Posted on 06/12/2003 6:15:39 PM PDT by blam
Mount Sinai was volcano in Saudi Arabia, says scientist
By Roger Highfield Science Editor
(Filed: 13/06/2003)
Mount Sinai, where Scripture says Moses received God's Law, is located in Saudi Arabia, not Egypt's Sinai Peninsula - moving a key site for Judaism into the nation where Islam was founded, according to a Cambridge professor.
Science also backs traditional beliefs that the Israelites' exodus from Egypt was led by Moses, roughly the way that the Bible tells it, according to Prof Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University.
Prof Humphreys, a churchgoing Baptist and materials scientist, outlines his ideas in his forthcoming book: The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist's Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories.
While other scholars have proposed that Sinai was in Arabia, Prof Humphreys argues that the holy mount must have been an active volcano, since it shook and emitted fire and smoke (Exodus 19:18). And he has carefully examined records ancient and modern to fix the site.
His candidate: present-day Mount Bedr in north-western Saudi Arabia, since there were no ancient volcanoes in what was later named the Sinai Peninsula.
Prof Humphreys also thinks that near Mount Bedr, Moses experienced God's call at the "burning bush". He suggests that this was caused by flammable natural gas or volcanic gas escaping from the ground.
The Book of Exodus obviously underwent later editing, he said, but the evidence strongly suggests witness material that might well come from Moses himself. The book is "amazingly accurate and coherent", he said.
Prof Humphreys also offers other "naturalistic" explanations for wondrous events. For instance, he thinks that escalating natural disasters explain each of the 10 "plagues" that forced Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves depart. The Nile "turned to blood" meant that toxic red algae killed fish, the dead fish forced frogs ashore, gnats and flies were drawn to the dead fish and frogs and the insects transmitted a virus that killed livestock.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! Was that Moses Malone?
This is simply nonsense.
There are born-again scientists who accept the Bible as revealed Truth but their beliefs are scarsely based on their science. There are a host of Doctors of Theology out of podunk Bible colleges traveling around the revival circuit. Most hard-nosed trained Egyptologists just try to avoid the issue since it is so loaded and can effect funding.
If the Exodus occurred the Egyptians of the period were unaware of it, despite that 2 1/2 million out of a population of 3 1/2 to 5 million left the country. There is not one reference to it anywhere in all the 500,000 papyri in museums or on stone. Scholars who do discuss it in detail think that the story is a folk memory rewriting the Hyksos episode (at least many do).
Ya think? Did the Parting of the Red Sea happen, or is it some kind of code?
There should be something along the lines of "The great Pharoah chased the Jews out of the country. The Gods were pleased with the cleansing of the country"
Something, anything. If there is a scroll, an inscription, anything in Egypt that suggests a couple million people took off, I would like to know about it.
...or, that the fleeing numbers were much smaller.
Also, I believe that the Exodus occured in 1628BC when the volcano Santorina blew its top. This could have provided all the fireworks, famines and earthquakes and a tsunami into the Red Sea. The Red Sea was land locked at the end of the Ice Age and my have broken through due to the earthquakes, etc.
Tree rings indicate a worldwide catastrophic event at this time, maybe the people doing all the recording in Egypt didn't survive, huh?
This is true? God does this?
I think the numbers are cooked in some cases but do detail events. When they talk about battles with 500,000 killed with primitive weapons, there weren't 500,000 killed in Iraq with heavy ordinance over many days. But who knows?
Don't have any data or an opinion on the editing of Exodus. I do believe the Red Sea (or something very close to it) parted.
Code?
I have a book that documents alot of these actions and the Pharoahs that had committed a whole host of transgressions that were attempts to mislead posterity. Unfortunately....I think I left it in Richmond this weekend.
Israel's enemies have a long and distinguished history of completely fabricating or erasing history that doesnt flow with their own lie.
A great example of that is from the six day war. Immediately following Israel's initial airstrikes that completely destroyed Egypt's Air Force, all of Egypt's state run newspapers, tv & radio stations were regalling the people with tales of rebuffing the assault and shooting down 80% of Israel's jets.
Egyptians were dancing in the streets and shouting for more...little did they know, flies were the most lethal weapons left in Egypt's air arsenal....and Nasser sulked in his room for days.
Examples of this sort of lack of humility and subterfuge from people in the Middle East goes on and on and spans back for thousands of years. We all know it....individuals with an agenda try and hustle their way around it.
If the Muslims can claim Jerusalem and all of Israel by saying (with straight faces) that Mohammed "ascended to heaven on a winged horse above Al Quds [Jerusalem]" (note that this silliness is not mentioned at all in the Koran)....then surely the Jews can claim all of Saudi Arabia using this far more scientific method as their proof.
ISRAEL...ANNEX SAUDI ARABIA NOW!
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