A ARQUEOLOGIA DE SODOMA! Especial Israel com Aline e Rodrigo Silva

Shalom and welcome back to ‘Israel with Aline!’ Today we are in the region of Sodom and Gomorrah with a very special guest, say shalom to archaeologist Rodrigo Silva! [Rodrigo Silva] Shalom, it’s a pleasure to be with you and all the audience watching we have a lot of stories to tell! We have unmissable topics today, so if you are ready, [together] let’s get started! ♪ [Rodrigo Silva] Guys, so today, as we said, we have here a polemic subject, very interesting, and we want to start knowing where we are, Aline, what is this place that people are only seeing a stone wall, by the way, you are already dirty, I’m already dirty here too, that’s the desert. Well, I’ve already given a spoiler that it’s desert, but what desert? Is this the Atacama Desert, the Sahara Desert? Where are we and how does this relate to the biblical story? This is the avalanche that I am creating here in the desert, we are now in the Judean Desert, more specifically in front of the Dead Sea, in the region believed to be Sodom and Gomorrah. [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, in the region. We are still going to work a little bit on the location of the city, if we can mark it with an “x” on the map, stay with us until the end because there are a lot of things. And taking the opportunity, Aline, before we start our conversation I have a special invitation for the people who are with us here if you are not yet subscribed to Israel with Aline or Rodrigo Silva Archeology, you are more than invited to be part of this family. So you have to subscribe subscribe to the channel, press the bell. Activate the bell to let you know every time we release a new video, [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly! And also if you want to thank the channel’s videos, don’t forget to like the videos, [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly to press the like buttom or as they say here in Israel, the “ahavite” isn’t it? “Ahaveti ett.” [Rodrigo Silva] “Ahaveti ett”, “I liked it, I loved it”. Ah, it’s important to also comment for us to read there, isn’t that right? So yes, people, help our channels. But the people came here and are wondering why we are sitting here in the middle of the desert, in the middle of these rocks? [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, as a matter of fact, since we are sitting here I will start with an experiment, Let’s go! [Rodrigo Silva] Have you ever seen earth on fire? It is difficult! [Rodrigo Silva] I don’t think so, but let’s do some magic here so we can explain later? I brought a lighter here, I don’t smoke and neither does Aline, but we brought this lighter and we went around the desert to find this phenomenon and I will leave it for Aline to do, and she is right here. Let’s try to position ourselves here, and then we will get the camera close, look at the magic. People, the wind is complicated here so as not to burn, I will ask Laura to hold my Bible and I will help Aline. let’s try with a paper, [Rodrigo Silva] so come with a close look here; one, two, three and filming let’s go? Look there, the stone is already on fire!
It’s really on fire, do you want to see the proof that it is on fire? I’m going to take this side here that is not burned, look at the fire on the paper here, do you see it? It will start to catch fire, look! Come on, it is on fire! Pay attention Rodrigo, the sulfur rock that is here, it burned and then it went out because the rest of the rock around it doesn’t burn, I mean, this kind of rock here [Rodrigo Silva] look, let’s do the test here, this one here nothing will happen it doesn’t catch fire, nothing happens! Absolutely nothing happens. [Rodrigo Silva] It’s just that one, just that one, I mean, these are specific sulfur rocks, there is one here that we just burned. [Rodrigo Silva] And you already gave a spoiler, it is sulfur, sulfur is mentioned in Genesis isn’t it? There’s a little bit more there there’s a little bit more here, and I’m going to try to release it without breaking it, ♪ here we can clearly see that it is encrusted together with others, here we managed to break a little piece of it. [Rodrigo Silva] Let’s see if we can burn this one just one more time for the people to see come on, let’s see the magic! Look, see? It burns here. Look how impressive, the stone really disappears! ♪ The most impressive thing that we can’t see now, is that the fire that is coming out of this stone is blue, I mean, the blue fire when we burn it at night you can see it clearly, and it’s a little toxic [Rodrigo Silva] Wow, I felt it here! Guys, a gas came here, because the wind is in this direction, [Rodrigo Silva] is in this direction, this is interesting. It is really toxic, if you smell it here you start to have dreams and vision, this is strong! Even a little piece like this? You better move away, [Rodrigo Silva] I better get away but this thing, the smell came on strong right here look, it even cracked here! And you can see the flame a little bit, but really, if you light it in the dark it’s a completely blue flame and you can really see it, [coughs] [Rodrigo Silva] I’ll see if it burns, you can also smell it, see? Look at the fire, watch out, watch out! [Rodrigo Silva] Here we do it live, people, you can see everything; there are cars passing by, sometimes the sound isn’t the best. Well, we