Natural Disasters

So I was reading today in Amos chapter one. I like the little books tucked between the Old Testament and the New. Always been a fan of the minor prophets =) They're just so little! So often overlooked! Sure, a lot of what they had to say was prophetic and strange, but so were the messages of Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel, too, you know. Rather than go on for chapters and chapters, they deliver their warnings in brief gut-punching packages. Like journalism.... all about the most informative sound-bite. =)

Well the book of Amos starts out with a qualifier, "Two years before the earthquake." Which means nothing to me, because I'm not an ancient-history geek so I have no idea what natural disasters went on during the Bible days, but surely caught my interest. It is just neat to me, to think that the people back then had to deal with natural disasters, too. Not as many as us today - because God promised that there would be more and more as time went on and His return grew nearer - but they still had some pretty big ones, big enough to qualify certain time eras.

When I think of natural disasters in the Bible, I always think of Euroclydon, the "temptuous wind" of Acts 27, which shipwrecked Paul. I imagine that was a hurricane, much like Katrina or Ike. We had a kitten once named Euroclydon, Yevro for short (Russian is Yevroclydon, Yevro = Euro). We named him after that storm. And then there is the "fire and brimstone" that wiped out not only Sodom and Gomorrah, but all the cities of the valley. I figure it was a volcanic eruption. "The the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Comorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." Fire, and brimstones, pouring down and obliterating a whole valley that spanned several cities and farmland counties in between - destroyed buildings, people and all the plant life? I bet a volcano is plausible! =) Anyways that's just Noelle's Revised Version... open for modification. lol

I found a website about the Great Earthquake in Amos' days. I copied the URL here but am not sure you'll be able to follow it on your phone so to save you the trouble I copied the most informative parts of the article. So.... here's your article of the day. =D

Earthquake Link

"The Kings of Israel and Judah ruled during the period of time designated as the Iron Age by archaeologists.
Widely separated archaeological excavations in the countries of Israel and Jordan contain late Iron Age (Iron IIb) architecture bearing damage from a great earthquake.1 Masonry walls best display the earthquake's effects, especially those with broken ashlars or displaced rows of stones, walls that are still standing but are leaning or bowed, and collapsed walls with large sections still lying course-on-course.

Earthquake evidence is seen prominently at Hazor, Israel's largest ancient city. In excavations beginning in 1955 by archaeologist Yigael Yadin, twenty-two successive cities were discovered to have been built on top of each other.2 Excavations in Hazor's Stratum VI revealed tilted walls, inclined pillars, and collapsed houses. In the Iron Age building called "Ya'el's House" within Stratum VI, objects of daily use were found beneath the fallen ceiling. General southward collapse within Stratum VI argues that the earthquake waves were propagated from the north. After more than 50 years of excavations at Hazor, earthquake damage continues to be revealed in even some of the strongest architecture.

The city of Gezer was also severely shaken. The outer wall of the city shows hewn stones weighing tons that have been cracked and displaced several inches off their foundation. The lower part of the wall was displaced outward (away from the city), whereas the upper part of the wall fell inward (toward the city) still lying course-on-course.3 This indicates that the wall collapsed suddenly.

A Magnitude 8 Event

Earthquake debris at six sites (Hazor, Deir 'Alla, Gezer, Lachish, Tell Judeideh, and 'En Haseva) is tightly confined stratigraphically to the middle of the eighth century B.C., with dating errors of ~30 years.4 So, the evidence points to a single large regional earthquake that occurred about 750 B.C. The accompanying map displays the site intensity (Modified Mercalli Intensity from archaeology or literature) and lines of equal intensity of shaking (isoseismals).

The epicenter was clearly north of present-day Israel, as indicated by the southward decrease in degree of damage at archaeological sites in Israel and Jordan. The epicenter was likely in Lebanon on the plate boundary called the Dead Sea transform fault. A large area of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah was shaken to inflict "general damage" to well-built structures (what is called Modified Mercalli Intensity 9 or higher). The distance from the epicenter (north of Israel) to the region of "significant damage" to well-built structures (what is called Modified Mercalli Intensity 8 that is south of Israel) was at least 175 kilometers, but could have been as much as 300 kilometers.

Using the pattern and the intensity of damage through the region of the earthquake, the earthquake's magnitude can be estimated. Through a process known as scaling, the damage areas of smaller historic earthquakes of known magnitude are used to scale upward to estimate the area of damage and magnitude of the regional earthquake. Based on this method, the earthquake in question was at least magnitude 7.8, but more likely was 8.2.5 This magnitude 8 event of 750 B.C. appears to be the largest yet documented on the Dead Sea transform fault zone during the last four millennia. The Dead Sea transform fault likely ruptured along more than 400 kilometers as the ground shook violently for over 90 seconds! The urban panic created by this earthquake would have been legendary.

In the mid-eighth century B.C., a shepherd-farmer named Amos of Tekoa de livered an ex tra ordinary speech at the Temple of the Golden Calf in the city of Bethel in the northern kingdom of Israel just "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1). Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II was king of Israel. Amos spoke of the land being shaken (8:8), houses being smashed (6:11), altars being cracked (3:14), and even the Temple at Bethel being struck and collapsing (9:1). The prophet's repeated contemporary references to the earthquake's effects is why it bears his name."