108: Leen Ritmayer - Digging Up Sodom

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Welcome to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. Thank you so much for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help each one of us get the Bible in our daily news feed. And we post at the start of each week for you to listen with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to hear.

2. 0:33

   And now let's hear more about this week's talk. For our talk this week, we're listening to an evening program that was given by Brother Lean Rittmeyer back in 2010 at the Ontario Winter Gathering Bible School. The topic of his class is digging up Sodom. And this is probably one of the more unique classes that I've listened to, mostly because of the context by which Brother Lean is able to give this class.

3. 1:08

   Before I dive into that, I should also mention, for this class specifically, you will probably want to at least have open, if not read through, Genesis 13 and 14, as Brother Lean is looking at those passages multiple times in this account, as well as probably wanting to have one of those maps that's at the back of most of our Bibles of the Holy Land to be able to understand some of the locations that he's referencing.

4. 1:35

   So, and I'll explain why here in just a second as we dive into what I loved about this class in particular. So, Brother Lean brought some really amazing context to Sodom because he was involved in an archaeological dig uncovering what they believed to be ancient Sodom, the actual city that was destroyed by God along with Gomorrah in that account in Genesis 13.

5. 2:01

   And he was brought in to help rebuild kind of like a representation of the city itself. And he has an amazing number of nuggets about the archaeological evidence matching up with the account of God. Especially near the end, he mentions at one point that they uncovered a layer of the city because with ancient cities, they just end up being built on top of themselves as time goes on.

6. 2:25

   And as they dug down into this ancient city, and he mentions the name, which I will not try to repeat because I couldn't pronounce it as well as he could, but mentions that they get to a layer where there's this layer of ash and sulfur and the kind of clay mud bricks that were used in the construction have been hardened so hard that they are essentially like stones.

7. 2:45

   They won't break like a normal mud clay stone will because of an intense heat that they are exposed to. Just a really, one of those ones that you listen to and hearing kind of the evidence that mankind's science is finding to back up what is written in the scripture, I just found it to be a really encouraging class.

8. 3:07

   Brother Lynn is always enjoyable. We've had him on the podcast before, and this was a recommendation. Somebody shot me a link when they found it. Me personally being kind of more of an analytical history nerd, I ate up every second of this. He even at the very end ties in why the lesson of Sodom and all this kind of evidence that he portrays as to where Sodom and Gomorrah is matters, and the lesson that we can take to it is Christadelphians and kind of the reminder of the lesson of Lot and everything that was going on there.

9. 3:34

   So really, really excellent class. Got me really amped up listening to it. Made me want to dig in a little bit more, and I'm going to probably listen to this one a second time so I can take some better notes. Like I said, one I was really excited to share with everybody, so I hope that you enjoyed as much as I did.

10. 3:53

    As always, like I mentioned, this one was a suggestion. The last few have been, as Levi mentioned last week, we've been getting a fairly steady stream of recommendations from people, which is awesome, really helps us out. There's so many new things that have been posted in the last several months because of all the online stuff that people are doing while everyone's having to be remote, which leads to lots of recordings that can be pulled from.

11. 4:17

    But also, it seems like more older material is slowly getting converted and getting added. I found some even older classes that we've been going through. It's exciting to hear and always have more material to listen to, more classes, more exhortations, more series. So if you happen to stumble upon any of them, please send them our way.

12. 4:37

    We'd love to give them a listen and share them with everybody. With that, I'm going to turn it over now to Brother Lien Rittmeier for his class titled, Digging Up Sodom. Good evening, brothers and sisters and young people. Sodom is a bit of a funny place, isn't it? We ask people, what do you know about Sodom?

13. 4:57

    They say, I don't know. It's on the bottom of the Dead Sea. And if you would have told me three years ago that I'll be working in an excavation with maybe Sodom, I said, well, you must be daft. It's quite impossible. And actually, the call came two years ago. He said, would you come and help us draw some architectural plans of the city of Sodom?

14. 5:19

    He said, well, don't you know that it says in the Epistle of Jude that it's set forth as an example of eternal fire? So it's gone. How can you expect to find it? It says, in Genesis 19, it got overturned, Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, the word overturned is like what you do with your cake.

15. 5:36

    They'll turn it upside down. He said, you can never find it. But I said, just give it a go. But what do you know about Sodom? If you go, for example, to the internet, and you go to Yahoo Answers, it says, Sodom and Gomorrah were two separate cities that in present day lie under the Dead Sea in South Jordan.

16. 5:56

    God brought fire, brimstone, or sulfur out of heaven on those cities in judgment. The vast amounts of sulfur that exist in the Dead Sea are a direct result of this. Yahoo. Go to answers.com, say, Sodom and Gomorrah were cities in the Aegean Islands, and it's in Greece.

17. 6:15

    What's the question of the offering of you? Can you open your hymn book, please? At hymn 390. Hymn 390. And verse 2. Where it says, Who was saved from direst horror at that unexpected hour wherein Sodom and Gomorrah sank, overwhelmed, to rise no more? Lot the faithful and his daughters were alone removed to Zohar.

18. 6:51

    Where in the Bible does it say that Sodom sank in the Dead Sea? If you show me one verse, I'll be very pleased. I'll believe you. You can't find it. It doesn't say that Sodom is in the Dead Sea. And the Dead Sea was not created when Sodom was destroyed. There are two distinct sites altogether.

