Oh no....

As I was searching the news I came across this:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3649054.ece

<sigh>

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Derek Colanduno
host - skepticality
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I think that is a little unfair, these if the reports are accurate are Sumerian tablets and belong to the respectable science of Archaeology.

It sounded like the press were trying to ham this story up more than it needed to be. It is still a fascinating incite to the ancient mind in it's own right.

As to the destruction of those two cities, like the "Star of Bethlehem" there are quite a number of theories out there, and this is just one to add to the mix.

Now as for Science in the Bible, well forum rules prohibit further discussion on that topic, but I would like to note we had people of science even in ancient times, so it is possible for ancient texts to get somethings right.

Incidentally and apologies if this sales too close to the wind on the religion rules, but when I was doing a training course in Archaeology at the South Shields Roman Fort in North East England, I was told by a senior archaeologist, that archaeologists are not totally dismissive of the OT, as they consider it along with others, as one of a number of ancient texts (If I have quoted the person correctly)

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It doesn't seem to be remotely accurate as to the impact energy. A 1/2 mile asteroid impact energy will be vastly more than 1000 tonnes of TNT. One calculator shows ~150,000 MegaTon.

I am not sure about their devastation area calculations.

Nevertheless, it is an amazing find if the object is from 700BC!! I hope so.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

That must have been one big clay tablet!

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Uhhh....I'm leaning more toward the volcano/methane leak explosion theory to explain Sodom and Gomorrah. It would seem an asteroid of the size indicated in the article would wreak far more devastation, and would leave corraborating evidence over a good chunk of S. Europe, N. Africa, and the Middle East.

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Angel of the Abyss
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"I am Ripper...Tearer...Slasher...Gouger. I am the Teeth in the Darkness, the Talons in the Night. Mine is Strength...and Lust...and Power! I AM BEOWULF!"

Yeah, more cruddy headline writing. That editor must have thought the tablet was the asteroid or a piece of it. (sigh...)

Some of the reader blogging below the story on the Times site suggests it's an April Fool's joke or hoax.

Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.
Of course it has to be taken into account if one studies ancient events in the Middle East.

The key is that, as you said, in a science context it has to be treated as one of a number of ancient texts.

That was also my first thought upon reading the headline.

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Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

It sure looks like an April fool's joke.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

The image of God Almighty hitting the Sodomites and the Gomorrans on their heads with a giant clay tablet is hilarious enough.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Hmm. Interesting date they calculated. June 29th 3123 BC. Tunguska Event, June 30th 1908 AD. I've read hypothosis that Earth crosses the orbit of Comet Encke around that time every year. Could it have been a Tunguska type of event? I find the .5 km asteroid unlikley, that is a geological tick of the clock, a crater left by an asteroid that size would still be visable.

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I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

Yeah. Reminiscent of Vic Mackey (Michael Chikliis from 'The Shield') and the infamous Whack-The-Uncooperative-Suspect-with-the-Phone Book routine.

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Angel of the Abyss
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"I am Ripper...Tearer...Slasher...Gouger. I am the Teeth in the Darkness, the Talons in the Night. Mine is Strength...and Lust...and Power! I AM BEOWULF!"

I've heard a rough rule of thumb that you should multiple the asteroid diameter by X10 to get crater diameter, in this case it would be about 5 miles in diameter crater

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'Just be a good team player in life', Andrew Evans

Oh, come on, does no one do any background investigation?

On searching Google, "Kofels Impact" is flooded with refs to the above, so excluding "Sumerian", "Tablet" and "Bristol" (for that is where Messrs. Hempsall and Bond are situated) reduces the hits from over 18K to less than 500. Those show a number of academic refs that document the controversy about the Kofels 'impact' as being an impact at all. Many are to academic journals to which one must have subscription, though some allow the abstract to be read, and say that the alternative is an earthquake-driven, 'mega'-landslide, with heating caused by friction. There's no crater there, that's for sure.

