Sodom found?

[rogue06]

Interesting, but I'd like to hear from experts in the relative fields involved adding their two cents.

Source: Ancient city destroyed by 'atomic blast' is biblical city of Sodom, expert claims

Excavations in Jordan are evidence that one of the Bible's most dramatic and improbable stories could be literally true, according to top theologian Dr John Bergsma

A theologian claims archaeological finds in Jordan are proof the biblical city of Sodom really existed.

Scientists previously found evidence that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the southern Jordan Valley was destroyed in a catastrophic event.

And Dr John Bergsma, a Professor of Theology at Ohio’s Franciscan University, suggests such an event mirrors what is in the Bible.

According to Genesis, God rained sulphur and fire 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 perspective 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 larger and more powerful than Jerusalem or Jericho.

But almost overnight it was gone.

The absence of any arrowheads or other signs of a siege in the ruins suggested that whatever destroyed Tall el-Hammam and its neighbour, it 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 discovered on the site had been covered in Trinitite.

Trinitite, Dr Bergsma explained, is “that glass layer that 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…

“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.”

The airburst also appeared to have produced large amounts of salt, according to James Kennett, emeritus professor of earth science at the University of California.

It calls to mind the story of Lot’s wife being turned to 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.

Professor Kennett has said that it’s possible the event simply inspired later legends such as Sodom or the destruction of Jericho.

But Dr Bergsma is convinced, saying: “It really changed my perspective on the Old Testament map because what it pointed out to me is things that sounded too outlandish to be history…is actually shown to be a historical event.”


Source

© Copyright Original Source

[tabibito]

Interesting, but I'd like to hear from experts in the relative fields involved adding their two cents.

Source: Ancient city destroyed by 'atomic blast' is biblical city of Sodom, expert claims

Excavations in Jordan are evidence that one of the Bible's most dramatic and improbable stories could be literally true, according to top theologian Dr John Bergsma

A theologian claims archaeological finds in Jordan are proof the biblical city of Sodom really existed.

Scientists previously found evidence that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the southern Jordan Valley was destroyed in a catastrophic event.

And Dr John Bergsma, a Professor of Theology at Ohio’s Franciscan University, suggests such an event mirrors what is in the Bible.

According to Genesis, God rained sulphur and fire 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 perspective 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 larger and more powerful than Jerusalem or Jericho.

But almost overnight it was gone.

The absence of any arrowheads or other signs of a siege in the ruins suggested that whatever destroyed Tall el-Hammam and its neighbour, it 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 discovered on the site had been covered in Trinitite.

Trinitite, Dr Bergsma explained, is “that glass layer that 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…

“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.”

The airburst also appeared to have produced large amounts of salt, according to James Kennett, emeritus professor of earth science at the University of California.

It calls to mind the story of Lot’s wife being turned to 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.

Professor Kennett has said that it’s possible the event simply inspired later legends such as Sodom or the destruction of Jericho.

But Dr Bergsma is convinced, saying: “It really changed my perspective on the Old Testament map because what it pointed out to me is things that sounded too outlandish to be history…is actually shown to be a historical event.”


Source

© Copyright Original Source

Yup - the possibility of a bolide was floated in 2014 (at the latest) and that it was a bolide was mentioned last year. Somewhere in between, there should be a mention of the findings in your post, but I can't locate the thread. However, there is additional significant information included here, including but not restricted to the skeletons, which I don't remember from the earlier mention.

[rogue06]

Yup - the possibility of a bolide was floated in 2014 (at the latest) and that it was a bolide was mentioned last year. Somewhere in between, there should be a mention of the findings in your post, but I can't locate the thread. However, there is additional significant information included here, including but not restricted to the skeletons, which I don't remember from the earlier mention.

H_A has a thread on it Asteroid strike offers a feasible explanation for Biblical story of Sodom, that she started almost two years ago in 2021^[1] and in which you linked to a considerably older thread, Sodom and Gomorrah Discovered from 2014.

The bit about the skeletons, if accurately described here, isn't something I would think one would tend to forget.



1. which gets derailed fairly quickly but does get back on track.

[Sparko]

The typical way this goes is:

1. Skeptic: There is no proof that X ever happened! The bible is fantasy and myth.
2. Christian: Here is evidence that supports X happened just like the bible says.
3. Skeptic: Well X might have happened but it was an entirely natural event and the writers of the bible made up a myth to explain it..

