Crossing the Red Sea

[psychomom]

I thought the very same. How can one explain the supernatural in a natural perspective?

i think this thread proves it cannot, and indeed, should not be done.

 

[just-me]

i think this thread proves it cannot, and indeed, should not be done.

If we believe it, it's by faith alone that we believe. I believe that it's true just like Hezekiah's time dial of Ahaz that turned in the opposite direction 10 degrees, and the sun standing still during battle. It's all true.

 

[Bowhunter2394]

Anybody WITNESSED the Supernatural in Person? are your senses fine tuned to see those things others don't? Are you strong Enough to ward off the hounds of hades, that when you do explain something, they immediately call the sorcerers and magicians down on you.... to the doctor, you forgot your meds... or you really should get some help... carnal man loves to do that.. tares-weeds do the same.... indeed... Plus it would be wise as to who you 'give your pearls to'... you give them to swine.. they'll just tread them down.. deficate on them and carry on...lolz... which brings me to this point... put yourself in the feet of Moses, if God told you to raise your rod and part the Water, would you do it? or would you ask God to give you a Sign , to prove it was Him telling you to do it... indeed! thats where the rubber hits the road... Genuine or 'stage player'... indeed...

 

[atwhatcost]

4. Hort's anthrax theory
Anthrax occurs in soil, not in the Nile. It does not infect aquatic animals like fish or frogs (whether dead or alive). In fact, some of the frogs returned to, and remained in, the Nile when God lifted the plague Exodus 8:11. Anthrax infects land animals which graze on grass contaminated by anthrax spores in the soil.
5. Her biting flies
Biting flies do not spread anthrax to either animals or humans, nor do they feed on dead animals. In the medical-veterinary history of anthrax there are ‘no known cases of anthrax-infected fly bites of humans, cattle or sheep anywhere in the world’
6. The Nile in flood
Hort depends on flood waters to breed her mosquitoes and biting flies, as well as to provide the widespread coating of red mud/dust on the land that she claims was blown aloft to cause the plague of darkness. However, Exodus makes no mention of flood waters during the plagues. On the contrary, Moses meets Pharaoh on the banks of the Nile Exodus 7:15, and the Egyptians dig along the Nile to search for drinking water Exodus 7:24. When a river is at flood stage, it is referred to as being "out of banks". In other words the water has extended beyond the boundaries of its banks, hence flooded. Had the Nile been at flood stage, Moses and Pharaoh could not have met on the banks of the Nile. These are not descriptions of a flooded river.
7. Her desert storm of red dust
Hort depends on flooding for her plagues of frogs, flies and locusts, with more water added from the hailstorm. She does not explain how the khamsin dried out this massive saturation of the alleged red mud coating so that it could have turned into dust and been blown aloft in just a few hours. The Egyptians would have been used to desert storms. Pharaoh would hardly have been influenced by one, even if it lasted three days.
8. Hort’s ‘first fruits’ instead of ‘firstborn’
It is manifestly disingenuous of Hort to claim a mistranslation of one Hebrew word in the biblical account to substantiate her naturalistic theory, and then for her to disregard the two-and-a-half chapters of the same source document Exodus 11:1-13:16 that describe in great detail the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians and the saving of the firstborn of the Israelites.

She's very fortunate I was only a baby when she came up with her junk. I would have done what you're doing. Anthrax? Yeesh, not a water thingy. And river mud does come only in flood, but no one is crazy enough to go to the edge of a flooding river. And, first fruit? Huh? That's just dumb.

 

[atwhatcost]

there are many places in the masoretic where how to translate is not clear... often, for example, the kjv translators would use the lxx or vulgate in those places...

one thing we're not sure of is what system of numbers they were using back then...

The KJV scholars were under a tight thumb (yet still maintained as much as they could to get it right.) The Vulgate (also done to the best possible at that time) had errors of its own. Now the source MSS are more open for scholars and more archaeological finds have taught the scholars more. There's more to the reasoning for making more modern versions than just getting rid of the Ye's and Thou's.

 

[atwhatcost]

how many people in ND back when the only available technology was hunter-gatherer or primitive agriculture?

More than enough to beat Custer, and that's fewer than before whites showed up. Have you ever seen a city of 100,000 people? Now, put that same population in a bigger area (like, say the Sinai Peninsula), and it doesn't shrink the number. It just spreads them out further. The Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, weren't good buddies, but when some foreigners showed up, they gathered and united big time. That is something like I'm imagining happened to/with the Israelites. It was wilderness, but so were the Dakotas.

also, I think ND may have better soil than sinai... I'm pretty sure SC does...

