A Naturalistic View of the Crossing of the Red Sea
Scholars are always trying to figure out how Moses and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. However, the theories formulated all begin with the same supposition, which is that it was not a miracle of God. They are like the teacher that told her fifth grade public school history class that there was nothing supernatural about the crossing of the Red Sea. Her explanation was that there was only two or three inches of water in the Red Sea at that time because of drought conditions. She tried her best to convince the students that a scientific rationale could explain the entire situation.
She was feeling fairly proud of herself and thought she had succeeded when she heard little Johnny enthusiastically explaining to a student in a different class what they had discussed. He told about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and proclaimed it was a miracle. The teacher interrupted him. “Johnny, you know we talked about the low water level of the Red Sea in class. “Yes,” he said, undaunted. “That’s what makes it a miracle—that all of Pharaoh’s army drowned in only three inches of water!” Whoops! She had not considered that aspect of the event.
In Cecil B. DeMille’s second version of The Ten Commandments, although some portions of the story were highly fictional, he got many elements of the crossing of the Red Sea essentially correct. The pillar of fire stood between the Israelites and the Egyptians. Moses and the people crossed through on dry ground (although they did not wait overnight as in The Book). And the soldiers, when attempting to pursue them, drowned. DeMille’s 1956 classic movie still makes a great story even though parts of it are not accurate.
Opening last December 12, 2014, Ridley Scott produced Exodus: Gods and Kings. Whereas a huge reaction accompanied the monumental blunders of Noah, not much was said about this movie. No brethren have mentioned seeing it, and not a great deal was written about it. It attempted to treat the crossing of the Red Sea in a naturalistic way. Yes, Scott determined to cause the water to part because of a tsunami—one caused by an earthquake, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal on December 6-7, 2014 (C3). What? Yes, apparently for God to intervene in world events is passe.
But this habit of displacing miracles with “logical” explanations has a way of backfiring. As this article points out, coastal waters do draw back prior to a tsunami—but usually only about 15 minutes, which is nowhere near the amount of time needed for approximately two million Israelites to cross the Red Sea. They would all have had to be Olympic sprinters (their animals, too) and have had no baggage whatsoever. Furthermore, how coincidental that a tsunami occurred just when Israel needed to escape! In this instance, the “luck” required would itself be miraculous.
Another Theory
The writer of this Wall Street Journal article, Bruce Parker, acknowledges the problem that Ridley Scott had in his movie version (there are various other problems with the picture, also), but then he proceeds to offer what to him is a more likely naturalistic scenario. He writes:
In certain places in the world, the tide can leave the sea bottom dry for hours and then come roaring back. In fact, in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte and a small group of soldiers on horseback were crossing the Gulf of Suez, the northern end of the Red sea, roughly where Moses and the Israelites are said to have crossed. On a mile-long expanse of dry sea bottom exposed at low water, the tide suddenly rushed in, almost drowning them (C3).
Three key words leap out at the reader of these words, and they are 1798, roughly, and almost. Was 1798 the last recorded time when this phenomenon occurred? If so, it is certainly not something that could be calculated by Moses or anyone else. Second, how close is “roughly where”? Most Bible scholars think Israel crossed over the Gulf of Aqaba—nowhere near Suez. Third, if Napoleon and his men were “almost” drowned, then they survived.
The theory continues by saying that Pharaoh’s army would have created clouds of dust (not unlike the Lone Ranger’s Silver) and that Moses could estimate how long it would be until Pharaoh’s army arrived. Moses, having lived in the wilderness nearby, would know where the caravans crossed the Red Sea at low tide and could predict what would happen based on the position of the moon. This theory credits Moses with understanding a great deal more about these matters than he probably did. We do not know that he was so close to the sea or that he knew about caravans. Sinai has been placed in various locations by scholars; so estimating what Moses knew or didn’t know is purely speculation.
Moses, with all this alleged understanding of the moon and the tides, chose a full moon for their flight. All such theories have a fundamental flaw in them; whenever historians try to figure out what happened by leaving God out of the picture, they are doomed to failure from the get-go. God selected the time of the Passover when the firstborn of Egypt lost their lives. Pharaoh then issued the order for Israel to leave (Ex. 13:15). Then God “led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea” (Ex. 13:18). Yet we are to believe that Moses made all of these calculations without God’s involvement? How, then, did he arrange for the firstborn of all Egypt to die on the same night so that Pharaoh would order their departure?
