Worthy Christian News > Israel-Palestinian Conflict > City destroyed by comet in Middle East may have inspired the story of Sodom and Gomorrah

City destroyed by comet in Middle East may have inspired the story of Sodom and Gomorrah

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A group of 21 scientific experts led by Christopher R. Moore, Archaeologist and Special Projects Director at the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, have published a study detailing a cosmic-impact event that utterly destroyed a city in modern-day Jordan, and which may have inspired the Biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Yahoo News reports. Recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study describes a Middle Eastern city at the archaeological site of Tall el-Hammam, which the experts believe was destroyed by a comet 3,600 years ago.

The report on Tall el-Hammam was the result of 15 years of detailed work in the making, involving archaeologists, geologists, geochemists, geomorphologists, mineralogists, paleobotanists, sedimentologists, cosmic-impact experts, and medical doctors from the US, Canada, and the Czech Republic, Yahoo News reports.

According to the report, the ancient city now called Tall el-Hammam was hit by an unseen icy space rock that wiped out all its inhabitants as it crashed down on them at about 38,000 mph, Yahoo News said. The rock exploded into a fireball about 2.5 miles above the ground, causing a blast that was around 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

The inhabitants would have been instantly blinded and the temperature would have risen to over 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius); the entire city would have been on fire, the report said. Finally, a massive shockwave would have further devastated the city, moving at about 740 mph (1,200 kph). None of the 8,000 residents would have survived, as their bodies were torn apart and their bones crushed into small pieces.

Given the proximity of Tall el-Hammam to the Dead Sea region where the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were, experts note the destruction of that city reminds of the Scripture in Genesis: “The LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven…the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19: 24,28).