Is There Something Wrong with the Concept of God? (Page 9)

chay chayi: God commanded the Jews to "borrow", thay really didn't want, but God commanded, be cause he promised to Abraham that they will go out of Egypt rich

ghostgeek: Another thing to ponder is the supposed number of Israelites who left Egypt during the Exodus. The Bible gives a figure of some 600,000 men. Add in their families and you're probably talking about two and a half million people. Then there are all the animals that went walkies with them. Well, considering that the population of Egypt was probably little more than three million at the time, one wonders why they weren't missed. A fair proportion of the workforce walks away and the economy carries on without a hiccup? Clearly, you'd have to believe in miracles to accept that.

Mmmm... talking of miracles, does anybody believe that it's still possible to collect "Manna", that is, "Bread of Heaven"? Seems it is. Mann es-Sama as the Bedouin call it, consists simply of honey-like deposits produced by one of the Sinai's commonest shrubs, the tamarisk. Its supply is unpredictable but an adult can gather some four pounds of it in a single morning.

Well, that's the grub taken care of, so what about something to drink? Did Moses strike a rock and have water flow like a river? Could be. Consider the following story.

‘Major C.S. Jarvis, who was British Governor of Sinai in the thirties [who saw] it happen himself: “Moses striking the rock at Rephidim and the water gushing out sounds like a genuine miracle, but the writer has actually seen this happen. Several men of the Sinai Camel Corps had halted in a dry wadi and were in process of digging about in the rough sand that had accumulated at the foot of a rock face. They were trying to get at the water that was trickling slowly out of the limestone rock. The men were taking their time about it and Bash Shawish, the colour sergeant, said: ‘Here, give it to me!’ …One of his violent blows hit the rock by mistake. The smooth hard crust which always forms on weathered limestone split open and fell away. The soft stone underneath was thereby exposed and out of its apertures shot a powerful stream of water. The Sudanese, who are well up in the activities of the prophets but do not treat them with a vast amount of respect, overwhelmed their sergeant with cries of: ‘Look at him: The prophet Moses!’”’

[ Taken from Werner Keller, The Bible As History, p.129 trans. William Neil, William Morrow and Co, Publishers, 1956 ]

It would seem that many of the incidents recounted in Exodus have perfectly rational explanations. No need to see the hand of God in any of them. So what about that volcano folks?

chay chayi: God told Moses to "speak" to the stone, it should give water, (not that you can talk to a stone, but for God's miracle) and Moses got angry at the Jews because they nagged him for water, and he "stroke" the stone with his miracle stick, all the miracles were made by that stick, and Moses got punished for that, that he could not enter Israel, he had to die in the desert, at the end of the 40 years

So its pure miracles, "talking" to a stone it should give water, or even striking it with a stick (not a hammer)

ghostgeek: Exodus 16:13 ( King James Bible )

"And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host."

The annual migration of quails from Africa to Europe takes some of them directly across the Sinai, and the birds quite commonly settle there for short periods to regain strength after their long flight over the sea. One more real event from mother nature, as told in Exodus. Anybody for a volcano in this here story as well?

ghostgeek: In Exodus it talks about a wind from the east parting the Red Sea. Is this possible? Well, there is a phenomenon called Wind Setdown, where a drop in water level is caused by wind blowing on the surface of a body of water for an extended period of time. As the wind blows, water recedes from the upwind shore and exposes terrain that was formerly underwater. This can occur in shallow coastal areas when strong winds blow offshore. Wind setdown events on the order of 2 m were recorded by measuring stations at the western end of Lake Erie on December 1–2, 2006, and January 30–31, 2008. Scientific literature from the 19th century contains a description of a wind setdown event that occurred in the eastern Nile delta. Major-General Alexander B. Tulloch of the British Army reported this event happening on Lake Manzala in January or February 1882:

"One day, when so employed [surveying] between Port Said and Kantarah, a gale of wind from the eastward set in and became so strong that I had to cease work. Next morning on going out I found that Lake Menzaleh, which is situated on the west side of the [Suez] Canal, had totally disappeared, the effect of the high wind on the shallow water having actually driven it away beyond the horizon, and the natives were walking about on the mud where the day before the fishing-boats, now aground, had been floating. When noticing this extraordinary dynamical effect of wind on shallow water, it suddenly flashed across my mind that I was witnessing a similar event to what had taken place between three and four thousand years ago, at the time of the passage of the so-called Red Sea by the Israelites." [ Tulloch AB (1896) Passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites. Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute (now Faith and Thought) 28: 267–280. ]

As can be seen from the above, Exodus may be recounting another natural phenomenon when it describes the parting of the Red Sea. Again, no act of God needed. Of course, where this happened, if it did happen, is another matter. Wherever it was, it would have had to be some place shallow.

ghostgeek: Exodus 15:22-25 ( New International Version )

22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.

