1. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 14.2, 14.4, 14.8, 18.20, 18.25, 19.18-19.22, 19.24-19.25 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 14.2. עָשׂוּ מִלְחָמָה אֶת־בֶּרַע מֶלֶךְ סְדֹם וְאֶת־בִּרְשַׁע מֶלֶךְ עֲמֹרָה שִׁנְאָב מֶלֶךְ אַדְמָה וְשֶׁמְאֵבֶר מֶלֶךְ צביים [צְבוֹיִים] וּמֶלֶךְ בֶּלַע הִיא־צֹעַר׃ 14.2. וּבָרוּךְ אֵל עֶלְיוֹן אֲשֶׁר־מִגֵּן צָרֶיךָ בְּיָדֶךָ וַיִּתֶּן־לוֹ מַעֲשֵׂר מִכֹּל׃ 14.4. שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה עָבְדוּ אֶת־כְּדָרְלָעֹמֶר וּשְׁלֹשׁ־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה מָרָדוּ׃ 14.8. וַיֵּצֵא מֶלֶךְ־סְדֹם וּמֶלֶךְ עֲמֹרָה וּמֶלֶךְ אַדְמָה וּמֶלֶךְ צביים [צְבוֹיִם] וּמֶלֶךְ בֶּלַע הִוא־צֹעַר וַיַּעַרְכוּ אִתָּם מִלְחָמָה בְּעֵמֶק הַשִּׂדִּים׃ 18.25. חָלִלָה לְּךָ מֵעֲשֹׂת כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה לְהָמִית צַדִּיק עִם־רָשָׁע וְהָיָה כַצַּדִּיק כָּרָשָׁע חָלִלָה לָּךְ הֲשֹׁפֵט כָּל־הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט׃ 19.18. וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹט אֲלֵהֶם אַל־נָא אֲדֹנָי׃ 19.19. הִנֵּה־נָא מָצָא עַבְדְּךָ חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ וַתַּגְדֵּל חַסְדְּךָ אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתָ עִמָּדִי לְהַחֲיוֹת אֶת־נַפְשִׁי וְאָנֹכִי לֹא אוּכַל לְהִמָּלֵט הָהָרָה פֶּן־תִּדְבָּקַנִי הָרָעָה וָמַתִּי׃ 19.21. וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה נָשָׂאתִי פָנֶיךָ גַּם לַדָּבָר הַזֶּה לְבִלְתִּי הָפְכִּי אֶת־הָעִיר אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ׃ 19.22. מַהֵר הִמָּלֵט שָׁמָּה כִּי לֹא אוּכַל לַעֲשׂוֹת דָּבָר עַד־בֹּאֲךָ שָׁמָּה עַל־כֵּן קָרָא שֵׁם־הָעִיר צוֹעַר׃ 19.24. וַיהוָה הִמְטִיר עַל־סְדֹם וְעַל־עֲמֹרָה גָּפְרִית וָאֵשׁ מֵאֵת יְהוָה מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם׃ 19.25. וַיַּהֲפֹךְ אֶת־הֶעָרִים הָאֵל וְאֵת כָּל־הַכִּכָּר וְאֵת כָּל־יֹשְׁבֵי הֶעָרִים וְצֶמַח הָאֲדָמָה׃ | 14.2. that they made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela—the same is Zoar." 14.4. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled." 14.8. And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela—the same is Zoar; and they set the battle in array against them in the vale of Siddim;" 18.20. And the LORD said: ‘Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and, verily, their sin is exceeding grievous." 18.25. That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from Thee; shall not the judge of all the earth do justly?’" 19.18. And Lot said unto them: ‘Oh, not so, my lord;" 19.19. behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest the evil overtake me, and I die." 19.20. Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one; oh, let me escape thither—is it not a little one?—and my soul shall live.’" 19.21. And he said unto him: ‘See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken." 19.22. Hasten thou, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither.’—Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.—" 19.24. Then the LORD caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;" 19.25. and He overthrow those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." |
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2. Herodotus, Histories, 4.39, 8.77 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 4.39. This is the first peninsula. But the second, beginning with Persia, stretches to the Red Sea, and is Persian land; and next, the neighboring land of Assyria; and after Assyria, Arabia; this peninsula ends (not truly but only by common consent) at the Arabian Gulf, to which Darius brought a canal from the Nile. ,Now from the Persian country to Phoenicia there is a wide and vast tract of land; and from Phoenicia this peninsula runs beside our sea by way of the Syrian Palestine and Egypt, which is at the end of it; in this peninsula there are just three nations. 