Is the Bible real?

INSANE THEORIES THAT EXPLAIN THE IMPOSSIBLE

OPEN

The Bible is the most popular book of all time. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it’s sold over 5 billion copies. Harry Potter only sold 500 million. The Bible’s collection of stories are literally ancient - they originate from the dawn of human history. The Bronze Age. When Pharaohs ruled Egypt, and Sumerians “wrote” by marking wedges on clay tablets - at the time, the most advanced form of writing the world had ever seen. 

Billions of people believe these tales reflect the word of God. But most consider them symbolic, or allegories. Only 25% believe they’re literally true. After all, the Bible describes supernatural miracles on Earth. Things that science knows to be impossible.

For example, the book of Exodus says God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger on stone tablets and had Moses store them in a golden Ark - which itself had magical powers. Most people don’t think that’s actually true. The Commandments provide principles to live by. But there is no actual Ark with magical tablets.

Except in the 1600’s, a theologian going through ancient manuscripts came across a note that not only claimed the Ark exists - it said exactly where it is.

RAIDERS OF THE FICTIONAL ARK

You probably saw the Ark of the Covenant in Steven Spielberg’s movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. In the film, the Ark is depicted as a giant wooden chest covered in gold leaf. It has two golden angels sitting on the lid, wings spread, facing each other.

The design was not the creative vision of Spielberg, or the movie’s prop master. You were seeing the work of God - if you believe in that kind of thing. Because the Ark is not just mentioned in the Bible, it’s described in great detail. And Spielberg followed the specs, right out of the Good Book. 

In the Biblical story, God commands the Ark be constructed two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. This was during a time when people knew what a cubit was – about the length from your forearm to the tip of your middle finger. And God was very particular about the materials Moses use to build this container. He said it should be made of acacia wood and overlaid with pure gold, inside and out.

Pretty specific for something purely fictional.

In fact, for centuries, archeologists and, frankly, smugglers looking to get rich, have been searching for this relic as if it was very real.

You’d think the Bible would just say where it could be found. But God didn’t make it that easy.

When Moses led the Ancient Israelites out of Egypt, the Ark was carried with them, every step of the way. And it did much more than hold the Commandments.

According to the Bible, the Ark’s very presence caused miracles to happen. It protected the Israelites during military campaigns. It parted the waters of the River Jordan so they could cross. It caused the walls of Jericho to fall, so they could conquer the city. Ultimately, the Ark was with the Ancient Israelites when they arrived in the Promised Land.

And generations later, King Solomon built a temple to house it. The temple became a focal point of worship in the city. And King Solomon himself was buried there, along with his legendary treasures.

So the Ark ended up in Solomon’s Temple.

Except the Temple’s gone. Several centuries later, Babylonians invaded and destroyed most of Jerusalem, including the temple. Was the Ark destroyed? Well, maybe not.

When the Babylonians were preparing to attack, the Israelites built tunnels underneath the city.

Archeologists suspect the Ark itself was saved from the Babylonians in these tunnels. So it’s just a matter of digging there and maybe the Ark will be revealed. But of all the places one might find relics, this particular site is pretty much off limits to digging. 

Because it’s among the holiest pieces of land on Earth.

The area where Solomon’s Temple used to stand is known today by Jews as the Temple Mount. The same site in Jerusalem is also considered sacred among Christians, who associate the site with events in the life of Jesus, as told in the Gospels. And that’s not all. This same site is also one of the holiest places on Earth for Muslims. It’s the location of the famous Dome of the Rock, an eight-sided building on the exact spot the prophet Muhammad made his journey to heaven.

Given that the site is sacred ground to three world religions, it’s not surprising it was off-limits to Archeological digs.

In fact, it’s dangerous to even explore the place. Tourists have been shot wandering the site by devout followers offended by anyone walking on the sacred grounds.

But archaeologists were always looking for a way to dig there. Because it was the most likely spot to find the Ark - and any of King Solomon’s treasures buried with it.

