Sodom and Gomorrah were known to be wicked places. Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed Gods house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite. Moreover, he is unwilling even to admit that there were Jews in Pompeii or even that the quotation from Pliny demonstrates that the Jews had a special kosher garum. Thats not exactly the question I want to raise, however. Ever the careful scholar, however, Curtis nevertheless concludes that I am still not able to state unequivocally that the expression garum castum was meant exclusively for Jews.13 So the matter is not free from all doubt,14 but the presence of kosher garum at Pompeii is highly likely. RESPONSE: So as you found out, Pompeii is in Italy and Sodom and Gomorrah in Israel, about 1400 miles apart, and about 2000 years apart in history. However, God does not get revenge, He only executes justice. Such was the case with the ancient Canaanites in the Promised Landanother veritable reincarnation of Sodom and Gomorrah, replete with incest, homosexuality, bestiality, adultery, child sacrifice (Leviticus 18). Temple Mount. The Bible does state that time and chance happen to them all (Ecclesiastes 9:11). As the Roman soldiers were trying to extinguish the fire in the Temple, a stray Roman soldier, moved by some supernatural impulse, threw a firebrand through the golden door of the Temple. Disintegrated pottery. See Mary Beards book about about Pompeii (well worth reading, even if you have read many other books on the subject). See Carlo Giordano and Isidoro Kahn, The Jews in Pompeii Heculaneum, Stabiae and in the Cities of Campania Felix 3rd ed., Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, trans. It is almost as if some supreme God was at work. Gods Digital Bibles, Old Testament Bibles, New Testament Bibles, Bible Commentaries, and author William Charnows books are all given away Free to anyone. That was long after Sodom and Gomorrah. Thats all just in the U.S. Worldwide, over 1.5 billion babies have been aborted since 1980. Some skeletons are thought to be those of Roman tunnelers whose tunnel collapsed. Among the other []. 7576. Note little is said about Gomorrah. This was an excellent article. Vesuvius erupted, the city of Pompeii housed 10,000 to 20,000 people, including many wealthy Romans who owned summer homes there. By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. This gallery of objects from Pompeii and Herculaneum was repeatedly closed and reopened over the course of two centuries. Pool of Siloam. The earliest existing picture of a scene from the Bibleportraying the judgment of King Solomoncomes from Pompeii. Although composed after the event, it is written as a prediction: An evil storm of war will also come upon Jerusalem After Antiochus IV, this Temple was cleansed and rededicated. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. The Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project is a joint venture by Trinity Southwest University and Veritas International University. (Rome: Bardi Editore, 2003), pp. According to various statistics (note: as originally compiled in April, 2017), the U.S. is home to 1 million prostitutes; 40 million regular porn users; 25 million illicit drug users; 10 million adults who identify as LGBT; 8 million practitioners of witchcraft. See Carlo Giordano and Isidoro Kahn, The Jews in Pompeii Heculaneum, Stabiae and in the Cities of Campania Felix 3rd ed., Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, trans. Did these pagan groups really have food laws similar to the Jews? The eruption of Mt. Its rather nice that the full article is also this particular issues freebie: While I like the idea of the oracle as a retrojective prophecy, the thing I cant buy into are the comments on the Sodom and Gomorrah graffito. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are always talked about as being destroyed together, though the narrative focuses on the events in Sodom. it will burn many cities and destroy men. For example, the fourth pyroclastic surge released by the mountain blew into Pompeii at over 320 kilometers per hour, with temperatures exceeding 300 degrees Celsius. Felix was soon fired in disgrace from his office; and Drusilla, with a son by Felix, perished in that eruption of Mount Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii and other nearby communities. Thanks for sharing. But he conceded that even if the two critics claims are valid about the failure to meet the crystalized criteria for extraterrestrial matter, it doesnt even touch the melted room, plaster, humans, etc., The archaeological site of Tall el-Hammam in western Jordan. Vesuvius erupted, the city of Pompeii housed 10,000 to 20,000 people, including many wealthy Romans who owned summer homes there. But it also repeatedly identifies divine judgment sent from God: the great Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the 10 plagues, earthquakes, storms. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. Add to the sexual melee the classic Roman entertainment of gladiator blood sport (Pompeii boasts the oldest preserved Roman amphitheater), and laws including allowing babies to be legally rejected by their fathers and abandoned to die, and you have a pinnacle in hedonistic society. Garum presented a problem for Jews, howeverat least for those who kept the laws of kashrut (kosher laws). Box 3992Santa Barbara, CA 93130(please make Checks to: William Charnow), Whos Right Calvinists or Armenians? Seventeen-year-old Pliny the Younger was an eyewitness to the eruption and described it in terms similar to Dios. In 79 C.E. Pompeii and the Ancient Origins of Blaming the Victim. I went to Pompeii to see the place where it was discovered. