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Michael C. Luddeni

THE DISK. In the Bible, the large oval-shaped, fertile plain just north of the Dead Sea is called simply ha-kikkar, or “the Disk.” From its eastern edge near the site of Tall el-Hammam, the plain extends 18 miles west across the southern Jordan Valley to Jericho on the other side of the river. According to the Bible, this well-watered disk-shaped plain located east of the highland towns of Bethel and Ai was an area “like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt” where Lot moved his family after his quarrel with Abraham (Genesis 13:10). It is also where the Biblical writers set their dramatic tale of Sodom’s wickedness and destruction (Genesis 19).