have already talked about sulfur that is mentioned in Genesis, we talked about fire, and the Bible also talks about salt. I know that there is a place here that we are going to that has a very big salt deposit and I think we can continue talking there to show more things to the people, come on, there is still a lot to show today, this was just a little taste, people! [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, and we want to take advantage of the sunlight, so let’s go with us! Let’s go! [Rodrigo Silva] Hey there my friends! Aline and I came to this part here that I always stop sometimes here with the groups, you also stop. We stop here to show some curiosities, don’t we? And this is a place that I don’t know if the camera will show it, but we will do our best to make it very didactic for the people. It is a place filled with salt. I can say that this is a valley of salt, isn’t it Aline? Really, it is a unique place! Because all around us here are mountains, but suddenly among all the mountains there is a specific area here that are salt mountains, more specifically 90% salt. [Rodrigo Silva] In fact, I’ll show you guys at home, here on the ground there are some small stones, I’ll get close to the camera, look how cool this is here. You see, this here is a normal rock, this here is not salt, but look at the salt shell and this one is also a salt rock. By the way, I think that if I could make an election for the book of records, I think the largest salt rock in the world would be here. I don’t know if it is already in the book of records but without any doubt, it is not really a rock it is a whole mountain! We can also see that its formation is different, sometimes when we look at it at first it doesn’t call our attention because it is covered with sand, there are sand storms that cover it, but if we stop and look at the details we can see that it has a completely unique formation. [Rodrigo Silva] You are used to that salt, the “NaCl” from the Periodic Table, aren’t you? Taking the elements there and you think of that white, refined salt, but this is salt. In fact, we are going to show you a salt rock so you can season your food at home, come with us! [laughs] ♪ Look at this phenomenal stone, this is all pure salt, folks! And we’re going to do the test now, right? I mean, I’ll give it to Rodrigo to do the test, check out this little pebble here. [Rodrigo Silva] Do you know how archaeologists sometimes clean pottery? It is by putting their tongue on it, I know you may find it disgusting, but the salt, it is very salty, very salty! So it is proved that this is really salt here. [Rodrigo Silva] No, this one is a salt rock. This is not a rock with salt, it is salt. In fact, I’m going to assume something, Aline, that everywhere in the world, I’m going to use a parenthesis here, there is a evil-minded that goes and makes a tourist site dirty. People, please, when you visit somewhere, don’t dirty it. And here there are people who throw dirt so you will see some ugly things that Aline didn’t want to show because women are always more aesthetic, but it is good to denounce those who don’t know how to preserve. But why do I want to show it? It is even more didactic because of the rains that happened last summer, last winter, better saying. Here you see that the water came, ran down and formed a kind of stalactite there, look, do you see it at the bottom? I’m going to take it here, rest assured that I am not destroying nature, this one is new, but look, it’s all made of salt, very salty. But can I tell you something? I will first taste it and then I want to tell you something, [Rodrigo Silva] Let me fix my microphone that fell here, but you also tasted and was salty! But can I tell you something? We are talking today about the city of Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities that were destroyed precisely because of the wrong actions of the people of the city, and we see that there are people who do wrong things until today, so we see here historical places with a bottle thrown on the floor, with paper thrown on the floor and this shows us that sometimes human nature still needs to improve from those times until today. [Rodrigo Silva] Now Aline, since we are talking about Sodom and Gomorrah, where is it because we are talking about the region, since we started our conversation here we started up there, we came here and we are talking about the region of Sodom and Gomorrah. The region is much more than the city, so let’s try to find out where could the city of Sodom and Gomorrah be or the other cities, which by the way, not many people talk about the others, but there were five cities that were there in the valley and they all suffered the Divine punishment, the most famous ones are Sodom and Gomorrah, and of the two, Sodom is the most prominent. No doubt about it, so nowadays there are three main opinions about where these cities can be, usually everybody calls them Sodom but where they can be one of these five cities, so we have three different opinions. Did you bring a map for us today? [Rodrigo Silva] I did, I’ll get the map in the car and I’ve already seen that there is a rock there that can be used as an office. So I’ll get the map and we’ll go there and we’ll show you which are these three places and what can be said about each of them. ♪ [Rodrigo Silva] So, I got my Bible, I got my map, and we are going