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Inscribed on one of the citys central meeting hall walls was the following text: If you are looking for sweet embraces in this town, you will find that all the girls here are available. Graffiti attests to homosexuality and even to child-rape (pederasty was common in the Roman Empire). The town was situated right below Mt. The JPost summary gives the impression that people visited the site of Pompeii shortly after Vesuvius was done with its wrath. exercised restrictions of this kind [i.e., similar to the Jews]. 79 AD it is important to note is the . Much smoking ashes will fill the great sky It was quite easy to findartistic carvings of phalli on the city roads and wall stones pointed the way. is pompeii just something different and maybe we havent found sodom yet? Read the full article Solomon, Socrates and Aristotle by Theodore Feder online for free. Excavations at Jordans Tall el-Hammam (a contender for the location of biblical Sodom) have revealed a fiery destruction and an instantaneous end of a once-flourishing civilization, dated roughly to the 1700s b.c.e. Buried by burning hot ash, Pompeii was completely destroyed in a matter of hours by the eruption of Mt. Discussion in ' Religious Debates ' started by robtex, Nov 7, 2005 . So far, the remains of 1,500 have been identified. This is quite a large number considering it had a population of only 12,000, and a city footprint of just 160 acres. Abraham pleads for the lives of any righteous people living there, especially the lives of his nephew, Lot, and his family. Shanks said a fresco of King Solomon, the most ancient depiction of a biblical scene, is located not far from where the Sodom and Gomorra graffiti was found. The people of Pompeii loved their homes and to entertain lavishly. Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities in the plain of Jordan were destroyed by God due to perversion and sin. Photo by Deg777/Wikipedia/Creative Commons, He reiterated his agreement with the findings of the authors of the original paper, going a step further to claim its sure evidence of the biblical account of Sodoms fall. 1.5 million tons of debris and molten rock were launched every second. Comparative Analysis of The Last Days of Pompeii The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. is one of the most infamous volcanic eruptions in history. Casualties of violence include 320,000 victims of rape and assault each year; 47 murders per day (2016); one child abused every 10 seconds, missing every 40 seconds, raped every 2 minutes, killed every 3 to 6 hours from abuse; and over 100,000 children prostituted annually. Among the garum amphorae from Pompeii several bear a label said to be kosher garum. Now it rains bits of pumice, and rocks that were burned and shattered by the fire Broad sheets of flame were lighting up many parts of Vesuvius; their light and brightness were the more vivid for the darkness of the night Buildings were being rocked by a series of strong tremors and appeared to have come loose from their foundations and to be sliding this way and that. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. Whatever physical (or nonphysical) phenomena it was, it certainly happened. Read the full article about contemporary perception of God's role in the Destruction of Pompeii as it appeared in the July/August 2010 Biblical Archaeology Review. 13. One enters House 26 through a brick doorway near the insulas elegant columned central courtyard. There was nothing to visit and scratch graffiti on AFTER the eruption , UPDATE (August 24): In addition to Mark Davidsons comments below, see also Jim Davilas coverage of this item over at PaleoJudaica, which includes a link to an article (also in BAR) from a few years ago by Theodore Feder about a fresco possibly depicting Solomon, Socrates and Aristotle. This brought down on himself what in academic circles might be called hellfire. I started asking this question after seeing a timeline about the Roman Empire. Once, it was possible to cross this region by walking. Then the Lord caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heavenor sulfur, as other translations readand He overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground (Genesis 19:24-25). Are they deceived. I am indebted to Philip King for these translations from the Latin. Outline of the charcoal "Sodom Gomorrah" inscription at Pompeii Thoughts From a Dead City A piece by the Atlantic titled " Pompeii and the Ancient Origins of Blaming the Victim " criticized "victim-blamers" and those who would seek to find moral reasons behind disasters. Sodom. Thank You. But there may also be other evidence that a community of Jews lived at Pompeii. I have understood (and taught) that this was the Third Temple (but not recognized by the Jewish people). The July/August issue of Biblical Archaeology Review has a very interesting article by Herschel Shanks about Jewish oracles relating to the destruction of Pompeii. That might be reason for the inscription Sodom Gomor. Recent research has revealed that the hundreds of citizens who became trapped in Herculaneums boathouses while trying to escape would have suffered an excruciating deathliterally being slow-roasted alive, while choking on noxious fumes. Photo via tallelhammam.com. Lut (Arabic: , romanized: L, ), known as Lot in the Old Testament, is a prophet of God in the Quran. The JP article perpetuates a common myth which Mary Beard debunks: This day in 79 CE began as any other. His simple, three-word judgment says more about the city than many books that have been written about it. As such its destruction signaled that of the expected apocalyptic FALL of Rome itself-both as a city and an empire. The answer is yes, according to Pliny the Elder, who tells us that another kind [of garum] is devoted to Jewish rites, and is made from fish without scales. Pliny obviously made a slip of the tongue here; he meant to say fish with scales. But it is clear that special garum, kosher garum, was indeed available to Jews. The estimated regional population of 40,000 to 65,000 people would have been killed instantly by the strange event. Professor Cotton also cites in support of her contention J.B. Frey, Les Juifs a Pompei, Revue Biblique 32 (1933), p. 365. Little is said about Herculaneum, but Pompeii seems to be the main subject. