杏吧原创

鈥淧art science, part theology, part suspense鈥� is how the publisher describes Return to Sodom and Gomorrah: Bible Stories from Archeologists by Charles Pellegrino (Avon Books, New York, $12.50, ISBN 0 380 72633 5). It鈥檚 an entertaining collection of accounts of how archaeologists working in the deserts and valleys of the Middle East have come up with evidence that fits, says Pellegrino, neatly with many of the famous Biblical stories. But literary evidence from the Bible allows many interpretations. Using the same phrase -鈥渟limepits鈥� to mean bitumen pits 鈥� geologists recently suggested ancient Sodom lies near the Dead Sea. Pellegrino prefers in or near Iraq.