The author of the Journal article has a gift for understatement when he says: “Timing would have been crucial.” Yes, and Moses would have had to be a genius such as the world has never seen to have engineered all these details. He continues by saying that the Bible mentions that a strong east wind blew all night, pushing back the waters. In the midst of all the things that have been alleged, he is now going to the Bible for corroboration? So many facts have been ignored that it seems incredible that an appeal is now made to a source for which very little respect has been shown. Parker writes:
Such a wind would surely have been assigned to divine intervention, and over the centuries, as the story of the Exodus was retold, that aspect would have overshadowed Moses’ careful planning to take advantage of the low tide (C3).
Presuppositions
Herein lies the fundamental error that all modernistic historians, such as those who appear on the History Channel, make. Their very first assumption is that the Bible is wrong. Most of them have studied the Bible (to some degree), but they do not believe what it says. One of their presuppositions is that the Bible is a work of men rather than being inspired of God. They think that somewhere, underneath all of the words that are recorded, something probably happened, but then a legend grew up around it, and by the time it was written down all kinds of embellishments were added. It is the work of the historian to sift through all the data and determine what parts may have been true and what portions are merely legend.
“Well, how would anyone do that?” you might ask. That is not for the average person lacking an education to figure out. You must have one or more Ph.D.’s in order to possess such insight. Since you don’t, you would probably be wise not to challenge such “scholars.” Just listen to their fanciful constructs, and at the appropriate times let them know how impressed you are with an occasional, “Ooh,” or ”Ahh.” Below is another one of those opportunities for such a response.
But there is evidence that the sea level was higher in Moses’s [sic] time. As a result, the Gulf of Suez would have extended farther north and had a larger tidal range. If that was indeed the case, the real story of the Israelites’ crossing wouldn’t have needed much exaggeration to include walls of water crashing down on the pursuing Egyptians (C3).
In other words, we know that the Bible is full of exaggerations, but this one may have been a fairly accurate description. Bah! These intellectuals always convey the impression that they really know what happened even though they were not there and have no more information than the average person. Christians know that the Bible presents factual evidence—not theories and exaggerations.
The article does cite Eusebius of Caesarea, who lived from A. D. 263-339. He cites a Hellenistic historian from the first century B.C, who wrote an account similar to what is in the Bible. The second version was narrated by the people of Memphis (the one in Egypt, not Tennessee). They wrote: “Moses, being acquainted with the country, waited for the ebb and took the people across the sea when dry.”
Umm, okay. Let’s see. Memphis is in Egypt. Is it possible that these Egyptians had a vested interest in providing a naturalistic explanation for what happened to Pharaoh’s army? They did not want to consider their ancestors guilty of sin. They would not want to admit that the God of Moses was more powerful than theirs (even if they no longer believed in some of their former deities). Their wounded national pride ought to be considered, also. Things just work out better all the way around if there is some other explanation besides the truth.
The article closes by saying: “If the tide was indeed involved in Moses’s [sic] ‘parting of the Red Sea,’ it has to qualify as the most dramatic and consequential tide prediction in history” (C3). Notice that Parker left himself an out. Should the whole theory be shown to be false, he did qualify what he said with the word if.
Unlike the “scholars,” we do not have to use ifs. The facts are these. Pharaoh had made the lives of the Israelites bitter by the bondage he imposed upon them (Ex. 1:14). He ordered them to kill their firstborn sons (1:22). When God sent Moses to deliver His people (3:1-5:1), Pharaoh resisted and refused to recognize the God of Israel. God brought ten plagues upon Egypt, the last of which was the death of the firstborn, after which Pharaoh commanded Israel to depart from Egypt (5:2-12:51)
God led Israel through the wilderness and when they were trapped against the sea, He put the pillar of fire behind the encampment to keep the Egyptians from harming them. God parted the sea and caused an east wind to blow all through the night so that they could cross over on dry land. When the Egyptians pursued, God closed up the waters, thus drowning the mighty Egyptian army. The Israelites sang a song of triumph immediately; they did not compose one several centuries later (Ex. 13-15). These are the facts of the matter. Notice that no ifs or perhapses were included. No speculations were offered—just facts.
Those who do not believe what the Bible says have a fundamental and common problem—unbelief. They grasp at wild theories that do not even explain the situation fully in the first place. Not only would Moses have had to know all about tides, he would have to know exactly when Pharaoh would release the Israelites and then devise a way for him to regret his action of letting them go so that his army might pursue the Israelites just in time for the tide to go out. And how did he kill the firstborn of the Egyptians in the first place—all of them in one night? These naturalistic explanations end up being more miraculous than what actually happened!