Plagues of Egypt

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stuck
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Plagues of Egypt

Post by stuck » Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:13 am

I don't know about you guys, but my wife is into reading the old testament and such with come follow me and to the kids. It is nice to have an alternate viewpoint to the scriptures and such right? I have watched a few shows from paramount plus from the smithsonian channel. One show titled secrets covers a few different things from the bible like the tower of babel, ark of the covenant, garden of eden, and plagues of egypt. I watched plagues of egypt last night with my wife and it was very interesting to learn that the volcano that erupted from the island of Santorini most likely caused the plagues of egypt in about 1600 bc. They had Robert Ritner on for a bit to talk a little bit about a stele that was found from that time that chronicled some of those events. Do you guys have any other shows or books that have also helped you?

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Just This Guy
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by Just This Guy » Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:17 am

A long while back (90's) I watched a program where they thought they had a rational explanation for the Egyptian plagues. It started with a red algae bloom in the Nile River. This caused frogs to leave the river and migrate inland. Once the frogs passes, there was nothing to keep insects in check, so the fly/lice/flea population exploded. The increase in insects results in more people getting bit and this results in boils and other deseases from the bug bites.

Basically a chain of cause & effect. Stuff like that. A common explanation of normal events mixed with a bit of bad luck with a sand storm or volcanic eruption would cause the plagues as described. I don't remember the details.

How accurate it is, I don't know.
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jfro18
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by jfro18 » Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:21 am

Clearly I need to sign up for Paramount Plus! That sounds like a fun watch.

I've enjoyed podcasts on OT stuff but haven't yet seen much in the way of tv shows that cover it.

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moksha
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by moksha » Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:26 am

Sort of like the downfall of the Roman Empire and the bubonic plague being caused by the eruption of Krakatoa in 536 AD. Super volcanos can ruin everything! Good thing the Tonga blast was a pipsqueak compared to Krakatoa.
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Hagoth
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by Hagoth » Wed Apr 13, 2022 4:41 pm

I think it is very likely that the plagues of Egypt were an accumulation of stories of the volcano and unrelated events, held together with the glue of good ol' ...
Image
stuck wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:13 am
... it was very interesting to learn that the volcano that erupted from the island of Santorini most likely caused the plagues of egypt in about 1600 bc.
Whether or not that is true, I think it may very well be the inspiration for the story of Yahweh guiding the Israelites with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Sounds like a description of a volcano to me. The Santorini eruption has been determined to be a very likely source of other myths from other places around the Mediterranean about gods doing crazy god stuff.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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2bizE
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by 2bizE » Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:23 pm

So, the story of the plagues involves Moses, who many scholars now believe that he never existed…it involves god causing plagues, killing children and then parting the Red Sea. Does anyone else see how this could possibly be all made up?
~2bizE

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alas
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by alas » Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:18 am

Hagoth wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 4:41 pm
I think it is very likely that the plagues of Egypt were an accumulation of stories of the volcano and unrelated events, held together with the glue of good ol' ...
Image
stuck wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:13 am
... it was very interesting to learn that the volcano that erupted from the island of Santorini most likely caused the plagues of egypt in about 1600 bc.
Whether or not that is true, I think it may very well be the inspiration for the story of Yahweh guiding the Israelites with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Sounds like a description of a volcano to me. The Santorini eruption has been determined to be a very likely source of other myths from other places around the Mediterranean about gods doing crazy god stuff.
There was a book I read some 30 years ago that had pretty good evidence that the God of Abraham started out as a volcano God. Not that I remember much more than his theory, but that was one thing he used, about God going before them as a pillar of light and pillar of smoke. But then I wondered, if they were actually following something like a volcano, why did they wander around for 40 years? The volcano would lead them in a set direction and it wouldn’t take more than a year.

Another thing I thought of, that might make the story more believable, was there seems to be a major math error throughout the early Old Testament. As in the number of escapees from Egypt was an impossibly large and would leave evidence. But say, if it was really 1/12 of that. Now, if I remember correctly they had a base 12 numbering system and there was some kind of translation from the very early stories to the later Bible, that really would explain a lot. Like why people lived to be 900 to 1,000 years old. Divide by 12 and you actually have a believable age for Adam through Noah and divide by 12 and you have a much more realistic number for those following Moses.

But I still think that “the whole thing was made up” is the best explanation.

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wtfluff
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by wtfluff » Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:31 am

alas wrote:
Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:18 am
But I still think that “the whole thing was made up” is the best explanation.
Kind of interesting: When one actually applies a bit of logic and reason to religion and entertains the thought "It's All Made Up"; Occam's Razor pops right out front-and-center, and lots and lots and lots of things actually start to make sense.
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blazerb
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by blazerb » Thu Apr 14, 2022 10:03 am

alas wrote:
Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:18 am
Another thing I thought of, that might make the story more believable, was there seems to be a major math error throughout the early Old Testament. As in the number of escapees from Egypt was an impossibly large and would leave evidence. But say, if it was really 1/12 of that. Now, if I remember correctly they had a base 12 numbering system and there was some kind of translation from the very early stories to the later Bible, that really would explain a lot. Like why people lived to be 900 to 1,000 years old. Divide by 12 and you actually have a believable age for Adam through Noah and divide by 12 and you have a much more realistic number for those following Moses.

