Part 1 of 3<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Brad Sparks<\/b><\/p>\n
Naturalistic theories of the Ten Plagues attempt to account for the miraculous events of Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt using natural phenomena in an exotic biological chain reaction of red algae, anthrax and various other epidemic pathogens and insects, plus flood water, red river mud, and\/or wind. These Plague theories have been widely and uncritically accepted among Biblical scholars, and believed quite mistakenly to be scientifically established, but they are virtually unknown and undocumented in the scientific community. Such theories have escaped serious scientific scrutiny until now. The leading \u201cnatural phenomena\u2019\u201d theories of the Plagues are reviewed in-depth here for the first time and found to be fatally flawed, the main one so lacking in scientific merit that it has the appearance of an elaborate hoax even though most likely proposed with the utmost sincerity (Hort 1957, 1958).<\/p>\n
Why are naturalistic theories so popular? For some, they avoid complete skepticism of the Bible on the one hand and complete supernaturalism by Divine miracle on the other. This middle ground asserts that the Bible is correct that these events really did occur, but as natural occurrences under unusual conditions, not as miracles. Such a theory is attractive to those who presume that it actually provides a kind of stunning scientific proof of the Biblical account of the Ten Plagues. According to many conservatives the miracle involved is one of soft subject data of timing and severity, or of otherwise scientifically acceptable \u201cnatural\u201d phenomena. Part of the problem may be linguistic. Disease epidemic theories rely to some degree on a misnomer. The Biblical word \u201cplague\u201d in English suggests only infectious disease when the actual Hebrew word and variants translated from Exodus chaps. 9\u201312 (nega\u2019, negeph, magephah<\/i>) refer more broadly to \u201csharp blows\u201d and \u201ccalamity,\u201d not just disease (Brown, Driver, Briggs 1979:550a, 619a\u2013620a-620a).<\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s Red Algae-Anthrax Theory<\/b><\/p>\n
The most popular naturalistic theory of the Plagues of Egypt began in 1957 with Greta Hort, a scholar of medieval English literature and religion, who published a theory explaining the Plagues as an interconnected series of catastrophic natural events. This \u201cecological domino\u201d effect (van Biema 1998:4) started with a Plague of Blood consisting mainly of a massive \u201cred tide\u201d of algae in the Nile River plus red mud (Sailhamer 1992:254; Kitchen 1962; Cole 1973:90; Elwell 1988; Humphreys 2003:114\u201318, 125, 144). Then anthrax bacteria in the river infected animals and humans. Every succeeding Plague is seemingly accounted for by Hort. Hort\u2019s theory has become highly respected and is \u201cwidely cited\u201d (Huddlestun 1992:1109) in numerous encyclopedias, commentaries and Biblical reference works though never subjected to any independent scientific review until now. As it turns out, her complex scheme is wracked with insuperable scientific, historical and factual difficulties. Her theorized algae cannot survive and do not naturally occur in the Nile or Egypt, are the wrong color, are utterly harmless not toxic, and anthrax does not infect rivers, just to list a few of the many scientific blunders made by Hort.<\/p>\n
Hort claims that this biological chain reaction began with one of two species of red algae in a Nile source, Luke Tana in East Africa. But this claim is complexly wrong, mistakenly documented only with a passing remark in a two-volume microbiology work about the algae occurring in Europe\u2014not Africa (Hort 1957:94, fn. 19, citing Gessner 1955:412\u201313; Beegle 1972:101). Hort\u2019s algae, Haematococcus pluvialis<\/i> and Euglena sanguinea<\/i>, are not even red or bloody in color but are green<\/i><\/b> in flowing water, thus could not possibly have caused a red<\/i><\/b> plague of \u201cBlood\u201d (they turn red only when dry or desiccating which is an absurdity in the Nile). Scientists have never seen any sign of Hort\u2019s algae \u201cnaturally occurring\u201d in the Nile or East Africa, not even in microscopic trace amounts.1 Yet the beauty of Hort\u2019s theory is thought to be in its purported ability to explain how a normal \u201cnatural\u201d phenomenon (algae) can cause a catastrophe such as the Plagues under certain natural conditions.<\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s culprit algae species are so far from being the cause of a deadly \u201c\u2018plague\u201d that they are actually used today as human and animal food supplements worldwide, one species of which the present author has personally tested as safe. Neither species is toxic or even a water pollutant rendering water undrinkable or unfit for consumption, as will be detailed below (Palmer 1980:66, table 19).<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 67<\/p>\n
