Category: Archeology

This article is a continuation of last week’s story about my family’s trip to Kentucky to see two of Answers in Genesis (AiG) attractions: the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. We have already looked at the former so this week I will give a summary of the latter. 

The Creation Museum is located less than an hour north of the Ark Encounter. I was expecting a smaller campus that would be made up of a parking lot and several buildings. I had no idea  the grounds of the Creation Museum would be so nice. It reminded me of other botanical gardens I have visited in southern California and Europe. The different gardens, the lake, zip lines, and a large playground provide an enjoyable context to the actual museum. 

The Creation Museum starts with an exhibit about dragons. This is somewhat surprising because the Bible has so little to say about them. Clearly someone at AiG is fascinated with these mythical beasts. Personally, I think it works as a creative way to draw visitors in to a museum which is like no other on the planet. 

The main hallway has an impressive interior with a huge skeleton of a wooly mammoth. The entrance opens up to a planetarium, gift store, and a 3D theater. Someone at our church was kind enough to give us guest passes to the museum so we were able to see the exhibits and the planetarium for free. 

The Planetarium is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It is a large room with a concave ceiling that doubles as a projector screen. Instead of hearing about a universe that is billions of years old, the planetarium show explains that God created all the stars and planets on the fourth day. The projector shows awe-inspiring images of galaxies and stars that exist all over the universe. The show ends with a dramatic depiction of a camera zooming in on the earth from the very farthest part of the universe. Watching the solar system stream past my eyes was a powerful reminder of how limitless l the creator of the universe is. There is no way to grasp how many stars exist, which is a fitting illustration of how there is no way to grasp the grandeur of our God. I wish every church could have a similar exhibit to show people just how small we are in comparison to the world that God has made. 

After seeing the planetarium we started in on the exhibits. We saw some fascinating depictions of the six days of creation. I never get tired of trying to grasp how God could have created the world in such a remarkable way. The museum does an excellent job of giving a literal interpretation of Scripture. It highlights the importance of marriage as a supernatural institution that God gave to humanity from the very beginning. There is also a powerful exhibit that casts doubt on the evolutionary theory that humanity evolved from apes. The exhibit is done in a very tasteful way that does not lambast other theories. It reveals an alternate explanation that is much more positive and encouraging than the popular view that dehumanizes people into a type of animal. 

My daughters really liked the exhibit called the “Miracle of Life”. It shows detailed images and models of how a human life comes into existence. Seeing high definition images of a baby boy or girl at 30 days after conception is incredibly powerful. The museum is planning on expanding that section in the coming months and I think it will become one of the most visited sections of the museum. 

My sons really enjoyed the section on insects. It is remarkable to see beetles, bugs, and insects from all over the world. The amount of detail required to design each of them is difficult to grasp. Once again the glory of God is seen in his creation. I was especially impressed with the butterflies and moths. Some of the colors are so vibrant it seems impossible that they could come into existence naturally. The same is true with the camouflage of some of the insects. There is no way to explain the perfect complexity of the designs by saying it came from evolutionary changes over time. I much prefer the Creation Museum’s explanation of an infinitely powerful God who lovingly created an earth with unique qualities and colors. 

After finishing the exhibits and viewing the gift store, we took time to walk around the garden. I was grateful that AiG has invested in top quality playgrounds at both locations because all of our kids spent a considerable amount of time running, jumping, and riding down the slides and zip lines. If we had more time I would have loved to go on the climbing courses and zip lines that are available about both locations. 

Sola Deo Gloria

In summary, my main takeaway from both parks was that they exist to glorify God. The Ark Encounter is a dramatic landmark that shows a strong belief in a literal interpretation of Scripture. I agree with Ken Ham’s statement that the first eleven chapters in Genesis are foundational to the rest of Scripture. If a non-literal interpretation is chosen for the beginning of the Bible, then the confidence of the reader is quickly eroded. Visiting the Ark is an encouraging exercise in faith building. It reminds the visitor that Biblical faith is not blind. Those who believe in the Bible are not trusting in fairy tale depictions of the Flood. They are using scientific observation to study what has been revealed in the Bible to interpret what can be seen in the world around us. 

The same thing is true at the Creation Museum. When the visitor sees the universe depicted on the screen there is no doubt that someone greater that humans had to create it. How else could something so expansive come out of nothing? The Creation Museum gives a reasonable case for how a creative God made the universe and that is not something that can easily be dismissed by believer and skeptic alike. 

The biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction is one of the most dramatic events recorded in Scripture. Genesis 19:24-25 describes the cataclysmic event like this, “Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”

God’s wrath against the wickedness of those cities may be shocking, but it was completely justified. Psalm 98:14 says, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.” God defines justice. Romans 12:19 says, “Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.’” God’s violent justice matches the violent wickedness of the people. If you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, then you are already aware of the unconscionable evil that motivated God to respond with a cosmic dose of justice. 

We know it was a cosmic punishment because the Bible says God rained down sulfur and fire out of heaven. We know this is true because God’s word says so, but is it possible to have a scientific explanation for such a supernatural event? I believe the following archeological and geological evidence would support the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

James Kennet is a distinguished professor of earth science at UC Santa Barbara. He has been studying the geology and archeology of an ancient city at a site called Tell Al-Hammam. It is located northeast of the Dead Sea in the country of Jordan. As scholars study this large manmade hill they are able to reveal history through the successive layers of the earth. James Kennet said, ““It’s an incredibly culturally important area… Much of where the early cultural complexity of humans developed is in this general area.” 

There is one layer of the Tell that has puzzled researchers for many years. It is a 1.5 meter thick layer that modern archeologists date to the Middle Bronze Age II (around 3,650 years ago or 1650 BC). This layer is remarkable because it contains evidence of extreme heat that is much higher than any temperature that could be produced by humans at that time. Philip Silva, a field archeologist and supervisor with the Tell-Al Hammam Excavation Project, found pieces of pottery that were turned to glass because of the high heat! In fact, he discovered pieces of a mineral called zircon that turned to gas — which requires 7,230 degrees Fahrenheit (4,000 degrees Celsius). 

Now how could this type of heat be produced in the middle of the Jordan desert? Philip Silva said, “The only naturally occurring event capable of causing such an unusual pattern of destruction is a cosmic airburst.” A cosmic airburst, also known as a meteor air burst, happens when a large meteor explodes as it hits the thicker part of the atmosphere. The most powerful recorded example of this happened in 1908 in northeastern Russia. The Tunguska event was a 12 megaton explosion that flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 830 square miles. Eye witnesses recorded successive waves of intense heat, earth quakes, and thunderous sound. It is estimated that the meteor disintegrated at around 3-6 miles above the surface of the earth. 

Scientists believe the cosmic airburst that occurred above Tell Al-Hammam happened much closer to the earth because the area of destruction was limited to 200 square miles. If the meteor exploded less than a mile above the earth then the targeted area would have experienced the equivalent of 1000 atomic bombs (The Hiroshima bomb had an estimated value of 15 kilotons). This is staggering to consider and could explain why James Kennet discovered that even quartz, which is one of the hardest minerals on earth, was cracked under such high pressure. 

There is also a fascinating description of how the explosion caused salt to be disbursed over the entire area. According to a paper published last month in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, the researchers discovered an unusually high percentage of salt in the 1.5 meter layer at Tell Al-Hammam. James Kennet wrote, “The salt was thrown up due to the high impact pressures… And it may be that the impact partially hit the Dead Sea, which is rich in salt.” This would explain why a high level of salt appears throughout the area at this time in history, which is one reason why archeologists believe the entire region became uninhabited for the next 600 years (this is referred to as the Late Bronze Age Gap). 

As Christians, we are not surprised to read of discoveries that seem to confirm the biblical account. The Rosetta Stone, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Tel Dan inscription are just a few of the remarkable discoveries that confirm what we have already known all along. The biblical account is true and accurate in its description of history, whether it relates to the natural or the supernatural world. But even more importantly we believe that the Bible is true in terms of the theology it describes. The theology of Scripture teaches us that God is holy and humanity is sinful. It teaches that there is only one way to be saved from God’s just wrath against sin and that is by confessing our sin and trusting that Jesus Christ died as a substitutionary atonement for those who “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” (Romans 10:9). 

So was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah a result of a cosmic meteor airburst? It’s possible that God used that to bring punishment on these cities, but it is also possible that there could be another scientific explanation for this event. What we can be certain of is that the Bible is accurate in its description of history, and the archeological and geological findings support the Biblical account.

The research for this article came from the following sources: “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea” in the 20 September 2021 edition of Scientific Reports; https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/; https://www.livescience.com/64179-ancient-cosmic-airburst-middle-east.html