19. 7:17

    Anyway, let's go through the scripture. Some of you may know that I've been working on the illustrations of the ESV study Bible. And just a few months ago, they brought out the Atlas. And they showed this picture. I didn't know about this. Off of the Dead Sea. And they see Sodom and Gomorrah and Zohar and Atma, Zebulun, and all those smoky columns going up on the other side of the River Jordan.

20. 7:38

    Where were those cities actually located? Well, two years ago, a good archaeologist friend of mine, Dr. Steve Collins, he's the dean of the University of Trinity Southwest in Albuquerque. I'm a professor there. I used to teach there quite a bit. And he rang me up and he said, well, why don't you come and have a look?

21. 8:00

    So I did. And at the moment, they are working there on a site called Tel Al-Ghamman. And I just got an email this morning from one of the team members saying things in Jordan have been crazy. That's an email I got this morning in the archaeological field. Last week, a group of Russian archaeologists came and wanted to get a permit to put a submarine in the Dead Sea to look for Sodom.

22. 8:25

    I don't know how deep a submarine can go because it doesn't sink. Remember that the Dead Sea is now at its all-time lowest at minus 450 meters below sea level. Because the Dead Sea has been there for all time, there's nothing under it. At any rate, the Jordanian Department of Archaeology, that's to say, was called to meet them at the Dead Sea.

23. 8:47

    When they arrived, it was a setup that the press waited, and the Jordanians told them to get out of Jordan, and they could not proceed. But in turn, it precipitated the director of the Department of Antiquity of Jordan to send a news team to our site, Tel Al-Ghamman, and interview Dr. Collins and the Jordanian co-director.

24. 9:06

    And then, for the first time, they confirmed our site as the best Sodom fit. There's a gigantic turning point for our day coming on the 6 and 8 p.m. national news. And in God's way, in three weeks' time, I'll be joining our team. Well, here's Dr. Collins, Steve Collins. This is a colleague of mine.

25. 9:27

    We've been working together for some 15 years. And he is pointing there on a map on Mount Nebo, where he told me he believed that Sodom was located. Well, we've been working together since 1995, and we both like challenges. We walked up, we climbed up the Roman ramp at Massar in 1995, just after our first season of excavating Ai.

26. 9:53

    We've been working there for about seven years, so we got to know each other. He invited me to come to his university and lecture there. And every year, we lead tours in Jordan and Israel. And the website is BLE, that's BibleLensExpeditionTravel.com. Well, my challenge was the Temple Mount. I worked almost all my life trying to sort out all the problems of the Temple Mount.

27. 10:15

    And Steve's challenge was to find Sodom. So where did we go from here? We went last year to the Department of Antiquities in Jordan, in a geographical institute, and we're poring over maps, trying to get some old area photographs to learn more about our site. But most importantly is, where, according to the Bible, is Sodom?

28. 10:41

    Actually, in the Bible, there are more indicators to where Sodom is located than where Jerusalem is located. But just don't read carefully enough. If archaeologists have done one thing for me, it's to read the Bible carefully, almost word for word, and you get your answers. The brother who taught me the truth a long time ago, in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel, next to the Gaza Strip, he said, after every sentence, ask why, where, who, how.

29. 11:15

    And if you do that, you get all sorts of answers, which are quite unexpected. Now, the chapter we just read, Genesis 13, just opening Bibles again, have got so many indicators, that it's absolutely incredible. Thank you. So, let's start and look at the critical points in those first 12 verses of Genesis chapter 13.

30. 11:46

    And I've highlighted the indicators we need to know from scriptures in order to find Sodom. So, Abraham went up from Egypt. He was in Egypt. He went to the Negev. When you see south in verse 1, that is usually the Negev, the southern part of Israel. So, he came up from Egypt, through the Sinai Desert, through the Negev.

31. 12:08

    And he went up from place to place. He would have gone over Hebron, and Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, and they go further north. He came to Bethel. And he came to the place, as it says in verse 3, between Bethel and Ai. What happened there? Earlier. Abraham built an altar on the one hill in between Bethel and Ai.

32. 12:30

    So, he went back to the place where he had built an altar before. And then, Lot looked up, and he saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered. It was like the garden of Yahweh. It was like the land of Egypt towards Zoan. You should remember this phrase. They're extremely important.

33. 13:02

    And so, Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan. And he set out toward the east. So, in Bethel and Ai, and he went east. And the boy's looking south. You know, the Bible says he went east. And then, Abram lived in the land of Canaan while Lot dwelt among the cities of the plain.

34. 13:27

    The plain of Jordan. That's where he went. He didn't go to the bottom of the Dead Sea to find a living in Sodom. He went to the plain of Jordan. What does that mean? And he pitched his tent not toward. The Hebrew says, as far as Sodom, he went straight to Sodom. So, here we can learn that this will be east of Bethel and Ai.

35. 13:47

    It's in the plain of Jordan, which was well watered. It was like the Garden of Yahweh. What's that? Like the land of Egypt. What's the parallel?

36. 13:59

    And it's east of Bethel and Ai. Now, the word, the plain of Jordan, the word plain is not a normal word for plain. Plain is usually an emek or an arava in Hebrew. But a kikar, that's the word used in Genesis 13, that is usually translated as a talent or a loaf of bread.

