The Fallacy of Biblical Stories, Part 9: Sodom and Gomorrah
Hi everyone, it has been a long time since I last posted an article in my fallacy of biblical stories series. So, I thought now might be a good time to do so. If you reviewed the previous articles in the series, you might have noticed the bible often takes a rather dramatic flair with its stories. And there are few biblical stories with more dramatic flair than the biblical story of Sodom & Gomorrah (hereafter referred to as S&G). This story has God being pissed off and blaming his creations (as usual), debauchery, attempted angel rape, death, destruction, and of course, magically turning people into kitchen condiments. This story has it all, playing out like a big budget Hollywood disaster film. Without further delay, I will summarize the story and then dive right into the evidence to see if this story is worth its salt (see what I did there, Lol) in veracity.
According to the bible, S&G were 2 especially sinful cities. Apparently, things there were so bad, God decided they needed to be wiped off the map. Some theists argue that the primary “sin” prevalent in the cities was homosexuality, while some claim it was inhospitality, or other deviant acts. And they didn’t even have internet porn back then. But as we’ve learned by now, God hates it when his humans have a good time and party. But rather than simply snapping his fingers and literally erasing S&G from the map, because God could totally do that with His omnipotent powers, He got all dramatic and rained fire and brimstone down on the cities, destroying them and everyone who lived there. Apparently, this included children and animals, because kids and pets are totally wicked and ripe for divine retribution, right?
Even God’s biggest fan, Abraham, took issue with God’s plan of ancient urban renewal and pleaded with God to spare the inhabitants, including Lot & his family. So God told Abe He would spare the cities if 10 righteous people could be found. Because a supposedly omniscient God does not know if there are 10 decent people living in the cities. Go figure! To this end, God assigned 2 angels to the task. Of course, when the angels arrived, a mob wanted a piece of angel poon, for which they were promptly blinded. So the angels tell Lot & Co. to flee the city while God threw one of His classic temper tantrums and not look back. While fleeing, Lot’s wife looked back on the devastation unfolding and was turned into a pile of salt. Kind of like what happened to the crew of the USS Exeter from the Star Trek: TOS episode, “The Omega Glory.” But I digress. Oh yeah, Lot’s daughters later got Lot drunk and raped him. So I suppose that means rape and incest are not at a city-worthy-of-destruction “sin” level? Because that doesn’t sound very “righteous” to me. But apparently, God was ok with it.
That is the biblical story of S&G. Now let’s look at any evidence to see if the story occurred as depicted in the bible. Was it God’s doing? Or perhaps some natural phenomenon or other explanation?
1. Location, location, location: Archaeologists from the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project (TeHEP) have discovered ancient ruins that may have been (according to their opinions) the actual cities of S&G in the eastern Jordan River Valley north of the Dead Sea. Their findings coincide somewhat with biblical descriptions of where the cities may have been located. However, there is not definitive proof that the cities discovered were the actual S&G, or that they existed at all. But I am willing to accept the opinions of the research team and accept that S&G existed. In addition, the TeHEP team also discovered other towns or cities in a 500 km area similarly destroyed approximately around the same time as S&G, 1700-1900 years ago, give or take a century. So the archaeological evidence does circumstantially support the biblical mention of S&G. The Industrial site of Sedom, Israel is presumed to be near the site of S&G.
2. Maybe it was an earthquake or a gas leak: An earthquake would explain the level of destruction caused, especially over a wide area as archaeological discoveries have found. Nothing flattens a city better than an earthquake. Except for maybe an asteroid (more on that later). But what about the fire and brimstone aspects of the story? Petroleum and petroleum deposits around the Dead Sea may have ignited due to the earthquake and provided the “fire and brimstone” in the story. Fissures and hot springs in the ground around the region have been known to erupt petroleum gasses. Seismic upheaval could certainly cause a release of said gasses. It fits the story.
