Research Finds Sodom and Gomorrah Incinerated by a Fireball

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
According to the Bible, ​Sodom and Gomorrah were so sinful, that God decided to punish them with total destruction. It came in the form of a fireball from the sky.​ 

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Excavation at Tall el-Hammam (Source - NatGeo)

Now the accuracy of that story has been proven. Researchers describe that a meteor "cloudburst" incinerated the cities' 8,000 inhabitants in the blink of an eye.

It's turns out that God's punishment was so severe that it left only ashes in its wake.

This event occurred about 1650 B.C., and twenty miles away Jericho's wall came down.

Scientists now believe the heavenly event described in the Bible was literally a meteor that fell from the sky and destroyed everything in its path, including multiple cities and small villages.

It razed a 100-acre city on the northern shore of the Jordan River Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea. The fireball laid waste to the area and ruined agriculture for several hundred years.

It detonated about 2.5 miles above the earth, but even at that distance the blast created a 740 mph shock wave. There were no survivors.

Humans and animals were incinerated as proven by examination of remains. There was extreme disarticulation and fragmentation of bones.

According to Professor James Kennett of the University of California at Santa Barbara:

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We saw evidence for temperatures greater than 2,000 C. There is evidence of a large cosmic fireball, close to this city called Tall el_Hammam. I think one of the main discoveries is shocked quartz. These are sand grains containing cracks that form only under very high pressure. We have shocked quartz from this layer. That means there were incredible pressures involved to shock the quartz crystals. Quartz is one of the hardest minerals. It is very hard to shock.

Human remains in the Middle Bronze Age destruction layer at Tall el-Ḥammâm. The remain were not in a burial, but found within the destruction layer of the city.

Since 2005, archaeologists have been working at this ancient wall city located in a part of the Great Rift Valley known as the Middle Ghor.

Tall el-Hamman had been settled for thousands of years,  during the Chalcolithic Period and the Bronze Age. It was five times larger than Jerusalem, and ten times larger than Jericho.

Evidence was found where this event was comparable to the Tunguska Blast, or a smaller version of the impact that killed the dinosaurs.

Pottery shards and building materials melted into glass, which can only be obtained through extremely high temperatures. Soil samples found melted metals, including iron.

There had been debate as to whether Tall el-Hamman was the biblical city of Sodom. It's believed the event generated the story that inspired the account written in the book of Genesis. It also could have played a part of the story of the burning of Jericho in the Book of Joshua.

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Scene from In Search of: Sodom and Gomorrah c.1979

The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah
The biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah is recorded in Genesis. Abraham is told by God and two angels that “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous” that it faced destruction. Abraham pleads for the righteous people living there, including his nephew Lot and his family.

Two angels disguised as men visit Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot meets them at the city square and invites them to his home. That night, “before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.’”

The angels blinded the men around the house, and warn Lot to flee with his family before God brings his wrath down on the sinners. "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, including all those living in the cities.”

According to the Bible (Genesis 19), the sins against God that brought down destruction on them was not only homosexuality, but other despicable conduct. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.”

Sodom became the basis for the concept of “sodomy” to refer to deviant sexual behavior. From Gomorrah came the prefix “amora”, which also denotes human sexual behavior that goes against nature.

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