It may have, but the natives weren't using it for farming either.

there are spatterings of people in tx... that's why I chose china... imagine if a billion people decended into tx... how would they look to the, I don't know, 10 million people there?

Hey? Did we just agree? Because now you're doing the same thing I was doing (increasing numbers) but in a bigger way. lol

 

[atwhatcost]

here's an example... Gen 1:2... do you have a nasb around? check the notes... is God's spirit moving or hovering... granted there's overlap in the meaning of those two words, but I think we can agree that the meaning is not the same...

Sorry, didn't bother with NASB this time. (Used to have it, but figured I've got enough scholars to learn from, so I don't have to download 20 versions.)

KJV through Strong's Concordance:
râchaph
raw-khaf'
A primitive root; to brood; by implication to be relaxed: - flutter, move, shake.

ASV - moved
ESV - hovering
Barnes - rāchaph, “be soft, tremble.” Piel, “brood, flutter.”
Clarke - Moved - מרחפת merachepheth, was brooding over; for the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen while either hatching her eggs or fostering her young. It here probably signifies the communicating a vital or prolific principle to the waters. As the idea of incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the original word, hence probably the notion, which prevailed among the ancients, that the world was generated from an egg.
Gill (warning, he's long winded) - and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, which covered the earth, Psa_104:6 the earthy particles being heaviest sunk lower, and the waters being lighter rose up above the others: hence Thales (q) the philosopher makes water to be the beginning of all things, as do the Indian Brahmans (r): and Aristotle (s) himself owns that this was the most ancient opinion concerning the origin of the universe, and observes, that it was not only the opinion of Thales, but of those that were the most remote from the then present generation in which he lived, and of those that first wrote on divine things; and it is frequent in Hesiod and Homer to make Oceanus, or the ocean, with Tethys, to be the parents of generation: and so the Scriptures represent the original earth as standing out of the water, and consisting of it, 2Pe_3:5 and upon the surface of these waters, before they were drained off the earth, "the Spirit of God moved"; which is to be understood not of a wind, as Onkelos, Aben Ezra, and many Jewish writers, as well as Christians, interpret it; since the air, which the wind is a motion of, was not made until the second day. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it the spirit of mercies; and by it is meant the Spirit of the Messiah, as many Jewish writers (t) call him; that is, the third Person in the blessed Trinity, who was concerned in the creation of all things, as in the garnishing of the heavens, so in bringing the confused matter of the earth and water into form and order; see Job_26:13. This same Spirit "moved" or brooded (u) upon the face of the waters, to impregnate them, as an hen upon eggs to hatch them, so he to separate the parts which were mixed together, and give them a quickening virtue to produce living creatures in them. This sense and idea of the word are finely expressed by our poet (w). Some traces of this appear in the νους or mind of Anaxagoras, which when all things were mixed together came and set them in order (x); and the "mens" of Thales he calls God, which formed all things out of water ; and the "spiritus intus alit", &c. of Virgil; and with this agrees what Hermes says, that there was an infinite darkness in the abyss or deep, and water, and a small intelligent spirit, endued with a divine power, were in the chaos (z): and perhaps from hence is the mundane egg, or egg of Orpheus (a): or the firstborn or first laid egg, out of which all things were formed; and which he borrowed from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and they perhaps from the Jews, and which was reckoned by them a resemblance of the world. The Egyptians had a deity they called Cneph, out of whose mouth went forth an egg, which they interpreted of the world (b): and the Zophasemin of the Phoenicians, which were heavenly birds, were, according to Sanchoniatho (c), of the form of an egg; and in the rites of Bacchus they worshipped an egg, as being an image of the world, as Macrobius (d) says; and therefore he thought the question, whether an hen or an egg was oldest, was of some moment, and deserved consideration: and the Chinese say (e), that the first man was produced out of the chaos as from an egg, the shell of which formed the heavens, the white the air, and the yolk the earth; and to this incubation of the spirit, or wind, as some would have it, is owing the windy egg of Aristophanes (f). (Thomas Chamlers (1780-1847) in 1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required. (g) This speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In Exo_20:11 we read of a literal six day creation. No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also, in Rom_5:12 we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam. There is no direct evidence that the earth is much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent.
JFB - the Spirit of God moved — literally, continued brooding over it, as a fowl does, when hatching eggs. The immediate agency of the Spirit, by working on the dead and discordant elements, combined, arranged, and ripened them into a state adapted for being the scene of a new creation. The account of this new creation properly begins at the end of this second verse; and the details of the process are described in the natural way an onlooker would have done, who beheld the changes that successively took place.

