A theologian claims archaeological finds in Jordan prove the biblical city of Sodom existed. Scientists previously found evidence that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the southern Jordan Valley was destroyed in a disastrous event. Dr. John Bergsma, a professor of Theology at Ohio’s Franciscan University, suggests such an event echoes what’s in the Bible.
According to Genesis, God rained fire and sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah for their “wickedness,” completely obliterating them. Examples of such devastation were seen in Tall el-Hammam, and what was found completely changed Dr. Bergsma’s viewpoint on the Old Testament. He recalled evidence of extreme heating on skeletons and fragments of pottery found by the archaeologists, which could have been proof of a direct hit from an asteroid.
About 3,600 years ago, the city of Tall el-Hammam was thriving, significantly more prominent and influential than Jericho or Jerusalem. But almost overnight, it was gone. The absence of arrowheads or other signs of a siege in the ruins suggested that whatever destroyed Tall el-Hammam and its neighbor wasn’t a military attack. Steven Collins, the principal archaeologist at Tall el-Hammam, told Dr. Bergsma about some of the astonishing findings.
He discovered pieces of pottery on the site that were covered in trinitite. Dr. Bergsma explained that trinitite is “that glass layer you get when you set off an atomic bomb in the desert, and it melts the sand.” Dr. Bergsma continued, “They also started to find human remains. Human skeletons that are complete up until about halfway up the backbone, and then there’s just a scorch mark, and there’s nothing on the top of the body.”
He added, “They find massive evidence that a huge heat blast from the sky at about 25C above the horizon incinerated these twin cities on the Jordanian side of the river.” Steven Collins likened the devastation to the Tunguska Event of 1908, when a massive asteroid slammed into the Earth’s atmosphere over Siberia, causing widespread devastation.
He continued: “The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a 50-metre-wide bolide detonated with 1,000 times more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.” According to James Kennett, emeritus professor of earth science at the University of California, the airburst also appeared to have produced large amounts of salt.
It calls to mind the story of Lot’s wife being turned into salt after the destruction of Sodom. “The salt was thrown up due to the high impact pressures,” he said. “And it may be that the impact partially hit the Dead Sea, which is rich in salt.” Some archaeologists have accused Mr. Collins of jumping to conclusions without enough evidence.