The Exodus Mystery

The Exodus mystery was addressed by I. Wilson [1]. The book drew attention to the astonishing similarities between the biblical calamity that took Egypt by surprise and the likely effects on Egypt of the Thera (Santorini).  The Mediterranean Island blew up. A tsunami did virtually wipe out the Minoan civilization in Crete and south of Greece. Eight years ago, I visited outer rim which stands out as the final remains of the erupted island. Plato called it the site where Atlantis disappeared. The eruption, which is estimated to have taken place between 1500 and 1600 BC and is only 800 km (500 miles) away from the Egyptian coast, would have rattled the windows of modern Egypt. The fallout cloud would have drifted high over Egypt and would have darkened the sky as described by G. Philips [2].  According to Exodus 10:21-23 

”21 And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.  22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: 23 They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”

 The event is attributed to a divine intervention. Graham Philips tried to establish the Thera eruption as the natural tool applied to fulfill God’s plan. From a theological perspective, God created the forces of nature and they are HIS to use as HE pleases, so there is nothing unscientific or irreligious about attributing the plagues of Egypt to the eruption of Thera or to any other phenomenon.  In Exodus 9:23-26 we are told that Egypt is afflicted by a terrible fiery hailstorm: 

”23 And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt.  24 So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.  25 And the hails smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and break every tree of the field. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail. ”

Graham Philips goes on to attribute the Nile turning to blood to the eruption of Thera. Exodus 7:19 states, “And all the waters that were in the river turned to blood”. Thera had corrosive toxin in its bedrock: iron oxide. Wilson points out that in the submarine eruptions that still happen at Thera, tons of iron oxide is discharged that kill fish for miles round.  Over the years, scholars have attributed the plagues described in Exodus to different natural phenomena. The darkness could have been due to a particularly violent sandstorm; the hail could have resulted from freak weather conditions; and the bloodied river may have been the result of seismic activity far to the south of tropical Africa. 

According to the Exodus story, the Israelites are led out of Egypt by following a “pillar of cloud by the day” and a “pillar of fire by night” (Exodus 13:21). Graham Philips attributes these phenomena to the Thera plume. The towering ash cloud over the volcano itself rose more than 48 km (30 miles). It would have been visible from the delta of Lower Egypt, given the curvature of Earth. If the Israelites had attributed the phenomena to the intervention of God, then they may well have started the exit following the direction of the sky sign, in the belief that it was a beacon leading them out of Egypt, to safety. According to Exodus 13:18: “God led the people round by the way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea”.  The earlier interpretation of the Hebrew words “Yam Suph” as the “Red Sea” seems to have been incorrect. In fact, according to Phillips, it could mean “sea of reeds” or “sea of seaweed”, which could describe an expansive, large, shallow lake that is covered by reeds here and there.  

My theory is that Lake Burullus is more likely to have been the sea of reeds in the north of Egypt; it is perfectly situated along the exodus path. Lake Burullus is separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow ridge of dry land some 50  km (31 miles) long and is finally connected to the Mediterranean through a shallow inlet.  From Avaris—south Mansoura city—the Israelites could have reached west of Lake Burullus within a couple of days by following the sign in the northwestern sky. As the sky sign moved past the Israelites, they realized that they would have to travel eastward i.e. around the lake at the Rasheed village; where the French expedition to Egypt, two centuries ago, found the famous Rosetta stone. The Israelites turned to the east instead of continuing west. They walked on the Burullus ridge. They reached the shallow inlet, 1,100 meter (3,600 feet) long and 200 meter (656 feet) across and 5 meter (16 feet) deep that connects Lake Burullus to the Mediterranean Sea, and they had to cross it.

If the shallow inlet connecting the lake to the sea, usually underwater, had receded because of the tsunami force resulting from the Thera eruption, the phenomenon might indeed have saved the Israelites as the Egyptians were in close pursuit. The inlet would have turned into dry land and Lake Burullus, or the sea of reeds, would have been temporarily disconnected from the Mediterranean, as the Bible  relates  in  Exodus 14:21 :  “And  the  Lord caused the sea to go back  by  a  strong  east wind all that night and made the sea into dry land and the waters were divided”.  Exodus 14:25 tells us that when the Egyptians tried to pursue the Israelites across the sea of reeds they were hampered by the ground clogging of their chariots wheels, so they drove heavily. The tidal wave caused by Thera’s eruption would have finally helped the Israelites to escape untouched. The pursuing soldiers may have attempted to follow when the tsunami tidal wave hit, washing them away. Exodus 14:29 tells us, “And the waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh who came into the sea after them; there remains not as much as one of them”. Several scholars consider it unlikely to have darkness, fiery hail, sores, a bloodied river, dead cattle and fish, swarms of locusts, flies and infestations of lice; all happening at the same time. However, I believe that there is another explanation for these events. What if the sky sign was the trace of a passing asteroid? Asteroids are sometimes called minor planets or planetoids. They are smaller than planets but larger  than meteoroids.

What if it was a comet exhibiting a coma, or tail of gases and hail? This could very well fit into the Bible description of “a pillar of cloud by day” and “a pillar of fire by night”. This could explain the sky sign that the Bible claims guided the Israelites out of Egypt. Not only could its magnetic pull  have tilted the Inner Core magnet of the Earth, causing great Earthquakes, such as the Thera eruption, but could have also reduced the vertical component of the magnetic force and thus slowed down its rotation, forcing the planet to retard, so that one night lasted three days long. “And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days”. The fiery hail covered the Egyptian sky, could have finally found its way to the Nile and turned it red. Depending on the mass of the planetoid and its speed and distance from the Earth, a negative pressure could have developed in the atmosphere at the point of proximity. A plume of air could have developed with a crest that pointed to the planetoid. Such a suction of air would have created a low atmospheric pressure at the surface of the Earth. This would have brought gale winds storming from the East to try to balance the drop in pressure “And the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind”. But, where did this planetoid come from, and where did it go? Is it going to come back again? Had it visited our solar system before? When and at what frequency?

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[1] Wilson, I. (1985). Exodus Enigma. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

[2] Philips, G. (1998). Act of God Tutankhamen, Moses and the Myth of Atlantis. HB Sidgwick & Jackson, PB Pan .