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Sodom and Gomorrah: Directed by Robert Aldrich, Sergio Leone. For more than 40 years, the Biblical Archaeology Society has partnered with world-renowned hosts and guides to provide you exceptional educational offerings in the archaeology of the Biblical lands and in Biblical studies. " And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that . Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks that were coming down , It was daylight now elsewhere in the world, but there the darkness was darker and thicker than any night Then came the smell of sulfur, announcing the flames, and the flames themselves onto the ships, darker and denser the closer they went. Required fields are marked *. In Shankss opinion, the text is proof that a Jewish visitor to the ruins believed its fate followed that of the two sin cities that the Bible says were destroyed by God. The painted inscription on these jars consists of two Latin words, both incomplete: The first word could be completed as GAR[um] or MUR[ia]. Pools of Bethesda. Published: December 12, 2017 2.11pm EST. And jars of kosher garum appear to have been found at Pompeii, although the matter is not without controversy. Just curious! See our article here for more detail. I contacted Professor Curtis, who wrote me: [Professor Cotton] apparently misinterpreted what I had written. He mentioned the Christians who were taken into captivity (to brothels) from Jerusalem preached the pending destruction of Pompeii. First-century accounts of the eruption by his nephew Pliny the Younger and Dio Cassius describe the terror and confusion as the affluent cities of the Bay of Naples, including Pompeii and Herculaneum, were destroyed by the violent volcano. For they have wrought evil unto themselves (Isaiah 3:9). COPYRIGHT 2023 BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY 5614 Connecticut Ave NW #343, Washington DC 20015-2604. Photo: Claus Ableiter. The grafitti reads "Sodom and Gomorra." In Shanks's opinion, the text is proof that a Jewish visitor to the ruins believed its fate followed that of the two sin cities that the Bible says were destroyed by God. The Destruction of PompeiiGods Revenge? First the dates: The Romans destroyed the Second Temple (Herods Temple) on the same date that the Babylonians had destroyed the First Temple (Solomons Temple) in 586 B.C.E. Vesuvius (which brought life to an abrupt end in that . It makes me wonder though, why did Sodom get a verb named after it and not Gomorrah? 10. Garum was a very popular Roman delicacy, a fish sauce variously composed of different kinds of often-decomposed or fermented marine life and herbs and spices. The violent and fiery destruction of the Temple in August 70 C.E. The first chapter covers the importance of critical sense over . Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The display was finally reopened in 2000 (but remains off-limits for children). Sin always has consequences, and you should take sin and God's wrath . The Destruction of PompeiiGods Revenge? by Hershel Shanks originally appeared in Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2010. She says that there is plenty of evidence of looting, tunneling through the ash, excavating, etc. Change). The utter destruction of Pompeii has become legendary. I think Collins and his team should be afforded [such] a courtesy., People participate in the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project at Tall el-Hammam, an ancient settlement near the Dead Sea, in western Jordan. As an established city of Ancient Rome, the apparent destruction of Pompeii sent . One such person came back to a house in an area of Pompeii designated today as Region 9, Insula 1, House 26. from Italy, and it will sack the great Temple of God During this explosion, the city of Pompeii was completely buried in roughly nine feet of volcanic pumice and ash. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Go to godsdigitalbible.com and get Free Digital Bibles & Bible Books. . House 26 is like the others in the insuladark, destroyed, with vestiges of paintings on the walls, but mostly nothing. Ash and debris, over a meter thick, were left behind within the wider 500-square-kilometer area of destructiona scene of biblical carnage. Mount Moriah. Disconsolate and aghast, he picked up a piece of charcoal and scratched on the wall in large black Latin letters: As he saw it, the divine punishment of these two cursed Biblical cities was echoed in the rain of fire on Pompeii.8. Pompeii was buried in the ashes of mount Vesuvius in 79 a.d. Reseachers have found the city and so much information about it. Herod dismantled this one in around 20 BC, and began constructing the Third Temple. Poinium could be the Latin form of a Greek noun ending in -nion, that is, poimnion, meaning flock. And the ch in cherem could also be a Latin transcription of Hebrew chaf as well as