Customer Reviews

Return to Sodom and Gomorrah

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

To merely say that this book is one of the best books I have ever read would be to seriously understate my opinion of this profound and important work. Pellegrino has a rare and uncanny ability to draw connections and to synthesize the disparate and widely scattered evidence of humanity's past. An admitted agnostic, he is wise enough to realize that no true scientist can be an athiest, but he also pulls no punches in his clear-minded assessment of biblical history. The fact that he is able to keep his sense of humor throughout only adds to the enjoyment of this book. One of the main reasons I believe this to be a profoundly important work is that Pellegrino presents a refreshingly honest, if not always optimistic, view of human nature. He harbors no illusions about our species' violent past, and thus provides us with the perspective and foresight we need if we wish to avoid the specter of extinction.

Cecil B. DeMille's got a lot to answer for. Mention the Old Testament and chances are that most of us will visualise one of his screen epics - Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea, for example - and we'll laugh at the larger-than-life antics. Not Charles Pellegrino. He takes all the old Bible stories and asks what if they really happened?

A modern-day adventurer - part detective, part scientist, part visionary - Pellegrino traces archaeological sites from the Nile to the Jordan and the Tigris-Euphrates rivers and presents compelling evidence from scientists, archaeologists and theologians that the oral histories of the Bible hold a surprising basis in fact.

We journey with him from the ancient cities of Babylon and Ur, Nineveh and Jericho, to King Solomon's Temple in search of the Ark of the Covenant, and to Qumram for the secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You might expect archaeology to be as dry as, well, dust. But Pellegrino's enthusiasm is infectious.

Far from being boring and inaccessible, this book is an unexpected delight. Impeccably researched, yet written with extraordinary clarity of language and as riveting as a good thriller, it'll probably make you go out and start digging for treasure in your own backyard. Eat your heart out Indiana Jones!

I have had difficulty accepting some of the Biblical happenings. Pellegrino has given scenerios on how these "miracles" could have happened and helped me accept them. It did not conflict with my religious beliefs. The only book I have read twice. I will read it again from time to time.

Pellegrino, a palentologist who has engaged in archeology is absolutely brilliant in the way he gives explanations for Biblical episodes, sets timelines that corroborate with Egyptian and Chinese documented history, finds locations that he believes are more justified than those popularly ascribed and sends up the competing schools of archeology that never talk to each other.

His explanations are rooted in common sense. In Genesis there is talk of the giants who roamed the earth and married the daughters of man- Homo Neandrathalis fossils from Biblical times have been found in the Sinai. Eve was cursed with trouble in childbirth- knowledge brings a larger brain and that makes childbirth more difficult. The snake's curse of crawling on its belly explains why snakes have hipbones but no legs- early man must have noticed. Inborn aversions to snakes by all primates, aversions which can be unlearned but which are hardwired, probably happened in evolutionary time when ancestors to mankind were quite small and preyed upon by snakes, and were explained by the curse shortly after creation.

He believes, based upon fossil evidence that he was excavating when the first Gulf War broke out, that Sodom and Gomorrah were built over Iraqui oil fields where frequent earthquakes in the region allowed gas to escape and where fires from cooking braziers could have ignited it. Moses saw the fires some 300 years later, and probably only an oil field would burn that long, absent airplanes from Texaco to put them out One hopes that his archaeological site has survived the war in Iraq.

The Bible refers to the Philistines as "Sea people" during the story of Deborah and makes note of their technological superiority. Pellegrino believes that the Minoans, displaced by the Theran volcano were the Philistines. The Theran volcano can explain the plagues in Egypt- he gives ample evidence of red algae blooms after volcanic explosions, epidemics and even toad migrations (the word for frog and toad is the same in Hebrew.) There are Egyptian descriptions that match the Biblican ones- Egyptologists have dated them 35 years later, but that is based on pottery shards. And the Chinese, ever the compulsive record keepers, recorded the dimming of the sun at the same time- a moving phenomenon observed with Mt. St. Helens.

It took me longer to read this book than usual because I was dissolving into paroxysms of laughter every few pages and had to read the text to my husband. Pellegrino's send-up of archeologists and their internecine politics was especially funny, and illuminating to boot. Let's hope that Pellegrino is able to return to Sodom and Gomorrah to finish his archaeological excavations.