3. Maybe God was playing Cosmic Missile Command? Or it was an asteroid: Another explanation as to the actual cause of S&G destruction was an asteroid or meteor explosion over the cities. According to Universe Today , an asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded before impact. The resulting blast wave, heat, and pressure would have been enough to level the cities and kill its inhabitants. This is not an unknown occurrence either. One example of such an occurrence is the Tunguska Event of 1908 in which an asteroid exploded over the Podkamennaya River in Russia and flattened 2,150 square kilometers of forest, without leaving an actual impact crater. Imagine if that happened over a city? The zone of destruction would also explain the other towns or cities destroyed in the general region of S&G, as mentioned in point 1. More recently, there was the Chelyabinsk Meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013. The blast was more powerful than a nuclear bomb detonation and brighter than the sun. People reported feeling intense heat too. To ancient people, this might appear like a fireball in the sky raining down divine justice. But it is instead a naturally occurring catastrophe rather than a divine one. which we’ve observed multiple times too. An article in Forbes also details evidence supporting an asteroid impact event.
4. Pass the salt! I mean, my wife: This is probably the most ludicrous part, but also probably the most easily explained part of the story; Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt. Mt. Sodom along the Southwestern part of the Dead Sea in Israel (in the region where S&G supposedly existed) is a hill composed of 80% salt, with actual salt caves. Salt deposits would have been quite common in the area, including those resembling Lot’s wife after her sodium makeover. It is not unsurprising that a superstitious people in a moment of panic would think a person turning to salt is a perfectly acceptable explanation as to why one’s spouse would go missing in the chaos. Therefore, the idea of Lot’s wife literally being turned to salt is probably just biblical exaggeration or storytelling.
So there it is. While S&G could have existed, rather than being destroyed by divine forces, it is more likely and plausible they were destroyed by natural forces. Natural phenomenon explains this story just it does with other biblical stories like the Great Flood , celestial events , or the Plagues of Egypt. What are your thoughts?
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Another biblical story that is easily explained by natural events and circumstances. No god or divine intervention required or necessary. That seems to be a recurring pattern too.
But the S&G story is probably a "lesson" to frighten people when they think about disobeying god. Or what some "religious authority" claims about god. Basically a boogeyman story.
Angel poon - don’t knock it till you try it!
I hear it’s divine 👍
The inhabitants of S&G wanted to try it. But the angels were having none if it.
According to Kevin Smith’s movie Dogma (one of my favorites) angels have no genitals, so they’d just be bumpin baldies.
They must have traded them for wings. Not necessarily a good trade.
That doesn't sound like Heaven to me. More like Hell!
Angels don't need genitalia. They don't reproduce because God creates angels out of magic dust and thin air
The same way he supposedly created humans. It's amazing that some people actually believe that.
meh, their fucking wings would get in the way...
Maybe they would like having their wings pulled?
Some people like their hair pulled....
All the Angels are Tinkerbells?????
To each their own.
So.........what you are saying is that I was lied to as a child.. I KNEW it wasn't unicorn farts...lying bastards.
Tinkerbell was hot, I'm good with it.
Yes. But if the person who told you that really believed it, was it really a lie?
I think she likes to be called "Tink."
Just one more example of god putting in a lot of unnecessary effort for absolute minimal payoff. He destroys these supposedly sinful cities and then the ones he allows to survive promptly rape each other. So the lesson learned was....?
For a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient being his plans seem to have a habit of never working out, which by definition is impossible.
Well, this is the same entity that supposedly drown the entire planet because he was mad at some of the inhabitants in one location. Fucking psycho.
There are those who actually defend or rationalize such actions from their deity. In effect, they give God a free pass, because, God.
Yup. He spared Lot and his family (minus the sodium chloride wife) just for his daughters to get him drunk and commit incest with him.
Pinpoint precision on that whole "smiting the sinners" thing
And the thing is, he is supposedly omniscient so he KNEW that was going to happen, which begs the question, what was the point in destroying the cities in the first place if the survivors were gonna do something just as bad immediately? Unless of course the death and destruction was the whole point, in which case he is indeed a malevolent being.
A side note, ever notice how much incest there is in the Bible? It almost seems like that is the biblical God’s preferred method of reproduction.
I think the bible demonstrates that many times over. Just look at all the atrocities God commits, especially in the OT.
But apparently, Abraham was able to convince god to hold off on city destruction for a while. As if God wasn't sure if there were people in the cities worth sparing.
That's the only way to explain Adam & Eve . Except that it doesn't.
Giggity.
God never seemed to have good aim. Or cared about who got caught in his retributive blast radius.
I have noticed, and ew.
Adam and Eve's sons must have gotten busy with their mom.
