Tall El-Hammam Part 2

[notalent]

I'd like to know why you think the word "east" is an irrelevant detail.  Does Genesis contain irrelevant details?  If it's not irrelevant, why is it in the passage?  What purpose did it serve to say Lot journeyed east if it has nothing to do with his choice?

Your post has proven me correct in dismissing you as you do not know what you are talking about nor do any of you know how to use the Bible properly.

Is your position so devoid of logic that you can't answer the question?

[wigwam]

well, the nonsense has returned to this thread. the statements on chronology by our misinformed friends are simply embarassing. the issue is done, gang. there are virtually no serious scholars left who buy the southern sodom theory. all serious scholarly literature will eventually catch up with dr. collins' research and excavations. all this mindless ranting is of no count or affect in the matter. scholars are finally seeing the power of collins' arguments on the subject, and both minimalists and maximalists realize that he has to be reckoned with. most scholars now agree that the kikkar of the jordan (thus, the the location of the cities of the kikkar of the jordan) is the widened portion of the southern jordan valley north of the dead sea. that has now become, for most scholars, a geographical fact. as many point out, it is collins' strongest argument, and it is incontrovertible for people who know the geography of the area firsthand. the boat has left the port for good, and all of this drivel about a southern Sodom is merely so much foam in the wake that will eventually disappear. collins' nst has reached critical mass, and there is now no returning to our former state of ignorance. bon voyage.

[notalent]

well, the nonsense has returned to this thread. the statements on chronology by our misinformed friends are simply embarassing. the issue is done, gang. there are virtually no serious scholars left who buy the southern sodom theory. all serious scholarly literature will eventually catch up with dr. collins' research and excavations. all this mindless ranting is of no count or affect in the matter. scholars are finally seeing the power of collins' arguments on the subject, and both minimalists and maximalists realize that he has to be reckoned with. most scholars now agree that the kikkar of the jordan (thus, the the location of the cities of the kikkar of the jordan) is the widened portion of the southern jordan valley north of the dead sea. that has now become, for most scholars, a geographical fact. as many point out, it is collins' strongest argument, and it is incontrovertible for people who know the geography of the area firsthand. the boat has left the port for good, and all of this drivel about a southern Sodom is merely so much foam in the wake that will eventually disappear. collins' nst has reached critical mass, and there is now no returning to our former state of ignorance. bon voyage.

Well spoken, wigwam.  It's well past time to "queue the laugh track" for the sst.

[Brianroy]

http://www.katapi.org.uk/katapiNSBunix/DC/DCByBC.php?GB=122&GC=5

2 Esdras 5
1)  -  Now concerning the signs: behold, the days are coming when those who dwell on earth shall be seized with great terror, and the way of truth shall be hidden, and the land shall be barren of faith.
 4) -  But if the Most High grants that you live, you shall see it thrown into confusion after the third period; and the sun shall suddenly shine forth at night, and the moon during the day.
5)  Blood shall drip from wood, and the stone shall utter its voice; the peoples shall be troubled, and the stars shall fall.
6) And one shall reign whom those who dwell on earth do not expect, and the birds shall fly away together;
7) and the sea of Sodom shall cast up fish...
9)  And salt waters shall be found in the sweet....

The writer of 2 Esdras demands that Sodom be either IN the Dead Sea, or directly on its shoreline.  It is not the Jerusalem sea, some miles away.  It is not the Jericho Sea, which is generally about the same distance in miles away as Tall el-Hammam is from the Dead Sea. 
 What genius ever dared state that the Dead Sea was ever the Sea of Tall el-Hammam?     It is a geologic impossibility, but that is exactly what Wigwam and Notalent and others have been deceived into swallowing.  It is no longer the whale or big fish or huge sea creature that swallows Jonah, but the vice versa...where the irrational and fable view, is put forth as if fact, and is demanded to be unchallenged in spite of errors and serious challenges to the presumptions they give. 

Sodom existed for only about 52 years.   That's it.  It will have only one single layer to its existence...it will not have multiple layers, and gravesites of more than a few hundred (if even that many), because it was NEW and GROWING / BOOMING much like we see new towns sprout up and grow over a period of decades in the modern age.  Start with tents or makeshift dwellings that will be removed later, then a permanent  core, then a cluster, then a growth outwardly. 

