The Raised Waters of the Exodus

At www2.ucar.edu/news/parting-waters-computer-modelling-captures-physics-red-sea-escape-route/ is a story that appeared on BBC News broadcasts and at www.physorg.com and www.sciencedaily.com and generally in lots of places that have nothing to do with religion – but hark back to a Biblical event that science has sought to downsize in the past. So why the current hype? The answer appears to be that this is science providing evidence in support of the Exodus event – and significantly, like a lot of science nowadays, it primarily took place on a computer screen. A computer model of the events at the Red Sea have been created at an American university and apparently it shows that a strong east wind blowing overnight could have pushed the waters back. They did not have to introduce an electrical discharge or a strong tidal motion – or even waters retreating in the period preceding a tsunami wave generated by an earthquake or volcano. The wind did it all. However, it seems that the event could not be replicated in the Red Sea or one of its tongues but a coastal lagoon on the ‘Way of Horus’, the Egyptian main route between the Delta and southern Palestine, was chosen instead – presumably utilising the Sea of Reeds interpretation in place of the Red Sea. This lagoon was suitably shallow and it showed that just an east wind could have provided the kernel of the myth of God parting the waters. God being the cosmic body responsible in a catastrophist interpretation would seem to suggest there was something else going on that is not integrated into the said model. Some modifications might be worthwhile only in order to see what effect a comet coming fairly close to the earth in around 3000BC might do. All in all a useful development.