Original subtitles

Male narrator: Sodom and Gomorrah, a tale of two cities

incinerated by a hail of fire and brimstone.

Is this a fantastic fable, or could it be a near apocalyptic

disaster from space?

Think about your worst atomic nightmare striking at just the wrong time.

Narrator: Newly discovered evidence might hold the secrets

to one of the Bible's greatest mysteries.

If you find an artifact that looks similar to trinitite, then

we know it has to be an highly energetic event.

Science always said, "Well, you can't test the Bible."

- No, you can test the Bible. Narrator: - Could a natural

disaster be responsible for the destruction of Sodom and

Gomorrah? Ancient mysteries shrouded in

the shadows of time. Now, can they finally be solved

by looking to the heavens? The truth is up there, hidden

among the stars, in a place we call the universe.

Sync and corrections by n17t01 www.addic7ed.com

Sodom and Gomorrah, a chilling saga of the Sin Cities in the

ancient world.

Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the most sensational

stories that tells us about sex, violence, greed, and divine

wrath and punishment.

Narrator: According to the Old Testament's book of Genesis,

the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be so

wicked... that God destroys them

with fire and brimstone from the heavens.

In ancient times, the skies were where the heavens are,

where the gods are.

And so in a sense these were messages from the gods of some

impending doom or disaster.

Narrator: Is this a biblical parable about the price of sin,

or might the story be based on a real-life disaster--

a literal fire from the sky?

The Bible tells of events where we're now realizing can be

matched up with historical events that we can go back and verify.

Narrator: Archaeologists, astronomers, and biblical

scholars have spent years trying to uncover any truth to this

age-old tale. Now modern science reveals that the story might have been an

actual asteroid impact event.

If you were lucky enough, or perhaps unlucky enough

to actually see a meteor entering the atmosphere,

breaking into pieces, perhaps causing a wave to sweep over

you, of air, as its pressure passed by, that is a story you

- would not forget. - Ancient peoples may not have

connected it to our modern astronomical knowledge the way

we do of a population of asteroids, but I think the idea

of rocks falling from the sky is probably something I'm sure the

ancient peoples must've been aware of.

Narrator: Asteroids are chunks of rock, metals, and dust

that are the leftover material from the formation of the solar system.

Many of them are no more than a

few feet across... but some are the size of moons.

The majority of them circulate around our Sun, between Mars and

Jupiter. However, occasionally, they're

nudged out of their orbit and head on a collision course with Earth.

A small fraction of the objects that hit the Earth are made out of iron and nickel

metal, very strong, and actually make a pretty nice crater on the

surface of the Earth. The most common asteroids that

fall on the Earth are the stony asteroids.

They literally have the composition of stone.

Like a-- like any rock you'd pick up here on the surface of the

Earth. Some of these very weak rocky

objects never actually can make it to the surface of the Earth.

Narrator: Weaker stony asteroids often explode when

striking the Earth's atmosphere, creating a cosmic airburst.

A cosmic airburst is when an asteroid or a comet hits the

atmosphere and essentially disintegrates.

It explodes, because the atmosphere feels like a brick

wall to this rapidly oncoming asteroid or comet.

The atmosphere itself is enough of a block to explode this thing.

Narrator: How might one of these asteroids produce the destruction of Sodom and

Gomorrah as described in the biblical texts?

_

What sort of devastation would an iron asteroid

produce... as opposed to a stony cosmic rock?

To demonstrate that, we're gonna actually use two different

firearms here to examine the effects of these types of

impacts. I've got a rather powerful rifle

here, an M1 Garand. And we're gonna fire a single,

intact projectile that's gonna represent one of our larger,

more strong asteroids. And then, to talk about a

smaller, weaker asteroid, I've got a Remington 870 shotgun

here and a shotgun round with the birdshot in the shell.

And that's gonna represent one of the smaller, weaker

asteroids, which has fragmented in the-- in the atmosphere.

And we're gonna see the effects then of what sort of blast that

might create in our pile of sand.

Narrator: The .30 caliber single projectile is loaded into

the rifle and fired.

- That's a good crater. Narrator: - Next, the birdshot

is discharged from the shotgun.

Okay, let's see what we have here.

This is perfect. We have our rifle shot here,

representing our large, strong asteroid...

which made it to the surface of the ground, to make

an impact crater. We've dug out, just to show you

here the typical size of the impacter.

The crater being several times larger than the asteroid itself.

To the side, here, we see the result from our shotgun blast.

