Publisher Description

The fascinating, true account of the quest for one of the Old Testament's most infamous cities. Like many Christians today in the academic world, Dr. Steven Collins felt pulled in different directions when it came to apparent conflicts between the Bible and scholarly research and theory--an intellectual crisis that inspired him to lay it all on the line as he set off to locate the lost city of Sodom. Recounting Dr. Collins's quest for Sodom in absorbing detail, this adventure-cum-memoir reflects the tensions that define biblical archaeology as it narrates a tale of discovery. Readers follow "Dr. C" as he tracks down biblical, archaeological, and geographical clues to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, narrowing the list of possible sites as he weighs evidence and battles skeptics. Finally, he arrives at a single location that looms as the only option: a massive ancient ruin called Tall el-Hammam in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Many scholars who were initially opposed to Dr. Collins's theory now concede that history books may need to be rewritten in light of his groundbreaking discovery. It--along with several other recent finds--is challenging the assumptions of academics and asserting a new voice in the controversy of biblical archaeology and the dispute over using the Bible as a credible historical source. *** From respected archaeologist Dr. Steven Collins and award-winning author Dr. Latayne C. Scott comes the fascinating, true account of the frustrating search and exciting excavation of the city the Bible calls Sodom, which scholars and others had "misplaced" for hundreds of years. Like many modern-day Christians, Dr. Collins struggled with what seemed to be a clash between his heritage of belief in the Bible and the research regarding ancient history and human evolution. This crisis of faith led him to embark on a quest to put both his archaeological education and the Bible to the test by seeking out the lost ancient city, an expedition that has led to one of the most exciting finds in recent archaeology. Challenging the assumptions of academics around the world, Discovering the City of Sodom may well inspire a revision of the history books. Dr. Collins has become a new voice in the controversy over using the Bible as a credible source of understanding the past--and opened a new chapter in the struggle over the soul of biblical archaeology.

Author Biography

Dr. Steven Collins is Executive Curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Biblical History, Dean of the College of Archaeology and Biblical History at Trinity Southwest University, and Visiting Professor of Archaeology at Veritas Evangelical Seminary. Latayne Scott's previous books include The Mormon Mirage.

Review

Praise for Dr. Steven Collins: "[Steve] is one of the most dynamic archaeologists I have ever met and his energy level would wear out the Energizer Bunny. . . . I consider Tall el-Hammam to be one of the most significant excavations--if not the most significant--in Biblical Archaeology that is now taking place in the Middle East; it is even more significant than Hazor and Gezer."--Dr. Clyde Billington of Northwestern College, article for Artifax
"Discovering the City of Sodom is sure to create discussion, conversation, controversy, and enjoyment among lay and scholarly communities alike. Collins' carries the reader on a journey through the Bible's ancestral tales of sacred obedience, decadent lust, and apocalyptic destruction, uncovering impressive archaeological remains of a sprawling metropolis possibly used by the biblical writers as their geographic setting. A book not to be missed in the debate over the Bible's role in archaeological studies."--David C. Maltsberger, Professor of Religion, Wayland Baptist University

Review Quote

"'Welcome to Sodom' signs are absent-so has Steven Collins found the place? Latayne Scott imaginatively tells how Collins concludes it is Tall el-Hammam, east of the Jordan river, arguing vigorously from biblical texts, geography and his discoveries at this large site. Archaeology's slow processes come to life in this vivid narrative."