to improvise here an office in the middle of the desert, an office in the middle of the salt rocks, let’s see here. Aline can stay here I think I’ll stay here, and our camera-man can film us here, take this stone away. Look, I have a map here and I will try to show you, by the way, before I show you these cities, there is also something curious Aline, we always pass here with the tourists and the people get a stone here, I know you are laughing but I will show you everything, won’t I? You are going to do a virtual Israel with Aline now, a virtual Rodrigo Silva archeology as if you were here with us. What would we show them? Up there behind us, we see a rock that is 12 meters high and it is called “Lot’s wife” even if you ask an Israeli, if you look on the map in Hebrew it is written “Eshet Lot”, Lot’s wife and the tradition says that this is Lot’s wife, what is the main problem? It is the size, we are talking about a 12-meter statue that really resembles the shape of a woman, but the size is completely disproportionate, probably for a meter and a half that she would have in height. [Rodrigo Silva] Yeah, and the curious thing, I’m particularly skeptical about it because it just looks like a stone that has detached from the others there, and even the shape of a woman depends on the angle you look at it, it gives an optical illusion. But I also have to admit that this tradition of Lot’s wife is not something that is only on Waze today. By the way, something that few people know, Waze is an Israeli invention, see? It’s an Israeli app. [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, the day it is bad you will also be upset with an Israeli but the day it works out you will also thank the Israeli. Now we have to admit that although I am skeptical that that is Lot’s wife, I believe that Aline too, we show it because it is a tourist issue. But there is a very old tradition that points to Lot’s wife, which we find in the church fathers. For those of you who are at home and don’t know who the church fathers are, they are the first Christian authors from the post-Apostolic period. If I am not mistaken, Flavius Joseph also makes this mention, right? Exactly, I mean, in the first century, literally two thousand years ago, Flavius Josephus already speaks about this place, so it is a tradition, I mean, we have no scientific proof of this, but it is a tradition of two thousand years. [Rodrigo Silva] And Flavius Josephus was also, for those who don’t know, a Jewish historian who lived there precisely at the time when the New Testament was still being written. Now of course, this tradition does not validate that it is really Lot’s wife, just so you know, for information purposes. But let’s talk in archeological terms. I have a map of Israel here, Aline. I see that you are a little uncomfortable, so I thought of making a small table, but it is not helping much anymore, I think that here will be better. And let’s show it closer to the camera, [Rodrigo Silva] So, this is the map of Israel, as I said, Israel is smaller than the state of Sergipe today, if you look. Israel is on the border, quickly just for you to understand the geography, by the way people to study biblical archeology it is indispensable that you have four things: knowledge of the culture of the time to understand the idioms, a notion of map, geography; Jesus went from such a city to such and such, how many kilometers? If that is in the New Testament, it is because it is important, right? In fact, 80% of the Holy Bible is usage and customs, Geography, History and 20% is doctrine. So it is important that you know the 80%. So I have already talked about the map, I have already talked about the habits and customs, timeline, chronology; what came before, what comes after and last, if possible, a model also helps a lot because it is easier. So let’s go to the map; Israel today which is the biblical land also borders Lebanon which in biblical times was the territory of the Phoenicians, Syria which already belonged to the Syrians in biblical times, Jordan at that time, Jordan made Ammon which was precisely the territory of the Hedomites, then you have Moab and Ammon, which is related to the history of Sodom, we will get there yet. And here in the South we have the border with Egypt as well. About 65% of the Israeli territory today is desert and the desert is divided in three parts; here you have the Negev which is the southernmost desert, Negev is South in Hebrew, you have the Arava and you have the Judean desert which is where we were at the beginning of the video, but let’s talk about these three places. Aline, where are we here on the map now so that people can understand? We are down here, you can see that on the map itself is marked Sedom which is Sodom, so we are here on the very South part of the Dead Sea in the Judean Desert region. [Rodrigo Silva] So here you can put it on your list, it is one of the possible places of Sodom, right? So, write it down, there are three probable places; the first one is on the map, it is on this side of Israel the other two are on the other side, I will ask the camera to show you just that side, I don’t know if you can see those mountains, there is another country, there is Jordan, right? And the other two places are on the Jordan side let’s see that on the map, now let’s go back here on the map. The second probable place of Sodom would