Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi,

On 8 May 2010 20:05, Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz> wrote:

> On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 09:03:19AM +0300, James Christian wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Jim has for 3 years now being trying to fit an early bronze age account
> into
> > the late bronze age period of the Amarna letters. It is quite easy to
> test
> > the alignment of these time periods, though. Genesis 14 is about a time
> > period when Sodom and Gomorah were heavily populated significant towns.
> The
> > amarna letters is an extensive collection of correspondence with rulers
> of
> > cities all over the Near East. However, there are no letters from rulers
> of
> > Sodom or Gomorah. In fact, there is not even a mention of these places in
> > any of the letters. For a summary of localities and rulers mentioned in
> the
> > Amarna letters see:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_letters–localities_and_their_rulers<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_letters%E2%80%93localities_and_their_rulers
> >
> >
> > Conclusion. The period of Amarna is later than the period where Sodom and
> > Gomorah were thriving and populated cities. The reason there is no
> mention
> > of these places in any of the many Amarna letters is because these places
> no
> > longer existed.
> >
> > James Christian
>
> Conclusion: The towns of Sodoma and Gomorah didn't exist at all, they are
> juste a myth.
>
>
That would be a distinct possibility if they were from a period when Sodom
and Gomorah were reported to have existed. But as the Amarna letters are
from much later not really. We would have to date Akhenaten to much earlier
to start making such conclusions.

The answers to whether Sodom and Gomorah ever actually really existed are
probably hundreds of metres under the water of the Dead Sea. It would take a
concerted deep sea archaeological expedition of a massive territory to be
able to make those kind of conclusions. The fact that bitumen floats to the
surface of the waters would seem to show the author of Genesis wasn't just
making things up. That area really did have pits of bitumen in the valley.
Of course, one could argue that he knew about the bitumen in the Dead Sea
when he made the story up.

James Christian

--
> Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek>
> Jabber: butrus AT jabbim.cz
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>