23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. ( That is why the place is called Marah. )

24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

25 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.

There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test.

Is there a tree that can do the thing recorded in Exodus, that when cast into water, turns it sweet and drinkable? Yes, it seems there is. One tree being used to purify water today is Moringa Oleifera. This tree has been used successfully to cleanse turbid waters from the River Nile by village women in Sudan. When Moringa seeds are crushed and poured into a pot or bottle of dirty water, the water turns transparent within seconds. The Moringa tree today seems to be native only to the southern foothills of the Himalayas, but it has been grown wonderfully elsewhere in dry, sandy soil, and it tolerates poor soil. It can grow to a height of about 10 metres. Apart from Africa, Moringa trees are being cultivated in India, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere. It does make one wonder if another Exodus miracle has its basis in a natural phenomenon rather than divine intervention.

ghostgeek: A thing to note about quail is that they can be poisonous for humans to eat.

Numbers 11:31-33 ( King James Version )

31 And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.

32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.

33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague.

The problem is called Coturnism, an illness featuring muscle tenderness and rhabdomyolysis ( muscle cell breakdown ) after consuming quail that have fed on poisonous plants. Early writers used quail as the standard example of an animal that could eat something poisonous to man without ill effects for themselves. From case histories it is known that the toxin is stable as four-month-old pickled quail have been poisonous. Humans vary in their susceptibility.

ghostgeek: Many cultures that have lived in highly volcanic areas have worshiped volcano gods. Remember Vulcan, whose forge was said to be on the volcanic island of Vulcano, the place after which volcanoes are named. Then there is Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God, in Tanzania. In Hawaii Kilanea volcano is said to be the home of Pele, the volcano goddess of ancient Hawaiian legend. Oh, and let us not neglect Mount Fuji in Japan, originally worshipped as a fire god but now considered the dwelling of Konohana Sakuya Hime, the Shinto goddess of flowering trees.

orkanen: Why not include that volcanic soil is the most fertile of all soils, being one reason for living at such peril.

ghostgeek: I've heard it takes about a hundred years weathering before plants like it.

ghostgeek: How much do we really know about what happened three thousand years ago in an out of the way place somewhere between Egypt and Canaan? Not a lot by all accounts. All we have to go on are a few old books in the Bible, principally one called Exodus. Now, you either give what it says some credence, or you call it a load of baloney and never disturb its pages again. So if you can read descriptions of events in its pages that seem to have their counterpart in the twenty first century what conclusion should you draw? To me the logical one is that what happened then must have been similar to what happens now. That means that if I read something in Exodus that suggests a volcano then I'm entitled to ask a simple question. Was it a volcano that Moses led the Israelites to? Well yes, it may have been but caution needs to be exercised here. What if I'm just seeing what I want to see? I've certainly done that before.

OK, clearly I have a problem. All I've got to go on is one old text in translation. Fortuntely. all is not lost. There are other singular events described in Exodus that have their modern analogue. A certain type of Acacia bush, common to Saudi Arabia, when burned turns to charcoal rather than ash. In other words, it's not consumed when burnt. If a volcanic vent had opened up close to such a shrub we would then have an explanation for the "Burning Bush" that Moses saw. Then there are the miracles, such as the parting of the Red Sea, which science has provided explanations for, as I've previously mentioned. Finally, there are the ten plagues of Egypt. Here again science can come to our aid. It seems that rising temperatures could have turned the Nile into a slow-moving, muddy watercourse; conditions favourable for the spread of toxic fresh water algae. Fish would have died. As this organism, known as Burgundy Blood algae, dies it turns water red. Frogs would have been forced out of the river which in turn would have led to an excess of insects. The insects would have spread disease causing animals to die, etc, etc. The point of all this is that the Book of Exodus is full of descriptions of phenomena that can be explained by science.