Did I miss the implication of the word we use? This is what I'm saying. Scholars have been working out the details for centuries. We fell in a good time, because we benefit from all their hard work. If we want to learn what a word in the Bible means, most of the time someone's already put in the effort.

Even when they can't come up with the exact right word, they still put in the effort, and then tell us what that effort was. If we want to learn the effort, we have to put in a little less effort and read what they wrote. (eSword.net makes it much less effort. lol) That easy.

 

[atwhatcost]

hi again...

I realized after I turned off my computer and went about my day that I may have missed the point of your post...

South Carolina does have good resources, yet no empire or large cities appeared there until modern times...

so, lack of an empire doesn't show lack of resources, but I think existence of empire shows presence of good resources...

so, backing up a few steps... is it your view that the reason that the people groups in sinai were sometimes able to mount some resistance to israel is that there were groups of people in the area numbering about 3,000,000?

Heaven's no! I'm not that crazy. lol

It's my opinion that if someone comes on your land and starts using it without your approval, you're going to fight, no matter the numbers. And, because it's my land and I have more to lose, I have advantage despite the numbers.

The Brits beat back Germany, American colonist beat back England, and even some native Americans beat back the seventh cavalry, all because "it's my land!!!" The only reason the Israelites won, is because God chose them. The natives of that wilderness had all rights to fight. They missed "God is on our side."

I'm thinking maybe 100,000, maybe 500,000 in that area banded together. We're not told how many, only how many Israelites fought and how long the battle lasted. (Oh, and a staff held up by Moses with a little help from his friends.) Also, remember 3 million was everybody. A "mere" 600,000 men. But the number of natives, I was guessing all, including the women and kids. But I really am guessing in comparison to places I know better and populations of those folks. It really is mostly guess work with a little memory that Isaac's half-brother Ishmael's descendants lived there. I remember reading his genealogy in Genesis, and it grew pretty big by the time it stopped continuing. There are tribes by this time.

 

[atwhatcost]

I would think obviously it means solid enough for them to traverse without getting their feet muddy. You cannot relativize this. The text says dry ground. This is ground that is solid enough to accommodate not only the people but their great herds of livestock, carts, and wagons. This was far more weight on the path than the chariots of Egypt and the muddy ground would be more taxing on the people of Israel that on the chariots. The simple fact is that to say the confounding of the chariot wheels was caused by mud, you have to add that to the text because the word mud in simply not there, neither literally nor by inference. You have to add this to the text in spite of the fact that the text says it was dry ground!

I think Dan and I are both stuck on if there were carts and/or wagons. Does anyone know when Egyptian carts and/or wagons came along compared to when Moses and the gang left? I know they pinpointed when the Israelites worked, because most of the pyramids don't have hay in their bricks, but do we know when carts showed up?

 

[atwhatcost]

all i can say is it's a good thing God's people didn't need as much
time to cross on dry ground as this thread's been going.

If I was there, it would have taken this long. lol

 

[atwhatcost]

i like to laugh, especially at myself.

but i'm honestly perplexed...why in the world would Christians read about
something so miraculously wonderful as this history of the Sovereign God
intervening for His own, and pick it apart in the natural...

rather than bowing low in worship?

-- We live in the city, where bumper-to-bumper parking is assumed. It's a good day if we can park on our half of the block. Often we have to park on the next street up. Sometimes we have to park two blocks away. And, yet, every time we go grocery shopping, when we come home, we can find a spot withing three houses from ours. (Each house is attached and each house is 16 feet wide -- a bit wider counting the brick walls between houses, so that's as close as people with big yards but no driveways get.) That's natural. That's also God.

-- Our waste pipe takes out all the waste from every sink and toilet we have, plus it's our drain pipe for our back yard. If it breaks, it will cost us the type of money we can never save up. So, every time it clogs up, I worry it broke. It hasn't. It's clogged. Clogged is fixable. That's natural. That's God.

