The contention for the location of Sodom and Gomorrah continue to this day, and while some biblical archeologists claim they have been found, many others believe they never will be. Often times these conclusions are influenced by the polarized paradigms concerning biblical history. However, the biblical data is clear as to the whereabouts of both cities are, yet legends often transcend into the minds of the experts which may render their work inconclusive in this regard. Nevertheless, it is imperative for biblical scholars and archeologists who are devoted to the Word of God as true and reliable, to begin with the Bible and work from that fundamental resource in their search for the long-lost cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Because the Bible is not only historical literature, but ancient data surrounding a culture of a people group spanning thousands of years, starting from another resource in order to illuminate the sacred content would be a non-sequitur, possibly compromising the historicity of the proto-Israelite culture and minimizing its content as a peripheral branch of Near-Eastern archeology.
The potential locations for Sodom are narrowed down to the area surrounding the Dead Sea, in what the Bible calls the “Cities of the Plain,”[1] Biblically referred to as kikkar, as in a disk or a circle (Jordan Disk),[2] and when Abraham and Lot overlooked the Jordan Valley, the “entire expanse of the Kikkar is clearly visible.”[3] There are two, distinct archeological digs which are paradigmatically supported by scholars and archeologists alike. The first is called the Southern Sodom Theory (SST) and the second is the Northern Sodom Theory (NST). Each one carries its own burden in proving the exact location of Sodom and Gomorrah. Archeologists and scholars have carefully applied their skills, yet the conclusions nevertheless will inevitably and inherently be dependent on the Biblical text for confirmation, considering it is the primary source for the location of these two ancient cities.[4]
The Southern Sodom Theory places “the Cities of the Plain in the southern region of the Dead Sea.”[5] The site is called Bâb edh-Dhra, where William F. Albright “found the remains of a heavily fortified and settled community with walled buildings, an extensive open-air settlement, houses, numerous cemeteries, and scattered artifacts-all signs that a large population once lived there.”[6] However, after assessing the archeological evidence compiled, he “concluded that this was not one of the Cities of the Plain but a place of pilgrimage where annual cultic feasts were celebrated.” Nevertheless, the plight continued between 1965 and 1967 when “Bâb edh-Dhra was further excavated under the direction of Paul Lapp,”[7] and later continued by Walter Rast and Thomas Schaub. This site unearthed a cemetery containing twenty thousand tombs[8] and eventually was concluded “that the town had been a prominent settlement in the Early Bronze Age.”[9] Furthermore, the evidence of a catastrophic event took place in the city because the entire “town site was covered by a layer of ash many feet in thickness.”[10] Not only did the city appear to have been destroyed by fire, but likewise it began from above the rooftops, as if it came down from the sky.[11] When the first description of the Cities of the Plain is mentioned in the Bible where Abraham and Lot parted ways (Gen. 13), it was described as a plush basin with a diversity of agriculture, and the geological evidence and Bâb edh-Dhra site shows that this was the case.[12]
The positions held by SST advocates are elastic, and for those like Bryant Wood, 2166-1991 B.C. is the likely era “for the existence of the Patriarchs.”[13] However, this is in contrast with the archeological evidence surrounding the Bâb edh-Dhra site, which was proposed to have been destroyed in 2350 B.C.[14] Likewise, Albright’s conclusions about the date of Abraham (1950-1540 B.C.) are weakened by the evidence surrounding the existence of Sodom in the Early Bronze Age, in addition to details within “Genesis 10 and the Ebla tablets”[15] both corroborating that there is no justifiable reason why archeologists and scholars should contend that Sodom is located at the Bâb edh-Dhra site.[16] During the presumed period for the destruction of Sodom at this particular site, Collins writes that anyone “living during the Iron Age and familiar with the Dead Sea area would have known about the impressive ruins at Bab edh-Dhra and smaller neighboring sites.”[17] This perhaps is why legends found their place in history, specifically surrounding this particular site, and the desolation that remained there until this day which continues to add fuel to the ongoing debate.
