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Scientist Defends Account of Exodus By RICHARD N. OSTLING The Associated Press Thursday, April 10, 2003; 12:18 PM A British scientist is making two claims about Jewish history this Passover season that could surely spark discussion over the Seder meal. Colin J. Humphreys of Cambridge University has concluded that science backs traditional beliefs that the Israelites' exodus from Egypt was led by Moses pretty much the way the Bible and the Haggadah ritual tell it. He also says that Mount Sinai, where Scripture says Moses received God's Law, is located in Saudi Arabia, not Egypt's Sinai Peninsula - moving a...

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...

NORTH SINAI, Egypt, April 2 — On the eve of Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the story of Moses leading the Israelites through this wilderness out of slavery, Egypt’s chief archaeologist took a bus full of journalists into the North Sinai to showcase his agency’s latest discovery. It didn’t look like much — some ancient buried walls of a military fort and a few pieces of volcanic lava. The archaeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass, often promotes mummies and tombs and pharaonic antiquities that command international attention and high ticket prices. But this bleak landscape, broken only by electric pylons, excited...

Biblical plagues and parting of Red Sea 'caused by volcano' By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent (Filed: 11/11/2002) Fresh evidence that the Biblical plagues and the parting of the Red Sea were natural events rather than myths or miracles is to be presented in a new BBC documentary. Moses, which will be broadcast next month, will suggest that much of the Bible story can be explained by a single natural disaster, a huge volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini in the 16th century BC. Using computer-generated imagery pioneered in Walking With Dinosaurs, the programme tells the story of how...

Santorini eruption much larger than originally believed Media Contact: Todd McLeish, 401-874-7892 Santorini eruption much larger than originally believed; likely had significant impact on civilization KINGSTON, R.I. – August 23, 2006 – An international team of scientists has found that the second largest volcanic eruption in human history, the massive Bronze Age eruption of Thera in Greece, was much larger and more widespread than previously believed. During research expeditions in April and June, the scientists from the University of Rhode Island and the Hellenic Center for Marine Research found deposits of volcanic pumice and ash 10 to 80 meters thick...

A provocative $4-million documentary by Toronto filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici claims to have found archeological evidence verifying the story of the biblical Exodus from Egypt, 3,500 years ago. Religious Jews consider the biblical account incontrovertible — the foundation story of the creation of the nation of Israel. Indeed, they celebrated the Exodus Wednesday night and last night with the annual Passover recitation of the Haggadah. But among scholars, the question of if and when Moses led an estimated two million Israelite slaves out of pharaonic Egypt, miraculously crossed the Red Sea ahead of the pursuing Egyptian army and received the Ten...

Jul. 3, 2006 0:15 | Updated Jul. 3, 2006 4:57Documentary sets new date for Exodus By ETGAR LEFKOVITS A new documentary by a Canadian Jewish filmmaker argues that the Exodus did happen, but that it took place a couple of hundred years before the commonly-accepted time frame. The Exodus Decoded, a two-hour documentary by award-winning Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, suggests that the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt as recounted in the Bible occurred around 1500 BCE, about 230 years before the date most commonly accepted by contemporary historians. The 10 plagues that smote the Egyptians, according to the Bible,...

There is a saying that when it comes to the Bible, "for those who believe, no explanation is necessary, while for those who don't believe, no explanation is possible." But what of the many people who fall somewhere between these two certainties? Such people owe it to themselves to see The Exodus Decoded, a 90-minute documentary by Canadians James Cameron (the director of Titanic, Aliens and The Terminator) and investigative journalist and producer Simcha Jacobovici. The film will be screened at 6 p.m. this evening as part of the Jerusalem Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The Exodus Decoded claims...

In the second part, he lists what he says are my so-called "discoveries." You would think that the good professor knows how to use the rewind button on his DVD player and confirm statements that he attributes to me. You can find a copy of the transcript of my film at "Simcha's explorations": www.theexodusdecoded.com. A word search can confirm that I claim to "reveal" the meaning of other people's discoveries by providing a new context for looking at various artifacts, inscriptions, mountains etc. The fact is that I never once claim to "discover" anything..

Did Moses really part the Red Sea like it says in the Old Testament? What about the Nile turning blood red or the plagues that finally compelled Pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery? Did those things actually happen? These are among the questions Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici attempts to answer in "The Exodus Decoded" which premieres Aug. 20, 8-9:30 p.m. (check local listings) on cable's History Channel. Challenging opinions that dismiss those events as myth, the thought-provoking documentary uses investigative journalism aided by modern science to examine archaeological and geological evidence in separating historical fact from fiction. Jacobovici...

THE greatest story ever told has acquired a Hollywood twist. James Cameron, the director of Titanic, is the executive producer of a new documentary that claims to have uncovered fresh evidence confirming one of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament — the parting of the Red Sea and the Jewish exodus from Egypt. In The Exodus Decoded, a 90-minute documentary that will be shown in America this month, Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, the Canadian film producer, claim a volcanic eruption on the Greek archipelago of Santorini triggered a chain of natural catastrophes recorded in the Bible as the...