Putting The Pieces Together Part III: Is Science A Friend or Foe Part I; Can God Use A Natural Disaster for His Glory?

There are three things that come to mind when mentioning the Exodus: the ten plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red sea, and the Ten Commandments. As Christians who are taught this story in Sunday school we tend to grow up just simply believing these miracles on a “blind faith” scale. But what if science “could” be used to explain these miracles? Would that be bumping God out of the picture entirely? Or would it magnify the evidence of His existence? Simcha Jacobovici claims he can scientifically prove the ten plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red sea, and it’s all centered around one natural disaster; the eruption of a volcano on the Mediterranean coast. This natural disaster wiped out one nation of people to free another nation of people from slavery.

Jacobovici leads us to first look at the Santorini eruption for it may hold the secret to the miracles that occurred in the book of Exodus. All the other pieces in Jacobovici’s puzzle all date to around 1500 B.C.E. He states that “If our date is correct then there’s something else we have to factor in, around 1500 B.C.E. people living on the Mediterranean experienced one of the most cataclysmic events in history. The eruption of the Santorini volcano in modern Greece.” He continues by declaring that “When it erupted it the volcano essentially brought to an end the Minoan Civilization that once flourished here.” The eruption was so great that it not only affected the explosion area but the surrounding areas as well, such as Egypt. Dr Catherine Hickson gives us a profound statement for how immense the eruption really was, and what is was like for those living there at the time. “To put this in perspective, an eruption like Santorini would be hundreds to thousands of times stronger, more explosive, then the atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima……and it would have been, I’m sure to the people living there, as if the world was coming to and end.”  Jacobovici is claiming that the Santorini eruption is the cause for all of the phenomenon’s surrounding the Exodus. But one thing is uncertain, and that’s the date for the Santorini eruption, but Jacobovici is convinced that the Santorini eruption fits within his chronology. Dr. Manifred Bietak, founder of the Hyksos capital Avaris, states: “Here pumice [Volcanic rock] from the Santorini eruption appears for the first time. So from an archaeological point of view it looks very much as if the eruption happened early in the 18^th dynasty, let us say around 1500 B.C.E.” Jacobovici is very persistent on making his claim that the eruption occurred in this time frame, but like all things that deal with the Exodus this date is disputed. Dr. Charles Pellegrino asserts that “Volcanologists and geologists would date the eruption in the 1600’s B.C. Archaeologists tend to date it in the 1500’s B.C.” Because these dates are so widely disputed many scholars would argue that Jacobovici is stretching, because of his pre-conceived notions, to place all these events in the same time frame. But could Jacobovici be on to something? Do all these pieces fit correctly into the puzzle? Could a natural disaster, which is claimed as one of the worst volcanic eruptions in history, be the cause of the ten plagues and the Red sea parting?

Jacobovici certainly believes so, and he also claims that “Until now, no one has come up with a comprehensive scientific explanation for all ten plagues.” He then takes us back to the first puzzle piece, the Ahmose Stele, which seems to have “an amazing synchronicity with the Bible text.” Comparing the Stele to the Biblical text Jacobovici explains: “The Bible says that the God of Israel passed judgment on the gods of Egypt, and the Stele confirms that the statues of the gods of Egypt were toppled to the ground.” The verse used here in this comparison is Exodus 12:12, which says “For I [God] will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord(NKJV).” It truly is amazing how the Ahmose Stele and the Biblical text record such synchronicity, not only once but twice. The Ahmose Stele could very well be recording events that occurred from the Santorini eruption, and could very well be the same events that the Biblical author recorded. What if this Archaeological artifact proves the Biblical text to be accurate? He goes on to say that “Earthquakes are known to accompany volcanic eruptions like Santorini. It seems that the Stele and the Bible are describing the results of an earthquake, or more precisely what scientists now call an earthquake storm.” “Earthquake storms,” Prof. Amos Nur of Stanford University states, “are sequences of large earthquakes that sweep across a large area, and the best examples are the Eastern Mediterranean, where we have long historical and archaeological records.” But can such earthquakes cause the ten plagues of Egypt to occur?