In 1909, a biblical scholar from Finland named Valter Juvelias actually managed to do it. And he nearly caused a Holy war in the process.

DIGGERS OF THE MOUNT

Juvelius was obsessed with Jewish mysticism, known as Kabbalah. He became convinced he cracked a numerical code hidden in biblical text, revealing the true location of the Ark of the Covenant.

It made him curious - what would it be worth if, say, he got his hands on it? A bit of research put the estimate at over 200 million dollars. That’s when Juvelius made a horrible decision. He was going to take it.

He was no Indiana Jones — he needed help.

He recruited Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker, a British war veteran turned socialite. Parker was actively courting a wealthy divorcee, who told him, “Bring back the Ark of the Covenant and I will talk to you again.”

That was all the motivation he needed.

Parker was in.

To raise money for the venture, he sold shares to wealthy businessmen excited to be part of the quest. Soon the expedition had millions backing it.

In 1908, Parker and Juvelius visited Jerusalem to scout locations for their excavation. Of course they couldn’t dig directly on the Temple Mount. Citizens of Jerusalem would be horrified by the thought. But they identified land nearby where underground tunnels could connect them to their goal.

At this time in history, Jerusalem was controlled by the Ottomans. So the next step for the team was to go to Istanbul and bribe officials for a license to dig.

The Ottoman Governor in charge of Jerusalem was very receptive to the idea of bribes. He forced landowners near the Temple Mount to sell their plot to the Explorers. And he gave a false excuse that Parker’s team was building a hospital to hide their true intentions.

In 1909 the well-funded team arrived in Jerusalem on a luxury yacht, rented a villa, and spent time sight seeing. Locals quickly realized these were some of the oddest archaeologists to ever visit Jerusalem.

When they began their dig, locals became concerned. They were clearly excavating near the Temple Mount. Immediately they were suspected of being after Solomon’s treasures. The hospital story wasn’t working. 

So Parker added a scholar to the team, to add trusted oversight. Someone who would ensure they were treating the dig - and anything they found - with proper care.

And to better endear themselves to locals, they hired 180 workers to dig and tunnel in four hour shifts, 24 hours a day.

This became the biggest excavation Jerusalem had ever seen.

Soon enough, they uncovered underground caverns, and large tunnels long ago buried. They found ancient lamps and pottery. But after a year of back breaking labor, they found no Ark.

And no tunnels that led under the Temple of the Mount.

That’s when they should have given up.

But in 1911 a coincidence of the calendar occurred. The orthodox Easter holiday happened on the same day as an Islamic celebration of Moses. And this sparked Parker’s interest. Because both holidays required followers to leave the city for the celebrations. Jerusalem would be fairly empty.

This was Parker’s chance to do the unthinkable. He would dig on the Temple Mount. 

He led a secret team of diggers. He paid off the man in charge of the Temple Mount grounds. And they excavated the holiest site on the planet.

Nine nights into the dig, Parker’s team was working near the Dome of the Rock. A caretaker not in on the plan - or not yet bribed - happened upon the operation. And all Hell broke loose.

Word spread fast that the site was being robbed. Locals began protesting. Mobs formed. Parker escaped to his yacht as riots broke out across Jerusalem. The people were certain their sacred land had been desecrated and robbed.

on May 4th, 1911, the New York Times ran the story: “Fear Diggers Took Ark of Covenant”. The report said the Turkish governor was mobbed in the streets for allowing this. Protesters called him a pig.

The sacred site of Solomon’s Temple was closed. The man in charge of the grounds was arrested, along with Parker’s translator. The Turkish governor was removed. Luckily these moves were enough to calm tensions between Turks and Arabs. Parker escaped to England. And the scholar they hired to oversee the expedition insisted nothing of value was ever taken.

In the years after, many more expeditions searched for the ark near Solomon’s Temple. Underground chambers fifty feet long have been discovered. Even evidence of an ancient synagogue. No one ever found any sign of the Ark of the Covenant. 

