Sodom and Lot’s Wife, the Pillar of Salt (Genesis 19)

experimentNo. 0083categoryRituals & ceremoniesrecordingpendingdataCC BY 4.0

The fly runs from Sodom with Lot’s household as brimstone and fire fall, following the text of Genesis 19:15–28. A Look back control turns its body; facing the burning city after the fire begins turns the fly to salt, while Lot’s wife turns to salt in every run, as in the text.

What the fly saw

Frames rendered from the fly’s eye camera at four points in the timeline, each with the 32-column retinal input the connectome model receives at that moment.

Timeline

10 steps, with their times in the experiment

1. 0:00
   When the morning arose

   First light over Sodom. Two angels in white wake Lot’s household in the house by the south gate: “Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters.”

2. 0:08
   They laid hold upon his hand

   Lot lingers. The angels take Lot, his wife and both daughters by the hand and lead the household out through the gate.

3. 0:18
   Escape for thy life

   Outside the walls an angel points down the road: “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee.” The family starts to run.

4. 0:28
   Is it not a little one?

   The road runs south under a ridge of salt. Lot points to the small town of Zoar on its hill; the sun rises over the mountains across the Dead Sea and the angels withdraw.

5. 0:42
   Brimstone and fire

   Burning lumps of brimstone fall on Sodom and Gomorrah. Roofs ignite with yellow and blue flame, townsfolk run burning through the streets and are blown apart where the fire lands.

6. 0:58
   He overthrew those cities

   Houses fold into rubble, walls crack and a firestorm fills both cities. The family keeps running and does not turn.

7. 1:12
   A pillar of salt

   Lot’s wife, behind him, stops and looks back. Cubic salt crystals creep up from her feet until she stands encased in a white pillar.

8. 1:26
   Lot entered into Zoar

   Lot and his daughters reach the gate of Zoar as the sun clears the mountains. The fly arrives behind them – unless it turned to salt on the road.

9. 1:36
   The smoke of a furnace

   Far to the west, Abraham stands on a ridge and looks toward the plain: the smoke goes up “as the smoke of a furnace.”

10. 1:48
    Lot’s Wife, Mount Sodom

    Time passes. The pillar weathers; the reference look shows the rock-salt pillar called Lot’s Wife on the flank of Mount Sodom by the Dead Sea.

Setup

• 10 seekable stages over 120 seconds: when the morning arose, they laid hold upon his hand, escape for thy life, is it not a little one?, brimstone and fire, he overthrew those cities, a pillar of salt, Lot entered into Zoar, the smoke of a furnace, and Lot’s Wife, Mount Sodom.
• One scene unit equals one metre, with flies about 1.3 m tall. The road runs south from Sodom’s gate under a salt ridge modeled on Mount Sodom (Har Sedom) toward Zoar on its hill, with the Dead Sea, the mountains of Moab and Gomorrah on the plain.
• Seven articulated fly figures (Lot, Lot’s wife, two daughters, two angels in white and Abraham on a far western ridge) and 48 instanced townsfolk. Burning lumps fall with smoke trails and blue sulphur flame, roofs ignite, houses fold into rubble, and townsfolk struck directly burst in modeled splatter or are thrown through the air.
• Look back sets the fly’s body from −180° to 180° (default 0°). Facing more than 100° back from 1.5 s into the brimstone stage stops the fly where it stands and crystallises it over about six seconds. Gore (Low / Standard / Extreme, default Extreme) and Blood (cinematic red, default, or fly hemolymph) are scene controls; the eye camera sees the splatter.
• Seven cameras: the plain with the cities and the road, the family running (tracking), Lot’s wife and the pillar of salt, inside Sodom under the brimstone, the fly eye in first person, Abraham and the smoke of a furnace, and the Lot’s Wife pillar on Mount Sodom today. A replay control restarts at the look back.

Measurement

• Retinal-only input: the eye camera’s 32 luminance columns reach the fixed connectome model, measured spikes drive the neural display, and no direct stimulation is sent.
• The eye follows the turned body and never aims itself at the fire, so the Look back setting determines whether the retina sees the road and Zoar or the burning city; once the fly crystallises, the salt shell whites out the image. The sun, city fires and impact flashes reach the eye; the reference-pillar label, cue text, the viewport haze and its host-light dimming do not.
• Turning to salt is a pre-programmed switch on the control’s angle, not a measured response. The household, the townsfolk and the fly’s run follow a pre-programmed timeline; measured spikes do not move the fly.

Limitations

• Time is compressed: in the text the sun had risen when Lot entered Zoar and then the fire fell; here the fire falls while the family is still on the road.
• The sites of Sodom, Gomorrah and Zoar are not established (the southern Dead Sea plain, Tall el-Hammam and others are proposed). The road under a Mount Sodom-like ridge lets the traditional pillar appear as a reference view, and the real pillar’s shape and size are approximated.
• The salt switch, crystal growth, brimstone trajectories, house collapse, burns, bursts and thrown bodies are animation, not physics; burning sulphur’s blue flame is a real property used as colour.

Sources

• Genesis 19, King James Version (Wikisource)
• Mount Sodom (Har Sedom) and the Lot’s Wife pillar (Wikipedia)