Turns Out, The 10 Plagues Of Egypt Might’ve Actually Happened Because Of A Volcanic Eruption And This Person Explains It All
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The Passover holiday is a major Jewish holiday and one of the most celebrated ones. During this, Jewish people around the world celebrate by retelling the biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt — including the 10 plagues that God inflicted on the Ancient Egyptians.
The story goes that after Pharaoh refused Moses’ entreaties to let the Israelite slaves go free, God sent 10 plagues to put pressure on the Egyptian ruler. Every time, Pharaoh promises to let the Israelites go but changes his mind each time the plague is lifted — until the last one. The ten plagues are water turning to blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and the killing of firstborn children.
The question of whether the story has a true basis and whether it can be linked to archaeological discoveries has boggled historians for a long time. Over the years, enthusiasts and scientists alike have been wondering whether the story on the plagues might have been based on true events that can be proved.
As it turns out, there are theories out there talking about the legitimacy of the story of the ten plagues. Recently, Tumblr users started an interesting discussion that was prompted by… a meme. Scroll down below to read the full story and don’t forget to tell us what you think in the comment section down below!
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Image credits: Historica Graphica Collection
Kvothe-kingkiller then went on to provide the links of the sources of the theories. One of them, written all the way back in 2002, is theorized that “much of the Bible story can be explained by a single natural disaster, a huge volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini in the 16th century BC.” The second source is a little bit more liberal with possible theories, giving out three possible scenarios of what might’ve happened. The first one coincides with the theory presented in the 2002 article – the Bible story can be explained by a volcanic eruption. In the second one, it is argued that “red algae could have sucked the oxygen out of Egypt’s waterways, killed the fish and turned the water red.” Lastly, the third given theory talks about climate change – a study published in 2010 suggested that “there had been a dry period towards the end of the rule of Pharaoh Ramses II.” Thus, if climate change would have caused the Nile to dry up and slowed down the flow of water, the conditions for the growth of the bacterium Oscillatoria rubescens (Burgundy Blood algae) would have been perfect.
Here’s what other people online thought
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This is old, like written decades ago old and in dozens of books
I watched a documentary about this around 10 years ago, actually. Still pretty cool, tho.
I know that, but I dislike that they are making this seem like something brand new
It was in the Bible
First born is also explained. I times of less food the oldest child would get the most food. Jews trew out old grain at the end of the year. Others didn’t. Grain was infected with funguses so the oldest died.
You make a good point, like in history they had many records of poisoning from bad barley or wheat.
This is such a random mishmash of speculation with nothing to back it up, like a group of people reporting half-remembered documentaries. Get some biblical scholars and egyptologists to comment with their favourite theories and then I'm all in.
Since God created volcanos, He can use them as needs arise.
He also created childhood cancer - what's he using that for?
He created you too... whats he using you for? Besides being a dumbass?
"God uses the things that are made."
The fact that dougoftheabaci says that there is no record of Exodus is false. There is one record that survived the propaganda machine. At the time of Exodus, Ramses II was Pharaoh of Egypt. When you visit the site of Abu Simbel, there are small statues around the feet of the giant sitting statues that represent Ramses and his wife, Nefertari, all of them of their children. The one that represents his first born son has a marking on it indicating "deceased" around the same time Exodus would have occurred. Ramses also died at age 89 (longest lived pharaoh in history) and had 162+ children from his Queen and his concubines. Known as Ramses the Great, he would have never let a little thing like a mass Exodus ruin his perfect record.
:facepalm: It's not reed/red sea, Jesus Christ, the bible was not written in English, I saw this in a documentary where they said it was misspelled
Nice try.
There are absolutely no records of any plagues in Egyptian wtiting. The Bible made up the escape from Egypt, just like everything else in it.
Aww is someone a bitter biscuit? I smell bitter biscuittry. Multiple events or situations written in the Bible are found to be true within the last 100 years.
Some may not believe in God but the timing let us go and pray for three days and we will be right back...How did Moses know there would be more plagues? .. funny let us go or God will punish you!.... then nothing happens oops!
