Moses and the parting of...Lake Manzala?

by glenster 11 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  glenster

  To drive away the waters and part the Red Sea, Moses needed a
  different location than previously thought, according to a new
  study on the miraculous biblical event.

  Previous studies of wind, waves and bathymetry have called on
  hurricane strength winds blowing from the northwest to push
  away the water. This exposed a long reef which allowed Moses
  and the Israelites to escape the advancing cavalry of Pharaoh.

  The problem is: It would be nearly impossible for Israelites
  to stand in such a wind, much less walk to safety.

  What's more, the Book of Exodus includes some nice meteoro-
  logical details: "(T)he Lord drove the sea away all night with
  a strong east wind and turned the sea-bed into dry land."

  "If you are going to match the biblical account, you need
  the wind from the east," said researcher Carl Drews of the
  National Center for Atmospheric Research. Drews has been
  studying the Red Sea story for years as a student and now
  has published a paper on the matter, which was his master's
  thesis, in the journal PloS One.

  He found that a steady 63-mile-per-hour (100-kilometer-per-hour) wind over a
  digitally reconstructed east-west running lake at the Mediterranean end of the
  Nile, near today's Port Said, would push the water west to the far end of the
  lake as well as south up the river. The model showed that this would expose wide
  mud flats where the river entered the lake and leave a land bridge high and dry
  for four hours.

  The hardest part of the study, said Drews, was reconstructing the geography of
  the area. He chose the area known today as Lake Manzala because it seems to fit
  with the Exodus story. It is oriented so that an east wind can actually blow
  across it lengthwise and push water to one side -- something that is not the
  case for the north-south running Red Sea.

  Drews used research done by others regarding the past geography of that area,
  which was once known as Lake of Tanis, along with the earliest maps he could
  find to try to recreate what the site looked like in 1250 B.C. The exact date
  is, however, not crucial, he said.

  Of course, this location raises another problem: The Nile Delta is not the Red
  Sea -- or is it?

  "There is some controversy over the body of water they crossed," said Drews.
  "The Exodus text says in Hebrew 'yam suf,' (which) literally means 'Sea of
  Reeds.'"

  That description fits the area he studied: a broad lake filled with papyrus
  reeds stretching to the horizon.

  "Many Bible translations render 'yam suf' as 'Red Sea,'" Drews told Discovery
  News. "Red Sea" has become the common terminology.

  However, biblical scholars Kenneth Kitchen and James Hoffmeier have explored
  the issue at length and have concluded that the marshy area along the Suez Canal
  is also an acceptable location for "yam suf."

  Hoffmeier, for his part, is cautious and not sure the location fits.

  "Attempts to understand biblical events in the light of geographical and
  climatological considerations are welcomed," said Hoffmeier of Trinity Evangeli-
  cal Divinity School at Trinity International University. "But the investigator
  must also incorporate a careful and contextual reading of the biblical text."
  http://news.discovery.com/history/moses-red-sea-parting.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1
• 

  Leolaia

  To drive away the waters and part the Red Sea, Moses needed a different location than previously thought, according to a new study on the miraculous biblical event....The hardest part of the study, said Drews, was reconstructing the geography of the area. He chose the area known today as Lake Manzala because it seems to fit with the Exodus story. It is oriented so that an east wind can actually blow across it lengthwise and push water to one side -- something that is not the case for the north-south running Red Sea.

  Which "Exodus story"? In fact, there are two: the very early poetic version (one of the oldest texts in the OT) and the much later prose account. The details of the east wind and "parting the sea" are not found at all in the earlier story. The parting motif in fact is a longstanding Chaoskampf mytheme absent in the much less miraculous poetic account. As Frank Moore Cross says with regard to the poetic text: "There is no suggestion in the poem of a splitting of the sea or of an east wind blowing the waters back so that the Israelites can cross a dry sea bottom or of the waters 'returning' to overwhelm the Egyptians mired in the mud. Rather it is a storm-tossed sea that is directed against the Egyptians by the breath of the Deity. Moreover, the sea is not personified or hostile, but a passive instrument in Yahweh's control. There is no question here of a mythological combat between two gods. Yahweh defeats historical, human enemies. Most extraordinary, there is no mention of Israel's crossing the sea or if a way through the deep places of the sea for the redeemed to cross over. The absence of these traditional motifs is surprising and requires explanation. So far as we can tell, the Egyptians are thrown from barks or barges into the stormy sea; they sink in the sea like a rock or weight and drown" (Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 1972, pp. 131-132).
• 

  PSacramento

  Leo,

  Could it be that the later one was simply a "follow up" or expanding on the details ( or lack there of) of the first account?
• 