het, in which case cherem would mean vineyard. The writer of the inscription may have been using the imagery of the prophet Isaiah: Israel is the flock of the Lord (Isaiah 40:11); similarly, the vineyard (cherem) of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel (Isaiah 5:7). Based on the location and series of pyroclastic surges (waves of gas and debris), temperatures would have fluctuated at Pompeii from a cool 100 degrees Celsius under the protection of collapsed roofs, up to many times that outside. . For Jews elsewhere, it is easy to imagine how news of the catastrophe at Pompeii would have been greeted with joy in light of the devastating defeat they had suffered only a few years earlier. Not only were the cities full of sexually explicit artfrescoes, inscriptions, statues (and thousands of examples of etched graffiti)even everyday household items were designed to resemble genitaliaoil lamps, wind chimes, charms, animal figurines. 20 years ago, Switchfoot unleashed the riff that changed Christian rock, Rabbi Harold Kushner, who wrote bestselling works of practical theology, dies at 88, Iran, 27 other countries critiqued by watchdog for religious freedom violations, In NC, a church network turns unused church buildings into homes for refugees, Why Florida needs to keep the Bible out of public schools, How the war in Ukraine dominated this years online searches for Bible verses, Mormon TikTok star debunks Bible conspiracies, misinformation, Copyright 2020, Religion News Service. This was the place where Sodom and Gomorrah were situated, that is, where Lut's people lived. The city's wickedness became proverbial. Jude 1:7 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful. In 2 Kings 25:8 the date is the 7th of the Hebrew month of Av; Jeremiah 52:12 says it occurred on the 10th of Av. The chaos left behind parallels the biblical accountin location, general timeframe and description. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Early historians, such as Philo and Josephus, attest to this sexually deviant nature of the city, as does the New Testament. God did destroy Pompeii, just as He destroyed Jerusalem for their wrongdoing in their denial and threat to crucify Jesus. The Bible often alludes to Sodom. 6. To the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple? That is the date on which observant Jews, sitting on the floor of their synagogues, still mourn the destruction of the First Temple, Solomons Temple, in 586 B.C.E. Know then the wrath of the heavenly God.6. Then suddenly a portentous crash was heard, as if the mountains were tumbling in ruins; and first huge stones were hurled aloft, rising as high as the very summits, then came a great quantity of fire and endless smoke, so that the whole atmosphere was obscured and the sun was entirely hidden, as if eclipsed. what vengeance does an angry holy god have planned for america, a nation who celebrates it's sin?facts on pompeiihttps://youtu.be/jvrz. It was a party town where rich Romans would drink and eat excessively, and have lots of sex in the temples dedicated to different gods and goddesses. Still, the type of destruction and its effects are closely similar: fire, brimstone, sulfur, unthinkable temperatures, a billowing cloud of smoke, carbonized victims. A recent discovery revealed that intense heat given off by the eruption caused one victims brain to turn to glass. Maybe rewording this article would be a good idea. Fish sauce producers, if they cared at all about catering to a specific clientele, even a small one, could, I think, have directed a specific product to them . H. St. J. Thackeray. We just see the sins of other societies more clearly than we see our own.. But last month Steven Jaret, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, and R. Scott Harris, a space scientist at Atlantas Fernbank Science Center, challenged these conclusions of the 21 scholars, also in Nature, basically hinting that Collins group confused run-of-the-mill smelting and pottery processes with heat from an airburst. 9. It was already a mostly deserted city, with many houses packed up, and many portable valuables removed. While speculatory and inconclusive, the article did help to highlight the wider questiondid the ancients believe the disaster was punishment from God (or the gods)? On the other hand, poinium could also be understood as Greek poine, similar in meaning to the Latin poena; that is, punishment, which would fit nicely with the meaning of cherem as destruction or excommunication. See Giordano and Kahn, pp. The Second Temple was actually Zerubbabels Temple. In fact, such was the quantity of obscene art and objects, graphic portrayals of sex and even bestiality throughout the ancient city, that when they were discovered (during the Counter-Reformation period) they were summarily re-hidden, or kept under lock and key. The removal of Pompeii from the face of the earth by such a . The month before Tishri is Elul [29 days], which would have been 16 August through 13 September. 19 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. They did, however, have abstinences of particular foods for limited periods of time, usually during recurring festivals Recognizing a sauce as castum, therefore takes on more importance for [Jews]. In her publication of a garum jar excavated at Masada in Israel, she cites supposedly grave arguments against the notion that garum castum was intended for Jews.12 Pure garum, which is all that garum castum means, could be intended for other religious groups with food restrictions as wellthe worshipers of Apis, Isis and Magna Mater, for instance.

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