Senior Paper I’ve always been extremely amazed with the Biblical account of the Ten Plagues. It is the story of the nation of Israel’s flight from slavery in Egypt, which led them eventually to the promised land of Palestine. The story is incredibly dramatic and action-packed. In the Bible, God works through Moses and his brother Aaron to convince the Pharaoh to free the Israelite slaves from captivity. When Pharaoh refused to free the people, God unleashes a series of catastrophes on Egypt that eventually make Pharaoh change his mind. A lot of people believe that the ten plagues didn’t happen, but I can prove that the ten plagues did happen, but I cannot prove that God or Moses caused it. In this paper I will be sharing research that I have done. What the bible has said and what scientists have said about this topic. I believe that the Ten Plagues did happen weather God did it or Mother Nature did that is a mystery to even me. The first few paragraphs are about what the bible says the Ten Plagues are and what happened. It says that God created them to happen. The first list of the plagues came from the Bible, and the second list of plagues came from the scientist’s point of view. The first plague: The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying that they needed to be at the Nile River when the Pharaoh and his servants came to drink from it in the morning. They were to tell pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery. If he wouldn’t, than Aaron was to take his rod, and cast it before the pharaoh and his servants. So Moses and Aaron went to the river and told the Pharaoh to let God’s people go. The pharaoh refused to let the people go, so Aaron took the rod and cast it. The Nile River then turned into blood. All of the fish died, all of the wood buckets and stone pitchers also turned to blood. This left all of the people thirsty; this went on for a week. This was the first plague to happen. The second Plague: The second plague to come was the plague of frogs. Moses went to the Pharaoh again and warned him to let Israelites go. The Pharaoh refused so God brought millions of frogs up from the river. The frogs covered all of the land and started to eat at the flesh and clothing of the people. The Pharaoh begged Aaron and Moses to put an end to the infestation and agreed to let the people go. When God killed all of the frogs Pharaoh went back on his promise and did not let the people go. The third plague: The third plague was lice. After Pharaoh went back on his promise, God had Aaron strike the dust with his rod and the dust came infested with billions of lice The lice attacked all of the people and animals, but still the Pharaoh did not give in. The fourth plague: The fourth plague was flies. Moses warned the Pharaoh but still he did not listen, so the next day swarms of flies covered the land. This was almost too much for the people to bear. Again Pharaoh agreed to let the people go free as long as the flies disappeared but stubborn Pharaoh went back on his word again. The fifth plague: The fifth plague was pestilence, God sent disease upon all the Egyptian livestock The next day all of the livestock were dead, but the Israelites livestock was unharmed. The Pharaoh did not listen to the warning and refused to let the Israelites go. The sixth Plague: The sixth plague was boils. God sent dust into the air causing horrible boils on the people and animals of Egypt. This did not phase the Pharaoh and he did not back away from the Lord, he still kept the people. The seventh Plague: The seventh plague was a hailstorm that was so violent that if any man or animal was caught outside in it, they would die. When Pharaoh refused to let the people free God sent down thunder, lightning, hail, and fire. Crops were destroyed as well as men and animals. For the third time the Pharaoh begged for the chaos to end and promised to let the people go free. But the Pharaoh’s heart was so hardened that he still would not give in. The Eighth Plague: The eighth plague to come was locusts. The locusts covered the land, they were so thick that they blocked out the sun. They devoured everything that was left over from the hailstorm including all the fruit from the trees. The people of Egypt were beginning to starve. Now, Pharaoh’s servants pleaded with him to let the Jews go since the land was destroyed anyways but Pharaoh still would not listen. The Ninth Plague: The ninth plague was darkness upon the land. For three days, God turned day into night, which really frightened the people. Pharaoh told Moses that he would let the people go but not the livestock, and when Moses refused the offer Pharaoh became angry and decided to not let them go. The Tenth Plague: The tenth plague was the killing of the first-born. God told Moses that he had one plague left to deliver and Pharaoh would definitely let the Israelites go. This plague is what is known in Jewish tradition as the, “Passover”. At midnight God came over the land and killed the first-born of