EARTHQUAKE, the shaking of the ground resulting from the release of stored elastic strain energy due to the sudden deformation of a region of the earth which has been in a state of stress. The destruction with which earthquakes are commonly associated is caused by seismic waves which travel outward in all directions from a focus where fracturing or faulting occurred. The focus of most major earthquakes, and those causing most destruction, is less than 25 m. below the earth’s surface. However, earthquakes as deep as 420 m. have been recorded.

About 50,000 earthquakes annually are noticed without the aid of instruments, with about 100 intense enough to cause substantial damage if their centers are near regions of habitation. The great majority of these earthquakes occur in well-defined zones, particularly in the circum-Pacific belt and in the Trans-Alpine belt, which stretches from Burma across southern Asia through Iran and Turkey, to Bulgaria, Greece and Italy. Another seismic belt corresponds with the ocean ridge system together with the apparently connected E African Rift Valley, the Levantine rift including the Jordan Rift Valley and the region of the Red Sea (Fig 1). All these major seismic regions can be related to major features of the earth’s crust and in particular to the margins and relative motions of “plates” of the lithosphere in the order of 30-60 m. thick and up to several thousands of m. across.

There is considerable evidence suggesting that the present Mediterranean Sea represents only a remnant of a large ocean that once existed between Eurasia and Africa. The high seismic activity of the region is related to the general northward movement of the African and Arabian plates together with the relative motions of two rapidly moving plates which generally correspond with the regions of Greece/Aegean Sea and western Turkey. These regions and those of eastern Turkey and Iran are seismically active throughout (Fig. 1). Very destructive earthquakes have occurred in the past few years in Iran and Turkey while 60,000 and 45,000 people, respectively died in earthquakes in Cilicia, Asia Minor, in a.d. 1268 and in Corinth, Greece in a.d. 856. Hence the region of Mesopotamia, with which the beginnings of human activity in the ancient Near E is so closely associated, and the region of the Pauline journeys, have been and are both subject to considerable earthquake activity, some of it very destructive (Acts 16:26).

While the Mediterranean region is essentially one of crustal compression, the region from the Red Sea down to the E African Rift Valley is one of extension, with three crustal plates meeting at the southern end of the Red Sea (Fig. 1). The faulting and release of strain energy as these plates have moved (and are still moving) relative to one another, and parted, has resulted in considerable seismic activity. While this is largely concentrated SE of the Holy Lands, the Jordan Rift Valley represents part of a related very large fault zone which stretches northward from the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba for over 683 m. to the foot of the Taurus ranges. The geological evidence indicates that there has been, in the region of the present Dead Sea, 67 m. of left-hand shear movement (cf. Zech 14:4) during the last c. sixty million years. This is associated with the separation of the Arabian peninsula from the African continent. The rifting took place in two main stages but this major crustal dislocation, with the associated earthquake phenomena, has been moving from c. sixty million years ago to the present, and is still active both on the major faults and also the complex set of associated faults (Fig. 2). Hence the inhabitants of the region have been familiar with the earth shaking (cf. Ps 68:8; Isa 13:13; Hag 2:6), with even the mountains which were regarded as symbols of permanence being affected (Ps 46:3). The earthquakes during the twenty-seventh year of the reign of King Uzziah must have been severe (Amos 1:1; Zech 14:5), while the earthquakes at the time of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ had marked effects (Matt 27:54; 28:2). Earthquakes figure prominently in indications of the nature of things to be (e.g. Matt 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11; Acts 8:5; Rev 6:12; 11:13; 16:18). Other catastrophic events, such as landslips of unstable sediments, triggered off by earthquake activity, could explain the background to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24). Certainly one of the chief geological characteristics of Pal. has been its proneness to earthquakes.

Bibliography E. M. Blaiklock (ed.), The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Atlas (1965), 3-5; 438-452; H. Benioff and F. Press, “Earthquake,” E Br, 7 (1970), 853-861; D. P. McKenzie, “Plate Tectonics of the Mediterranean Region,” Nature Lond., 226 (1970), 237-243; D. P. McKenzie, D. Davies and P. Molnar, “Plate Tectonics of the Red Sea and East Africa,” Nature Lond., 226 (1970), 243-248.