Author Topic: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea  (Read 14231 times)

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Offline Brianroy

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Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« on: April 03, 2013, 06:31:36 PM »
I was wondering if anyone else believes as I do, that the Dead Sea did not exist until after the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by HASHEM. 

I am looking, for example at Genesis 13 verse 10 at Shin-Chet-Tav (SHaCHaT). 

I read it after the interpretation that Y*** (whom we shall defer to as HASHEM)

"destroyed with a sinking and bowing down into a pit            Sodom and Gomorrah...."

I am also comparing the use with land masses bowed down and crushed into oceans under the weight of the Great Flood

 in Genesis 9:11,15 and the related Hebrew of Psalm 7:16 (7:15 in English) and Psalm 35:7.

Also, in just the folios of the Babylonian Talmud  in Shabbat 108 b and 109a, there are at least 5 references to the Dead Sea as "the Lake of Sodom"

by the sages, with an intent that Sodom is under the Dead Sea or was sunk and bowed down.

And in order to fulfill prophecy in Jeremiah 49:18 and 50:40 that no man shall ever more abide again "in it", I assume that this does not mean "over it",
as one can on a boat or upon dry land, but cannot if it is under such briny water that it repels people to float.

Would this be an acceptable Torah Study thread to start and discuss?  Thanks. 

                     

Offline Tag-MehirTzedek

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2013, 07:23:07 PM »
"Would this be an acceptable Torah Study thread to start and discuss?  Thanks"

 Yes. Perhaps I will look into it later. Also perhaps you can bring the texts of those pages and post them here.
.   ד  עֹזְבֵי תוֹרָה, יְהַלְלוּ רָשָׁע;    וְשֹׁמְרֵי תוֹרָה, יִתְגָּרוּ בָם
4 They that forsake the law praise the wicked; but such as keep the law contend with them.

ה  אַנְשֵׁי-רָע, לֹא-יָבִינוּ מִשְׁפָּט;    וּמְבַקְשֵׁי יְהוָה, יָבִינוּ כֹל.   
5 Evil men understand not justice; but they that seek the LORD understand all things.

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2013, 07:29:55 PM »
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/246615/jewish/The-Destruction-of-Sodom.htm

Quote
The Dead Sea

Abraham, remembering G-d’s gracious promise, hastened early in the morning to the spot where he had prayed to G-d on the previous day. The blooming valley was hidden by smoke; giant furnaces rose from earth to heaven where the proud cities of the Jordan stood; and the wild flames were rapidly consuming the land. When the devastation was complete, a vast lake of salt and asphalt, or bitumen, “The Dead Sea,” lay to the east of the desert of Judah.

The Dead Sea remained, and is now one of the marvels of the earth. The destruction of Sodom brought fear into many hearts. Wayfarers and caravans began to shun that part of the land, and soon the roads leading to the once fertile regions of Sodom became all but deserted.
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2013, 07:31:26 PM »
I do not believe that the quote from Genesis indicates anything except that Jordan used to have plentiful water.

Quote


י. וַיִּשָּׂא לוֹט אֶת עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא אֶת כָּל כִּכַּר הַיַּרְדֵּן כִּי כֻלָּהּ מַשְׁקֶה לִפְנֵי | שַׁחֵת יְהֹוָה אֶת סְדֹם וְאֶת עֲמֹרָה כְּגַן יְהֹוָה כְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בֹּאֲכָה צֹעַר:

10. And Lot raised his eyes, and he saw the entire plain of the Jordan, that it was entirely watered; before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you come to Zoar.

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2013, 07:40:25 PM »
http://www.parsha.net/pdf/Bamidbar/BamidbarShavuos58.pdf

While Elimelekh and Naomi connect us to the family of Yehuda, the royal tribe of Israel, Ruth links us to the family of  Moav, descended from Lot. Lot's story is similar to that of Elimelekh - during years of famine, when there was not enough food for Lot's and Avraham's livestock together, Lot left the land and traveled to Sodom, which was apparently located east of the Jordan River. If this be the case, he traveled out of Israel. The location of Sodom is not fully known, but the  city of Tzo'ar, one of Sodom's neighboring cities where Lot lived after the upheaval, appears in Yirmiyahu (48:34) in a prophecy on Moav. According to this interpretation, Lot left Avraham's house for a land that became known as part of Moav. Lot's departure constituted not only a geographic exit from Israel but also a cultural and religious exit, from the Godly nation of Avraham to a foreign nation, from Abraham's way of life (which followed the path of God, a way of charity and justice) to its opposite, the Sodomite way
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2013, 07:43:31 PM »
Some excerpts from Shabbat 108b:

http://halakhah.com/shabbath/shabbath_108.html

Quote
When R. Dimi came,15  he said: No man ever sank in the Lake of Sodom.16  R. Joseph observed: Sodom was overturned and the statement about it is topsy-turvy:17  No man sank [in it], but a plank did?18  Said Abaye to him, He states the more surprising thing.19  It is unnecessary [to mention] a plank, seeing that it does not sink in any water; but not even a man, who sinks in all [other] waters of the world, [ever] sank in the Lake of Sodom. What difference does that make? — Even as it once happened that Rabin was walking behind R. Jeremiah by the bank of the Lake of Sodom, [and] he asked him, May one wash with this water on the Sabbath?20  — It is well, he replied.21  Is it permissible to shut and open [one's eyes]?22  I have not heard this, he answered, [but] I have heard something similar; for R. Zera said, at times in R. Mattenah's name, at others in Mar 'Ukba's name, and both [R. Mattenah and Mar 'Ukba] said it in the names of Samuel's father and Levi: one said: [To put] wine into one's eye23  is forbidden; [to put it] on the eye, is permitted.24  Whilst the other said: [To put] tasteless saliva,25  even on the eye, is forbidden. It may be proved that it was Samuel's father who ruled, '[To put] wine into one's eye is forbidden; on the eye, is permitted': for Samuel said: One may soak bread in wine and place it on his eye on the Sabbath. Now, from whom, did he hear this, surely he heard it from his father? — But then on your reasoning, when Samuel said: [To apply] tasteless saliva even on the eye is forbidden; from whom did he hear it? Shall we say that he heard it from his father, — then Levi did not state any one [of these laws]! Hence he [must have] heard one from his father and one from Levi, but we do not know which from his father and which from Levi.




16 Owing to its high specific gravity due to its large proportion of salt.
17 Lit., 'overturned'.
18 Surely a plank is even lighter.
19 Lit., 'he says, it is unnecessary (to state)'.
20 Its saltiness conferred healing properties upon it; hence the question, since one may not heal on the Sabbath.
21 For it is not evident that one washes himself for that reason. [Healing is forbidden only for fear lest one crushes the necessary ingredients, but it is not labour in itself: consequently the Rabbis did not impose this interdict unless one is obviously performing a cure.]
22 Several times in succession, for the salt to enter and heal them. The purpose is more obvious here.
23 By opening and shutting it. This is similar to Rabin's question, Thus the saltiness of the Lake of Sodom has a practical bearing in law.
24 For it looks as though he is merely washing himself.
25 I.e., saliva of a person who has tasted nothing after sleeping.
26 Of transgression.
27 For the salve to enter right in.


