[sgc]

That area is full of salt pillars. The geology served as an opportunity to create a moral and religious story. Could this have also influenced the story? Perhaps, but the salt pillars are quite large, obvious, and unique.

Edit: I note that nearby Jericho is dated to have been destroyed and abandoned in the same time period (within 50 years, likely well within margins of error). One of the most striking thing about the Tel in Jericho is that half the Tel is missing. Specifically the side to the East, which would be facing this Tel. I have never seen any good reason given for that missing section of Jericho, and would not be surprised at all if the same event destroyed both cities. Obviously lending more weight to this event having been integrated into Biblical writings.

[lifeisstillgood]

I get correlation and causation, but if I was sitting in an ancient Jericho, and watching another Army walk round the walls - and after they did a sodding great meteorite fell from the gods and blew down half my city walls, I would certainly think about religious conversion. :0)

On the other hand we should not get too carried away matching up events like this. The team behind this article took pains to prove it must have been an airburst by finding molten glass that could only come from certain temperatures etc etc.

I always understood that walking round the walls of Jericho was supposed to be cover for the sounds of sappers, just as the wooden horse of Troy may well have been a animal shaped cover for a battering ram, as opposed to a rather easy to avoid foot-gun.

[sgc]

My edit was to indicate that the air burst might have been a distant inspiration for the Jericho story as well as the Sodom story. There are about 600-1000 years between event and writing by most estimates, so there was plenty of time for it to inspire more than one story. But local geology plays a big role in many Biblical stories, not just these. People who are teachers look for teaching moments, and find them in the things that surround them.

[hyperpallium2]

> A sapper, also called pioneer or combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapper

[eloff]

Wasn't Jericho the one where they brought down the walls by making noise in the biblical story? I wonder if that could have been inspired by finding the wreckage of the city with the East wall destroyed.

[pyinstallwoes]

Could it be the result of a weapon? I know this is on the edge of absurd but to let the possibility entertain the mind wouldn't a laser or some payload from space "glass" an area on the ground? I've never thought about people turning into salt before... it seems possible?

[scroy]

I think it's best to use Occam's razor on that one. But it would be great for an episode of Stargate.

[pyinstallwoes]

Sometimes "aliens did it" makes more sense than a lot of the imaginative narrative that somehow explains 15 billion years in confidence of certainty. But yeah, I get your drift indeed.