be in this region, it doesn’t show here on the map but it would be Babedrag, right? It would be more or less here look, the Dead Sea today makes a divide because much of the Dead Sea today is actually being lost, so here all of it was covered with water, but on the Jordan side you have Babedrag. And the third place that I even showed you in a video I made recently, I’ll leave you there the link where you can watch this video you’ll click, then you can watch it later would be this place over here and the third place would be just here in the North of the Dead Sea the place called Tell el-Hammam which is on this side here, okay? So we have the two places on the Jordan side, one is north of the Dead Sea, the other one is further south of the Dead Sea here in the Jordan area and the other one is just on the Israel side also on the southern part of the Dead Sea. So these are the three possible places that we have for Sodom and Gomorrah, right Aline? Yeah, remembering that there are three locations but in total there were five cities, so there is still the possibility that Tell el-Hammam really is the correct location and here too and the other one too or it could be that none of the three. [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, the only thing missing now is for me to record Babedrag which is something I still want, we already had the idea of doing it together in Jordan, right Aline? But it didn’t work out on the day for her to go there because she has to cross the border, there is a certain bureaucracy but we are still going to do, who knows, Babedrag together? But Aline has already filmed three videos here with details, isn’t that right? It is three videos here because there is a lot to show, we are going to show a little bit today also of this place and we will give some arguments as to why it might be or why it might not be here, so we will show you the options and each of you can draw your own conclusion at home. [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, and we will also leave the link to the other videos that Aline made, in case someone hasn’t watched them. So I recorded in Tall el-Hammam, why am I speaking sometimes Tall, sometimes Tel? In Hebrew Tel is “hill” and in archeology it is a technical name it is a hill of rubble, of antiquities and all that. In Arabic the word is practically the same Tall or Tel, except that in Hebrew when you do it with just the “lamed” or with one “L” in our Portuguese language, in Arabic it would be with two “L’s”, the Tall, so it’s the same thing don’t worry about it. So you can watch the videos that Aline made with more details here, Tall El-Hamman, but we will talk a little bit more about this place, we just owe you Babedrag. Now there is something in the Bible that I wanted to read to you that coincides with what Aline said, suddenly these three places don’t have to be totally exclusive, why? Can I show you in the Bible? Yes you can! So come with me, let’s go back there. By the way, one thing that people can see from home, I told them that tourists stop here, look, three buses have just arrived and all the people are there taking pictures and pointing out Lot’s wife, what a famous woman! This one is better known than Shakira. Let’s go to this smaller stone here and I’ll read a passage from the Bible. But I can say that it is interesting that we are walking and our feet are sinking here, even the soil here is different! [Rodrigo Silva] It is different and it is a pity that it is very dirty because of the mud, but we see many white marks here, which are the salt that is being washed off the rock. Aline, please hold the map and I will read you a passage from the Bible and you will see how interesting is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I am going to read here for you exactly Genesis chapter 19, verse 25 onwards. when it speaks of destruction it says He, He who? HaShem, God “Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land.” Genesis 19:25 So the destruction was not linked only to the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah and the other three the entire region was affected, now how much of this region was affected and how much was not? I already put my hypothesis about Tall el-Hamman and there are two difficulties with Tall el-Hamman, is the dating, because there the destruction places it in 1650 before the common era or before Christ as some prefer, but chronology is still a problem for archaeologists. The second problem with Tall el-Hamman is that it has been rebuilt and apparently the wrath of God would prohibit any reconstruction. In favor of Tall el-Hamman you will see in my video there the stones really melted, there is also a presence of sulfur in a smaller amount than here, the city has a layer of ash from this height from the Bronze period, so there is a city. These are the strong and weak points, in fact there is one more strong point in relation to Tall el-Hamman that the fact that it is to the north, it is closer to Ai and Bethel in relation to the geography of Sodom. The two southern options would be Babedrag and here where we are on Mount Sodom are further away geographically, so you are noticing that all hypotheses have some stronger and weaker points, isn’t that right Aline? Exactly, I think this is the right word, I mean, they are hypotheses. If we are talking about where we are now, in Hebrew it is