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    Did the Red Sea really part before the Israelites? Why didn't the fire consume the Burning Bush? What was the Manna in the Wilderness? The Miracles of Exodus explores the truth about these and all the other Exodus mysteries, including the precise locations of Mount Sinai, the Red Sea Crossing, and the route of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt 3,000 years ago. This investigative tour de force explains the Ten Plagues, the true location of Mt. Sinai, the ultimate crossing of the Jordan, and much more. Colin Humphreys, a distinguished British scientist, uses physics, astronomy, biology, and other scientific resources to show that the mysteries and miracles of the Exodus have scientific explanations. These explanations allow us to pinpoint the exact nature, time, and place of these miracles, and to reconstruct, for the first time, the true route of the Exodus. Presented in a "you are there" style, this book reveals what really happened and how the biblical account is remarkably accurate and historical when scientifically investigated. Profusely illustrated with maps, photographs, and explanatory tables, this book by one of the world's great scientists unlocks the mysteries of the ultimate Bible story in a fascinating and convincing way.
Chapter One
Unlocking the Secrets of the Exodus Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. Exodus 19:18, 19 As I stood in the red light of the rising sun shining on the summit of Mount Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula, I sensed something was wrong. Why was this particular mountain special? Why had Moses led the Israelites about three thousand years ago to this mountain and not to one of the other mountains in the Sinai Peninsula, or even farther afield? To be sure, this mountain was majestic, but so were the other mountains visible from the top of Mount Sinai (see figure 1.1). There appeared to be nothing special about this particular mountain. And then I looked down to the dry and truly barren land below. How could two million Israelites, or even twenty thousand with their flocks and herds of animals, have survived for about a year at the desolate foot of Mount Sinai? There was little water and virtually no vegetation, apart from stunted acacia bushes dotted sparsely about. How could they have survived forty years of wandering in this barren wilderness? I knew that the Old Testament described the Israelites as living on quail, but these are migratory birds that pass over the Sinai Peninsula only in spring and autumn. In any case, the Bible texts refer to the Israelites eating quail on only two occasions, each for a few days. How were the Israelites, and their flocks and herds that lived on grass and plants, to survive at other times in the desolate wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula? There, in the spring of 1995, standing on the top of the traditional Mount Sinai, also called Jebel Musa, the Mountain of Moses, I resolved to tackle the problem of finding the real Mount Sinai. I knew that many historians and biblical scholars had worked on this problem, but I had an idea for a completely different approach: a more comprehensive study using the understanding of nature provided by modern science. I am a scientist, and as we will see later, looking at the events of the Exodus through the lenses of science does indeed enable us to solve the puzzle of what really happened three thousand years ago. However, the science has to be applied in the context of our knowledge of the ancient Israelites and ancient Egyptians. We will need to understand the history and the geography of the countries involved in the route of the Exodus. We will need to study the main source of information on the Exodus: the Old Testament.
Why might a scientific approach be useful in helping to solve the problems of the Exodus? Science involves the study of the universe, including our planet Earth, using detailed observation, logical thinking, and experiment. Scientists try to understand nature and answer questions like how a lunar eclipse occurs or how metals conduct electricity or how our brain works. The account of the Exodus abounds in extraordinary events reported to have occurred in nature, including a burning bush that wasn't consumed, the ten plagues of Egypt, a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud in the sky, the Red Sea being forced back so that the Israelites could cross then returning so rapidly that the Egyptian army was drowned, water from a rock, special food called manna, a mountain blazing with fire at its summit, and the River Jordan ceasing to flow, which enabled the Israelites to cross. These events are reported as occurring in our natural world, and some are explicitly stated in the Bible to have had a natural cause. We should therefore expect that present-day science may have an important contribution to make in our understanding of the events of the Exodus. Indeed, as we will see later in this book, I believe there is a natural explanation for all of the events listed above. In many cases this enables us to pinpoint geographically where these events must have occurred, and thus we can reconstruct the extraordinary Exodus journey. As far as I am aware, this is the first time that science (geology, biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics), in combination with history, geography, archaeology, ancient languages, and the Old Testament text, has been used to reconstruct the route of the Exodus. A natural explanation of the events of the Exodus doesn't to my mind make them any less miraculous. As we will see, the ancient Israelites believed that their God worked in, with, and through natural events. What made certain natural events miraculous was their timing: for example, the River Jordan stopped flowing precisely when the Israelites were assembled on its banks and desperate to cross. I will give a detailed natural explanation of this miracle in the next chapter. I believe this natural explanation makes this miracle more, not less, believable.
Like most books, this one is meant to be read from the front to the back. However, if you want to know what happened at the crossing of the Red Sea, for example, then you can go straight to the relevant chapter. I've tried to write this book so that each chapter is reasonably self- contained. I do hope, however, that you won't read only the "highlight" chapters on miracles like the Red Sea crossing. To do so would be to miss fascinating chapters like "The Lost Site of Etham," which doesn't involve miracles at all and is about finding a lost biblical site. It is only if you read the book straight through, from cover to cover, that you can see how the epic events of the Exodus unfold. Only then can you appreciate just how remarkable and amazing the Exodus was ... (Continues...)
Humphreys (material science, Cambridge Univ.) has produced a fascinating, highly readable series of scientific explanations for the miracles described in the stories of ancient Israel's exodus and wanderings in the desert. For example, he attributes the stopped flow of water in the Jordan (Joshua 3:15-16) to an earthquake-induced landslide and the burning bush to a volcanic vent opened underneath the bush. He supports his conclusions by consulting with biblical scholars and historical and scientific research. In a central point, that the traditional site identified as Mt. Sinai is wrong, he asserts that accounts of what happened on the mountain point to a volcano but that there is none on the Sinai peninsula. He posits that Mt. Bedr, in Saudi Arabia, is really Mt. Sinai. He concludes that miracles are incidents of extraordinary timing, which can therefore still be called miracles. Though controversial, his work is carefully researched and cogently argued. The subject matter will attract many readers. Recommended for both public and academic libraries.-David Bourquin, California State Univ., San Bernardino Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. Reconstructions of biblical events by modern investigators are nothing new, but Humphreys's analysis of the Exodus reflects an unusual combination of homework, legwork and creativity. Humphreys, a materials scientist at Cambridge University, is a self-confessed amateur in the fields of archeology and biblical studies. But he emerges as the best sort of amateur, whose enthusiasm for his subject and joy in puzzle solving have a contagious appeal in spite of occasional quirkiness. As an outsider asking pesky but often astute questions, Humphreys will remind some readers of a certain physicist portrayed in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!; and like Feynman, Humphreys shows an ability to sidestep scholarly assumptions by checking facts. Humphreys runs numbers, consults disused geological charts and old explorers' memoirs, and investigates sites on foot, unearthing fragmentary but wide-ranging evidence. The book's title is somewhat misleading since Humphreys's goal is to reconstruct the whole Exodus narrative and in particular, to retrace the likeliest route of travel and identify the correct location of Mount Sinai rather than to focus on the miracles themselves. Still, Humphreys rises to a self-imposed challenge to account for the Exodus miracles in terms of natural events (some more feasible than others) that become miraculous in light of their timing and significance for the escaping Hebrews. Although many of his hypotheses have been published before, Humphreys' refinements of detail and especially his comprehensive retracing of the Exodus route will invite curiosity, debate and perhaps some new ways of approaching the Exodus story in historical terms. (Apr.) Forecast: Timed to release shortly before Passover, this walk-through-Exodus detective story is well poised to attract attention. Humphreys has already rated a major article in the Sunday London Times and could also net some big media fish on this side of the pond. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. |
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