--- description: Sources worked up for the Sodom and Gomorrah article, with access route, what each supplied, and whether it was cited or explicitly set aside. agents: Claude Code models: claude-opus-5[1m] last_reviewed: 2026-08-30 10:40 ET theme: common/themes/berean2/theme.php --- # Literature review — Sodom and Gomorrah ## Cited in the article | Source | Route | What it supplied | |---|---|---| | Bunch et al., *Sci Rep* 11:18632 (2021), **retracted** | curl of nature.com HTML, tags stripped locally | The 1650 BC ± 50 date, 26 radiocarbon samples, the "blow-over layer", the 300–600 year abandonment of ~120 settlements, the "eyewitness account" paragraph, and the MB I Dead Sea level of ~370 mbsl | | Retraction Note, *Sci Rep* 15:14291 (24 Apr 2025) | curl of PMC12022329, tags stripped | Full retraction text verbatim; 11 authors dissenting, 9 non-responding, first author deceased | | Jaret & Harris, *Sci Rep* 12:5189 (2022) | curl of PMC8956582, tags stripped | The shocked-quartz refutation, the lamellae orientation statistics, the Pt/Ir EDS objection (factor of 4, 10 kV), the remelted-ceramics point | | Boslough & Bruno, *Sci Rep* 15:13869 (2025) | curl of nature.com HTML | Opening paragraph verbatim; the citation-chain critique of the Tunguska numbers | | *Retraction Watch*, 23 Apr 2025 | curl | Elisabeth Bik's PubPeer image flags, the May 2023 correction, Boslough quotes, West's intent to republish | | Wood, "Locating Sodom: A Critique of the Northern Proposal," *Bible and Spade* 20 (2007) | curl of biblearchaeology.org | The whole southern case and the whole critique of Collins: Rast 2350 / Schaub 2300, the 2067 BC derivation, Ezekiel 16:46 distances, Madaba map, kikkar philology, EB III "educated guess", paleobotany, bitumen, charnel house A22 | | Turpin, "Biblical Problems with Identifying Tall el-Hammam as Sodom," *ARJ* 14 (2021): 45–61 | curl of answersresearchjournal.org | Collins's 1750–1650 BC date, the 215-year sojourn and honorific-lifespan moves, the Iron Age II reoccupation, Collins's replies on Isaiah/Jeremiah/Zephaniah, the 100-acre figure | | Collins, comments of 3 Mar 2012 on the BiblePlaces post | curl of the BAS mirror | Collins in his own words on *kikkar*, the Numeira 250-year gap, the Genesis 10 scale argument, and the "absolutely incontrovertible" / "categorically nonsensical, even silly" rhetoric | | Schlegel, "Biblical Problems with Locating Sodom at Tall el-Hammam," BiblePlaces Blog, 4 Jan 2012 | same page | The Genesis 13:11–12 "pitched his tent as far as Sodom" separation argument; kikkar usage in 1 Kings 7:46, Gen 19:17, 28, 2 Sam 18:23 | | Chavalas, "Assyriology and Biblical Studies," in *Mesopotamia and the Bible* (2002), 41 | archive.org search-inside, item `mesopotamiabible0000unse`, via `bin/iapdsearch.py` | The consensus statement on Ebla; Archi's specific refutation of the "cities of the plain" readings; "great amounts of misinformation leaked to the public" | | Udd, "Bab edh-Dhra', Numeira, and the Biblical Patriarchs" (PhD diss., Andrews, 2011) | `bin/fetch-via-chrome.py` through the Cloudflare wall at digitalcommons.andrews.edu | Abstract verbatim — the modest conclusion that the identification is "a possibility" meriting "further investigation"; radiocarbon "generally favor higher dates" | | Josephus, *War* 4.8.4 (Whiston) | Project Gutenberg ebook 2850 | First-century placement of Sodom's country on a lake extending "as far as Zoar in Arabia"; the ash-in-the-fruit etiology | | NET Bible: Gen 13:10–13, 14:2–3, 14:10, 19:1, 19:23–29, Deut 29:22–23, Ezek 16:46–50 | labs.bible.org plain-text API | All scripture quotations | ## Locator notes - **Chavalas p. 41.** The quotation sits on leaf 43 of `mesopotamiabible0000unse`. The chapter's title page is leaf 23. If the chapter opens at printed p. 21 — the pagination given in the standard citation of this volume — the offset is leaf minus 2, which puts leaf 43 at p. 41. The item's `_page_numbers.json` derivative 401s, so this is a single-anchor result confirmed against an independent secondary citation, not a double anchor off the running heads. Worth re-anchoring if the quotation is reused. ## Consulted and deliberately not used - **Eric's note `/home/share/notes/eric/research/christianity/sodom and gomorrah.md`.** Its numbered southern case is largely superseded. Point 1 (Ebla names Sodom) is dead; point 4–5 (two destructions ~20 years apart, matching seriation) is undercut by the Chesson and Schaub cemetery dates. Points 2, 3, 6 and 7 (Dead Sea bitumen fingerprinted to Egyptian mummification asphalt, fortification walls with gates, both sites on the fault line, the thick burnt debris with roof beams over the last occupation) survive and are represented in the article through Wood, who cites the same underlying reports. The note's cited URLs (ankerberg.com PDF, bbc.co.uk history, bib-arch.org e-features) were not re-fetched; all are 2000s-era links likely dead. - **Chesson & Schaub 2007, both chapters in *Crossing Jordan*.** Not obtained. This is the single most important gap: the Numeira 2600 BC date is load-bearing in the article and is currently carried by a secondary summary plus Collins's independent statement of the same gap. Get the volume before this article is published. - **Rast, "Bab edh-Dhra' and the Origin of the Sodom Saga" (1987).