Haematococcus pluvialis<\/i><\/b> is green not red, contrary to Hort. It will turn red only when drying out.<\/b><\/p>\n
The attractiveness of Hort\u2019s theory lies in its attempt to interlink nine if not all ten of the Plagues in a \u201cscientific\u201d cause-and-effect chain of natural events, each of which causes or contributes to the next or a succeeding Plague with only a few out-of-order exceptions.2 Hort believes she has proved that each Plague arose as a direct or indirect consequence of just \u201cone specific natural phenomenon\u201d\u2014the abnormally high rise of the annual Nile flood (Hort 1957:85, 1958:58). One set in motion by the severe rains and the purported melting snow (an old myth: Lloyd 1976:92\u201393, 101\u2013102) at the sources of the Nile, Hort says each Plague followed their inevitable natural sequence and geographic coverage in her catastrophic domino theory, a unified series of about eight to nine months\u2019 duration. They fit exactly the natural phenomena of Egypt in exactly the correct order, Hort claims. These natural events also supposedly account for the pattern of some Plagues seeming to affect all of Egypt, some seeming to avoid the Israelites\u2019 land of Goshen, some that halted abruptly and some that apparently tapered off.<\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s discussion would lead an unsuspecting reader to believe that her algae are well known to scientists and are a major constituent of the Nile flora. But the shocker is that her algae are actually nonexistent entities in Egyptian and East African biology. Exhaustive scientific studies have cataloged more than 400 species of algae in the Nile, and some 1,000 species in East Africa including Hort\u2019s alleged Lake Tana source, yet scientists have never found these two algae species there (Brook 1954; Talling and Rz\u00f3ska 1967:644; Brunelli and Cannicci 1940; Rz\u00f3ska 1976:210, 229, 266, 268; Talling 1967b: 387\u201388, 390, 392; Hammerton 1972:187\u201388; Gr\u00f6nblad, Prowse and Scott 1958; 1\u201382; Gr\u00f6nblad 1962:3\u201319; Mshigeni 1983; Institut Royal 1952, 1954, 1955). Hort does not bother to discuss the actual dominant natural algae of the Nile, which are not red but green (Anabaena flos-aquae<\/i> and Microcystis flos-aquae<\/i>) and\/or colorless (Melosira granulata<\/i>), and there is no mention or even an allusion to them in Hort\u2019s 32-page paper, which had a year in between publication of its two parts to catch any egregious errors or omissions. No biologist has ever reported a red bloom of any kind of algae in the Nile or its headwaters, let alone of Hort\u2019s algae (Rz\u00f3ska 1976; Palmer 1980). No photographs of a Red Nile appear in scientific texts, Bible reference works, or travel guides despite the popular interest they would generate if a \u201cBlood\u201d Nile were truly a natural occurrence. Hort\u2019s algae do not naturally occur in the Nile or East Africa. In fact, these harmless algae are never known to cause a Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) or water pollution anywhere in the world in the relatively few places they do occur (see below on UNESCO database) (Palmer 1980).<\/p>\n
The reason why Hort\u2019s algae do not occur in the Nile or in East Africa is simple: Hort\u2019s algae are rare and fragile ice water<\/i><\/b> species that belong in sub arctic cold climates, are used as \u201cindustrial indicators\u201d of snow and ice water temperatures, and can barely survive even in their own ideal environment (Pringsheim 1966:1\u20132, 5; Palmer 1980:72, table 23). It is a biological impossibility for these algae to survive, let alone thrive, in the Nile, a tropical habitat that is actually deadly to algae of all kinds for a number of reasons, including the universal algae-killing effect of silt. Instead, Hort maintains the fiction that the algae \u201cwould appear only<\/i><\/b> at a time when the Nile was at its highest<\/i><\/b>\u201d (Hort 1957:94, emphasis added). Hort never tells the reader the well-known fact, known for centuries and confirmed microscopically by biologists, that the silt-laden Nile at its flood time high is completely clear of all algae<\/i><\/b> of every species (Bryant 1810:79:84; Brook 1954; Hammerton 1972:195, fig. 7).<\/p>\n
