Brian Hales gave a very interesting presentation on Joseph Smith’s polygamy. I was late and didn’t hear the beginning of the presentation, but he discussed the issue of Joseph being sealed to other men’s wives. Most refer to this as polyandry, though Larry Foster has disputed that terminology in the past, preferring the term “proxy husband” or something similar. At any rate, Hales contends that there is no evidence that Joseph had sexual relations with any of these women. He notes that many other experts disagree with this position, and wasn’t surprised that many in the audience disagreed with that position.  He also discussed the reliability of John C. Bennett’s words about polygamy.  Bennett was Nauvoo Mayor, and Assistant President of the Church before he was excommunicated for unauthorized polygamy.  Bennett later wrote an expose of Mormonism and some believe he was one of the instigators of the mob that killed Joseph.

Hales did a great job presenting his information.  He stated that Bennett was very unreliable (as most experts agree.)  He also noted that many of the allegations that Joseph had sexual relations with these “polyandrous” wives occurred at least a decade after the marriages, so there is nothing contemporary from Joseph’s lifetime.  While Hales makes a good point, on this second issue I am not persuaded.  I asked him 2 questions.  First, I asked him about a really odd story about surrogate parenthood in the days of Brigham Young. Click here for full details. In brief, a convert couple could not conceive children due to a medical condition of the husband. Brigham Young proposed a temporary civil divorce. The wife (Mary Richardson) was civilly married to a man by the name of Frederick Cox. He fathered two children in a sort of levirate marriage (mentioned in the New Testament). Then they divorced, Mary re-married (and was sealed) to her original husband. It’s definitely an odd story.

My point is that this seems to be a sort of polyandry. Kathryn Daines mentions that it was “family legend” that the Richardsons obtained a divorce. Brian Hales indicated he felt it was solid evidence and not adultery. It sure seems like if the Richardson divorce was arranged with an understanding of re-marriage, that it was a form of sexual polyandry, with a wink and a nod to civil law. If Brigham Young sanctioned it, it seems to me that Brigham must have felt that such an unusual arrangement must have been ok with Joseph Smith.

Secondly, I asked about an unusual issue with Emma Smith. Quoting from my previous post,

Some of the footnotes are very interesting on this subject. Footnote 26 on page 305 quotes an 1844 expose of Mormonism. I don’t know if this can be corroborated, but I found it interesting.

“Emma’s threat to “be revenged and indulge herself” may have been merely a warning to the prophet to give up his spiritual wives. But Joseph H. Jackson, a non-Mormon opportunist who gained the confidence of the prophet in Nauvoo, recorded in an 1844 expose of Mormonism: “Emma wanted [William] Law for a spiritual husband,” and because Joseph “had so many spiritual wives, she thought it but fair that she would at least have one man spiritually sealed up to her and that she wanted Law, because he was such a ‘sweet little man.’”

Although there is nothing to suggest that Law and Emma were more to each other than friends, Law later confirmed that Joseph “offered to furnish his wife Emma with a substitute for him, by way of compensation for his neglect of her, on condition that she would forever stop her opposition to polygamy and permit him to enjoy his young wives in peace and keep some of them in his house and to be well treated, etc.” (Salt Lake Tribune, 3 July 1887.)

D&C 132:51 seems to refer to this incident. It says,

Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her;

If Emma had accepted in time, perhaps she would have been a polyandrous wife.  Of course that is just speculation, and the rest of verse 51 says it is an Abrahamic test. But it still seems like another odd incident.  Though I don’t agree with all of Hales’ conclusions, he was well prepared, and I was impressed with his presentation.

LDS members Newell Bringhurst and Craig Foster, along with RLDS members Bill Russell and Mark Sherer held a panel discussion on the Presidential candidacies of Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney.  (Mark was the moderator and did not present.)  Russell had high praise for Huntsman, saying the he was the best republican field.  Russell noted that Huntsman seems well-versed in other cultures and religions, and said that Huntsman would be able to describe other religions “in laymans, as well as Lemuel’s terms.”  Russell also indicated that if a Mormon wants to run for office and have religion be a non-issue, then they should be a democrat.  He noted that Morris Udall lost narrowly to Jimmy Carter for the democratic nominee in 1976, and noted that Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader does not have questions about his religion.  It was a great discussion.

Following lunch, I attended two controversial sessions.  Fred Collier gave a very academic presentation on the relationship between Yahweh and Satan.  He showed that Dead Sea Scroll discoveries seemed to corroborate the JST translation.  He specifically seemed to reference Deuteronomy quite a bit, with a bit of Genesis and ancient Jewish writings.  In LDS theology, Yahweh is considered the son of Elohim.

While Collier’s presentation was interesting, he fell apart during the Q&A session.  I asked him about the Documentary Hypothesis.  In brief, the hypothesis states that Elohim and Yahweh are interchangeable terms for God.  Collier hand-waved the question away, saying the hypothesis was completely debunked as far as he was concerned.  I was a bit flabbergasted with his response, as I completely disagree with this characterization.  Collier seemed completely unprepared to answer the question.

The next question was ever worse for Collier.  During the presentation, Collier said that ancient Hebrew scriptures said that Abel was the first born of Adam and Eve, and Cain was not his brother.  Rather Cain was the son of Lilith and the Serpent.  It was an interesting position–I’ve heard that Lilith was Adam’s first wife, but cast out when she refused to submit to Adam and was cast out of the Garden for saying the name of God.  Apparently she hooked up with the serpent after the expulsion and conceived Cain–that part was new to me.

At any rate, an audience member asked who the offspring of Cain were.  At first, Collier seemed to give a humorous response by saying “international bankers.”  When pressed to clarify, Collier shocked the audience by saying that “international bankers are Jews.”  The questioner was appalled, called Collier an expletive, and a few audience members stormed out of the room.  I was appalled at the anti-Semitic remarks, and was saddened that Collier holds such views.  The views overshadowed what was an otherwise interesting presentation.  It saddens me that anyone would hold such views, and I call on Fred Collier to apologize for the offensive remarks.  A few other people asked more about the curse of Cain doctrine.  Thankfully, we were out of time; I’m afraid of what other racist remarks may have come out of his mouth.

The last presentation was controversial as well.  Janice Allred, Joanna Brooks, and Margaret Toscano gave excellent presentations discussing the recent BYU Studies article titled, A Mother There: A Survey of Historical Teachings About Mother in Heaven. Janice and Margaret were both excommunicated in the 1990s for discussing Mother in Heaven in Sunstone.  Both had praise for the BYU Studies article, though they had some criticisms as well.  Margaret noted that the article referenced over 600 references in the past 167 years in General Conference or official church publications.   The BYU authors seemed to indicate that it is acceptable to discuss Mother in Heaven, and indicated an “abundance” of information on the subject.

However, Toscano noted that in the most recent 2 day General conference, there were 900 references to Father in Heaven.  She said that the BYU authors should be discussing the dearth of information on Mother in Heaven, rather than framing it as “abundant” information.  She also noted that official church pronouncements refer to the equality of husband and wife, but do not refer to “God the Mother” and “God the Father.”  I thought these were a valid points.

Joanna Brooks gave a very interesting presentation discussing some anecdotal references in her ward.  For example, On Mothers Day, the primary chorister in San Diego ward she attends non-chalantly showed a painting of a Mother in Heaven in the clouds teaching children.  During Sacrament meeting talks, there were surprising references to Mother in Heaven as well.  She tweeted about these incidents and received a variety of responses, indicating that some other wards seemed to reference Mother in Heaven as well.

The session was marred by Holly Welker, the moderator.  Holly has no manners, and seems to enjoy mocking religion.  She gave some thoughts that indicated that she does not believe in God, yet announced at the beginning of the session that they would hold a prayer circle to pray to Mother in Heaven at the end of the session.  She allowed people to leave if they were uncomfortable with the process.  Many people left because they were uncomfortable.

It seems to me that Holly enjoys shocking people, and she has poor manners even with other panelists.  For example, an audience member asked why Mother in Heaven was not present in the First Vision.  Janice Allred started to explain her belief about this incident, but Holly cut her off, saying that Holly didn’t believe in the First Vision (ignoring that Janice did), and cut off Janice’s answer because Holly was “uncomfortable.”  Yet Holly didn’t mind mocking believers with her prayer circle.  She marred an otherwise great session, and I have no respect for her.

Due to some controversial presentations in the 1990s, Sunstone has a cold relationship with the church, and the church still refuses to allow some employees to participate.  There has been a thaw in relations, though it’s still cold.  I would really like Sunstone to gain favor in the church.  However, with people like Holly Welker and Fred Collier, I can understand why the church has a cold war with Sunstone.  It makes me sad that these people can spoil such a wonderful opportunity to discuss theology and Mormonism.  Comments?

We often think that the Bible has a set number of books.  However, this is not true.  The King James Version (that many Protestants and Mormons use) has 39 Old Testament Books, but the Catholic Bible has 46 books, and the Eastern Orthodox Bible has 51 books.  The extra 7 books in the Catholic Bible are:  Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Sirach, Baruch, and Wisdom.  In addition to these books, the Orthodox Bible also contains 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, and Letter of Jeremiah.  A few other books are considered part of the Apocrypha:  Bel and the Dragon, Song of the Three Young Men and Prayer of Azariah, Prayer of Manasseh, Story of Susannah.  The Book of Esther has 6 additional chapters in Greek, not found in the KJV.

Recently, I purchased the New American Bible.  It is the standard Bible for American Catholics.  One of the things that I was surprised to see in the NAB was scholarly information integrated within the Bible.  For example, there is a brief introduction to the Documentary Hypothesis right before the Book of Genesis.  The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest available versions of many Biblical books (in some cases by 1000 years), and this version of the Bible includes corrections from the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I found that pretty cool.

As part of my introduction to “the Apocrypha”, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the book of Judith.  (Here is a post on some other apocryphal books I have discussed previously.)  As I was looking through the table of contents, I was immediately struck by the female name of Judith.  After all, except for Ruth and Esther, I can’t think of any books of scripture with a female name.  So, I decided to pick this one first.

Judith was the widow of a man named Manasseh.  The Assyrians were attacking Israel, and cut off the water supply.  Concerned for her people, Judith dressed up in “her festive garments and all her feminine adornments” (Judith 12:15) , and approached the Assyrians.  She gains the trust of Assyrian General Holofernes, and promises to deliver Israel to them with no loss of life for the Assyrians.  At this point, the story gets really interesting, starting in chapter 13.

2  Judith was left alone in the tent with Holofernes, who lay prostrate on his bed, for he was sodden with wine.  3 She had ordered her maid to stand outside the bedroom and wait, as on the other days, for her to come out; she said she would be going out for her prayer.  To Bagoas she had said this also.

4  When all had departed, and no one, small or great, was left in the bedroom, Judith stood by Holofernes’ bed and said within herself: “O Lord, God of all might, in this hour look graciously on my undertaking for the exaltation of Jerusalem: 5 now is the time for aiding your heritage and for carrying out my design to shatter the enemies who have risen against us.”  6 She went to the bedpost near the head of Holofernes, and taking his sword from it, 7 drew close to the bed, grasped the hair of his head, and said, “Strengthen me this day, O God of Israel!”

8 Then with all her might she struck him twice in the neck and cut off his head.  9 She rolled his body off the bed and took the canopy from its supports.  Soon afterward, she came out and handed over the head of Holofernes to her maid, 10 who put it into her food pouch; and the two went off together as they were accustomed to do for prayer.”

Judith and her maid return to Israel and show them the head of Holofernes.  Encouraged, the Israelites then rout the scared Assyrians.

So why is this story considered apocryphal?  The NAB Bible cautions, “Any attempt to read the book directly against the backdrop of Jewish history in relation to the empires of the ancient world is bound to fail.”  The Jewish Encyclopedia says,

with the very first words of the tale, “In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned over the Assyrians in Nineveh,” the narrator gives his hearers a solemn wink. They are to understand that this is fiction, not history. It did not take place in this or that definite period of Jewish history, but simply “once upon a time,” the real vagueness of the date being transparently disguised in the manner which has become familiar in the folk-tales of other parts of the world.

Many believe this book to be historical fiction.  Martin Luther noted that books of questionable authenticity are found only in Greek, not Hebrew.  Jews also do not consider the book canonical.  Catholics consider the book written “by godly men”, but not quite on par with other scriptures.  However, they do consider the book canonical.  What do you think of this story?  Is it nice to have a feminine hero?

The Bible says that 600,000 men left Egypt.  …

However, archaeologist Jim Hoffmeier of the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School says the number is probably far fewer, due to a mistranslation dating thousands of years.  The original Hebrew says there were 600 elith.

Hoffmeier, “The word elith can be translated 3 different ways:  it can be translated thousand.  Elith can also be translated to the clan.  The third option is that it’s a military unit, which I think is a more plausible scenario.”

According to Hoffmeier’s interpretation, instead of 600,000 men and their families, there were as few as 5000.

