Recently I got to see a film called “The Reaping”. First of all Id like to say that this movie is good. I wont spill the plot at all but it involved the Ten Plagues which most of us are familiar with. If you had watched the show “The Prince of Egypt” by Disney I think (The one Malaysia banned right off the bat because it had religious connotations and the government was afraid it would affect the fragile balance of our religious beliefs) *roll eyes*. You should have a fair idea on what the Ten Plagues and Ten Commandments are.
Other older shows like “The Ten Commandments” had also put the Ten Plagues of Egypt as their cornerstone and highlight of the show.
So anyway, The DVD I rented featured a scientific documentary that explained in a scientific (and I mean archeological, sociological and historical) light.
The Ten Plagues happened circa 1500B.C. one of the biggest, or arguably THE BIGGEST natural phenomenon that had also happened around that time was the eruption of a massive volcano located in the Mediterranean region. This eruption, or more like explosion was so huge, it had swept volcanic ash all the way to Egypt, some thousands of miles away.
So began the Ten Plagues.
The First plague (I apologize I cant remember the order of the plagues)
The Bloodied River.
It was believed that Moses had turned the entire Nile River, red of blood, as a defiant act against the Pharaoh. First of all, no one would know if the river was indeed filled with blood because they lacked the scientific equipment or knowledge (arguably) to test if the blood was indeed blood. So modern day scientists worked on that uncertainty.
It is widely known today, that Algae is the source of sustenance for aquatic life since they are at the bottom of the food chain. Different levels of acidity in the water, affects the way algae behaves. And since algae is the lowest in the Nile River’s food chain, it affects everything above.
The volcanic eruption might have caused the PH levels of the Nile to change dramatically. This is evident because the soot samples drilled from the river bed was compared to the volcano in the Mediterranean that had erupted during that time, and they were identical.
This change in PH levels had caused the algae to bloom in an explosive manner, stretching for miles and miles both upstream and downstream. And no surprise there, the colour of blooming algae – is Blood Red.
The change of PH levels triggered a cascade of events. The blooming algae then produced toxins due to its biological functions in the massive loads. These toxins were released in such high amounts and at a rapid rate- the ecosystem in the river was affected so severely most of the animals died.
And the animal that mattered most – was fish.
The sudden decimation of thousands of fish had allowed what was at the bottom of the food chain bloom. In this case – Frogs.
The Second Plague
The Rain of Frogs
One single frog can lay eggs up to the hundreds. They have such a high production rate because most of the tadpoles gets eaten by fish. Since the fishes are no longer allowed, we can assume the frogs reproduced at a success rate of 100%.
Assuming:
One frog = 100 eggs
100 frogs = 10,000 eggs
And so forth.
So the Nile River suddenly exploded with frogs. So much, it would definitely seem like it had rained frogs the night before once they had reached a mature age. No doubt with such a dense population of frogs, the whole lot will die of starvation and inter-species competition.
Thousands upon thousands of frogs then beached up the shores of Egypt, and died.
The Third Plague
The Plague of Gnats
First of all the word “Gnat” was loosely translated as Live of Fleas.
With hygiene levels dropping like dominos lined in unison due to the animal carcasses from the river, the human body now deprived of cleanliness becomes a hotbed for parasites like lice and fleas.
The Fourth Plague
The Plague of Flies
The thousands of frog corpses don’t fly to heaven. Flies eat them, and lay their eggs in these thousands of frog carcasses. Again, we have the frog equation.
No frogs, millions of flies.
These flies then reproduced and reproduced at a rate it would seem unnatural. A Plague so it would seem. Its not hard to imagine the scale of it all.
The Fifth Plague
Diseased Lifestock
The flies that had hatched from the frog corpses were vast in numbers. Now the remaining question is – What type of flies?
It was held that Stable Flies (the ones that hang around stables hence the name) were the common species of flies in Egypt at the time. Being such a successful civilization, a city like Egypt is bound to have massive amounts of livestock.
What is so special about stable flies you might ask, stable flies are special because they bite…
…and their bites are not pleasant. It leaves an open wound and the wound then puts the victim in a series of dangers. The most prominent one is infection.
Remember the water from the Nile has been so contaminated of corpses of fish and frogs now that it is toxic to both humans and beast. Livestock, cows in particular drink up to 12 gallons of water per day. And in a water-ravaged land such as Egypt, the main source of water would be the Nile River.
It is no surprise they get Diseased and then die off shortly after.
The Sixth Plague
Boils
Keeping in mind hygiene levels are at an all time low, now affected with lice, its no better being a human than a cow in 1500BC Egypt. Now dehydrated, starving and dirty, ancient Egyptians were open as targets for disease and illness. The Boils could be caused by scratching of the skin due to dehydration and the lice infestation. (1st and 3rd plague)
It could be infected wounds caused by the stable flies from the 4th plague, and who knows what diseases all the cow carcasses (5th plague) had exposed their ex-human captors to.