[tabibito]

The bit about the skeletons, if accurately described here, isn't something I would think one would tend to forget.

True that. The bit about the salt definitely was also not mentioned previously.

[Ronson]

Interesting, but I'd like to hear from experts in the relative fields involved adding their two cents.

Couldn't a lot of that evidence about sudden destruction also be applied to Maui?

[rogue06]

Couldn't a lot of that evidence about sudden destruction also be applied to Maui?

Hard to have that sort of wild fire in that region, but moreover, if they have evidence of some sort of trinitite (atomsite) layering, we're not looking at any ordinary fire. Then of course regular fires don't burn bodies like that, at least AFAIK.

[One Bad Pig]

It's a little concerning that this is coming from a theologian, not an archaeologist.

[rogue06]

It's a little concerning that this is coming from a theologian, not an archaeologist.

Who seems to be relaying what Steven Collins has said rather than the reporter asking Collins directly. That's what led to my comment regarding how "I'd like to hear from experts in the relative fields involved adding their two cents."

[tabibito]

It's a little concerning that this is coming from a theologian, not an archaeologist.

The 2021 report:

Ted E. Bunch 1, Malcolm A. LeCompte 2, A. Victor Adedeji 3, James H. Wittke 1,
T. David Burleigh 4, Robert E. Hermes 5, Charles Mooney 6, Dale Batchelor 7,
Wendy S. Wolbach 8, Joel Kathan 8, Gunther Kletetschka 9,10, Mark C. L. Patterson 11,
Edward C. Swindel 12, Timothy Witwer 13, George A. Howard 14, Siddhartha Mitra 15,
Christopher R. Moore 16, Kurt Langworthy 17, James P. Kennett 18, Allen West 13* &
Phillip J. Silvia 19

We present evidence that in ~ 1650 BCE (~ 3600 years ago), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall
el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age city in the southern Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead
Sea.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1Geology Program, School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011,
USA. 2Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research, Elizabeth City State University,
Elizabeth City, NC 27909, USA. 3Department of Natural Sciences, Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth
City, NC 27909, USA. 4Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, New Mexico Institute On Mining & Technology,
Socorro, NM 87801, USA. 5Los Alamos National Laboratory (Retired), Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. 6Analytical
Instrumentation Facility, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA. 7EAG Laboratories, Eurofins
Materials Science, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA. 8Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, DePaul University,
Chicago, IL 60614, USA. 9Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 903 Koyukuk Drive, College,
AK 99775, USA. 10Faculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, Prague 12843, Czech Republic. 11Southern
Research Institute, 757 Tom Martin Drive, Birmingham, AL 35211, USA. 12US Navy, NAVFAC Mid-Atlantic
Region, NS Norfolk, VA 23511, USA. 13Comet Research Group, Prescott, AZ 86301, USA. 14Restoration Systems,
L.L.C., Raleigh, NC 27604, USA. 15Department of Geological Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville,
NC 27858, USA. 16Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of South Carolina, New Ellenton, SC 29809, USA. 17CAMCOR, University of Oregon, 1443
E 13th Ave, Eugene, OR 97403, USA. 18Department of Earth Science and Marine Science Institute, University of
California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. 19College of Archaeology, Trinity Southwest University, Albuquerque,
NM 87109, USA. *email: CometResearchGroup@gmail.com

Matters arising (2022), a number of objections by Steven Jarret and Scott Harris including:

The importance of uniquely diagnostic evidence for shock metamorphism
Bunch et al.¹ however, fail to demonstrate convincing evidence of impact-shocked minerals in the proposed air burst deposit by not following well-established guidelines and criteria^{6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13}. And although the authors also report the presence of ultra-high-temperature mineral phases and geochemical enrichments in melts that often are used to distinguish impact glasses from those produced by volcanoes, lightning, and pyrometamorphism, these criteria have little meaning in the context of archeological debris where our ancestors had access to ceramic and smelting technologies.
-------------------------------------------------------------

• Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10024, USA Steven J. Jaret
• Department of Space Sciences, Fernbank Science Center, Atlanta, GA, 30307, USA R. Scott Harris

Editorial comment February 2023

15 February 2023 Editor’s Note: Readers are alerted that concerns raised about the data presented and the conclusions of this article are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues.

The corrections don't make any significant changes, but the authors' credentials are nicely laid out.