The salt-encrusted caverns of the Dead Sea aren’t the only reason
viewers with high blood pressure should beware of NBC’s enviably
engrossing “Biblical Mysteries: Sodom & Gomorrah.”
This archaeological attempt to locate the cities of such sin that
they make Atlantic City’s one-armed bandits look like fugitives from a
day-care center, is chillingly told as a two-man minisub, the Delta,
delves into the cold waters that straddle the overheated divide between
Israel and Jordan.
With biblical scholar Mike Sanders, a captivating captain on a
mission impossibly packed with political tension, the water-borne
documentary airs Sunday, March 11, at 7 p.m., on NBC-10.
There is no middle ground in this Middle East mission as Sanders and
company attempt to establish whether irregularities captured by NASA
satellites snapping photos of the depths of the Dead Sea could indeed be
Sodom and Gomorrah, whose randy residents legendarily fleshed out their
lives with such sex in the city they’d knock TV characters like Carrie
right out of her Manolo Blahniks.
As salty a saga as Sodom and Gomorrah is, there is the feeling that
when it comes to ungodly behavior in the area … well, when it rains it
pours.
Forget the dainty Delta — there is no lower depth than that
explored by bureaucracy.
“Oh, the bureaucracy caused by the Israeli officials,” sighs
Sanders, a Brit who’s braved the brine but felt drowned out by the
bureaucrats.
Unearthing tsuris
But Israel is known for its ardent archaeological profile. Could they be
that uncooperative? “Tell me,” says an obviously bemused Sanders,
“have you ever been to Israel?”
Sanders has been to the Bible’s beginning; his series of specials
reached a special arc of triumph in last weekend’s “Ark of the
Covenant,” in which he traversed the Palestinian-controlled village of
Djaharya in search of the two tablets Moses took for relief of
mankind’s headaches.
And when the Palestinians threw stones at Sanders and his party,
including two armed guards? Occupational hazard, he opines.
There were more of them to come in search of Sodom and Gomorrah. It
was Sanders’ lot to explore the salt cakes of the deep encased in a
claustrophobic container. “I didn’t like doing it, didn’t want to
do it, but had to do it,” he explains of submerging into what he hoped
wouldn’t be the appropriately named Dead Sea without the guarantee of
surfacing successfully.
He and his colleague were quite a pair, scoping out the lifeless
bottom of the liquid graveyard where skeletons of history rattled
silently.
And then they saw it — solid mounds of salt cakes inscribed with
watery birthday wishes from the past, symmetrical shapes and forms
etched with eerie echoes of ecstatic celebrations.
Had they really found the hedonistic, hegemonic cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah? “I think,” says a cautious Sanders, “there is good
evidence that there were cities that were destroyed in a great
catastrophe.”
Forming his own opinion based on anything but scientific reason is
anathema to the worldwide wanderer, who’s made extraordinary
discoveries.
While he won’t discuss his own belief system, Sanders knows how
many people make book on the Bible. “If you’re an Orthodox Jew,
it’s simple. God gave the information about Sodom and Gomorrah [in]
the Torah. It has to be right.”
On the other hand, he adds with the Talmudic wisdom of a Tevye,
“For someone trying to discover scientific information, it’s not
that simple.”
But who’s looking for easy answers? Yet … “when you find blocks
[of formations] that are 800 meters by 800 meters big, you go,
‘Hmmm!’ ”
That’s a mouthful of an admission for someone who vows that “I do
not discuss [the role of ] faith” in his discoveries.
It is no great surprise to discover that he is so strong in that
belief. “I cannot be involved in faith or religion; I am involved in
science. When you come to a project with a preconceived idea, there is
the tendency to use that idea to color the way you look at the
evidence.” 
Billions and billions …
Sanders numbers some very specific studies as support for what he
figures to be the real deal. “You have 30,000 scholars who say that
the Bible is a combination of bubba meises and fairy tales. On the other
hand, you have [billions of people] around the world who believe [in
God] to some extent.
“It’s an untenable situation. For [these] billions of people to
believe in such ‘nonsense’ causes one to wonder: Is the world going
mad?”
Where is Sanders going with all this? To the top of the ratings, most
likely, with a program offering pictures of “the first submarine to go
to the bottom of the Dead Sea.”
Dead tired is how he felt after the adventure. Colleagues can rib him
with good reason: “I broke a rib” during the filming.
“I’m too old for all this,” he declares.
While breaking scientific news is a real rush in the make-or-break
field of archaeology, this real-life rascal of a raider of lost arks and
lost dreams never loses sight of the arc of his accomplishments, often
detailed on his Web site (www.biblemysteries.com).
“There are people who love going down in submarines or climbing up
mountains for the adventure; that’s not for me.
“Would I do any of this just for fun? No. But when the evidence is
so compelling, you have to do it. And, in the process, you may have to
take a few chances.”
Chances are he’ll be returning to the site of Sodom and Gomorrah he
unearthed. Ironically enough, the adventurer who has learned to go
against the tide is now involved in a project following the flow of a
river.
