skepticalbip

The problem with the OP is that it assumes that there was a city named Sodom and it was destroyed by "fire" because the Bible says there was a city named Sodom that was destroyed by fire. There could have been such a city or maybe not. The story could have been a fictional morality tale intended to warn of punishment for sinful actions.

There is no way to know if Sodom actually existed or not just as there is no way to know if El Dorado was an actual city or a mythical city. And even if there were a Sodom that doesn't mean that these particular ruins are Sodom. Mythology of all cultures tell stories of actual places and tell stories of imaginary places. If another old Inca ruin were found in the Andes and the finder declared it was El Dorado because he found some gold there, would that mean that the El Dorado myth was reality and this particular ruin was actually the fabled El Dorado?

There are biblical stories based on actual events and then there are stores that are purely fable. The story of Jonah and the whale is an example of imagined mythology. Finding whale bones dating to that era doesn't "prove" the Jonah whale story true even if the person finding those bones declaired that those bones were from the very whale that swallowed Jonah.

outhouse

This is all wishful thinking.

To date, there is nothing that indicates the true origin.

the best bet is the Mesopotamian cuneiform that list Sodom and Gomorrah as a city no where near the black sea.

When we look at the facts that Israelites formed after 1200 BC from displaced Canaanites, then we have to look at the possibility of the story originating from the Israelites exile in Mesopotamia and the legends they picked up there, and brought back with them.



Anything else, is unknown and just wishful thinking

credoconsolans

Just because the Hebrews came up with a story about Sodom around 1500 years later doesn't mean they didn't base their story on an earlier disaster about some city that might have been told by word of mouth for generations.

Jarhyn

Honestly, I don't see a problem with the idea that the Sodom and Gomorrah stories represent an actual event in history.

We have extensive evidence that certain myths had roots in actual events; There was a very large flood that wiped out a lot of the area bordering the Euphrates river. It's referenced in a lot of cultures, and many of ancient cultures who lived in the area thought it was the end of the world. Even cultures that lived near relatively near there imported flood myths. As it turns out, from what I've been told by sources in archeology more keen to know than myself, it was just a year with lots of flooding, where one guy jacked another guy's boat and rode out the flood with a large store of grain and animals. There is a reality associated with it, but it's not the reality presented.

As per this story, I don't see any reason why survivors wouldn't think such an event meant the wrath of god(s) being brought down on a city. We have objective proof that meteors make landfall and can wipe out a city or kill/injure its residents. We've seen it happen a number of times in only the last 200 years. You'd expect one to have taken out some fairly large population center at some point in 10k years of recent human history

Then you just mix in the moral prejudices of the survivors, and what they remember from before the event. What starts out as a guy entertaining some friends and having some asshole try to break into his place, and either getting fed up with it and moving, or going with his family to visit friends nearby when the city gets wiped out, and when one of his family members is either left behind (his wife most likely) or gets hit by a piece of spalling or additional space debris turns into "Me and my family, we lived in a wicked place where them weirdos tried raping everyone, and god told us to leave so we did, and the city got blown up by almighty Dog."

It's essentially a survivor story colored by personal prejudice and bad memory. If there was ever a town in the area that got wiped out, it very well could be the origin of the myth. But that doesn't change the mythical elements being anything but BULLSHIT, and so it does not redeem the Bable in the slightest for being full of it.

outhouse

The real places come from the same place the real flood had happened.

The Euphrates did overflow in 2900 BC and flood legends arose afterwards. But we dont know if King Ziusudra actually lived despite him being on the Sumerian kings list.


But if we take the real flood and Noahs mythology, it shares almost nothing.

The same can be said for this mythology, because at this point its not a legend with a possible historical core, it is mythology as written.


The other problem here is what historical core there is, is flat unknown. Atleast for teh flood we can trace the mythology backwards for thousands of years.

Cheerful Charlie

The article does not do that. The story in the bible gives an approximate location for Sodom. There we find a tell that was burnt badly. It may have been nothing more than a fire that quickly got out of hand and destroyed a city. Roofs then were often thick thatches of palm fronds. Quite flammable. Other examples are known. Or destroyed in some war or other, also common. The Bible tall tale teller knowing of the obvious ruins built a tall tale around it. Devoid of any historicity except for mound of a burnt out ancient city nobody knew anything worth telling about but existing.The tell is there, so is the bible tall tale.
A little digging shows the fiery end of the city. The Sodom tale involves a fiery end. this sort of thing is common in the OT, Witness the ruins that the Bible writer called Ai,
Hebrew for ruins. Abandoned long before any Israelite was in the area. But a tale was built around the abandoned tell. We now know where the reputed city of Sodom probably was as far as the mise en scene of the Sodom tall tale teller. And why Sodom supposedly ended in a fiery and violent manner, to fit that tell.