But I still think that “the whole thing was made up” is the best explanation.
I think another problem with the Moses story is that there is no evidence of an invasion of Canaan. The Israelites seem to have been living in Canaan all along. Therefore, who exactly left Egypt?

I tend to think there are kernels of truth in the legends. It's interesting to me to find them. If the plagues have some elements that actually happened, we need to find possibilities for who exactly passed the stories along.

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Hagoth
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by Hagoth » Thu Apr 14, 2022 2:06 pm

alas wrote:
Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:18 am
...why did they wander around for 40 years? The volcano would lead them in a set direction and it wouldn’t take more than a year.
I suppose the short answer is that they didn't. Ir makes sense to me that the Israelite narrative is a conglomerate of the mythologies and foundational stories from several groups. Whoever codified it into the Old Testament story we know and love tried to satisfy everyone by including their founding heroes (Abraham, Moses, ect.) as the main characters in a sequential narrative. It would be very easy for stories like the talking snake, the volcanic pillar, the flood of Utnapishtim to get folded in as well.
alas wrote:
Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:18 am
Another thing I thought of, that might make the story more believable, was there seems to be a major math error throughout the early Old Testament. As in the number of escapees from Egypt was an impossibly large and would leave evidence. But say, if it was really 1/12 of that. Now, if I remember correctly they had a base 12 numbering system and there was some kind of translation from the very early stories to the later Bible, that really would explain a lot. Like why people lived to be 900 to 1,000 years old. Divide by 12 and you actually have a believable age for Adam through Noah and divide by 12 and you have a much more realistic number for those following Moses.
I like that, Alas. There were groups of people who left Egypt after the Sea People invasion. It seems reasonable that a band of travelers may have arrived in Canaan with a stories about wandering in the wilderness for a long time and all of the weird things that happened. A game of telephone did the rest.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

stuck
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by stuck » Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:13 pm

stuck wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:13 am
... it was very interesting to learn that the volcano that erupted from the island of Santorini most likely caused the plagues of egypt in about 1600 bc.
Whether or not that is true, I think it may very well be the inspiration for the story of Yahweh guiding the Israelites with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Sounds like a description of a volcano to me. The Santorini eruption has been determined to be a very likely source of other myths from other places around the Mediterranean about gods doing crazy god stuff.
[/quote]

I think that's a very good observation and probably accurate on the pillar of smoke and fire. Also, in that same program I watched they did mention that when the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity that they wrote down a lot of these tales (to create the old testament), which probably had changed a fair amount from the actual fact as they were probably oral traditions that were passed down.

I also remember watching another show like this where they depicted the ancient Minoans on the Island of Thera where the volcano erupted and they were trying to placate their god (even with human sacrifice) so that the volcano wouldn't destroy them, yet many if not all of them were wiped out by this.

stuck
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by stuck » Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:17 pm

“alas” wrote:
There was a book I read some 30 years ago that had pretty good evidence that the God of Abraham started out as a volcano God. Not that I remember much more than his theory, but that was one thing he used, about God going before them as a pillar of light and pillar of smoke. But then I wondered, if they were actually following something like a volcano, why did they wander around for 40 years? The volcano would lead them in a set direction and it wouldn’t take more than a year.

Another thing I thought of, that might make the story more believable, was there seems to be a major math error throughout the early Old Testament. As in the number of escapees from Egypt was an impossibly large and would leave evidence. But say, if it was really 1/12 of that. Now, if I remember correctly they had a base 12 numbering system and there was some kind of translation from the very early stories to the later Bible, that really would explain a lot. Like why people lived to be 900 to 1,000 years old. Divide by 12 and you actually have a believable age for Adam through Noah and divide by 12 and you have a much more realistic number for those following Moses.

But I still think that “the whole thing was made up” is the best explanation.
That is interesting about that numbering system. Maybe it could also explain things like Jesus fasting for 40 days and 40 nights etc.

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Hagoth
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by Hagoth » Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:39 pm

stuck wrote:
Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:13 pm
I think that's a very good observation and probably accurate on the pillar of smoke and fire. Also, in that same program I watched they did mention that when the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity that they wrote down a lot of these tales (to create the old testament), which probably had changed a fair amount from the actual fact as they were probably oral traditions that were passed down.
The Babylonian creation myth is the obvious source for the Genesis creation story. The talking serpent that loses its legs is also a pre-biblical tale, as is the flood. They are not merely oral traditions, they were well recorded in cuneiform tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish, and other places, long before any Israelite scribe showed up on the scene to write them down in the Hebrew Bible. Snip snip, paste paste.

