RETURN TO SODOM AND GOMORRAH by...

RETURN TO SODOM AND GOMORRAH by Charles Pellegrino (Avon: $12.50; 386 pp., illustrated). Pellegrino uses archeology, geology and literature to explore events he thinks may have inspired biblical stories. He presents evidence that Sodom was located in what is now Iraq, rather than near the Dead Sea in Israel, and that the “rain of fire” that destroyed the city was produced by the rupture of an underground lake of petroleum. Pellegrino suggests that the gargantuan volcanic eruption that destroyed of the island of Thera in 1628 BC, giving rise to the legend of Atlantis, may have also produced the darkness and other Egyptian plagues described in Exodus. A fascinating book, with occasional slides into pomposity.