And there’s a good reason. Those tunnels weren’t used to hide the Ark - they were used to move it.

THE GUARDIAN OF THE ARK 

In the 12th century, historian Abu Salih wrote descriptions of Churches and Monasteries in Egypt and other parts of Africa. His manuscripts were purchased centuries later by King Louis the fourteenth. Among the hundreds of pages of history in Salih’s writings, there was a simple claim: “the Abyssinians possess the Ark of the Covenant in which are the two tables of stone, inscribed by the finger of God with the commandments”.

Abyssinia is modern day Ethiopia. Could the Ark have been moved to this North African country? According to the Bible, the answer might be yes. The book of Kings contains the story of a Queen from Abyssinia - none other than the Queen of Sheba - who visits King Solomon. This connection is legendary in Ethiopian culture - and celebrated in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian tradition.

The Ethiopian legend is called the “Kebra Nagast” or “Glory of the Kings”. And it tells the story of the Queen of Sheba having a son with King Solomon. The son grew up and returned to Jerusalem. And before he returned home to Aksum, he secretly stole the Ark of the Covenant and replaced it with a replica. 

The real Ark was brought home to Ethiopia and enshrined in the city of Aksum. It became foundational to the country’s Christian tradition and spiritual identity.

And to this day, the St. Mary of Zion Cathedral in Aksum claims to have it.

Skeptics point out an ancient wooden box could not survive the humidity of the Ethiopian rainy season. Certainly not for thousands of years. But the stone tablets would still survive.

And it turns out, early accounts from foreign travelers to the church in Aksum refer to a Tablet, rather than an Ark. The clergy at the church also describe the great relic they hold as a “sellat”, which translates to “tablet”, not Ark. 

These wouldn’t be the first sacred tablets to be found. Stones marking the covenant between God and man have survived in Mecca for at least sixteen centuries. Specifically the Black Stone and the stone block called the Station of Abraham. There is no reason why an ancient stone tablet could not have survived at Aksum as well.

So why can’t we go see the Ten Commandments in person?

Well, the clergy at the church say only one person - the Guardian of the Ark - is allowed to see them.

* * *

It’s not so hard to imagine the Ark exists. It’s a physical object. But there are supernatural events in the Bible impossible to explain with pure science.

One of the most famous examples - also depicted in major movies - was in the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

They were being chased by the Pharaoh’s army. And their escape was stopped short at the shores of the Red Sea. They were trapped. The Egyptians were closing in.

It was a desperate moment. But they were saved by a miracle.

Moses raised his staff, and - with God’s help - the waters of the Red Sea parted. A land bridge was revealed, connecting to the other side.

The Israelites were able to cross. Once they were safe on the other side, the waters returned, destroying the attacking army in its wake.

Pretty incredible story. No way it actually happened.

Except it happened again. With modern day witnesses. And Scientists proved it could be repeated using nature alone.

THE DISAPPEARING LAKE

It was an early morning in February, 1882. Major-General Alexander Tulloch was tasked with surveying Lake Menzaleh in Northern Egypt. He could see the Mediterranean directly north of the lake. And some distance to the Southeast - separated by the Sinai Peninsula - was the famous Red Sea, where Moses made that impossible crossing.

And that morning something happened that seemed awfully familiar.

A gale of wind rose so strong from the East, Tulloch had to stop his work and seek shelter.

The wind lasted all night. Tulloch awoke to discover that Lake Menzaleh had - in his own words - “totally disappeared”. The effect of the high wind on the relatively shallow water drove it away. “Beyond the horizon” as he later described it. 

And he witnessed natives walking on mud where the day before fishing boats were floating.

It didn’t take long for Tulloch to make the connection - this natural wind effect was very similar to that biblical miracle four thousand years before.