every Egyptian family, child and animal, but spared the houses of the Israelites. There was not one house in Egypt that was not affected and the screams of grief and anguish were heard through out the land. Pharaoh had had enough and he told Aaron and Moses to take the people, their livestock and all of their belongings and leave Egypt. Were these plagues brought on only by the mighty power of God or are there scientific and rational reasons for this historic event? Remarkably there are some scientists who have attempted to gather data that might bring some truth to the biblical account. Many scientists believe that the plagues happened because of a major series of climate changes and a massive volcanic eruption that happened hundreds of miles away. Archaeologists now strongly believe the plagues occurred at an ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Remeses the Second, who ruled between 1279BC and 1213BC. Climatologists, studying the climate at the time, have discovered that a dramatic shift in the climate of the region occurred towards the end of Rameses the Second’s reign. By studying stalagmites in the Egyptian caves they have been able to rebuild a record of the weather patterns using traces of radioactive elements contained within the rock. They found that Rameses reign coincided with a warm, wet climate, but then the climate changed to a dry period. Professor Augusto Magini , a paleolimatologist at Heidelberg University’s Institute for Environmental Physics, said:, “There is a dry period which would certainly have had serious consequences.” After Rameses’ reign, the climate turned for the worse and some scientists think this change in the climate was the cause for the first plague. The first plague was the plague of blood. All of the water in the Egyptian wells, ponds, canals, the Nile, everything, all, "turned to blood.” Scientist have come up with two possible explanations of how the first plague occurred. The first is that the rising temperatures caused the river to dry up making the river very muddy and possibly, “blood-like.” The other reason that might have caused the first plague was an overwhelming amount of red algae, also known as Physteria. Red algae reproduces quickly and would have made the water red. As it reproduces it takes all of the oxygen out of the water, which would have led to all of the fish dying.
The second plague was frogs. There were millions of frogs, in houses, on the ground, all over Egypt. Because of the abundance of red algae, which caused to the death of all the marine life, the frogs left the river in mass numbers. The bible uses only one word to refer to the different species of frogs and toads. Scientists used their expertise in amphibians, combined with the good description of their behavior, to identify the species as the "bufo" toad. These toads produce a massive number of spawn in a single laying, hence the population explosion. Due to the poisonous nature of the water, the toads left it as soon as possible, but not before ingesting a lethal dose of the toxins released by the Physteria. Due to this there were no toads left to eat the insects, resulting in the plague of lice.
The third plague was an epidemic of lice. Like the frogs lice, covered the land. (These lice varied in size, there were big lice, small lice, and odd lice or two.) What must have happened here was mainly an exaggeration, but also due to the dead animal scene. (The Egyptians had no idea how to rid themselves of the lice, so they stayed for a while dying of one cause or another). Since insect classification was not developed until the time of Aristotle, its possible that, “lice” could have referred to a number of insect species. Richard L Brown, curator of the Mississippi entomological museum, and an international expert on insects provided them with a list of 100 species that could have been translated as lice.
The fourth plague was that of wild beasts; lions, tigers, wolves, etc. They must have also been attracted by the dead marine life. The animals caught wind of an, "all you can eat buffet" and they came running. Once the free food source had dried up, the wild animals left.
The fifth plague was pestilence, the cattle, sheep, donkeys and all other livestock were infected, with disease and unable to reproduce, give milk, or stay alive. The cause of this was most likely due to the presence of lice. They spread disease from animal to animal causing a livestock epidemic. Scientists after pulling a few strings, they were allowed into the facility at plumb island, Connecticut, USA. This facility is home to a lot of very dangerous diseases, as it is also known as the USDA animal research service. They went to talk to its director, DR Roger Breeze President of the Centaur Science Group. DR Breeze suggested that the 5th plague could be blue tongue for the cattle, and African horse sickness for the horses. Both of these are spread by the midge "coolacoidees", which would be the ideal candidate for the lice of plague three.
