The Telegraph (Richard Gray)
Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.
But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.
They have compiled compelling evidence that offers new explanations for the Biblical plagues, which will be outlined in a new series to be broadcast on the National Geographical Channel on Easter Sunday.
Archaeologists now widely believe the plagues occurred at an ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses the Second, who ruled between 1279BC and 1213BC.
1 comment:
I am rather disturbed that this is more opinionated speculation than hard evidence. Granted, nine of the ten could easily have been the result of natural events. Even the once disgraced Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky postulated such a scenario in the 1940's. That much many Biblicists concede today. However, the Plague of the First Born is quite another matr.
There is not a plethora of evidence for the true Pharoah of the Exodus. My own speculation leans toward the late
16th Century BCE, and the 18th Dynasty. Mount Sinai is clearly in Saudi Arabia in ancient Midian according to the scriptures and absolutely not St. Catherine's in Egyptian controlled Sinai that was garrisoned with forts and thousands of soldiers and miners.
What is more fascinating to me are the recently discovered Semitic Tri-Consonental hieroglyphs, and their interaction with Upper and lower Egyptian chronology. A subject I have followed with great zeal.
Unfortunately, I am quite skeptical of folks who always seem to need a gaggle of qualifications, speculation, and a tad of circular reasoning. Creating sensational imaginative scenarios does not thrill me.
My own investigation of Egypt began several years before I got to the sixth grade. There, as part of a project, I made models of Giza's pyramids. I shaped them with great labor into three sided objects. I obviously flunked! That was in the middle fifties and I have been closely sifting often obscured facts from the above named problems, that precipitated my debacle.
Finally, "Egyptology News," is a fine resource that I really appreciate. Don't mind my critique. As a very gullible personality I have had to learn the art of simplifying statements to arrive at the real question and then solve. Oddly, I learned this technique in electronics school. It has become two edged sword. I was an awesome trouble shooter, but a royal PIB at the same time! Good stuff keep it coming.
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