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.

(Post date: March 29, 2000)