Putting The Pieces Together Part IV: Is Science A Friend or Foe Part II; Dealing With the Last Plagues of Egypt

Continuing from my last post we will be looking at the last plagues Egypt experienced during the Exodus story in the Bible. Simcha Jacobovici still claims he can scientifically prove these plagues, even the tenth plague which is the death of all the firstborn. Jacobovici is confident that he can explain all the plagues as being the effects of the Santorini eruption, and gives tantalizing evidence for his claim. We will be looking at each plague individually and viewing Jacobovici’s scientific evidence for them, and we will also be analyzing these plagues from a Biblical viewpoint. The Santorini eruption is still Jacobovici’s center piece for the plagues, and the parting of the Red sea. But can science really illuminate for us all the miracles God used to free His people? Does Jacobovici take it too far, or is his evidence sound? These are the questions we must ask ourselves through Jacobovici’s documentary, many scholars, archaeologists, Theologians, and Scientists will stand against Jacobovici’s claims. They would argue that his dates are distorted and twisted, and his evidence is inclusive and fragmented. But what if Jacobovici’s scientific explanations and dates are closer to the truth than we realize?

“Plague six is boils and blisters, man and beast [Ex. 9:8-12]. Can an earthquake induced gas leak explain this kind of outbreak?” The answer to Jacobovici’s question is yes, and to prove it he goes back to Lake Nyos. “People living along the lake developed strange boils and burns. It turns out that carbon-dioxide mixed with air put people into a kind of a coma, reducing circulation to the skin causing the kind of boils described in the Bible as plague number six.” Was carbon-dioxide really the cause of the Biblical boils? What about in the book of Exodus where the Lord tells Moses to pick up ash from the furnace and that becomes dust which is let it go into the air, from this the boils come over the Egyptians both men and animals. Did the boils in the Biblical account come from the ash or from Jacobovici’s carbon-dioxide? His claim is plausible, but one fact that cannot be scientifically explained is that throughout all the plagues, even though the Egyptians were affected, the Israelites were kept safe (Ex. 8:22-23, 9:4-7, 9:25-26, 10:23, 11:7, 12:13). The ten plagues that occurred in Egypt did not happen in the land of the Israelites, a place called Goshen. This is what the Bible records, for the Lord not only showed His power through the plagues, but also through protecting His people from the plagues.

The seventh plague was a unique one, and I’m sure the people living during that time believed the God of Israel to be the only true God because of such a plague. The Biblical account tells us that Moses and Aaron, repeating the words of the Lord, gave Pharaoh a chance to take his people and cattle out of harms way (Ex. 9:18-20). For the seventh plague was hail and fire raining down on Egypt. Rabbi Chaim Sacknovitz gives a description of the hail Egypt experienced: “The seventh plague was a plague of hail, but the Bible describes hail in a very unique manner. That hail was together with ‘esh,’ fire. The idea being that the fire and ice commingled together, they co-existed together. The Bible then describes God is making a miracle within a miracle, taking opposites in nature and having them co-exist together.” But Pharaoh didn’t heed the warning and his servants and herds were killed in the fields, (Ex. 9:21-26). Can Jacobovici scientifically prove this particular epidemic? His answer would be “yes.” He gets Dr. Catherine Hickson to explain the science behind plague number seven: “When the ash cloud goes up to great distances in the stratosphere, essentially what happens is you have moisture in the atmosphere, you also have a lot of water vapor in the cloud itself so the small fragments of ash and crystals come to form a nucleus; something very similar to a hail storm.” “In other words,” Jacobovici continues, “Egypt experienced fire and ice raining from above just as the Bible describes. It seems that earthquakes and the resulting volcanic and gas eruptions neatly explain the first seven Biblical plagues.” Jacobovici believes that the context of a famous papyrus, The Ipuwar Papyrus, which gives an account of a hail storm that was mixed with fire, is the same hail storm as the Biblical account. But, like with all of Jacobovici’s pieces to the Exodus puzzle, many scholars argue that his chronology for the Ipuwar Papyrus is unconvincing. Jacobovici illustrates for us how the context of the Ipuwar Papyrus matches closely to the Biblical record: “Incredibly there is an Egyptian Papyrus that tells the exact same story, it’s called the Ipuwar Papyrus and it’s dated by many scholars to the Hyksos period. The Ipuwar Papyrus specifically states that Egypt was struck by a strange hail made up of ice and fire mingled together. Another piece of the puzzle has fallen in place, it now seems clear that the Biblical and Egyptian texts are describing what scientists call……volcanic hail, that could only have come from the earthquake induced Santorini volcano.” Dr. Catherine Hickson gave an example of this type of hail and the science seems to back Jacobovici’s claim. But the date for the Ipuwar Papyrus is often controversial.