** Not obtained. Load-bearing for two things: the etiology position attributed to the excavator, and the contradiction between Wood's fiery-destruction photographs and the reference summary that Bab edh-Dhra shows no significant fire. Flagged in the article as unresolved. Get it. - **Rast, "Sodom and Its Environs," *NEASB* 51 (2006).** Not obtained; the "most general and obscure" quotation is relayed through Wood and is flagged as such. - **Collins, *Discovering the City of Sodom* (2013) and Collins & Scott (2013).** Not obtained. Collins's position is represented from his own 2012 public comments and from Turpin's quotations of the books. A published version of this article should quote the books directly. - **Frumkin & Elitzur, "The Rise and Fall of the Dead Sea," *BAR* 27.6 (2001), and *Quaternary Research* 57 (2002): 334–42.** Not obtained. The claim that the southern basin was dry in the patriarchal period is currently carried by Wood's footnote alone. It matters — it is the mechanism that makes Genesis 14:3's "Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea)" a coherent description rather than a contradiction — and it should be verified from the primary before publication. - **Udd's dissertation body.** Only the front matter is openly served; the argument itself was not read. His specific proposed redatings (reported secondhand as Numeira 2100–2050 and Bab edh-Dhra 2000–1950) are therefore **not stated in the article**. Obtain via interlibrary loan or ProQuest. - **The BAS Library article "Are 'The Cities of the Plain' Mentioned in the Ebla Tablets?"** (Archi, *BAR* 7:6, 1981). Paywalled. Archi's argument is represented through Chavalas's summary instead, which is adequate for the point the article makes. - **Neev & Emery, *The Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jericho* (OUP, 1995).** Not obtained. The geotechnical model — earthquake pressurizing subterranean petroleum, which ignites and falls back — is mentioned in the article only as something Wood reports geologists proposing, and is not argued for. If the article is ever expanded on the mechanism, this and Harris & Beardow (1995) are the two to read. - **ScienceOpen doi:10.14293/ACI.2025.0003**, the expanded republication. Its existence is cited; its contents were not read. The point made in the article is about venue, not about the new data, and does not depend on the contents. - **Strabo 16.2.44** on the burnt appearance of the region. Not fetched. Would add a second classical witness alongside Josephus if the etiology section is expanded. ## Added 2026-08-30 from the conservative literature - **ABR, "Sodom and Gomorrah: Is There Evidence for Their Destruction?"** (Bryant Wood, 2008), read in full. Used for three things. First, as a **live example** of the superseded claim the article identifies: it states flatly that Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira were "destroyed at the same time," a year after the Chesson and Schaub cemetery dates separated them by ~250 years. Second, for Frederick Clapp's bitumen-and-earthquake mechanism, which Wood reports was formulated *before* the southern sites were located — a genuine prediction, though a weak one, since the whole Jordan rift is a fault system. Third, for a sentence the article criticises on its own side: "The only conceivable explanation … is that burning debris fell on the buildings from the air." - Clapp's two 1936 papers are cited through Wood and **have not been read**, nor has the claim that his theory preceded the sites' discovery been independently checked. ## Added 2026-08-30 — Rast & Schaub obtained - **Rast & Schaub, *Bāb edh-Dhrāʿ: Excavations in the Cemetery* (1989)** — search-inside on archive.org item `bbedhdhrexcavati0001expe` (printdisabled; folios not recoverable). This is the **cemetery** volume, not the 2003 town-site volume, so it does not carry the destruction radiocarbon; but it supplies the excavators' own period summary for the whole southeastern Dead Sea plain — Early Bronze at all five sites but "they do not always represent the same phase," a few Middle Bronze sherds that "do not constitute evidence of substantial settlement," and "no Late Bronze." That is the excavators conceding in 1989 the non-contemporaneity point the 2007 cemetery dates later sharpened. - It also supplies the Zoar/es-Safi material now in the article: the Roman fort of Zoora, sixth-century Hebrew tombstones at Ghor es-Safi, and a Cairo Geniza reference to Zoar. - **Still not obtained:** Chesson & Schaub 2007 in *Crossing Jordan*, which carries the 2600 BC Numeira date; Rast 1987 on the Sodom saga; and Rast & Schaub 2003, *Bāb edh-Dhrāʿ: Excavations at the Town Site*, which is where Weinstein's radiocarbon chapter sits. The 1989 cemetery volume does not substitute for any of these. ## Open questions ## Open questions 1. Did Bab edh-Dhra burn? Wood says yes with photographs; the reference summary says the site "does not appear to have been destroyed by a significant fire," unlike Numeira. Resolve from Rast & Schaub, *Bab edh-Dhra': Excavations at the Town Site (1975–1981)* (Eisenbrauns, 2003). 2. What is the actual radiocarbon record for the Numeira destruction, as opposed to the cemetery dates? Weinstein's chapter in the 2003 town-site volume is the place to look. 3. Is there any Bronze Age level under the historical Zoar (Ghor es-Safi)? This is the highest-value unexplored test in the whole question and the article says so.