Mr.Hempsell is Sen.Lect in Space Technology (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/aerospace/c...ff/mrhempsell/)
He has an MSc in Astronomy and Astronautics, with an engineering background, in the same projects as:
Alan Bond is MD of Reaction Engines Ltd. http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/directors.html with an engineering background.
With respect, neither is an archeologist.
They have clearly given much thought and research to this project, that I cannot criticise.

This is another theory to add to the respectable, but untested theories about possible explanations for a mythical and moral icon.
See: http://www.archaeology.org/9607/newsbriefs/sodom.html
and
http://www.ankerberg.org/Articles/_P...e/SC3W1003.pdf

It is of interest that the latter reference dates, from archeological evidence, the destruction of the presumed S&G at 2300-2350 BC, nearly 1000 years after the date attributed to the "Kofel asteroid" of 3123BC, which was over 1000 years before the "rather precise" Biblical date of 2030BC.

John

Indeed.

Anyone who researches the history of archaeology would realize that aside from a handful of miracles and a few other events, the people, places and occurrences found in the bible are largely accurate.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Well, if you adjust for the hundreds if not thousands of years of oral tradition that preceded getting the stories written down, which means it's easy to tweak everything that doesn't fit well into fitting what you dig up, then yes, the bible is accurate.

Historians can't even agree on which pharaoh Moses was supposed to be against.

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Thats kind of a cool article, but I'd like to see more about it, is this the only reference?

Physorg published the article a day prior to the OP's with no reference to biblical events.
And I'm skeptical it has anything to do with the Kofels landslide.
If it describes a meteorite grazing the atmosphere leaving behind a trail a vapor and fire then I'd think, it being a Sumerian observation, this would be more relevant to texts like "Lamentations over the Destruction of Ur" where such "evil winds" are described as being the cause of the complete destruction of this sumerian city (well, that, and the actions of the gods involved).

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Well then, it sounds like you fit right in with those archaeologists who aren't totally dismissive of the Bible.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Totally? No. Mostly? Well, it is something spread by word-of-mouth for quite a lot of its history. And, as has been pointed out, its dating isn't all that useful. Then again, the only Egyptian record of the Hebrews says they wiped 'em out. So you see how no ancient text is completely reliable. Frankly, no text at all is completely reliable, but the older it is, the more grains of salt you should take it with.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

To which record are you referring?

IIRC, there are many texts which speak of hapiru, or the egyptian, pr.w.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

And about 10 years ago, a bunch of biblical scholars, archaeologists and the like tried to pinpoint when the Israelites were in Egypt. They were unable to find any evidence that the Israelites were ever there.

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If you run behind a car, you become exhausted.
If you run in front of a car, you become tired.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Indeed, but the absence of evidence for a couple million hebrews in the Sinai for 40yrs is rather stark.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

I'm curious to know where that "couple million" figure comes from.

A.DIM could say exactly the same about alien visitations. Nevertheless, absence of evidence places the burden of proof solidly on the shoulders of those who claim the event happened, or who make claims about when it happened.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

We kind of had this argument in the 19th Century when the Bible was scoffed at because it mentioned a tribe called the Hittites which at that time nobody had proof they had ever existed outside of the Bible

Today if you visit London, drop into the British Museum and now you can see the Hittite collection. Whilst there how about dropping by to see the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, which has a picture of Jehu Son of Omri. The only picture we have of an Israelite king.

Edit Forgot to mention the Black obelisk is in the Assyrian collection

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Moderations in purple

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Your point being, Sticks?...

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

I'm not sure what "pr.w." means; perhaps you could clarify?

At any rate, I'd have to go through my books again, but I believe my information comes from Don't Know Much About the Bible, by Kenneth C. Davis, which also discusses the controversies about authorship, chronology, and so forth. However, since I have several books on the subject, I could well be wrong--but then again, it could be in more than one of them.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

This happened before when there appeared to be absence of evidence outside of an ancient text, so that text was doubted on that point, until the actual evidence was found and the text was corroborated.

The other is a reference to an actual artefact which portrays the Israelites and one of their kings, if anyone thought there was no archaeological evidence of the existence of the Israelites.

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