It's kind of wonderful really, how so many religious traditions share the same stories and sources, even though they don't recognize it. From India, across the Middle East, to Greece and Rome, and even into the Christian world, they're all the same gods tweaked and tuned to fit the local audience.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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alas
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by alas » Fri Apr 15, 2022 5:57 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:39 pm
stuck wrote:
Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:13 pm
I think that's a very good observation and probably accurate on the pillar of smoke and fire. Also, in that same program I watched they did mention that when the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity that they wrote down a lot of these tales (to create the old testament), which probably had changed a fair amount from the actual fact as they were probably oral traditions that were passed down.
The Babylonian creation myth is the obvious source for the Genesis creation story. The talking serpent that loses its legs is also a pre-biblical tale, as is the flood. They are not merely oral traditions, they were well recorded in cuneiform tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish, and other places, long before any Israelite scribe showed up on the scene to write them down in the Hebrew Bible. Snip snip, paste paste.

It's kind of wonderful really, how so many religious traditions share the same stories and sources, even though they don't recognize it. From India, across the Middle East, to Greece and Rome, and even into the Christian world, they're all the same gods tweaked and tuned to fit the local audience.
When I was in college, yeah before most of you were born, I took a class on the Bible as literature. So, I got hooked, on the Bible not as a holy book, but just as ancient writings. And I dug into other books that looked at the Bible that way, and one gave translations for words. Samson is son of the sun God. Where he was born was “dawn” and where he died was “evening”. And in reading about his feats, something clicked, I had heard this before….back in Greek or Roman mythology. So, when I took the names of people and places and the feats of the hero in the Samson/Delilah story, I found a LOT of parallels to another guy who was the son of the sun God, his name was Hercules. Samson’s feats are exactly the same as Hercules. The stories have the same root story, they were just changed a bit to fit the culture.

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Hagoth
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by Hagoth » Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:24 am

alas wrote:
Fri Apr 15, 2022 5:57 pm
Samson is son of the sun God. Where he was born was “dawn” and where he died was “evening”. And in reading about his feats, something clicked, I had heard this before….back in Greek or Roman mythology. So, when I took the names of people and places and the feats of the hero in the Samson/Delilah story, I found a LOT of parallels to another guy who was the son of the sun God, his name was Hercules. Samson’s feats are exactly the same as Hercules. The stories have the same root story, they were just changed a bit to fit the culture.
Good stuff, Alas. Yup, it's all one big story but everyone thinks their version is the only one.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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jfro18
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by jfro18 » Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:09 pm

alas wrote:
Fri Apr 15, 2022 5:57 pm
When I was in college, yeah before most of you were born, I took a class on the Bible as literature. So, I got hooked, on the Bible not as a holy book, but just as ancient writings. And I dug into other books that looked at the Bible that way, and one gave translations for words. Samson is son of the sun God. Where he was born was “dawn” and where he died was “evening”. And in reading about his feats, something clicked, I had heard this before….back in Greek or Roman mythology. So, when I took the names of people and places and the feats of the hero in the Samson/Delilah story, I found a LOT of parallels to another guy who was the son of the sun God, his name was Hercules. Samson’s feats are exactly the same as Hercules. The stories have the same root story, they were just changed a bit to fit the culture.
This is a great observation. It kind of makes me think of how Clueless is a movie based off Emma but they're both set obviously in different cultures/generations so the stories are different even if the core is the same.

That's not a great example since Clueless is an intentional adaptation, but I think sometimes that helps to understand how core elements of myths can transition throughout history even as the details change... and why scholars can use those clues to date the creation of so many of these ancient writings.

stuck
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Re: Plagues of Egypt

Post by stuck » Wed Apr 27, 2022 8:14 am

stuck wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:13 am
I don't know about you guys, but my wife is into reading the old testament and such with come follow me and to the kids. It is nice to have an alternate viewpoint to the scriptures and such right? I have watched a few shows from paramount plus from the smithsonian channel. One show titled secrets covers a few different things from the bible like the tower of babel, ark of the covenant, garden of eden, and plagues of egypt. I watched plagues of egypt last night with my wife and it was very interesting to learn that the volcano that erupted from the island of Santorini most likely caused the plagues of egypt in about 1600 bc. They had Robert Ritner on for a bit to talk a little bit about a stele that was found from that time that chronicled some of those events. Do you guys have any other shows or books that have also helped you?
Another show on there I found was Bible Hunters. This was interesting as it showed how in the mid 19th century people began to find old manuscripts or versions of the bible. This began to shake up Christianity especially for those who believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of God. There were a couple of interesting additions that showed up in later versions such as adding the last two verses in Mark and then I believe where Jesus says, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

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