Once destroyed, forever it will ever after have had only one layer or strata of existence.  Fact.

In essence, the historical likelihood of even the wall and permanent structures with thick doors were probably recent constructions;  and built and completed only a year or two before the rebellion against Chedorlaomer in Genesis 14:4.

Where is Sodom?  Look to Lot and look to the Mountain
       Apart from Sodom and the other cities of the Pentapolis is the OTHER designation: the Mountain (Genesis 14:10).   Rashi seems to think that it is to whichever mountain that anyone of the Pentapolis finds first.  Since Sodom had walls and thick doors, why not rush back to the city, unless the invading army cut them off from the city?  So where was the Mountain, and what was implied?

Rashi seems to think that the passage should be read "to a mountain", whatever one you can find.   The Southern region of the Dead Sea would have granted access to inhabited mountain strongholds and cave fortifications (perhaps near to where we also find many EB/MB copper mines), and perhaps an expectation of Egyptian as well as Amorite strongholds in this period of 1960 B.C.    But with the furnace type of eruptions,  much like that beheld by Abram, and perhaps moving south in a visible manner...
these dwellers, too, could have abandoned the region, perhaps fleeing back to Egypt.  They left behind plenty of supplies for Lot and his daughters to live off of, including plenty of wine (apparently).

After the escape to Zoar, Lot heads to the Mountain (Genesis 19:30) or Mountains south and east of the Dead Sea far enough away, that when Lot and his daughters look out west for signs of life even when much of the smoke and ash clear, they cannot even behold any town or civilization at any distance...no movement of man nor beast. Even if from a western ridge looking west, the general location only found in the SST would not have had an overlooking view toward populated areas, and therefore the SST is the ONLY view that fits the Genesis narrative.

That is NOT the case in the North, hence, an NST is shot down again by the "view".   Had the mountain been north of the Dead Sea, from any western ridge, Lot and his daughters (after much of the smoke had cleared and most of the ash had setled) would have seen some signs of life throughout the many MB villas and towns and cities of central Israel.  Hence, the SST stands as logical, and the NST is the "misinformed" and "embarassing" view, as Wigwam would put it.

[notalent]

Sodom existed for only about 52 years.   That's it. 

Your argument is circular.  The Bible gives no such indication of how long the city existed.  And since your favored hypothetical location only seems to have been around a short period, you conclude that TeH must fit that profile as well, and so you "prove" TeH can't be Sodom.

It's difficult to take arguments seriously when such glaring logical flaws go unnoticed by its proponents.

You also fail to note that this city, that was supposedly around for only a short period, is cited as a limit of Canaan in the Bible.  If it weren't a fixture of the land over a considerable length of time, it wouldn't have been cited as such.

[notopri]

the statements on chronology by our misinformed friends are simply embarassing. the issue is done, there are virtually no serious scholars left who buy the southern sodom theory. all serious scholarly literature will eventually catch up with dr. collins' research and excavations

This is such a ridiculous statement.  it is like saying that everyone must accept Mormonism because 13,000,000 people accept it.

The truth doesn't need numbers, it does not need 'serious scholars' it does not even need to be agreed with, because it is the truth and it waits for people to recognize it and turn to it.

The only embarrassment is the fact that so many people put their critical thinking on hold and blindly accept the word of one human who is not acting with or for God and rewrites and manipulates the Bible to fit his theory

all this mindless ranting is of no count or affect in the matter. scholars are finally seeing the power of collins' arguments on the subject, and both minimalists and maximalists realize that he has to be reckoned with.

the only mindless ranting going on is being done by the northern location supporters and  the rest is just idol worship of a human. Dr. Collins is wrong and is leading people away plus he ignores his own rules, he cannot provide any empirical evidence to support his ideas.

for most scholars, a geographical fact. as many point out, it is collins' strongest argument, and it is incontrovertible for people who know the geography of the area firsthand

Empty words, put some hard physical evidence on the table not hype and propoganda. No one knows the geography of Abraham's time nor can they say they know what was seen and what wasn't.  The northern supporters extrapolate backwards what they see today and insist that is what Abraham saw.