37. 14:26

    The idea is a kikar means a circle. You go to the old city in Jerusalem, you buy bread, and you get a pita, circular loaf of bread. When they exchanged silver or gold, as a talent, there was a circular disk of gold or silver. In modern Hebrew, a kikar is a roundabout. I can tell if you've got kikar Dizinkov, it's the roundabout of Dizinkov.

38. 14:51

    So it indicates a circle. It's the circle of the Jordan. That's how the plain of Jordan should be translated. It's not the plain of the Dead Sea. The plain of Jordan, says the Bible.

39. 15:07

    There's 13 geographical uses of the word kikar. You only find in the Old Testament. It also refers to the disk-shaped southern Jordan Valley north of the Dead Sea. It looks like a circle. For those of you who look at Atlases or have been in the land of Israel, you know you've got the Sea of Galilee.

40. 15:31

    And then the Jordan goes down through a valley. But it widens out where Jericho is, north of the Dead Sea. Have a look at these pictures. So this is a satellite photograph of the Dead Sea area. Here you see the northern end of the Dead Sea. Here's the River Jordan going through a narrow valley and goes all the way down.

41. 15:54

    But look at this area. It widens out into a circle. It looks like a circular plain if you stand here above Jericho or here on Mount Nebo. If you look from a slightly different angle, we're now above Jerusalem more or less. Here's Jericho. Here's the River Jordan. Here flows into the Dead Sea.

42. 16:17

    And you can see there's a circular plain. That's the Hebrew word for plain. Kikar means a circle. A disk. You can't get away from it. So, in this disk, in the plain of Jordan, the city of Sodom must be located according to the Bible.

43. 16:38

    So the Kikar is also the Kikar of the Jordan, not the Kikar of the Dead Sea. The Jordan, Ha-Yarden, refers only to the river Jordan proper. The Dead Sea is not the Jordan. The Jordan is not the Dead Sea. They're different systems. And Ha-Yarden never includes any part of the veil of Sidim.

44. 17:06

    It ends, as the Bible says, I've got some references here if you want to write them down. It ends at the mouth of the Jordan below Pisgah. And Pisgah is Mount Nebo just opposite Jericho. That's where the North Sea ends. You can look up. Let's look up in Numbers 34.

45. 17:28

    Comparing Scripture with Scripture is not only important for archaeology and geography, but for our spiritual life as well. So in Deuteronomy 34, Numbers 34, verse 12, in verse 12, is talking here about the border of the land. So in verse 11, the coast shall go down from Shepham to Ripla on the east side of Ain.

46. 18:05

    The border shall descend and shall reach unto the side of the Sea of Caner the Sea of Galilee eastward. The border shall go down the Jordan and the goings out of the Jordan shall be at the Sol Sea, the Dead Sea. This shall be your land to the Jordan ends at the Dead Sea.

47. 18:24

    And the Dead Sea is not the River Jordan. Deuteronomy 3, 17. You're talking about the land that was given on the other side, Jordan, in verse 16, to the Reubenites and the Gadites. It's all the land of Gilead unto the river Arnon, half the valley, and the border even unto the river Jabok, which is the border of the children of Ammon.

48. 18:49

    And it's wonderful. You can go to Jordan, you can stand there at the Arnon Valley, very deep canyon in the south, and you can see there the Jabok River as well. And then verse 17, it says, and the plain, the Kikar, the circular disk also, and Jordan, and the coast off from Kineret even, unto the Sea of the Plain, the Salt Sea, under Ashdot, Pisgah, eastward.

49. 19:17

    So clearly indicates that Jordan ends whether it flows into the Dead Sea. Can you see that? So the Dead Sea is not part of the River Jordan at all. I could look at more of them, but it will take a bit of time. But you can write down, if you want to check it up later on, Deuteronomy 3, 17 and 27, 4, verse 47 to 49, in Joshua 15, verse 5, and 18, verse 19.

50. 19:43

    It always indicates that the Jordan ends that flows into the Dead Sea. So, looking at this topographical map of the Land of Israel, think of that water system that goes right through the middle of the land, the Great Rift Valley, the Jordan River Valley. That is the outline of it. Now, it starts at the top where Mount Hermon is, because the Mount Hermon is all covered with snow, the snow melts, the water penetrates in the mountain, goes down the mountainside, makes four different heads, which form one river, the River Jordan, and the Jordan flows there into the Sea of Galilee.

51. 20:24

    And from the Sea of Galilee, the river goes down, that is called the River Jordan proper, until you come to the Dead Sea, which is a different system, although it's all one water system, of course. Then we read in Genesis 13 that the Kikar was, in verse 10, if you go back to Genesis chapter 13 and verse 10, Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of, all the Kikar, the circular disk of the Jordan, that was well watered everywhere before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zohar.

52. 21:07

    It was well watered. Well, when I was there last January, before the rains actually started, there was still water running through all the valleys there. Well watered, like the garden of Yahweh. Well, go to Genesis chapter 2. The garden of Yahweh must be the garden of Eden. What does it say there about that river?

53. 21:29

    Genesis 2 and verse 10 says, One river went out of Eden to water the garden. And after that it was parted. It was one river going right through the middle of the garden. It is like Egypt. There would be no Egypt. It was no Nile. The Nile is Egypt. There is one river going right through the middle of Egypt.