It seems that it is correct that the Lake of Sodom is the Dead Sea. To this day the salt content of the Dead sea is great enough that people can float on the surface... But whether the lake existed before the destruction is still a question...
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Brianroy

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Re: Texts and partial reason for starting this thread
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2013, 09:52:35 PM »


"Would this be an acceptable Torah Study thread to start and discuss?  Thanks"

 Yes. Perhaps I will look into it later. Also perhaps you can bring the texts of those pages and post them here.




[Commentary]

(    ) = (enhanced definition}

  /  means "alternatively rendered or translated as"

-------------------------------------



Genesis 9:

11 וַהֲקִמֹתִ֤י אֶת־בְּרִיתִי֙ אִתְּכֶ֔ם וְלֹֽא־יִכָּרֵ֧ת כָּל־בָּשָׂ֛ר עֹ֖וד מִמֵּ֣י הַמַּבּ֑וּל וְלֹֽא־יִהְיֶ֥ה עֹ֛וד מַבּ֖וּל לְשַׁחֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

 And I will confirm My covenant with you:  Never again shall all flesh be cut off again by the waters of the Flood; and never again shall there ever be a Flood to destroy (with a sinking and  bowing down) the Earth.


15 וְזָכַרְתִּ֣י אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֗י אֲשֶׁ֤ר בֵּינִי֙ וּבֵ֣ינֵיכֶ֔ם וּבֵ֛ין כָּל־נֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּ֖ה בְּכָל־בָּשָׂ֑ר וְלֹֽא־יִֽהְיֶ֨ה עֹ֤וד הַמַּ֙יִם֙ לְמַבּ֔וּל לְשַׁחֵ֖ת כָּל־בָּשָֽׂר׃



  I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living soul among all flesh.   And the waters shall not again become a Flood (with a sinking and bowing down [of the Earth]) to destroy all flesh.




Psalm 7:16 in Hebrew, 7:15 in English
בֹּ֣ור כָּ֭רָֽה וַֽיַּחְפְּרֵ֑הוּ וַ֝יִּפֹּ֗ל בְּשַׁ֣חַת יִפְעָֽל׃

A (sunken) pit / cistern / well he dug  and bored it, and has fallen into the (sunken and bowed down) ditch he made.



Psalm 35:7
  כִּֽי־חִנָּ֣ם טָֽמְנוּ־לִ֭י שַׁ֣חַת רִשְׁתָּ֑ם חִ֝נָּ֗ם חָפְר֥וּ לְנַפְשִֽׁי׃

For without a cause they hid for me, (in the bowing down) [the area of darkness in the chasm] (of) a pit / (in) a pit
 their net;  without cause they have dug for my soul.




Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 108b


When Rabbi Dimi came,  he said: No man ever sank in the Lake of Sodom.

Rabbi Joseph observed: Sodom was overturned and the statement about it is topsy-turvy:  No man sank
[in it], but a plank did?

 Said Abaye to him, He states the more surprising thing.   It is unnecessary
[to mention] a plank, seeing that it does not sink in any water; but not even a man, who sinks in all [other] waters of the world, [ever] sank in the Lake of Sodom. What difference does that make? — Even as it once happened that Rabin was walking behind Rabbi Jeremiah by the bank of the Lake of Sodom, [and] he asked him, May one wash with this water on the Sabbath?  — It is well, he replied.



Shabbat 109a

Our Rabbis taught: One may bathe in the water of Gerar,  in the water of Hammethan,  in the water of Essa,  and in the water of Tiberias,  but not in the Great Sea [the Mediterranean], or in the water of steeping,  or in the Lake of Sodom.

 But this contradicts it: One may bathe in the water of Tiberias and in the Great Sea, but not in the water of steeping or in the Lake of Sodom. Thus [the rulings on] the Great Sea are contradictory.

— Said R. Johanan, There is no difficulty: one agrees with R. Meir, the other with R. Judah. For we learnt: All seas are like a mikweh,  for it is said, and the gathering of [mikweh] the waters called he Seas:  this is R. Meir's view.

 R. Judah said: The Great Sea [alone] is like a mikweh, 'seas' being stated only because it contains many kinds of waters.

 R. Jose maintained: All seas
[including the Great Sea] purify when running,  but they are unfit for zabim, lepers, and to be sanctified as the water of lustration.


--------------------------------------------------------------


Regarding Genesis 13,  Verse 10:  It seems to me that there is a required bowing of the earth down as a pit for where Sodom was or is in the context that "SHaCHaT" is used in regard to the land that supported Sodom and Gomorrah.     

There are those who I personally believe and have debated on-line back and forth in the past with (March 2008 for example) who are promoting great error in denying the witness of the Bible, with a claim to take only these verses of Chapter 13 alone to prove their North of the Dead Sea Sodom theory, as stated in this year (2013) in the Biblical Archaeology Review.

 http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/where-is-sodom/

Tall El-Hammam rests on top of a hill, while Sodom was upon a plain that lost elevation to such an extent, it can only be located in the lowest elevations upon the Earth (in the Dead Sea Basin) in order to fulfill the Hebrew requirements placed upon it.   


So, when we look at the kikar / disc-plain  proposed in the Northern Sodom Theory, which runs due East of Jericho and northwards

 http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/of01-216/

we discover there is NO bowing down of the Earth, especially near or around the Jordan River where Sodom was located and to be watered from.  In fact, the NST scam being currently advanced by someone I debated at the Biblical Archaeology Forums along with his fellow archaeologist assistant at great length fails in altitude, proximity to the Jordan River itself, in being repopulated against prophetical and historical requirements, and a whole host of issues.  For the purpose of the maps at the U.S. Geological Survey link immediately above, and verse 10 of Genesis 13, I would make the case firstly that the NST clearly lacks a geological fact that there is NO sinking into the earth, which the destruction of  Sodom and the entire disc plain region is required to do...collapse as if to create a canyon depression into the Earth, like that of the sea and ocean floors bowed down and collapsed because of the Great Noachian Flood.
 
Hence, based on the Sodom texts relating to a creation of the Dead Sea and an apparent agreement by the rabbinic sages, I would definitely state that Tall el-Hammam, some 8 miles north of the Dead Sea and 8 miles east of the Jordan River sitting on a mound overlooking a plain where they could have seen had those of 2 1/2 tribes of Israel live at its mounds as a resting place for herders, is disqualified.

Offline Brianroy

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2013, 12:02:23 AM »
The excavators of the Tall el-Hammam

http://www.tallelhammam.com/

mound state that their site, once reinhabited after an absence or extinction in the Middle Bronze Age (they cite as 2000-1550 B.C.) that lasted until the Iron Age 1 (1200-1000 B.C.) or most certainly no further than the beginning of Iron Age 2 (ca. 1000 B.C.).  It then flourished as “the big dog” of the area, says Dr. Steve Collins,  until after the Muslim conquest in the 700s A.D.  That is, starting generally around 1100 B.C. and then for 1800 more years, under one name or other, Tall el-Hammam flourished at a time when the Bible again called the lands of Sodom as a current barren and salted wasteland, where even nomads refused to stop and rest if they found themselves in it. 