There is not one shred of evidence for the northern location and until you come up with real evidence it would be wise to refrain from claiming you have found Sodom.  You do not have it and tel-Hamman does not fit the biblical criteria because #1. there was no restoration and #2. there were 2 destructions not 1. 

The clear truth is you do not have Sodom and Dr. Collins was beaten to finding it by at least 2 decades.  So if you want to prove you have Sodom, produce real evidence not manipulated biblical passages which depend upon the dismissal of ancient records.

You also need to ask yourself this--how would Dr. Collins know better than those who lived in the area 2,000 and more years ago?  He is far removed from the facts and the people and has less evidence than they did, does notknow the language as well as they did and much much more. Plus the biblical writers had the Holy Spirit to help them while Dr. Collins is void of such help.

We know tht because he is rewriting the Bible to fit his own goals and not God's.

[notopri]

Here is something else that Dr. Collins either ignores or distorts:

At the south end of the Dead Sea there is an extensive circle or plain which is better supplied with water for irrigation than is the region about Jericho, and which, on the supposition of slight geological changes, may have been extremely fertile in ancient times; while there are many indications of such fertility in the ruins that have been described by travelers about the mouth of the Kerak and other localities nearby. The description, therefore, of the fertility of the region in the Vale of Siddim may well have applied to this region at the time of Lot's entrance into it.

There are very persistent traditions that great topographical changes took place around the south end of the Dead Sea in connection with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, while the opinion has been universally prevalent among the earlier historical writers that the site of Sodom and Gomorrah is beneath the waters of the Dead Sea.

Geological investigations, so far from disproving these traditions, render them altogether possible and credible. There is a remarkable contrast between the depths of the north end of the Dead Sea and of the south end. Near the north end the depth descends to 1,300 ft., whereas for many miles out from the south end it is very shallow, so that at low water a ford exists, and is occasionally used, from the north end of the salt mountain across to el-Lisan.

http://bibleatlas.org/valley_of_siddim.htm

[notalent]

Here is something else that Dr. Collins either ignores or distorts:

At the south end of the Dead Sea there is an extensive circle or plain which is better supplied with water for irrigation than is the region about Jericho

Irrigation is irrelevant for grazing flocks and herds.  Hello? 

And of course, your compass is broken as well as your binoculars.  You can't see this region from Bethel/Ai and it's not east of Bethel/Ai.  TeH fits both Biblical criteria.  The sst fits nothing.

[notopri]

The previous poster is ignored as he or she brings no real evidence to support his or her comments but resorts to the same old insulting remarks defeatedlong ago.

In doing further research this morning i came across this web site with the following map and words:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rexgeissler/SodomTallElHammamArchaeologicalExcavationInJordanRiverValleyAtDeadSea#

Third picture from the left top row, it is clearly marked Dr. Collins' research. Now on that map in the midle box are the words:

During the Bronze Age, the Biblical kikkar referred only to the circular plain immediately north of the Dead Sea.

This raises many questions, some of which will be asked here:

#1. How does Dr. Collins know this?
#2 What independent and ancient scholarship can he point to that makes this statement so clear?
#3. What is he basing this subjective conclusion upon? What evidence does he have to prove this statement true?

Given my previous post, it seems that Dr. Collins is wrong and is using other people's ignorance to further his 'cause' and is hiding information to manipulate popular opinion.

Also, we see by my previous post, that the southern location still fits the biblical criteria and has the actual, not manufactured, evidence to support it as being the actual Sodom.

So we ask for legitimate, credible, independent  proof to support Dr. Collins' statement quoted above.

[notalent]

....it is clearly marked Dr. Collins' research. Now on that map in the midle box are the words:

During the Bronze Age, the Biblical kikkar referred only to the circular plain immediately north of the Dead Sea.

This raises many questions, some of which will be asked here:

#1. How does Dr. Collins know this?

Because Genesis 13:10 says so in describing Lot's view from Bethel/Ai.  The kikkar "circle" is viewable in total from that location.  If the Bible says it, that settles it.  End of debate.  You of all people should be recognizing this and defending Dr. Collins.

