Where Is Sodom?
Genesis 13, archaeology and Biblical geography provide clues
According to the Bible, “the men of Sodom were wicked” (Genesis 13, verse 13). For its many sins, God destroyed Sodom and all the inhabitants of the “cities of the plain” in an intense conflagration, but not before allowing Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family to flee to safety.
The stories of Sodom and its destruction, whether historical or not, were clearly understood to have occurred near the Dead Sea, among the so-called “cities of the plain” mentioned in Genesis 13, verse 12. But where exactly was this plain, and was a particular site associated with Sodom? In the article “Where Is Sodom?” in the March/April 2013 issue of BAR, archaeologist Steven Collins combines clues from Biblical geography with archaeological evidence from the site of Tall el-Hammam in Jordan to suggest that the author of Genesis 13 located Sodom in a fertile area northeast of the Dead Sea.
In the article “Where Is Sodom?” archaeologist Steven Collins, using clues from the Biblical geography of Genesis 13 together with archaeological evidence from the site of Tall el-Hammam (pictured), argues that Biblical tradition located Sodom in a fertile area northeast of the Dead Sea. Photo: Michael C. Luddeni.
So where is Sodom, according to the Biblical geography of Genesis 13? Sodom and its sister cities are located in the large oval-shaped, fertile plain just north of the Dead Sea called simply ha-kikkar, or “the Disk” (Genesis 13, verse 13). In Biblical geography, this well-watered disk-shaped plain, said to have been located east of the highland towns of Bethel and Ai, was an area “like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt” where Lot moved his family after his quarrel with Abraham (Genesis 13, verse 10). It is also the place where the Biblical writers set their dramatic tale of Sodom’s wickedness and destruction (Genesis 19).
Other than Israel, no country has as many Biblical sites and associations as Jordan: Mount Nebo, from where Moses gazed at the Promised Land; Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John baptized Jesus; Lot’s Cave, where Lot and his daughters sought refuge after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; and many more. Travel with us on our journey into the past in our free eBook Exploring Jordan.
Seeking to answer the question “Where is Sodom?” and using the Biblical geography of Genesis 13 as a guide, Collins decided to excavate Tall el-Hammam, an extensive and heavily fortified site located in modern Jordan at the eastern edge of the kikkar. First inhabited during the Chalcolithic period (4600–3600 B.C.E.), the site attained its maximum size during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–1600 B.C.E.) and became one of the largest cities in Canaan. But unlike other Canaanite cities that continued to flourish in the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 B.C.E.), Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by fire at the end of the Middle Bronze Age and remained uninhabited for centuries.
Read responses by scholars Bill Schlegel and Todd Bolen regarding the location of Sodom.
Across Tall el-Hammam, archaeologists found widespread evidence of an intense conflagration that left the Middle Bronze Age city in ruins. They found scorched foundations and floors buried under nearly 3 feet of dark grey ash, as well as dozens of pottery sherds covered with a frothy, “melted” surface; the glassy appearance indicates that they were briefly exposed to temperatures well in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the approximate heat of volcanic magma. Such evidence suggests the city and its environs were catastrophically destroyed in a sudden and extreme conflagration.
Was it this event—which destroyed Hammam and the other cities of the kikkar—that was remembered by the Biblical writers in their telling of the story of Sodom?
BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Where Is Sodom?” by Steven Collins in Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2013.
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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on February 20, 2013.
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The epicenter of the ACTUAL blast that destroyed Sodom is found at the SOUTHERN end of the Dead Sea at Gawr al-Mazraah. It fits EVERY criterion. You can ALSO see the circular blast pattern in the geology there using Google Earth or Google Maps by going to Sodom Blast Site.
It is a distinct circular depression 8 miles wide.