Our small, weak asteroid, which fragmented in the atmosphere

and the debris from the blast, the heat pulse, that results in

some destruction. And so it's a good illustration

of the two different types of impact.

Narrator: A large iron asteroid could have flattened

Sodom and Gomorrah... and left a crater, while a

weaker, stony asteroid would have shattered in the

atmosphere... but might have

generated enough fiery debris to incinerate the Sin Cities.

To figure out if one of these cosmic impact scenarios is

correct... archaeologists first

need to prove if and where the biblical sites actually existed.

Well, there's a very ancient belief that there were once

cities down around the Dead Sea that are no longer there and

that what happened to those cities was something fell out

of the sky and smashed them.

Narrator: Clues about Sodom and Gomorrah first appear in the

book of Genesis, Chapter 13. The biblical text tells the

story of Lot, a shepherd and nephew of Abraham, the patriarch

of the Bible. Lot parts ways with his uncle

in search of more land for his sheep.

Abraham and Lot stand on a mountaintop, northwest of

Jericho, and look down at the ancient land of Canaan.

Today, it's the region surrounding the Dead Sea, the

salt-laden lake separating Israel and Jordan.

When Abraham and Lot looked down to the east, into the

Jordan Valley, they look into what is described as the "Kikar"

of the Jordan.

Now, "Kikar" is a Hebrew word that can mean a circular disc.

And certainly from a geographical standpoint, that

area of the Jordan plain just north of the dead sea does

widen out into kind of a disc.

Narrator: The Bible says that Lot pitches his tent toward

Sodom, one of a cluster of five settlements called "The cities

of the plain." They include Gomorrah, Adman,

Zeboim, and Zoar.

And it's said in Genesis that the plain of the Jordan was

well-watered. And to this day, that plain is

still well-watered. And so that pins it down

geographically. That's to the north.

Narrator: Archaeologists scour the region northeast of

the Dead Sea. They discover the eerie remains

of 14 ancient sites. Tall El-Hammam, the largest of

the ruins, most closely fits the biblical description of Sodom.

Covering nearly 100 acres, the city was once fortified with

40-foot stone walls, massive city gates, and a maze of

streets lined with mud structures.

Tall El-Hammam is the largest site in that entire area, which

would make one think, if it's Sodom, then being such a large

- site, it would fit that. Narrator: - Tall El-Hammam was

also most likely a wealthy city, which ties it to the biblical story.

According to Genesis, two angels

disguised as men come to warn Lot of God's impending wrath.

Lot invites them into his home and feeds them.

But the other men of the city offer no hospitality and

instead demand to have sex with the visitors.

The sin of Sodom is actually unknown in the Bible.

The story has been interpreted that it is the sin of sexuality.

Most biblical scholars, however, say the actual sin of Sodom and

Gomorrah deals with hospitality and the lack of hospitality.

Typically, nomads were much more hospitable than people that

- lived in the cities. - The prophet Ezekiel, writing

later in the Old Testament, he says the people in Sodom had too

much to eat, and they were heartless, and they didn't take

care of poor people. That's what he says is wrong

- with them. Narrator: - Lot, the only

hospitable man in Sodom, is allowed to flee the city, along

with his wife and daughters. But they're warned to never look

- back. - "Don't look back," is saying,

in other words, "Look, don't you understand you got in trouble by

pitching your tents toward Sodom?

When you get out, I don't want you looking towards Sodom."

Narrator: While Lot and his family head for the mountains...

fire and brimstone rains down on Sodom.

Lot's wife disobeys the forewarning.

She stares back at the inferno and turns into a pillar of salt.

Is this passage merely a moral metaphor?

Or might it have a literal meaning that helps connect the

story to this location in the Middle East?

All along the shores of the Dead Sea are encrusted salt

formations and sculptures that actually look like people.

There is a pillar that, if you look up, you can see the figure

of a woman. This is one of the ideas for

Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt story.

Narrator: So these salt pillars provide further evidence

that Sodom and Gomorrah might've been located near the Dead Sea.

But can the asteroid impact theory explain how a person

could appear to turn into a pillar of salt?

And if Tall El-Hammam is indeed the biblical city of Sodom, do

the sands of time conceal evidence of a firestorm from space?

Narrator: Sodom and Gomorrah, two biblical cities destroyed by

fire and brimstone. Is this a cautionary tale, or

are these actual cities that fall victim to a cosmic disaster

of biblical proportions, an asteroid impact?

