Did He Find the Real Sodom? | Archaeological Evidence Examined (Dr. Steven Collins)

Did they actually find the real biblical city of Sodom? In 1996, Dr. Steven Collins was leading a Bible study tour of Israel and Jordan. The next morning he was scheduled to take his group to the traditional sites of Sodom and Gomorrah in the south. That night he read Genesis 13 through 19 four times. By the end of it he had written two large question marks on his itinerary. Nothing in the text pointed south. Everything pointed north and east of the Dead Sea. What followed was 16 seasons of excavation at Tal al-Hammam — the largest Bronze Age city in the entire southern Levant — and one of the most compelling and controversial cases in the history of biblical archaeology. Dr. Mark Chavalas sits down with Dr. Steven Collins — Dean of the VIU School of Archaeology and the lead excavator at Tal al-Hammam — to walk through the full case. The biblical geography. The site itself. The destruction event. And what 21 scientific proxies found in a single destruction layer tell us about what actually happened to this city roughly 3,700 years ago. In this episode: Why Genesis 13 places Sodom northeast of the Dead Sea — not south Why every city in the region survived the Intermediate Bronze Age except this one The gate system, the palace, the temple — what 16 seasons of excavation actually found The destruction layer — violently churned debris unlike anything else in the archaeological record The cosmic airburst argument The Egyptian execration texts and the name Shutu The chronology question — why the biblical patriarchal lifespans may not be literal numbers What it means for the rest of Scripture if the most doubted story in the Bible turns out to be historically grounded The debate around the site's identification as Sodom remains active and contested in the scholarly community. This episode presents Dr. Collins' case as he makes it — a serious scholar's argument built on decades of fieldwork, not settled consensus. 📚 Sources & Scholars Mentioned Stephen Collins & Latayne Scott — Discovering the City of Sodom (Howard Books, 2013) Barry Beitzel — Lexham Geographic Commentary — articles on northern and southern Sodom Anson Rainey — The Sacred Bridge — historical geography including the Shutu identification Craig Olson — How Old Was Father Abraham? Lane Ritmeyer — chief architect and architectural reconstruction specialist at Tal al-Hammam Gary Byers — assistant director at Tal al-Hammam, now leads TSU College of Archaeology Chapters: 0:00 Intro — "We Better Pay Attention" 0:39 Welcome & Introducing Dr. Stephen Collins 6:43 How Collins Stopped Believing in Southern Sodom 8:17 Reading Genesis 13-19 Four Times in One Night 10:46 The Bible Located Sodom — Collins Just Followed the Text 12:07 Arriving at Tal al-Hammam 15:07 Why Nobody Had Excavated There Before 17:30 What 16 Seasons Found — The Gate, Palace, and Temple 23:57 The Day They Found the Gateway of Sodom 28:00 The Palace — Larger Than the White House 30:36 The Destruction Layer — Unlike Anything in the Archaeological Record 36:37 The Cosmic Airburst Argument 43:02 The City That Survived Everything — Until It Didn't 45:13 21 Scientific Proxies for a Cosmic Airburst 51:52 The Flying Casserole and the Grindstone 57:09 The Only Urban Airburst in Human History 59:34 Is This a Coincidence — Or an Eyewitness Account? 1:01:39 Why the Southern Sites Cannot Be Sodom 1:03:02 What It Means to Have Found It 1:06:37 If It's Not Sodom — What Is It? 1:07:51 Outro