In 2015, Scientist Carl Drews read Tulloch’s account and recognized it as a possible “Wind Setdown”. This is a known weather event. Think of it as the opposite of a storm surge. Wind stress acts on the surface of a body of water for an extended period of time. As the wind blows, water recedes from the upwind shore and exposes terrain formerly underwater.

Drews wasn’t the first scientist to suggest a Wind Setdown could explain the parting of the Red Sea. But he was the first to create a model and prove it.

He used a site in the Nile delta and conducted satellite surveys. He conducted a series of experiments attempting to prove a Wind Setdown could cause a body of water to divide under wind stress.

The results were picked up by news outlets around the world, including ABC News, MSNBC, and NPR among many others. Because Drews experiment worked. His computer simulations showed that with a sufficiently strong wind force blown steadily for a night, an area of flats would be exposed. The model resulted in a temporary land bridge where the river led into the mouth of a lake. And it was plenty big enough to hold Moses and his followers. The land bridge was nearly two miles long and 3 miles wide.

The genius of the simulation was the choice of location, using a point where a branch of the Nile flowed into the Lake of Tanis.

Because at this point, when the waters receded, they created walls of water on both sides of the land bridge.

Just like in the movie.

According to Drews, "The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that's in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in."

He was able to duplicate the story in Exodus.

And when the wind dies down in the simulation, the land bridge quickly disappears. The water returns. If pharaoh’s army was trying to cross, they would be quickly drowned.

Historians insist biblical stories have little correlation to actual events. But Science keeps finding signs the craziest tales could have actually happened.

Like when archaeologists took soil samples deep under an ancient tomb. And found a gap in the layers of clay between the evidence of human civilization. What happened to cause the gap in human history? Sure looked like there was a tremendous flood.

EVIDENCE OF THE FLOOD

The biblical flood was catastrophic. God’s intent was nothing less than destroying all life on Earth. He made it rain forty days and nights. The Earth was entirely flooded, rising higher than the highest mountains.

Only Noah and his family were spared. Along with representatives of all the animals so they could, well, start this whole humanity experiment over again.

The story of Noah serves as a powerful moral lesson about paying attention to God. But clearly it didn’t actually happen.

The highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest at 29,032 feet - 5.5 miles above sea level. For water to cover the planet in amounts that would rise above Everest, we’re talking nearly 5 billion cubic kilometers of water. That’s 1.3 trillion gallons.

Add to that, Forty days of rain is ten times longer than the most violent rainfall ever recorded. 

If we were hit with rain this long, scientists project a rise in global sea levels of 2,600 feet. That’s a long way from covering the 29,032 feet of Everest.

The most rainfall ever recorded in a year was in India, in 1860. Incredibly, they experienced 86 feet of rain. 

You have to go back to the ice age to find the largest flood ever. 14,500 years ago when giant Mammoths walked the Earth, a massive ice dam blocked the Columbia River in Idaho. Well, what is now Idaho - there was no Idaho in the ice age. The point is, the ice dam resulted in a flood that covered the modern-day Pacific Northwest - Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The flood was violent and fast-moving. Massive canyons were carved out from the force of the water. You can see the results along the Snake River today. 

But even the largest flood ever did not cover the Earth.

This biblical flood may be just a story.

Unless this flood wasn’t necessarily global at all.

The stories of the bible aren’t actually global in scope. They take place in the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean world.

There’s no mention of, for example, China. Or Australia - no kangaroos on Noah’s ark.

The biblical Noah lived in Mesopotamia.

And the Mesopotamian plain is one of the flattest places on earth. It’s less than 60 feet above sea level. 

And it’s famously between two giant rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates. That’s literally what the word Mesopotamia means in the original Greek: between two rivers. The water in the Tigris and Euphrates are only 8 feet above sea level. And they cut through the flat plains for hundreds of miles.

Before dams were built in the 1920’s, southern Mesopotamia actually had a “flood season”. Two-thirds of the area could be underwater at any point between March and August.

