Nur, Amos
Stanford University, Stanford, California

Abstract: Earthquakes, Armageddon, and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Why are there so many ruins especially in the Mediterranean and Near East? Most people think that time and war are responsible. But actually most of the damage we now know was caused by historical earthquakes. Simple examples are ancient Troy, Micenea, Crete, and biblical Jericho, where

earthquakes can explain the as yet unexplained catastrophic end of these sites at the end of the bronze age.

A special example is Armageddon (Megiddo) in Israel. Because it is situated on top of an active earthquake fault we believe now that many of its 32 layers of destruction are the result of repeated past earthquakes. Placed at the only mountain pass that permitted passage of chariot traffic to Egypt, Megiddo controlled war between north and south in the Fertile Crescent, as the Egyptian king Thutmose III put it "the capture of Megiddo is the capture of 1000 towns."

The archeological evidence for earthquakes here includes collapsed buildings, regional devastation, and crushed skeletons. Linking war and earthquakes at Armageddon is found also in the Bible (Revelation 16), "And he gathered them into Armageddon and there was a great earthquake . . . so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided, and the cities of the nation fell . . . " suggesting that the famous Apocalypse is simply a retrospective prophecy based on a real, although dramatized, historical earthquake account, perhaps during an actual battle.

Another example is the huge earthquake of 31 BC in ancient Judea. We now think that this earthquake caused collapses in many caves in the Qumran area where the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. New evidence suggests that many scrolls (and some of their writers) were buried in the caves under this collapse not by enemies but by this earthquake. If proven correct, many more scrolls await to be discovered under collapse in more caves. All that may be needed is funding to carry out (the enormously difficult) excavations in some of these caves.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90929©1998-1999 AAPG Distinguished Lecturers