Science's job is supposed to investigate reality and truth.

And they always said, "Well, you can't test the Bible."

No, you can test the Bible.

Narrator: Archaeologists dig for the truth among the ruins of

Tall El-Hammam, located over eight miles northeast of the

Dead Sea. The ancient city appears to fit

the biblical description of Sodom.

Excavators dig down through the layers of dirt to what some

believe is the approximate time period of Abraham and Lot,

between 1750 and 1650 BC, the Middle Bronze Age.

A spade suddenly hits a four-foot layer of spongy ash.

It's evidence that the city experienced some sort of sudden,

fiery catastrophe.

The archaeologist who comes up with a nice, sulfur-laden

burn level is beginning to convince me that he's dealing

with the right place...

if it's down in the area where Sodom and Gomorrah might've been.

Narrator: Within the sooty

layer, archaeologists unearth a few human bones, violently mixed

among smashed mud bricks and stones.

There were a few bones. The bones were jumbled and

hyperextended and twisted. It looked kind of ghastly.

And the bones were charred. The dramatic thing is, after its

destruction, it's not reoccupied again until the Iron Age, which

- occurs 500 years later. Narrator: - What could have

caused such a massive inferno that rendered the city

uninhabitable for generations? Evidence of fire spawns new

theories. Some think the city was

destroyed by a volcanic eruption.

However, there's no evidence of volcanism in the region.

Others suspect a massive earthquake might have triggered

oil fires. Or perhaps an enemy sacked the

- city and set it ablaze. - We're talking about heat that

vaporizes things. The gas fire is not gonna reach

the temperatures that we're talkin' about.

Narrator: While sifting through the sand, archaeologists

stumble upon something else quite unexpected-- pottery shards

bearing a mysterious layer of greenish glaze.

The discovery is baffling. The glazing of pottery isn't

invented until over 800 years after the alleged time period of

- Sodom. - I have looked at pottery from

Tall El-Hammam that had a coating of greenish glaze on it,

despite the fact that glazing as a surface treatment was not

common in that region until the Middle Ages.

So being on such an early piece of pottery, the feeling was is

that it has to come from some other cause.

Narrator: The glaze on the pottery shards appears to have

been produced by extreme heat at over 3,000 degrees fahrenheit

and then quickly cooled.

The whole point is that it has to be a very high

temperature burn. Not just a normal fire burn

here, but something stronger than that.

Narrator: The glazing on the pottery bears a striking

resemblance to trinitite, the glass produced by the first

atomic bomb tests at the Trinity site in New Mexico in 1945.

In an airburst event, what happens is you get a fireball

that makes a big bubble.

This bubble then collapses upon itself, and that's how you get

the stem.

And what happens is, is all the material, all the dirt that's

thrown up into that stem then gets entrapped into the

fireball. And that material just simply

melts as droplets and falls back down.

And that's how you got the trinitite.

These are examples of rocks we found down at Trinity site.

Here's a standard piece of trinitite that has the nice,

shiny surface on top. And in this particular case, it

has the beaded bottom. So the-- all these little beads

dropped out of the sky first, and the shiny top here is a

glomeration of all the beads that were still melted.

Narrator: Similar glass has been found in the Sahara desert

in Libya... but its formation

predates the atomic age by almost 30 million years.

Here's a natural example of a type of glass that was formed in

the Libyan desert during an airburst event, we think, some

30 million years ago.

Think of the intense heating it took to turn desert sand into

- this glassy material. - There were no nuclear bombs

then, so the only conclusion that can produce that kind of

power and more is a cosmic impact.

Narrator: No impact crater is found in the entire region of

the Middle East... so the only other thing that could produce

such staggeringly high temperatures would be an

asteroid that explodes in the Earth's atmosphere...

a cosmic airburst.

[Explosion]

The temperatures inside the center of one of these airbursts

are incredibly high.

Much more immense than, for example, the temperature of a

volcano or even, like, an oil fire, which may only reach a few

thousand degrees.

Narrator: So could a cosmic airburst have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?

Let's demonstrate the power

of an airburst event with a simple, homemade experiment, here.

I've just made a little vortex cannon.

It's a-- just a plastic bucket

with a hole in the-- in the end here to blast some air out of.

We're gonna use this plastic diaphragm on the back to

actually move the air. And this is gonna basically show

us the power of-- of moving air. To make this a little easier to

see, we're gonna fill this with a bit of smoke.

Okay, there we go. Okay, let's see if we can blow

down our wall of cups here.