[Brianroy]

Because Genesis 13:10 says so in describing Lot's view from Bethel/Ai.  The kikkar "circle" is viewable in total from that location.  If the Bible says it, that settles it.  End of debate.  You of all people should be recognizing this and defending Dr. Collins.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/498693

The textual testimony left us in local names and locations of Sodom never extend  to the northern end of the Dead Sea, only to points south, even one toward Masada.  I previously identified most likely locations on that shoreline and in that general direction:   

http://forum.bib-arch.org/digssites/current-excavations-at-the-tall-el-hammam-excavation-project/msg2572/?topicseen#msg2572

The length of Sodom existing but 52 years, is a Jewish teaching
 http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48931527.html
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sodom

which historical sourcing has long been lost to us. 

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 meltings at the upper strata are the clues to where Sodom and Gomorrah were.  

Harris and Beardow have chosen my second choice location of the chasm beneath the waters on the northern area of the Lisan.

 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. 

Because the sitting of Sodom’s outlines just above the water of the Dead Sea are mentioned by the ancients, we must look in the Sea itself for the answer, and find the greatest depth of the ash. 

 We have 3 feet of burnt strata at Bab edh-dhra with the Lisan geography; however,  in the dried sea bed, we find not sand or salt so much as we find 20-30 feet of ASH as the sea bed beneath, through which sinkholes of "ash" the tourists must sometimes be rescued.   The deeper the ash,  the more likely the general region where Sodom and the cities of the Pentapolis were.

Genesis 13:5 
v’gam ~ l’lot likewise, or in like manner, 

(as what was just described in previous 4 verses regarding Abram taking a journey...the journey of Lot is being distinguished from that of Abram as differing to go to his deity or idol, mamon)

Lot...

The statement compares the use of a "likewise" in which perhaps one tears down a tree limb and the people “likewise” follow by example (Judges 9:49) and the contrariwise or in spite of opposite implied in Psalm 129:2, and Ezekiel 16:28  to the effect that the division of Abram and Lot – AT THE VERY POINT OF ENTERING INTO THE LAND – was a choice of two roads that culminates in this teaching:  You cannot serve G-D and Mamon.    
Josephus in Antiquities infers this translation and interpretation  regarding “v’gam” in his Temple Scroll copy, stating that “as soon as  Abram was come back into Canaan, he parted the land between him and Lot”.  In Antiquities 1.6.2. Josephus defines the land of Canaan as that which is now Judea...hence, the NEGEV and the Southern regions BEGINS the lands of Canaan.

  Not when they were in the middle of it, but “as soon as” they reached 1st Century Judea borders in the south, aka. ancient Canaan's borders.   So says Josephus...and his copy predates our oldest manuscript extant, the Leningrad Codex by some 900 years or more.   

 Abraham chose to make an alter area between Bethel and Ai his end destination to fulfill a pledge, and then to double back and dwell in Hebron before the end of the chapter.  This tells us that the  Canaanites and Perrezites were not receptive of the Chaldean/Amorite  Abraham or of his half-Hittite wife.   After Abram pitched his tent and restablishes residence and trade , and perhaps sold off much of his flock, he immediately returns  from Bethel /Ai, and makes his home in Hebron, with other Amorites and Hittites, in the south regions nearer to the Negev.   

That is what appears to be the summary of Abraham’s  movements in the texts of Genesis 13, it seems to me.

Genesis 13:7   There was strife between the herdsmen of Abraham and that of Lot…and the Canaanite and Perrizite dwelled in the Land.   
  So?  Why would this be significant?  Abraham and his people were all hill people, being Amorites and Hitites.  Was that it?  Were Lot’s herdsmen of a different ethnicity than Abraham’s?  We know that the Hittites were able to peacefully dwell in the land.   The Canaanites and Perrezites did indeed live in the land from Shechem  to points those north of Jerusalem in the centerpart of what we now label the West Bank  (e.g., Genesis 12:6).     

Ask the questions.  Were Lot’s men Egyptian, herders from the lands of Keme to help Lot take his herds out of Egypt?   Is there something more being said to this effect, that Sodom and Gomorrah were like Egypt’s Nile Delta regions, and pleasing to both Lot and the herders in his employ?  We cannot say yes, neither can we rule this possibility out.   