Jacobovici certainly thinks so: “Earthquakes can’t possibly explain how Moses turned the Nile water’s into blood, can they? In fact they can. When they trigger gas leaks, and we don’t have to go back 3500 years to prove the point.” He gives the example of lake Nyos, Cameroon, when the waters in the lake turned red like in the Biblical tale. Professor George Kling was the scientist who explained the mystery as an under-water gas leak, and the same thing could very well have happened with the Biblical story. Professor George Kling states: “When it comes to the Biblical plagues along the Nile delta there, there are many elements that are present that could suggest a build up of gas, so we could have a situation where gas beneath the earth is trapped in pockets and earthquakes along the fault-line then release that gas and depending on the kind of water that that gas goes through it could even turn that water red.” Jacobovici continues on this thought “The first thing that happens in such circumstances is that the water becomes devoid of oxygen, and all living things in it die……the only things that don’t die are frogs, unlike fish they can hop out, and as it turns out Biblical plague number two is a frog infestation [Ex. 8:3]. The lack of clean water then leads to lice, flies, and bacterial epidemics among humans and domestic animals, not surprisingly Biblical plague three is lice [Ex. 8:16], plague number four is flies [Ex. 8:21], plague number five is an epidemic [Ex. 9:3-4].”

These are just the first five plagues, but in my next post I will continue to go over Simcha Jacobovici’s scientific explanations of the next five plagues. We see in this post that Jacobovici could really be on to something, many scholars would disagree with me, but the pieces of his puzzle seem to be fitting perfectly. So I come back to my question. Could science be used to prove the ten plagues of Egypt? From the evidence just presented I would say it is plausible. But then comes another question. Where does God fit in? I believe that God fits perfectly within the picture, even when using science. In the book of Exodus God first speaks to Moses before any of the plagues, or the parting of the Red sea, actually occur (Exodus chapters 7 through 14). So clearly these events didn’t take God by surprise, He foreknew they would happen in His omniscience, and all He expected from Moses was faith and obedience. Even though some of these miracles can be explained scientifically, not all of them can, and are still looked at as unexplainable miracles. Such as the burning bush encounter (Ex. 3:2), and the staff that turned into a serpent (Ex. 7:10). Science should always be looked at as a tool to bring out truth with hard facts, and because God is truth therefore science cannot be bad……if it is used in the right manner. But then if the plagues were caused because of one of the greatest natural disasters in history, then does that mean that God is responsible for destroying one society of people to free another? The answer to this is a resounding “No.” Some Christians might say that God caused the Santorini eruption to happen for the “greater good” of Israel being freed from Egypt. But that is incorrect. First, as we have seen in the book of Exodus God is omniscient, and so because He foresaw and knew that Santorini’s volcano was to erupt doesn’t mean God caused it to happen, (many scholars, as I have said, will not agree with Jacobovici on the eruption being at the same time of the Exodus, and would claim I am just making speculations. Just to let my readership know, so that they can make their own analysis on these posts). Sometimes nature does what it does, not because God caused or forced it to happen, but because of what happened back in Genesis. When man sinned it not only affected men and animals, but nature as well. In the book of Romans chapter eight, the Apostle Paul talks about the affect sin has upon nature “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now (v. 22, NKJV). Lastly, God does not desire the destruction of anyone (2 Peter 3:9), so why would He cause a natural disaster to annihilate an entire civilization? “Oh, I got it, because they were wicked.” But God doesn’t desire that “any” should perish, this would include the wicked along with the good. Why did He send Jonah to Nineveh so that they could be warned of the coming destruction and were given the opportunity to repent, if he wished them all to die? So clearly God did not kill off one civilization to save His people. In His foreknowledge He could have seen the affects of the eruption and then therefore brought good out of a horrific situation, a situation caused by the effects of sin in the world not by His own hand. Sometimes nature reacts the way it does because it is groaning, and it’s on a downward spiral because it will eventually come to an end, as the book of Revelations states. But the good news is that it will be renewed and reformed into the New Earth, and so it will once again be in its perfect state as it was before sin entered into it.