Making it worse, north and east of the plains, the land rises dramatically - over 3,000 feet in some places. So flood waters are easily trapped.

And because southern Mesopotamia is one of the flattest places on earth, floodwaters drain extremely slowly. 

To Noah, a flood in this region would appear catastrophic. He would see water covering everything from one horizon to the other.

Of course, if there was a flood of this magnitude - even one local to Mesopotamia - we’d find evidence.

And that’s exactly what happened.

It was the 1928 excavation season in southern Mesopotamia. Archaeologist Sir Charles Woolley was already celebrating tremendous success. His team uncovered Sumerian tombs deep under the ancient city of Ur. His find dated back 2500 years BCE.

Before calling his work finished, he directed the team to sink a small test shaft into the underlying soil. 

This was more than an afterthought. Soil analysis can reveal a bounty of information. Layers of deposits can indicate who occupied the site and how they lived. The order of layers reveal the sequence of events over time. And soil reveals a history of environmental conditions at the site.

So he directed the team to dig deep. They persisted through nearly eight feet of bare mud. Only then did they get to prehistoric artifacts. 

This was odd - why the layers of nothing followed by signs of civilization? 

The team all had the same thought. But it was Woolley’s wife who said the words out loud: “Well, of course, it’s the flood.”

More digs followed to verify the find. Similar flood levels were also found under the ancient city of Kish.

A few years later, at the site of a third ancient Sumerian city called Shuruppak, another flood stratum was found.

It turns out, somewhere around 2500 BCE, there was actually a catastrophic flood in Mesopotamia.

And the Bible was not the first book to mention it.

THE OTHER NOAH

In November of 1872, George Smith was volunteering at the British Museum. He was not a scientist, just a 32 year old engraver from a print shop. But his skills were useful. He was tasked with sifting through hundreds of thousands of pieces of clay tablets with ancient writing. And where he could, he was to put the pieces together.

Archaeologists brought the tablet fragments from digs in Iraq. But there were so many. Too many. No one had the time or motivation to determine which piece went with what. Most pieces had cuneiform hieroglyphs - the earliest form of writing. They depicted daily life around 700 BC. 

Smith spent his days dutifully re-assembling references to oxen and slaves and wine and legal contracts with Assyrian officials.

Smith found success on occasion - he was able to establish dates for some minor events in Israelite history. Museum officials were excited. That made Smith eager to hunt for more biblical ties.

That’s when he came across a tablet fragment that would be one of the most sensational finds in the history of archaeology.

On the tablet was writing that predated the Bible. Yet there was a story about a flood. And a ship that battled the flood and ended up on a mountain. There was even a Noah-like figure who built the ship - let’s go ahead and call it an Ark.

At that moment no one knew what he had found. Smith only had a few pieces of the story - and they were encrusted with thick, lime-like deposits. They would have to be restored by museum experts. Smith wanted to use the discovery to turn himself into an Archaeologist. Word spread of this ancient flood story - and Smith wanted to go back to the ruins and find the missing pieces. He convinced the Daily Telegraph to sponsor him on an expedition.

Smith was completely unprepared when he arrived in Iraq. He didn’t speak any of the local languages - Arabic, Turkish, or Persian. In fact, he’d never set foot outside England.

Still, he managed to get himself to the ancient city of Nineveh - one of the most important in ancient Mesopotamia. And he began searching the excavation where the flood story fragments had originally been discovered.

The idea he’d find the missing pieces of this one story among the thousands of fragments was absurd - it was a needle in a haystack.

Yet he did.

The story of this ancient flood was soon fully assembled. Smith connected it with other tablets until he realized the full breadth of his discovery.

For the first time, the modern world could read one of the earliest examples of literature created by humans: the 4,000 year old Epic of Gilgamesh.

And within this larger epic is a story strikingly similar to Noah's Ark.

In the Mesopotamian version, the Noah-like hero is Ziusudra. The gods - there were more than one back then - sent a flood to destroy humanity. Ziusudra is instructed to build an ark to save himself, his family, and - yes - various animals. The stories match that closely.

