New geological evidence shows the site of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was utterly obliterated by an explosive meteor blast.
“Radiocarbon dating and unearthed minerals that instantly crystallized at high temperatures indicate that a massive airburst caused by a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere instantaneously destroyed civilization,” says archaeologist Phillip Silvia.
This new evidence lends even greater credibility to the Biblical account where these cities of sin were destroyed by God.
Archeologists have found evidence of Bronze Age settlements in the region north of the Dead Sea that were destroyed approximately 3,700 years ago.
The area, a 25-kilometer-wide circular plain believed to be the site of Sodom and Gomorrah, was so desolated that people did not return to resettle the region for 600-700 years.
At the sites, every single building was destroyed leaving behind only their stone foundations.
The outer layers of pottery found at the site were melted to glass by temperatures scientists say were as hot as the sun.
Spherical mineral grains appeared to have rained down from the sky indicated enormously high force winds.
This “cosmic blast” would have instantly killed the estimated 40,000 to 65,000 people who lived in the region at the time.
Scientists have documented similar evidence at sites destroyed by meteors that have exploded in the atmosphere upon entry.
According to Science News, “An apparent meteor blast over a sparsely populated Siberian region in 1908, known as the Tunguska event, killed no one but flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest. And a meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 injured more than 1,600 people, mainly due to broken glass from windows that were blown out.”
But this blast was far more powerful and destructive than those seen in recent history.
Not only is there evidence of the destruction of these cities, but samples of the soil have found a high level of salt which destroyed once fertile soil with what scientists called “a super-heated brine of Dead Sea anhydride salts.”
Scientists say these salts could have come from the Dead Sea as the blast washed waves of salty water over the land.
However, as you may recall, a key part of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction was when God turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.
“Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus, he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”
This study was conducted by a team of scientists from New Mexico Tech, Northern Arizona University, NC State University, Elizabeth City (NC) State University, DePaul University, Trinity Southwest University, the Comet Research Group, and Los Alamos National Laboratories.
The team set out to answer the question about how, “the most productive agricultural land in the region, which had supported flourishing civilizations continuously for at least 3,000 years, should suddenly relinquish, then resist, human habitation for such a long period of time has begged investigation.”
It might not have been such a mystery if they had been reading their Bibles.
More and more scientific and archeological studies are finding evidence to prove the Bible’s stories true.
See just a few of these discoveries covered by CLD here.