Excellent. So when I pop the back diaphragm

here... we can actually move a lot

of air out of the hole. So that shows the power of

moving air. Imagine now an actual airburst

event, where you've got megatons worth of blast energy going on,

and, instead of blowing down a wall of paper cups, we could

blow down an actual wall of mud bricks, uh, maybe the walls of

a fortified city. And so real airburst events,

coupled with the intense heat from the fireball and from the

hot, turbulent gases near the surface, might well be capable

- of firing pottery. Narrator: - In addition to

glazed pottery shards, glassy material resembling actual

trinitite also has been discovered at the site of Tall El-Hammam.

The pieces need to be

scientifically analyzed, but could they confirm that the city

was destroyed by a cosmic airburst event?

If you were looking anywhere in the world for either cosmic

impact or airburst, you would look for material that looked

similar to this, the trinitite. This is a very nice piece that

shows the really nice, deep, green structure.

These are examples of what I call taffy-like material, thrown

out immediately from the blast. So all trinitite does not look

the same. If you find an artifact that has

material on it that looks similar to trinitite, then we

know it has to be an highly energetic event, like an

asteroid.

Narrator: The atomic bomb tests of 1945 demonstrate that

an asteroid airburst has the capability of generating

tremendous heat and energy. But is there any real proof that

this type of cosmic event produced the devastation

described in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?

The answer to this mystery lies in one of the most remote places

on Earth.

Narrator: Sodom and Gomorrah. Did these ancient cities suffer

the wrath of God or a cosmic cataclysm?

Archaeological evidence points to 14 ruined cities northeast of

the Dead Sea. One of the sites,

Tall El-Hammam, bears the unmistakable signs of a thermal

catastrophe-- a thick ash layer,

charred human bones, and possibly trinitite, a

glassy material only produced by extremely high temperatures,

such as a nuclear blast or an asteroid that explodes in the

- atmosphere. - The airburst is basically

like exploding a bomb up in the air...

and you have a shockwave that propagates with huge speeds, and

then can be extremely devastating.

Narrator: But what are the odds that this could happen on Earth?

Over the last 100 years, Earth

experiences two major cosmic airburst events.

In 1908, a 200-foot-wide asteroid explodes in the sky

above Siberia's Tunguska wilderness.

You got to think, these things are coming into the

atmosphere at something like Mach 60, right?

And that pressure was too much for that object to take.

And it detonated in the atmosphere with the explosive

energy of something like two or three megatons.

Narrator: Most of the rock disintegrates upon entering the

Earth's atmosphere, so it doesn't leave a crater.

But it releases heat and shockwaves... which topple

80 million trees over an 800-square mile region.

The Tunguska event is a great example of a devastating

airburst. Something like that,

traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, when it

explodes, it creates this big shockwave.

In the case of the Tunguska, it happened over a forest, and you

see this tremendous impact wave that flattened these trees like

- little toothpicks. Narrator: - No one is killed or

injured as a result of the Tunguska event because it

occurs over a desolate forest. But this isn't the case the next

time Russia experiences a cosmic attack.

On February 15th, 2013, a 50-foot asteroid explodes over

the city of Chelyabinsk with almost 30 times the energy

released from the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

The amazing thing about the Chelyabinsk event is that it was

so beautifully documented.

There are hundreds of video cameras, dash cams, photographs,

cell phones, so we're able to really analyze how destructive

it truly was.

Almost two minutes after the actual sighting, a huge sonic

boom was unleashed and broke windows, injured about 1,500

people, primarily from broken glass.

- It was just very damaging. Narrator: - The events in

Tunguska and Chelyabinsk are tangible evidence that a cosmic

airburst could have decimated Sodom and Gomorrah.

A Tunguska event occurring over a mud-and-stick city in the

second millennium BC would have completely annihilated it.

The buildings back then weren't very strong.

They could easily fall apart. All kinds of fires could erupt

from the heat generated.

There would be nothing left.

Narrator: Such a cosmic event can even explain the fire and

brimstone mentioned in the biblical story.

Now the translation that brings us brimstone simply

meant, "Yellow fire, yellow light."

So really, at the very minimum, what we can interpret about

this is that a bright yellow fire rained down upon Sodom.

That could easily be a meteor passing through the atmosphere,

leaving behind a trail of smoke and fire in its wake.

When this raining down effect occurs, then you see all these

particles that are just beet red from the heat until they

finally coalesce and land on the ground.

