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bogeydogg
Guest
Something that has been talked around here but not gotten to completely is that God uses means. Something that both Augustine and Aquinas understood with absolute clarity but has been forgotten by our “scientific” age is that God controls nature. What we call natural law is not more or less than our ability to see the way God normally does things. Remember the Bible tells us that God rules and governs the universe at all times and everywhere present in it. His domain knows no bounds and the laws of nature are His hand constantly working to uphold and further His rule and purpose.
The notion that is now thought of Christian that God somehow wound the watch and stepped away with periodic interference is not Christian because it is not Theist. That notion is deism and is a heresy of the Enlightenment whose tendrils have persevered because of Hume and Kant and others. Interesting though it may be it creates a universe in which God does not govern and is not present always and such an idea is utterly foreign to the Bible.
So, for example, we know that around the time it is postulated that the Exodus happened there had been an invasion of Egypt by peoples from what is now Syria, a people by the way who would not have known Joseph. Along this same time there was a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in East Africa which could have caused an algae bloom (the Nile runs red) the fish die and so frog spawn is not eaten and so a bunch of frogs are everywhere. Certainly volcanoes can rain ash many miles away causing the Sun to be darkened. Also such an atmospheric disturbance could cause wildly violent weather such as hailstones. Dead fish mean flies everywhere and the maggots spread disease that can easily be passed to the animals drinking the poisoned water.
You get the point.
One might say that Moses co-opted this disaster and created a narrative to explain to the Israelites, OR>>>>>
One might say that God, working through natural means, effected the plagues on Egypt by said natural means.
The same with the flood. We know that at some point past the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea were separated by a thin strip of land. At this time there was a civilization living in around the fresh water of the Black Sea and that population was destroyed by a cataclysmic flood when the Mediterranean flowed into it. This certainly does argue for a cataclysmic flood locally, but not against a world wide flood either. Gilgamesh speaks of a flood. Native cultures in Central and North America had flood narratives. So did East Asian peoples.
Scholars call this coincidence but the fact is legends that are pervasive came from somewhere. I think there was some sort of cataclysm (perhaps Krakatoa erupting) that cause a world wide upheaval and destroyed many many civilizations by world wide flood/tsunami.
And God could have authored all of this in judgement against the sinfulness of man.
You should think on evidence such as mitochondrial DNA that speaks to all of humanity being descended from a population of less than a few thousand less than 10,000 years ago. Such a finding certainly leads me to think that something had to happen to cause such a small population so recently (and btw the ice age that came with it around the same time).
All of these natural means being governed by God resulting in a narrative written by a prophet to a people being led out of Egypt to teach them to throw off the false Gods and worship the only true God.
It seems like a valid explanation of Scripture to me.
God Bless