In what reads as a detailed screenplay from the pages of archaeological adventure, Mr. Pellegrino proves to us how he rightfully earned the moniker that was so casually bestowed upon Harrison Ford. I am impressed by the scope of expertise this paleontologist turned physicist turned archaeologist commands as he brings evidence both scientific and biblical in a quest fit for the cinema, that of locating the legendary cities of the title. His book enthralled this rocket scientist and would-be archaeologist from the dedication page all the way to the author's biography in the back. Well worth a read (and a re-read)

An excellent historical perspective of the scriptures.
Anyone who knows anything about the Bible knows the pitfalls of literal interpretation.
This was taught to me by Christian Brothers when I was in college.
Pellegrino is a multi-disciplined scientist and a very readable writer.
He insults nobody, but the ignorant.
Five Stars!

It is rare to find someone with such a broad range of insights on a topic. It is also rare to find someone (especially one who is an admitted agnostic)to treat biblical topics objectively, but maintaining respect. Biblical issues seem most often to be raised and presented by people promoting a specific goal or bias. Pellegrino possesses the ability and the gift of being able to offer perspectives which enrich the understanding of what was going on in times past, regardless of peoples beliefs. He just seems to be genuinely fascinated with discovering the truth about events, and seems to thoroughly enjoy the process. I read several of his other books, and I will be anxiously watching for more.

Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, recounts the volcanic eruption at the major Minoan port on what is now known as Santorini. The shear power of the blast, the wide distribution of the ash cloud and the tsunamis that followed, were of "mythic proportions" and engendered myths. According to another of my favorite books, When They Severed Earth from Sky (E.W.&P. Barber), myths are the result of oral histories being compacted and altered in predictable ways over millennia. In trying to decode the events described in them, it is important to adopt the viewpoint of the participants. Noah's flood, for instance, need not have covered the world known to us. As Pellegrino points out, the disaster probably covered the Fertile Crescent, the world as known to the original witnesses.

There are accounts of the Thera eruption encoded in the Greek story of Atlantis and in Egyptian writings as well as in the Exodus story in the Bible. Unfortunately, there haven't been enough early Minoan writings uncovered to help in the deciphering of Linear A. It is hoped that as the extensive city on Santorini is excavated, more writings will be discovered. Linear B is related to early Greek, but they don't have a clue as yet what Linear A is related to.

What impressed me most was that the Minoans, protected by the sea and engaged in widespread trade on it, did not seem to have to fight to have influence in the ancient world. They prospered and developed a superior culture in peace. They had art that inspired the Greeks and plumbing rivaling our own. (They had flush toilets and showers with hot and cold running water.) Unlike their successors, they apparently did not relegate women to an inferior position. Pellegrino makes the connection with their veneration of the bull and the older
Catalhoyuk culture in nearby Turkey. Perhaps future excavations of the even older city, below that destroyed by the giant blast, will illuminate that possibility further.

After the volcano destroyed much of their territory and undermined their economy, the Mycenaeans, the Indo-European ancestors of the Greeks, took control. Minoans scattered and some became the "sea people" of the Bible, the Philistines.

Because they were the enemy of the protagonists in the Bible, the Philistines have had a bad press for many years. There are some excavations going on that paint a more realistic picture. That brings me to another point that struck me in the Pellegrino book. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; therefore they must have been wicked. From the point of view of the witnesses, it had to be the wrath of God therefore they had to have sinned. Pellegrino suspects that natural gas deposits in that oil and gas rich region may have exploded causing the destruction as described in the Bible.

I have enjoyed everything I have read by Pellegrino. He is very successful at pulling together ancient mysteries with current scientific discoveries while keeping the book entertaining. I have learned many new things from this book.

I read this book in the fall of 2005, which was a very rough and chaotic time in my life - serendipitously appropriate, I suppose, for a book about one of the most historically controversial, and war-torn regions, in human history.

The author (whom I've met in person) takes the reader on a gripping multi-disciplinary journey into the past, and present, of the Fertile Crescent (Middle East). It is both a physical, as well as a metaphysical, dig though many of the interweaving and overlapping layers of oral and written tradition, archeological reality, and widely-held misconceptions and institutionalized convenient half-truths ... with the ultimate goal being to gain a better appreciation of what really happened.

It was immensely interesting to see, for instance, real-life accounts of archeological digs involving some of the places, people, and events, mentioned in the Old Testament ... as well as to see how various early Judeo-Christian accounts of the day (both oral and written) were eventually culled together and codified/blessed (by the religious powers of the day) into what has since been passed down to us (in various different times and languages) as "The Bible".

Biblical literalists beware ...

[Wizard of Oz] "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain !" [/Wizard of Oz]

... because some of your dogmatic preconceptions and convenient assumptions will be sorely challenged by this book. Something you should look forward to, and to be grateful for, rather than be offended by - because the better we can grasp (as best we are able) the truth, the better we can grasp our place in the greater scheme of things, as well as our understanding of "God". Personally, if getting closer to Truth/God is not at the very heart of most religions, I don't know what is.

Highly recommended.