54. 21:59

    It overflows its banks just like the river Jordan does. So, it is quite clear if you go back to Genesis 13. It must be well watered, the plain, and one river going right through the middle of it. just like in the garden of Eden and just like in Egypt. That's what the Bible tells us.

55. 22:17

    Now, if you look at this picture, here's the Kikar which ends at the Dead Sea. These riverbeds are flowing this water most of the year. All of them. And then, there's where Jericho is. Also in the Kikar of the Jordan. And the river Jordan goes right through the middle of it. Just like the river went through the middle of the Garden of Eden, as verse 10 tells us, and the Nile goes through the middle of the land of Egypt.

56. 22:48

    And the Nile ends when it flows into the sea, into the Mediterranean. And there are all sorts of sites there, those red circles. Tel-Haman, that's a site we excavated, the largest site in this area. A smaller one, Tel-Kafre, and you get Nimrin, Blybel, and Musta. See, it's only the last few years that we could go into the area because there's always a military zone.

57. 23:19

    You couldn't go and excavate there because you get your head shot off by the Israelis or by some Palestinians. And therefore, it was kind of a terra, not how do you call that? It knock it out. You don't, it's an area that is unknown, out of bounds since the 1948 war. And only now is it possible to go there and excavate.

58. 23:41

    Let's go back to Lot in verse 10. He lifted up his eyes and he viewed the entire Jordan disk from the east. Yes, he was in Bethel and he looked east. So if you're in Bethel and you look east, then you will see the whole Kikar of the Jordan. What do you see when you're in Bethel and you get your telephoto lens out?

59. 24:13

    Well, first of all, here is on a satellite picture, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem. Here's Bethel and Eir and here's the disk. So what are we being told? That he looked east. Actually, if you are in Bethel and Eir, you can barely see the Dead Sea. Only the northern bit of it, because the mountains are all in the way.

60. 24:39

    Here's a photograph, this is what you can see from Bethel and Eir. Here's a photograph taken from Bethel and here you can see the circular disk of the Jordan. Jericho is just below the mountain here. And here is Mount Nebo. But it was below Pisgah. Now here is where the Jordan ends. The Jordan runs right here and all the water coming down from the plateau, the Moabite plateau, makes this valley very, very fertile.

61. 25:07

    This is what you see when you look east. That's what Lot did. If you look south, you can just see the northern tip of the Dead Sea. That's all you can see. So there's no point saying Sodom is in the southern end of the Dead Sea because you can't see it from Bethel.

62. 25:28

    No point saying it is somewhere on this side, between where Masada is, where it is to show you Lot's wife, because you can't see it from Bethel. Lot could see Sodom from Bethel, quite clear from Genesis chapter 13. So he then traveled eastward from Bethel and Ai and he pitched his tent at Sodom.

63. 25:51

    Back in Bethel and Ai, here is east, so this is the direction he went to. It can only end up in the circle, the circular plateau of the river Jordan. Jerusalem. So if you take only Genesis 13 in account, and here's the Dead Sea area, don't be looking here for Sodom because you can't see it from Bethel and Ai.

64. 26:19

    This is the only part where you can see the plain of the Jordan. And this circular area is called the Kikar of the Jordan, about 25 kilometers in diameter. Jericho is on the west side of the Kikar and Sodom and Gomorrah must be on the east side. You can't see Jericho from Bethel and Ai because it's too deep down.

65. 26:43

    You can only see on the other side or in this part of the Kikar you can see from Bethel because the mountains are in the way.

66. 26:53

    And then Steve Collins went there, there's all this information, he said for three weeks I'll be reading every day Genesis 13 and 14 a few times in a day trying to understand what is the Bible telling me where Sodom is. And then he had an opportunity to go to the site and all these sites belong to the Middle Bronze Age.

67. 27:19

    So in archaeology we don't talk about 2000 BC or 3000 BC, we divide the chronological areas into the Early Bronze Age, the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and so on. This particular city must belong to the Middle Bronze Age, according to archaeology, I'll explain that later on.

68. 27:40

    And so he got an inkling that those cities must be there. And then he went to the site in the Kikar of the Jordan. And then he assumed that Sodom was the biggest city in the eastern Jordan disk, because it's always mentioned first. You see, often cities are called in pairs, Bethel and Ai.

69. 28:07

    Bethel is always the largest, and Ai is the smaller one. So Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom must be the bigger one, and Gomorrah the smaller one. If you look at the list of the cities, they're often counted from the south. The southern cities mentioned first, Sodom, a bit north is Gomorrah, and then Atma and Zebrain.

70. 28:28

    That's the biblical way of making lists of cities. So, leave that for a time being. We also need to look at Genesis chapter 14. Now, Genesis 14, if you open the Bible there, it says, It came to pass in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Ariok, king of El-Assar, Kidol-Eomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of the nations.

71. 28:55

    These made war with Bera, the king of Sodom, with Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinar, king of Atma, Shamiba, king of Zebulim, and the king of Bila, which is Zoar. And these were joined together in the Vale of Sidon, which is the Salt Sea. Twelve years they served Kidol-Eomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.

72. 29:15

    And in the fourteenth year came Kidol-Eomer and the kings that were with him and smote, look, look on the map, he smote the Rephaim in Ashtaroth Karnaim, that's where it is. So they came from Mesopotamia, following the same route which Abram took, coming over Damascus into the land, staying on the east side of the Jordan, smote Rephaim here, and then the Zuzim, the next group of people, in Ham, and then the Imim in Shaveh Kiryatayim, that is here.