-- I have this bad back. Thankfully, I had this comfy chair that worked perfect for me. It broke. That's natural. That's God. We brought down what looks like a comfy chair (and was my comfy chair, until my back went bad) from upstairs. It's not the exact degree of reclining ability as my broken comfy chair, so it hurt me worse. That's natural. That's God. So, we swapped that out for a corner of our sectional sofa. I'm sitting on it now. It's also not the exact degree of recline as my broken comfy chair, so it hurts more. I've added a towel to the front to give me more recline. It helps. It's still not enough. Unfortunately, that lead me to realize, we might well have to buy something like 10 comfy chairs before we find one that works for me. (Can't afford one. When did they get so expensive? ) My problem is I can't tell if it hurts unless I sit in it for a day, and furniture stores frown on people sitting on their furniture for a day. My comfy chair is a LaZboy. Guess what. LaZboy has a lifetime guarantee. For a mere $125ish they will come out, find which parts are broken and fix it for me. That's natural. That's God.

I like watching God do his thing naturally. Sometimes he does miracles, but he does naturally for our good every day. I like watching him in action, so I like getting into the nitty-gritty of what he did in the Bible to watch him at work. It's a weird thing I have. Isn't that a kind of worship? (Sorry, bad back, so the bowing thing will have to wait until the new body. lol)

 

[atwhatcost]

If we believe it, it's by faith alone that we believe. I believe that it's true just like Hezekiah's time dial of Ahaz that turned in the opposite direction 10 degrees, and the sun standing still during battle. It's all true.

That's definitely a supernatural God miracle. (So is the parting of the Red Sea.) I love God's natural answers. I'm completely wowed by his big time miracles.

 

[atwhatcost]

Anybody WITNESSED the Supernatural in Person? are your senses fine tuned to see those things others don't? Are you strong Enough to ward off the hounds of hades, that when you do explain something, they immediately call the sorcerers and magicians down on you.... to the doctor, you forgot your meds... or you really should get some help... carnal man loves to do that.. tares-weeds do the same.... indeed... Plus it would be wise as to who you 'give your pearls to'... you give them to swine.. they'll just tread them down.. deficate on them and carry on...lolz... which brings me to this point... put yourself in the feet of Moses, if God told you to raise your rod and part the Water, would you do it? or would you ask God to give you a Sign , to prove it was Him telling you to do it... indeed! thats where the rubber hits the road... Genuine or 'stage player'... indeed...

Nope. Not strong enough. That's where I have to trust God.

And, I'm not against medication. It's not witchcraft. Without it, hubby would have died in 2002. Either the diabetes or the high blood pressure would have gotten him. If not that, he'd be slowly dying now from Hep C. (Praise God, he had the only form that was curable with chemo!!! Praise God for giving researchers the wherewithal to come up with new treatment to cure others since.)

And, I'd probably have a a stroke by now. I've got triglycerides to the degree where doctors tend to not believe they can go that high, but statins keep them in control. (They also have trouble believing that I really do avoid fat and it's not genetic. It's directly related to losing my gall bladder.) Also, without them I'd be catatonic. My body doesn't get "time to sleep" anymore. And then there is the chronic pain. So, nope, I don't think medication is sorcery. If God didn't want scientists to discover how to help people with pills, they wouldn't find ways to help, and we'd be dead.

I also know people who take drugs to help them deal with everything from bipolar to schizophrenia. Mental disorders are physiological. Nothing wrong with getting some relief with drugs, anymore than there is something wrong with taking aspirins for headaches.

Sorry, but you seem to be shaming people for using the resources God has given us. I shame over sin, not over using the wonderful things God has provided for us. I'm actually envious of stuff coming in the near future. They're making better and better drugs to slow down dementia. It's too late for Dad. It's not too late for others. These are wondrous things God is gracing some with. Don't knock God in action, even if it's chemicals.

 

[oldhermit]

I think Dan and I are both stuck on if there were carts and/or wagons. Does anyone know when Egyptian carts and/or wagons came along compared to when Moses and the gang left? I know they pinpointed when the Israelites worked, because most of the pyramids don't have hay in their bricks, but do we know when carts showed up?

I dray a conclusion concerning the carts but when Israel left Egypt the plundered the nation taking the wealth and anything of value, gold, clothing, jewelry, etc. How do you suppose they carried all of this, on their backs?

 

[SarahM777]

i think this thread proves it cannot, and indeed, should not be done.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to psychomom again.

 

[oldhermit]

I draw a conclusion concerning the carts but when Israel left Egypt the plundered the nation taking the wealth and anything of value, gold, clothing, jewelry, etc. How do you suppose they carried all of this, on their backs?

Although we are not told specifically in Exodus that Israel had carts when they crossed the Red Sea, we are told in Numbers 7 that they had carts or wagons and when you see the amount of gold that was used in the making of the tabernacle and its utensils there is no way they could have carried this amount of gold out of Egypt in their pockets. They plundered the treasury of Egypt.