After the flood subsides, Ziusudra lands on a mountain and offers sacrifices to the gods. Exactly as Noah does in the biblical version.

The Mesopotamian flood story is the earliest known flood myth in human history.

So not only was there a flood in the region, but there is more than one ancient story referencing the family that survived the ordeal in a giant ark.

And there has been no end to the expeditions of people looking to find this iconic boat. The bible says it landed on Mount Ararat. But early on, Turkish officials kept climbers away, wanting to protect the legend from being debunked. 

Then, in 1917, a Russian aviator stationed in Turkey was testing an airplane. He and his copilot spotted something odd on the shore of a lake near Mount Ararat.

Nearly 400 miles from the nearest ocean, the pilot saw a shipwreck.

THE OTHER ARK

Like the Ark of the Covenant, the Bible provides Noah the exact dimensions for his Ark. Unlike the Ark of the Covenant, which could be hidden in tunnels, Noah’s Ark would be hard to miss.

In the Book of Genesis, God lays out his plan for this enormous boat. Noah is asked to build it 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.

As we said earlier, a cubit is basically the length from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger. If we call it 18 inches, that makes the Ark 450 feet long.

That would be too big to fit in an NFL Stadium. It’s half the size of the HMS Titanic. And it would be a staggering four and a half stories tall.

Keep in mind, the tallest structure in Ancient Mesopotamia was likely the Great Ziggurat of Ur. This was basically a pyramid built in steps. It was a marvel of engineering at the time. And it was only 20 feet taller than the Ark Noah was asked to build.

The point is, it shouldn’t be hard to spot.

The Russian test pilot was the first Ark eye witness to get serious attention. He was stationed near Ararat near the start of the Russian Revolution. On an August test flight of a new supercharged airplane, he saw the snow-capped peak of Ararat rising above him. Knowing it had never been scaled in modern times, he decided to check it out.

According to his reports later, he circled the peak and saw a lake on the south side. And there was the hulk of a ship.

He reported this to the Czar and soldiers were sent to investigate.

Nothing more was reported from the Russian side. But an Archdeacon from Jerusalem took a team and climbed to the lake. He confirmed it was the resting place of the vessel, pronouncing, “I am very positive we are beholding the ark of Noah.”

Theologians eager to believe speculated the Ark was covered in snow most of the year. And it was only because the pilot was flying in August, he was able to spot the wreckage.

Witnesses to this day continue to claim sighting a boat-like structure on Ararat. And these claims continue to drive expeditions and searches for a sign - a piece of ancient wood, a nail - anything to confirm the Ark was there.

To-date the 13,780 foot mountain has undergone extensive searches, both on the ground and from the sky. Few places on Ararat remain to search.

This led to a theory the Ark is buried. That the remains are not in plain view. Two searches involving sub-surface radar - called GPR, or Ground Penetrating Radar - were conducted in the 1980’s. This technology allows scientists to search under the ice.

While they did not find the Ark, they did determine the ice was thick enough to hide the giant vessel.

Of course, there’s another possibility.

Theologians have pointed out the Bible’s exact language regarding the Ark’s final resting place refers to “the mountains of Ararat”. Not “Mount Ararat”. The Bible says Noah’s ship landed somewhere on the mountains or highlands of Armenia. In fact, “Ararat” can be accurately translated to mean “highlands”. In biblical times, “Ararat” was not even the name of a mountain. It was a province, or an area. Only in the eleventh century CE did focus turn to Mount Ararat as the ark’s final resting place. 

Before that time, Islamic and Christian tradition held that the landing place of the Ark was on Jabel Judi.

That’s a completely different mountain. 20 miles southeast of Mount Ararat.

And maybe the Ark’s true resting place.

PLAGUES

Some events in the Bible are beyond supernatural - they seem borderline insane.

Take the story of Moses and the Plagues.