73. 29:47

    They went down all the way to the Horite in Mount Seir, that is Edom, here is Mount Seir. Paran, you see verse 6 to El Paran, which is by the wilderness, they returned and came to Ein Mishpat, which is Kedus, here it is, Kedus Barnea, from where Joshua sent out the spies, Moses sent out the spies to spy out the land.

74. 30:11

    And then they turned back, and they, it says then went to the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites that dwelt in Hatzitzon Tamar. Now, Hatzitzon Tamar, if you look at the, I've had a text here up, according to 2 Chronicles 20 and verse 2, Hatzitzon Tamar is En-Gedi. So they came in a big sweep on the east side of Jordan, all around the bottom of the Dead Sea, to the Negev, to Paran, to Ked, and now they were in En-Gedi.

75. 30:48

    So all the four kings were there, the kings of the north, they were now in En-Gedi. And what happened next? Because, I've considered the map, then went out, so while these guys were in En-Gedi, then came the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, the king of Adma, the king of Zebul, and the king of Bila, and they joined battle with them in the vale of Sidim.

76. 31:16

    So where's the vale of Sidim? Now if you are here in En-Gedi, and Sodom and Gomorrah are here, then it must be somewhere in the middle. So, if you have a larger map, Amraphel, Ariok, and Kido Leome, they were here near En-Gedi. If the kings of Gomorrah, Sodom, and all these guys here, they were here, they would have set out and meet here in the vale of Sidim.

77. 31:45

    It's the only place where it can be. Now, and then we read that they fell into slime pits. Well, since about two years ago, there's slime pits again. But the word slime pit in verse 10 of chapter 14, look at it, in verse 10 of chapter 14 in Genesis it says the vale of Sidim was full of slime pits.

78. 32:11

    Well, I don't know what slime is, it's very slimy, but it doesn't say so in the Hebrew at all. It isn't asphalt, it isn't slime, the Hebrew word is clay. It's the word for clay. There were clay pits. They were there when the battle took place between the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other guys, and when they were fleeing, they fell into slime pits.

79. 32:36

    And nobody knew what they were. Up to about two years ago, when those slime pits, those clay pits, those sink holes, those are modern words, appeared again. How come they appear now and they didn't appear before?

80. 32:54

    Because of the salt works by the Jordanians and the Israelis, they take out so much water out of the Dead Sea, and the River Jordan is tapped by the Israelis just when it comes out of the Sea of Galilee, so the national water carry, water is almost the whole end of Israel, but nothing much goes down the River Jordan.

81. 33:12

    So the Dead Sea goes down every year by one meter. If the water goes down, what happens to the water that is locked underneath the sides of the Dead Sea? Water gets withdrawn because the water level goes down and there were sinkholes appear. And it was the same in the time of Abraham and the battle of Genesis chapter 14.

82. 33:40

    So while those kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were fleeing, they didn't look where they were going, they fell into the slime pits. And he almost lost his life there because it was like quicksand. Now it happens when the level of the Dead Sea goes down. Geologists have worked for years looking into all the sides of the mountains, here you look at Qumran, into caves, looking at deposits, water deposits and salt deposits.

83. 34:11

    And they've been able to graphically portray how the level of the Dead Sea changed through time. Our next slide is an animated animation of the size of the Dead Sea is the main part of the picture. And on the side is a section through the Dead Sea and you can see how it goes up and down.

84. 34:36

    There's a timeline underneath there that gives you an idea of what's happened to the level of the Dead Sea through the ages. Dead Sea. So here is the Dead Sea. We are now in 3000 BC. That's the time of the flood. According to the geodesis, it was very, very large. Then it goes down to the time of Abram, 2000, when the sea was very, very small.

85. 35:02

    This is the time of Abram, now King of Jack. In the time of the judges, in the time of the kings, the water went up again, and went down a little bit, it stays the same, up to about a Hellenistic period. Then you come to the time of Christ, the water level goes up again, as you can see here, and then it went down very, very low in the Byzantine period.

86. 35:29

    And then the water level climbed up again, all through the Middle Ages, a bit of an up, and then it goes down, and at the moment it is very, very small. The southern part of the Dead Sea is completely dry. You can walk across here from Masada to the other side. And that is when those sink holes appear.

87. 35:54

    So this graph shows exactly that we're actually lower now, even than in the time of those kings of Sodom and Gomorrah who fell into the slime pits which are here. It's the only place where you can see them today. So it is caused by the low level of the Dead Sea. It shows that the Dead Sea was there because Sodom and Gomorrah weren't destroyed yet.

88. 36:15

    If there's no Dead Sea you can't find any sinkholes. So it's just quite illuminating that we are now at the same level as in the time of Abram and Lot.

89. 36:27

    And so going to the side, Sodom must be the largest one, and here is the largest Middle Bronze Age site in practically the whole of the Middle East. It's bigger than Megiddo, it's bigger than Chatzor, it's bigger than Lachish, it's a kilometer long. When I went the first time and I looked at the fortifications, it took me three hours to walk around the site.