called “Har Sedom”, the mountain of Sodom and that is the first clue in reality; the locals themselves, the local tradition recognizes this place as Sodom and that’s what we said, a tradition not from now but a tradition at least two thousand years old if not earlier than that. So this is the first strong point of this place, which is a very, very old tradition. Long before Tel el-Hamman was discovered by archaeologists, here people in Israel already knew this place as Sodom. ♪ Incidentally, even the Dead Sea has also received the nickname “Maris Sodomorum” in antiquity. the sea of ​​Sodom, the salt lake. The only thing that is good for us to clarify for people at home is that there is a hypothesis, not a hypothesis, an urban legend out there that they found the remains of Sodom under the Dead Sea. I read a book once Aline I’m not going to say the name of the book, but it’s a well-known book in Brazil where the guy tells that the Israelis they were taking salt out of the Dead Sea when a chimney came out, all burnt out, this is a myth folks. Underneath the Dead Sea has already been mapped, they used sonar there to see underneath of the Dead Sea, there is no city structure under the waters of the Dead Sea. So Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities that were destroyed were in the Dead Sea region so far there is no, I repeat, no evidence of a city under the waters of the Dead Sea. Yes, I mean, there is no lack of archaeological research, mineral extraction in the region, inside the Dead Sea nothing really was found. And the three theories really of places that we are talking about are around the Dead Sea and now let’s talk a little bit from the place we are, from Mount Sodom why do people believe it is here? First we said, it’s a very old tradition and second, it’s really a pile made of salt and also around here there was a lot of sulfur as we saw at the beginning of the video that we burned sulfur balls, those were even small but we found also big balls here. [Rodrigo Silva] Yes, I’ve seen it the size of a tennis ball. Yes, large balls of sulfur are found, which fits very well with the biblical narrative in which the city was destroyed with fire, salt and brimstone. And the interesting thing is that here have ranges and ranges of mountains and among all the mountains only one of them is made of salt, I mean, it’s big but it’s a mountain made only of salt, which catches our attention. So here we have salt, we have sulfur, we have traditions and there is no city here! [Rodrigo Sila] Yes, that one for me, I already talked to Aline before we started recording, this for me is the main obstacle from an archaeological point of view. Because for me to speak I need to have some structure here dating from the Bronze period that is when we believe that there was the destruction of Sodom and really what she said is true; we have here the mountain of salt but there is no hint of any civilization here. Unless, but here I am already creating a hypothesis, a possibility; unless this city of salt is under the whole mountain here, or rather correcting unless this remnant of Bronze period city is under all that salt, but for that you have to do some research. Exactly, we don’t have any archaeological digs that were made inside Sodom there are caves, we even went in the canal and saw the caves, but we cannot see structures of a city. So the hypothesis that many locals, what local people imagine it to be is that God destroyed the city, when the city was destroyed there were no archaeological remains, which on the one hand makes sense but which, on the other hand, is a big problem because we will never be able to find traces, I mean, look at the city of Sodom, so these are the negative points of the city. It means that we cannot show a destroyed city like Tel el-Hammam. [Rodrigo Silva] Now I’m going to give an argument in favor of here and one against, for you to see that we are being as professional as possible, we have to work with the hypotheses strengths and weaknesses. The argument in favor is that even in the book of Jude, when it speaks of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the book of Jude it’s not the Jude that betrayed Jesus Christ it’s another Jude, is that right? From the New Testament, it is possibly one of Jesus’ brothers who wrote the epistle. In the book of Jude when he speaks of the city of Sodom and Gomorrah says so in verse 7, because Jude has no chapter “likewise”, then when it talks about the destruction of God, I’ll read verse 6: speaks of the angels who were bound in everlasting chains to the judgment of the great day, In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:7 I particularly Aline understand that punishment of an eternal fire is not a fire that burns forever, means a fire of eternal consequences, right? “Olam” means universal, eternal, never ending or “Ai Onion” as it is in Greek. And really then God completely destroyed it, just as he will do on judgment day, there will be nothing left. So that’s the argument for the fact that we don’t find cities here. The argument against is that there were other cities also object of Divine punishment as is the case of Petra, that one day I want to make a video in Petra too, that Petra is there its ruin as the prophet said that would happen. You see, we have some elements in favor, others against but one thing we have strong; there is