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Real Life Biblical Kings and Other Historic Bible Facts and Figures

Khalid Elhassan April 25, 2025 18 min

Bible - Yul Brynner as the pharaoh in 'The Ten Commandments' — Yul Brynner as the pharaoh in 'The Ten Commandments'. Wikimedia

5. The Old Testament Destruction Account

Lot trying to protect his guests from his neighbors. Inspired Scriptures

The horny mob turns a deaf tear to Lot’s entreaties, so the angels blind the crowd, tell their host to immediately flee the city with his family, and not look back. As God rains down fiery destruction upon Sodom, Lot’s family escapes and is spared the heavenly wrath. Except for Lot’s wife, who looks back and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt. All in all, a great story packed with action and drama – but is there is any basis for it in ancient historic facts? As seen below, there just might be. Not the bits about angels or wives getting turned into pillars of salt, but the part about a city getting destroyed from the heavens.

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.