It could be caused by either of the plagues that had preceded this 6th plague; it could be all of them.
The Seventh Plague
Storm
We return to the volcanic eruption. Thousands of tones of dust were shot up into the air during the eruption and had by now inched their way to Egypt. The dusts acts as a medium of sorts (forgot what the term was) that had enabled water droplets to form rapidly and quickly. These super-formed rain then fell as ice. Or hail.
With the sudden change in air density and moisture, lightning rolled down the skies at what seemed to be in supernatural proportions.
Hail, wind and rolling lightning. It is not an uncommon sight in places constantly ravaged by storms like this. Southern USA had seen the better of phenomenon’s such as these.
One must understand the history of Egypt when being revealed this demystification. Egypt is a dry place with very infrequent rains and thunder. All of a sudden, they are exposed to weather like this due to a volcano (Don’t think any Egyptians of the time knew what a volcano was either, I bet if they had saw one erupt, it would be in the Bible or any other writings as god’s work too).
So all these events were seen by the ancient Egyptians as the Seventh Plague – Hail of Ice and Fire.
The Eight Plague
Locusts
The 7th plague had now passed. All the hail have melted into the ground and the land was now drenched in water. Locusts from the surrounding deserts of Africa are attracted to moist ground because they lay their eggs 4 inches in the soil, and the soil has to be moist enough for their egg laying devices to penetrate.
The land was now made rich by the previous storm and locusts, swarm to greet this fertility.
And this event is then know as the 8th plague.
The Ninth Plague
Darkness
Now there are 3 possible events that had occurred in that time that would’ve caused this “plague”.
One, and this may be a little far fetched, but the locusts that had migrated into Egypt was so vast in numbers they blocked out the sun.
Two, there had been a sun eclipse
Three, now this is the most plausible one-
, the volcanic ash had now finally reached Egypt descended upon them. other volcanic events that had happened in other places such as the Philippines and Indonesia had that similar result – Darkness.
Pure darkness - Eyewitness accounts say that they can’t see their fingers out stretched before them due to all the dust and ash. It had literally blocked out the sun.
The Tenth Plague
Death of the Firstborn
To be able to answer this myth, one must appreciate the sociological norms of ancient Egypt. In the land of the pharaohs, the firstborn is very special – they are the heirs to the throne so they say. Their wellbeing and health is paramount in almost all Egyptian households, it is this very reason that the firstborn were the target victims of this plague. The Israelites might have a different norm than the Egyptians, therefore it would appear as if they had been “spared” of this wrath.
With all the 9 previous plagues in effect, or had came to pass, the wheat, grain and livestock were all destroyed. What the Egyptians had left were food stored in previous months. Food that were capable of being stored includes grain and perhaps preserved meat.
The storm had perhaps caused the moisture in the air to rise to such levels it had breached whatever containers that had been used to store grain. Mould had probably contaminated the grain, rendering it poisonous to the person who ingested it.
The same goes for preserved meat. Meat that was previously sun-dried had now retained some moisture, allowing flies and the likes to lay eggs inside them.
The ones that had eaten these contaminated food grew ill extremely quickly, added the fact they were already starving, dehydrated and unhygienic to begin with.
And being perhaps the “most-important” member of the family, the firstborn, ate the most.
So it seemed that all the ten plagues can be addressed using science and that the victims are not as specific as what Moses had depicted.
Again we look to the sociological norms and psyche of the Hebrews of the time.
There were no, qualifying or quantitative terms at the time. everything, was absolute.
Words like “All”, “everything”, “everyone”, “the land” “the people” are just a few examples used in Biblical writings. The word “All” was repeated over 50 times in each of the pages describing the ten plagues.
This raises some skepticism even in the least cynic minded of readers.
Say for example, if All the Egyptian livestock were killed, and ALL the Israelite’s one spared, what would have happened?
The Egyptians would have either raided the Israelite’s stables and butchered their livestock for themselves, OR
The entire Egyptian population would have been wiped out. Assuming the locusts had also eaten ALL the wheat and grain.
Imagine starving a million population city. Kill all the McDonalds and Burger King and Wendys in Manhattan Island alone for 2 days and I bet you my faith ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE.
What about the splitting of the Red Sea? Some of you may ask. In the documentary It was explained as well
Moses and his gang, might not have crossed the Red Sea. Because walking across the span of hundreds of miles is ridiculous. Do you know what will happen to the ecosystem of an ocean if you split it in half for half a day?
They might have mistaken the Red Sea, for Reed Sea. Its another sub-submerged piece of swampland, and at low tide is possible for humans to wade across. And wamptland would wreck havoc on the Pharaoh’s chariot if he had opted to pursue Moses and his people. again another “miracle”.
Other writings such as Noah’s Ark also have scientific and archeological explanations. The events really did happen, as in the flood and the boat, just not at the scale of which it was portrayed.
But I shall leave that for another post. Im taking too much time writing this already.
Anyway, believe what you please, I was just shown an alternative side to the story and would like to share with you this little piece of info.