90. 36:52

    Here's our bus standing, and here's our little hut where we keep our tools. from the air, this is the upper tail, and this is the lower tail. It's an enormous site, a huge site, bigger than any in Israel. If you stand on Mount Nebo and you look down, then you can see quite clearly where it is.

91. 37:18

    Right there in the middle of this circle, here's the upper tail, and it's the older lower tail. That is where Tel El Gaman is located, a thousand meters long, about 600 meters wide, an enormous site. As I said before, in archaeology we talk about Bronze Age and Iron Age and so on. According to the archaeological time frame, the story of Abram belongs to the Middle Bronze Age.

92. 37:51

    Now, the Middle Bronze Age goes from 2000 BC, the time when Abram was born, up to about 1500 BC. That's what we call the Middle Bronze Age. Then you get the Late Bronze Age from 1500 to 1200, and then you have what we call the Iron Age, which is the time of the kings of Israel.

93. 38:09

    So Abram must be in what we call the Middle Bronze Age, and not later on in the Iron Age. So if you go to a site and say, well, that is Sodom, well, do you have Middle Bronze? If you don't have Middle Bronze, it can be Sodom. Let's go to Genesis chapter 10, where Sodom is mentioned for the first time before the flood.

94. 38:31

    in Genesis chapter 10, we have the borders in verse 19 of the land of Canaan. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, and to Gaza, as thou comest unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Atma, and Zebraim, even unto Lasha. So the borders of Canaan start at Sidon, here in modern-day Lebanon, goes all along the coast of the Mediterranean, up to Gaza, where the Gaza strip is, goes across towards the Dead Sea, where Sodom, and Gomorrah, Atma, and Zebraim are located, in the table of nations of Genesis chapter 10, before the flood, just after the flood, before the time of Abraham.

95. 39:27

    So, and then the border goes up to Lasha, that is Laish, or Dan, and then goes across to Sidon. In Genesis 10, we've got Sodom and Gomorrah, and we call that the early Bronze Age. That is much earlier, because it goes back to 3000 BC. So there was already a site of Sodom, before Abraham got there, before Lot got there.

96. 39:56

    So, Abraham and Lot are here in the Middle Bronze Age, but that lower tail belongs to the early Bronze Age, is much older. Here we find in this period of time, between 3000 and 2000 BC, the cities of the Kikara, in Genesis chapter 10. So Sodom and the other cities of the Jordan Disc would have occupations dating from the early Bronze Age, but also the Middle Bronze Age.

97. 40:23

    And then you go to a site, before you excavate, we usually walk around the site and pick up the pot church, which never get destroyed, and you can understand from the pot church what kind of time periods are represented on the site. So then, having our archaeological time frame from 3000 to 2000 up to 1000 BC, then it's quite clear that this must be the time frame of Sodom and the cities of Jordan Disc.

98. 40:50

    That's what you expect to find before you actually start excavating, if you take the Bible carefully. And then you go to the site, it's a Bronze Age city, exactly the time frame of Abraham and Lot. The lower city, which you can see in brown here, is the oldest part of Sodom, that is Genesis chapter 10.

99. 41:13

    But this city, the Middle Bronze City, is the time of Abraham and Lot. And there's even a later occupation in the time of the kings of Israel.

100. 41:25

     And so here we're excavating, the stones which you see here belong to the time of the kings of Israel, but down below, a meter thick layer, that layer of occupation belongs to the time of Abraham and Lot. And excavating there, you can see the walls of the houses, I don't want to say this house of Lot, but he lived in Sodom somewhere, this house belonged to people that lived in Sodom during the time of Lot.

101. 41:51

     You find a pot shirt, a very typical little jugglet, so it fits exactly the picture of the time frame of the Bible. In Genesis 19,

102. 42:08

     we read that two angels came to Sodom and even and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. What's the importance of that information? There's no point having a city with houses and on one side build a gate. Please go through the gate, so I'd rather go around it. It doesn't work like that.

103. 42:29

     If you got a gate, you got a city wall, because the gate is the only opening through the city wall. So it means if there's a gate, there must be a city wall. And so looking at the site, schematically, here's the lower tower, here's the upper tower. Here, you expect to find, in the middle bronze age, in the upper tower, in the lower tower, you find already a city wall, and towers have been excavated already.

104. 42:58

     There must have been a city there, which was destroyed, but the upper tower had a city wall as well. This is the city of Lot. There must have been a gate, which we haven't found yet. There was a city, and that was destroyed by fire. So, when you read first, Sodom was destroyed by fire, I think the whole city is gone.

105. 43:19

     But in archaeology, all those ancient sites like Megiddo and Hatzor and Beth Shan, they all built layer upon layer upon layer upon layer. So, when Sodom was destroyed, it actually means the upper layer of Sodom, where the people lived at that time, was destroyed. The whole town must disappear. It didn't say so.

106. 43:39

     here. Now, and then, we found actually the fortifications of that city. Here, all built over the ruins. So, excavating on the top there, we found a rampart, a typical Middle Bronze Age rampart, of the city of Lot. And the city, the buildings must be inside. Well, here is the mud brick wall, starting to be excavated, going down, sloping on the side, and you're standing at the bottom.

107. 44:10

     This was the fortification of the city of Sodom in the time of Lot. And somewhere through this ramp, made of mud brick, of little stones or bricks made of mud brick, calculating them, they must have made 44 million mud bricks to build a fortification around this city. It was an enormous kind of work.