 The plain sense is in 3 points:
1) That if Abraham and Lot’s herdsmen were fighting so much now, when they first crossed the Sinai over into the watering south of the Land to which Abram set himself out for...to a place and time when there are no others to worry about…what will it be like at the end destination when they must confront two other whole peoples dwelling in the land of their end destination --  the Canaanites and Perrezites --  and they come and attempt to water their and graze their huge flocks there?   With a logistic mind of a military commander and former ruler in the regions of Syria, now moving about with his own small private army (Josephus, Antiquities, 1.7.2)...Abram the general and head of a military efficiency run sheepherder outfit would resolve this issue now in the Negev regions, rather than later. 
2) the area of Sodom and Gomorrah was in a constant state of flooding from 5 river sources (in the SST, the Jordan River, the Arnon River and three others yet to be determined).
3) the land  benefited greatly from two forms of soils, rich volcanic earth, and fertilization from the waters that overflowed the lands like the Nile Delta and further enriched the region.

Tall el-Hammam has no Thera /Santorini or Krakatoa volcanic depression...the chasm on the northern shores of the Lisan appears to be such a chasm.   Hence, the SST is the correct view.  The direction of the heaviest ash and the best strata consistent evidence (of great burnings, and furnace heat of an entire land) as sited above.

13:9  “Is not the whole land before thee? “  Not part of it, not the middle of it, the whole land was before them…meaning they had NOT yet entered into it.    There is given the option of going to the right or left, and then the reiteration that neither had yet  ENTERED into either the lands of the right or the left.  This could not be said if Abraham and Lot were ALREADY IN THE MIDST  OF THE LAND at Bethel/Ai.   

13:11  While Abram/Abraham ascends into Canaan from the West, the Bible says that Lot entered the Lands "from the East".   Literally, "Lot journeyed from the East".

How did Lot do this and chose the "whole plain of Jordan" except that there was a ridge of mountainous terrain between him and Abram?  The application of such a terrain  makes the most sense if, as Josephus states, was from the direction of the Negev, northward..."as soon as" or "immediately" upon entering the southern borders of the land of Canaan from Egypt.

The testimony of antiquity (for those who have read up on the Lotus and the bread of life issues as it involves the Jordan river) will know also that the Jordan in Abram's day was fill with crocodiles, hippotomai, and was a veritable swamp.  This does not sound like a suitable farmland and grazing area.  Visual landscapes today also have the western Sahara as a desert, yet in these areas are found the remains of super-crocodile fossils and the remnants that tell us that this too was once swampy.  The NST depends on current visuals, and rationalizing from that first, which -- though often helpful -- is not always correct to do. 

Hence, following the Biblical text, Josephus, the New Testament, and Science...the NST is a bust, and the SST is a must.  Albright was the more correct in comparison to Collins and friends.   Cheers.

[notopri]

Can you post some quotes from the following link, I cannot access the article:


http://www.jstor.org/pss/498693

[wigwam]

notalent, you can't have a logical, scientific discussion with lunatics. i sense your frustration, but you may as well be talking to a wall. it's too bad that this otherwise interesting thread has to be dominated by nonsense. legitimate scholars who've held to the sst certainly wouldn't want to identify with the arguments offered for it here. too bad.

[notopri]

The above post has been reported.  It is prime evidence to demonstrate how low the Northern Location supporters will go to avoid presenting any actuall physical evidence for their claim that Tell- el Hamman is Sodom.

{if it is removed, this post does not refer to my previous post nor Brianroy's but if it isn't removed then we know that...}

[notalent]

notalent, you can't have a logical, scientific discussion with lunatics. i sense your frustration, but you may as well be talking to a wall. it's too bad that this otherwise interesting thread has to be dominated by nonsense. legitimate scholars who've held to the sst certainly wouldn't want to identify with the arguments offered for it here. too bad.

I hope JLWEST will return and illuminate me on Jericho destruction layers.  I know that it is a "troubled" dig due to Kenyon's biases and that she left a lot of data unpublished, IIRC.  If anyone knows a good book or resource on this, I'd be happy to know about it.

As far as debating the "cult of SST", it's just my own morbid curiosity to see how people can blind themselves and feel they are doing right and good, even embracing circular arguments.  There is a great deficiency in the teaching of fallacious thinking, because even well educated people fall into it when their priorities get out of order.  You point it out to them, and it's water off a duck's back.  The idea of logical fallacy no longer exists in their universe.