Abraham and Sarah.
Kissing cousins among Noah's family.
Lot and his daughters.
Amnon and Tamar (with their father David, who was supposedly such a great man, despite committing adultery and murder, doing nothing until his other son Absalom killed Amnon).
God really seems to choose his heroes and survivors extraordinarily badly. He's like a girl with codependency issues - always falling for the bad boy.
If one believes the Adam & Eve story as literally true (even though it's highly unlikely), that's exactly what must have happened.
Probably something natural happened and a story was made up and embellished to scare people into following the priests
Much like the other bible stories too.
More than likely. Or else they were just destroyed by some enemy or another that history has forgotten about. Although given human history I would almost say that is a natural event.
That is another possibility.
That is probably as equally plausible as saying "God did it." Perhaps even more so.
Just another story from the minds of ancient men with an agenda.
The factor that I find most interesting is the contradiction of God as defined by the Bible.
Yet again we have a situation where an omniscient entity (one who knows the future) somehow discovers something that He did not know. An omniscient God knew exactly what S&G would turn into. No need to be angry (a primitive emotion for the supreme being) when what God knew would happen actually happens. And, of course, if this is not what an omnipotent God wanted, He certainly had the power to prevent S&G from evolving as it did.
The Bible defines a God character that is self-refuting; God is defined as a contradiction. Thus God, as defined by the Bible, does not exist. There might be a supreme sentient entity but it is not the God character as defined by the Bible.
He also didn't know if there were righteous people in S&G. So he had to send 2 angel to find out for Him. Then he apparently didn't know that the so-called righteous people living there, namely Lot & his family, were actually not so righteous after all. Lot's wife disobeys God order and his daughters rape him. Somehow, God was oblivious to that.
A blatantly obvious contradiction.
Which of course gets completely glossed over or ignored by some. Or at the very least, quite a bit of pretzel logic to explain the contradiction.
There might be a supreme sentient entity but it is not the God character as defined by the Bible.
For all anyone knows the entity only put humans on earth to as a maintenance crew to take care of the real intended inheritors of the planet: vegetation. Maybe it just put us here to produce carbon dioxide for the plants that it so loves and communicates with every day. Maybe it cares as much about our life as we care about that unsightly weed on the edge of the sidewalk. That would certainly explain a lot.
And a real bang up job we've been doing so far. >sarc<
We're the weeds.
So I just finished reading this to my family. They were amused and also agree totally with your points. You have a flair. I think I will read one of them to the family every night.
Thank you. I'm glad everyone liked it.
There are 9 articles so far. Job might possibly be the 10th. Although, I'm always open to suggestions. Personally, I think the first 3 articles in the series: The Great Flood, Adam & Eve, & the Plagues of Egypt, are the best in the series.
I loved the Plagues article. It was my favorite. It will be fun sharing them with my "non-believer" family. Now my daughter is Catholic (still), but even she doesn't accept the Bible as truth. She considers it more as a guide book on what NOT to do (you know killing & maiming is bad). She is more of a new rather than old testament & doesn't like PaulSaul at all. SHe is very much into logic & knows the Bible doesn't hold up, but I truly think her faith brings her comfort and I will not begrudge her that with her health issues. She did like your article though.
I noticed that cornjeffmag hasn't commented on this one - did you finally chase him away with the truth?
I'm glad you liked them. I try to take a logical approach and examine any evidence. Clearly some are not interested in logic, as they fail to logically refute any of the points made, much less support their own position with anything beyond "God did it."
Wasn't there a part of the story where Lot offered up (pimped) his daughters to the angels that came to his door ?
Not quite. Lot offered the angels hospitality. It was the mob of people that wanted some angel action. Lot offered his own daughters to the mob instead of the angels. Lot was basically pimping his daughters to the mob to save the angels. I don't think Lot will be winning any dad of the year awards with that one.
So they were like........you know...
That's how I envision how angels look. That's my version of Heaven right there, Lol
If they had her in church, I might have stayed religious
I might have found religion
I came across this article , which only reaffirms the likelihood that a meteor impact or blast was responsible for the destruction of S&G, based on the evidence gathered during archaeological excavations. The details of the evidence and results were recently published in the journal Scientific Reports . It's nice when science provides the answers.