Check it out
Tall el-Hamman is not Sodom and Collins and associates have made grave errors in their thinking and analysis. Read my books on archaeology–Archaeology: What you need to know & The Future of Biblical Archaeology. They go into great detail why I made my statement
I’m new to this debate, but has anyone seen the Bunch et al article (2021; doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3) that performs a detailed analysis of the geological evidence surrounding Tall el-Hamman and concludes that this area was likely destroyed by mid-air explosion of large meteorite, larger the Tunguska, Russia event in 1908. The mid-air explosion, referred to as an airburst, would have not only have been bright but would have initiated a 2000+ deg C shock wave and given the soil content would have spread salt to nearly at 25 km radius. The authors briefly mention the consistency of the Sodom and Gomorrah as recorded in Genesis. The location would be more consistent with Dr. Collins view. The event would have easily been visible from the location where Abraham was recorded to be. The time recorded for the fleeing by Lot and his family would then be critical for they would have to travel further than 25 km. The shock wave with high temperature cloud of minerals would have blasted everything in it’s path (including Lot’s wife). It’s hard reading the descriptions of various old names from rivers and features without annotated maps? Perhaps, such maps exist somewhere? Thanks.
“Plain” means unadorned. “Plane” describes the location of the cities of interest. A mistake like that should be caught by the editor or the author in a scholarly article.
From the dictionary:
plain (n)
a large area of flat land with few trees.
plane (n)
a flat surface on which a straight line joining any two points on it would wholly lie.
plane is more of a geometry term in this context. plain is actually the right word to use for geography.
There was no local volcanic eruption then or since in reference to volcanic ash is both wrong and misleading. the Dead Sea basin area.
Roger, the Dead Sea is on a fault line of two tectonic plates. The Dead Sea Transform Fault is the boundary between the Sinai Subplate and the Arabian Plate. So there might have been the possibility of volcanic activity along the fault.
De jure by an educated and literate understanding of the Bible, we can say de facto that to call Tall el-Hammam “Sodom” is just a Public Relations SCAM for its excavators to gain notoriety and funding it would not otherwise obtain, and further, the Sodom that exists in the Biblical historical accounts has not yet been found, nor is it likely to ever be. The contention focused upon is that it rests on a peculiar 13 by 13 mile kikar or disc of land, but unfortunately for the theorists, that kikar is of the same valley basin that Joshua led the Children of Israel westward through into the Promised Land in 1511 B.C., and the same lands which Israelites of 2 1/2 tribes amounting to no less than 300,000 souls settled.
Prior to its Iron Age settlement, the disc, and most particularly the plain on which Tall el-Hammam is settled is, is 9 times referred to as “the plains of Moab”: Numbers 22:1, 26:3, 26:63, 31:12, 33:48, 33:49, 33:50, 35:1, 36:13.
There is NO MENTION OF SODOM as being nor ever having been in these plains of Moab, and then later in Deuteronomy we read how that the OTHER land and country of Sodom, that NOT of the kikar or of the plains of Moab, is uninhabitable…
Deuteronomy 29:23 – The whole land shall be burned with brimstone and salt; it shall not be sown, nor shall it sprout; nor shall there be any herb in it. It shall be like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in His anger and in His fury.
Deuteronomy 32:32 – For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their grapes of the fields of Gomorrah, grapes of gall; they have bitter clusters.
…that was not the case with the plains of Moab through which the children of Israel crossed in the Exodus, which was in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 B.C., as stated by Tall el-Hammam excavators). In fact, the plains of Moab east of the Jordan, where Tall el-Hammam was, was so fruitful, that the lands of the disc east of the Jordan were able to sustain “a great multitude of cattle” and 2 1/2 tribes…the number of them as listed in Numbers chapter 1 and chapter 32.
The excavators of the Tall el-Hammam mound further state that the site, once reinhabited after an absence from extinction in the Middle Bronze Age (they cite as 2000-1550 B.C.), lasted from the Iron Age 1 (1200-1000 B.C.) or most certainly by the beginning of Iron Age 2 (ca. 1000 B.C.) until after the Muslim conquest in the 700s A.D. That is, starting generally around 1100 B.C. and then for 1800 more years, under one name or other, Tall el-Hammam flourished at a time when the Bible again called the lands of Sodom as a current barren and salted wasteland, where even nomads refused to stop and rest if they found themselves in it.
