The Bible Among Ruins:
Sodom, Israelite History and the Hebrew Bible
ASOR
November 20, 2025
Peter Feinman
feinmanp@ihare.org

What is the soul of the Western tradition? Argument. Socrates goes around Athens investigating the claims of the supposedly wise and finds that the people who claim to know things don’t. The Lord threatens to destroy Sodom for its alleged wickedness, but Abraham reproaches and bargains with Him — that for the sake of 10 righteous people He must not destroy the city.

In both traditions, Athens’s and Jerusalem’s, the lone dissenting voice is often the heroic one.

(“Our Vanishing Culture of Argument,” Bret Stephens, op-ed New York Times Sept. 16, 2025, print)

SLIDE 2

“The Bible among ruins” is a phrase used by Dan Pioske in three connected books to examine the impact of physical ruins in the landscape in which Israel lived on its history and in writing Hebrew Bible. He focuses on ruins west of the Jordan River. One ruin which he does not include in his study is Sodom, its location still a matter of debate. It is generally located east of the Jordan River either at the south end of the Dead Sea or the north. This paper will address the possible impact of the ruins of Sodom from the north on the writing of the Hebrew Bible and Israelite history even though no Israelites lived among those ruins and Israel did not exist when Sodom was destroyed.

SLIDE 3 As Pioske observes, biblical writers lived in a world that already was ancient. The lands familiar to them were populated throughout by the ruins of those who had lived up to two thousand years earlier. References to these ruins abound in the Hebrew Bible, attesting to widespread familiarity with the material remains by those who wrote these texts. Never, however, do we find a single passage that expresses an interest in digging among these ruins to learn about those who lived before. That does not mean stories were not told about the ruins the people encountered or heard about.

SLIDE 4 In this book, Daniel Pioske offers the first study of ruination in the Hebrew Bible. Drawing on scholarship in biblical studies, archaeology, contemporary historical theory, and philosophy, he demonstrates how the ancient experience of ruins differed radically from that of the modern era. For biblical writers, ruins were connected to temporalities of memory, presence, and anticipation. Pioske’s book recreates the encounter with ruins as it was experienced during antiquity and shows how modern archaeological research has transformed how we read the Bible.

I propose to modify Pioske’s approach to divide ruins into two categories – the cosmic and the human. The human-caused ruins are the focus of Pioske’s study. They include such well-known sites as Shiloh which is included and Mount Nebo which is not. The former where the ark of Yahweh was located is attributed to the Philistines based on the biblical account. The latter where an altar to Yahweh was located at the burial site of Moses is attributed to Mesha based on the stele which bears his name.

Two of the leading cosmic-caused ruins are Sodom and Jericho. This paper concerns the ruins of Sodom.

The ruin in question here centers at Tall el-Hamman. It is proposed that a meteor exploded at low altitude with the force of a ten megaton atomic bomb at an altitude of about one kilometer over the northeast corner of the Dead Sea, and obliterated all of civilization in the 25-kilometer-wide circular plain that constitutes the “Middle Ghor.” The researchers presented preliminary findings on the subject at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in November 2018.

SLIDE 5 This paper surveys the multiple lines of evidence that collectively suggest a Tunguska-like, cosmic airborne event that obliterated civilization—including the Middle Bronze Age city-state anchored by Tall el-Hamman—in the Middle Ghor (the 25 km plain immediately north of the Dead Sea) ca. 1700 B.C.E. or 3700 years before the present (or 3.7kaBP).  Analyses of samples taken over twelve seasons of the Tall el-Hamman Excavation Project have been and are being performed by a team of scientists from New Mexico Tech, Northern Arizona University, NC State University, Elizabeth (NC) State University, DePaul, Trinity Southwest University, the Comet Research Group, and Los Alamos National Laboratories with remarkable results. 

