Genesis 13: Archaeology & Geography

This week we looked at Genesis 13, the story of Abram and Lot separating. The main point of the chapter is that nephew Lot would not be Abraham’s heir. He wouldn’t be the one through whom God would give Abram a big family. Lot opted out of the promise by going to the east and becoming a farmer who lived near the city of Sodom instead of going north or south and being a shepherd in the hills of Canaan.

For a long time, scholars thought the city of Sodom was located south of the Dead Sea, but an archaeologist named Steven Collins has used the text of Genesis 13 to find an alternative site for Sodom. This past November, the research team made an exciting discovery about how the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah (which we’ll get to in a few weeks) may relate to a meteor blast that took place in the area.

Here’s an interesting YouTube video by Dr. Collins about how he discovered the site of Sodom.