13/4/2009

This being Easter, and the West, the Discovery Channel has taken upon itself to present a handful of programmes which, at face value, seem to serve people of faith. In reality, they are as anti-Christian as some of the programmes on the National Geographic Channel, which itself is anti-God and pro-evolution.

Based on a couple of books by scientists who sought to find naturalistic explanations to some the miracles of the books of Genesis and Exodus, these programmes, replete with high-class visualisations of the events, look persuasive. The scientists claim that this is what really happened, and the uncritical and hopeful might swallow the lot.

They deal with the miracles surrounding Moses and the escape of the entire nation of Israel from Egypt, and the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim by fire from heaven.

The burning bush, which was not consumed by the fire, is said to have been an acacia tree charred by heat from a volcanic vent. Was Moses that gullible? I think not.

The ten plagues God visited upon Egypt are said to be triggered by a blood-red algal bloom which poisoned all living things in the Nile. Then the consequences followed in a cascade of natural explanations. The climax, the death of all the fist-born, was put down to a custom that the eldest in the family were fed first, and the grain in the top of the jar was infested by a poisonous mould. It is a catalogue of coincidental “natural” phenomena. But it is punctuated by Moses’ conversations with God and audiences with the obstinate king of Egypt. The point is that God could stop the disasters at any time, if the king relented.

The Red Sea crossing was attributed to the east wind blowing back the water over an underwater ridge. That is the only explanation I would give credence to, assuming the scientists’ location of the crossing point is correct, but again God is involved, instructing Moses to raise his hand and stretch out his staff and do it.

The scientists put a lot of faith in a volcano as the source of the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day. Except that this pillar moved all around the region and led the people through the desert to the edge of the Promised Land. It even got between the pursuing Egyptian army and the departing nation. The pillar led them back in the desert for 40 years. No natural phenomenon fits.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Adamah and Zeboim were attributed to an asteroid colliding with the atmosphere in Europe, with a plume of debris hurled in the direction of the Middle East. The main evidence for this was a deciphered astronomical disc showing the track of the asteroid, and a lot of debris in ice cores, putting the collision at about three thousand BC.

A nice try, but for several facts: Abraham, who witnessed the destruction, was standing on the high country overlooking the burning valley at about 2066 BC. One would also have thought that Abraham himself would have been immolated by the plume of debris.

Were these naturalists to tell the whole story, and not quote selectively, they would find, like the drowned Egyptian army, that the wheels had come off their theories. This is propaganda, not science.

The battle against the Bible is constant, and we need to be aware of what is happening. If the miraculous can be explained away, then the Bible is merely a collection of tales with possibly some spiritual lessons. As archaeology has continued to root the events of the Bible in history, that is all they can do now.

And let’s not buy the claptrap of liberal Christians and Jewish rabbis who say that it doesn’t matter what happened as long as we understand the lesson. If it didn’t happen, and didn’t happen that way, then we might as well toss the book on the fire. It happened that way alright, because God made it happen.