SLIDE 6 Commensurate with these results are the archaeological data collected from across the entire occupational footprint (36 ha) of Tall el-Hamman, demonstrating a directionality pattern for the high-heat explosive 3.7kaBP Middle Ghor event that, in an instant, devastated approximately 500 km² immediately north of the Dead Sea, not only wiping out 100% of the Middle Bronze Age cities and towns, but also stripping agricultural soils from once-fertile fields and covering the entire eastern Middle Ghor with a super heated brine of Dead Sea anhydride salt pushed over the landscape by the Event’s frontal shockwaves . Based upon the archaeological evidence, it took at least 600 years to recover sufficiently from the soil destruction and contamination before civilization could again become established in the eastern Middle Ghor.

SLIDE 7 In 1908, the Tunguska meteor struck in Siberia, a remote area of few people.

SLIDE 8 Suppose it had struck, as happened with a recent tsunami in the Pacific, when everyone had a cellphone and the impact was being observed live?

SLIDE 9 Certainly we know in science fiction about the efforts of humans to destroy or alter the course of an object in the heavens that threatened the earth and to stave off Armageddon. But what about the possibility in the real world of such an event actually occurring in a settled areas of cities? In and of itself, there is nothing particularly unscientific or divine about such an explosion. But it would be remembered.

I did not attend that particular presentation at ASOR in the Environmental Archaeology of the Ancient Near East session. Based on the abstract, the claim seems to be legitimate science and not Velikovksy.

SLIDE 10 Unlike most if not all other presentations at the ASOR conference, this one garnered media coverage. It did so because of words not mentioned in the presentation: Sodom and Gomorrah. As you might expect, the press coverage tended to focus on whether or not science had proved the biblical story true. If you look closely you can almost see the face of something in this image from a Christian website.

A fuller explanation appeared in Scientific Reports in November 2022 entitled “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Haman a Middle Bronze city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.”

Slide 11 The authors claimed that around 1650 BCE, an airburst-related influx of salt produced hypersalinity, inhibited agriculture, and caused a – 300-600-year-long abandonment of 120 regional settlements within a 25 km radius.

The site contains the stratified remains of a fortified urban center, now known as the largest continuously occupied Bronze Age city in the southern Levant.

It had flourished for 3000 years during the Chalcolithic Period and the beginning of the Bronze Age from 4700 BCE until its destruction 1650 BCE. The MB II destruction matrix was 1.5 meters thick. The well-watered area had supported a peak population of around 50,000 people.in over 100 settlements including Jericho. The city wall was 4 meters thick. It likely was the region’s politically-dominant center. Current evidence suggests that the human mortality rate here was very high, so most likely none of the estimated 8000 inhabitants survived (46). There is no evidence for human occupation at the Tall for the next 600 years (20).

Archaeologists excavating nearby sites noted what they termed the “Late Bronze Age Gap.: During this time 16 cities and towns plus around 100 smaller villages were abandoned across the 30-km-wide lower Jordan Valley. It remained so throughout the Late Bronze Age and into the early Iron Age. The population levels are estimated to have plummeted from 45,000 /60,000 to a few hundred nomadic people. Jericho shows a 300 year gap (48).

Slide 12 The authors note that this area contains the most fertile agricultural land with a radius of hundreds of kilometers across Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. This was a regional civilization –ending catastrophe that depopulated more than 500 km² of the southern Jordan Valley for between 3 and 7 centuries. The high concentration of salt at Tall el-Hamman meant that no wheat or barley could have been grown there until the salt leached out of the soil. Such desalination would have taken centuries. The same applies to Jericho (49).

The authors specifically state that they are not searching for the site of Sodom. But they add:

Nevertheless, we must consider whether oral traditions about the destruction of this urban city by a cosmic object might be the source of the written version of Sodom in Genesis. We also consider whether the details recounted are a reasonable match for the known details of a cosmic impact event. (6)

It is worth speculating that a remarkable catastrophe, such as the destruction of Tall el-Hammam by a cosmic object, may have generated an oral tradition, that, after being passed down through many generations, became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis (53).