I was a bit surprised that the above quote was not referenced in Bible Battles, because there are quite a few points of agreement between Hoffmeier and Richard A Gabriel, PhD and author of Military History of Ancient Israel.  In the Bible Battles video, Gabriel said,

“If you read the Bible text in Hebrew, it uses the word “avadeem”.  Avadeem is not the word for slave, it is the word for “worker” or even servant.  The fact of the matter is that the Israelites in Egypt were not slaves.”

Narrator, The notion that the Israelites might not have been slaves in Egypt contradicts fundamental Judeo-Christian beliefs.  But by examining the Exodus from a military perspective, new light may be shed on this historic journey.

Aaron Shugar, PhD, Archaeomettalurgy, Lehigh University, “This is a tricky subject because outside the Bible there is no definitive corroborating text that can either support or refute the fact that the Israelites were slaves.  But if we ask the simple question, could a nation of mere slaves, be able to go up against the mighty Egyptian army and survive?  Logically, it doesn’t seem like they could.”

Mark Schwartz, Professor of Anthropology, Grand Valley State University, “Now what if they weren’t slaves?  What if they actually were a group with military experience.  Remember Abraham and some of his military exploits.  Now a group of people leaving Egypt with a military arm puts a completely different spin on the story.”

Narrator, “To better understand the Exodus, one must travel back in time about 200 years to the land of Canaan.  Here Abraham and his Israelite descendants are forced to flee the land because of famine and drought.  They migrate to the eastern edge of Egpyt and settle in the land of Goshen, where the earth is fertile and flocks and crops thrive.

But some scholars believe they are also in this area fighting as mercenary soldiers in the Egyptian army.  Their job would be to serve as a first line of defense against invaders from the north.

Schwartz, “These ‘habiru’ were mercenaries, they were soldiers of fortune.  They would fight for who ever it was in their best interest at that time to fight for.  It seems like they had a good thing going in Egypt for a few hundred years.”

Narrator, “But eventually, a new pharaoh rises to power.  Some scholars believe he is Seti I, and he does not seem to care much for the Israelites.”

Exodus 1:9-10, “And he said to his people, ‘Look the Israelite people are much too numerous for us.  Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase.  Otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.’

Gabriel, “The sheer location of where the habiru are in the land of Goshen, sitting astride the key route of invasion or defense of Egypt, probably convinced Seti himself, a professional warrior that something had to be done either to remove them, or weaken their influence, or at least remove them from their geographical area.  Thus it is that Seti becomes, most historians think, the pharaoh in the Bible who first sets the Israelites to physical labor.”

Narrator, “Many believe this physical labor amounts to slavery.  But this may be a historical inaccuracy.  While forced labor is practiced, some scholars believe that ownership of another person is rare at this time.”

Gabriel, “There was no slavery in Egypt right from the beginning until the end of the empire.  Well, if in fact they were not slaves set to labor, what were they?  The answer is corvee labor.  That is the term used to describe, essentially conscripted civilian workers to work on public works projects.  These people were not slaves, they were paid and they were well treated, and we know that from the military medical texts which stations military doctors with the workmen in order to make sure they are well-treated and well fed.”

Narrator, “Whether slaves or not, the demotion from soldier to common physical worker probably signaled to the Israelites that it was time to leave Egypt.”

Gabriel, “They had lost their status as noble allies.  They were now being treated like common workers.  It was time to go!”

Shugar, “So Moses says to Pharao, ‘Listen, God told me personally to lead my people out of here.  So you’ve got to let my people go.  But Pharaoh resists, then what follows is the Passover story and the plagues that wrought devastation upon Egypt.  With the 10th and final plague, the killing of the First Born,  this culminates in the pharaoh allowing the Israelites to leave Egypt.  But the Bible says something very interesting right after this episode, something that actually makes us question whether they really in fact were slaves or not.”

Exodus 13:18, “Now the Israelites went up armed, out of the land of Egypt.”

Gabriel, “It’s very clear, of course, that slaves do not march out armed from their oppressors.  So what we have is the military arm now is formed, as it had always been, to protect the rest of the habiru clan, as it begins to move out of Egypt, and reach its homeland back in Canaan.”

Narrator, “Almost immediately however, Pharoah changes his mind, and sets his army in pursuit of the Israelites.  But it is unclear exactly why Pharaoh does this.  The answer may be found in Exodus 12 verse 35.”
Exodus 12:35-36, ‘The Israelites had done Moses’ bidding and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver, gold, and clothing, and the Lord had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request.  Thus they stripped the Egyptians.’

Gabriel, “Well, it just stretches credibility to think that the Egyptians would have done such a thing, especially so when you read the text.  The term that is used is nes-ai-al in Hebrew, which means to despoil.  What seems to have happened is that the Israelites are fleeing Egypt, they are not equipped to be in the desert.  They need food, shelter, water, animals, and what they do is they take it.  So the reason, I think one could argue, that changed in Pharoah’s mind was news that Israelites were leaving had simply raided a town, and sacked it and took all the supplies, and the text bears me out on this.  For it says, that Pharaoh found the Israelites were leaving Egypt boldly.  Keep in mind, this is not just a group of nomads.  This is a habiru group of some size with a military arm, and they used that military might to provision themselves in order to survive in the desert.”

Narrator, “In response to this possible attack, pharaoh unleashes his army in pursuit.  The hallmark of the Egyptian force is the horse-drawn war chariot.  ”

Gabriel, “The Egyptian army was armed with the lightest, fastest, and most maneuverable chariot in the world. ”

…

Narrator, “With the Egyptian chariot force in hot pursuit, the Israelites quickly leave the Nile delta area.  But now, Moses does something surprising.  According to the Bible, he turns off the main road leading to Canaan and heads into the desert.”

Gabriel, “One can only imagine what the young junior officers must have thought, and that was that Moses had lost his mind.  Why would Moses do such a thing?”

Narrator, “While the move to lead the Israelites into the desert surprises many, it seems Moses has a plan.  Some believe he is luring Pharaoh into a trap.

…

The Bible states that Moses had previously spent 40 years in this desert, and like all good military commanders, has an intimate knowledge of the terrain.  Some believe he knows exactly where he is, and exactly where he is heading, and according to the Bible, God is leading the way.”

Exodus 13:21-22, ‘The Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to guide them along the way and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light that they might travel day and night.’

Rabbi Jonathan Hecht, PhD, Temple Chaverim, Plainview, NY, “The pillar of cloud, and the pillar of fire that we read about in the Bible are what led the people through the desert and it represented the fact that God’s presence was always with them.”

Narrator, “Though the pillar of smoke and fire has religious significance, it can also be explained from a military perspective.  Ancient Egyptian stone reliefs depict a scene in which Pharaoh Ramses is sitting in front of two soldiers, each of whom is holding up a large pole.

Gabriel, “On top of one of those poles is the hieroglyph for flame, and on top of the other is the hierglyph for a closed brazzier which of course, if you put a cover on a brazzier you get smoke.”

Narrator, “Erected at the front of a marching column, a pillar of smoke and fire is a way for a military commander to communicate with the rest of his troops.”

Gabriel, “So the pillar of smoke, and the pillar of fire is a very common, at least for the Egyptians,  military mechanism for leading troops and pitching camp.”

Narrator, “At the end of the third day of marching, the Israelites make camp.  That night, Pharaoh arrives and sees the pillar of fire directly in front of him.  Pharaoh might believe that he has the upper hand.  Understanding that the pillar of fire always leads the group, it looks to him as though Moses has gotten himself turned around and is heading back to Egypt.

Gabriel, “The first rule of military tactics: always decieve your enemy as to your intentions.  Moses is trying to decieve pharaoh into thinking that he is lost in the desert.”

Narrator, “The placement of the pillar of fire seems to be integral to Moses’ strategy into losing the Egyptians because on the other side of the Israelite army is the Sea of Reeds.”

Schwartz, “Perhaps no event in the Book of Exodus, in fact the entire Bible has captured the imagination much like Moses parting the Sea of Reeds.  I mean who hasn’t seen the Cecil B. DeMille classic with Charlton Heston raising his arms and parting the Sea of Reeds.  It’s an incredible moment.  But I think if you look at it from a critical eye, especially the point of view of a military historian, what you see is that Moses is using an intimate knowledge of the terrain to defeat the Egyptian army without even raising a sword.”

Gabriel, “Night falls upon the encampments.  The pillar of smoke changes to a pillar of flame, and behind that pillar of flame is the escape route that Moses has planned.  Now anyone who’s been a soldier understands at night, you never look into a bright light.  If you look into a bright light, it affects your eyes for as much as 30 minutes.  So here you have a situation of a bright light burning in front of the Egyptians.  They can see the light, but they are blind to anything behind that light.  At the same time, in the midst of the night, and east wind begins to blow.”

Narrator, “An easterly wind mentioned in the Bible likely quite loud convinces Dr. Gabriel that the Egyptian soldiers on night watch might now be deaf, as well as blind.  It is at this point that Moses moves his people across the Sea of Reeds.”

Exodus 14:21, “Then Moses held out his arms over the sea, and the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind, all that night and turned the sea into dry ground.”

Narrator, “Some biblical historians believe the crossing of the Sea of Reeds occurs about 20 miles south of the Mediterranean Sea in an alluvial swamp–a swamp subject to tides.  One explanation of this phenomenon is that the tide goes out making the swamp passable.  The easterly wind is likely quickening the process.”

Gabriel, “Very simply, what probably was an alluvial swamp of perhaps 8-10 inches of water suddenly over a period of 45-50 minutes becomes dry.  At that point, the Israelites safely behind their bright light still blinding the Egyptians with the wind howling so they cannot hear, begin to withdraw across the Reed Sea.”

Narrator, “At dawn, Pharaoh discovers an abandoned camp.  He immediately gives chase.  But while the tide may be out, the ground is too soft to handle the weight of pharaoh’s chariots.”

Exodus 14:24, “At the morning watch, the Lord looked down upon the Egyptian army from a pillar of fire and cloud, and threw the Egyptian army into panic.  He locked the wheels of their chariots so that they moved forward with difficulty.”

Gabriel, “Now while stuck in this mud, probably the tide begins to come in–perhaps some people drown.  But what is important is, that tide is going to be in for almost 8 hours now.  There’s no way for pharaoh to pursue.”

Narrator, “Pharaoh would have to march 2 hours north to a crossing at a down called Migdol to continue the pursuit.  By that time, he most likely would have lost the Israelite scent.”

Gabriel, “So here you have a fine Israeli strategic and tactical commander, making great use of his knowledge of the terrrain that he had gathered throough his own life in that area.”

The Hebrews have eluded the Egyptians…”

The film then goes on to discuss Moses training warriors for the future battle for Canaan, as well as the military campaigns of Joshua.  So what do you make of the Sea of Reeds, and this theory of the Exodus?

I just watched Biblical Authors?  Dr Steve Kellmeyer, author of Fact and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code said,

The Catholic Bible contains more books than the Protestant Bible because of events that happened long before Christ was born.  During the Babylonian exile, the Hebrews were scattered across the Mediterranean and many never returned.  Those who were in the east and never went back to Jerusalem lost their native language.  They were unable to read or write Hebrew after just a few generations.

But they wanted to maintain their connection with their faith.  In order to do this, the Jewish scriptures had to be translated into Greek.  So a hundred years before Christ is born, we have two versions of the Old Testament.  We have the Hebrew canon of scripture, and we have the Greek version of the Old Testament scriptures, and the Greeks themselves wrote additional books that were never translated back into the Hebrew.

This Greek version of scripture is called the Septuagint, and if we look at the New Testament, 80% of the quotes that Jesus and the apostles make to Old Testament scripture are from the Septuagint.  This is important because the Greek version is much more Christological and much more prophetic than the Hebrew versions of the scriptures.  Isaiah is different, for instance; Jeremiah is different, and the differences in the Greek version point much more clearly to Christ than those in the Hebrew.

So when it came to the point that the apostles were proselytizing those in the eastern Mediterranean, and the Hebrews were seeing enormous numbers of their fellow converting to Christianity, they decided to canonize their Old Testament, and the rule the used was, “anything written in Greek was not scripture.”  Why did they pick that rule?  Because the Greek scriptures were so Christological that people would convert simply by reading them.

But it was the Greek scriptures that were used by Jesus and the apostles, that were used constantly during the early church.  When people attempted to attack the scriptures and question what was part of scripture and what wasn’t, the churches decided what actually was and wasn’t scripture.  By the late 300′s and early 400′s, the popes and the councils of the church had defined scripture according to the Septuagint.  The Septuagint as I said had more books.

By the 1500′s when Martin Luther with the faith alone theology, he found that the excessive Christology of the Old Testament also pointed to elements of doctrine that did not support faith alone theology, so he was forced to move back to the Hebrew canon of scripture in order to support the idea that he was bringing forward.  That is why all of the Protestant scriptures now have fewer books in the Old Testament than those that are present in the Catholic Bible.

The interesting point is, up until 1827, there was no version of Protestant scripture that did not include those books.  Luther did not entirely throw them out of the Bible.  He simply lifted them and placed them into an appendix between the Old and the New Testaments.  The first time a Bible was ever printed without was 1827–the English Bible Society first promulgated a Bible that was missing those books.  Prior to that, centuries before it had even been illegal in England to do such a thing under the Protestant kings.  Anyone who put forward a Bible that was missing those books could be beheaded.

