This week The History Channel aired the fifth episode of Season 4 for their series The UneXplained titled "Acts of God". While the first site they deal with of the Durupınar site in Turkey has been debunked as the remains of Noah's Ark (Ron Wyatt's view) and I have examined the site personally in Turkey in 2006, the second feature of the program examined our site that we claim is Sodom. I have excavated at this site as a field supervisor of the Roman/Byzantine remains from the first season for 10 of the 15 seasons. I see myself in the upper right hand corner of the drone shot at 0.24 of the clip sitting at my desk ready for my days work
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| I am sitting at my desk in the red circle next to the square I supervised. |
William Shatner asked the question "What could be the significance of Lots wife turning into a pillar of salt?"
Well I have answered that for Shatner in a peer reviewed article titled: “Sodom And Salt in Their Ancient Near Eastern Cultural Context.” Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin 61 (2016): 18–36. I guess he did not dig deep enough for his answer. In the article I make the connection between the air burst and the resulting dispersion of salt over the Jordan Valley. I believe I am the first member of the Tall al-Hammam team to publish on this idea and great to see the graphics demonstrating this hypothesis in the TV program.
Note that neither Prof. Hussain nor Dr. Cargill have anything to do with the excavations at Tall el-Hammam and have been added to perhaps give an academic perspective but their statements represent the skeptical perspective, although subtle.
Amir Hussain, is the Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and his specialty is the study of Islam, not archaeology. He states that the story in the Bible is "meant to be a metaphor, when you don't do what God wants here is what God does to destroy you, its God's power manifested, its an act of God." Good to have a Muslim perspective considered a metaphor about the story in the Bible.
Robert Cargill, a professor of religious studies at the University of Iowa states "Fire and brimstone, one of those unexplained mysteries, and there has been alot of theories and this probably has something to do with wanting evidence that proves faith. Alot of people believe in these stories, and archaeology can confirm them."
Dr. Collins the director of the excavation does a good job at what the evidence can and cannot do to counter Cargill's claims.
Dr. Phil Silva, the director of scientific research for Tall el-Hammam does a good job at describing the air-burst proxies. I thought I saw somewhere in the program where they noted the scientific paper but going back I do not see it. Here it is for those who might be interested in the academic peer reviewed research done by many scholars on the air-burst phenomena that took out Tall al-Hammam and much of the Jordan Valley at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. T. E. Bunch, M.A. LeCompte, A.V. Adedeji, et al. "A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea." Scientific Reports 11, no 1 18632 (2021), 1-64. I have announced this earlier on my blog.
Shatner asks, "Is it a natural event or an act of God?" Well it could reasonably be both because God can certainly bring about his purposed by the use of his own creation. One does not need to say that because there is a natural event that it explains away God. Both go hand in hand.
Overall it is a good synopsis of our work at Tall al-hammam and some wonderful drone shots.
For my response to some of the criticism of the report:
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For more on the Location and Destruction of Sodom:
And "Sodom And Salt in Their Ancient Near Eastern Cultural Context Near East," Archaeological Society Bulletin 2016.
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PhD. Dissertation University of Aberdeen. The Influence of Ancient Near Eastern Vassal Treaties on the Seven Prophetic Messages in Revelation.
Updated January 11, 2023
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