Surely the most scientifically discrediting of the long list of Hort\u2019s scientific errors arises from the well-known elementary fact that plants need sunlight for photosynthesis<\/i><\/b> (Palmer 1980:18; Round 1981:27 and fn.). Algae are plants. Yet her theory requires massive loads of intensely dark silt that would black out the sun in the water\u2014as it later does in the air, when dry, to create the Plague of Darkness claimed by Hort. Such a silt blackout would kill her plant algae<\/i><\/b>. This algae-killing effect is well known to scientists studying the Nile, and will be discussed in detail in Part 3. It is also common knowledge even to laypersons that algae grow in stagnant ponds, and red tides are found in the ocean, environments very unlike the Nile.3 Anthrax is soil-based and not found in the Nile either. Nor is anthrax red in color.<\/p>\n
According to Hort\u2019s theory, each Plague recounted in the book of Exodus occurs in the correct \u201cnatural\u201d sequence, all triggered by one underlying cause\u2014a single and extraordinarily severe occurrence of the annual Nile flood in July. This torrent allegedly washed down a massive load of \u201cred\u201d mud along with the main reddening agent, the red algae, which discolored and contaminated the water in a red tide (or HAB as biologists now prefer to call it). The supposedly red mud-red algae combination together created an even more red Plague of Blood. Red algae are crucial to Hort to make the water \u201ctruly blood-red\u201d (Hort 1957:87, 94, passim.)<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 68<\/p>\n
Then followed the deadly chain reaction of successive Plagues, says Hort. The algae killed the fish. Dead fish developed anthrax, sickening the frogs and driving them ashore. Dead frogs contaminated the soil, infecting and killing livestock animals with invested internal anthrax. Biting flies proliferated in the decaying plains left by the heavy flooding, then carried the especially virulent skin anthrax from dead cattle to the live cattle and humans, causing the Plague of \u201cboils.\u201d The severe weather that had caused the unusual torrent then brought hail and locusts. The excessive load of mud from the high Nile flood dried into an unusually heavy covering of powdered silt. A violent dust storm lofted the silt into the air, creating an extraordinary darkness. The first fruits of crops were destroyed\u2014rather than firstborn children\u2014in the final Plague according to Hort, claiming an error in the translation of the Biblical account. Some of the Plagues may have missed the Israelites due to a natural sheltering effect of the Wadi Tumilat valley, east of the Nile Delta, in which they supposedly dwelt. Hort suggests the Israelites left Egypt because they had food the Egyptians wanted and would have taken from them, so if they stayed they would \u201cdie either by violence or starvation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s theory is seemingly quite convincing\u2014but only on the surface. Overlooked by a generation of scholars is the passing admission by Hort that the algae connection itself, the central core of her entire theory, is a total \u201csupposition\u201d (Hort\u2019s term) in the first place (Hort 1957:94). The impressive-looking recital of formal Latin binomial species names of the alleged \u201cblood plague\u201d algae, and the recounting of numerous alleged facts of biology and geology have all worked together to make her case seem to the unwary to be established scientific fact. But Hort\u2019s case is not the summation of some vast body of biological evidence or the accumulated wisdom of many lifetimes of dedicated scientific study. It is based on one single microbiology reference she has completely misinterpreted or misrepresented. Her case for these two algae strains, Haematococcus pluvialis<\/i> and Euglena sanguinea<\/i>, is built on that one passing reference, which, as already mentioned, does not even document these algae occurring in the Nile, but in Europe.4 <\/p>\n