8.77. I cannot say against oracles that they are not true, and I do not wish to try to discredit them when they speak plainly. Look at the following matter: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"When the sacred headland of golden-sworded Artemis and Cynosura by the sea they bridge with ships, /l lAfter sacking shiny Athens in mad hope, /l lDivine Justice will extinguish mighty Greed the son of Insolence /l lLusting terribly, thinking to devour all. /l /quote , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Bronze will come together with bronze, and Ares /l lWill redden the sea with blood. To Hellas the day of freedom /l lFar-seeing Zeus and august Victory will bring. /l /quote Considering this, I dare to say nothing against Bacis concerning oracles when he speaks so plainly, nor will I consent to it by others. |
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3. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 10.7-10.8 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 10.7. Evidence of their wickedness still remains:a continually smoking wasteland,plants bearing fruit that does not ripen,and a pillar of salt standing as a monument to an unbelieving soul. 10.8. For because they passed wisdom by,they not only were hindered from recognizing the good,but also left for mankind a reminder of their folly,so that their failures could never go unnoticed. |
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4. Philo of Alexandria, On Husbandry, 34 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 34. In this manner, also, the offspring of the outward senses, when the mind is supine and indolent, being satiated in the most unbounded degree with a superfluity of the pleasures of the outward senses, toss their heads, and frisk about, and rove about, at random, wherever they please; the eyes being opened wide to embrace every object of sight, and hastening even to feast themselves on objects which ought not to be looked at; and the ears eagerly receiving every kind of voice, and never being satisfied, but always thirsting for superfluity and the indulgence of vain curiosity and sometimes even for such delights as are but little suited to a free man. VIII. |
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5. Philo of Alexandria, On Drunkenness, 222 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 222. But even then, nevertheless, the insatiable desire which exists within them continues to rage as though it were still under the influence of hunger. "For their wine is of the vine of Sodom," as Moses says, "and their tenderils are from Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, and their branches are bitter branches. The rage of dragons is their wine, and the incurable fury of Serpents." The interpretation of the name Sodom is "barrenness and blindness." But Moses here compares those who are the slaves of greediness for wine and general gluttony, and of other most disgraceful pleasures to a vine, and to the different products of the vine; |
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6. Philo of Alexandria, On Flight And Finding, 122, 121 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 121. Those, then, who have no desire for either discovery or investigation have shamefully debased their reason by ignorance and indifference, and though they had it in their power to see acutely, they have become blind. Thus he says that "Lot's wife turning backwards became a pillar of Salt;" not here inventing a fable, but pointing out the proper nature of the event. |
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7. Philo of Alexandria, On The Change of Names, 228 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 228. Was it not for this reason that Abraham also, at the time of the destruction of Sodom, began at fifty and ended at Ten? Therefore, propitiating and supplicating God, entreat him that if there could be found among his creatures a complete remission so as to give them liberty, of which the sacred number of fifty is a symbol, at least the intermediate instruction which is equal in number to the decade, might be accepted for the sake of the deliverance of the soul which was about to be condemned. |
