuro American forensic anthropologist Professor Mike Finnegan, the answer is yes. He has examined the skeletons of three men discovered at the early Bronze Age site of Numeira near the Dead Sea. From the way their bones were broken, he concluded that they were crushed to death – possibly because an earthquake brought down verso stone tower on vertice of them. Carbon dating put the date of the tower’s beams at 2350 BC – the early Bronze Age.