It is thus all the more disturbing to read that Hort\u2019s key to solving the problem of the Plagues, which she insists is absolutely essential to her theory, is her admitted mere supposition that one or two of the allegedly \u201cred\u201d algae species actually came down from Lake Tana along with masses of \u201cred\u201d mud. Hort asserts we can only<\/p>\n
suppose<\/i><\/b> that the waters of the Blue Nile…had brought them [the two species of \u201cred\u201d algae] into the Nile from Lake Tana (Hort 1957:94, emphasis added).<\/p>\n
In other words Hort has no scientific or historical evidence that these algae did enter the Nile from Lake Tana; she can only \u201csuppose\u201d they did. There are no citations of scientific or historical literature here, no evidence whatsoever. A generation of scholarship assuming a natural origin for the Plagues rises or falls on this half-sentence guesswork that is contradicted by all scientific surveys of the continent, including the Italian expedition to Lake Tana in the 1930\u2019s (Brunelli and Cannicci 1940), of whose findings Hort should have been aware. The ensuing events in the alleged chain reaction also strain our credulity. Hort claims that a heavy bloom of algae caused anoxia, supposedly consuming and cutting off the oxygen in the flood-stage Nile and thus killing masses of fish that normally feed on frogspawn. This led to a population explosion of frogs invading the land, they dying mysteriously from anthrax, she asserts. But anthrax is a soil contaminant, not a river pollutant. Algae usually generate a net increase in oxygen and thus cleanse the water (Palmer 1980:3\u20134, 21). And it is a physical impossibility for algae to remove all oxygen from the Nile\u2019s well-aerated turbulent waters at flood time (see Part 3) (Talling 1976a: 371\u201374; North Carolina State University 2003).5 <\/p>\n
Anthrax cannot infect dead fish or live frogs, contrary to Hort\u2019s claims (Marr and Malloy 1996:12\u201313; this theory of the Plagues goes back to 1890 [Blanc]). Anthrax only infects mammals,<\/i><\/b> typically grazing herbivores such as sheep, cattle and goats, and does not infect frogs<\/i>,<\/b> amphibians, reptiles or fish<\/i><\/b> (Marr and Malloy 1996:15; USDA 2001; AVMA 2001; Cunha 2001; UN FAO 2001). Anthrax is soil-based and is not contracted from large bodies of water such as rivers. Biting stable flies have never been medically or epidemiologically documented to spread anthrax to cattle or humans, nor do they feed on dead animals\u2014they feed on live animals. According to Hort these biting stable flies bred and spread disease in the Plague of Boils in early January. But these flies actually hibernate in winter in the pupa stage and do not mature until warm weather.6 Most problematic, if anthrax was all over the land of Egypt as Hort\u2019s theory requires, and anthrax bacilli typically attack the blood of sheep and humans, then the Passover ritual involving widespread exposure to lamb\u2019s blood<\/i><\/b> would have spread an anthrax epidemic<\/i><\/b> throughout the Israelite population\u2014which of course did not happen.<\/p>\n
Euglena sanguinea<\/i><\/b> is green, not red, contrary to Hort. It has a tiny red so-called \u201ceyespot,\u201d but is overwhelmed by the 20 times greater area of green color.<\/b><\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 69<\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s Influence on Biblical Scholarship<\/b><\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s articles have had enormous influence on scholarly thinking on the Exodus, despite a disturbing and total lack of any independent scientific review in the literature. Hort\u2019s \u201cfacts\u201d of microbiology and geology \u201chave not been challenged,\u201d as the noted Exodus scholar Nahum Sarna has said,7 and it will become evident that this is due to the lack of proper scientific review that would have caught the devastating flaws. Otto Eissfeldt and Johannes Hempel, who edited the German journal of Old Testament studies that published Hort\u2019s 1957\u201358 paper, stated that certain unnamed scientific authorities assured them Hort\u2019s work was correct in its microbiology and geology. But these authorities were never identified and no substantive scientific comments were ever actually published8 so that the science could be subjected to independent review and testing.<\/p>\n
