Plot

According to the Bible, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God to punish their citizens for their wicked ways. Was this just a biblical parable, or is there evidence that such a thing actually happened? Josh Bernstein travels to the Near East to follow clues laid out in the Bible. His search takes him to modern-day Jordan, where, nestled near the Dead Sea, two sister cities reveal archaeological evidence of a great destruction. What happened here, and when? Josh will climb Mount Sodom to inspect a strange "Pillar of Salt" - just like the one the Bible claims Lot's wife became. Next, he works with a pyrotechnic expert to reconstruct a natural-gas explosion that could have resulted in the destruction of Gomorrah. Could these be the fabled cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and if so, can the tools of modern-day archeology reconstruct what happened during those fateful days before these cities were laid to waste?

In the Book of Genesis, God punishes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone as punishment for their sins. Is the story just a cautionary tale, or did these cities really exist? To find out, Josh Bernstein travels to the southeastern edge of the Dead Sea to examine the archaeological record. In Jordan, he studies the charred ruins of Bab-Edh-Dhra and Numeira - thought by many to be the real Sodom and Gomorrah; he harvests pure sulfur and turns it into brimstone (then tests the material to see how powerful it is); in Israel, he scales a cliff to measure one of the greatest earthquakes to ever hit the region; finally, standing atop Mt. Sodom, he stands beneath a pillar of rock salt named "Lot's Wife," after the spouse who dared to gaze back on the handiwork of God.