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8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Creation of The World, 79 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 79. This is the first reason on account of which it seems that man was created after all other animals. And there is another not altogether unreasonable, which I must mention. At the moment of his first birth, man found all the requisites for life ready prepared for him that he might teach them to those who should come afterwards. Nature all but crying out with a distinct voice, that men, imitating the Author of their being, should pass their lives without labour and without trouble, living in the most ungrudging abundance and plenty. And this would be the case if there were neither irrational pleasures to obtain mastery over the soul raising up a wall of gluttony and lasciviousness, nor desires of glory, or power, or riches, to assume dominion over life, nor pains to contract and warp the intellect, nor that evil councillor--fear, to restrain the natural inclinations towards virtuous actions, nor folly and cowardice, and injustice, and the incalculable multitude of other evils to attack them. |
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9. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 2.56 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 2.56. Therefore on this occasion, as the holy scriptures tell us, thunderbolts fell from heaven, and burnt up those wicked men and their cities; and even to this day there are seen in Syria monuments of the unprecedented destruction that fell upon them, in the ruins, and ashes, and sulphur, and smoke, and dusky flame which still is sent up from the ground as of a fire smouldering beneath; |
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10. Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation, 3.213 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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11. Philo of Alexandria, Questions On Genesis, 2.43, 4.23, 4.31, 4.51 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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12. Strabo, Geography, 16.2.44 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 16.2.44. Many other proofs are produced to show that this country is full of fire. Near Moasada are to be seen rugged rocks, bearing the marks of fire; fissures in many places; a soil like ashes; pitch falling in drops from the rocks; rivers boiling up, and emitting a fetid odour to a great distance; dwellings in every direction overthrown; whence we are inclined to believe the common tradition of the natives, that thirteen cities once existed there, the capital of which was Sodom, but that a circuit of about 60 stadia around it escaped uninjured; shocks of earthquakes, however, eruptions of flames and hot springs, containing asphaltus and sulphur, caused the lake to burst its bounds, and the rocks took fire; some of the cities were swallowed up, others were abandoned by such of the inhabitants as were able to make their escape.But Eratosthenes asserts, on the contrary, that the country was once a lake, and that the greater part of it was uncovered by the water discharging itself through a breach, as was the case in Thessaly. |
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13. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 1.173 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.173. who submitted to this slavery twelve years; and so long they continued to pay their tribute: but on the thirteenth year they rebelled, and then the army of the Assyrians came upon them, under their commanders Amraphel, Arioch, Chodorlaomer, and Tidal. |