Many commentators have unknowingly echoed this misplaced assurance that the Hort thesis was \u201cgeologically and microbiologically accurate,\u201d9 and her \u201cclimatological, geographical, and microbiological facts\u201d are cited uncritically in various places such as the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia<\/i> and even the Encyclopœdia Britannica<\/i>. Pervasive high praise of Hort runs across the spectrum of scholarship from conservative to liberal, including secular and evangelical Egyptologists, Old Testament scholars, Catholic \u201cliberation\u201d theologians, and Jewish seminarians.<\/p>\n
Hort\u2019s work has been called \u201cexcellent,\u201d \u201cpainstaking,\u201d \u201caccurate,\u201d \u201cattractive,\u201d \u201cimportant,\u201d \u201ccompelling,\u201d \u201clogical,\u201d \u201csophisticated,\u201d \u201cthorough,\u201d \u201cingenious,\u201d \u201clearned,\u201d \u201cimpressive\u201d and \u201csignificant\u201d (Kitchen 1982; Harrison 1982:228; Elwell 1988; Hyatt 1980:339; LaSor, Hubbard and Bush 1982:138, fn. 20; Zevit 1990:42, n. 6; Lesko 2000; Hoffmeier 1992:375, 1997:149; Beegle 1972:96; de Vaux 1978:360; Childs 1974:162; Salkeld 1995; see Pfeiffer 1973:156\u201357; Kaiser 1998:97\u201399; Sarna 1986:73; 1991:38ff; Pixley 1987:42; Bush 1986:880; Encycloœdia Britannica<\/i> 2000; Marr and Mallory 1996:22; Dever 2003:18). However, this first ever in-depth scientific analysis shows that Hort\u2019s theory is riddled with numerous fundamental errors of scientific reasoning, logical flaws, misstatements of fact, and even long-exploded ancient myths about the \u201csnow fed\u201d sources of the Nile misreported as modern-day scientific discoveries. (Unlike Hort\u2019s paper, the analysis here has undergone critical review by leading specialists in the fields of microbiology and Egyptology prior to publications.)<\/p>\n
The Nile River at Thebes, with the Luxor Temple visible on the east shore.<\/b><\/p>\n
It has not been possible to salvage the basic thesis of Hort, or her unacknowledged predecessors, by suitably modifying it, because there are so many errors across so many scientific and historical disciplines that a correction would amount to a complete reversal or negation of Hort\u2019s theory. For example, an algae bloom would need to be at the Nile\u2019s yearly low (not high) level, to consist of green (not red) algae that are actually toxic and not harmless, to involve the algae originating not in a distant East African plateau but in the Nile Delta, and to be generated by the water-pollution eutrophication effect of sewage runoff from the large Israelite slave population\u2014instead of the Israelites being exempt from the alleged algae Plague, etc. (More on this in Part 2.) Thus this salvaging \u201ccorrection\u201d of Hort\u2019s theory results in a Green<\/i><\/b> Algae Plague that impacts mainly the Israelites, not the Egyptians!<\/p>\n
Continued uncritical recital of Hort\u2019s theory is an unfortunate result of the rush to admire the cleverness of her seemingly novel thesis and, at least for some, the misguided desire to find a naturalistic \u201cscientific proof\u201d of the Bible that charts a middle ground between skepticism and supernaturalism. Credit should not go to Hort anyway for the domino-effect interlinking of the Plagues from natural causes, but instead belongs to her unacknowledged predecessors, including the 1874 Lange commentary (1876, at Ex 7:25), the well-known 1902 Hastings Dictionary of the Bible<\/i> (Macalister 1902:892) and the 1911 book by renowned archaeologist Flinders Petrie (35\u201336; see also Huntington 1926:194\u2013209). Hort was not the first to suggest allegedly red algae and red silt combining into a Blood Plague (various 19th century Bible commentators preceded her), nor the first to suggest anthrax carried by flies (Blanc 1890). Hort\u2019s unique contribution has been to name two particular species of algae that are nonexistent in Egypt and the Nile.<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 70<\/p>\n
The first plague. \u201cHe (Aaron) raised his staff in the presence of Pharoah and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed to blood. The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt (Ex 7:20\u201321)<\/b><\/p>\n
