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Going Biblical: Fascinating Divine Punishments Recounted in the Old Testament

Khalid Elhassan May 9, 2025 19 min

Punishment - The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden — The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Encyclopedia Britannica

19. The Origins of a Story, and the Legacy of a Biblical Punishment

A pillar in Mount Sodom, Israel, known as ‘Lot’s Wife’. Wikimedia

Geographically, the story is linked to the Dead Sea region. Recent excavations at Tel al Hammam in that region reveal that a Bronze Age city was destroyed there by a meteorite circa 1650 BC. That might have been the real life origin of the Sodom and Gomorrah account. There is a salt formation near the Dead Sea called “Lot’s wife” by the locals, but there is no proof linking it to the biblical story.

In the New Testament, Luke 17:32, Jesus warns his followers to remember the fate of Lot’s wife as a lesson in wholehearted devotion. Ultimately, the story is about the price of not trusting God fully and failure to obey His instructions, and warns against looking back when called to move forward into a new life.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.