On the other hand, the more severely orthodox protested against
such attempts to explain away the clear statements of Holy Writ.
Dom Calmet, while presenting many of these explanations made as
early as his time, gives us to understand that nearly all
theologians adhered to the idea that Lot's wife was instantly and
really changed into salt; and in our own time, as we shall
presently see, have come some very vigorous protests.
Similar attempts were made to explain the other ancient legends
regarding the Dead Sea. One of the most recent of these is that the
cities of the plain, having been built with blocks of bituminous
rock, were set on fire by lightning, a contemporary earthquake
helping on the work. Still another is that accumulations of
petroleum and inflammable gas escaped through a fissure, took fire,
and so produced the catastrophe.[[257]]
The revolt against such efforts to _reconcile_ scientific fact with
myth and legend had become very evident about the middle of the
nineteenth century.
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