108. 44:33

     And so, archaeologically and geographically, the biggest fortified Bronze Age city on the eastern Jordan disk is the most likely calibrate for Sodom, called today Tel El Haman. It spreads over one kilometer square. We call it the queen of the southern Jordan Valley. Yes, it's bigger than any other Bronze Age site in the whole Middle East in this particular area.

109. 45:03

     So, this is the Middle Bronze Age. rampant then. There was a little space of time and the site was unoccupied. And look at the destruction. Digging in this square, below where you can see the stones, this particular level was full of ash and destruction. You see a picture here of a mud brick, which has been fired so hard, you couldn't break it.

110. 45:31

     Usually you must be very careful when you dig a wall that was made of mud brick, which was as hard as a stone. It was exposed to an enormously high temperature. And parts of the roof that were infused with sulfur and hard as stone, normally it's brittle like anything. You only get it when something is burned at a very, very high temperature.

111. 45:56

     Here I'm standing here in the burnt palace of Bera, king of Sodom. You see the bricks here, are still red, because it changes color from brown to red if you burn mud brick. And thinking about it, king, his palace must have been here, right on the top, and the view from his palace was the whole of the Kikar of Jordan.

112. 46:19

     Here's the Dead Sea, here's Jericho, here's Gomorrah, right in view, a satellite city of Sodom. And so it all seems to fit very, very well indeed. And then in one place, they found a few potsherds which had melted. They're green. And you need a temperature of over 6,000 degrees centigrade to melt a potsherd.

113. 46:49

     my colleague Steve lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where in 1945, they had those nuclear tests. And the result after those tests, they looked at the whole environment, they saw that the sand was turned into green glass. Most things turn into green glass. And when he took this sample to the laboratory, they said, oh, there's trinitite.

114. 47:20

     See, trinitite, also known as atomite or mortar glass, is the name given to the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based trinitite nuclear bomb test. So when he saw the potsherd, he said, that's trinitite, without any doubt. He turned over, what he says, is a potsherd. Where did get that from?

115. 47:42

     They cut right through the middle, it was a very fine sole, and they saw that below the green glaze, there were actually bubbles inside a potsherd from the heat this potsherd was exposed to.

116. 47:58

     Go to Genesis 19 and verse 28. There's more information which is extremely important. In verse 27, meaning it is after, verse 24, Yahuah rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahuah out of heaven. He overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the city and that which grew upon the ground.

117. 48:25

     His wife looked back from behind him as she became a pillar of salt and Abel got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before Yahuah. He was in Hebron by the way. He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and what did he see? Toward all the land of the plain he beheld the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

118. 48:47

     He got a big bonfire the smoke goes all over the place but the furnace is a chimney the smoke goes straight up. That's what Abram saw. Exactly a pillar like you have from a nuclear bomb. I don't say there was a nuclear bomb. Don't mistake what I'm saying. The fact that there was a pillar of smoke going up is the same as you see when you have an atomic bomb.

119. 49:16

     How does that happen? Because when the bomb comes down you get a horizontal impact but the path through which it comes down is a vacuum. It sucks up sand and stones which get super heated and then they come raining down upon the site. It says God rained down fire and brimstone. The best lexicon I have at home is written by John Parkers.

120. 49:45

     It was made in 1823. That's the lexicon which John Thomas always used. It's a very intelligent man and he looked at that word brimstone. Brimstone is an old English word for burning stone. That's all it is. So make a note in the Bible brimstone is burning stone. He says brimstone or burning stone gofrit in Hebrew is always applied written in 1823.

121. 50:15

     Yes? Applied or alludes to that meteorous inflammable matter which God rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what the Hebrew word indicates. And we believe that's how Sodom was destroyed. words that are related to gofrit is gofairwood of which the Ark of Noah was made. So much resin in that wood that it stays afloat.

122. 50:39

     The cypress is from the same kind of word kuparisos gofrit. So it isn't sulfur it's very durable against rocks and worms used for shipbuilding and so on. So it is a resinous inflammable juices which you find in that particular tree and that is the word used. Now my colleague thinks that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a meteorite.

123. 51:05

     Now that was his idea. It sounds plausible but just think about it. If you get a huge meteor coming down from the sky and it fragmentizes on impact then it hits the ground at a terrific speed. But the path through which that meteor comes down creates a vacuum. First we get an impact on the ground and says it got overturned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah where you can look at the walls in the section they're just trumbled over.

124. 51:36

     That's the horizontal impact when you get such an impact on the ground. But that path through which it comes down becomes a vacuum. It sucks up soil and stones goes up in that vacuum gets super heated and comes down as burning stones. It's exactly what the Bible says. So something had a meteor arrived something got a nuclear bomb something must have come down from heaven which sucked up the stones super heated them and smashed them down again.

125. 52:09

     And that is how Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. All those cities were destroyed, all those five of them, at the same time in the same way. Now that is very interesting. So we have here Tel El-Ghamam, the largest city, the people in Sodom, Tel-Kha-Freem, maybe Gomorrah, Nimrim, they go together again. Sodom and Gomorrah, Atma and Zebulim.

126. 52:33

     Zebulim, I was teaching my students this morning, if you've got a word like Elohim, if it ends in in, it's plural. wall. So, there were two sites there, one beside you, the twin satellite cities of Atma and Zebulim. So according to the direction we get in the Bible, and the way those cities were destroyed, it fits exactly the picture of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Kikar, as we've been seeing in the Bible.

