Geographical Evidence

It is essential to identify the definitive biblical text(s) vis-à-vis the geography of Sodom and the Cities of the Plain. Hermeneutically, a “definitive text” is one written expressly for the purpose of directing the reader to Sodom’s location. It is also a hermeneutical requirement that such a text be historical in nature—i.e., in the tradition of the classic narrative, serial geographies of the Old Testament. Such serial geographies take the reader from “place to place” (compare Gen 13:3; also the exodus itineraries) as the story unfolds, not so much chronologically, but geographically.

On this basis, the narrative (serial geography) of Gen 13:1–12 is the only biblical passage that qualifies as a definitive text for the location of the Cities of the Plain. Ancient Near Eastern writers—Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Canaanite, or Hebrew—did not invent fictitious geographies. Whether their characters and events were fact, fiction, or somewhere in between, ancient authors layered their tales over a real-world geography with which they were familiar. The writer of Gen 13 knew the geography he represented as the world of Abram and Lot, and that is the primary reason why his description of the “way to Sodom” is quite easy to follow (Collins, Search for Sodom and Gomorrah, 15–21).

Getting to Sodom is a step-by-step process reflecting the authentic and accurate nature of the serial geography of Gen 13:1–12. The essential “road map” to Sodom and the Cities of the Plain is: “So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev … and Lot went with him … From the Negev he traveled from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai … Lot lifted his gaze and saw that the entire Plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar [perhaps Zoan] … So Lot chose for himself the whole Plain of the Jordan and made his way eastward … Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the Cities of the Plain and pitched his tents in the vicinity of Sodom” (note, a few nongeographical elements in the passage have been removed for brevity).

One can easily sense the serial nature of the passage as the narrative moves from one geographical location to the next. The key term in the text is the one translated “plain” (“valley” in some versions). Of the main five or six words in Hebrew that carry the meaning of “plain,” “valley,” “bottom land,” “flat land,” etc., the word translated “plain” throughout the Sodom tales—as in “Plain of the Jordan,” “Cities of the Plain,” “the Plain,” and “Land of the Plain”—is not one of them. In fact, it is not a geographical term, and does not mean “plain”; the Hebrew word is כִּכַּר (kikkar)) הַכִּכָּר (hakkikkar) with the definite article), and it is used 68 times in the Old Testament. Most of the time כִּכַּר (kikkar) means “talent,” as in a talent of silver, gold, or other metal. The talent was a circular, flat disk of metal used as a medium of exchange and was one of the largest denominations of “currency.” Seven times in the Old Testament, כִּכַּר (kikkar) refers to the traditional circular, flat bread (like the modern pita) ubiquitous in the ancient Near East. The word is used frequently in ancient Akkadian (kakaru), Ugaritic (kakaru), and Egyptian (kerker) texts, always meaning “talent” or “tortilla.” Essentially, כִּכַּר (kikkar) has no geographical application beyond the 13 times it is used in this way in the Old Testament.

Linguistically, the 13 geographical uses of כִּכַּר (kikkar)—seven times in the Sodom tales; once each in Deut 34:3, 2 Sam 18:23, 1 Kgs 7:46, 2 Chr 4:17, and Neh 3:22 and 12:28—represent what is, linguistically, called a “phenomenological secondary referent” (PSR). Simply put, a PSR is a regular word like “table” or “elephant” applied to another entity because that entity looks like it. For example, the term “boot-heel” of Italy refers to the shape of that particular piece of the Italian Peninsula. Similarly, the Hebrew כִּכַּר (kikkar), or הַכִּכָּר (hakkikkar), refers to a geographical area that looks like a “talent” or “tortilla,” i.e., a flat, disk-shaped region called כִּכַּר (kikkar) because of its perceived shape.

That כִּכַּר (kikkar) refers to a formal geographical construct—on par with such “capitalized” terms as Negev, Arabah, and Jordan—is not often recognized, though the term is used clearly seven times in the Sodom tales. To determine the precise location of the kikkar, one must identify where Lot was standing when he “lifted up his gaze” to see “that the entire Plain//Kikkar/ of the Jordan was well-watered.” Genesis 13 indicates that Abram and Lot had traveled “to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai,” and they remained encamped at that location until Lot departed for Sodom (Gen 13:14–18).

The location of Bethel/Ai is about 14 miles northwest of Jericho and about 12 miles north of Jerusalem on the tallest hills of Canaan’s central highlands. Abram and Lot were grazing their animals in that area when they decided to part because of the growing size of their collective families, flocks, and herds. Thus, from the area around (likely east of) Bethel/Ai, Lot looked up and saw the well-watered Kikkar of the Jordan. What Lot saw was the southern part of the Jordan Valley that widens dramatically into a disk-shaped, alluvial plain, some 25 kilometers in diameter, where the Jordan (הַיַּרְדֵּן, hayyarden) empties into the Dead Sea—the “kikkar of the Jordan” or “Disk of the Jordan.”

The Old Testament is quite precise as to the extent of the Jordan (הַיַּרְדֵּן, hayyarden):

1. הַיַּרְדֵּן (hayyarden) never refers to anything other than the fresh water system of the Jordan River proper.

2. הַיַּרְדֵּן (hayyarden) never includes any part of the Dead Sea proper, because its southern extremity ends at “the mouth of the Jordan, at the bay of the Dead Sea, below Pisgah” (compare Num 34:12; Deut 3:17, 27; 4:47–49; Josh 15:5; 18:19).

