This is the third and last part of my article about The Exodus: Fact or Fiction? You can read the first and the second parts elsewhere on my blog. Click on the links to go there.
Splitting the Red Sea and going through it
The volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini in Greece could have had more effects than the Ten Plagues. According to the Bible, Egypt was in a total state of chaos after the Ten Plagues and the Semites were to blame for it. Pharaoh sent them away, into the desert, but regretted the decision soon after he made it. With a huge army he followed them in order to lead them back into the country. At the Reed Sea the people of Israel saw the Egyptian troops closing in and started to curse Moses. Everybody knows what happened next. But did that really happen or is it just a good story?
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This article is the second part of a series of three articles on Exodus. Find the first part here.
Evidence for the Ten Plagues to be historical facts
It’s quite possible that Amenemhat IV kicked the Semites out of the country, but that’s not something one would do without grave reasons. The Semites were cheap labourers, maybe even slaves. It would have grave consequences for the nation’s economy and political stability to kick large numbers of people out. Normally one wouldn’t do that except when forced to do so.
If Amenemhat IV indeed decided that the Semites had to leave the country, he probably has weighed the consequences. Something must have happened that forced him to evict the Semites. What kind of dreadful event could that have been?
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This article appeared earlier in Dutch (in 2002) in a periodical issued by the Reformed Students Association (GSV) in Groningen, Netherlands. Later I decided to put it out on my weblog in Dutch, because a lot of people thought it was a good article and a good read. I now translated it to English to make it available for a wider audience. I want to stress the fact I am NOT a theologian now, nor was I back in 2002 when I wrote it. I also wrote it as a Reformed Presbyterian student, NOT as a Catholic. This means that this article doesn’t necessarily reflects Catholic theology.
Back in 2002, I decided to write the article as a reaction in a running discussion on the ‘historicity of the Bible’. At the one hand you had people who believed in a ‘biblical/legalistic way’ that everything that is written down in the Bible equals Truth in the most literal sense, the Bible has to taken very literally. Other people, at the other hand, were of the opinion that the Bible is a book of people who tried to make sense of the world. Stories are not to be taken literally, but have merely a symbolic meaning. In between those sides there were also the people at the university being very critical at anything that is remotely attached to religion, having the sceptical attitude “if it cannot be proven to be true, it’s false.”
In this article I try to reach out to all those people, by addressing the issue from multiple sides. I want to show they are all a bit right, but they could be all a bit wrong also.
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The main differences between Protestantism (Calvinism) and Catholicism concerning the Bible
When comparing the Bible in Protestant and Catholic churches, one notices that the number of books in both versions differs. Why is that? Why do Protestants have fewer books? In this article I will give a more in-depth explanation than the one given in “A Journey into the Land of the Spirit” episode 1. There I explained that the origins of the differences lie in Church history.
Protestants try to be ‘as original as possible’ by using books translated from Hebrew, originating in Palestine, (the so-called Masoretic texts) whereas Catholics follow the Tradition, i.e., they use the books that were used by the Christians in the Roman Empire, based on the Greek Septuagint. First I will give a brief overview of Church history starting from the early beginnings until about 500 A.D., followed by a brief explanation of the Reformation (1521 and later). I will try to uncover the discussion points and influences that led to the re-investigation of Christianity’s origins and the decisions being made as a result of that investigation. After doing so I will summarise both the Roman Catholic rationale for these choices as well as the Reformed rationale. I will conclude with my own point of view.
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