Excerpt from Book

Discovering the City of Sodom ONE Down from the Jordan''s Source: The Setting for Sodom To understand the role of the once-great city-state of Sodom, you must visualize where it is in relation to the rest of the history of the Semitic people in whose land it lies. Though the recent discovery of Sodom seemed to come out of nowhere, it has been in the same place for thousands of years. It must take its proper place on both maps and timelines of Bible events. It often surprises those who love the Bible when they learn that most of that book''s events took place in a footprint smaller than the state of New Jersey. Excepting the sojourns of biblical people in Egypt and captivity in Babylon (and of course the travels of the apostles after the time of Jesus), practically everything biblical happened in an eight-thousand-square-mile skinny rectangle that transects the so-called Fertile Crescent, which stretches from the Arabian gulf to the borders of the Nile River in Egypt. Once a year, Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Trinity Southwest University conducts an archaeological study tour of the Holy Land, crossing back and forth over the fortified but nonetheless amicable borders between Jordan and Israel to see the most significant sites. The grand prize of the tour is a look at Tall el-Hammam--biblical Sodom--over the last days of the tour, of course. But all of Holy Land history, all of the Holy Land itself, is as knitted together as the souls of David and Jonathan. And the lifeblood of the Hebrew people''s history is the river in its heart, and the logic of its story follows the great Jordan River south to the Dead Sea. To understand biblical history you must follow the Jordan--whose very name means "descent"--as it makes its way through the geography of biblical history. The narrow rectangle of the Holy Land is split, quite literally, right down the middle by the profound valley of the Jordan River. Unlike the upside-down Nile, the Jordan runs north to south through an area called the Great Rift. This long, deep fissure, formed in antiquity by the shifting of adjacent tectonic plates, stretches from Turkey all the way to the Serengeti Plain in Africa. Its once-suboceanic past is revealed by its mountaintops, which are here and there crusted with fossils that even today crunch underfoot. In the Holy Land, this Rift''s northern border is defined by the Lebanon Mountains and the iconic Mount Hermon, the "grey-haired mountain" whose summit marks the border of modern Israel. Its fifty-foot drifts of snow have inspired psalms, such as the one that compares fellowship to "the dews of Mount Hermon." The same snow provides one source of the Jordan River''s headwaters and is perhaps the site of the Transfiguration of Jesus, where he communed with Moses and Elijah (Mark 9:2-5). (How did the apostles know the identity of those two long-dead men when they saw them with Jesus? a guide asks, and then allows guesses until the right answers appear: Moses by the great light coming from his face--Exodus 34:35--and Elijah by his bald head and excessively hairy body--2 Kings 1:8.) Northern Israel is a thin, vulnerable place, a bruised and bloodied fist that jabs toward its menacing neighbors. Even if there weren''t fortified fences, anyone could see the borders of Israel: just as Egypt is the gift of the Nile, Israel is the gift of drip irrigation. Just across Israel''s barbed-wire borders, where the green ends and the brown begins, lie both Lebanon and Syria and the reasons for bomb shelters in every kibbutz; the signs on the roadside tell you not to walk past the shoulder because there are mine-fields there. Visitors try to digest the reality of still-active land mines in a civilized country. They ponder the irony of mosques in Israel and the contradiction of its population of 12 percent of Muslims, whose Quran-reading children take part in the Israeli army''s compulsory service for all its young citizens. This is a place millions have dreamed of visiting since they heard the Bible stories of childhood. Proportionally, more come here from non-English-speaking countries than not. The popular tourist sites are a Babel--or perhaps, a Pentecost--of groups, huddled in semicircles as they listen to discourses in their native tongues by hoarse and earnest tour guides with waving arms. American groups contain all types of people. On one extreme are people like the middle-aged Arkansas farmer who tries to figure out how to anchor on his head the little yarmulke with the blue Star of David that he''s just bought from a vendor (and whether or not he should rock back and forth as he prays, as he sees the black-coated Hasidic Jews do). On the other side of the scale is the chattering group of schoolgirls who have been sent here with the hope that old sacrednesses will rub off on them and stick to their clothing when they return to the malls and MP3s of their lives. Somewhere in the middle are the pious families and the young couples who haul their unwitting children from site to site and try to take notes and photographs and videos of every important thing. And in Israel, every site is an important thing. There is no other place on earth about which so many uncounted libraries have been written. It''s surely the most documented eight thousand square miles on earth. Some tourists are lured by the churches and mosques built over most of the familiar places: the Temple, the Nativity, the Holy Sepulcher, and the holies of other assorted holies. But a tour specializing in Israel''s archaeology disdains everything Byzantine and newer ("Second century AD, huh? Move on!") and takes the pilgrim first to the fount of every blessing, the bubbling-up emergence of the Jordan River''s pristine waters from the very ground at a place called Tel Dan. Here is a lush habitat for birds and salamanders and fish that climb waterfalls, a place where dew and moss drip from everything. Under excavation and deteriorating in the sopping air at Laish (Tel Dan) down the road is a mudbrick gateway, with perhaps the oldest arch in existence--through which Abraham may have passed on his route from Haran to his inheritance in Canaan (Genesis 12:4-5). Literally a few steps away are the stone foundations of a gateway where kings of his Israelite descendants sat centuries later, arbitrating disputes among the people. Gateways such as this do not always endure, but their stone foundations usually do. Perhaps that is why the idea of a gateway and heaven have become tied together in people''s minds. Adjacent to it is Caesarea Philippi, the place where Jesus pointed up to a gaping mouth of a cave into which pagans threw human sacrifices to Pan--perhaps subdued by hallucinogens still discernible in excavated ancient drinking vessels. Here Jesus brought his disciples on a six-day journey out of their way, to this place of decision. Here he told his disciples that what he would build, the open heart of a church, would not be a matter of flesh and blood, would not be overcome by such things as this gate into hell (Matthew 16:13-20). The river falls precipitously a few miles downstream into the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias, as it''s also named in the Bible). Tourists ride in loaded barges across it and eat basketfuls of the grilled St. Peter''s tilapia (named after that apostle''s famous eureka of a coin in the jaws of one of these mouth-breeding fish, as recorded in Matthew 17:24-27). Later, everyone gawks at the recently found "Jesus boat," a wooden fishing vessel from the first century improbably preserved in Galilean mud until its discovery and restoration just a few years ago. It isn''t Jesus''s sailing ship, though, because he didn''t own anything. In modern terms, he would have gone to Hertz Rent-a-Boat when he needed one. On the northwest shore of the lake is Capernaum, one of three cities cursed by Jesus. Yet that same city was extraordinarily blessed when he healed a servant of the man who built its synagogue. This man, a Roman centurion, possessed and immortalized what Jesus called "astonishing" faith (Luke 7:1-10). A Christian guide points out the exact middle of the tiled floor. All ancient synagogues are perfect squares, he tells visitors, like God spreading himself over the four corners of the earth. Look here, he says, this is where Jesus would have stood to read. This synagogue floor is much more modern than in Jesus''s day, but the floor from his time lies beneath this one. People go and stand next to that spot, wanting proximity, fearing usurpation lest they crowd out his memory. The archaeological tour doesn''t go to Nazareth, for there is little ancient to see there. Instead, the visitors look out at what Jesus would have seen from there: a breathtaking landscape that would have been his history book. There everyone could see Mount Tabor''s unmistakable mammary profile, the fitting setting of the story of the extraordinary heroine Deborah when she and Barak conquered the king of Hazor (Judges 4). The sight of Mount Carmel, across the valley, evokes the telling of the fire from heaven that ignited Elijah''s waterlogged firewood and sent the pagan priests running in terror, history''s first cutters, still dripping blood from their self-inflicted skin-slicing (1 Kings 18). Then the guide points out Sepphoris, a neighboring city not mentioned in biblical texts but that was a bustling building project during the teenage and young adult years of Jesus. His father Joseph, the guide explains, was a tekton, a word whose mea

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