All right, let's first dispense with the obvious idiocy of the following:
Director posits proof of biblical Exodus
A provocative $4-million documentary by Toronto filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici claims to have found archeological evidence verifying the story of the biblical Exodus from Egypt, 3,500 years ago.
I will not dignify that silliness with a response simply because there's something far more curious deep in the bowels of that article (emphasis added):
Dating the Exodus to roughly 1,500 BC, the two-hour film presented and executive-produced by Hollywood director James Cameron and airing Easter Sunday on Discovery Canada — suggests that the great Santorini volcano caused the Ten Plagues that the Bible says were visited upon the Egyptians and which finally persuaded the pharaoh of the day.
The Greek island of Santorini lies only 700 kilometres north of Egypt. When it erupted, it sent smoke and ash 37 kilometres into the sky. Mr. Jacobovici contends that volcanology and geology can explain not only the first plague — that Egypt's waters were turned blood-red through the release of toxic gas, similar to what happened at Lake Nios in Cameroon in 1986; but they also can explain the succeeding nine plagues — frogs, fleas, flies, livestock deaths, boils, hailstorms, locusts, darkness and the death of the Egyptian firstborn males.
The film contends that the tsunami unleashed by the Santorini upheaval can also account for why the Israelites were able to cross the parting sea ahead of the pharaoh's army and why the Egyptians were subsequently engulfed. But Mr. Jacobovici says the sea Moses crossed was not the Red Sea, as is traditionally thought, but a smaller lake, known in Egypt as the Reed Sea. Its Egyptian name, translated into Hebrew, means "the place where God swallowed up."
Excuse me, but when exactly did the devout start looking for naturalistic explanations for alleged miracles? I've read the Bible, and all of those plagues were most emphatically due to divine intervention, so where does Jacobovici get off proposing convenient volcanoes and tsunamis?
If the Christian wingnuthood wants to believe in the ridiculous fairy tale that is Exodus, fine. Go wild. Have a ball. But at least have the fucking pride to still insist that it's the work of your favourite supernatural deity, and don't go looking to science and nature for validation.
That's just so ... so ... secular.
5 comments:
I don't want to bring the wrath of CC down on me, but don't some Christians believe that God works through the laws of science and nature? I think their world view would certainly support God causing a volcanic eruption to bring about the plagues. The volcano would be seen as a "tool" used by God, or something like that.
The same way the Darwin-type Christians (and Darwin was a Christian) believe that evolution is the tool that God used to create life.
Given that there are way too many nutbar fundamentalist young earth creationists out there, I applaud the attempts of the moderate and scientifically inclined Christians to reconcile the truth indicated by scientific efforts with the truth indicated by their faith.
Now, if only they could lead the true nutbars back down the path towards sanity.
deanna opines:
I don't want to bring the wrath of CC down on me, but don't some Christians believe that God works through the laws of science and nature?
Sure they do, and if those people choose to accept, say, biological evolution because they believe that's God's plan, more power to them. In that case, at least they're thinking scientifically.
However, there are certainly going to be people who absolutely reject all of the scientific evidence for evolution, yet will happily lap up the "science" in this nonsensical documentary because it bolsters what they want to believe. That's being hypocritical. Either accept science, or reject it. Don't cherry pick.
More to the point, trying to justify the plagues of Egypt through naturalistic explanations is downright un-Scriptural.
The Bible clearly describes the plagues as the revenge of God. To portray them as the result of simple natural disasters flatly denies the clear word of Scripture.
Where does it say that the filmmaker is devout?
He's just trying to find evidence for what a dubious semihistorical legend. Finding the grain of truth behind ancient myths and legends is a time-honored tradition for pseudohistorical documentaries. Not unlike the old In Search Of episodes. Looking for Atlantis, correlating lights in the sky in old Chinese writings with astronomical phenomena, the Cocaine Mummies, all that good stuff.
I applaud the attempt to undermine the belief in the supernatural, even if they are giving credence to possibly entirely made-up stories.
Hey, CC - how did you get an advance copy of the documentary?
Dave : The filmmaker is a practising Orthodox Jew who has founded his own synagogue.
Deanna : Here is what is mystifying to atheists -
Miracles are incidents of God's intervention into natural history and human affairs.
If you succeed in finding natural explanations for miracles, then they are no longer miracles.
If there are no miracles, then there is neither evidence of nor reason for the existence of God. So the quest to legitimize religion through science is self-defeating.
Post a Comment