In circa 760 B.C., Sodom is a destroyed place: Amos 4:7 – it a place of no rain
In verse 9 – it a place of blasting and mildew [hence, moisture of some sort] and the creeping locust. In verse 10 – it is a place forsaken like the plague. In verse 11 – Sodom is an overturned [the use of the word “Hapak” or turned upside down, a plain now a valley in its use] place, a place of burning.
——Hence, Tall el-Hammam — being inhabited — is disqualified.
In circa 735 B.C., Sodom was a place ruined since its overthrow over 1200 years earlier, and set forth as an example.
Isaiah 1:7 speaks of how the land of Israel, ravaged by war, is a desolation; and its cities burned with fire.
Isaiah 1:9 Except Jehovah of Hosts had left a remnant for us, a few, we would be as Sodom; we would be as Gomorrah
Isaiah 13:19 uses mahpekah to describe Babylon’s overthrow, to describe a destruction as complete as Sodom and Gomorrah…the word picture being to the effect of: ‘it shall be taken down with great violence and poured out as liquid from a flask’ as the emphasis of the violence of its overthrow. The word picture in reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, suggest volcanic lava or like activity as being the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah. The overthrow of Babylon will be as complete as if Creation and a volcanic disaster had wiped that city out.
Isaiah 13:20 tells us that as of Isaiah’s day, Sodom and Gomorrah were UNINHABITED, and in a place where the Arabian was UNABLE to pitch his tent, and flocks (though they might perhaps step upon), were unable to lie down there. In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah, even under a receding sea due to drought, could well have been known to be under even amounts as little as about a foot or less of water of the Dead Sea consistently in Isaiah’s day.
This points us by markers to the southern regions of the Dead Sea, in a valley that was depressed to be even lower than the Jordan Valley proper, ceasing the river’s former run to the Gulf of Aqaba.
—–Hence, Tall el-Hammam — being inhabited — is disqualified.
In circa 620 B.C., Sodom is desolation and uninhabited:
Zephaniah 2:9 …surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and a pit of salt, and a ruin forever.
—–Hence, Tall el-Hammam — being inhabited — is disqualified.
In circa 590 B.C., Sodom is still a destroyed place, having only bitter and poisonous waters, and visibly ruined: Jeremiah 23:14 “They are all of them like Sodom to Me, and those living in her like Gomorrah.
Jeremiah 23:15 So Jehovah of Hosts says this concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water…”
Jeremiah 49:17 And Edom shall be a ruin, everyone who goes by it shall be amazed and shall hiss at all its plagues.
Jeremiah 49:18 As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and its neighbor, declares Jehovah, no man shall remain there, a son of man shall not live in it.”
—–Hence, Tall el-Hammam — being inhabited — is disqualified.
In circa 47 and 57 A.D., at the very time period of when the Tall el-Hammam excavators claims that their city thrived under the name of “Livias”, and was greatly inhabited, Jude and the Apostle Peter both testify that Sodom is a current example (current in the 1st Century A.D.) of everlasting destruction upon a location, suggesting its ruins were both still visible and uninhabited, and example of what everlasting fire will do:
Jude 1:7 “as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in like manner to these, committing fornication, and going away after other flesh, laid down an example before-times, undergoing vengeance of everlasting fire.”
2 Peter 2:6 “and covering the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with ashes, He condemned them with an overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly.”
According to the historical testimony of 2 Peter 2:6, all the cities of the Sodomic Pentapolis are designated as being covered and/or reduced to ashes in the use of tephrosas. The cities were covered with ashes and condemned. In order to FIND Sodom, it must be located from under a great coat of “ashes”.
—–Hence, Tall el-Hammam — being inhabited — is disqualified.
Sodom rests under more than 30 feet of volcanic ash in the southern Dead Sea area. Fact.
Sodom long extinct to Isaiah’s day, and to Justin’s day
Justin Martyr, An Answer to the Jews, .9:
“For it calls your rulers ‘rulers of Sodom,’ and your people ‘the people of Gomorrah,’ [Isaiah 1:20] when those cities had already been long extinct.”
Note what is said in the Second Century A.D., THAT of ca. 735 B.C. “those cities [Sodom included] had been LONG extinct.”