An example of a partial response I used at a no longer existing Biblical Archaeology Society  forum exchange on the Tall el-Hammam threads with Dr. Steve Collins and Dr. Graves, excavators at Tall el-Hammam:


BAS Tall el-Hammam thread, March 24, 2008
Dr. Collins writes: The biblical record does not say all evidence of their existence was wiped from the face of the earth so that the same locale would never be inhabited again.”

Reply:
Isaiah 1:9 implies total annihilation: 
“Except the L-RD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”


Deuteronomy  29:23 translates the destruction of Sodom as in the present tense, and on-going: “the whole land thereof IS brimstone, and salt, and burning, that IT IS NOT sown, NOR beareth, NOR any grass groweth therein, LIKE the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the L-RD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:”


Jeremiah 49:18 implies total annihilation:
“As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the L-RD, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.”  and implies, no man shall dwell in it ever again.


Jeremiah 50:40  implies total annihilation:
“As G-D overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the L-RD; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.” (again, "ever again" is implied by the text)


-----------------------------------------------

[And separately in another place was this response by me that made Dr. Collins replied that he must insist only on a Genesis 13 reading in locating Sodom, forbidding we refrain from reading any other Bible texts on this issue.]


Witness #1 -

In circa 760 B.C., Sodom is a destroyed place:

Amos 4:7 – it a place of no rain

In verse 9 – it a place of blasting and mildew [hence, moisture of some sort] and the creeping locust

In verse 10 - it is a place forsaken like the plague

In verse 11 – Sodom is an overturned [the use of the word “Hapak” or turned upside down, a plain now a valley in its use] place, a place of burning.

------Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.



Witness #2 - In circa 735 B.C., Sodom was a place ruined since its overthrow over 1200 years earlier, and set forth as an example.

Isaiah  1:7 speaks of how the land of Israel, ravaged by war,  is a desolation; and its cities burned with fire.

Isaiah 1:9 Except Y*** of Hosts had left a remnant for us, a few, we would be as Sodom; we would be as Gomorrah

Isaiah 13:19 uses mahpekah to describe Babylon’s overthrow, to describe a destruction as complete as Sodom and Gomorrah…the word picture being to the effect of:  'it shall be taken down with great violence and poured out as liquid from a flask' as the emphasis of the violence of its overthrow.  The word picture in reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, suggest volcanic lava or like activity as being the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The overthrow of Babylon will be as complete as if Creation and a volcanic disaster had wiped that city out. 

Isaiah 13:20 tells us that as of Isaiah’s day, Sodom and Gomorrah were UNINHABITED, and in a place where the Arabian was UNABLE to pitch his tent, and flocks (though they might perhaps step upon), were unable to lie down there. In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah, even under a receding sea due to drought, could well have been known to be under even amounts as little as about a foot or less of water of the Dead Sea consistently in Isaiah’s day.

This points us by markers to the southern regions of the Dead Sea, in a valley that was depressed to be even lower than the Jordan Valley proper, ceasing the river’s former run to the Gulf of Aqaba.

-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.


Witness # 3 - In circa 620 B.C., Sodom is desolation and uninhabited:

Zephaniah 2:9 …surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and a pit of salt, and a ruin forever

-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.


Witness # 4 -
In circa 590 B.C., Sodom is still a destroyed place, having only bitter and poisonous waters, and visibly ruined: Jeremiah 23:14 “They are all of them like Sodom to Me, and those living in her like Gomorrah.

Jeremiah 23:15 So Y*** of Hosts says this concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water…”

Jeremiah 49:17 And Edom shall be a ruin, everyone who goes by it shall be amazed and shall hiss at all its plagues.

Jeremiah 49:18 As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and its neighbor, declares Y***, no man shall remain there, a son of man shall not live in it."

-----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.


Witnesses #5 and #6 -
In circa 47 and 57 A.D., at the very time period of when the Tall el-Hammam excavators claims that their city thrived under the name of “Livias”, and was greatly inhabited, Jude and the Apostle Peter both testify that Sodom is a current example (current in the 1st Century A.D.) of everlasting destruction upon a location, suggesting its ruins were both still visible and uninhabited, and example of what everlasting fire will do:

Jude 1:7 “as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in like manner to these, committing fornication, and going away after other flesh, laid down an example before-times, undergoing vengeance of everlasting fire.”

2 Peter 2:6  "and covering the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with ashes, He condemned them with an overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly.”

According to the historical testimony of 2 Peter 2:6, all the cities of the Sodomic Pentapolis are designated as being covered and/or reduced to ashes in the use of  tephrosas.  The cities were covered with ashes and condemned. In order to FIND Sodom, it must be located from under a great coat of "ashes".

 -----Hence, Tall el-Hammam -- being inhabited -- is disqualified.


-----------------------------------------

Yet, in spite of such clear refutation that anyone at the Biblical Archaeology Society could offer, the Tall el-Hammam fiction that it is somehow even conceivably Sodom, despite Biblical Historical rebuke that it can in no way be the Sodom of Genesis chapters 13 and 19, still it is that fairy tale (that Tall el-Hammam "might"  be Sodom) that  rests on the cover of the March/April 2013 issue as its feature article. 

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2013, 12:47:13 AM »
Brianroy,

I sure hope you are not a Christian missionary because some of the stuff you are posting here in the Torah section contains things which are not so Jewish. We know no Paul, as that is a follower of the cult of Christianity and the writer of a antisemitic book of the so-called new testament. Obviously we have a reason to reject that book as divine, and anything which is learned from it is not accepted from a Jewish standpoint.

Also you did not provide a link to the source of the translation which you are using, which is another reason I suggest that maybe you have alterior  motives in posting here. The KJ translation is known to be wrong in several places according to standard Hebrew translations. As I posted above, the Chabad translation indicates that the Genesis quote had nothing to do with a 'pit'.

Also the quotation from Talmud Shabbat 108a has to do with Jewish law concerning what is permitted on Shabbat.

I don't know where the translation of Shechat (Destroyed) means to sink or bend down..

The word שַׁ֣חַת means 'to destroy':

Quote
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8173

יא. וַהֲקִמֹתִי אֶת בְּרִיתִי אִתְּכֶם וְלֹא יִכָּרֵת כָּל בָּשָׂר עוֹד מִמֵּי הַמַּבּוּל וְלֹא יִהְיֶה עוֹד מַבּוּל לְשַׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ

11. And I will establish My covenant with you, and never again will all flesh be cut off by the flood waters, and there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth."