 

[psychomom]

-- We live in the city, where bumper-to-bumper parking is assumed. It's a good day if we can park on our half of the block. Often we have to park on the next street up. Sometimes we have to park two blocks away. And, yet, every time we go grocery shopping, when we come home, we can find a spot withing three houses from ours. (Each house is attached and each house is 16 feet wide -- a bit wider counting the brick walls between houses, so that's as close as people with big yards but no driveways get.) That's natural. That's also God.

-- Our waste pipe takes out all the waste from every sink and toilet we have, plus it's our drain pipe for our back yard. If it breaks, it will cost us the type of money we can never save up. So, every time it clogs up, I worry it broke. It hasn't. It's clogged. Clogged is fixable. That's natural. That's God.

-- I have this bad back. Thankfully, I had this comfy chair that worked perfect for me. It broke. That's natural. That's God. We brought down what looks like a comfy chair (and was my comfy chair, until my back went bad) from upstairs. It's not the exact degree of reclining ability as my broken comfy chair, so it hurt me worse. That's natural. That's God. So, we swapped that out for a corner of our sectional sofa. I'm sitting on it now. It's also not the exact degree of recline as my broken comfy chair, so it hurts more. I've added a towel to the front to give me more recline. It helps. It's still not enough. Unfortunately, that lead me to realize, we might well have to buy something like 10 comfy chairs before we find one that works for me. (Can't afford one. When did they get so expensive? ) My problem is I can't tell if it hurts unless I sit in it for a day, and furniture stores frown on people sitting on their furniture for a day. My comfy chair is a LaZboy. Guess what. LaZboy has a lifetime guarantee. For a mere $125ish they will come out, find which parts are broken and fix it for me. That's natural. That's God.

I like watching God do his thing naturally. Sometimes he does miracles, but he does naturally for our good every day. I like watching him in action, so I like getting into the nitty-gritty of what he did in the Bible to watch him at work. It's a weird thing I have. Isn't that a kind of worship? (Sorry, bad back, so the bowing thing will have to wait until the new body. lol)

well, God is most certainly involved in every aspect of the day to day with His children.
yes, i do believe it's a kind of worship to acknowledge Him in all our ways.

and Lynn? i didn't mean you.

 

[Dan_473]

I would think obviously it means solid enough for them to traverse without getting their feet muddy. You cannot relativize this. The text says dry ground. This is ground that is solid enough to accommodate not only the people but their great herds of livestock, carts, and wagons. This was far more weight on the path than the chariots of Egypt and the muddy ground would be more taxing on the people of Israel that on the chariots. The simple fact is that to say the confounding of the chariot wheels was caused by mud, you have to add that to the text because the word mud in simply not there, neither literally nor by inference. You have to add this to the text in spite of the fact that the text says it was dry ground!

yes, definitely! does the text say the isaelites had carts? I don't know... I thought earlier in the thread people said it didn't say...

I don't know how much an egyptian chariot weighed... I'm thinking it would weigh more than a simple cart designed for pulling things...

we don't have to use the word mud... maybe the chariots got stuck in the moist ground...

 

[Dan_473]

This is close but not as exact as the original transcript. Reading right to left.

ויבאו בני-ישראל בתוך הים, ביבשה; והמים להם חומה, מימינם ומשמאלם
Then came the children of Israel into the sea, by land; And brown water them, right and left. Exodus 14:21 KJV

ובני ישראל הלכו ביבשה, בתוך הים; והמים להם חמה, מימינם ומשמאלם
And the children of Israel walked on land, in the sea; And they have hot water, right and left. Exodus 14:29 KJV

יבש = dry
ביבשה = land

As we can see the land has "dry" within the word land. So the translation is correct in that it is "dry land."

Exodus 15:19 is the same as these other 2 scriptures in relation to "dry land."

good research! just a question of how dry is dry... zero moisture content?

 

[Dan_473]

again, no difficulty, no worries at all. ask a Jew who knows. i know we don't know. i know Jews (not all of them, but some) know.;

a lot of the questions on this forum and thread, a third grade brought up right in Israel can tell you truthfully.

westerners are so backwards and wrong about so much.

well, I'll think on this... my first impression is that you are mistaken about how much Jewish people know about ancient hebrew...

yes, they speak a language in Israel today that's based on biblical hebrew..

but, greek people today don't know anymore about the nt than scholars from any other language...

I speak english, but I wouldn't know parts of shakespeare without a dictionary for that time...