While some commentators have attempted to include the entire Dead Sea valley in the Kikkar of the Jordan, that is a geographical impossibility, and it is categorically disallowed by the Old Testament geoconstruct, הַיַּרְדֵּן (hayyarden).

Two descriptors in Gen 13:10 confirm that the kikkar geography is north of the Dead Sea:

1. The Kikkar of the Jordan was well-watered “like the garden of Yahweh.” This refers to an earlier passage in Genesis where “a river watering the garden flowed out of Eden” (Gen 2:10). That is how the Kikkar of the Jordan is watered—by a single river, the Jordan, flowing right down the middle of it.

2. The kikkar was watered “like the land of Egypt.” This is a reference to the Nile’s annual overflowing—well known throughout the ancient Near East. Similarly, the Jordan overflowed its banks in the kikkar in the spring. The Jordan’s annual inundation created new deposits of water-laden silt over a wide area, and local farmers planted their crops behind the receding waters. Hydrologically, the Jordan was a miniature Nile. No other piece of geography in the entire Jordan Rift Valley matches both of these descriptors.

It is impossible to see from the area of Bethel/Ai beyond the bare northern tip of the Dead Sea even on a clear day. It is easy to see the “entire Kikkar of the Jordan” with its great river, its many streams, and its verdant agricultural lands. Thus, what Lot saw was the “land of the kikkar” (Gen 19:28), encompassing the “Kikkar of the Jordan” whereupon sat the wealthy and powerful “Cities of the Kikkar.” He departed for these cities, going eastward until he “pitched his tents in the vicinity of (near) Sodom.” Lot traveled east from Bethel/Ai—this is the only directional indicator in the text, and it is hermeneutically absolute. מִקֶּדֶם (miqqedem, “forward,” “east”) only means east.

The location of the Kikkar of the Jordan and the Cities of the Kikkar is north of the Dead Sea, visible from the area of Bethel/Ai, and accessed via the major trade route leading eastward from Bethel/Ai and crossing the kikkar to its far side where Sodom dominated the ancient landscape. Collectively, Genesis 10; 13; 14, indicate that Sodom was the largest among the Cities of the Kikkar, for at least three reasons:

• Sodom is always mentioned first.

• Sodom is the only one of the cities mentioned by itself.

• King Bera of Sodom is chief among the other kings from the land of the kikkar—he alone has a voice in the story, and he alone accompanies Abram to meet with Melchizedek of Salem (Jerusalem).

Thus, according to the geographical parameters of Gen 10; 13; 14, Sodom was the largest city in the land of the kikkar during the time of Abraham and Lot. This fact plays strongly in favor of the northern Sodom theory, while militating against the southern Sodom theory: If, as the southern Sodom theory demands, the Kikkar of the Jordan included the entire valley surrounding the Dead Sea, then Sodom must have been the largest of all the cities that existed during the time of Abram (the Bronze Age by all counts) in the southern Rift Valley, regardless of location. This can be only one site: Tall el-Hammam, located 8 miles northeast of the Dead Sea. Bab edh-Dhra, the largest of the southern sites and a favorite “Sodom” of southern Sodom theory advocates, occupies just over 5 hectares (about 12 acres; Schaub and Chesson, “Life in the Earliest Walled Towns,” 245–52). The footprint of the walled city at Tall el-Hammam is approximately 36 hectares (over 85 acres), with its general occupation spreading up to 100 hectares (240 acres; Collins, Hamdan, and Byers, “Tall al-Ḥammām: Four Seasons,” 385–414). Further, it is now known that Tall el-Hammam was the nucleus of a major city-state encompassing about half of the eastern kikkar, with numerous towns and villages within its territory (Collins and Aljarrah, “Tall el-Hammam: 2011 Excavation,” 19–21).

The geographical data from Gen 14 is also relevant, although it is not as important as Gen 13. Kedorlaomer’s coalition army marched from Mesopotamia southward into the Levant along the King’s Highway (on the Transjordanian plateau), into the wilderness of Paran, then back north to Kadesh, continuing north to Hazazon Tamar (En Gedi; compare 2 Chr 20:2), and finally engaging the Cities of the Kikkar forces in the Valley of Siddim just prior to plundering Sodom and Gomorrah. Kedorlaomer was moving northward from En Gedi (Hazazon Tamar) toward the Cities of the Plain. This is supported by the meeting of Abram, Melchizedek of Salem, and Bera of Sodom, in the Valley of Shaveh (Gen 14:17) after Abram defeated Kedorlaomer’s forces near Damascus (Gen 14:15).

The valley probably lies somewhere between Sodom and Salem and was a suitable meeting place for both kings and Abram. This was probably on the east—west trade route leading across the kikkar from Sodom to Jerusalem. If Sodom were in the south, Kedorlaomer’s route would need to be unnatural and convoluted, with greater distances. It is about 35 kilometers from Tall el-Hammam to Jerusalem along one of the region’s best-traversed routes—a same-day journey. The travel distance to Jerusalem from Bab edh-Dhra is over three times farther regardless of which route one takes. Jerusalem and Tall el-Hammam were neighbors with line-of-sight communication from the very next hill east of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives. Bab edh-Dhra was neither visible nor accessible from Jerusalem (or the reverse) apart from a journey of two or three days.

Thus, the biblical geography consistently favors the northern Sodom theory over the southern Sodom theory.