The eighth plague is Locusts. The Biblical text records something interesting that I wish to bring up before we get into Jacobovici’s scientific explanations. When Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh after the seventh plague and after he, once again, tells them he’ll let them go then takes it back when the Lord clears away the hail storm. Pharaoh’s servants say something very interesting: “And Pharaoh’s servants said to him, how long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God: do you not know that Egypt is destroyed (Ex. 10:7, KJV)?” Pharaoh’s servants are basically begging him to send away the Israelites because the plagues have destroyed the Egypt they once knew, worked in, and lived in. All the people of Egypt, whether they would admit it or not, knew that the true god was the God of the Israelites, for they had probably prayed constantly to their gods for protection; but the gods of Egypt could not save them from the plagues. This text about the servants gives us a little insight into the thoughts of the Egyptian people during that time. From this small passage we can see that the Egyptians wished for Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, so that they wouldn’t have to suffer anymore for their ruler’s malevolence. Also we see that they realize the God of the Israelites is only true God, because the servants call Him “The Lord their God,” which indicates they know the name of the God of the Israelites. Now we will look at Jacobovici’s scientific explanation of the eighth plague, locusts. Jacobovici asserts that “Locust migrate in swarms that can be between forty and eighty million adult locust in each square kilometer. Cold weather produces a drop in their body temperature and makes them land on mass. The volcanic hail and the weather disruption caused by the Santorini eruption would’ve forced great clouds of locust, which are common in this part of the world, to suddenly land in Egypt. As the hail storm cleared and the temperature rose, so did the locust; exactly as the Biblical account describes.”

Jacobovici begins the introduction of the second to last plague with this statement: “Ripped by earthquake storms and their consequences the Egyptians were now going to experience the last phase of the Santorini eruption, or what the Bible calls plague number nine; darkness.” In the Biblical account the darkness lasted for three days and, like with all the plagues, it only affected the land of the Egyptians; the Israelites were unaffected by it. In Exodus chapter 10 verse 23 it says “…but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings (KJV).” Jacobovici has a theory for explaining this plague, but many scholars will disagree with it and claim it as a controversial subject. “This is the way it probably worked, during the months before the eruption seismic activity in the whole Eastern Mediterranean was causing the African plate to grind under the European plate. Sea water was then turned to steam that bubbled up through the magma. This in turn caused pressure to build and erupt through weak points in the surface, triggering several small eruptions, leading to a major blow-out. When the final eruption came it created an ash cloud, almost 40 kilometers from top to bottom and 200 kilometers across. When the ash cloud reached the Nile Delta it engulfed the Egyptians in what the Bible calls a palpable darkness.” Dr. Catherine Hickson continues this thought by stating: “In a matter of a few minutes their plunged into a black world, ashes falling all around them, they can’t see, they can’t breath very well, the sun has disappeared, you have black overhead, and they have no idea what’s going to happen next.”

The volcanic rock (pumice) that was found in Avaris by Dr. Manifred Bietak seems to be proof enough that the Santorini eruption is the cause of the plagues. But this is under much controversy and Jacobovici claims that “Some might argue that since pumice can float, it could’ve been brought to Egypt by waves, and washed ashore by tides.” But Jacobovici is persistent in finding the evidence he needs to prove that the ten plagues of Egypt, the Red sea parting, and the Exodus in general is a true story, and that it is all centered on the natural disaster known as the Santorini eruption. How can anyone argue with his next piece of evidence? The finding of Santorini ash in Egypt. Although, many would say, this only proves the eruption of Santorini not the Exodus or the plagues. Prof. Jean-Daniel Stanley comments that: “We had to look through ten to twenty thousand grains to find one ash grain, so we found a total of forty ash grains. Not all ash looks the same, ash has a fingerprint aspect. The ash particles that we find in the northern and north eastern Nile Delta are individual grains that came in from Santorini.” I will need to stop here at the ninth plague because I hadn’t realized how long this section would be. But to stop here gives my readership a good place to stop, where they won’t have to read ten pages, as well as leaves them in suspense. Jacobovici’s evidence just seems to fit perfectly with his puzzle, but could it be too perfectly? In the final plague I will deal with Jacobovici’s evidence and theories as well as some theories of my own.