In the Abrahamic religions, Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God's anger provoked by man's sin. They are mentioned frequently in the prophets and the New Testament as symbols of human wickedness and divine retribution, and the Quran also contains a version of the story about the two cities.
Sodom and Gomorrah afire by Jacob de Wet II, 1680
Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction in the background of Lucas van Leyden's Lot and his Daughters (1520)
Lut fleeing the city with his daughters; his wife is killed by a rock.
The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, Bereshit. Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people.
The Creation of Man by Ephraim Moses Lilien, 1903.
The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, 1512.
The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Paul Rubens, c. 1615, depicting both domestic and exotic wild animals such as tigers, parrots and ostriches co-existing in the garden
Noah's Ark (1846), by the American folk painter Edward Hicks.