Here is a list of the books of the Apocrypha:

1. The First Book of Esdras (also known as Third Esdras)
2. The Second Book of Esdras (also known as Fourth Esdras)
3. Tobit
4. Judith
5. The Additions to the Book of Esther
6. The Wisdom of Solomon
7. Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
8. Baruch
9. The Letter of Jeremiah (This letter is sometimes incorporated as the last chapter of Baruch. When this is done the number of books is fourteen instead of fifteen.)
10. The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men
11. Susanna
12. Bel and the Dragon
13. The Prayer of Manasseh
14. The First Book of Maccabees
15. The Second Book of Maccabees

I find it a bit ironic that Mormons and Protestants discuss whether faith or works is more important.  Why don’t we use the Catholic Bible?  Should we really be supporting Luther’s Bible?

The first 4 books deal with the childhood of Jesus.  With the Christmas season approaching, I wanted to share some of these really cool stories about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  I think you’ll enjoy learning some of the extra-biblical stories.  Honestly, I don’t think I’ve read so much cool stuff about the life of Jesus.  I want to start with the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, and discuss some of these other ancient writings in coming weeks.  Some of these stories overlap, and I think it will be interesting to see the different, sometimes conflicting accounts over the coming weeks.

Before I get into the actual gospel, I want to give some background on this particular document.  This gospel has been attributed to Matthew, and the version in the book dates to the 4^th century.  The book was found in the works of St. Jerome.  Some of his contemporaries mentioned the gospel as well, such as Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, and Austin.  Some of the ancient copies differed from Jerome’s version (I will quote from Jerome’s version).

The book states that Mary was from the house of David, but Faustus, Bishop of Riez disagreed, saying Mary was from Levi.  We know that Mary and Elizabeth were cousins.  Elizabeth was with wife of Zacharias, priest in the temple, and therefore of the Tribe of Levi.  Jesus went to John the Baptist who held the proper authority, so a good case can be made that Mary might have been from Levi.  Apparently Muslims believe Mary was from Levi.  This gospel clearly states Mary was a descendant of David, who was the tribe of Judah.

The ancient group Collyridians imagined that both Mary and Jesus were the result of an “immaculate conception”, both being born of a virgin.  This gospel seems to show that Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna, had fertility problems just like Abraham and Sarah and Rachel and Jacob.  (I snipped that out of my excerpts below, but the angel clearly mentions this to Anna.)  Collyridians are an interesting group, and are considered heretical Christians.  Some believe they thought Mary was a goddess.  This Wikipedia article says that Mohammad believed that Mary was the 3^rd member of the Trinity.  That’s an interesting idea, but the gospel states that “the Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you, without any of the heats of lust.”  I’ve heard of a Father, Mother, and Son being part of the Trinity—kind of a “holy family” and that makes some logical sense.  But the references to the Holy Ghost in the Bible seem to be quite separate from Mary (such as when the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove at Jesus’ baptism), so I think it’s a bit of a stretch to put Mary in the Godhead or Trinity, despite how appealing that might be.

So, let’s look at Jerome’s copy.  So that this isn’t too long, I will only cite the parts I find particularly interesting, and will reference chapters and verses.

Chapter 1

1 – The blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary, sprung from the royal race and family of David, was born in the city of Nazareth, and educated at Jerusalem, in the temple of the Lord.

2 – Her father’s name was Joachim, and her mother’s Anna.  The family of her father was of Galilee and the city of Nazareth.  The family of her mother was of Bethlehem.

…

7 – And it came to pass when the feast of the dedication drew near, Joachim, with some others of his tribe, went up to Jerusalem, and at that time, Issachar was high priest;

8 – Who, when he saw Joachim along with the rest of his neighbors, bringing his offering, despised both him and his offerings…

….[priest is especially cruel]

11 – But Joachim being much confounded with shame, retired to the shepherds, who were with cattle in their pastures;

12 – For he was not inclined to return home, lest his neighbors, who were present and heard all this from the high priest, should publicly reproach him in the same manner.

Chapter 2

1 – But when he had been there for some time, on a certain day when he was alone, the angel of the Lord stood by him with a prodigious light.

2 – To whom, being troubled at the appearance, the angel who had appeared to him, endeavoring to compose him said;

3 – Be not afraid, Joachim, nor troubled at the sight of me, for I am an angel of the Lord sent by him to you, that I might inform you, that your prayers are heard, and your alms are ascended in the sight of God.

4 – For He hath surely seen your shame, and heard you unjustly reproached for not having children: for God is the avenger of sin; and not of nature;

5 – And so when he shuts up the womb of any person, he does it for this reason, that he may in a more wonderful manner again open it and that which is born appear to be not the product of lust, but the gift of God.

…[Angel discusses Sarah, Rachel as barren women as well]

9 – …Anna your wife shall bring you a daughter and you shall call her name Mary;

10 – She shall, according to your vow, be devoted to the Lord from her infancy, and be filled with the Holy Ghost from her mother’s womb;

11 – She shall neither eat nor drink anything which is unclean; nor shall her conversation be without among the common people, but in the temple of the Lord; that so she may not fall under suspicion of what is bad.

12 – So in the process of her years, as she shall be in a miraculous manner be born to one that is barren, so she shall, while yet a virgin, in a way unparalleled, bring forth the Son of the Most High God, who shall be called Jesus, and according to the signification of his name, be the Savior of all nations.

…

Chapter 3

1 – Afterwards the angel appeared unto Anna his wife saying: Fear not, neither think that which ye see is a spirit.

2 – For I am the angel who hath offered up your prayers and alms before God, and am now sent to you, that I may inform you that a daughter will be born unto you, who shall be called Mary, and shall be blessed above all women.

3 – She shall be, immediately upon her birth, full of grace of the Lord, and shall continue the three years of her weaning in her father’s house, and afterwards, being devoted to the service of the Lord, shall not depart from the temple, till she arrives at the years of discretion.

4 – But, being an unparalleled instance without any pollution or defilement, and a virgin not knowing any man shall bring forth a son, and a maid shall bring forth the Lord, who both by grace and the name of his works, shall be the Savior of the world.

…

11 – So Anna conceived, and brought forth a daughter, and according to the angel’s command, the parents called her name Mary.

Chapter 4

1 – And when the three years were expired, and the time of her weaning complete, they brought the Virgin to the temple of the Lord with offerings.

2- And there were about the temple, according to the Psalms of degrees, fifteen stairs to ascend.

…

4 – The parents of the blessed Virgin and infant Mary put her upon one of the stairs;

5 – But while they were putting off their clothes…

6 – …the Virgin of the Lord in such a manner went up all the stairs one after another, without the help of any to lead or lift her, that one would have judged from hence that she was of perfect age.

7 – Thus the Lord did, in the infancy of his Virgin, work this extraordinary work…

8 – But the parent having offered up their sacrifice, according to the custom of the law, left the Virgin with other virgins in the apartments of the temple, who were brought up there, and they returned home.

Chapter 5

1 – But the Virgin of the Lord, as she advanced in years, increased also in perfections, and according to the Psalmist, her father and mother forsook her, but the Lord took care of her.

2 – For she every day had the conversation of angels, and every day received visitors from God, which preserved her from all sorts of evil, and caused her to abound with all good things;

3 – So that when at length she arrived to her fourteenth year, as the wicked could not lay anything to her charge worthy of reproof, so all good persons, who were acquainted with her, admired her life and conversation.

4 – At that time the high-priest made a public order.  That all the virgins who had public settlements in the temple, and were come to this age, should return home, and as they were now of a proper maturity, should according to the custom of their country, endeavor to be married.

5 – To which command, though all the other virgins readily yielded obedience, Mary the Virgin of the Lord alone answered, that she could not comply with it.

6 – Assigning these reasons, that both she and her parents had devoted her to the service of the Lord; and besides, that she had vowed virginity to the Lord, which vow she was resolved never to break through by lying with a man.

7 – The high priest being herby brought into a difficulty,

8 – Seeing he durst neither on the one hand dissolve the vow, and disobey the Scripture, which says, Vow and pay,

9 – Nor on the other hand introduce a custom, to which the people were strangers commanded,

10 – That at the approaching feast all the principal persons both of Jerusalem and the neighbouring places should meet together, that he might have their advice, how he had best proceed in so difficult a case.

…

12 – And when they were all engaged in prayer, the high-priest, according to the usual way, went to consult God.

13 – And immediately there was a voice from the ark, and the mercy seat, which all present heard, that it must be inquired or sought out by a prophecy of Isaiah to whom the Virgin should be given and be betrothed;

…

16 – Then according to this prophecy, he appointed that all the men of the house and family of David, who were marriageable, and not married, should bring their several rods to the altar,

17 – And out of whatsoever person’s rod after it was brought, a flower should bud forth, and on the top of it the Spirit of the Lord should sit in the appearance of a dove, he should be the man to whom the Virgin should be betrothed.

Chapter 6

1 – Among the rest there was a man named Joseph, of the house and family of David, and a person very far advanced in years, who drew back his rod, when every one besides presented his.

2 – So that when nothing appeared agreeable to the heavenly voice, the high-priest judged it proper to consult God again.

3 – Who answered that he whom the virgin was to be betrothed was the only person of those who were brought together, who had not brought his rod.

4 – Joseph therefore was betrayed.

5 – For when he did bring his rod, and a dove coming from Heaven pitched upon the top of it, every one plainly saw, that the Virgin was to be betrothed to him;

6 – According to the usual ceremonies of betrothing being over, he returned to his own city of Bethlehem, to set his house in order, and make the needful provisions for the marriage.

7 – But the Virgin of the Lord, Mary with seven other virgins of the same age, who had been weaned at the same time, and who had been appointed to attend her by the priest, returned to her parent’s house in Galilee.

Chapter 7

…[angel appears to Mary]

8 – Fear not Mary, as though I intended anything inconsistent with your chastity in this salutation;

9 – For you have found favour with the Lord, because you made virginity your choice.

10 – Therefore while you are a Virgin, you shall conceive without sin, and bring forth a son.

11 – He shall be great, because he shall reign from sea to the sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth

….

16 – She said, How can that be?  For seeing, according to my vow, I have never known any man, how can I bear a child without the addition of a man’s seed?

17 – To this the angel replied and said, Think not Mary, that you shall conceive in the ordinary way.

18 – For without lying with a man, while a Virgin, you shall conceive; while a Virgin, you shall bring forth; and while a Virgin shall give suck.

19 – For the Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you, without any of the heats of lust.

20 – So that which shall be born of you shall be only holy, because it only is conceived without sin, and being born, shall be called the Son of God.

21 – Then Mary stretching forth her hands and lifting her eyes to heaven, said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord!  Let it be unto me according to thy word.

Chapter 8

1 – Joseph therefore went from Judaea to Galilee, with intention to marry the Virgin who was betrothed to him:

2 – For it was now near three months since she was betrothed to him.

3 – At length it plainly appeared she was with child, and it could not be hid from Joseph:

4 – For going to the Virgin in a free manner, as one espoused, and talking familiarly with her, he perceived her to be with child.

5 – And thereupon began to be uneasy and doubtful, not knowing what course it would be best to take;

6 – For being a just man, he was not willing to expose her, nor defame her by the suspicion of being a whore, since he was a pious man.

7 – He purposed therefore privately to put an end to their agreement, and as privately to put her away.

8 – But while he was meditating these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, and said Joseph, son of David, fear not;

9 – Be not willing to entertain any suspicion of the Virgin’s being guilty of fornication, or to think any thing amiss of her, neither be afraid to take her to wife;

10 – For that which is begotten in her and now distresses your mind, is not the work of man, but the Holy Ghost.

11 – For she of all women is that only Virgin who shall bring forth the Son of God, and you shall call his name Jesus, that is, Saviour: for he will save his people from their sins.

12 – Joseph thereupon according to the command of the angel, married the Virgin, and did not know her, but kept her in chastity.

13 – And now the ninth month from her conception drew near, when Joseph took his wife and what other things were necessary to Bethlehem, the city from whence he came.

14 – And it came to pass, while they were there, the days were fulfilled for her bringing forth her first-born son, as the holy Evangelists have taught, even our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, lives and reigns to everlasting ages.

{The End}

So what do you make of this gospel?  Some have claimed that the biblical use of the word “virgin” simply meant young woman, but this gospel makes specific mention of Mary’s virginity and chastity.  On the other hand, there must have been quite some rumors about Mary’s out of wedlock pregnancy.  My next post will discuss another book called the Protevangelion.  It gives a lot more detail about Joseph’s concern about Mary’s pregnancy.  (If you thought this gospel was cool, the Protevangelion is even better!)  Here are some questions to consider.

