About The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: A Combustion Engineer’s Perspective
| Authors | Charles E. Baukal, Jr. |
|---|---|
| Date | 2019 |
| Proceedings | Proceedings of the 2019 Christian Engineering Conference |
| Place | Dordt University, Sioux Center, Iowa |
| Vol / Pages | pp. 157u2013177 |
| URL | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pIXDMo7HD3g34FlSWsw9WDUXRi5TSOcE/view |
Type: Conference Paper
Tags: Christian Engineering
Abstract
There has been much speculation about how God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen. 19:24-25 where God rained fire and brimstone on the cities. A variety of theories have been offered such as a volcano, an earthquake, an airburst produced by a comet, petroleum products under the cities ignited by lightning and explosions, and even a flood. While there are some elements of each of these natural explanations that are plausible, they do not harmonize with the biblical text, they violate the laws of combustion physics, or there is insufficient supporting evidence. The best explanation of this catastrophe is that God supernaturally rained fire and brimstone on these exceedingly sinful cities which are used throughout the Bible as symbols of God’s wrath. Given the complete destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the heavenly fire was likely extraordinarily hot which could not have been produced by the technologies available at the time of the event. This paper comprehensively reviews the many theories that have been offered for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah from a combustion engineer’s perspective.