The Northern Sodom Theory bases its presupposition on the biblical text, placing “them at the northern end of the Dead Sea, in the Jordan Valley.”[18] The sites were discovered by Steven Collins and is called Tall el-Hammân, which is believed to be “the most promising site for Sodom among the possible candidates.”[19] The proposition by Collings reflects the position held by “many archeologists prior to Albright”[20] because it best fits the Biblical text. This particular site is dated to the Middle Bronze Age around 1600 B.C., which was later refined to a more specific date-range between 1750-1650 B.C.[21] The city wasn’t occupied “for over five centuries” following its demise and the site contained evidence of “scorched foundations and floors buried under nearly 3 feet of dark grey ash.”[22] In addition to this, the pottery sherds appeared to have been “exposed to temperatures well in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit,”[23] indicating a very high-heated conflagration comparable to a nuclear explosion which destroyed the city and killed its inhabitants instantly. Therefore, the heat “required to melt pottery” and create traces of “trinitite indicates”[24] that what took place at Tall el-Hammân was remarkably extraordinary. The skeletal remains likewise provide ample evidence that the inhabitants were protecting themselves from being incinerated.[25]
Because “several significant cities and towns flourished” in the north-eastern region of the Dead Sea, Collins argues that it is the only possible location for the Cities of the Plain, and the Pentateuchal writers “would ever have thought to locate Sodom and Gomorrah”[26] in the desolate area of the southern Dead Sea region. Essentially, the area in question was relatively occupied except for a five-century period following its conflagration in the Middle Bronze Age when Abraham and the Patriarchs were to have lived, while the “Late Bronze Age seems conspicuously absent throughout the eastern Kikkar.”[27] More importantly, when the Bible lists “all the Cities of the Plain are listed together, they always appear in a particular order—Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim.”[28] This is further supported by the Pentateuch when Transjordan cities are listed as large cities followed by their smaller, satellite city. Collins implies that if this interpretation is correct in addition to the surveyed sites near Tall el-Hammânm further corroborates this as a viable location for the city of Sodom.[29] The sequence of cities named in the Biblical text juxtaposed against “the reports the area being a wasteland during the Late Bronze Age,”[30] coupled with the Biblical data, “is well enough to put an end both to the Albrightian legend of the southern Dead Sea location, and the Finkelsteinian9 legend about aetiological legends.”[31] Provided there was damage to the site because of Ottoman and Jordanian activities, nevertheless, this provided a snap shot “providing an early and easy read of the stratigraphy of the tall.[32] Thus, Collins summates that Tall el-Hammânm “is in the right place (Eastern side of the kikkar), at the right time (MB destruction), with the right stuff (a large city-state with human remains in the destruction layer and evidence of trinitite usually formed by high temperatures).”[33]
Although the weaknesses and strength to both locations are evidence-based as has been shown, the likelihood that these two sites were incarnated by a ‘primary’ (God) or ‘secondary’ (other means) cause is developed from several theories. One aspect is that it was destroyed by a volcano which could have “stimulated the biblical myth.”[34] Another likely cause could have been an earthquake, yet the quake which had occurred took place around 2350 B.C., which also doesn’t corroborate with the claim for the time of the Patriarchs to have occurred during the Middle Bronze Age, and not the Early Bronze dated destruction of Bab edh-Dhra in 2350 B.C. However, it must be noted that if an earthquake destroyed the Bab edh-Dhra site, “it could have also taken out the TeD.”[35] Another position would be that the Cities of the Plain was destroyed through the occurrence known as liquification. This paradigm theorizes that “the cities were destroyed by an earthquake that toppled buildings and liquified the rocks and soil underneath.”[36] This is, for the most part, a defense of the SST, specifically the inundation theory that asserts the earthquake caused the cities to “slide into ‘the southern extremity of the present day North Basin of the Dead Sea’ in the northeast corner of the Lisan Peninsula.”[37] However, as Graves points out, “with the Dead Sea at its lowest point in historical memory, there is no evidence at present of any ruins underneath the Dead Sea.”[38] In the end, these theories are intrinsically based on the fact that both sites Bab edh-Dhra and Tall el-Hammânm “lie on the fault line of the Great Rift Valley” and the prolixity of geological hypotheticals “is no indication to its location.”[39]
Among the evidence provided for both positions, and although the Southern Sodom Theory is attractive if one were to peripherally focus on the desolating aspect of the Pentapolis, unfortunately the evidence does not reflect the overall data surrounding the location of Sodom. The Northern Sodom Theory’s position appears to physically corroborate not only the conflagrative event recorded in the Bible, but likewise the geological, archeologic, propositional (the North-South city sequence) and Biblical evidence surrounding the Cities of the Plain in Genesis 13. Because the Word of God is true (John 17:17), and the numerous times Jesus referred to the historical people, places and events in the Pentateuch, it only follows that the Bible would be a good place to start in the search for any potential, archeological site pertaining to the Sacred Text. Dr. Steve Collins is right to begin there as his primary source, with his findings being “very convincing”[40] and “by far the strongest candidate for the site of Sodom.”[41]
Footnotes:
[1] David E. Graves, Biblical Archeology Volume 1: An Introduction with Recent Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, (Toronto: Electronic Christian Media, 2017), 122.