enough evidence to point the biblical account as something historical. ♪ Exactly, so historic that we even have more than one option to fill in the possibility of these five cities, and I think this is beautiful about archeology here in Israel that we can visit the places and begin to understand the Bible more deeply, perhaps understand the consequences as you were reading now in the book of Jude of the immorality of this population, precisely here the punishment of immorality. And when we travel here, even though it’s not summer now and be at the end of the day, here is such an extreme climate and however independent of these three locations exactly which one is Sodom or these five cities, you can feel it here the extreme that is this place, I mean, you have the Dead Sea which is the place with so much salt 33% of salt in the water is the limit, you can float in the water. There is no life inside the Dead Sea here in this region you get days in the year that reach 120 degrees, it practically doesn’t rain I mean, you are in such an extreme place and people sometimes ask themselves: why is this place so extreme if we have places as beautiful and peaceful as Galilee suddenly we arrive here at the deepest place in the world with so many extreme phenomena, mountains made of salt and maybe this really reflects the wrath that God had against these cities and their immorality. [Rodrigo Silva] Now, Aline, taking advantage of this, we are here at the moment, folks. what on TV we call magic light, is that right? Here now the sun is about to set, almost setting and this moment is very beautiful to record but in a little while we will lose this light and I saw in your videos that you filmed beautiful caves inside, even with rappelling, we won’t be able to go to these places but people can watch Aline’s videos later, where she filmed there but just for people to have a taste can we at least get some cave here to show at least a little bit? Come on, I’ll take you inside Sodom guys, let’s go inside the “belly” of Sodom [Rodrigo Silva] That’s good, come with us! ♪ So you can see up there we are looking at the famous statue of Lot’s wife, whether it is or not is another discussion. [Rodrigo Silva] Here it doesn’t look like a woman anymore, we can see that it’s quite different, but let each one decide. But what are we going to do, guys, for you to decide, we are going to enter the cave together, do you want to give Laura your Bible? [Rodrigo Silva] Yes, yes, here, so that we can enter there. We already read the Bible, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go into Sodom with a Bible. [Rodrigo Silva] That’s right, so let’s go inside, let’s see what it’s like. ♪ And we can even see that there are people here with equipment, with helmets, with all the equipment to go deep inside and get to know it. Now, guys, I will ask Rodrigo, he has never been here, what are you feeling here now? [Rodrigo Silva] It feels like you are entering a refrigerator because the temperature drops exponentially. Exactly folks, here you have a temperature and you take 2 or 3 steps inside and the temperature drops a few degrees, it is really a phenomenon! [Rodrigo Silva] And the difference is very abrupt, it’s very abrupt, I mean literally at the moment we enter but let’s get into it more and you’ll feel it even more. And here what we are seeing in reality is the cave that is all made of salt, look here, unfortunately there are some writings here [Rodrigo Silva] It is not archaeological writings. It’s not ancient, but here let me clean it up, it’s salt covered with sand. So sometimes this place is even disguised, but everything here is simply a gigantic salt cave, something that really doesn’t even look natural. Let’s go deeper? [Rodrigo Silva] Come on, let’s go in there. And also another interesting phenomenon that we can see here are all these salt rocks that collapsed, this is because of earthquakes. Here in the region there are many earthquakes that happen, especially in the last months. In the last years this has intensified and we saw for example the big earthquake in Turkey and Syria, which unfortunately had thousands of victims and this region is not far from here. These earthquakes were also partially felt in Israel, you even made a video talking about the earthquakes. And these rocks just fell here because of these earthquakes. [Rodrigo Silva] By the way, a parenthesis on a subject that is not necessarily about Sodom and Gomorrah but is about archeology, it is possible that many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are in some cave near Qumran that some earthquake happened that produced the collapse of stones, sand that covered the entrance of this cave and the manuscript is inside. Now there are new equipment that can see up to several meters inside to see if there is any evidence of a cave, that’s why they found cave number 12 but unfortunately there were no manuscripts there. But it was just a parenthesis for you to see that this land is a rich land of archeological treasures, I just wanted to add one thing; when Aline says the land of Israel is rich, I also wanted to add that not just Israel but the Middle East as a whole, because the biblical lands are more than the current State of Israel, because the biblical lands include Egypt because there was history of Israel there, where there was history of God’s people is biblical