From somebody way back in time, seeing this, they would think

that would be an act of God. We know today that that's

probably an asteroid impact or something like that.

Narrator: If a cosmic airburst destroyed Sodom

and Gomorrah, it might also explain another curious line

from the biblical text, which says...

_

As far as the Sodom and Gomorrah story, it's entirely

plausible that what they saw was essentially a mushroom cloud.

And that mushroom cloud would've looked like a big smokestack,

much like what the nuclear bombs look like when they go off.

A lot of energy gets deposited in a very short amount

of time. That lifts debris from the

ground. Moreover, everything catches on

fire, creating more smoke and ash.

Yeah, you would have had a huge pillar rising from these cities.

Narrator: A cosmic airburst event could have destroyed Tall

El-Hammam and the other sites northeast of the Dead Sea.

But is this the actual location of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Narrator: The fiery apocalypse of Sodom and

Gomorrah-- fiction or factual account of a

natural disaster from space? The charred ruins of an ancient

city over eight miles northeast of the Dead Sea fit the

geographical and physical description of Sodom.

The discovery of strange glazed pottery and desert glass...

indicates that an asteroid might have destroyed the ancient site.

It would have been absolutely devastating, and certainly the

stories of the destruction like that propagate through time,

even to modern times today.

Narrator: According to the biblical story, as fire and

brimstone rains down on Sodom, Lot and his family flee to the

mountains near Zoar, one of the five cities of the plain, that

is spared God's divine destruction.

According to the biblical narrative, Zoar was not destroyed.

In fact, lot escapes to that city as a refuge.

Which would indicate that the city would have to be somewhere

- in close proximity to Sodom. Narrator: - Zoar should be a

relatively short distance from Tall El-Hammam, the alleged site

of Sodom. However, on the floor of a

Byzantine church in Madaba, Jordan, is a sixth century

mosaic map written in Greek. It's the oldest surviving

depiction of the Holy Land.

What's fascinating about this map is it gives us the

geographical locations of major Christian pilgrimage cities.

So we can take the map as being an accurate map of the ancient

- Near East. Narrator: - By comparing the

mosaic map to the modern-day landscape, it places Jerusalem

and Jericho in the precise locations that they are today.

Sodom and Gomorrah are oddly missing from the eroded mosaic.

However, Zoar is found on the map near the southeast region

of the Dead Sea... and over 30 miles from the site of

- Tall El-Hammam. - The location of the city of

Zoar on the Madaba map-- it is not exactly a smoking gun to

tell us where the other cities are, but it gives us a general

- locale in which to look. Narrator: - And the mystery

deepens. On the mosaic map near Zoar are

the Greek words, "Sanctuary Of Saint L",

the rest of the word is missing, but many scholars

interpret it as the "Sanctuary Of Saint Lot."

By following the mosaic map, archaeologists find the

Sanctuary of Saint Lot perched on a mountainside.

Hidden behind the monastery is a cave.

Could this be the place where Lot and his family took refuge

- during the firestorm? - In the cave behind the church

that is associated with Saint Lot, they found Bronze Age

pottery. However, there's nothing

evidence that says this is the place where Lot and his

daughters stayed. But we do have evidence of them

living there at a certain time period that correlates with the

- story of Lot. Narrator: - The discovery leads

many to believe the real Sodom must exist nearby.

Less than ten miles from the Sanctuary of Saint Lot,

archaeologists discover the ruins of Bab Edh-Dhra, a

fortified early Bronze Age city, once occupied by

1,000 inhabitants. A short distance from Bab

Edh-Dhra, archaeologists uncover the remains of four settlements

which could be the other lost cities of the plain.

In the early Bronze Age, the third millennium BC, precisely

in this area, you have five cities...

whereas Tall El-Hammam is located in a cluster of middle

Bronze Age settlements, of which there are many more than five.

So if we're speaking of five cities of the plain, then Bab

Edh-Dhra and the associated four cities towards the south

- would really fit that very well. - Like the ruins at Tall

El-Hammam, a thick layer of ash covers much of Bab Edh-Dhra.

It suggests the ancient city also suffered a violent end.

Eight miles to the south of Bab Edh-Dhra, archaeologists find

the ruins of Numeira, which is thought to be its sister city.

They find a substantial ash layer and skeletal remains of

humans who suffered severe trauma.

Could Bab Edh-Dhra and Numeira be Sodom and Gomorrah?

The problem here is that both of the cities were destroyed at

different time periods, at least 300 years apart.