Now we come to the nub of the argument. If so much of the Exodus narrative can be explained without recourse to divine intervention, why should we assume that God was involved in any of it. Three thousand years ago, what was witnessed would have been taken as evidence for the existence of God, given the existing state of knowledge back then. Now though, we know better. Thus it stands to reason that when Exodus provides a description that sounds a volcano, a volcano was being described. The Mountain of God was an active volcano, not that the Israelites would have known that. Nobody, other than Moses, would have see anything like it before. So for three thousand years people have been worshipping a volcano as God, which fact neatly explains why He appears to have so little involvement in our lives. A volcano, active or otherwise, doesn't care about anything, especially us humans.

ghostgeek: The short version.

ghostgeek:

ghostgeek:

ghostgeek: Well, it doesn't seem we need a God for the plagues either.

chay chayi: First of all, all the plagues were in the entire Egypt "but not in the state were the Jews were"
All the plagues were made in the time when God said through Moses, it was not one after the other, it was given time between for Pharao to change his mind
The plague of blood was real blood, not rust, and it was not only in the sea, it was in all water that belong to any Egyptian even if he dug a new well, and for the Jews it was all water
Frogs from the sea has nothing with blood, and so on all those nonsense, and the plague of all the animals that harmed Egypt but did not enter the state where the Jews were, and did not harm any Jew even he was among the Egyptians
The fire that stormed with water has nothing to do with the plagues before, and it was ice and inside fire
The blackness was for 3 days, it has nothing to do with the plagues before
The first born from was killed "all in the same time at midnight" and the same night, not only children, even old people that were first born, and from the Jews no one died

Its all the Satans advice to deny God, so you think you can sin and do what you want

ghostgeek: Chayiii, from my reading it would appear that many archaeologists believe the ten plagues occurred at the ancient city of Pi-Rameses, on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Rameses the Second but which was abandoned around 3,000 years ago. Climatologists have discovered a dramatic shift in the climate occurred towards the end of Rameses the Second's reign. By studying stalagmites in Egyptian caves they have been able to build a record of weather patterns using traces of radioactive elements contained within the rock. They found that Rameses' reign coincided with a warm, wet climate, which switched to a dry period at the end. Professor Augusto Magini, a paleoclimatologist at Heidelberg University's institute for environmental physics, said: "Pharaoh Rameses II reigned during a very favourable climatic period. There was plenty of rain and his country flourished. However, this wet period only lasted a few decades. After Rameses' reign, the climate curve goes sharply downwards. There is a dry period which would certainly have had serious consequences." The scientists believe this switch in the climate was the trigger for the first of the plagues. Rising temperatures could have caused the river Nile to dry up, turning the fast flowing river into a slow moving and muddy watercourse. These conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of the first plague, which in the Bible is described as the Nile turning to blood. Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, believes this description could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae. It sucks up the oxygen in the water, which can suffocate fish. The bacterium known as Burgundy Blood algae, or Oscillatoria rubescens, existed 3,000 years ago and still causes similar effects today. It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm waters with high levels of nutrition and as it dies it stains the water red. The arrival of this algae would have set in motion the events that led to the second, third and fourth plagues. Frogs' development from tadpoles into fully formed adults is governed by hormones that can speed up their development in times of stress. The arrival of the toxic algae would have triggered such a transformation and forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived. As the frogs died it would have meant that mosquitoes, flies and other insects which carry diseases would have flourished without the predators to keep their numbers under control, in turn leading to the fifth and sixth plagues, diseased livestock and boils.

Another major natural disaster more than 400 miles away is now also thought to be responsible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues that bring hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt. One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history occurred when Thera, a volcano on an island just north of Crete, exploded around 3,500 year ago, spewing billions of tons of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to produce dramatic hail storms. Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the volcanic fall out from the ash. The ash fall out could have caused weather anomalies, which translated into higher precipitations and higher humidity, fostering the presence of locusts. The volcanic ash could also have blocked out sunlight causing the plague of darkness. Scientists have found pumice, stone made from cooled volcanic lava, during excavations of Egyptian ruins despite there not being any volcanoes in Egypt. Analysis of the rock provides physical evidence that the ash fallout from the Thera eruption reached Egyptian shores.