• Have you ever heard that Mary’s birth was miraculous?  What do you make of this story of her birth?
• Did you have any idea Mary grew up in the temple?
• Did you know Joseph didn’t want to marry Mary even before she appeared pregnant?  I’m sure it is because Joseph was “far advanced in years” – perhaps Joseph was old enough to be her father (That’s the take in the Protevangelion.)
• What do you think of her conversations with angels “every day”?
• How historically accurate do you think some of these events are from the life of Mary?
• While I don’t expect Mormons to have very much of an issue with Mary’s lineage, what do you make of the dispute about her ancestry (Judah or Levi)?
• What do you make of the emphasis in this gospel of her chastity?
• Do you think Mary’s role and miraculous experiences are under-emphasized (undervalued) in the biblical gospels?  Do you think it would have been nice if this gospel had been included in the biblical canon?

The rabbi was aging, and spent some time in the hospital.  Pages 97-99 detail an interesting insight into one of these visits.

As we sat in the room, a commercial for an antidepressant drug flashed across the TV screen.  It showed people looking forlorn, alone on a bench or staring out a window.

“I keep feeling something bad is going to happen….,” the TV voice said.

Then, after showing the pill and some graphics, those same people appeared again, looking happier.

The Reb and I watched in silence.  After it ended, he asked, “Do you think those pills work?”

Not like that, I said.

“No,” he agreed.  “Not like that.”

——

Happiness in a tablet.  This is our world.  Prozac. Paxil. Xanax.  Billions are spent to advertise such drugs.  And billions more are spent purchasing them.  You don’t even need a specific trauma; just “general depression” or “anxiety,” as if sadness were as treatable as the common cold.

I knew depression was real, and in many cases required medical attention.  I also knew we overused the word.  Much of what we call “depression” was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures that we weren’t willing to work for.  I knew people whose unbearable source of misery was their weight, their baldness, their lack of advancement in the workplace, or their inability to find the perfect mate, even if they themselves did not behave like one.  To these people, unhappiness was a condition, an intolerable state of affairs.  If pills could help, pills were taken.

But pills were not going to change the fundamental problem in the construction.  Wanting what you can’t have.

I want to jump to the end of this particular story.  From page 102,

So have we solved the secret of happiness?

“I believe so,” he said.

Are you going to tell me?

“Yes.  Ready?”

Ready.

“Be satisfied.”

That’s it?

“Be grateful”

That’s it?

“For what you have.  For the love you receive.  And for what God has given you.”

That’s it?

He looked at me in the eye.  Then he sighed deeply.

“That’s it.”

I hope we can remember this lesson as we celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

“Will you do my eulogy?”

I don’t understand, I said.

“My eulogy?” the old man asked again.  “When I’m gone.”  His eyes blinked from behind his glasses.  His nearly trimmed beard was gray, and he stood slightly stooped.

Are you dying? I asked.

“Not yet,” he said, grinning.

Then why—

“Because I think you would be a good choice.  And I think, when the time comes, you will know what to say.”

Picture the most pious man you know.  Your priest.  Your pastor.  Your rabbi.  Your imam.  Now picture him tapping you on the shoulder and asking you to say good-bye to the world on his behalf.

Picture the man who sends people off to heaven, asking you for his send-off to heaven.

“So?” he said.  “Would you be comfortable with that?

The book is a great read.  Mitch tells the true stories of the interactions with his rabbi, as well as a pastor of a homeless church in Detroit.  I wanted to share a few stories that I found especially touching.  In preparation for the eulogy, Mitch met with his rabbi regularly for 8 years.  The rabbi is a remarkable man.  One of their conversations is detailed on page 158,

Soon we had tumbled into a most fundamental debate.  How can different religions coexist?  If one faith believes one thing, and another believes something else, how can they both be correct?  And does one religion have the right—or even the obligation—to try to convert the other?

…[jump to page 159]

Is there any winning a religious argument?  Whose God is better than whose?  Who got the Bible right or wrong?  I preferred figures like Rajchandra, the Indian poet who influenced Gandhi by teaching that no religion was superior because they all brought people closer to God; or Gandhi himself, who would break a fast with Hindu prayers, Muslim quotations, or a Christian hymn.

…[jumping to pages 160-162]

“Ask yourself, ‘Why did God create but one man?’” the Reb said, wagging a finger.  “Why, if he meant for there to be faiths bickering with each other, didn’t he create that from the start?  He created trees, right?  Not one tree, countless trees.  Why not the same with man?

“Because we are all from that one man—and all from that one God.  That’s the message.”

Then why, I asked, is the world so fractured?

“Well, you can look at it this way?  Would you want the world to all look alike?  No.  The genius of life is its variety.

“Even our own faith, we have questions and answers, interpretations, debates.  In Christianity, in Catholicism, in other faiths, the same thing—debates, interpretations.  That is the beauty.  It’s like being a musician.  If you found the note, and you kept hitting that note all the time, you would go nuts.  It’s the blending of the different notes that makes the music.”

The music of what?

“Of believing in something bigger than yourself.”

But what if someone from another faith won’t recognize yours?  Or wants you dead for it?

“That is not faith.  That is hate.”  He sighed.  “And if you ask me, God sits up there and cries when it happens.”

He coughed, then as if to reassure me, he smiled.  He had full time help in the house now; his home care workers had included a tall woman from Ghana and a burly Russian man.  Now, on weekdays, there was a lovely Hindu woman from Trinidad named Teela.  She helped get him dressed and do some light exercises in the morning, fixed his meals, and drove him to the supermarket and synagogue.  Sometimes she would play Hindi religious music over her car stereo.  The Reb enjoyed it and asked for a translation.  When she talked about reincarnation, per her faith, he quizzed her and apologized for not knowing more about Hinduism over the years.

How can you—a cleric—be so open-minded? I asked.

“Look, I know what I believe.  It’s in my soul.  But I constantly tell our people: you should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must also be humble enough to say that we don’t know everything, we must accept that another person may believe in something else?”

He sighed.

“I’m not being original here, Mitch.  Most religions teach us to love our neighbor.”

I thought about how much I admired him at that moment.  How he never, even in private, even in old age, tried to bully another belief, or bad-mouth someone else’s devotion.  And I realized I had been a bit of a coward on this whole faith thing.  I should have been more proud, less intimidated.  I shouldn’t have bitten my tongue.  If the only thing wrong with Moses is that he’s not yours; if the only thing wrong with Jesus is he’s not yours; if the only thing wrong with mosques, Lent, chanting, Mecca, Buddha, confession, or reincarnation is that they’re not yours—well, maybe the problem is you.

One more question? I asked the Reb.

He nodded.

When someone from another faith says, “God bless you,” what do you say?

“I say, ‘Thank you, and God bless you, too.’”

Really?

“Why shouldn’t I?”

I went to answer and realized I had no answer.  No answer at all.

I wanted to share one more story, where I take the title of my post.  From pages 70-71,

“What’s wrong?” the Reb asked.

Apparently minutes earlier, Gunther had been outside, overseeing the parking, when the Catholic priest came stomping out and began to yell about all the cars parking by his church, because it was Sunday and he wanted the spaces for his members.

“Get them out of here,” he hollered, according to Gunther.  “You Jews move your cars now!”

“But it’s High Holiday,” Gunther said.

“Why must you have it on Sunday?” the priest yelled.

“The date was set three thousand years ago,” Gunther replied.  Being an immigrant, he still spoke with a German accent.  The priest glared at him, then uttered something almost beyond belief.

“They didn’t exterminate enough of you.”

Gunther was enraged.  His wife had spent three and a half years in a concentration camp.  He wanted to slug the priest.  Someone intervened, thankfully, and a shaken Gunther returned to the sanctuary.

The next day, the Reb phoned the Catholic archbishop who oversaw the area’s churches and told him what had happened.  The following day, the phone rang.  It was the priest, asking if he could come over and talk.

The Reb met him at the office door.  They sat down.

“I want to apologize,” he said.

“Yes,” the Reb said.

“I should not have said what I did.”

“No, you should not have,” the Reb said.

“My archbishop had a suggestion,” the priest said.

“What is that?”

“Well, as you know, our Catholic school is in session now.  And they will have their recess soon…”

The Reb listened.

Then he nodded and stood up.

And when the school doors opened and the kids burst out for recess, they saw the priest of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church and the rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom walking arm in arm, around the schoolyard.

Some kids blinked.

Some kids stared.

But all of them took notice.

You might think that an uneasy truce; two men forced to walk around a schoolyard, arm in arm.  You might think a certain bitterness would haunt the relationship.  But somehow, in time, they became friends.  And years later, the Reb would be inside the Catholic church.

At the priest’s funeral.

“I was asked to help officiate,” the Reb recalled.  “I recited a prayer for him.”  And I think, by that time, he might have thought it wasn’t so bad.”

I loved the book, and HIGHLY recommend it to everyone.  I’ve only discussed the rabbi here, but there’s a fascinating story of a Christian preacher of the “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” church as well.  Your heart will be touched, as mine was.

I welcome debate here.  Sometimes tempers flare.  I hope we can follow the example of the priest and the rabbi, walking arm in arm despite our different beliefs, and I hope we can maintain these friendships, even if we don’t convert anyone to our way of thinking.

Saint Peter still seems enigmatic.  There is a great deal in his career that appears evanescent and obscure, and it was this that tempted me to the subject.  I can only hope that I have helped to clean some of the mysteries up, or at least to present them in the terms that they deserve.

Let me say that I enjoyed the historical parts of the book, but Peter still seems enigmatic to me.  At times, Grant talked more of Jesus and Paul than Peter.  While these two people are important to discuss when talking about Peter, it just seems to me that I still don’t really understand Peter.  Bishop Rick previously made the claim that Paul founded Christianity.  Michael Grant seems to dispute that notion quite clearly.  From the Epilogue, page 176, Grant says

Peter was significant for two reasons, both of which I have discussed in some detail, and both of which remain firmly fixed in the historical picture.  In the first place Jesus chose him as his principal helper; the man who was assigned that remarkable honour and responsibility must have been very far from negligible.  Second, after the appalling event of Jesus’ Crucifixion, it was Peter who collected his disheartened followers together and formed them into a Christian community.  This was a tremendously difficult task, and the person who was able to do it must have exercised an extraordinary influence.  Moreover, unless Peter had done this, Jesus’s endeavors would never have survived.  Paul could not have achieved this without Peter’s work immediately after the Crucifixion; and so, without Peter, there would have been no Christian Church either in the subsequent centuries to today.

I’ve heard a few scholars make the case that James, Jesus brother was the leader of the early Christian church rather than Peter, but I didn’t understand the reasoning behind that.  Grant seems to believe that Peter got demoted following his well-known conflict with Paul regarding whether Gentiles would be circumcised.  Grant says that James came out of Peter and Paul’s dispute the winner.

Before I get into this triangle between Peter, Paul, and James, let me first discuss Grant’s point of view.  Grant died in 2004.  During his life, he was a professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University, and was vice-chancellor at Queen’s University in Belfast and the University of Khartoum.  As a historian, he “must” discount all miracles in the Bible.  On pages 4-5 he discusses miracles as says that,

most students of history, therefore, are not able to take these miraculous happenings into consideration.  They can believe in such stories, if they wish, but they do so as a matter of faith and not as historians.  Or they can disbelieve them, if they prefer.  In either case, it is their duty to attempt to find out what happened, within the realms of historical fact and possibility.  (italics in original)

…

Biographers of Jesus have sometimes excised this miraculous material from their narrative, in order to make it sound more credible to modern ears.  But any such attempts conflict strongly with the ancient accounts that have come down to us.  In the four Gospels, no fewer than 232 miracles are reported.  Take Mark, for example.  Out of that Gospel’s 661 verses, as many as 209 deal with miraculous doings.  And Matthew and Luke carry the same tendency still further.  Matthew, in particular, emphasizes the theme to an extraordinary extent.  ’It is hard to find a non-maraculous kernel of the Gospel.’⁴ And that is why Peter, too, was credited with miracles after Jesus’s death.  He was believed to have been following his great predecessor’s tradition.

So, as a believer and not a historian, it took me a bit of getting used to completely discounting all these miracles.  Chapter 10 is titled “The Clash with Paul.”  Grant talked about problems in chronology, and questions if an Apostolic Council in Jerusalem even occurred.  In Paul’s letter to the Galations, Paul dates this visit to 3 years after his conversion, so some scholars date the event to 35-37 AD (depending on the date of Jesus’ death.)  However, Acts 15 seems to place the event in 48 AD at Passover.  Grant says that “Acts 15 paints a picture of single-minded unanimity (homothumadon)³ — an idealized and inaccurate picture as most now believe.  Admittedly there was quite a long debate.^4″ From page 132,

But what actually happened at the Apostolic Council?  We shall assume for a moment that there was one, ignoring, however, the unsatisfactory nature of such a name, which is likely to produce anachronistic ideas.¹⁰ The Council has been the subject of a host of varying modern interpretations.  Probably the predominant view, for which there is a lot to be said–and it leaves open, perhaps uncomfortably open, the question of whether the council actually took place–is that Acts created the story from two fundamental traditions or memories which had been handed down to its writer.  The first tradition was that at Jerusalem the Christian leadership, including Paul, Peter, and James the brother of Jesus, came to an agreement that, although Pharisee missionaries to the Gentiles would argue to the contrary, Gentiles could be accepted into the ranks of Christians without having been circumcised.  This was a tradition that seems to be confirmed by Paul.  The second tradition was that nevertheless, in certain communities where Jewish and Gentile Christians were mixed, Gentiles were obliged, in order to maintain this association, to fall with certain other Jewish regulations regarding impurity, and rules relating to food.

