[amacbride]

To this point, the Wikipedia article on Veritas International University notes their doctrinal stance as follows: “Veritas International University has an evangelical doctrinal statement that emphasizes ‘three legs’ of biblical authority: inspiration, infallibility, and biblical inerrancy.”

I admire the rigor of the archaeology and physical/chemical analysis of the site, but think it’s important to note the above when evaluating the conclusions.

[robinei]

Though if the evidence presented for this event is persuasive, then all they achieve by making the connection is to speculate on a natural cause for a biblical "miracle". I mean it can strengthen a view of the Bible as source of historical information, but not as the word of God.

If this event happened, I would expect it to leave long lasting trace in oral tradition.

[mcguire]

One would have thought it would leave a written tradition---"The year a city in the Levant got blowed up" in one of the year lists or something.

Tunguska was apparently visible for 500 miles (800km); for a similar event north of the Dead Sea, that would be nearly to the Euphrates valley, central Anatolia, and most of the Nile Valley.

[Keysh]

The paper in question is by people from a variety of institutions (none of them being Veritas International University). Early in the paper there is this comment:

"After eleven seasons of excavations, the site excavators [i.e., the folks affiliated with Veritas International University] independently concluded that evidence pointed to a possible cosmic impact. They contacted our outside group of experts from multiple impact-related and other disciplines to investigate potential formation mechanisms for the unusual suite of high-temperature evidence, which required explanation."

[p_l]

Interestingly, the "biblical connections" side of the paper would actually make certain issues with biblical inerrancy.

Namely, the article notes that the most probable locations for Sodoma and Jericho are two cities that show evidence for the air burst theory. Meaning story of Lot and the Fall of Jericho would have to happen on the same day, which kinda doesn't work with bible being infallible and inerrant.