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14. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 4.483-4.485 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 4.483. The country of Sodom borders upon it. It was of old a most happy land, both for the fruits it bore and the riches of its cities, although it be now all burnt up. 4.484. It is related how, for the impiety of its inhabitants, it was burnt by lightning; in consequence of which there are still the remainders of that Divine fire, and the traces [or shadows] of the five cities are still to be seen, as well as the ashes growing in their fruits; which fruits have a color as if they were fit to be eaten, but if you pluck them with your hands, they dissolve into smoke and ashes. 4.485. And thus what is related of this land of Sodom hath these marks of credibility which our very sight affords us. |
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15. Tacitus, Histories, 5.7 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 5.7. Not far from this lake is a plain which, according to report, was once fertile and the site of great cities, but which was later devastated by lightning; and it is said that traces of this disaster still exist there, and that the very ground looks burnt and has lost its fertility. In fact, all the plants there, whether wild or cultivated, turn black, become sterile, and seem to wither into dust, either in leaf or in flower or after they have reached their usual mature form. Now for my part, although I should grant that famous cities were once destroyed by fire from heaven, I still think that it is the exhalations from the lake that infect the ground and poison the atmosphere about this district, and that this is the reason that crops and fruits decay, since both soil and climate are deleterious. The river Belus also empties into the Jewish Sea; around its mouth a kind of sand is gathered, which when mixed with soda is fused into glass. The beach is of moderate size, but it furnishes an inexhaustible supply. |
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16. Anon., Genesis Rabba, 42.5 (2nd cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
| 42.5. עָשׂוּ מִלְחָמָה אֶת בֶּרַע וגו' (בראשית יד, ב), רַבִּי מֵאִיר הָיָה דוֹרֵשׁ שֵׁמוֹת, רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן קָרְחָה הָיָה דוֹרֵשׁ שֵׁמוֹת, בֶּרַע, שֶׁהָיָה בֵּן רַע. בִּרְשַׁע, שֶׁהָיָה בֵּן רָשָׁע. שִׁנְאָב, שֶׁהָיָה שׁוֹאֵב מָמוֹן. וְשֶׁמְאֵבֶר, שֶׁהָיָה פּוֹרֵחַ וּמֵבִיא מָמוֹן. וּמֶלֶךְ בֶּלַע הִיא צוֹעַר, שֶׁנִּתְבַּלְּעוּ דָּיוֹרֶיהָ. כָּל אֵלֶּה חָבְרוּ אֶל עֵמֶק הַשִֹּׂדִּים, שְׁלשָׁה שֵׁמוֹת נִקְרְאוּ לוֹ, עֵמֶק הַשִֹּׂדִּים, עֵמֶק שָׁוֵה, עֵמֶק סֻכּוֹת, עֵמֶק הַשִֹּׂדִּים, שֶׁהוּא מְגַדֵּל סְדָנִים. דָּבָר אַחֵר שֶׁהוּא עָשׂוּי שָׂדִים שָׂדִים, תְּלָמִים. דָּבָר אַחֵר, שֶׁהוּא מֵנִיק אֶת בְּנוֹ כַּשָּׁדַיִם. עֵמֶק שָׁוֵה, רַבִּי בֶּרֶכְיָה וְרַבִּי חֶלְבּוֹ בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָן, שֶׁשָּׁם הֻשְׁווּ כָּל עוֹבְדֵי כּוֹכָבִים וְקִצְּצוּ אֲרָזִים וְעָשׂוּ לוֹ בִּימָה גְדוֹלָה וְהוֹשִׁיבוּ אוֹתוֹ לְמַעְלָה מִמֶּנָּהּ וְהָיוּ מְקַלְּסִין לְפָנָיו וְאוֹמְרִים (בראשית כג, ו): שְׁמָעֵנוּ אֲדֹנִי נְשִׂיא אֱלֹהִים אַתָּה בְּתוֹכֵנוּ, אָמְרוּ לוֹ, מֶלֶךְ אַתְּ עָלֵינוּ, נָשִׂיא אַתְּ עָלֵינוּ, אֱלוֹהַּ אַתְּ עָלֵינוּ. אָמַר לָהֶם אַל יֶחְסַר הָעוֹלָם מַלְכּוֹ, וְאַל יֶחְסַר הָעוֹלָם אֱלֹהוֹ. עֵמֶק סֻכּוֹת, שֶׁהוּא מְסֻכָּךְ בָּאִילָנוֹת, אָמַר רַבִּי תַּנְחוּמָא גֶּפֶן וּתְאֵנָה וְרִמּוֹן אֱגוֹז וְשָׁקֵד תַּפּוּחַ וּפַרְסֵק. הוּא יָם הַמֶּלַח, אָמַר רַבִּי אַיְּבוּ לֹא הָיָה שָׁם אֶלָּא צִנּוֹרוֹת הַיְאוֹרִים, וְנִתְבַּקְּעוּ וְנַעֲשׂוּ יָם, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב (איוב כח, י): בַּצּוּרוֹת יְאֹרִים בִּקֵּעַ | 42.5. אל עמק שוה \"To the Valley of Shaveh\": Rabbi Berachia and Rabbi Chanina said in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman: [It was called that] because all of the idolaters became uimous [השוו], cut down cedars and built a great stage, and brought [Avraham] there to rise him up, and they said praises before him, saying [Bereishit 23:6]: \"Hear us, my lord, [you are a prince of God in our midst,]\" etc. They said to him, \"You are our king! You are our prince! You are our god!\" He said to them: \"The world does not lack its King, nor does it lack its God.\"" |
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