Putting The Pieces Together Part VI: The Parting of A Sea

I hope my readership has enjoyed the insight and analysis to one of the most asked question; Did the Exodus really happen? In the end we come to realize that science is indeed our friend, if used correctly. Many of the earliest scientists did in fact hold to Christian faith and they believed science backed up their faith, and used it to prove the existence of God. But like with all things, there needs to be a happy medium. I believe Philosophy is the handmaiden of Theology (The study of the Bible), so science should be the same. As Christians we should not throw out science without first looking at it. Science can be used for good unless taken to the extreme. I think our Theology, and what we believe about God and the Bible, should drive our philosophy; and our scientific research. God needs to be the center of our lives as Christians, and once we gain the wisdom of God we can then obtain the wisdom of this world. In this post we will find out if Jacobovici’s scientifc theory of how the parting of the sea occurred will match up with the Biblical record.

     Simcha Jacobovici begins this section, the final events of the Exodus, by saying “But in the book of Exodus God does not spin nature……he manipulates it. In other words according to the Bible we should be able to understand the science behind the miracles, and the greatest miracle of them all was the parting of a sea.” As I have stated before in one of my last posts God did not cause the Santorini volcano to erupt, but He very well could of used, manipulated as Jacobovici states, the effects of it to free His people. The parting of the Red sea is a story that keeps us on the edge of our seats. How did it happen? Many of us wish we could go back in time to see it with our own eyes because it does seem unbelievable. But Jacobovici shows that it can in fact be believable and he strives to scientifically prove that the parting of the sea undeniably happened, and is not just a good story to tell your kids. But will his theories match up with the Biblical text? The Biblical account records that even though Pharaoh let the Israelites go he then pursued them. The Lord told Moses that Pharaoh would pursue them (Exodus 14:3-4). The Biblical account also tells us that Pharaoh took with him all his chariots and officers (Ex. 14:7). The Israelites became trapped by the sea, and in Pharaohs eyes I’m sure he believed he was the victor, but then God showed the Egyptians the power of the God of Israel; for one final time. “After the death of the Egyptian firstborn males Pharaoh let the Israelites go,” Jacobovici comments, “he then changed his mind and pursued them finding them trapped on the shores of a sea. The Hebrew text calls this sea ‘Yam Suf,’ and it was here where the miracle occurred. The sea parted the Israelites crossed to safety and then the water’s came back swallowing the entire Egyptian army, overturned chariots, drowning all the horses and soldiers.”

     For years the translation of the sea Moses parted, “Yam Suf,” has been named the Red sea. Every time the story is told it is always the Red sea that Moses parted. It was not until recently that scholars started seeing that the name “Yam Suf” was mistranslated. Because of this no one has found evidence of the Egyptian armies at the bottom of the Red sea, although there have been many excavations. Jacobovici talks about this misinterpretation: “For years explorers have searched for evidence of the miracle of the parting of the sea. They’ve mounted under water archaeological quests looking for ancient chariots, swords, and any evidence of drowned Egyptian armies. There is a theory that a huge sub-surface shelf in the Red sea could’ve been exposed for a short time during a powerful storm, providing a land-bridge for the Israelites to cross. But the search has always been unsuccessful. Who would’ve thought that instead of diving we should’ve been driving? That’s because ‘Yam Suf,’ Hebrew for the place where Moses had parted the waters, has for years been mistranslated as ‘red sea,’ when in fact the correct translation is ‘reed sea,’ and reeds grow in sweet water, not salt water; in lakes not oceans.” So his theory is that the sea was a lake, but finding the body of water the Bible describes is hard. The Biblical account calls it a sea, and the Israelites complained to Moses because they thought they were going to die, because of Pharaoh (Ex. 14:10-12). The Lord did not only show His power to the Egyptians but also to the children of Israel, Who saw all the plagues of Egypt and the parting of the sea, but they still complained constantly and because of their unbelief they did not get to see the Promised land, and died out in the wilderness.

