The Dead Sea

The Hebrews call the Dead Sea Yam ha-Melah ("salt sea")
and some think the name "dead sea" was so named
because nothing can live in the salt sea.

But in Arabic the Dead Sea is called
al-Bahr al-Mayyitt ("Sea of Death")
or Buhayrat Lut ("Sea of Lot"),
recalling the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
and reminding of Lot's wife, who turned to stone
(as in Pompeii by volcanic ash?).

The Ancient Five Cities of the Dead Sea

Indeed, there did once exist 5 ancient cities of the plain
(Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zoboiim and Zoar (Bela)).
All were destroyed.

Modern excavations by Lapp, Rast and Schaub
at the south end of the Dead Sea
- where the five cities of the plain were located -
may show mass cemeteries provisionally dated to ca. 1800 B.C.
Victims? What happened????

Was there in fact a natural catastrophe?

Did it rain fire, ash and brimstone?
Was there a tidal wave afterwards, drowning many?
Did the saltwater salinate freshwater and soil?
leading to death from thirst
and making the land unfit for planting for many years,
with diseases following the conflagration (probably bubonic plague)....

The date for the catastrophe of Sodom & Gomorrah
is very likely the explosion of the volcano Santorini on Thera
dated to ca. 1628 BC by modern research. This was accompanies
by earthquakes, tectonic movements and incendiary gases
which derived from them,
as apparently reported quite accurately by Isaiah.

 Here are excerpts from Isaiah
Isaiah, The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version

1(1) for who can prophesize of such things, who has not seen them?
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz....

1(7) Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire....

1(9) If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors,
we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah....

4(2) And he who is left in Zion ... will be called holy,
everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem....
Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion
and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and
smoke and the shining of of a flaming fire by night,
for over all the glory there will be a canopy and a pavilion....

5(25) ...and the mountains quaked; and their corpses
were as refuse in the midst of the streets....

6(4) And the foundations of the thresholds shook....
and the house was filled with smoke....
Then flew one of the seraphim to me,
having in his hand a burning coal
which he had taken with tongs from the altar....

8(6) ...the water of Shiloah that flow gently...
therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them
the water of the River, mighty and many...
and it will rise over all its channels
and go over all its banks; and it will sweep on into Judah,
it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck....

10(26) ...and the Lord of hosts will wield against them
a scourge...and his rod will be over the sea,
and he will lift it as he did in Egypt....

10(34) He will cut down the thickets of the forest
with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall....

15(2) The daughter of Dibon has gone up to the
high places to weep...

15(3) ...every one wails and melts in tears...

15(5-9) ...they raise a cry of destruction;
the waters of Nimrim are a desolation;
the grass is withered, the new growth fails, the verdure is no more.
Therefore the abundance they have gained
and what they have laid up they carry away....
For the waters of Dibon are full of blood;
yet I will bring upon Dibon even more,
a lion for those of Moab who escape, for the remnant of the land.

21(1) The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea.

23(1-11) The oracle concerning Tyre.
Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste,
without house or haven! From the land of Cyprus
it is revealed to them. Be still, O inhabitants of the coast,
O merchants of Sidon, your messengers passed over the sea
and were on many waters; your revenue was the grain of Shihor,
the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations.

Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken...
When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish
over the report about Tyre. Pass over to Tarshish, wail,
O inhabitants of the coast! Is this your exultant city whose
origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle afar?

Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored
of the earth? The Lord of hosts has purposed it, to defile the
pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

Overflow your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish;
there is no restraint any more. he has stretched out his hand
over the sea, he has shaken the kingdoms; the Lord has given
command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds....

23(13)-14 Behold the land of the Chaldeans!
This is the people; it was not Assyria.
They destined Tyre for wild beasts.
They erected their siegetowers, they razed her palaces,
they made her a ruin. Wail, O ships of Tarshish
for your stronghold is laid waste....

24(18-20) For the windows of heaven are opened,
and the foundations of the earth tremble.
The earth is utterly broken, the earth is rent asunder,
the earth is violently shaken, The earth staggers
like a drunken man, it sways like a hut....

41(1) Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;
let the peoples renew their strength....

41(5) The coastlands have seen and are afraid,
the ends of the earth tremble....
 

Hence, can we still ask what happened to the Minoans?
or that there is no historical report of their demise?

The explosion of Santorin and the conflagration that followed
was seen as the hand of God, smiting the unrighteous .... and,
if we read Isaiah ... we see that this had great subsequent
consequences for this geographically affected region generally,
being tied to the plagues of Moses and to Exodus.
 

Isaiah's account means that Ahaz, Isaiah and Hezekiah
were historical figures of an earlier period, and that Isaiah is
not "prophesizing" into the future, but recounts the past,
as a warning to the future.