The destruction of Sodom was a physically-real Middle Bronze Age event that was part of the Canaanite-Israelite legacy. An Israelite writer used that legacy to tell a story and deliver a message in his own time.

BIBLICAL PARADIGMS

The attempt to prove the stories of the Hebrew Bible as physically literally true is fundamentally flawed. So much effort has been placed into proving a story must be true because a place mentioned in the story has been found. Such efforts have enabled skeptics of the Hebrew Bible to mock the claims of those who would claim to have found Sodom or Jericho to mention the two places named in this study of cosmic destruction.

The challenge instead is to understand how biblical writers used the physically real places including ruins to craft a story relevant to the times in which he and his audience lived. We are a story-telling species and the stories we tell have to be credible to the listeners. As Pioske points out with numerous examples from the Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, and Iron Age, there were physical places the ancient Israelites could see in the course of their daily lives crying out for explanations as to how that ruin came into existence. Pioske is more concerned with ruins from the time and place of Israel itself like Shiloh. However that does not mean the cultural landscape of Israel is restricted to the political landscape of Israel. For one thing, the political landscape changed over time with conquests by Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. For another, even before such conquests, Israelites and Canaanites before them were aware of a world beyond the Jordan. Canaanites knew there was a vibrant world east of the Jordan. They would have seen and heard the cosmic airburst when it occurred in 1650 BCE and would have known about the cessation of the urban complex which once thrived there. So too for Israel although it did not yet exist in 1650 BCE.

The point in this presentation is the stories the biblical writers created situated in these destroyed sites. After all suppose one did find irrefutable evidence that Tell el-Hamman was Sodom, so what? That would not prove the identity of any of the biblical characters, their alleged dialog, or any of the specific events. Ur existed but that does make the biblical stories of Ur physically literally true. Haran existed but that does not make the biblical stories of Haran physically literally true either. Closer to Israelite home, the same can be said for Hazor and Shiloh. But it is difficult to understand how Canaanites could have forgotten such a cosmic event that rendered the land unfit for human settlement or how Israel could not have aware of it either.

Stories involve people. That means it is virtually impossible to prove the truth of the stories of the Hebrew Bible. A second complication is that the stories were not composed to be physically literally true. They were not business contracts.

SLIDE 13

Biblical writing is political in nature, especially the stories. They were not written as history, literature, or theology. Instead the stories, especially the ones we continue to tell today are about the political world of the author.

SLIDE 14

To understand a story, one must put it in its political context. Therefore attempts to prove biblical stories physically literally true are as misguided as the efforts to prove them false.

SLIDE 15

With Sodom and Jericho we have the opportunity to examine how a biblical writer or writers crafted two stories based on known place names to deliver political messages at the time of the writing.

There is a three-part process involved here.

SLIDE 16

1. Oral Memory (shared) – This means people remember a place or event without any story being associated with it. People remember Pompeii/volcano and Titanic/iceberg without remembering any story. Once a story is set there, the audience would understand immediately what the end result is going to be. I shudder to think that people watching the movie Titanic needed spoiler alert warnings because they didn’t know what was going to happen.
2. Oral Story (created) – At a specific time and place, someone decides to tell a story derived from the shared oral memory of a place. I propose the original story of Sodom is about events in the present of its creation. All nameless people in the telling would have known to the audience. The proposed root story-line of Genesis 19 then would be something like this.

Slide 17 1. There are two unnamed messengers of Yahweh – the audience would have known who they were.

2. Lot as king, sitting at the gate of the city, offers hospitality – the audience would have known who he is.

From there it is all downhill.

3. Lot is a weak king.
4. Lot cannot control his men (the military).
5. Lot cannot protect his people (the women).
6. The two human messengers warn Lot that his city will be destroyed.
7. The two human messengers offer Lot and his family safety.
8. The city is destroyed.