The word for Pit or sunken is Beor...  בֹּ֣ור

Here again in Devarim is the word Shechat שַׁ֣חַת meaning destroy:

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9996/jewish/Chapter-32.htm

Quote
Dueteronomy 32:5

ה. שִׁחֵת לוֹ לֹּא בָּנָיו מוּמָם דּוֹר עִקֵּשׁ וּפְתַלְתֹּל:

5. Destruction is not His; it is His children's defect you crooked and twisted generation.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2013, 12:59:34 AM by muman613 »
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #9 on: April 04, 2013, 01:03:01 AM »
Though there is a similarity in the word for destroy and to bow...

The word for bow is קשת Keshet...

Although we talk about bowing in the Aleinu prayer, but we say "Venachnu Korim Umishtachuvim Umodim" (We bend our knees and bow with thanks)
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #10 on: April 04, 2013, 01:11:00 AM »
I did find what I was saying above, that there is an association between Shechet and Shtach...

Here Rashi explains from Yehezkel:

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/showrashi/false/aid/16106/jewish/Chapter-8.htm

טז. וַיָּבֵא אֹתִי אֶל חֲצַר בֵּית יְהֹוָה הַפְּנִימִית וְהִנֵּה פֶתַח הֵיכַל יְהֹוָה בֵּין הָאוּלָם וּבֵין הַמִּזְבֵּחַ כְּעֶשְׂרִים וַחֲמִשָּׁה אִישׁ אֲחֹרֵיהֶם אֶל הֵיכַל יְהֹוָה וּפְנֵיהֶם קֵדְמָה וְהֵמָּה מִשְׁתַּחֲוִיתֶם קֵדְמָה לַשָּׁמֶשׁ:

16. And He brought me to the inner court of the house of the Lord, and behold, at the entrance of the Temple of the Lord between the porch and the altar, about twenty- five men, their backs to the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were prostrating themselves eastward to the sun.

Rashi:
and they were prostrating themselves: Heb. מִשְּׁתַּחֲוִיתֶם. This serves as two words, an expression of destruction (הַשְּׁחָתָה) and an expression of prostrating oneself (הִשְּׁתַּחֲוָיָה). So it is in Yerushalmi (Suc. 5:5, see Korban Ha’edah): “They were destroying the Temple and bowing to the sun.” Jonathan, too, rendered in that manner: and they were destroying and bowing.“ Menachem (p. 171) classified it as an expression of bending down, like (Isa. 51:23): ” Bend down (שְּׁחִי) and let us cross."
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #11 on: April 04, 2013, 01:13:09 AM »
Brianroy,

So what is it exactly you are seeking? Confirmation that Sodom is where the Dead sea is today?

I don't think that we really want to find it.... It was destroyed, and that is enough for me...

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Brianroy

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #12 on: April 05, 2013, 12:26:12 AM »
Muman,

I have only used two historical texts from the Christian letters of the First Century of the Common Era (C.E.), neither from Paul, in the same historical context one might quote Caesar regarding his invasion of Gaul in the 50's B.C.E., or Herodotus regarding what he saw and heard as contemporary in his day centuries earlier than that.  In that historical context, I presented what I told Dr. Collins (the one who came up with Tall el-Hammam in Jordan is / was the Sodom of the Bible that is now sadly gaining credibility)  back in March of 2008.   While I am a born again Christian and a Gentile,  I am not here to convert anyone to anything, one way or the other, simply to discuss Sodom, the Dead Sea, and related texts.   I am sorry if you took it in any way beyond that.   
I hope we may continue the topic.  Would Josephus or earth sciences be best to discuss next? 


Thanks. 



Offline muman613

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #13 on: April 05, 2013, 12:44:21 AM »
Muman,

I have only used two historical texts from the Christian letters of the First Century of the Common Era (C.E.), neither from Paul, in the same historical context one might quote Caesar regarding his invasion of Gaul in the 50's B.C.E., or Herodotus regarding what he saw and heard as contemporary in his day centuries earlier than that.  In that historical context, I presented what I told Dr. Collins (the one who came up with Tall el-Hammam in Jordan is / was the Sodom of the Bible that is now sadly gaining credibility)  back in March of 2008.   While I am a born again Christian and a Gentile,  I am not here to convert anyone to anything, one way or the other, simply to discuss Sodom, the Dead Sea, and related texts.   I am sorry if you took it in any way beyond that.   
I hope we may continue the topic.  Would Josephus or earth sciences be best to discuss next? 


Thanks.

Shalom Brianroy,

I have no problem with your hypothesis. But when discussing the topic with Jews I think you should avoid references to scriptures which are not a part of the Jewish canon. This is only my personal opinion but I think it is best from a Jewish perspective to avoid those references because it may cause a Jew to stray from the path which Hashem has commanded us. I have written several threads where I explain, according to my understanding, that the Jewish people are not to learn the ways that other non-Jews worship nor should we mention the names of foreign deities (or names which are worshiped as deities) such as your messiah.

I appreciate your response. Let us hear your ideas on this topic.

Thank you,
muman613
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Brianroy

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Trajectory of view using Google Earth
« Reply #14 on: April 06, 2013, 11:02:32 AM »
Thank you Muman.

Using the Google Earth software application, I just went back and ran two ground view trajectories off of Mount Nebo and off Pisgah (the southwest jut) from Mount Nebo based on Devarim (Deuteronomy) 34:3. 


The most southern view from Mount Nebo proper appears to run across the Dead Sea  in a direct trajectory that comes to a field just south of Hebron.


The most southern view from Pisgah runs a trajectory across the runway of Bar Yehuda airstrip just 2.6 miles from Masada, and continues on to Masada.


Isaiah 15:5 and Jeremiah 48:34 place Zoar as on the eastern shoreline of what was contended as part of Moab in their days.  This comes out to approximately 31.5 degrees latitude, and puts Machaerus on along essentially this same Pisgah trajectory as yet another marker if we use a ruler on a printed map to view this.  But if I am slightly off on the view, and there is just a slight more angle that the Google Earth software does not show, then the answer seems to manifest as coming together to resolve the issue; because the absolute very tip of the Lisan Peninsula, it now seems to me, upon a re-evaluation of this, may very well be the intended designation of Zoar.  It is to the Eastern side as in concurring with Isaiah 15:5 and Jeremiah 48:34.   

I have the belief that Moses was a giant of a man whose height was close to nine feet, yet was dwarfed by Og of Bashan.  If this is the case, or if Joshua were to be upon an animal and stood to view from a height of 9 or 10 feet on Pisgah, perhaps that would also be the minor distance in view the extreme northern tip of the Lisan Peninsula the the extreme edge of Pisgah, if it actually runs southwest rather than Northwest from Nebo.  Not ever being on the ground at Nebo and seeing only a computer model, I do need assistance on the visual on this one.   

What do you, or anyone else looking in to this thread,  think in regards to this?  Thanks.

Offline Zelhar

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #15 on: April 06, 2013, 01:13:42 PM »
It has existed for millions of years, although its size varied considerably.

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2013, 03:23:28 PM »
It has existed for millions of years, although its size varied considerably.