Justin implies a length of time / extinction excelling many hundreds of years, and that once extinguished, Sodom never was inhabited again. By the absence of any Patristics and other ante-Nicene historians citing the habitation of Sodom since Isaiah 1:20, we also should note that wherever Sodom is, it remains uninhabited to at least the ante-Nicene period.
______________________________________
Mar 24, 2008, 02:55 PM Biblical Archaeology Society Forum (where I debated Dr Collins and Dr Graves previously).
Dr. Collins writes: “The biblical record does not say all evidence of their existence was wiped from the face of the earth so that the same locale would never be inhabited again.”
My Reply:
Isaiah 1:9 implies total annihilation:
“Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”
Deuteronomy 29:23 translates the destruction of Sodom as in the present tense, and on-going: “the whole land thereof IS brimstone, and salt, and burning, that IT IS NOT sown, NOR beareth, NOR any grass groweth therein, LIKE the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:”
Jeremiah 49:18 implies total annihilation:
“As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.” and implies, no man shall dwell in it ever again.
Jeremiah 50:40 implies total annihilation:
“As G-D overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.” (again, “ever again” is implied by the text)
Jesus testifies that Sodom ceased existence, and implies having ceased existence in the Day it was judged:
“But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:29) — with — “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.” (Matthew 11:23)
2 Peter 2:6 testifies that it ceased in existence:
“And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;”
Jude 7 testifies that Sodom ceased to exist: “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
The plain text readings support the permanent annihilation of Sodom, and these plain text interpretations are clearly supported by Jesus, Peter, and Jude in the NT.
The error in the argument by Dr. Collins becomes clearly apparent when Dr. Collins is unable to distinguish “esh” /”fire” because of immersion into the philosophical potential of its usages, rather than the plain text application.
He also struggles with Zephaniah 2:9, saying “dealing with similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech, one must be very careful to ascertain their character, which is often hyperbolic”…but sometimes a text implies what it implies, unless clarified by another text…as Sodom’s destruction clearly is…even without Josephus.
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Dr . Collins writes:” The Bible does not say Sodom and Gomorrah were located anywhere near the southern end of the Dead Sea.”
My Reply:
Genesis 10:19 expresses the boundary of Sodom as being southerly:
“And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon [in the north], as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza [the westerly south coast and border on the Mediterranean Sea]; as thou goest, unto Sodom, [implying a south and easterly border area toward or in the south Dead Sea region] and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.”
…Even Jewish Targums and the Babylonian Talmud, as well as Patristics, to my knowledge, have NEVER EVEN HINTED of a “still existing” Sodom that could be inhabited at any time by any body in their day. I think that one point alone, deserves consideration and thought before proceeding, should we dare do so.
Apr 11, 2008, 06:40 PM
Dr. Collins writes:
“Albright certainly was a genius on many subjects within the ANE sphere, but he was as sharp as a mudbrick when it came to Sodom’s location.”
Jan 31, 2010, 04:53 PM
Collins argues that his Sodom must have an Iron Age existence, when I have repeatedly shown (collectively on 3 threads) that Sodom was extinct from its fall until a time at least past when the New Testament texts were written. Collins contradicts the Bible in doing so. The extinction of Sodom for at least those 2,000 plus years is a Biblical textual fact…but Collins goes…’ah, skip that. That part of the Bible isn’t relevant…stay with Genesis 19 and then try to get me on my Northern Theory…you can’t.’ or an summarizing to that effect.
… Josephus states that the Dead Sea extends to Zoar in Arabia, at the southern regions of the Dead Sea, a few hours walk from Sodom (Wars of the Jews 4.8.4). In other words, Collins demands that Lot and his daughters walk to Zoar in an alien location from Josephus’ listing of Sodom. So let’s say he conceded Zoar would be south of the Dead Sea…figure about 65 miles in about 4 to 12 hours in the dark out on the trail. If a mountain was too far to go, why should anyone figure that 65 miles would be less of an effort in a few short hours, the majority of which was in the dark of night? Lot only arrived in Zoar just at or just after sunrise.
…In effect, W. F. Albright had it more right with less facts to go on, than Collins. 65 or so trail miles off by Collins is a big miss!