As to circumcision, even Acts, determined though its writer is to record harmony, admits that there had been ‘fierce dissension’ on the subject,¹¹ which it probably does not differentiate sufficiently from the food problems.  The book does record what looks like a compromise between Paul and Barnabus, on the one hand, who were against imposing Jewish restrictions on Gentile converts, and Christians such as James who espoused orthodox Jewish practices.  In due course this decision was incorporated, we are told, in what is known as the Apostolic Decree, issued allegedly to ‘our brothers of Gentile origin’ in Antioch, the rest of Syria, and Cilicia.¹²

…page 134

Others try to get away from the problem by suggesting that Acts 15 is a conflation of two Jerusalem meetings.  The first of these peacefully aligned Peter with Paul, whose insistence on the Gentiles’ freedom from circumcision prevailed, whereas the second confirmed the Four Regulations (which may be fictitious) in the absence of Paul.  According to this second hypothesis, Paul never enforced the Decree, either because he did not know about it or because the churches in the other provinces were, or could be assumed as being, outside the area to which the Decree was meant to apply.  That is possible.  But in any case, even if the Apostolic Council did take place, which is more than doubtful, its decisions failed to have any effect, as will shortly become clear.

Grant discusses further details on whether the meeting may have occurred (and concludes it either didn’t occur, or was a small, private meeting between Peter, Paul, and James).  He then notes something of a schism.  From pages 136-7,

Two separate Christian missionary areas were now in existence (although Acts does not seem willing to accept the division), one for Jews and one for Christians.  The former was in the hands of Peter, which again casts doubt on his alleged activity among the Gentiles.  But this division, and the agreement to maintain it, was not likely to be workable in practice because of the inevitable clash of personalities, and, in addition because in most places the population was mixed, consisting of both Jews and of Gentiles, so that any clear-cut division into two  missionary areas was unattainable.

Furthermore, on page 140, Grant says that “there were at least two rival groups, or possibly four”.²⁹ He references Paul’s letter,

I have been told, my brothers, by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you.  What I mean is this: each of you is saying, “I am Paul’s man,’ or “I am for Apollos’; ‘I follow Cephas [Peter],’ or ‘I am Christ’s.’

Surely Christ has not been divided among you!

Grant discusses Paul chastising Peter in Antioch in Galations, attributing the event to 49 AD.  On page 138,

It is manifest that the period immediately after the Crucifixion of Jesus did not witness the harmony among his followers in which Acts has tried to induce us to believe, but was instead characterized by sharp rivalry between two mutually hostile groups.  One of the groups was that of James the brother of Jesus and his fellow-Jews born in Palestine, who believed in Jesus but were also convinced that this belief entailed all the maintenance of traditional Jewish institutions such as circumcision.  The other group was led by Paul, and consisted of men whose education had been partly Greek and who were of Gentile origin.  They, too, believed in Jesus, and although they may well have respected confirmity with many aspects of Jewish Law, they were certain this this faith in him, with all its power and intensity, completely superseded some of the other old regulations of Judaism.

There us little doubt about what happened.  James, leader of the faction which believed that Gentile Christians must obey Jewish customs, had not, after all, been prepared to abide by the Jerusalem agreement–if there was one–and had sent men, or a man, to persuade or compel Peter to cease from having meals with Gentile Christians.  Peter might have felt relatively liberal about this before–although, as we have seen, his actual conversion of Gentiles is doubtful–but now he gave in to James because, Paul said, he was ‘afraid’.  This is perhaps an unduly harsh condemnation of the dilemma in which Peter found himself, since what he was really trying to do was to mediate between two extreme positions.  And so he paid the penalty which flexible, diplomatic, careful, moderate mediators, compromisers and bridge-men pay.  He was said to be frightened (perhaps for the future of his own mission, but not, surely, of freedom fighters, as has been suggested.)²⁵ Can he be accused of wavering?  Yes, he certainly abandoned a position he believed in, but no doubt because he hoped to bridge the gap which had widened between James and Paul.

And one thing is clear.  First we had heard of Peter as the Christian leader.  Then we heard of a joint leadership of Peter, James, and John.  Now we learn that Peter has bowed to the wished of James.  The man who will henceforward take the lead among Jewish Christians of Jerusalem is not Peter; it is James.  The leadership of Christianity in its central Palestinian city has passed back to the family of Jesus himself, with whom it will remain for a  good many years.  That is another penalty that mediators and compromisers pay.  They do not manage to retain leadership.

There are several James’s mentioned in the New Testament, and James “the brother of Jesus” is not one of the original 12 Apostles.  There is James the Just, James the Great, and James the Less.  Grant describes these 3 James’s on page 150.

Although inadequately described in the New Testament, and accorded especially little justice in Acts, James is of importance in this story, because it was he who supplanted Peter as the leader of the Christians after the Crucifixion of Jesus.

The James (Jacob) to whom reference is made, neither the son of Zebedee (James ‘the Great’, executed by King Agrippa I) nor the son of Alphaeus (James ‘the Less’), was ‘the Lord’s brother’ according to Paul in his Letter to the Galatians.¹² The Gospels record brothers of Jesus, including James, and the contexts seem to show that these writers have a blood relationship between Jesus and his brothers in mind.  Tertullian (c.AD 160-240) and Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-211/216), too, confirm that this was what was believed in the first two centuries AD.  Origen (c. 184/6-254/5) and others, however, bearing in mind that ‘brother’ (adelphos) can cover a wider range of meanings, suggested that James was a stepbrother of Jesus: in other words, that Joseph had been married to another wife before he was married to Mary.  A rival theory, sponsored by Jerome (c. 348-420), held that Jesus and James were really cousins.¹⁴ These views, contradicting the simple brotherly relationship, came into being because it was increasingly stressed, from the second century onwards, that Mary, the wife of Joseph, was not only a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, but remained a virgin all her life.

James, it appears, was not very keen on the preaching of Jesus, and may indeed have been positively opposed to it, as long as Jesus was alive.¹⁵ After the Crucifixion, however, he became converted.  This according to Paul, was because he was vouchsafed an Appearance of the risen Christ.¹⁶ Probably this Appearance was needed, and invented, by the tradition, because James’s kinship with Jesus (accompanied, as it had been, but a measure of scepticism) was not help to be sufficient to justify the prominent position which James now came to occupy.

For within a short time after Paul’s conversion James was a significant leader in the Christian Church, and he became even more important after Agrippa I had the apostle James ‘the Great’ (the son of Zebedee) executed in AD 44 and Peter fled from Jerusalem.  It was then that James ‘the brother of Jesus’ came to power in Peter’s place.  He had not been one of the original Twelve, but Paul seems to have regarded him as an apostle all the same.¹⁷

Although Acts does not, on the whole, do justice to James, the book does make him the chief spokesman for the Jerusalem church at the probably non-existent Apostolic Council, in which he was alleged to have intervened in favour of a measure of Jewish orthodoxy, indicating that Gentile converts should comply with the Four Regulations.¹⁸

…

Later tradition maintained that James was called ‘the Just’ (Zaddik, like the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness), and was noted for his pious fulfillment of Jewish Law.  He may have possessed priestly privileges, and it was perhaps because of his influence that he Pharisee Gamaliel urged leniency to Peter and the Christians.¹⁹

Grant says there are many mysteries surrounding James.  From page 153,

why are we given so little information about him?  Why has he been pushed into the position of a shadowy, background figure?²¹ The answer seems to be this.  Whether he was Jesus brother or not, James had known him personally, and had been close to him, in a way with which Paul could not hope to compete.  This meant that James was nearer to the source of the faith than Paul could ever expect to be.  Moreover, James’s aims and interests were by no means those of Paul.  On occasion, indeed, they held exactly opposite views.

For Paul, then, James must have been a continual source of disapproval and irritation.  And with the subsequent triumph of Pauline Christianity, his significance, even if it could not be expunged from the record completely, was at any rate retroactively lessened.  This made James an ambiguous figure, about whom Acts, in consequence, is curiously reticent.  In fact, however, James had been someone who could even overrule Peter.  Some have gone further still and have asserted that, despite the popular position that Peter was the first head of the Church, the neglected James had really been its first leader.  This seems to go too far.  Peter was the first leader of the Christians after Jesus’s death.  But the fact that he was later superseded by James is indicative of the significant setback his career had suffered.

So, what do you think about Peter, Paul, and James as “the” early leader of Christianity?

What I found interesting was the fact that there were many similarities.  The same experts and evidence often appeared in multiple videos, yet often different conclusions were provided.  It reminds me of the debate concerning Book of Mormon evidence.

During Passover celebrations in 2001, Rabbi David Wolpe created international headlines in Israel by proclaiming to his Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, “the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”

For more than 1700 years, Christians have been looking for Mount Sinai, the place where Moses received the 10 Commandments.  Constantine’s mother, Helena was probably the first Christian in search of Christian artifacts in the 4^th century.  When Christians came across a strange-looking bush at the base of a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula, they erected a monastery claiming that they had found Mount Sinai.  The monastery still exists today, and you can walk the steps that these early Christians have claimed as the real Mount Sinai.

Prof Philip Davies, University of Sheffield, “When it comes to the Exodus, we have no evidence that it happened, and a good deal of evidence that it didn’t.  They made it up.”

Professor Eric Cline, George Washington University, “We do not have a single shred of evidence to date.  There is nothing archeologically to attest to anything from the biblical story: no plagues, no parting of the Red Sea, no manna from heaven, no wandering for 40 years.”

Dr. Kathlyn M. Cooney, Egyptologist, Stanford University,, “the most likely reason that we’re not finding any evidence for the Exodus in Egypt is that it didn’t happen the way that the Bible said it did, or that it didn’t happen at all.”

Since that famous (infamous) sermon in 2001, Wolpe has gone on to soften his words a bit.  In March 2010, he said it was possible that a small group of people left Egypt, came to Canaan, and influenced the native Canaanites.  Even skeptics admit there could be something to the story.

Cline, “I think there’s a very good chance that what actually took place was a series of migrations waves or migrations if you will, over three or 400 years of people leaving Egypt and making their way up to Egypt in ones, twos, threes, maybe even tens, hundreds at the most.”

So, let’s talk about some of the biggest questions concerning the Exodus.

The Burning Bush.

The Bible says that God spoke to Moses in the form of a burning bush that was not consumed.  As mentioned previously, a strange bush was found at the base of the traditional Mount Sinai.  Is there another explanation for this burning bush?  Colin Humphreys has an explanation for a burning bush, involving real fire.  As we all know, oil and natural gas are prevalent in the Middle East.  Humphreys believes the Acacia Bush is an ideal candidate for the Burning Bush.

“The most common bush in the desert is the acacia bush, and we know that if you burn an acacia bush you get charcoal.”

The Acacia Bush maintains it’s shape and turns to charcoal.  He gives a demonstration using a natural gas barbecue grill and an acacia bush.  The bush maintains it’s shape, even though flames shoot through the bush.

When did the Exodus Happen?

There are two main theories:  the Early Exodus Period, and the Late Exodus Period.  Supporters of the Early Period point to 1 Kings 6:1, ““Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel…that he began to build the house of the Lord.”  Most historians put the Temple of Solomon at 965 BC.  This would put the Exodus at approximately 1445 BC.

Pharoah Thutmoses I reigned from 1525-1512 BC.  Scholars have speculated that his daughter Hatshepsut may have rescued Moses from the Nile.  She served as Pharoah from 1503-1482 BC, and battled with her stepson Thutmoses III (1504-1450 BC) for control of Egypt.  Thutmoses III eventually removed nearly all traces of Hatshepsut’s monuments.  Thutmoses III death in 1450 coincides well with the date of this Early Exodus time period.

Supporters of the late period refer to Exodus 1:11, “And they built for Pharoah store cities, Pithom and Ramses.”  Ramses II seems to be the most likely Pharaoh.  He lived 1290-1224 BC.  He moved the capital from Thebes to the Nile Delta, and built a new city called Pi-Ramses.  Some archaeologists have linked this city built on top of an ancient Israelite city.

Simcha Jacobovici believes the date of Exodus may be earlier.  He believes the eruption of the Santorini Volcano in 1500 BC may explain many of the Biblical plagues.  The Egyptian name Ahmose means “brother of Moses” in Hebrew—an interesting play on words.    At this time, Egypt was ruled by a Semitic people called the Hyksos, people who were hated by the Egyptians.  Since Joseph was of Semitic origins, this may have helped him join the ranks of the Hyksos ruling class.  The Bible refers to a pharaoh that “knew not Joseph.”

