Top
News Headlines |
April
2, 2000 -- 2:43 pm |
Scholar Claims
To Have
Found Sodom and Gomorrah
LONDON, England (MCNS
-- British Bible Scholar Michael Sanders says the centuries-old
debate about the location of Sodom and Gomorrah is over. In a television
documentary, Sanders claims he has found the ruins of the biblical
cities destroyed by God because of their citizen's rampant sexual
sins, at the bottom of the Dead Sea.
Sanders and an international team
of researchers located what appear to be salt-encrusted remains
of ancient settlements. "The evidence cannot be ignored,"
he told the London Telegraph. "I predicted there must be something
extraordinary there and, lo and behold, there was. What we found
matches exactly what the remains of an ancient city might look like."
It is written in the Old Testament
that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah to punish its residents for
sexual immorality. Some archaeologists and scholars have concluded
that the espisode was symbolic, a warning that God punishes wicked
behavior. But others have speculated that the cities existed near
the Dead Sea.
Dr. John Whitaker, a geologist from
Leicester University and theformer editor of Geology Today, said
that Sanders' find appeared "very significant."
Whitaker told the Telegraph, "There
is a good chance that these mounds are covering up brick structures
and are one of the lost cities of the plains, possibly even Sodom
or Gomorrah, though I would have to examine the evidence. These
Bible stories were handed down by word of mouth from generation
to generation before they were written down, and there seems tobe
a great deal in this one."
Sanders plans an second exploration
of the area, although such research can be difficult because the
Red Sea is in a military zone near Israel's borner with Jordan.
(¨Ï 2000, Maranatha Christian
News Service) (Post date: March 29, 2000) |