The sixth plague was skin disease; bumps and boils broke out among the people. This was most likely caused by the eating of spoiled and diseased meat. What do you eat when all your livestock falls victim to disease? The answer is the least infected meat, but least infected doesn't mean clean. So when the people ate the least infected meat they still got sick from it. Also, certain types of fly bites and can cause boils. The bites get infected and turn into boils from not being kept clean or not getting the right treatment.
The seventh plague was of hail, it poured and poured and didn't let up. This is caused by atmospheric pressure changes. Even though it is a hot desert area in Egypt, It has been known to hail, same deal everywhere else in the world. This hail destroyed the Egyptians crops and houses, killed livestock, people, and anything else that would die. Also ash in the air causes a mixture of ash and water. The ash, very high in the air, causes the water to freeze so that when it falls it is hail and not rain. Chemicals in the ash make the red lighting therefore, fire in the sky and hail.
Plague number eight was that of the locusts. Locusts are swarming, flying creatures whose only purposes in life is to eat, make babies, and die; all of which they are very good at. Locusts become a problem annually, but it's only for a short period of time. In this small amount of time however, they will literally eat the clothes off of your back. This is not a godly feat, this sort of thing happens all over the world all the time. Locusts come around when the ground is very damp. They bury there eggs 4 to 6 inches in the sand. After record amount of hail the ground would be very wet allowing the locusts to form in great numbers.
The ninth plague was darkness, it was completely dark everywhere. The Egyptians didn't know weather it was day or night. This can most likely be attributed to a total eclipse. This would make it so there was no moon to be seen, no sun to be seen, basically, nothing to be seen. Again, it happens from time to time. You don't have to make any gods angry for this to happen; you just have to wait a few years. Another possible reason it was night or dark for that many days is because of the volcanic eruption that took place, there was ash in the air making it almost impossible to see the sun or get any sunlight.
The tenth and final plague was the slaying of the firstborn children. In Egypt the first-born was king, they would be the ones to lead the family after the father died. When food was scarce the first born ate first and sometimes was the only one to eat. After the locusts ate everything there was only grain locked in vaults. The hail got it wet, locusts feces made it moldy. So when only the first born ate it they were the only ones killed by the moldy grain. The identity of this bacteria was found when DR Edwardo Montagnia of the Atlanta Center for Disease Control was called in by Cleveland doctors to find out why children were dying. This cause was identified as "Stachybotrys atra", a black water loving mould that grows on cellulose and produces mycotoxins on its spores, which causes haemorrhaging of the lungs. This was the perfect agent to be the cause of the tenth plague, but was only effective in killing the first born due to a combination of cultural factors. Firstly, it only affected the top part of the grain store, and the important people got first servings. Then, Egyptian first born were given an extra helping of the best food, as culturally they were thought of as the most important child in the family. This resulted in only the first born Egyptians being given a lethal dose of the toxins. At the same time, the Israelites were using different practices for food preparation that didn't concentrate the infected grain into lethal doses. This resulted in no deaths among them.
These scientific explanations are only hypotheses of what happened. How the Jews weren't affected. The Jewish Slaves' food supply was most likely kept separate from the Egyptians' food supply. If you noticed, most all of the plagues somehow related back to the food supply. The Jews probably weren't permitted to use the easily accessible water supply, so they were forced to retrieve their water from somewhere far from the algae-infested water that the Egyptians got theirs from.
I have always been faithful to Jesus and love him very much. My heart chooses to believe that the Bible is correct word for word, but my mind tends to wander towards the scientific reasoning. I cannot tell you what exactly happened or which is the right answer. Whether God did it with his own mighty power or he used natural and scientific law to get the job done doesn’t really matter to me in the long run. What matters to me, a person of faith, is that God did it. Ultimately, it was God who freed the Israelites. Although there are two different outlooks on how the Ten Plagues occurred, we can all agree that the Egyptians suffered a great deal. People who are very strong in their beliefs believe that the bible is correct and have seen what the scientists have uncovered and disagree with them one hundred percent. I believe in an open mind and will look over the information and decide from there. I still believe that God did all of it. Whether the Bible is correct and Moses and Aaron helped the Lord bring on Ten Plagues or if Mother Nature hit Egypt horribly, it all comes down to a matter of faith and what your heart tells you.