Many people are familiar with the account in the biblical Book of Genesis about the two sin-filled cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their cataclysmic destruction.
Yet many in this modern, scientific age struggle — or outright refuse — to accept that the cities ever really existed, much less that God wiped them out with fire from heaven. …
But last week — and again this week — on THE ROSENBERG REPORT, I sat down for an exclusive interview with Dr. Steven Collins, the archaeologist who claims that he and his team have actually uncovered the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Kingdom of Jordan.
If he is right, Collins is responsible for the most dramatic — and controversial — archaeological find of the 21st century. …
As Collins explained in the interview, he first rejected the notion that Sodom and Gomorrah are fictional, mythical cities that were made up by ancient writers. …
Second, Collins said that the wealth and size of Sodom as described in the Bible meant that Sodom would have been one of the largest and most influential and powerful cities of its time. And thus hard to make up to ancient audiences who knew the history and the geography of the region well.
Third, Collins noted that the apocalyptic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ought to be verifiable, if the cities really existed.
So, Collins told me, he simply followed all the location clues laid out in Genesis and boom — he uncovered the biggest Bronze Age city in the entire Middle East, a city that comports with the Biblical account of Sodom in every respect, including its sudden and cataclysmic annihilation. …
Another clue the Bible gives regarding the location of Sodom, he told me, is the description of the meeting between Abraham and Lot before they parted ways.
“The proper question to ask in the location of Sodom is, ‘Where was Lot standing when he lifted up his eyes and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well-watered?’ It was Bethel and AI,” Collins explained. …
All this led Collins and his team to dig in a site called Tall el-Hammam, with the permission of — and under the supervision of — the Kingdom of Jordan.
And what did they find?
A massive series of cities, including the biggest and wealthiest city of the Bronze Age in the entire region.
What’s more, they found a massive metropolitan city that was completely wiped out in a sudden firestorm and then uninhabited for the next 700 years. …
Read more at: allisrael.com