Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[unfogged]

This story clearly looked to me like it was the ancient Jew's reconstruction of what they may have thought happened with a couple of ruined ancient cities that may have been observable to them. They may have also noted what looked like a pillar of salt outside of the cities, and thereby made a specific story out of that one as well. But that's just me speculating.

There are apparently many odd salt formations around the dead sea. It isn't hard to see how they could be incorporated into a legend.