Zelhar,

If the Dead Sea has existed for millions of years, how old is the Earth?
  Exactly how many millions of years has the Dead Sea existed by comparison? 
Who are the geologic sources for that assessment?  What specific radioactive tests were used to determine the age of what you claim? 

 Do you think the Bible teaches how old the Earth is or makes allowance for the age you claim?

When you say the Dead Sea size has varied considerably, by how much in terms of length and width are you saying?
 Is that number consistent with Josephus or based on another source?
 Or is it only that size seen in modern times since the mid to late 1800s onward to our current day? 

Thanks 

Offline Brianroy

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Seeing the southernmost Dead Sea from the height of Moses at Pisgah
« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2013, 03:55:07 PM »


Earlier, I posted that I believe Moses to be about 9 feet tall, and that this added somewhat to his view from Pisgah at Mount Nebo looking south to the Dead Sea to see Zoar in the southerly direction, which I believe was probably the northmost tip of the Lisan Peninsula, not just Masada but a very slight little more to the south of that by a fraction of a degree. 

  From Ezekiel's Day and prior, I am of the belief, that the cubit usually retained the 21 inch value, whereas later, by the Roman occupation of Israel period, it had then reduced to 18 inches.  So I approach the height in that perspective.   

 In all the Tanakh, not just the Torah but all the Hebrew Scriptures,  the largest human ever known to be in existence was Og of Bashan, whose bed was 9 twenty-one inch cubits long and 4 twenty-one inch cubits wide.
In other words 189" long = 17' 4" and 84" wide = 7’. 
 

If we make an allowance of at least one foot at the head and at the feet, Og was about 15 feet tall, the tallest human that we know of to have ever walked the Earth.    However, Scripture calls Og the remnant of the giants; and this means that others at least equal to, and almost undoubtedly many even taller than he, preceded him.

So when we read Genesis 6, we are to understand that by GIANTS, if we take the literal sense of the use of how the word Nephillim (the fallen ones) is employed to giant men like Goliath and Og and apparently others, then in that literal sense we are talking generally about statures of  roughly between 8 to 11 feet or more in height. 

There may be questions as to if or not the true intent of  when books of Enoch and Jubilee offers a number of 200 angels or defers to such beings,  if the number should have associated with  200 giants (instead of angels) that perished (instead of being sent to the Abyss) according to those writings.


 The next tallest that we know of in specificity after Og of Bashan, is Goliath, which 1 Samuel 17:4 lists as a height of 6  twenty-one inch cubits and 1 Zereth (a large span, equal to 1/2 a cubit).  That comes to 126" plus 10.5" for a total of 136.5" or a height of 11' 6 1/2".

In modern times, Robert Pershing Wadlow in 1940, shortly before his death at the young age of 22, reached a height
 http://www.maniacworld.com/robert-wadlow-picture-2.htm
http://www.maniacworld.com/robert-wadlow-picture-7.htm


 which I attribute as equal to that ascribed to Moses: that of 8'9".


 Affirmation to the height of Moses:
 In Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews,  2.9.6
we read that
 "G-D did give him that tallness. [beginning] when he was but 3 years old, as was wonderful."


Moses -- according to my research and calculations affirmed by the Tanakh, Josephus, ancient Greeks (to within a 25 -30 year margin of error dating to the 16th Century B.C., the Greeks using 10 month calendars pre-Cyrus I) --  was born in 1631 B.C., and he was 3 years old in 1628 B.C.  From that age he grew into (what for us in our days is) an awesome tallness not attributed to any other Hebrew up to that time, and taller than even King Saul more than 600 years later.  It was because Moses reached such a great height and stature that he was able to be reckoned as one of the Assyrian Hyksos or Shepherd Kings that ruled Egypt in what is generally reckoned as the 16th dynasty of Egypt.
 
In Berachot 54b   ( see end-note 10 cited at relevant quote to read...editor end-note presumes a height of 15 feet to Moses.)
 http://halakhah.com/berakoth/berakoth_54.html
 the rabbis hold the tradition that Moses the Law-giver stood at a height of 10 Cubits, but in fact, what was likely meant was a height of 10 (I reckon as Ezekiel ) zereths @ 105" or 8' 9".


To say that a height of 10 Roman era cubits 15 feet or even 17' 6" of 10 Ezekiel and pre-Ezekiel era cubits was the intent of Berachot 54b seems very unlikely to have been the intent kept by Talmud, when 10 half cubits using 10 as a perfect measure of the Law (i.e., enveloped within the 10 Commandments) was meant.  Clearly, in Scripture, Og was listed as the last of the remnants of the what appears to separate the true giants from the giants (since Moses is the one who is writing this passage of Deuteronomy 3:11),  and Og's height had to therefore be so impressive, that no other could stand anywhere near as tall against him.   Had this not been so, Og would simply have been either have been compared to being but the same or about the same height as Moses, or his height of no mention at all.  Instead, Og himself was so awesome in height, he even made other giants among men -- even those like Moses at 8' 9" and near our day, Robert Pershing Wadlow in 1940 A.D. -- look small.

Thus, for such reasons as these, I believe Moses was likely 8'9" or about 9 feet, and considered a giant (as stated by Josephus in his historical writings).    And that slight extra height might make the difference needed to see the tip of the Lisan from Pisgah.  But again, I can only go off of Google Earth software, and have never been to Pisgah (and would have to with a step-ladder) to make the necessary observations, in the maybe someday kind of future.  Anyone been to Mount Nebo and Pisgah to look at the land of Israel and the Southern Dead Sea area?   

 



« Last Edit: April 06, 2013, 04:06:50 PM by Brianroy »

Offline Zelhar

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2013, 04:20:10 PM »

Zelhar,

If the Dead Sea has existed for millions of years, how old is the Earth?
  Exactly how many millions of years has the Dead Sea existed by comparison? 
Who are the geologic sources for that assessment?  What specific radioactive tests were used to determine the age of what you claim? 

 Do you think the Bible teaches how old the Earth is or makes allowance for the age you claim?

When you say the Dead Sea size has varied considerably, by how much in terms of length and width are you saying?
 Is that number consistent with Josephus or based on another source?
 Or is it only that size seen in modern times since the mid to late 1800s onward to our current day? 

Thanks
I am not a geology expert. But as far as I am concerned the geological age of the earth and of specific landscapes is scientific and a good approximation, much better then any estimate you get from trying to interpret the bible which has little to no concern with science.

I see in wikipedia the dead sea is estimated to be 2 million years old, because that is the estimated age of the barrier between the Mediterranean and the Jordan valley.   It mentions that in biblical times the water levels were as much as 70 meters higher and between 400 to 1000 ce there was a dry period a sharp drop in water levels.

The sources I believe most are geological evidence. Water levels, sediments etc. is something that can be measured. We don't need ancient maps and scrolls to find it out. Though it is interesting to check historical accounts as well.