In the Book of Exodus, God directs Moses to confront the Pharaoh - Egypts leader. Moses is told to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery.

Here the Pharaoh makes a mistake. Apparently he didn’t believe God was behind the request. Because he says no.

So, to demonstrate His power, God sends a series of plagues on Egypt. After each plague, the Pharaoh has the chance to change his answer. It took ten different and increasingly more brutal plagues before the Pharaoh was moved to let the chosen people go.

So what were these plagues?

First, the Nile river was turned from water into blood. As a result, the river could no longer sustain life. All the fish died and there was widespread suffering among Egyptians who relied on the river.

There is no scientific way a body of water could change into blood.

Yet there’s a detail in the story that suggests this might not be exactly what happened. The narrative mentions Egyptians dug wells to find drinkable water. This suggests the soil along the riverbanks was able to filter out whatever was causing the red coloring, making the water fit for consumption.

So what exactly made the water turn red?

Scientists have pointed to a bloom of “Red Algae”, or Rhodophyta, as the answer. If this microscopic algae reproduced in great enough numbers, the waters would be stained a bloody red.

But this type of algae is more suited to deeper waters - the red pigment allows the algae to better absorb blue and green light, more prominent in the depths. And they tend to bloom in calm waters, not the active river flow of the Nile.

But there is another answer.

In 1925, a Dutch geologist became convinced the plagues had a volcanic origin. 

Volcanic ash is partly made of sulfate salts - which confer a red color when they dissolve in water.

There are no volcanoes in Egypt. But with a big enough eruption, a distant volcano can still cause destruction.

In 1991 the Hudson volcano in Chili erupted. The cloud of ash that resulted was eleven miles wide and five miles thick. 

And winds carried the cloud of ash over cities 500 miles away.

Intrigued by the volcano theory, English scholar John Bennet researched possible activity around the time of the Ancient Israelites.

It turns out, 500 miles from Moses and the Nile river is the volcanic island of Thera. In the Aegean sea.

And between 2000 and 1200 BC Thera erupted. This was no small event. The Thera eruption was the most violent in the Mediterranean of the last 10,000 years.

Large quantities of ash could have polluted the waters of the Nile. And the sulfates would have turned the water red.

This would also explain how Egyptian wells could still produce drinkable water. Soil along the river would filter out the ash.

This same ash is highly acidic. Fish would not survive, as told in the bible.

This would not be the last time fish were killed by the acidification of their habitat. In the 1980s, the waters in Scandinavia were polluted by sulphate and nitrogen deposits, killing fish in their freshwater lakes.

There’s even an example of volcanic acidification of water documented in Indonesia.

Science seems to have a reasonable answer for this first plague.

But of course, this was only one of ten. Things get crazier from here.

Next, God sent an infestation of frogs. Every surface, every roof, on every bed in the land was covered in frogs.

Now, frog infestations were not unknown in Ancient Egypt. But this was beyond any normal cycle of frog over-breeding. There have even been rains of frogs recorded. Winds pick up frogs in one location and dump them elsewhere.

But this doesn’t explain frogs invading people’s homes. And even making it into the royal palace.

This was followed by an infestation of bugs. The Book of Exodus calls them “kinnim”, which scholars understand to mean mosquitos, gnats, or lice.

This kinnim attacked “animals and humans alike”.

The bugs were followed by a swarm of “arob”, which translates to flies. These flies infested the house of the Pharaoh and all his officials.

At this point in the story, Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelites go. But when the flies disappear, he changes his mind. 

So God sends more plagues.

Next is a fatal pestilence that killed most of the domestic animals. Then the Pharaoh and his servants were stricken with painful boils all over their bodies. 

For the seventh plague, hail strikes down on the crops, shattering trees. Pharaoh still refuses to budge.

And God has more devastation in store. Next he sends swarms of locusts that cover the face of the land and swallow up every crop. This is followed by complete darkness over the land for three days and nights. Egyptians had to feel their way around to survive.