Death of the firstborns has been postulated to have been because the first born children in Egypt slept on the first floor whereas the other family slept in the upper floor which was less important. should a fog or plague or pestilence come through at night like they said happened with the first-borns it would settle into the first floor of a living space and not affect those in upper dwelling areas.
This comment has been deleted.
We discussed this in 7th Form Geography (1997). I'm a Christian and I don't see why this couldn't be true.
The Exodus Decoded (Biblical Conspiracy Documentary) by James Cameron 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus_Decoded
I didn´t understand how would an volcanic explosion on the Mediterranean Sea induce a Tsunami on the Red Sea, since they are not connected?
The 'red sea' is a long-running error - it was actually the 'reed sea', a large area of marshland on the coast of the Nile Delta. So if there was a tsunami in the Mediterranean, the water would have withdrawn from the shallow coastal region of the reed sea before rushing back in.
Since when do locusts feed on meat / dead animals??
Since always. Most conceptions people have of herbivore/carnivore aren't 100% accurate. Grasshoppers and butterflies often supplement on meat.
I was surprised by this claim as well, so I looked it up. Apparently it has been observed scientifically. The females are particularly fond of dry meat on carrion. Also hair and dung.
There are many accounts of butterflies feeding on carrion, including human corpses. I recently read an account from WW2 in Burma where swarms of white butterflies were observed settling on corpses - the book was entitled 'White Butterflies'.
Since always. Most conceptions people have of herbivore/carnivore aren't 100% accurate. Grasshoppers and butterflies often supplement on meat.
Not entirely sure I buy into the idea. Egypt is arid because there's very little rainfall, would that make it less likely that dust also falls there? Also the Nile is no small river, it's massive and drains the wet highlands of Uganda and Ethiopia - it would take an enormous quantity of dye/dust to taint it's colour, all deposited neatly downstream directly into the river, as the Nile collects hardly any surface water in Egypt. A dusty red sky may have reflected in the water though I guess.
I tend to favour the red algae bloom theory which may well have occurred in conjunction with or have been caused by the eruption.
The event is described to happens overnight. No matter how you want to explain it if you don't believe in God the Bible is not important to you. Then why you try to explain what you can't understand if something you don't believe? Faith does not need to justify anything
so its basically just saying that gods actions were caused by a giant volcanic eruption? tell me if i'm wrong
"Scientifically proven" cracked me up. Jews weren't even in Egypt at that time
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I agree with that person who said it's GOD doing crazy nature stuff!
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
or The Lord caused the plagues just as the bible says. Believe in The Lord Jesus and be saved.
Even Pope Francis is a scientist (look it up) who understands that some things can be explained by science. Not everything is a miracle or divine.
Maimonedes wrote that god did these miracles through means that could be explained naturally so people would have the ability to doubt god. He wrote this 800 years ago, theologians once again are ahead of the curve
This is a completely honest and innocent question. What makes you believe the bible? I'm genuinely curious, i'm not trying to pick on you.
The bible has a lot of errors and is not a good reference for history or much of anything really. That's also not getting into the horrible things god did, commanded, put into laws, or pretty much most of what god does in the bible.
This is old, like written decades ago old and in dozens of books
I watched a documentary about this around 10 years ago, actually. Still pretty cool, tho.
I know that, but I dislike that they are making this seem like something brand new
It was in the Bible
First born is also explained. I times of less food the oldest child would get the most food. Jews trew out old grain at the end of the year. Others didn’t. Grain was infected with funguses so the oldest died.
You make a good point, like in history they had many records of poisoning from bad barley or wheat.
This is such a random mishmash of speculation with nothing to back it up, like a group of people reporting half-remembered documentaries. Get some biblical scholars and egyptologists to comment with their favourite theories and then I'm all in.
Since God created volcanos, He can use them as needs arise.
He also created childhood cancer - what's he using that for?
He created you too... whats he using you for? Besides being a dumbass?
"God uses the things that are made."