Again Jacobovici comes through with the evidence to prove his theories. “Using our dates for the Exodus, we’ve tracked down an ancient artifact that records the precise location of ‘Yam Suf.’ It also provides us with the first archaeological evidence for the parting of the sea.” The artifact he refers to is the Elarish Inscription which can be found in the Ismailia Regional Museum. “We found a hieroglyphic inscription on a granite monument that tells the entire story of the Exodus from Pharaoh’s point of view.” Jacobovici explains the Elarish Inscription, and compares it with the Bible. “The Bible calls Moses a king, on this stone Moses is called ‘The Prince of the desert.’ The Bible calls the Israelites ‘God’s people,’ the granite calls them ‘the evil ones,’ and then the granite corroborates the miracle of the parting of the sea. The symbol can be read by anyone, three waves and two knives ‘the parted sea.’” Professor James Hoffmeier from Trinity Evangelical School gives his opinion on the inscription: “The three water signs one on top of the other, is typically used to apply to different types of bodies of water, can apply to the Nile, can apply to a marsh, can apply to the sea. But what is not so common is when you have that word in combination with these two knives. The fact you have these two knives associated with it would suggest that this is water that is cut, water that is divided. This might be an illusion to the waters that the red sea, or the reed sea, were divided in Exodus chapter fourteen.” Jacobovici believes the place that the parting of the sea happened was at the modern lake named El Balah. Professor Hoffmeier continues in saying “It’s an ancient lake that survived until the 1850’s, when the Suez canal was put in this ancient lake finally died. Professor Manifred Bietak, after conducting further study of this area, proposed that this lake was known to the Egyptians as ‘Pa Tufi,’ the marsh land, the marshy sea, and the word ‘Tuf,’ Egyptian word for reeds, is the same word as ‘Suf’ in Hebrew, so the ‘Yam Suf ‘ he suggested was a name derived from this body of water. Now it’s called the El Balah lake.”

     Jacobovici has, what he believes, the sea Moses parted, he has his evidence from the Elarish inscription to prove El Balah is the correct lake. Next, he will give us his theory on how the Israelites crossed over the sea on dry land, and how the watr swallowed up the Egyptians. “As Pharaoh chased the Israelites to the shores of lake El Balah, the extreme seismic activity that caused the ten plagues, and the Santorini eruption, would’ve now caused the delta to start sliding into the eastern Mediterranean, and as millions tons of soil moved forward the edge of the African plate, which had now been released from its burden, must have risen between one, and one and a half meters. In other words the sea parted. Water would have cascaded from higher ground to lower ground and drained from pools and sink holes creating dry land for the Israelites to cross. At this point, further seismic activity, or another collapse of the delta, would’ve sent a major tsunami crashing against the coast.” Dr. Charles Pellegrino comments on the height of the waves that would’ve been the tsunami in Jacobovici’s theory: “They would to have been more than half as high, these waves, as the Empire State Building, and that’s exactly the description that we do have in the Bible.” This tsunami would be the same one depicted in the Bible that came crashing down on the Egyptians. But let us see what the Biblical text says and see if it can match up with Jacobovici’s theory.

The Bible states: “And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left (Exodus 14:21-22, KJV).” This doesn’t quite match up with Jacobovici’s theory that water was drained by sink holes, because the Bible clearly states that an east wind literally parted the sea so that there was a wall on each side of the Israelites as they passed on dry land. Jacobovici doesn’t go into this and the question I’d ask would be: how does your theory fit with the Biblical record? We see that his theory about how the sea was parted doesn’t match the Bible, but what about his tsunami theory? Does that fit with the Bible? Let us continue with the Biblical account. Exodus chapter fourteen, verses twenty-three through twenty-five states: “And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, And took off their chariot wheels, that they drive them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians (KJV).” A tsunami might have crashed doen on the Egyptians but what oter evidenc does Jacobovici gives us? This is an interesting part in the Biblical account. The Egyptians are kept away from pursuing the Israelites until the dawn of the next day, which means that the Israelites had to have crossed on the dry land all through the night. In Jacobovici’s theory he gives the impression that the tsunami came on faster than the Biblical account records, so it still doesn't match up. The thing that gets me about this passage is verse twenty-four, for if I was an Egyptian and saw the face of God I’d want to high-tale it out of there as well. It’s also intriguing that the Egyptians know the Lord is fighting with Israel against them. They knew who God was and what side He was on. Let us continue, “And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them (Ex. 14:27-28, KJV).” There is no similarity between Jacobovici’s theory and the Biblical account, and he may have to do more study and research on this. But this does not mean that the effects of the Santorini eruption wasn’t used by God to cause the sea to part. In my next post Jacobovici will bring up some evidence that proves the sea was parted and that the Biblical account is true; even though he can't correctly prove how it happened doesn't mean it didn't happen at all. There are two questions we must ask: How can a story, like the Biblical account, be fake if it so detailed? And, are there some things that science just can’t explain?