  Leolaia

  PSacramento.....This isn't the case of a "follow up" by the same writer or a simple filling out of the same account. The insertion in toto of the Song of the Sea into P's independent prose account encourages a harmonistic reading in light of the narrative but the poem, written very close to the actual events, should be read on its own terms. Since P dates to some 500-600 years later, we really should be careful in assuming that both stories are talking about the "same thing", or that the story written a half millennium later has access to the same kind of impressionistic detail. The "sea-splitting" motifs from P's account, absent in the poem, derive from mythological tropes which are explicit in Deutero-Isaiah's reference to the miracle at the sea (Isaiah 51:9-10, written very close in time to P), and reflect P's creation narrative in Genesis 1:6 (which in turn reflects the Chaoskampf role of sea-splitting in creation found in the Enuma Elish and in later Jewish tradition, as found in b. Bava Batra 74b). This suggests that P is not drawing on any historical memory but on mythic themes he has used elsewhere.

  Also we know that P does not correctly understand the content of the poem because he places it on Moses' lips immediately after the sea event and prior to the sojourn in Sinai and the wilderness; this misunderstands the tense/aspect of the poem which in fact refers to these later events as already lying in the past. This occurred because in the 500-600 years since the composition of the poem, the Hebrew language had changed and the actual tense/aspect used in the poem no longer existed in the language. Also the Song of the Sea isn't lacking in details; it has very descriptive phrases relating the event at the sea: "He hurled into the sea his elite troops, drowned in the Reed Sea....At the blast of your nostrils the waters were heaped up, the swells mounted up as a hill, the deeps foamed in the heart of the sea ... You blew them with your breath, the sea covered them, they sank like a lead weight in the dreadful waters" (v. 4-5, 8, 10 in Cross' translation). These are just not the kind of details that suggest the scenario found in P. It is much more like a boisterous storm surge occurring in the midst of a blustery storm.
• 

  PSacramento

  That is very interesting Leo, really interesting indeed.

  So, if I understand you correctly, the original account, written in poem form I assume for easy telling over the generations, was altered to this more pppular and current form that we have now in the OT and was done about 500 years after the original was composed, yes?
• 

  Leolaia

  Well, we don't know if the poem was the actual source of P's account, to the extent that P's story is a conscious adaptation of it. There were certainly other stories already circulating (such as those from J and E) by the time P wrote. But the Song of the Sea is the earliest extant story and thus takes priority.

  There is an interesting parallel in the autobiography of King Ahmose I of his account of the war against the Hyksos at Avaris (the same locale as Pi-Ramesses in the prose exodus accounts). He relates his capture of many prisoners of war who escaped into the water near the city (i.e. among the lakes and canals of the Bitter Lakes region), pursuing them "across the water".
• 

  cyberjesus

  Was Moses even a real person?
• 

  PSacramento

  Normally I would never say this, but you know too much.

  I think you may be an alien.

  Still love you though, ;)

  I PM'd you a couple of days ago, did you get it?
• 

  Leolaia

  Oh I haven't checked my messages....lemme see.
• 

  glenster

  Thanks for some thoughtful reactions. Some of the information is echoed in
  the Wikipedia article at the next link:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Red_Sea

  "Major-General Sir Alexander Bruce Tulloch witnessed a wind setdown event on
  Lake Manzala in 1882. While he was surveying along the Suez Canal, a gale from
  the east blew in and continued overnight. In the morning he reported that Lake
  Manzala had receded 7 miles to the northwest, driven there by the force of the
  wind. The lake-bed was now mud, and the local fishermen were walking about among
  their grounded boats. Tulloch immediately made a connection to 'the passage of
  the so-called Red Sea by the Israelites.' He eventually concluded that crossing
  took place in 'the broad shallows at the then head of the Red Sea, viz., the
  north end of the Bitter Lake.'"

  "The narrative contains at least three and possibly four layers. In the first
  layer (the oldest), Yahweh blows the sea back with a strong east wind, allowing
  the Israelites to cross on dry land; in the second, Moses stretches out his hand
  and the waters part in two walls; in the third, Yahweh clogs the chariot wheels
  of the Egyptians and they flee (in this version the Egyptians do not even enter
  the water); and in the fourth, the Song of the Sea, Yahweh casts the Egyptians
  into "tehomat", the mythical abyss."

  My main focus at my site or here is to present evidence of the JWs leaders
  making phoney use of evidence meaning to affect the exclusiveness of leaders of
  a literal 144,000, esp. since thousands have been hurt or killed over it, other-
  wise dabbling in a bit here or there, possibly to suggest a note of diplomacy
  that people shouldn't be 'cetric about whichever belief or non-belief stance
  they pick since that's always been the main source of harm over such things.
  But I thought this was kind of interesting.