Offline Brianroy

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #19 on: April 07, 2013, 01:40:34 AM »
There is a debate that Creation Scientists and Evolutionist / or usually Atheistic Scientists are engaging in about the age of the earth.  One of the quickest ways to dispel the age of the earth as billions of years old is to realize that, like the hockey Stick manipulation of data at Penn State to create a false conclusion of irreversible global warming, so too is the regular propaganda multi-generationally ingrained propaganda that Bible haters regularly promote in defying the data and the laws of Science just to give them and humanity an excuse to disregard the Bible and G-D Almighty. 

The 18 January 749 A.D. earthquake of the Dead Sea area  (mentioned in places like http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/31/8/665 )
damaged certain strata by enduring "boulder bearing flash floods" as well as an earthquake...and such damage often alters reconstructive geologic timelines of erosions of many tens of thousands of years into a single week, but are never attributed or given the proper chronological error adjustment. The only reason that any mention of this earthquake is given, is because the only differences between the more ancient buildings and those built since the late 700s in the Dead Sea area appears to be simply alluvium and lake deposits...something that is never considered into the projections of a simple strata hillside or trench dating projection. Hence, a town on the same lakeside or hill or mountain elevation but a mile away, can be projected as thousands of years old...while the same strata examined at the same elevation where no town is built, can be projected as tens of thousands or millions of years old, even though both were likely silted up and covered at the same time, by the same storms or natural means.


Let us take how that secularists of "Science" intentionally mislead the general public about the age of the earth as 1.5 to as high as 6 billion years.  I am enclosing a pdf. link to an abstract on Helium diffusion, by which when you read it, you may conclude also that evolutionists have altered the laws of nature to create a non-existent condition in nature to get a false ancient age of the Earth they can never have gotten honestly;  for they then must make up a number that could be any multiple billions of years subjective number that they want the Earth to be, even as high as 50 billion years if they wished to use that number. 
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/41/41_1/Helium_lo_res.pdf

In using the same experiment and under similar conditions, Creationists duplicated the experiment and found that the rate of nuclear decay, whether it is helium or lead diffusing out of zircons, puts the age of the Earth at a maximum of 8,000 years or so, using and being faithful to the laws of science, which especially require that this experiment can be duplicated over and over and over to the same results and same consistent conclusions, which the Evolutionist manipulations cannot accomplish.

SCIENCE magazine,  1983, Article:   Keith and Anderson's 'Radiocarbon dating: Fictitious results with Mollusk Shells' (August 16, vol. 141, No. 3581, pp. 634-636) showed that Mollusks could generate fictitious results of Carbon-14 dating by up to 3000 years, depending on what muddy river bottom they were feeding off of. And if river mud can alter mollusk Carbon-14 dating...in what other living creatures or once living organisms could they affect? Could deer or other animal antler growth, for example, reflect this in C-14 data? Strangely enough, this very example done in 1957 is often used in debates between young and old earth advocates, even though 3 stages of the same antler growth reflects a difference of some 5,000 years in C-14.

Carbon 14 dates after a calculable rate of how much ultra-violet radiation the earth is NOW receiving. It is a radio-active compound that is generated in the upper atmosphere and drops down to Earth.

Carbon 14, is a by-product of 12 and 13 when the sun hits it, and is created in the upper atmosphere. In effect, all relevant dative testing of antiquity, for the evolutionist, is using radioactive nuclei.

When Carbon 14 decays, it becomes nitrogen-14.

Adjust the Carbon 14 from the population explosion in the late 1800s A.D. and the ensuing atmospheric pollutants generated, (because of  the Industrial revolution), and you decrease the graphing accuracy.

If you have a lot of volcanic activity, and the atmosphere produces high concentrations of Carbon 14.  Think Krakatoa and Mount St. Helen's, for example.

Again, throwing every smooth chart of calculation out of whack.  The further back you go with carbon 14 dating, the less accurate it becomes.
At 5700 years, Carbon 14 it is at said to be at 50%, or now naturally dissipating! The general margin of error is said to be calculable and correctable to no greater than 2300 years, and then it -- Carbon 14 dating -- is unreliable. But the fact is, even ignoring our altering the atmosphere of the Earth in the last 150 plus years, Carbon 14 appears to have only a best case scenario of a 26% failure rate for testing...a success rate of 74% for Carbon 14 at its best?  No certainty about that low of a "success" rate.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Or what of Potassium-argon?

The Potassium-argon method was most famously used to date human bones to push forth the theory of evolution. Potassium-40 has a half life that is alleged to be in the area of 1.25 - 1.33 billion years, or something like that, and will decay into Argon. But there was some kind of backlash back around the mid - late 1980s when the scandal broke out that all potassium-argon dating was ruled unreliable, and all conclusions relating to it were to be discarded.

However, no evolutionist has a list of failed rulings to dismiss...all past theories, broken or not are accepted as if perfect and relevant, no matter how unethical or unscientific... because "evolution" has no ethics in science.

Carbon-14 dating often is used to exceed the life of its own analysis of no more than 5700 years, and clearly conflicts with a correct use of Helium/Zircon dating, which gives the Earth a life of a number we may generally accept shows as that of around 6,000 to 8,000 years. 

Then there’s also an equal life isotope to Potassium-40 in Rubidium-87 that decays into Strontium-87, and the radioactivity descends into an unchartable life (as in billions of years) except through subjectivism (whatever bias one wishes to insert based on any rationale they wish to use, to get whatever number they wish to achieve).  .


There are many other examples that can be used to dismiss an Earth older than 80,000 years in Science, let alone older than 8,000 years, but I wish to stay on point about Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea area.  But it is an alternative, that if you have a desire to, you might wish to look into, because it forces us to re-evaluate if what we know is really what we know, or if it is what we presumed on a misplaced trust upon human beings seeking their own agenda rather than fidelity to facts and truth as they really are. 

Thanks for the reply and the reasons you gave to why you thought what you wrote. 

Offline Brianroy

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea - article
« Reply #20 on: April 07, 2013, 01:46:51 AM »
There are those who have offered an alternate theory which allows a Dead Sea to have always been in existence, but it goes back to a necessity of soil chemical analysis in the strata of the period said to be that of Sodom's destruction.  Here is an article that some geologists proposed in 1995,  which I thought was an interest to add here. 

New York Times, Sunday, 17 December 1995, p. 13
Geologists Zero In on Sodom and Lot's Wife


LONDON, Dec. 16 (Reuters) - Geologists say they have pinpointed the probable site of the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and worked out a theory of why Lot's wife was reported to have ended up as a pillar of salt.

The findings by two British geologists working in Canada were printed in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology on Friday.

The geologists, Graham Harris and Anthony Beardow, analyzed local soil and rock to conclude that Sodom and Gomorrah were probably located on a Dead Sea peninsula.
While the rough location of the cities has long been suspected, the authors said they used the latest geological thinking to trace them to a specific peninsula and work out the reason they vanished around 1900 B.C.

"This is an attempt to use modern geological perspectives to look into a very racy story, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and solve a fascinating historical problem," said Peter Styles of the Journal staff.