The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and so been first to fall victim.

chay chayi: You keep repeating the same nonsense
It was blood not mud and rust, and so on all the those nonsense
The darkness was not to the Jews, they went in all the Egyptian houses, like it says in the Torah
Its not about dying first, its about "only" the first born died, and God told before the exact time when they will die, at midnight

And besides that its all nonsense just to deny the plain simple miracles, they say "could" be this "could" be that, what it was not, only to deny simple miracles

orkanen: Who repeats the same nonsense is debatable.

ghostgeek: It's nonsense to deny plain simple miracles. Really Chayiii? Surely, a miracle is what one must contend with if no rational explanation can be offered for some recorded event. It is what one must resort to in extremis, when all possible explanations have been found wanting. In what I have written above, I have certainly not reached that point. To dwell on just one point, the river Nile turning to blood, why should I accept that? It is well enough documented that slow-moving warm water is the ideal environment for Oscillatoria rubescens, also known as Burgundy Blood. It happens in many places without any intervention by God, such as Australia, as this video shows:



There may be times when it is hard to give a rational explanation for something described in the Bible but the river Nile turning red isn't one of them.

ghostgeek: Moving on from miracles, let's investigate another aspect of the Exodus story. If I was to mention a baby boy being placed in a reed basket and cast on a river, who would come to mind? If that baby was found and raised as someone's son, and later became a great figure in history, would you have any doubts that I was talking about the biblical Moses? Well you should because I have in mind an earlier figure, Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great. He was an ancient Mesopotamian ruler who reigned approximately 2334-2279 BC and was one of the earliest of the world's great empire builders. Sadly Sargon is known almost entirely from the legends and tales that followed his reputation through 2,000 years of cuneiform Mesopotamian history. Tablets with fragments of the legend of his birth were found in the Library of Ashurbanipal from the 7th century BC. According to this legend, Sargon was the illegitimate son of a priestess and an unknown father. She brought him forth in secret and placed him in a basket of reeds, sealed with bitumen, and cast him on a river. Subsequently found by Akki, the drawer of water, Sargon was raised as Akki's son, [ http://history-world.org/legend_of_sargon.htm ]. Mmmm... what a coincidence, that two great historical figures should have such an unusual feature in common. Both cast onto a river in a reed basket. Well there is something else to consider that's common to both stories, the use of bitumen or pitch. This substance was so common in Mesopotamia that it was used to bond mud bricks together but it's not to be found in Egypt. So it's use fits in with Sargon's legend but not with what we're told in the Bible. Where would a lowly Hebrew woman, presumably a slave, get a commodity that would need to be imported at some expense, pitch, in Egypt? This suggests to me that the legend of Sargon was "borrowed" by some Israelite scribe to enhance the biography of Moses. In other words, the biblical narrative is not wholly factual. Rather, it is a composite drawn from many tales and legends.

ghostgeek: Talking of Moses' birth raises an interesting point. Has anyone considered the true import of Exodus 1:15?

"And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah." ( King James Version )

Just two Hebrew midwives for something like 600,000 Hebrew women? That would have kept them quite busy, don't you think? Well, that's what you have to accept if you take it as true that about 600,000 men, with their dependants, fled Egypt. In comparison, a place like Afghanistan, with one of the poorest provisions on earth, had 467 practicing midwives in 2002 for a population of under 24,000,000. Applying that figure to the Hebrew situation would result in a total Israelite population at the time of the Exodus of just over 100,000 people. One must conclude therefore that either the Bible exaggerated the number of slaves who fled Egypt by a wide margin or the midwifery provision for Hebrew women at the time was effectively zero. Now, if the latter was the case, it does rather make one wonder why the Pharaoh initially relied on midwives to kill off male Hebrew babies. It would have been impossible for them to do so, however hard they tried, given that there was only two of them.

ghostgeek: Is it the case that the Hebrews were ever slaves in Egypt? That is what we are told, over and over again, but is it true? It doesn't seem likely to me. The Egyptians had a system whereby taxes were collected in kind. For the majority of people this would have involved providing agricultural produce and conscripted labour service to the state. It seems that conscription was the regular method by which adequate labour was recruited for official works in ancient Egypt. That is exactly what the Bible says was required of the Hebrews:

Exodus 1:14 ( King James Version )

"And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour."

Yes, no doubt the work was hard and the overseers unfair, but slavery it was not. If still in doubt consider another verse from the Bible:

Exodus 9:19 ( King James Version )

"Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die."

It seems highly unlikely that slaves would be owning herds of cattle and have fields in which to graze them.

orkanen: It does seem there are a few stories mixed up in Exodus, like the deportation of select Hebrew families to Mesopotamia 2.700 years ago.

ghostgeek: Some parts of the story are so descriptively convincing it suggests somebody had accurate records to rely on.