[2] Steven Collins, “If You Thought You Knew the Location of Sodom and Gomorrah…Think Again,” The Academic Journal of Trinity Southwest University 7, no. 4 (2007): 2-3. Accessed June 2018. http://nebula.wsimg.com/1ebd2d675286d6909607a31c99461da6?AccessKeyId=0DC57D8CA671AC05ECA4&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
[3] Ibid., 4.
[4] David E. Graves, Key Facts for the Location of Sodom: Student Edition, Navigating the Maze if Arguments, (New Brunswick, CA: Crossway Bibles, 2001), 25.
[5] David E. Graves, Biblical Archeology Volume 1: An Introduction with Recent Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, (Toronto: Electronic Christian Media, 2017), 125.
[6] Randall Price, The Stones Cry Out: What Archeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible, (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 114.
[7] David E. Graves, Biblical Archeology Volume 1: An Introduction with Recent Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, (Toronto: Electronic Christian Media, 2017), 127.
[8] Ibid., 127.
[9] Randall Price, The Stones Cry Out: What Archeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible, (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 115.
[10] Ibid., 115.
[11] Wood, Bryant G. “The Discovery of the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Bible and Spade 12, no. 3 (1999): 67–80.
[12] Ibid.
[13] David E. Graves, Biblical Archeology Volume 1: An Introduction with Recent Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, (Toronto: Electronic Christian Media, 2017), 129.
[14] Ibid., 129.
[15] Ibid., 129.
[16] Ibid., 129.
[17] Steven Collins, “If You Thought You Knew the Location of Sodom and Gomorrah…Think Again,” The Academic Journal of Trinity Southwest University 7, no. 4 (2007): 2. Accessed June 2018. http://nebula.wsimg.com/1ebd2d675286d6909607a31c99461da6?AccessKeyId=0DC57D8CA671AC05ECA4&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
[18] David E. Graves, Biblical Archeology Volume 1: An Introduction with Recent Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, (Toronto: Electronic Christian Media, 2017), 125.
[19] Ibid., 130.
[20] Ibid., 129.
[21] Ibid., 130.
[22] Ibid., 131.
[23] Ibid., 131.
[24] Ibid., 131.
[25] David E. Graves, Key Facts for the Location of Sodom: Student Edition, Navigating the Maze if Arguments, (New Brunswick, CA: Crossway Bibles, 2001), 127.
[26] Steven Collins, “If You Thought You Knew the Location of Sodom and Gomorrah…Think Again,” The Academic Journal of Trinity Southwest University 7, no. 4 (2007): 3. Accessed June 2018. http://nebula.wsimg.com/1ebd2d675286d6909607a31c99461da6?AccessKeyId=0DC57D8CA671AC05ECA4&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
[27] Ibid., 5
[28] Ibid., 5.
[29] Ibid., 5.
[30] Ibid., 5.
[31] Ibid., 6.
[32] David E. Graves, Key Facts for the Location of Sodom: Student Edition, Navigating the Maze if Arguments, (New Brunswick, CA: Crossway Bibles, 2001), 54.
[33] Ibid., 54.
[34] Ibid., 128.
[35] Ibid., 128.
[36] Ibid., 129.
[37] Ibid., 128-129.
[38] Ibid., 129.
[39] Ibid., 129.
[40] Ibid., 54.
[41] Ibid., 55.
Ken G. Palmer 