land, it includes Jordan, it includes Syria, it includes Iraq, it includes Iran, it includes Turkey, why Turkey? Paul spent time there in Asia Minor. Why does it include Jordan? Well, Jesus was baptized and it says a lot in John’s Gospel beyond the Jordan River. Moab and Amnon, the sons of Lot’s daughters, from the incestuous relationship are on that side; in other words, this cultural treasure is in this territory here. It’s a pity that political relations are not always the best, the easiest ones, but we are trying, among the meanderings of political discussions and everything else, to find this element, substance to better understand the biblical text and confirm the historicity of the episodes that the Bible presents. I’m still a little worried about the light, let’s see what we can show here yet, Aline, because the light is really falling now. But you can clearly see here the blocks of salt that are detaching themselves, [Rodrigo Silva] Look how interesting, if he can film more closely here, look at the layers, look at the layers of salt here, it’s very cool! A geologist would of course give a class about this here, neither I nor Aline are geologists but it is very interesting to see the layers that exist in this place and that all of this is salt, people usually come here to do some kind of extreme sport? So inside the caves of Sodom the only way to enter nowadays is really with the equipment, if we are going to enter, right? So the helmet, part of it even needs rappelling, part of the caves inside Sodom are full of water here in the winter there are waterfalls inside, there’s really a lot that goes on inside Sodom. But you need equipment and professionals trained in extreme sports to be able to enter. [Rodrigo Silva] In your opinion, what can we learn from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? So, we see many times in the Bible God’s love and care for the land of Israel, for the people of Israel and also for all the people of the world, but we also learn about God’s justice, I mean, God even tries to give a chance to this city. He says, “Look, if there are 10 righteous people in the city, the city will not be destroyed, if there are 5 righteous people in the city, if there is one righteous person in the city, the city will not be destroyed. I mean, he tries to give these cities a chance, but really the immorality here is very deep and when we read the Bible, several verses tell us [Rodrigo Silva] Look, there is some sportsman coming down there now, you see him coming down there, let’s enjoy it until we stand here, but let’s keep going because this is interesting. Let’s walk a little bit here just for us to get more light, God loves his people but he is also just, you were saying? So I mean, we see this in the Bible, we see that God tries to give several chances to the people but we also see in the Bible that it was not a sin that the city committed, there were several and several problems since disrespect to the immigrants, I mean, they do so many wrong things that in the end God decides “ok, justice will be stronger” and that is why God will condemn these cities but we also see that it is a specific Justice, God in this case does not destroy all Israel he destroys the five cities. He lets Lot and his family leave and so in the end God is love but also justice. [Rodrigo Silva] Yes, this is very important because in a post-modern time, in a liquid society, as Bauman said, who was Jewish, where it is forbidden to forbid, where relationships are liquid, where moral values are liquid, we have to take this story and see what it means to us. You know why Aline and everybody else who is watching us, of all the sacred books that there are in the world, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the book of the Vedas, the Mahabharata, the Hindu books or the Tao Te Ching, no matter which religious book is in the world, the only religious book among all of them that demands a historicity to confirm its theology is the Holy Bible. If you are reading the Bhagavad Gita and discover that Arjuna did not exist, nor Krishna, it makes no difference, but the Bible rests on real history. And if that story is real the theology that lies upon that story will be too. If the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is real as everything is indicating it was, then my friend, God loves you very much. I could say that God is more interested in saving us than a mother is in getting her child out of a house on fire. Aline has a beautiful baby, Yair, so imagine, Aline, you who are a mother, Yair inside a burning house, you turn into a lioness to get your son out of there, I think it is this same impetus, or maybe something greater than this is the Divine initiative to save the human being, He wants to rescue us from evil, from destruction, but if we insist on going there, despite this love, He will let us. God is love but He is justice, so don’t play with the Almighty. Well, we will stop here, and I hope you enjoyed it. Watch my video about Tall el-Hammam, watch Aline’s other videos here, leave your comment on Rodrigo Silva archeology, also on Israel with Aline and you are always with us, aren’t you? Exactly, so I hope you enjoyed this video, leave in the comments what you thought about these theories, which sounds more interesting to you and we’ll see you here next time! [Rodrigo Silva] Exactly, bye bye, shalom! ♪