According to the Tanach, the cities were destroyed by fire and brimstone in retribution for the sinfulness of their residents. Since Lot was considered a good man, he was warned of God's punishment. However, his wife disobeyed the sole condition of not looking back and was transformed into a pillar of salt.

The geologists said.that Lot's wife did not appear to turn into a pillar of salt because she dared to look back but because of the briny nature of the Dead Sea. But the research shows it was more likely a case of mistaken identity. Mr. Harris said by telephone from Canada that the Dead Sea was full of salt floes that might have been thrown up by surging water to resemble a female outline." Hence legend is created out of what can now be explained as a simple geological phenomenon," he said.

Saturated soil and highly flammable bitumen, rather than God's wrath, was apparently behind the demise of the cities, the report said.

"The area is made up of rock types which, when subjected to a large earthquake, will actually liquefy, like shaking up a bottle of sauce," Mr. Styles said. "Theirs is a great story but if, as they suggest, the whole city was destroyed and collapsed into the sea, I don't know how much would be left to dig up."

{{{Map used in the article:  http://people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/Writings/sodom4.gif }}}

 The Dead Sea is divided into two basins. El Lisan Peninsula, where the geologists believe Sodom was located, separates the basins at the sea's narrowest point.
Their analysis suggests it was used as a crossing point to ship salt to the Mediterranean and Egypt. Locals were also involved in risky bitumen mining, according to the Journal, meaning fire would have been a constant hazard in what was an earthquake zone. That would help explain the biblical references to the fiery destruction of the two cities.

Mr. Harris said it was impossible to tell if an earthquake set off the so-called liquefaction process he believes swallowed up the cities, but he said archeologists and engineers should join forces to put the 4,000-year mystery to rest.

"The enigma will never ever be resolved until artifacts can be rediscovered that can be positively identified to those cities," he said.

http://people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/Writings/sodom.html


Offline Zelhar

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #21 on: April 07, 2013, 04:11:00 AM »
I can't read all this material which I suspect amount to allot of junk science.

Lets just go by logic, and the known geography from the bible. We know the Jordan valley and the Jordan river had existed before Sodom and Gomora were destroyed. don't we ? The area where these cities existed is called "Kikar Hayarden" in the same chapter.
The southern part of the Jordan exits the Kineret, and flows south, it already exits way bellow sea level as the Kineret is -200m bellow sea level, so where do you think it flows into ? There has to be a lake somewhere to the south.

Offline Brianroy

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The Dead Sea on a Volcanic Faultline, etc.
« Reply #22 on: April 07, 2013, 06:08:36 PM »
Zelhar,
    I hope that you will at least acknowledge that the Dead Sea is part of a volcanic fault-line with the unique aspect of also being the location of the merging point of multiple tectonic plates. 

I have been trying to pull up the University of Haifa of late to get a hold of what Dr. Michael Lazar has written or updated on the deep core sample of the Dead Sea bottom that he participated in with representatives of 6 other nations in 2010.  For whatever reason, I can't establish a connection as my servers keep timing out.  Perhaps in Israel, those who read and participate in this English Forum could pull it up, or catch some references where that core sampling was published at? 

C-14 chronology, once you do the research you will see this also,  is seriously flawed.  Modern scholarship has gotten to a point, for the sake of pretended knowledge, that we can now create data into existence by cross-quotations of suppositions and hypotheses, so as to date most all Levant ceramic development some 4,000 years ago into 25 year increments. This is utterly preposterous and ridiculous, but this is how education mis-informs for the sake of a uniform message, even when such is gravely mistaken / erroneous.  This is not just in the study of Ceramic history and development, but most everywhere dealing with the ancient past.  It was a subject of manipulation that drove Immanuel Velikovsky to write a series of books challenging what we know, and if we truly know what we do.  He initially upset Einstein, who he corresponded with, but after a few years, Einstein gradually began accepting what he had previously rejected from Velikovsky, but not entirely (such as in Astro-physics where Einstein insisted planets must have more than inertia and gravity to move about, for example).

If the dating of the more ancient past (prior to the fall of Solomon's Temple, circa 587 or 586 B.C.E.) is flawed, so that certain events can be moved as many as 300 or 400 years because of inaccurate timelines, which I can reasonably prove that some of them can, then the uncertain past begins to make sense and finds a consistency that leads from one discovery to the next.

One of these, tied to Sodom, is the destruction of the Akkadian Empire through a raining down of volcanic ash.  At the dried up and drought southern end of the Dead Sea, the bed of ash in the dried Sea bed was as deep as 30 to 40 feet, and yellow taped off because tourists were falling into these ash sink-holes.

I contend that it was a massive volcanic explosion, like that of the island of Santorini during what I date as the 1551 B.C.E. Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, and like that of Krakatoa (or Mount St. Helens on a lesser scale) in modern times, that was the source of the ash that fell on the Akkadians, and wiped out whole forests that extended up from the Persian Gulf into Southern Iraq that thereafter never grew back. 

A paper done on the fall of the Akkadians by volcanic ash I will cite here:

DOI: 10.1130/0091-7613(2000)28<379:CCATCO>2.0.CO;2 © 2000 Geology; April 2000; v. 28; no. 4; p. 379-382; Geological Society of America
H. M. Cullen1, P. B. deMenocal1, S. Hemming1, G. Hemming1, F. H. Brown2, T. Guilderson3 and F. Sirocko4
1 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York 10964, USA
2 University of Utah, Park City, Utah 84112, USA
3 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA
4 Institut für Geowissenschaften, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, 55099 Mainz, Germany

Abstract:
The Akkadian empire ruled Mesopotamia from the headwaters of the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers to the Persian Gulf during the late third millennium B.C. Archeological evidence has shown that this highly developed civilization collapsed abruptly near 4170 ± 150 calendar yr B.P., perhaps related to a shift to more arid conditions. Detailed paleoclimate records to test this assertion from Mesopotamia are rare, but changes in regional aridity are preserved in adjacent ocean basins. We document Holocene changes in regional aridity using mineralogic and geochemical analyses of a marine sediment core from the Gulf of Oman, which is directly downwind of Mesopotamian dust source areas and archeological sites. Our results document a very abrupt increase in eolian dust and Mesopotamian aridity, accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dated to 4025 ± 125 calendar yr B.P., which persisted for 300 yr. Radiogenic (Nd and Sr) isotope analyses confirm that the observed increase in mineral dust was derived from Mesopotamian source areas. Geochemical correlation of volcanic ash shards between the archeological site and marine sediment record establishes a direct temporal link between Mesopotamian aridification and social collapse, implicating a sudden shift to more arid conditions as a key factor contributing to the collapse of the Akkadian empire.