Egyptians have recorded and event called “the Hyksos Expulsion” around 1500 BC.  Could it be the Israelites were expelled, rather than left freely?  Perhaps it depends on who writes the history.

Is there an Israelite presence in Egypt?

In 1967 Professor Manfred Bietak, Chair of Egyptology at the University of Vienna, discovered the ancient Egyptian capital of Avaris.  It was the home to many ancient Egyptian pharaohs.  Some believe the architecture of this city bears resemblance to later Israelite/Canaanite architecture.

Jacobovici attributes Avaris to the Hyksos, while Dr Bryant Wood refers to the ruins as “Asiatic”, similar to later Canaanite   Let me quote from the Exodus Revealed video.

Dr Bryant G Wood, Director of the Associates for Biblical Research, “In this small village, there is stratum D2 dating to the time of Joseph.  All the remains are Asiatic in nature, material culture is Asiatic—there is nothing Egyptian.”

A map of the excavation site confirms its distinctive Israelite origins.  Archaeologists immediately recognized that the design of this horseshoe shaped dwelling was identical to structures built in Israel centuries later.  It was a prototype of Hebrew architecture constructed near the time Joseph was believed to have lived in Egypt.

…

There should be evidence of Israel’s arrival in Canaan, the Promised Land sometime between the 14^th and 12^th centuries BC.  Such evidence does exist.  More than 3200 years ago, the Pharaoh Mernepteh, ventured out of Egypt on a military campaign to the Land of Canaan.  Later, in a poem proclaiming his victory, he boasted that “…Israel is laid waste.”  This inscription dates from about 1210 BC, and establishes that the Israelites had arrived and settled in Canaan, well before the Mernepteh’s conquest at the end of the 13th century.

Additionally at Telamarna in Egypt, archaeologists have uncovered a series of letters on cuneiform plates.  Many were authored by Canaanite rulers early in the 14^th century BC.  These letters contain desperate pleas to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten for military assistance to defend Canaan from nomadic invaders.  One of them warned that if pharaoh does not act, “…all Canaan will be lost.”  The invaders were identified by the term “apiru”.

Wood, “This is kind of a generic term for stateless individuals who weren’t connected with any particular urban center and so the Israelites undoubtedly would have been referred to as either Apiru, or Asiatics by the Egyptians.”

Dr Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University, “I do think that the term Apiru is the origin of the term Hebrew.”

If the name Apiru referred to the name of the Hebrew people, then the Telhermana inscriptions provide strong evidence for the presence of Israel in Canaan.  They also suggest Israel may have entered the country earlier than scholars had previously thought, at the beginning of the 14^th century BC.  Recent excavations of the Canaanite city of Hazor also support a 14^th century Israelite invasion.  Evidence has been uncovered that the city was destroyed at least twice during the period described in the biblical books of Joshua and Judges.

Scattered among the remains of a large palace were Egyptian and Canaanite idols—their heads and hands intentionally chiseled off.  Archaeologist Amnen ben Tour, has concluded by process of elimination that the invading Israelite army must have ravaged Hazor.  For neither the Egyptians, nor the indigenous Canaanite would have purposely destroyed their own gods.

How can we explain the Plagues?

I presented Jacobovici’s position on the plagues in my previous post.  National Geographic (NG) had similar explanations for plagues 2-6 dealing with insects and frogs.  NG even interviewed several entomologists and epidemiologists to further pin down the actual types of bugs most likely in these infestations.

The first plague, turning the Nile to blood has a few different explanations.  Jacobovici believes an underground natural gas into the Nile may have caused caused the waters to turn red and kill all the fish.  Two lakes in Cameroon turned blood red in 1984 and 1986.  Epidemiologist John Marr believes microscopic algae may have turned the Nile blood red.  In 1995, a coastal river in North Carolina turned bright red due to an algae bloom.

Marr, “Wisteria was labeled the cell from hell because it killed millions if not billions of fish.  If that occurred in North Carolina in the 1990’s, why couldn’t it have occurred in Egypt 3000 years ago?”

The last plague has some interesting interpretations too.  Moses prophesied that the firstborn of Egypt would all die, and the Israelites would be spared if they put lamb’s blood on their doorposts.  The Destroying Angel would “pass over” homes with lamb’s blood.  So, how can scientists explain such a selective mode of death?  Some believe the Firstborn is metaphorical.

Epidemiologist Martin Blaser of NYU, “There is no disease that we know of that just affects the firstborns, so I take that it’s a metaphor for a disease that kills one out of every 3 or 4 people.”

Blaser thinks bubonic plague may have been the culprit, because it affects both animals and humans.  Eric Cline of George Washington believes the plagues could refer to a “Sea People” that attacked Egypt.

Cline, “The attack of the Sea Peoples was probably the Egyptians worst nightmare.  They are the fiercest warriors that the Egyptians have faced, and the Egyptians tell us that everybody went down in the face of these sea peoples.  Only the Egyptians were able to stand, and even that was a Pyrrhic victory because the Egyptians were so weakened that they were never the same again.”

Although the Egyptians never mentioned the plagues, they did document these attacks in pictographs on the mortuary Temple of Ramses III.  Archaeological finds match these writings.

Cline, “I see no need to use divine intervention when human intervention can explain it just as well, if not better.”

Others believe the death of the firstborn may have been more literal.  Epidemiologist John Marr recently investigated the mysterious death of children that was due to a mold.  He postulated that following the plagues of locusts and hail, much of the grain in Egypt would have been moist and in short supply.

Rare molds can wreak havoc on human health, and can even cause internal hemorrhaging.  With little else to eat, the Egyptians may have resorted to moldy toxin laced grain.  Death would come suddenly, with no visible cause, as if the victims were touched by an angel of death.  Still, why the first born?  Marr found his answer, the final piece to the puzzle in an Egyptian tradition.

Marr, “During the times of famine, the eldest, the oldest Egyptian child would be given a double portion of food in order to stave off starvation.  Instead of saving them, it killed them.”

Jacobovici has another theory for the selective deaths during this final plague.

SJ, “The final plague took place at midnight, after Moses ordered the Israelites to sit down to what became known as the first Passover meal.  While the Israelites were involved in the Passover ritual, the Egyptians slept, and then it happened: every firstborn male Egyptian died.  Every house was affected.  No one has ever been able to offer up a plausible scientific explanation for the death of the firstborn until now.  According to our scenario, at this point in the sequence of events that began some 6 months earlier, the gas leaks that set the chain of plates in motion would have finally erupted.  Carbon dioxide would have seeped to the surface, and being heavier than air, would have killed animals and sleeping people before it dissipated harmlessly into the atmosphere.

In case you think all this is conjecture, consider this.  It happened in exactly the same way in 1986 at Lake Nyos, Cameroon.  On the fateful night of August 21, the villagers at Nyos went to sleep.  They couldn’t have known that the carbon dioxide gas which had turned the lake blood red, was now reaching a critical point.  As the people of Lake Nyos slept, the top of the lake was keeping the carbon down like a cap in a pop bottle.  But then the earth rumbled, and a landslide took place sending rock into the water, disturbing the surface pressure and releasing the gas.  The gas then rose to the surface, and like some alien monster, emerged from the water, droplets forming on it, turning the invisible gas into a visible fog.  The fog then rolled across the water, and across the land, suffocating everything in its path.  And as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared, dissolving harmlessly into the atmosphere.

The next day those who had been sleeping on higher ground woke up to find some 1800 people dead, hundreds of cattle and small animals also dead, all around there was deadly silence.

SJ, “After the death of the First born, Pharaoh finally relented, letting Moses take his people out of Egypt.  According to the Bible, what made pharaoh give up was the selectivity of the deaths: the fact that it was only male, firstborn who died.  It was this selectivity that demonstrated to him that God himself was involved.  How can we account for this?

Well, Egyptian firstborn males had the privileged position.  They were the heirs to the throne, to property, title, and more.  They slept on Egyptian beds low to the ground, while their brothers and sisters slept on rooftops, sheds, and wagons.  The Israelites sitting up at their first Passover meal did not feel a thing, while the low traveling gas suffocated the privileged Egyptian males sleeping in their beds.

How many people participated in the Exodus?

The Bible says that 600,000 men left Egypt.  Adding women and children would have increased the total number to 2.5 million people, the size of modern-day Brooklyn, NY.  If the group were that large, there should be some evidence somewhere in the wilderness.

Cline, “if the Biblical numbers are correct, and you’ve got two and a half million people wandering around for 40 years, I would want to find entire landscapes denuded.  I’d want to find hundreds of sheep and goat carcasses, the bones.  Even if they didn’t ask for directions wandering for 40 years, there would be something.”

However, archaeologist Jim Hoffmeier of the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School says the number is probably far fewer, due to a mistranslation dating thousands of years.  The original Hebrew says there were 600 elith.

Hoffmeier, “The word elith can be translated 3 different ways:  it can be translated thousand.  Elith can also be translated to the clan.  The third option is that it’s a military unit, which I think is a more plausible scenario.”

According to Hoffmeier’s interpretation, instead of 600,000 men and their families, there were as few as 5000.

Hoffmeier, “we’re talking about a few tens of thousands, certainly not hundreds of thousands, adding women and children making it millions.”

How did the Red Sea part?  Where did the Israelites cross?

There are 3 main theories for the crossing of the Red Sea: a northern, central, and southern route.  Those supporting a northern route point to volcanic activity to explain the parting of the Red Sea.

Geo-archaeologist Floyd McCoy researches tsunamis at the University of Hawaii.  He says a tsunami might have created a land passage for the Israelites across a lagoon.  Although we think of a tsunami as a lot of water, what comes before is the disappearance of water.

Floyd, “Sometimes you get a warning that a tsunami is coming.  Sometimes that ocean disappears, and that’s called draw down.  Remember what a wave looks like; it’s sinusoidal:  bottom, top; trough, crest.  If the trough comes in first, that’s draw down; the ocean disappears.

The Israelites would have crossed on the northern edge of the Mediterranean ocean according to this theory.  However, several Egyptian military outposts have been found along a northern route into Israel dating to the Exodus period.  Many believe the Israelites would have avoided these military outposts when trying to leave Egypt.

In addition to the Biblical mistranslation of elith, Hoffmeier believes the Red Sea is a mistranslation, and the parting of the sea may have occurred closer to home.

Hoffmeier, “The Hebrew Yam Suf literally means sea of reeds.  When the Greek translators took the Hebrew Yam Suf and translated it into Greek, they translated it as Red Sea instead of Reed Sea.  So we’ve been stuck with a faulty translation for over 2000 years.”

Hoffmeier has been working with Prof Stephen O. Moshier, Geologist of Wheaton College.  Together they have pieces together satellite photos and ancient maps to identify a sea of reeds.  They’ve come up with Lake El Balah, on the eastern border of Egypt.  Jacobovici paints another picture of this scenario.

Hoffmeier, “It’s an ancient lake that survived until the 1850’s.  When the Suez Canal was put in, this ancient lake finally died.  Professor Manfred Biatek after conducting a thorough study of this area, proposed that this lake was known to the Egyptians as Ha Tufi, meaning the marshland, the marshy sea.  And the word tuf, the Egyptian word for reeds is the same word as suf in Hebrew.  So Yam Suf, he suggested, was a name derived from this body of water.  Now it is called the El Balah Lake.”  [In Hebrew it means the lake where God devoured.]

…

SJ, “Identifying the precise location of Yam Suf means that we can finally explain the miracle of the parting of the sea. This satellite photo clearly demonstrates that Lake El Balah is close to the edge of the Nile Delta, where soil accumulates and collapses from time to time.  As Pharaoh chased the Israelites to the shores Lake El Balah, the extreme seismic activity that caused the two plates and the Santorini eruption would have now caused the delta to start sliding into the eastern Mediterranean.  As this millions of tons of soil moved forward, the edge of the African plate, which had now released from its burden must have risen between one to one and a half meters.  In other words, the sea parted.

Water would have cascaded from higher ground to lower ground and drained from pools and sinkholes creating dry land for the Israelites to cross.  At this point, further seismic activity, or another collapse of the delta would have sent a major tsunami crashing against the coasts.

Pellegrino, “We get some glimpse of these tidal waves in Turkey where they carved out channel scablands 30 miles inland.  In order to do that at the shore, these waves would have had to have been more than half as high as the Empire State Building, and that’s exactly the description that we do have in the Bible.”

SJ, “If the tsunami went a mere 12 km inland, it would have reached Lake El Balah and engulfed the Egyptian army.  By this point, according to the Bible, the Israelites had advanced beyond the reach of the waves.

Those who support a central route believe Moses and his followers crossed an ancient frankincense trail across the central Sinai Peninsula.  In his younger days, Moses killed an Egyptian while defending a Hebrew slave.  The Bible says he fled to the land of Midian, in Modern Day Saudi Arabia.  It is likely that Moses would have followed the frankincense trail to Midian.  It is the shortest, most direct route to Midian.  If Moses had made the trek before, it is likely he would have followed it again.  Dr Lennart Moller of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden notes that the Bible says that

In the Book of First Kings, In approximately 950 BC, King Solomon’s is said to have built his navy at Ezion Geber near Elath, an ancient city on the northern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba.  According to the Hebrew text, this gulf where Solomon’s ships were said to harbor, was call yam suf.