Cheerful Charlie

ThePainefulTruth

The "former" was referring to the "possibilities" that preceded the meteor explanation.

God's existence, God's creation of this natural (supernaturally exclusive) universe, and God's supernatural interaction in this natural universe, are all separate questions--the second two being moot is the first proposition is in the negative.

Why would who die for what lie?

ThePainefulTruth

Ty.

I assume that it's likely there was a city named Sodom, in that area. Until the evidence presented in this article, I too assumed it was likely a myth with no evidence to verify any historical core to the myth.

The point is, if the article is correct, it undermines the supernatural elements of the myth, but only if it's from the area (the Cities of the Plain) referred to in the Bible.

It would, once again, show that there are historical references in the Bible, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, it would once again show up the mythology. This confirmation of history, and exposure of the myth, can only be another battle won for the side of Truth.

But not now, with this evidence. And which is it: no historical core, or what historical core there is.

Read the article, or at least the quotes from it in the OP. It wasn't some fire that got out of hand, it was a conflagration that could only have been volcanic or some meteoric event, and volcanism is unlikely because it wouldn't have happened as quickly as this did.

Jarhyn

It all depends on the origin of the myth. When the Euphrates broke its banks, it was a HUGE event that left many survivors and many dead. Every culture in the area had experience with the "flood", saw its effects, and had access to survivors.

The destruction of two cities by space debris, particularly if those two cities were quite close and there were few survivors, would have led to a very different distribution of stories; the stories would largely be passed down only by the cultures to which the survivors belonged. Other cultures would probably just attribute it to more mundane occurrences such as earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, and/or war. It's such an odd story that I find it unlikely that 100% of the elements were simply ass-pulls.

I think other biblical stories also have likely sources in actual events; It's quite likely that at some point in time, there was a small group of people (40 or less and not necessarily Hebrews) who escaped from slavery by crossing a river, using a time of upheaval and hardship for cover. To them it would certainly have seemed a major event, but to everyone else it's just some escaped slaves and nobody would give a shit. Stuff gets embellished over time: The person they escaped from was a Pharoh... They didn't just migrate in, they took the area by force... They didn't just take it from normal men but from GIANTS! "Someone please help us slaves" becomes "We knew someone would liberate us" once someone does, either someone who helped them, or one of the slaves who came up with the plan to escape; it's confirmation bias.

We see similar patterns in modern lies. It wasn't just a drunk guy pounding on your door... it was a guy trying to break in.... and he had a gun... and you chased him off with your own gun... except of course that it really WAS just a drunk guy, and all you did was cower in the corner screaming "I have a gun" until he went away.

A good measure of where stories come from involves a careful investigation as to the sorts of elements which are likely to be embellished and the elements which are the core events which would be passed on. At some point, I find it quite plausible that there was some sort of fire that came from above that destroyed a city.

skepticalbip

The purpose and aim of the search was to "prove" that the bible is a historically accurate accout. The "truth" of the bible is assumed to be unquestionable. The assertions in the article use the same logic that true believers in bigfoot apply in their search to verify the "truth" of bigfoot accounts. Any unexplained tuft of hair or scat found in the Pacific Northwest is "proof" of bigfoot. Odd depressions in soil is "bigfoot prints".

The origional searches for Sodom were conducted in the area far to the south where biblical scholors all agreed the bible specified Sodom was located. They couldn't find anything that even their most feverant handwaving make fit - though a few were tried. Having run out of places to look where Sodom was "known" to be, they figured "Well we know the story is true so let's look elsewhere".

Yes, they found ruins (they found ruins in the south too. Ruins are everywhere). Yes, they found evidence of destruction by fire. Sodom means ruins and fire but the logic is not reversable ... ruins and fire does not mean Sodom even though for "true believers" it does just as hair tufts + scat = Bigfood for "true believers" in the bigfoot stories.

Could the biblical Sodom story have a basis in fact? Absolutely, it could, maybe. Is the finding of these ruins "proof" that the story does have a basis in fact and that these ruins are, in fact, Sodom? Absolutely not, though it could be just as some of those hair tufts may be from some critter that gave rise to the bigfoot stories.