Natural phenomena must naturally occur. Incredibly, neither Hort nor her one microbiology reference (Hort 1957:95 and fn. 19; Gessner 1955:412\u201313) cite any data showing that the two species of algae she has specifically implicated are actually found \u201cnaturally occurring\u201d at Lake Tana in Ethiopia or anywhere in the Nile or East Africa. Since Hort\u2019s supposedly red algae are green<\/i><\/b> (Pringsheim 1966:1, 4\u20135, citing Wollenweber 1908 and Reichenow 1909; Hagen 2000; Aquasearch 2000:1\u20133; Graduate University 2001) and the red Nile silt is actually brown<\/i><\/b> (Rz\u00f3ska 1976:76, 159, 263, 269, 339, 349, also citing Petherick 1861; Talling and Rz\u00f3ska 1967:640, 650; Morris, Largen, Yalden 1976:236; Entz 1976:285, 288; De Vries 1975:1349; Fairservis 1962:39), they cannot possibly have reddened the Nile.10 Egyptologist Carl De Vries of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute flatly denies Hort\u2019s claims, stating, \u201cthe color of the Nile during flood is brown<\/i> rather than red<\/i> and can hardly be described as like blood<\/i> in appearance\u201d (De Vries 1975:1349). Thus the so-called \u201cnatural phenomenon\u201d (Hort 1957:85; 1958:58) of red algae and red mud does not naturally occur<\/i><\/b> (Sarna 1986:75; De Vries 1975:1349\u20131350; Salkeld 1995). Reports of an annual \u201cred\u201d Nile are mistaken according to biologists and probably motivated by a desire to evoke Biblical imagery for storytelling purposes. Additionally, aside from one text that actually substantiates mirrors the Biblical Plagues, there is a total lack of any naturally-recurring plagues in Egyptian history, even as partial occurrence (an occasional localized attack of locusts does not count as a national-scale Plague of Locusts and it is not followed or preceded by other \u201cplagues\u201d).11 <\/p>\n
The way Hort describes her purportedly blood-red algae one would think these species, Haematococcus pluvialis<\/i> and Euglena sanguinea<\/i>, are prominent in the biology of the Nile, well-known to scientists of that river, and easily found in the scientific literature on that region. In reading the actual literature one is surprised then to find her two so-called \u201cred\u201d species completely unmentioned<\/b>. Instead, the scientific literature on the Nile is dominated every where by the names of two other unrelated species, a colorless diatom called Melosira granulata<\/i> and a blue-green algae called Anabaena flos-aquae<\/i>. Hort never discussed or even mentions these actual top two Nile algae, nor any of the other five principal species (four blue-greens again and another colorless diatom; Hammerton 1976:243\u201344). It is difficult to understand how an ostensibly scientific theory about algae in the Nile can fail to discuss or at least mention any of the actual algae in the Nile.<\/p>\n
One would also think from Hort\u2019s discussion that her algae are well known to be harmful. In fact, the two algae species are so harmless that one of them, H. Pluvialis<\/i>, is actually sold worldwide as a human food supplement<\/b> after passing human and animal tests for safety, as its strong antioxidant properties are considered anticarcinogenic and even helpful in extending athletic endurance (brands include AstaFactor, BioAstin, astaZANTHIN, Astaxin).12 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had H. pluvialis<\/i>-based products under study for many years and has always found them safe, with no evidence of any harmful effects found in human and animal testing or in the scientific or medical literature. The FDA issued its first ruling approving an H. pluvialis<\/i> product on April 13, 1995 (FDA 1995). The other species, E. Sanguinea<\/i>, may also be useable as a human food supplement, and Euglena<\/i> species are in wide use as fish food.13 Neither species is toxic or considered a water pollutant or appears in catalogs of the more than 170 known algae causing Harmful Algal Blooms.14 <\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 71<\/p>\n
The scientific details of Hort\u2019s theory will be discussed further in Parts 2 and 3, in subsequent issues of Bible and Spade<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Marr\u2019s \u201cCell From Hell\u201d Theory<\/b><\/p>\n
Former New York City chief epidemiologist John S. Marr has proposed another red tide theory of the Plagues. But just as with Hort, there are so many scientific as well as Biblical objections to such a naturalistic theory of the Egyptian Plagues that the scheme collapses.<\/p>\n