He believes Newieva Beach is large enough to hold a large Israelite party, and it has some unusual features that make crossing there more likely than other places.

The geography of the Gulf of Aqaba also resembles descriptions of the Yam Suf God once parted for Israel.  Aqaba is extremely deep, plunging more than a mile in some spots.  It is adjacent to a dense wilderness of rugged mountains.  It is located clearly outside the borders of ancient Egypt, as recognized during the time of Moses.  These similarities to the scriptures have led Lennart Moller and others to theorize the Gulf of Aqaba is the Red Sea of the Exodus story.  If they are correct, then 2 distinct possibilities for a crossing point exist:  the first is located on the bottom of the Sinai Peninsula, on the Straits of Tyron.  This channel 5 miles across is one of the most popular recreation areas on earth, as spectacular reefs and marine life attract divers from throughout the world, but the topography of the sea floor here would have made crossing highly unlikely.

For less than a mile offshore, a subterranean canyon plunges nearly 1000 feet at a grade so steep, passage on foot through jagged coral beds would have been virtually impossible, even if the waters were miraculously removed.  70 miles north of the straits, near the center o the Aqaba coast, another potential crossing site extends into the sea.  It is called the Newieva Peninsula.

Moller was attracted to Newieva Beach because of some interesting coral formations.

Moller, “The first time I was diving there, of course we were then looking for possible artifacts, and I had seen some pictures of what we could look for.  I was skeptical and excited because if this is the place for the crossing, then of course, that’s a big thing, so I was excited about that.  But I was also skeptical because 3500 years—that’s a long time.  But if Newieva is the crossing site, then of course you would expect to find remains of the Egyptian army.”

Like others who had explored Newiva before him, Moller immediately recognized the difficulty of this search.

Moller, “If we assume a number of artifacts were spread out on the sea bed, sooner or later corals would start to grow on them, and of course if you have an array of some coral all growing on something, it’s very hard to distinguish the structure that was there in the very beginning.”

Though the coral complicates any search here, it may have been instrumental in preserving the shapes of artifacts, for coral is a living organism that will not begin to grow on a foundation of sand or silt.  Instead, it must first attach itself to a solid object where it will sometimes conform to the shape of its host.

Moller, “So for instance if it were to grow on a wooden artifact, the wood would normally disappear in the sea waters after a time.  But if you have corals growing on the wooden artifact, the corals could have the shape of the wooden artifact and then the coral would consume the wood and material over a periods of time, but still keep the shape of the wooden artifacts.”

During the course of his exploration, Moller observed the pattern of coral growth at Neweiva differed from other parts of the gulf.  Unlike the coral at the northern and southern ends of Aqaba which often forms large dense reefs, sometimes covering acres, the formations at Nuweiva beach are generally smaller, and scattered randomly across the bottom of the sea floor.  Divers familiar with the area have compared the distribution of coral here to a junkyard, and the aftermath of a disaster.  This description is fitting, and among the strange formations in these waters, many display features indicative of human engineering.

Moller, “When we dive, and when we film, at the Neweiva location, we look for certain structures, and you try to look for 90 degree angles, or circular objects, wheel like structures, so that is what you scan for when you dive.  There are situations where you see something that looks like an axle, a hub, some that looks like a wheel, and you say to yourself, this is a coral reef.  This coral grew on an artifact, and that is what’s different to me when I compare corals at other locations around the world.”

Since the earliest explorations at Newieva, one distinctive type of formation has often been identified on the sea floor, a slender table-like structure, sometimes standing on end with a coral encrusted base, a straight shaft, and a circular top.

Moller, “It’s a 90 degree angle, and right angle between something that looks like an axle and a wheel.  You can see this in different varieties, and it looks very different from normal coral.  It is like a man-made structure with a coral roof on it.

While most of the possible artifacts found on the coast of Newieva are covered with coral, one significant discovery was not.

Moller, “There is one find at the Neweiva location that is of great interest, and this is the gilded wheel.  It is a wooden basic structure of the wheel, and it is covered with gold or electrum, a mixture of silver gold, and corals have not been able to grow on it.  It’s been fairly well preserved, although it’s very fragile.  It seems the wooden content has been dissolved.  You could break it if you try to remove it.”

After its discovery, the fragile wheel-shaped veneer was photographed and left in place on the sea floor.

Later analysis revealed that its dimensions and design resembled four-spoked chariot wheels painted on a 18^th Dynasty tomb wall near the Biblical date of the Exodus.

Moller referenced a southern crossing point as well, but dismissed it because of the steep cliffs and jagged coral.  Proponents of a southern route believe a volcanic land bridge may have appeared at this area.

Stephen J. O’Meara, Volcanologist, Volcano Watch International flies over an active volcano.  “Imagine the Jews, reaching this massive land bridge, formed by lava.  Here we have earth being created before our eyes.  You can see the lava flow going into the ocean on a new bench of land.  This is a very highly unstable platform of land.  The bench will not last for long.  This whole area can fall in just a matter of minutes.  Massive collapses have occurred here in Hawaii almost in the blink of an eye.”

The Red Sea forms part of the Great African Rift System.  The entire region has an explosive volcanic history.

O’Meara, “Although we see a very small lava flow, you have to in your mind scale this up to a massive volcanic eruption 3200 years ago.  It enters the water, the water boils, it disappears.  It’s enough to choke valleys and cause land bridges.”

In O’Meara’s scenario, an underwater eruption could have created a temporary unstable lava bridge.  The surface layer of lava cools quickly when it hits the water.  The Israelites could have crossed over this new land.

O’Meara walking on lava, near bright red lava flow, “But what’s amazing about this lava, even though it’s so hot that I have to keep walking right at this moment, that if I had to, to save my life, I could wait, walk over this lava in 10 minutes.”

This new unsupported land could have quickly disintegrated.

O’Meera, “and then when the Egyptians were on their chariots, [hops around because of the heat] and they tried to cross this same bed, the lava gave way.”

The collapse of this land bridge would have plunged pharaoh’s army into the sea.

O’Meara, “It makes sense.  Volcanoes are the only thing that makes sense.  The Bible is just filled with volcanic references and especially in Exodus out from the plagues to the parting of the Red Sea, and seeing pillars of fire, and mountains quaking, and burning bushes, all of them just in Exodus.  You imagine, you come up here and see this and you are not a scientist.  There were no scientists back then.  Listen to it!  [lava crackling]  It’s talking to you!  It’s written in the Bible, God says, ‘I am the rock.’  There you are!”

Where is Mount Sinai?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there are several proposed locations for Mount Sinai.  The traditional location is at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.  Tradition for this site goes back to the 4^th Century.  After Moses escaped to Midian, he found the Burning Bush.

Many scholars believe that Mount Sinai is in the Land of Midian in modern day Saudi Arabia.

Separated by the Red Sea and the Egyptian army in the Sinai Peninsula, Moses married a Midianite woman, tended the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro, and lived in obscurity for years, until the day he wandered to the base of Mount Sinai.  There God spoke through a burning bush and revealed his plan to free Israel from bondage.  Given the Biblical record, some believe that Mount Sinai must be in Midian, but is there any other evidence to support this theory?

Several Jewish documents, some written several hundred years before Christian traditions, locate the mountain of God in Midianite territory.  In 250 BC, a council of 70 Hebrew scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek for the first time.  Their translation of the Exodus account presupposed that Mount Sinai stood in the Arabian Peninsula.  Three centuries later, the Jewish philosopher Philo placed the mountain “east of the Sinai Peninsula” and south of Palestine.  At the same time, the apostle Paul, who was educated under the Rabbi Gamaliel, also located Mount Sinai in Arabia (Galatians 4:25).

Kerkeslager, “So Paul and Philo, when they used the word Arabia, they’re not thinking of the Sinai Peninsula.  Once again, I think that point needs to be emphasized very clearly.  In terminology, Arabia in the 1^st century, Greek geographers usually had in mind the Arabian Peninsula.  That’s how that term is used.”

Perhaps that most specific description of Mount Sinai’s location can be traced to the first century historian Josephus, who wrote “it was the highest of mountains…” near “…the city of Madian.”  Shortly after this account, Madian was identified in the Arabian Peninsula by the Greek geographer Ptolemy.  1900 years later, archaeologists excavated this city that according to ancient records had once stood near Mount Sinai.  The ruins of Madian lie just outside the modern day town of El-bod near Saudi Arabia’s northwest coast.

…

Viveka Ponten of Stockholm, Sweden said, “I have always been interested in archaeological finds that could confirm the truths of the Bible.  I have wanted come to Saudi Arabia to see for myself—I want to be able to say ‘I have seen this place’.”

In 1996, Vivika Ponten entered Saudi Arabia on a work permit.  During the following years, she made several trips to Jebel Elboz.

Ponten, “It was very difficult to find the mountain.  I think I had been there for 7 months before I came to the mountain the first time.  We went around looking for it in the desert.  I did 5 long day trips—5 different locations, just looking and looking for this place.”

Throughout her search, Ponten encountered a strong local tradition that Moses had once lived in Arabia.

Ponten, “It seems to be a tradition among the locals there that this mountain range is called Jebel-Musa.  They call it that, and many places have the name of Moses, like their wells, that they call Adien-Musa, or Bijan-Musa, which means ‘the well of Moses’.”

When Ponten finally reached Jebel Alboz, her attention was drawn to specific features of the mountain that resembled the Biblical description.  Most prominent was a jagged peak, more than 8000 feet in elevation, and blackened, as if scorched by fire.  [Deuteronomy 9:18, the Lord descended on it in fire.)

At its base, an enormous pile of boulders, at least 15 feet high and 60 feet across (Exodus 32:5, he built an altar in front of the calf.)  The flattened top of this structure had the appearance of being man-made, and etched into its rock faces were petro glyphs of bovine creatures, cattle and bulls.  The distinctive horns and some of the inscriptions resemble pictures of ancient Egyptian Apis bulls.  Could these stones be the remains of an Israelite altar, once built at the base of a holy mountain?  Conclusive investigation is not possible at this time, for Saudi law severely limits all foreign research.

Ponten, “They have put up archaeological signs that tell this is an archaeological area, and you’re not supposed to trespass here.  It’s evident that the Arabs themselves consider this to be some old site of archaeological interest.

Satellite photos of the area have revealed another geographical feature that parallels the Biblical account: a sprawling plain more than 10,000 acres.  Flat, surrounded by mountains, and adjacent to the dried bed of an ancient river, it could have provided an ideal place for the Israelite encampment 3500 years ago.

Just west of the mountain stands another link to the possible Exodus account: a towering rock, 60 feet high.  It is split from top to bottom, and evidence of water erosion is etched into its base.  Many features of Jebel Alboz reflect the Biblical account of Mount Sinai.  As the highest mountain of northwest Arabia, it matches ancient Jewish historical records.

Kerkeslager, “Based on the textual evidence, Jebel Alboz is as good of a guess as any; it might even be the best guess.  It’s definitely better than anything in the Sinai Peninsula, and probably better than any other guess that we have.  It would be nice to have some excavation, and that’s really [why] we need excavations.  We need somebody who is competent, trained archeologist to go in and record the material carefully, submit it for dispute and debate among other scholars, because there are too many gaps in our knowledge.”

The intriguing similarities between Jebel Alboz, and the Biblical record may indeed stimulate new investigation here. Yet whether or not future excavations confirm this site as the actual mountain of God, a considerable body of documentary evidence indicates that Mount Sinai is located somewhere in northwestern Arabia.

Others believe Mount Sinai is somewhere on the Sinai Peninsula.  Jacobovici discusses another possible location discovered by Prof Uzi Avner.

Holy mountains in the desert are marked by ancient, open-air, rock sanctuaries.  In this area there is only 1 mountain surrounded by sanctuaries.  Today that mountain is called Jebel-Hashem el-Tarif.

Although this entire are is in the middle of a military zone, we got to it.  This mountain perfectly fits all the criteria for Mount Sinai.  It is surrounded by a huge plateau that could have accommodated hundreds of thousands of Israelites.  It is easily accessible.  It literally sits on the main trans-Sinai highway, which follows the topography of the ancient route.

Prof. Uzi Avner, Arava Environmental Institute, Israel, “The Mountain is not very high, only about 200 meters above the plateau, but it is very conspicuous.  You can see it from a distance.  The unique point is that it is surrounded by actually the largest concentration of open air sanctuaries that we now today in the desert.”

Conclusions?

So, do we need to believe that any of these scenarios?  Both skeptics and believers seem to agree that faith and science are two different animals.

Hoffmeier, “For people that have religious convictions, they don’t need proof.”

Cornuke, “it all boils down to, this is a supernatural event, and you can’t explain it in any other way.”

Ultimately, the power of Exodus lies more in faith than in science.

Cooney, “There’s no real scientific proof that the Exodus took place, but as a Christian or as a Jew, you shouldn’t need scientific proof to be a person of faith.  Faith doesn’t need to be scientifically proven, nor should it be; it’s faith.”