One was not expected to play a guessing game trying to identify the people involved. The open questions are is this a warning of what will happen or a comment on what has happened.

3. Narrative story

The transition to a written narrative helps flesh out the process and provide clues as to the date of composition.

Slide 18 13:8 Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen; for we are kinsmen. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. 11 So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east; thus they separated from each other. 12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelt among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

Added reminder: 13:10 this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

Here we may observe the narrator providing a booster shot to those in the audience who may not have been familiar with the oral memory. Simply by making the stage for the story Pompeii, the Titanic, or Sodom, the author has informed the audience that all is not going to end well for the character represented by Lot. It appears at first glance that Lot has made an entirely reasonable decision. But the informed audience knows otherwise long before the destruction occurs.

The story also informs us that another story about the garden of Yahweh already existed and the garden is likened to Egypt. There is no Eden here nor are there four-named rivers. They had not yet been added to the garden story as it existed at the time the original Sodom story was written. That version of the garden story and the Sodom story are pre-J.

Lot like Cain journeys east. Perhaps there is some connection but if so I have not figured it out yet.

THE POLITICAL CONTEXT

Slide 19 Is it possible to identify the historical context in which the story of Sodom was first written? There is no temple is the story. There is no Jerusalem in the story. The story functions in a context where there is one weak king of Israel and two messengers of Yahweh about to end his reign while saving him personally. I suggest the timeframe for the story is II Sam. 3-4, when David and Ishbaal clashed for the throne of Israel. It was the time of Joab, the warrior David could control, and Abner, the warrior Ishbaal could not. It also was a time of messages being sent back and forth between the two camps. The story of Sodom suggests that David offered Ishbaal an olive branch before his untimely death.

Slide 20 This interpretation has multiple implications:

1. the battle for the throne of Israel in II Sam 3-4 with multiple names and intrigues may indeed be a fairly reliable account what actually transpired. Histories of early Israel and the monarchy need to be pushed back to before the time of David and Solomon to the time of Saul and these eye witness accounts.
2. what would become biblical writing existed in the time of the early monarchy starting in the time of Saul and certainly in the time immediately after his death
3. stories may not be about the time in which they are situated. The story of Sodom should not be dated to the Patriarchal Age but to the time of David and Ishbaal.
4. The story of Sodom was pre-J and pre-Abram making it one of the earliest narrative prose stories. There are multiple such stories but Sodom is the only ruin story among them.
5. Biblical writers could write physically literal (II Sam. 3-4) and symbolically or allegorically.

There any additional stories about Ishbaal expressed through the figure of Lot.

ABRAHAM

Abraham does not appear in the original story of the destruction of Sodom. The genre has changed here. Whereas the original story was a message between David and Ishbaal, the famed dialog was part of a performance. The story is not a primitive anthropomorphic relic from the primordial Israelite religion past. Quite the contrary, a real live flesh and blood human being was performing in the role of Yahweh.

He knew he was not Yahweh.

The audience knew he was not Yahweh.

But the audience believed the person spoke on behalf of Yahweh.

That means most likely the human performer was a priest, a priest of Yahweh.

In my opinion, the most logical candidate is Abiathar.

His performance provides a different spin to the dialog. Keeping in mind that the stories are political, the performance by anti-Saulide Abiathar prior to the story of the destruction of Ishbaal’s capital, makes the dialog about the lack of anyone righteous in the city extremely derogatory against Saulides. In fact, it represents a complete condemnation of the line. One should keep in mind the following exchange;

Slide 21 2 Samuel 16:5 When King David came to Bahurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera; and as he came he cursed continually. ⁶ And he threw stones at David, and at all the servants of King David; and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. ⁷ And Shimei said as he cursed, “Begone, begone, you man of blood, you worthless fellow! ⁸ The LORD has avenged upon you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned; and the LORD has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your ruin is on you; for you are a man of blood.”

Power politics at the dawn of the Israelite monarchy was a blood sport and David was very proficient.