The fact that dougoftheabaci says that there is no record of Exodus is false. There is one record that survived the propaganda machine. At the time of Exodus, Ramses II was Pharaoh of Egypt. When you visit the site of Abu Simbel, there are small statues around the feet of the giant sitting statues that represent Ramses and his wife, Nefertari, all of them of their children. The one that represents his first born son has a marking on it indicating "deceased" around the same time Exodus would have occurred. Ramses also died at age 89 (longest lived pharaoh in history) and had 162+ children from his Queen and his concubines. Known as Ramses the Great, he would have never let a little thing like a mass Exodus ruin his perfect record.
:facepalm: It's not reed/red sea, Jesus Christ, the bible was not written in English, I saw this in a documentary where they said it was misspelled
Nice try.
There are absolutely no records of any plagues in Egyptian wtiting. The Bible made up the escape from Egypt, just like everything else in it.
Aww is someone a bitter biscuit? I smell bitter biscuittry. Multiple events or situations written in the Bible are found to be true within the last 100 years.
Some may not believe in God but the timing let us go and pray for three days and we will be right back...How did Moses know there would be more plagues? .. funny let us go or God will punish you!.... then nothing happens oops!
Death of the firstborns has been postulated to have been because the first born children in Egypt slept on the first floor whereas the other family slept in the upper floor which was less important. should a fog or plague or pestilence come through at night like they said happened with the first-borns it would settle into the first floor of a living space and not affect those in upper dwelling areas.
This comment has been deleted.
We discussed this in 7th Form Geography (1997). I'm a Christian and I don't see why this couldn't be true.
The Exodus Decoded (Biblical Conspiracy Documentary) by James Cameron 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus_Decoded
I didn´t understand how would an volcanic explosion on the Mediterranean Sea induce a Tsunami on the Red Sea, since they are not connected?
The 'red sea' is a long-running error - it was actually the 'reed sea', a large area of marshland on the coast of the Nile Delta. So if there was a tsunami in the Mediterranean, the water would have withdrawn from the shallow coastal region of the reed sea before rushing back in.
Since when do locusts feed on meat / dead animals??
Since always. Most conceptions people have of herbivore/carnivore aren't 100% accurate. Grasshoppers and butterflies often supplement on meat.
I was surprised by this claim as well, so I looked it up. Apparently it has been observed scientifically. The females are particularly fond of dry meat on carrion. Also hair and dung.
There are many accounts of butterflies feeding on carrion, including human corpses. I recently read an account from WW2 in Burma where swarms of white butterflies were observed settling on corpses - the book was entitled 'White Butterflies'.
Since always. Most conceptions people have of herbivore/carnivore aren't 100% accurate. Grasshoppers and butterflies often supplement on meat.
Not entirely sure I buy into the idea. Egypt is arid because there's very little rainfall, would that make it less likely that dust also falls there? Also the Nile is no small river, it's massive and drains the wet highlands of Uganda and Ethiopia - it would take an enormous quantity of dye/dust to taint it's colour, all deposited neatly downstream directly into the river, as the Nile collects hardly any surface water in Egypt. A dusty red sky may have reflected in the water though I guess.
I tend to favour the red algae bloom theory which may well have occurred in conjunction with or have been caused by the eruption.
The event is described to happens overnight. No matter how you want to explain it if you don't believe in God the Bible is not important to you. Then why you try to explain what you can't understand if something you don't believe? Faith does not need to justify anything
so its basically just saying that gods actions were caused by a giant volcanic eruption? tell me if i'm wrong
"Scientifically proven" cracked me up. Jews weren't even in Egypt at that time
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
I agree with that person who said it's GOD doing crazy nature stuff!
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
or The Lord caused the plagues just as the bible says. Believe in The Lord Jesus and be saved.
Even Pope Francis is a scientist (look it up) who understands that some things can be explained by science. Not everything is a miracle or divine.
Maimonedes wrote that god did these miracles through means that could be explained naturally so people would have the ability to doubt god. He wrote this 800 years ago, theologians once again are ahead of the curve
This is a completely honest and innocent question. What makes you believe the bible? I'm genuinely curious, i'm not trying to pick on you.
The bible has a lot of errors and is not a good reference for history or much of anything really. That's also not getting into the horrible things god did, commanded, put into laws, or pretty much most of what god does in the bible.