Pharaoh tries to make a deal at this point - Moses and his people can go if they leave the livestock. Moses - probably feeling he’s got leverage now - refuses the deal. And God brings out the tenth and objectively worst plague yet. According to the Bible, at midnight God sent an angel through Egypt to kill every firstborn son. From the child of Pharoah himself, to “the firstborn son of the slave girl who is at her handmill.” Oddly, firstborn cattle were killed as well. 

Israelites were spared - they marked their doors with lambs blood so God knew to pass them over.

Pharaoh losing his own son was too much for him. The Israelites were finally allowed to leave.

Now, maybe Mainstream Science could offer a natural reason for each of these plagues individually.

But the chances of all ten happening one after the other are, well, zero. It’s impossible. We’re back in the world of the supernatural.

Unless this was a chain of events from a single cause.

In 2005, Professor Siro Trevisanato decided to take the volcanic theory further.

And with every new plague, the theory held.

If the river was red from acidic volcanic ash, the frogs in the river would be suddenly driven out. And they would be desperate for a source of fresh water. Buildings like the royal palace had fountains and water basins, which explains the frogs’ presence inside.

Ultimately, the frogs would die along with the fish.

And with dead animals suddenly lying everywhere, the natural next step is insects laying eggs in the decaying matter. Larvae would hatch by the millions. The land would be crawling with all manner of grubs and pests.

At the same time, the high amount of acidic ash in the air can lead to skin damage. They call it acid rain for a reason. In fact, the biblical text even references burning rain destroying the trees and killing livestock.

The boils described in the pestilence on humans and animals suddenly make perfect sense.

With a volcanic cloud this intense, weather patterns can be affected. 

When Mount Saint Helens in Washington erupted in 1980, vast parts of North America were hit with violent weather patterns.

So the idea that there would be hail and thunderstorms severe enough to take down trees and kill animals is not such a stretch.

Volcanic particles in the air also make humidity higher and increase ground moisture. Which is exactly what triggers locusts to flip from peaceful to aggressive. Mesopotamia - a breeding ground for locusts - would suddenly have the perfect environment to wake them from their sleep.

The 9th plague of darkness could be a result of the toxic volcanic air suffocating the Egyptians. In Deuteronomy, there is a description of a sky of bronze from which dust rains down making it impossible to see.

So - this one massive volcanic eruption 500 miles away could have wrought havoc on the Nile basin. The people searching to explain the destruction would feel they were under attack from God Himself.

Which leads to the sad explanation for the last plague, the death of the firstborn children. 

Scientists have suggested a black mold may have infected the grains as a result of the pestilence. And maybe this caused the death of the children. But this is a stretch - hard to imagine just the first born being impacted.

The disturbing truth is, child sacrifice was not uncommon in ancient mesopotamia. As recently as 2018, Archaeologists excavated a Bronze Age cemetery and found the bones of children, their bodies clearly positioned for a religious sacrifice.

It’s possible the ancient Egyptians were convinced God was furious at them, and feared more disasters would start.

And the solution may have been to appease God by making these horrible sacrifices. The pagan inhabitants of the Nile Delta may have brought this last “plague” on themselves.

THE END

For those living in the bronze age, all natural events had to be explained without modern science. Not surprisingly, that meant God was often used as the explanation. Of course, believers will tell you even in a natural event explained by Science, God is still somewhere behind the curtain.

For example, Astronomers confirm that on April 17, in the year 6 BC, there was an unusual alignment in the night sky. Jupiter, Saturn, the moon and the sun formed a conjunction in the early morning hours. At the time, Jupiter was in retrograde motion - meaning it appears to change direction as Earth’s orbit overtakes it. See, normally, planets move eastward if you’re following them in the sky. But that night, this unusual alignment would have appeared to be a single, bright morning star. And if you were in the Judean desert watching, maybe with two of your wise friends, you would see it move west. And come to rest over the town of Bethlehem.