If the demise of the Akkadians with "volcanic ash shards" occur simultaneously with the destruction of Sodom, what then?   I believe the Torah really happened just as it says.  Science as science does not deny the Torah, people who have agendas to manipulate science and the scientific data do.  Millions of years of erosion, at least that dating given by flawed glass-jar environment thinking scientists, such as the break between the tip of the boot of Italy and the island of Sicily, happened in a matter of hours or days.  That literary history cataclysm information has been retained by ancients quoting then ancient texts themselves, but would Science today believe the historical eyewitness that at about the time of the Exodus the peninsula of Sicily became an island?  I doubt it.  It is with that degree of skepticism toward secular science that has as its agenda evolution and disbelief of and in the Creator, that we need to healthily have.  We can indeed trust the Torah as 100% historically true.  Therefore, we should use science to understand the testimony given us by the Torah, and make the quickest access to the Truth in the most easy and intelligent fashion, a path of trusting the Creator who has always been around to know what happened, because He was there, and He guided and instructed Moses in these things. 

At any rate, Shalom.

Offline Zelhar

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Re: Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea
« Reply #23 on: April 08, 2013, 03:28:37 AM »
The dead sea is part of the Jordan rift valley on a tectonic fault line between the Arabian plate and Africa, I don't know that it is unique with that property.

Offline Brianroy

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Pdf references and a look at Genesis 19:13-14
« Reply #24 on: April 17, 2013, 01:16:33 PM »
Perhaps I should elaborate a bit more.  I am of a mind that the Dead Sea area is both a volcanic fault line and the result of a cratering as is associated with volcanoes that explode in their entirety, such as Santorini  http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/santorini/minoan-eruption/size.html     (which I date as instead to the Exodus in 1551 B.C.E.)  and Krakatoa of  1883 C.E.  http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Krakatau.html



Based on the Biblical and extra-biblical texts, I believe there was a combination effect of natural gases – oil/asphalt ignition – and volcanic pressures and resultant gases which combined to explode beneath the surface of the plain on which the Sodomic Alliance sat, collapsing it, and turning it into magma flows.  That is, an extremely rare and very violent lava eruption and series of sharp intense earthquakes at the volcanic fault-line that runs through the Dead Sea region blew up a chasm below the plain which collapsed the plain and made it into a depression we now know as the Dead Sea.  Because of the very high content of salt and salt caves and strata in the mountains / hills of the Dead Sea,   http://geography.huji.ac.il/.upload/Frumkin1/Hol.pdf
 hot globs of salt (as well as lava) weighing many hundreds of pounds were very conceivably and also cast through the air many miles, just as magma was, and that is what landed on Lot’s wife.  I believe that the entire plain of what is now the Dead Sea bottom, covered over since with great layers of ash and salt, was entirely molten when Lot left it and reached Zoar (in walking distance from  Bab edh-dhra).
 
 
Frederick G. Clapp
http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/3D932DFC-16B1-11D7-8645000102C1865D
and Geo-tech G. M. Harris and Geologist A. P. Beardow
http://qjegh.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/349
concluded that the great Salt mountains, and the melting at the upper strata are the clues to where Sodom and Gomorrah were. There is a Volcanic Fault which extends from southern Turkey and onward through the Dead Sea and onward,
http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/earth/issues/yer-98-7-2/yer-7-2-1-97012.pdf

It is my contention that the Dead Sea did not exist until AFTER the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The pre-Dead sea Plain controlled by the Sodomic alliance was likely a fresh water paradise and Bread-basket region in heavy trade with Egypt, with Bronze Era copper and sulfur mines (in the eastern mountain hill range that runs south of the Lisan Peninsula almost to the gulf of Aqaba), and bitumen or asphalt pits would have been collected for boat (and other forms of) sealing.
 
Based on the reading of the text of Genesis 19, I have come to conclude based on the texts, that the Dead Sea’s bottom was called the Kikar – the encircling plain – the encircling disk.  The name of the Kikar was a biblical nomination based on its observation point, and the observation one has of the Dead Sea’s shape from the Lisan Peninsula to the East of the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea, therefore, is the plain that sunk away, by both earthquakes and volcanic lava churnings of the earth.  Kikar in the Akkadian is equated with the word used for a "talent" of weight.  That is, ‘kikar” is equated to a  heavy weight of measuring prosperity that drives a scale "down".  This in turn is linked to a prison, and a form of separation from the rest of the world through the corresponding Hebrew word Kele.     
 
       The Dead Sea is itself called the lake of Sodom in the historical tradition left to the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 108b, 109a).

The Lisan settlement of Bab edh-dhra (often misdated to circa 2300 B.C. when it is more than 300 years newer at its demise) was covered with some 3 feet of ash and this led to its abandonment.  Modern excavations recorded that approximately 50% of the populations there perished prior to age 21 in those two settlements.  Syphillis as well as other diseases were at high percentages among the dead as the likely cause of death.  This would be consistent with a demise brought about because of the volcanic ash, which would be why Lot left Zoar and went to the mountains to live in a cave probably known to Lot for the storing of emergency food and wine supplies for the community of Sodom, hidden in case of defeat because of Hittite or other invasion.

I do not believe that Bab Edh-dhra is Sodom, as believed at Harvard University
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic/wl/digsites/Transjordan/DeadSea_98/index.htm
and by others (e.g.) http://www.nd.edu/~mchesson/newedsphome.html

The location of Bab edh-dhra fails on its face because it is an elevated place, and not a sunken down place as the Hebrew of Genesis 19 informs us that it was.  Further, Bab edh-dhra was not immediately dis-inhabited and made into a place of salt and covered by salt marshes, as a location under the Dead Sea floor itself would so qualify.   Further, Sodom is a place never to be inhabited again…not even by excavators, according to the Biblical texts referring back to it by specificity and example. Isaiah 1:9, Devarim / Deuteronomy 29:23,  Jeremiah 49:18 and 50:40

When I look at the Hebrew of Genesis 19:13-14, and use my various resources to engage in a more enhanced word by word  word-picture translation (with reiterations or similar alternates)  for study, this is what I see as I translate it in fulness into the English.  We might discuss in a later post the relation between Korah's demise in Bamidbar / Numbers 26:10 with Rashi's comments on Bamidbar /Numbers 26:11 and this passage, perhaps?

13)  For we are about to sink it down [as a pit] and destroy
                        [and send to the after-life]
                        this place / this place of nothing,
                        for great (is) the outcry of them

                       [as though a sound of thunder]  before Y***,
                       and Y*** has sent us
                       to sink it down
[as a pit] and destroy it. 

14)      And came forth – went out Lot to
       speak – converse (as a legal matter)
  [cf. Akkadian “dababu”]
       to – with  his sons-in-law,
      those taking – receiving – espoused by marriage [contract]
       to taking  his daughters, and said commandingly,
 
                  ‘Arise up (from your sitting or lying down),
                    and go forth out from this place – from such a place as this,
                            for Y*** is about to sink down
[as a pit] –
                            bow down and destroy the (protected) settlement.’
             
 And he
[Lot] became as if – seemed as if
 as one laughing – joking – jesting in the eyes of his sons-in-law.


  To me, this leads me to conclude that the Dead Sea only came into existence with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, because if the Torah says it, it is enough. 

Any comments or insights?   Thanks in advance.  Shalom.