The angels agreed and went to the house of Lot. Lot was a foreigner to the realm of Sodom and not succumbed to the lustful, degenerate sins rampant in the city.
One of the most prevalent sins in Sodom was the homosexuality of the men, engaging in sexual relations with the other men and boys. Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.
Lot pleaded with the crowd to reconsider, even offering his two virgin daughters in place of the two visiting men, whose angelic identity was apparently unknown to the lustful sodomites. As the crowd moved to break down the door, the men inside pulled Lot back inside and shut the door. Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it. After Lot is unable to convince his sons-in-law to leave the city, he fled Sodom with his wife and two daughters encouraged by the two angels that the Lord will look after them.
The angels first tell Lot to flee to the mountains, but Lot requests that his family go to a nearby city, named Zoar, to ensure their survival.
The Bible describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis , stating:. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Her action suggests that she identified with the people of Sodom. Now the story of Sodom and Gomorrah serves as a lesson of the consequences of sin and the wrath of God. God reveals to Abraham the destruction of Sodom: Genesis The two who are supposed to have been created angels went toward Sodom. The one who is called Jehovah throughout the chapter continued with Abraham, and would not hide from him the thing he intended to do.
Though God long forbears with sinners, from which they fancy that the Lord does not see, and does not regard; yet when the day of his wrath comes, he will look toward them.
The Lord will give Abraham an opportunity to intercede with him, and shows him the reason for his conduct. Consider, as a very bright part of Abraham's character and example, that he not only prayed with his family, but he was very careful to teach and rule them well. Those who expect family blessings must make conscience of family duty.
Abraham did not fill their heads with matters of doubtful dispute, but he taught them to be serious and devout in the worship of God and to be honest in their dealings with all men. One of them has stood for thousands of years as a powerful lesson in the perils of wickedness: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
According to the Bible, the men of Sodom 'were wicked, such sinners against the Lord, He decided to destroy them'. God allowed Lot, the one good man living there, to flee the town with his family, before God showed his wrath. But Lot's wife disobeyed God's warning not to look back towards Sodom as she fled, and she was turned into a pillar of salt, where she stood.
For the wicked people of Sodom, not even that escape was open to them: soon the Lord showed his displeasure, and 'rained down fire and brimstone He destroyed everyone living there and everything growing in the ground'. There's no agreement among archaeologists, scientists and Biblical scholars that Sodom and Gomorrah existed at all The story is certainly dramatic - but is it just fiction?
There's no agreement among archaeologists, scientists and Biblical scholars that Sodom, and its sister town Gomorrah, existed at all - let alone that it came to a sudden and apocalyptic end. However, one man is convinced that Sodom and Gomorrah not only existed, but were also destroyed by a terrible natural apocalypse matching the description in the Book of Genesis.
Graham Harris is a retired geologist with a passion for solving ancient riddles - and the clues to this one, he says, are in the Bible itself. Harris spent a decade working in the area.
He became convinced the conditions there were right for a huge earthquake that would trigger a massive landslide. So complete would be the destruction, the event would pass into folklore. Could science prove that Harris's scenario might have happened? They travelled to the Middle East to pursue their research, and their findings there enabled Dr Gopal Madabhushi, at the Cambridge University Centrifuge Laboratory back in England, to build an accurate scaled-down model of the buildings in Sodom, and the ground on which they stood.
Dr Madabhushi then subjected the model to a simulated earthquake - and his data provided the ultimate proof on whether whole towns could have been destroyed. The whole area around the Dead Sea is now parched and barren, and the image of thriving towns is incongruous. But there was one point in the history of the region when a wetter climate meant the entire area could well have thrived - in the early Bronze Age, between BC and BC.
Tubb excavated a site called Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, north of the Dead Sea. He found evidence of an early olive oil factory, showing how sophisticated life had become, even in these ancient times. Tubb believes the early Bronze Age was the only time that towns matching the descriptions of Sodom and Gomorrah could have existed at all.
So were there big earthquakes in the early Bronze Age? According to American forensic anthropologist Professor Mike Finnegan, the answer is yes. He has examined the skeletons of three men discovered at the early Bronze Age site of Numeira near the Dead Sea. From the way their bones were broken, he concluded that they were crushed to death - possibly because an earthquake brought down a stone tower on top of them.
In an alternative scenario, the researchers propose that a comet, composed mostly of ice, may have exploded above the desert. Layers of spherules, used in the study to argue for a large explosion, can also form slowly over time. As shooting stars disintegrate in Earth's atmosphere, the spherules fall from the sky and can become concentrated in layers by geological processes, like erosion and deposition.
The destruction of the city may have also been caused by an invasion and a large fire, explaining the partially melted artifacts and why the site was abandoned. Zircon is a common mineral, and not strictly associated with impact events.
As intriguing as the preliminary results are, further research is necessary. This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. Nov 10, , pm EST. Nov 9, , pm EST.
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