127. 53:04

     And in three weeks time, I'll be there again and see what I've been discovering so far. But what can we learn from the whole story of Sodom and Gomorrah? That's Christadelphians. It's not just written here for archaeologists so we can find this site. To us, reading the Bible, Genesis 13 and 14, and coming to a site which fits perfectly, shows that the biblical record is absolutely true.

128. 53:36

     Taught me, I must read the Bible so carefully, it says, look east and don't look south because you won't find it. Don't believe fables including hymn 390. I'm so pleased that the hymn book is not part of the BASF because I'm disfellowshipped at the end of this lecture.

129. 54:00

     Don't bring your family to Sodom. It says Lot, he vexed his righteous soul. He had hoped perhaps to convert Sodom. What happened, his wife was converted to the race of Sodom and his two daughters as well. He lost his family. By choosing to live in the wrong place. Oh, very fertile, well watered, the river Jordan there, plenty of food, better than on top of the mountains where Abraham stayed, but at the cost of his family.

130. 54:30

     and don't live a Sodom lifestyle. But what is a Sodom lifestyle? You see, usually when we think about Sodom, we think about the immorality, sexual immorality, but that's not the only thing. Go to Ezekiel chapter 16 please, and then we come a lot closer home. In Ezekiel chapter 16, we read there in verse,

131. 55:09

     it talks about Samaria and Jerusalem, but they make a comparison with Sodom and her daughters. It says there in verse 48, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, Sodom thy sister has not done she nor her daughter as thou and thy daughters, because this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. This is why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities.

132. 55:40

     Number one is pride. Number two is fullness of bread. Three is abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. They were haughty. They committed abomination before me and therefore I took them away as I saw good. I don't use the NIV very much but in this time I'd like you to look at it.

133. 56:08

     They say they're arrogant, overfed and unconcerned. And that's exactly the world in which we live. Isn't it? So we need to learn from Sodom and Gomorrah and the fierce destruction which we are excavating at the moment that we mustn't be proud. We are overfed. We've got too much to eat and got too much free time.

134. 56:36

     What do we do with it? Do we use it to study the word of God to sit with our family around and go to Bible schools, go to Bible class, go to Sunday school, or do we just sit on the couch and watch TV and let the world come into our home? What do we do with all the free time we have?

135. 56:52

     We only work four and a half days a week nowadays instead of six. What do we do with it? And do we strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy? That's what God pointed out are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Compare Abraham and Lot. Abraham's faith was counted as righteousness. But Lot vexed his righteous So he was living in a way that you vexed all your life is not very productive.

136. 57:23

     Abraham lived on the mountains away from the cities. Remember the four geographical areas in Israel? You got the coastal strip where the Philistines lived. All the holy places were on top of the mountains. That's where Abraham wanted to be. He wanted to be where Hebrum was, where Bethlehem is, where Jerusalem is, Shiloh and Shechem.

137. 57:40

     But Lot went liberated city, just like we live in a liberated society. Anything goes. Abraham had 318 young men educated, it says in Struck, it's the same word for education, yet educated 300 young men in his own home. Not only in the scriptures, but with sword and spear as well. And those 318 young men could defeat the army of four kings of Mesopotamia.

138. 58:17

     But Lot's wife and daughters became morally corrupt. The heart of Lot's wife was in Sodom. And look what those daughters did afterwards. Those are the ways of Sodom. Abraham received a son of promise. Lot's wife and son-in-law died. Remember what Jesus says. Remember Lot's wife.

139. 58:47

     I hope you agree with me that Sodom is not on the bottom of the Dead Sea. Jesus says in Matthew 10 verse 15, Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of judgment than for that city. So Sodom will be remembered at the day of judgment.

140. 59:08

     You stood in Ezekiel chapter 16, look what it says in verse 55. This is in the kingdom when everything will be restored again. It says when thy sisters Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former estate and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate then thou Jerusalem and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.

141. 59:36

     Jerusalem is going to be restored as the capital of the land of Israel. Samaria the northern part of Israel is going to be restored as part of the inheritance of the saints and Sodom will also be restored there will be a city of Sodom in the kingdom. It's on the bottom of the Dead Sea very difficult to build a city there.

142. 59:54

     So this is what we've learned from Genesis 13 and 14 reading accurately and following the scriptures and finding most likely what is Sodom the future. Well here's Jerusalem on the top of the mountains this is the area where Avon preferred to be. In Ezekiel 47 verse 8 we read about a new river coming out of the temple.

143. 1:00:20

     The waters that issue out toward the east country go down into the desert go into the sea but being brought forth into the sea the water shall be healed. That fresh water abundant

144. 1:00:41

     hand and you float in the water people think you're soft in the head. But in the kingdom it will be able to fish there because fishes will live again in the Dead Sea. Zechariah says it shall be in that day that living water shall go from Jerusalem half of them to the former sea and half to the !

145. 1:01:00

     the Mediterranean in the Mediterranean in summer and winter shall it in Jerusalem in the land of Israel healing the waters of the Dead Sea as you shall see tomorrow or the night after is a type of death itself and then will all the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yah as the waters cover the sea.

146. 1:01:41

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147. 1:02:11

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