Vine of Sodom. Only in Deuteronomy 32:32. Josephus describes fruits growing near the Dead Sea, "which indeed resemble edible fruit in color, but on being plucked by the hand are dissolved into smoke and ashes." These are the apples of Sodom of which the poets sing, and which are supposed to be mentioned in the above passage. If we are to interpret Deuteronomy and Josephus literally, the colocynth seems best to answer the conditions.