The Biblical Story Of Sodom and Gomorrah Is Likely True — What Were These Cities’ Crimes (Sins) Justifying Their Total Destruction?
What if the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah In the Book of Genesis is true?
Around 1650 B.C.E., The destruction of Tall el-Hammam, a Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley, by an exploding comet or meteor may have inspired the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, a new study suggests. (“[N]otoriously sinful cities,” Sodom and Gomorrah’s devastation by sulfur and fire is recorded in the Book of Genesis, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.)
Smithsonian
It means that sometimes, cities descend into depravity and chaos–just like today. What is this societal illness, and what exactly produces it? I wanted to answer those questions, and the Bible’s Sodom and Gomorrah observations are very helpful to that goal.
The story of Sodom & Gomorrah
Contents
Sodom and Gomorrah almost certainly existed.
Biblical Narrative
In Genesis, the destruction of the five cities of the plains (Sodom, Gomorrah, and others) is presented as a warning to the faithful. These cities, having become so sinful, were beyond redemption and thus necessarily destroyed by the hand of God with a hail of fire and brimstone. The surviving faithful, i.e., other cities, were thus duly warned that it is wiser to find and adhear to the path of righteousness.
The question is, today, from the historical perspective of the Bible, what behavior rendered these citizens, man, woman, and child, not worth saving?
Sodom and Gomorrah almost certainly existed.
For many years, it was speculated by some non-Biblical historians that Sodom (and other “cities of the plain”) never existed and that the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah was merely a fictionalized cautionary tale for the faithful.
Yet, now, a strictly allegorical interpretation is likely untrue.
Recent discoveries cast doubt on these historians’ conclusions. That is, Sodom might be the destroyed city of Tell el-Hammam. Academic and archaeologist Nelson Glueck identified Tell al-Hamman as the ruins of an Iron Age settlement, which he associated with biblical Abel-Shittim. Later, Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University, an unaccredited biblical inerrantist institution in the United States, linked the site to the legendary biblical city of Sodom. However, this claim is also rejected both by scientists and by other biblical literalists. So there remains debate on the question.
The adjacent video resource represents a hypothesis that Sodom and Gomorrah were among authentic Bronze Age communities destroyed by an object or objects from the “heavens”–specifically, a meteor air burst.
Nevertheless, maybe we can’t declare with objective certainty whether Sodom has been discovered. But it is also possible that biblical literalists don’t like theories that explain biblical events that do not manifest the direct hand of God. Consequently, objective truth is elusive.
I am happy to allow the debate to play out as necessary while maintaining a guarded conclusion that the Genesis story may be, after a fashion, true. My specific interest here is the “crimes” of Sodom and Gomorrah because I believe the issue is relevant to our current times.
Total annihilation is a harsh and merciless punishment?
What horrible civilization-wide crime justifies it?
This is how the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah begins and plays out.
As described in Genesis, Angels accompanied Abraham to visit Lot (Abraham’s nephew) to evaluate Sodom.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” …
Genesis 19:1-38
The angels encourage Loc to leave the city because it is to be destroyed. Why save Lot and his family and no one else? Lot does seem to be a humble servant (of the angels and others). No other male in the village appears to be. Instead, they seek to confront the angels.
Here’s the interesting part –
The Crime ??
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.
Ezekiel 16:49-50
Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.
Genesis 13:13
Oh, and now maybe a little “defund the police” thinking too:
But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
Jeremiah 23:14
And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
2 Peter 2:2
The Outcry Against Sodom Was Great
Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”
Genesis 18:20-21
Because of the outcry? That’s jarring. According to Genesis, the total destruction of a city is influenced by public opinion? Interestingly, I think that this biblical statement is revealingly true. That is, civilization is antithetical to narcissism. Yet, civilization enables it via entitlement. However, humanity has not yet discovered this reality. See the sidebar to follow.
Isn’t this Narcissism? (a recognized vile and destructive human state of mind)
When humans are subjective truth-focused (quadrant 1 below), lacking the capacity to reason (quadrant 3 below), and without some other authoritarian direction, like a parent, the church, or a controlling state, they inescapably become pathologically self-absorbed and lost in what history has now called Narcissism. That term was merely unknown to Moses or the authors of the Bible.
Sidebar
Humans have a choice. They can learn to reason, or they will be controlled by an authoritarian (church or state).
Interestingly, today, narcissism is a treatment-resistant disease (Narcissistic Personality Disorder: The Treatment Challenge). Nevertheless, God has his own solution, and it need not be a meteor. Civilizations hopelessly lost in narcissism (as enabled by citizens’ dysrationality) eventually fail–AS SURE AS PROBLEM-SOLVING FOLLOWS CHAOS. Narcissists cannot problem-solve while also lacking empathy. In time, ignorant and narcissistic people will no longer be able to keep their civilization’s machinery and politics working. Collapse is inevitable.
God does not need to rain fire and brimstone upon a city’s people. In time, dysrational and narcissistic people will destroy their civilization themselves.