The city of Numeira was destroyed in a great

destruction, very rapidly. We know that from an ash layer.

As opposed to Bab Edh-Dhra, the city was destroyed over

100 years or so, so the dates don't match up.

In order to make the story work, they both have to be destroyed

in the same manner at the same time.

Narrator: There's not enough evidence to prove that Bab

Edh-Dhra and Numeira are Sodom and Gomorrah.

But what about Tall El-Hammam and the other ruins northeast of

the Dead Sea? Does the alleged location of

Zoar on the mosaic map rule them out as the Sin Cities?

People who make maps have to make decisions when sometimes

the archaeological or the historical evidence is not

conclusive.

So they did a lot of guessing, frankly.

You're not gonna find a sign that says, "This is Zoar," or,

- "Welcome to Zoar." Narrator: - There's still much

debate about the actual location of Sodom and Gomorrah...

but science can now provide a terrifying picture of what might

have actually happened to the ill-fated cities.

It can even decode the mystery behind Lot's wife turning into a

pillar of salt.

Narrator: Sodom and Gomorrah-- myth or astronomical

mega-disaster? In the search for the truth,

archaeologists discover a cluster of ruins in two

different locations along the eastern side of the Dead Sea.

They've even found undeniable evidence that a fiery

catastrophe destroyed most of the ancient cities in both

locations. But is either of these sites

home to the real Sodom and Gomorrah?

All along the shores of the Dead Sea, there is a possibility

that there are a number of sites that we have not yet found.

Sodom and Gomorrah could be anywhere.

Some people say the cities are under the Dead Sea.

Though we don't have any solid archaeological evidence of Sodom

and Gomorrah, it had to be an important event.

Narrator: 21st century astronomy, combined with the

biblical accounts, now offer a scientific explanation for what

might have happened to the cities in their final hours.

Between 2300 and 1700 BC...

an asteroid barrels down from space.

It strikes the Earth's atmosphere... and explodes above

the ancient land of Canaan. The force is over 200 times more

powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

For the airburst hypothesis for the destruction of Sodom,

we're talking dozens of megatons of energy.

In modern context, we have-- you know, we have an understanding

of that. But in ancient times, that

would have been literally a biblical event.

Narrator: The energy from the airburst reaches the ground,

creating a mushroom cloud of rock and dirt that's ejected

into the atmosphere.

If it's an airburst, you're gonna have possibly either many

pieces of the rock raining down.

And so you'd imagine that those things would cause tremendous

devastation and many fires on the ground.

Narrator: The citizens of Sodom take cover as fiery rock,

or brimstone, rains down on their city.

Ancient city walls made out of mud bricks would easily have

been blown flat. Straw or thatched wood

construction charred. Literally brought to the point

of spontaneous ignition by the heating of the event.

The shockwave from the impact would have flattened buildings.

This could have led to huge destruction of these ancient,

- poorly-built cities. - You could have vaporization

of bodies. At the very least, they would be

incinerated. They would be cremated.

So it would be a absolutely terrifying event.

Narrator: Lot and his daughters flee for the

mountains... but his wife lags behind

as she stares back at the ferocious inferno.

One of the most famous tales to come out of the Sodom and

Gomorrah story is the story of Lot's wife being turned into a

pillar of salt. Could an airburst event in any

way be responsible for that? It's kind of gruesome to think

about, but that might potentially be not salt but

- maybe charred to ash. - If Lot's wife had been

unprotected, not in a cave or something, then she could have

been charred to a crisp. So in a sense, metaphorically,

she could have become like a pillar of salt.

It's kind of a gruesome idea, but she could have been incinerated.

Narrator: The cosmic disaster does more than destroy Sodom and

Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain.

It scorches the landscape, making it uninhabitable for

- hundreds of years. - If one of these ancient

cities like Tall El-Hammam was destroyed by, let's say, an

asteroid, it would be left uninhabited, perhaps as a

superstition, but they couldn't possibly live there.

Narrator: The science of the universe gives us a new way of

- looking at an ancient story. - If we can demonstrate,

historically and scientifically, that there really was a Sodom

and that these events really took place, and therefore what

the Bible describes are real historical events, it gives us a

greater sense of security and certainty that the rest of the

Bible is valid. And so I think this also plays

very much into the modern interest in these two cities.

We have enough science to actually try to understand some

of the historical origins of our faiths.

And this, to me, is only to enrich our culture as a species

and our creativity as the real core of our humanity.

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