Cameron, “It seems that the Bible, geology, and archaeology, are all telling the same story.  But skeptics, who would like to regard the Exodus as myth, might resist the idea that it actually happened, because this would imply that God does indeed exist.  Believers on the other hand may feel that a scientific explanation of the Biblical story takes God out of the equation. “

SJ, “But in the Book of Exodus, God does not suspend nature, he manipulates it.  In other words, according to the Bible, we should be able to understand the science behind the miracles.  The greatest miracle of them all was the parting of the sea.

Rabbi David Wolpe believes that the historicity of the events in the Bible should not matter; faith is not determined by the same criteria as empirical truth.

So, what do you think?  Does any of this convince you of the historicity of the Exodus?  Do you think the Exodus is myth?

Palm Sunday

It is always celebrated exactly one week prior to Easter.  The celebration refers to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.  It is one event captured in all 4 gospels, but only The Gospel of John talks about people waving Palm fronds in front of Jesus.  The palm branch was a symbol of triumph and of victory in Jewish tradition, and it is evident that many Jews believed Jesus was more of a political/military king than a spiritual king.  There’s some interesting information at this Wikipedia Entry.  MSNBC has a nice photo of Pope Benedict the 16th celebrating Palm Sunday Mass earlier today.

I have often wondered why Palm Sunday is completely ignored by Mormons.  Palm Sunday is the beginning of the last week in the life of Jesus, and I just can’t figure out why Mormons wouldn’t want to celebrate with the rest of Christendom.  Do you have any ideas?

Passover

I didn’t realize that Passover is an eight-day celebration.  I remember attending a Passover meal and celebration with a college friend–it was a lot of fun!  I must say that Jews really know how to celebrate, and I think Mormons could learn some celebration techniques from them.  Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays, which is also known as Pesach,  Chag he-Aviv, Chag ha-Matzoth and Z’man Cherutenu.

As you’re probably aware, the Passover celebration commemorates Moses leading the Jewish liberation from Egyptian slavery approximately 1500 years ago.  ABC annually broadcasts Cecil B. DeMille’s film, The 10 Commandments on Easter Sunday.  Moses told the Egyptian pharaoh that if he did not let the Israelites go, God would issue 10 plagues to afflict Egypt.  The term ‘Passover’ specifically refers to the 10th plague.  Moses told pharaoh that God would kill all the firstborn sons of Egypt.  Moses instructed the Israelites to spread the blood of a lamb on their doorposts so the destroying angel would “pass-over” their homes, leaving the firstborn Israelite sons alive.  This last plague finally caused pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery, and the Exodus story follows.  I plan another post specifically devoted to the Exodus theories, but I want to talk specifically about the Passover and these 10 plagues in this post.

A 2-time Emmy award winner for investigative journalism named Simcha Jacobicivi (pronounced Sim-ka Yah-cob-oh-vitch) teamed up with Titanic Director James Cameron to put together a documentary titled The Exodus Decoded.  It aired on the History Channel in 2006; you can rent it via Netflix.  Jacobovici is not a stranger to controversy.  You may be familiar with another documentary of his titled The Lost Tomb of Jesus in which he claims to have discovered the bones of Jesus and his family in Jerusalem.  He has another documentary titled Quest for the Lost Tribes in which he believes he has discovered the Lost tribes in areas such as Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China, Burma, and Africa.  Here is a website questioning Jacobovici’s Exodus claims, and another website questioning the Lost Tomb of Jesus DVD.

Jacobovici makes a very interesting case for the 10 plagues of Egypt; he believes they were the result of the Santorini Volcano eruption of 1500 BC.  He notes similarities between the Passover narrative and a volcanic eruption in 1986 in Cameroon.  I must say that there are some startling similarities, and Jacobovici seems to have some very interesting parallels.  Let’s talk about the actual 10 plagues of Egypt.

1.  The Nile will be turned to blood. Jacobovici notes that in 1984 and 1986, separate volcanic eruptions turned Lake Monoun and Lake Nyos in Cameroon blood red.  Dr George King of the University of Michigan explained that both of these lakes contained high levels of iron.  An underwater natural gas leak created a disturbance, turning the lake red in color.  Jacobovici notes that the Nile is near a fault line.  An underground gas leak could have turned the river blood red as mentioned in the Bible.

2.  A frog infestation.  Jacobovici says that all living things in the Nile would have died due to lack of oxygen in the water resulting from the gas leak and subsequent iron stirred up in the water.  However, frogs would have been able hop out of the water, explaining the frog infestation.

3.  Lice.  With all the dead fish, lice would have been a problem.

4.  Flies.  Once again, dead fish would have attracted flies

5.  An epidemic.  Disease would have spread to everyone following the death of so many fish in the Nile.

6.  Boils.  Jacobovici notes that many people developed Boils following the 1986 eruption at Lake Nyos, Cameroon, and shows several photos of these awful boils.  Jocobovici explains that “It turns out that carbon dioxide mixed with air put people into a kind of coma, reducing circulation to the skin and causing the kind of boils described in the Bible as plague #6.”

7.  An Unusual Hail storm.  I’ll abbreviate Jacobovici as SJ in the quotes below; I want to quote directly from the DVD here.

Rabbi Chaim Sacknovitz, “The seventh plague was the plague of hail, but the Bible describes hail in a very unique manner.  The hail was together with ice with fire, the idea being that the fire and the ice mixed together, that they coexisted together.  The Bible then describes God as making a miracle within a miracle, taking opposites in nature, and having them coexist together.”

SJ, “Incredibly, there is an Egyptian papyrus that tells the exact same story.  It’s called the Ipuwer Papyrus and is dated by many scholars to the Hyksos period.  The Ipuwer Papyrus specifically states that Egypt was struck by a strange hail, made of ice and fire mingled together.  Another piece of the puzzle has fallen into place.  It now seems clear that the biblical and Egyptian texts are describing what scientists call ‘accretionary lapilli”, volcanic hail, and could have only come from earthquake induced Santorini volcano.

Dr. Catherine Hickson, Geological Survey of Canada, “When the ash cloud goes up into great distances in the stratosphere, essentially what happens is that you have moisture in the atmosphere, you also have a lot of water vapor in the cloud itself, so small fragments of ash and crystal actually form the nucleus, very similar to a hail stone.”

8.  Plague of Locusts. Jacobovici says the volcano causing weather changes, and this hail storm would have excited the locusts.  He says,

Cold weather produces a drop in their body temperature and makes them land en masse.  The Volcanic hail and weather disruptions caused by the Santorini eruption would have forced great clouds of locusts which are common in this part of the world to suddenly land in Egypt.  As the hail storm cleared, and the temperature rose, so did the locusts, exactly as the Biblical account describes.

9.  Darkness. Following the Mount Saint Helens eruption, ash blocked out the sun and made it appear very dark.  Jacobovici quotes scientists as saying the cloud of ash from the Santorini eruption could have been 40 km from top to bottom, 200 km across–that would be approximately 25 miles high, and 122 miles across.  He quotes Prof Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian Institution saying that ash was found at the ancient Egyptian capital of Avaris:  “We had to look through 10 to 20,000 grains to find one ash grain.  So, we found a total of 40 ash grains.  Not all ash looks the same.  Ash has an imprint aspect.  The ash particles that we find in the northern and northeastern Nile Delta are individual grains that came in from Santorini.”

10.  The Firstborn of Egypt die, and Israelite children are spared.  Jacobovici has an explanation for this phenomenon as well.  Once again, he cites the Cameroon eruption at Lake Nyos in 1986.

SJ, “The final plague took place at midnight, after Moses ordered the Israelites to sit down to what became known as the first Passover meal.  While the Israelites were involved in the Passover ritual, the Egyptians slept, and then it happened: every firstborn male Egyptian died.  Every house was affected.  No one has ever been able to offer up a plausible scientific explanation for the death of the firstborn until now.  According to our scenario, at this point in the sequence of events that began some 6 months earlier, the gas leaks that set the chain of plates in motion would have finally erupted.  Carbon dioxide would have seeped to the surface, and being heavier than air, would have killed animals and sleeping people before it dissipated harmlessly into the atmosphere.

In case you think all this is conjecture, consider this.  It happened in exactly the same way in 1986 at Lake Nyos, Cameroon.  On the fateful night of August 21, the villagers at Nyos went to sleep.  They couldn’t have known that the carbon dioxide gas which had turned the lake blood red, was now reaching a critical point.  As the people of Lake Nyos slept, the top of the lake was keeping the carbon down like a cap in a pop bottle.  But then the earth rumbled, and a landslide took place sending rock into the water, disturbing the surface pressure and releasing the gas.  The gas then rose to the surface, and like some alien monster, emerged from the water, droplets forming on it, turning the invisible gas  into a visible fog.  The fog then rolled across the water, and across the land, suffocating everything in its path.  And as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared, dissolving harmlessly into the atmosphere.

The next day those who had been sleeping on higher ground woke up to find some 1800 people dead, hundreds of cattle and small animals also dead, all around there was deadly silence.

Villager, “I was sleeping among the dead people, inside the house, some of them were outside.  Animals every where lying cows, dogs, everything.  All the family, we were 56 but 53 died.”

SJ, “After the death of the first born, Pharaoh finally relented, letting Moses take his people out of Egypt.  According to the Bible, what made pharaoh give up was the selectivity of the deaths: the fact that it was only male, firstborn who died.  It was this selectivity that demonstrated to him that God himself was involved.  How can we account for this?

Well, Egyptian firstborn males had the privileged position.  They were the heirs to the throne, to property, title, and more.  They slept on Egyptian beds low to the ground, while their brothers and sisters slept on rooftops, sheds, and wagons.  The Israelites sitting up at their first Passover meal did not feel a thing, while the low traveling gas suffocated the privileged Egyptian males sleeping in their beds.  This conclusion is backed by the archaeology.  At Avaris, Professor Manfred Biatek has found mass graves dating to before and during our date for the Exodus.  The earlier graves are classic examples of ancient epidemics and killed men, women, and children.  But at the time of the Exodus, the mass grave he found has only males in it.

Biatek, “Here you see bones of burials in the early 18^th Dynasty.  They are all male victims. By the size of the graves, and the number of individuals in the graves, we think people died in rapid succession and the individuals were just thrown into the pit, some of them lying on their stomach, some lying on their side.  Some of the people were just 20 cm deep and just some dust put on top of them.  The bible says that pharaoh’s son also died during the plagues of the firstborn.  Since we claim that Ahmose is the pharaoh of the Exodus, we should be able to prove that Ahmose son died young.

Searching the Cairo museum, we found Ahmose’ son, the prince had died young, he was only 12.  For the first time ever, we have a face and a name to a victim of the biblical plagues.

So, I found this to be a really interesting scientific explanation for the plagues.  What do you think?  I found James Cameron and Simcha’s final words regarding these plagues interesting.  They discuss how these explanations will bother both skeptics and believers.

Cameron, “It seems that the Bible, geology, and archaeology, are all telling the same story.  But skeptics, who would like to regard the Exodus as myth, might resist the idea that it actually happened, because this would imply that God does indeed exist.  Believers on the other hand may feel that a scientific explanation of the Biblical story takes God out of the equation.“

SJ, “But in the book of Exodus, God does not suspend nature, he manipulates it.  In other words, according to the Bible, we should be able to understand the science behind the miracles.

Easter

You’ll notice that date of Easter varies considerably from year to year.  The reason for this is because of it’s relationship to the Passover.  Christ died during the Passover festival, and rose on the first day of the week (Sunday.)  There’s a Jewish joke that goes like this.

“When is Chanukkah this year?”

The other man smiled slyly and replied, “Same as always: the 25th of Kislev.”

There is a really interesting article on the Jewish calendar at Judaism 101.  (It’s a fantastic website.)  The Jewish calendar tries to correlate

the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year).

…

Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle.The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the rosh chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began.

So, you can see that a 12 or 13 month year (they have leap months instead of leap days) can wreak havoc on knowing when holidays will be as we try to correlate the Jewish calendar with our Gregorian Calendar.  As Christians were debating when to celebrate Easter, the consensus was to keep Easter near the Passover festival.  As a result, the date of Easter changes with the changes in celebration of the Passover Festival.  Another Jewish joke says that every Jewish holiday can be boiled down to “They tried to kill us.  Let’s eat.”

I wish Mormons celebrated, rather than simply observed, the Easter holiday.  It would be nice to have more of a celebration of Easter; I really like Easter gets the short shrift for celebrations, but I think that Christmas celebrations in our church are lacking as well.  Two years ago, I posted the question, Why don’t Mormons celebrate Easter? It is my #2 post over the past 2 years. I always receive a spike in hits for that post around Easter.  If you do a Google search asking “do Mormons celebrate Easter”, my post comes up on the #2 position.  I expect that as Easter approaches this week, my 2 year old post will get another spike in views, and will probably be #1 by the end of the month.

So to answer my own question is, yes, we observe Easter, but we don’t celebrate Easter.  Do you wish there was a greater emphasis on Easter?