Genesis Chapter 19
There has been some stories of travellers finding Lots Wife, but what they found was only a pillar of solid salt about 40ft tall and 20ft wide near the supposed location of Sodom on the South-West side of the Dead Sea. One very interesting account, (I will try and find who it was), was when a traveller looked for Lots Wife and did not find it, but found several ‘Lots wives’….little pillars of salt, some 4" (10cm) tall or 6" (15cm) tall. When he broke one of them off, inside was a twig. A bird, or the wind, must have taken a seed and dropped it on the ground where, due to the life forces in the seed, it took root. But as soon as it had to rely on the poisonous soil, it died. In time, the salt laden air covered it with salt. If this sort of thing happened to Lots Wife it would imply that she did not become a pillar of salt immediately. She must have somehow, died and remained standing….petrified by God’s wrath. The salt laden air then slowly covered her so that she became a pillar of salt.
The Dead Sea
I am told that the Dead Sea itself has been losing water at an alarming rate. The Victorian writers say that it was increasing in volume, in their day. There were tales of people wading across the shallow southern bit, but John Kito says that the shallowest part (in 1848) was about 13ft deep. It is obvious that there was an earthquake that made the two levels in the Dead Sea, although this, alone, was not the thing that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible does not mention water, but just fire and brimstone. S+G seem to have been on the North-West side of the lake, because Abraham was able to see it from Jerusalem.
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