In Marr\u2019s theory a different set of organisms are identified in the events of the Ten Plagues, based on his experience in the science of epidemiology, but still in a ten-month July-to-May timetable clearly based in part on Hort\u2019s \u201cimpressive\u201d theory, a \u201csignificant, original, and unique contribution\u201d (Marr and Malloy 1996:9, 18, 19, 22). He attributes the Blood Plague to Pfiesteria piscicida<\/i> or the infamous \u201ccell from hell\u201d that killed millions of fish in North Carolina in the late 1980s and 1990s. This bizarre algae-like microorganism with its 50 different life cycles includes a deadly flesh-eating piranha-like stage that leaves fish bloody messes in the water\u2014a \u201cBlood Plague\u201d of sorts, with actual blood not red algae (though Marr wrongly claims the organism itself was directly \u201cresponsible for the change in the color of the Nile\u201d to \u201cred-colored waters\u201d, when in fact it is basically colorless).15 Marr believes the toxic stages of the organism killed so many fish that normally feed on frogspawn that frogs then were able to proliferate in unprecedented numbers in the Nile. Thus the Plague of Frogs.<\/p>\n
Plague number two. \u201cSo Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land\u201d (Ex 8:6).<\/b><\/p>\n
Because of the Pfiesteria<\/i> toxins and the supposedly \u201canoxic…putrefying\u201d waters, the frogs were forced onto land to escape, says Marr, but they quickly died because of those toxins. Without frogs to eat insects now insects had a population explosion, resulting in Plagues of Lice and Flies that brought the diseases in the next two Plagues. Livestock were then killed by a number of deadly viruses and bacteria carried by this excess number of insects, which included a type of lice (instead of Hort\u2019s mosquitoes) plus Hort\u2019s biting stable flies. The flies carried a bacterial disease called glanders, which \u201cmost probably\u201d caused the Plague of Boils afflicting both animals and humans. The Plagues of Hail and Locusts occurred when they did because of bad timing, not due to a causal interlinking or domino effect, in Marr\u2019s theory.<\/p>\n
But Pfiesteria<\/i> does not naturally occur in the Nile any more than Hort\u2019s algae do. With its freshwater ecology the Nile evidently would be fatal even to the \u201ccell from hell,\u201d which is a saltwater estuary species. Marr suffers under Hort\u2019s strange misconception that \u201call\u201d red tide algae blooms \u201cdeoxygenate water\u201d when in fact essentially the reverse is the case. Like algae generally, they oxygenate and purify water, and it is their toxins that cause problems (extremely rare hypoxic conditions require a stagnant water column and are of short duration and limited area: Palmer 1980:3\u20134, 21; North Carolina State University 2003; contra Marr and Malloy 1996:10a). Marr admits that glanders does not affect cattle, \u201ccattle are resistant\u201d he says, and biting stable flies have never been reported to carry glanders, so it could hardly have caused the Plague of Boils16 (Gilbert 1998).<\/p>\n
Biblical scholars may have some difficultly with Marr\u2019s proposal that the Plague of Darkness was actually a Plague of Blindness,<\/b> caused, he says, by the Rift Valley Fever that supposedly produces temporary blindness (Marr\u2019s original paper denied the involvement of Rift Valley Fever in the earlier Plagues, and endorsed Hort\u2019s Nile dust Plague of Darkness theory).17 Actually, Rift Valley Fever causes permanent blindness and impairment of vision by damage to the retina (retinitis) about one-to-four weeks after exposure, not temporary blindness, and affects about one-to-ten percent of the cases (CDC 2002; WHO 2000; Harper 2000; Mebus 1998).<\/p>\n
Still more difficult may be Marr\u2019s claim that the final Plague on the Firstborn was caused by a poisonous mold growing on the tops of the grain supplies, mold which had been brought by the locusts. He thinks the firstborn were killed because they received extra portions of the food right off the top due to their privileged status and did not realize it was contaminated with fast-acting deadly mycotoxins. Objections have been raised that there would not have been any food left to contaminate after the previous Plagues. Any grain stores would have been continuously raided during the hail-and-locust induced mass famine, so that \u201ctops\u201d of the grain heaps would never have been left around long enough to develop mold. Why would the privileged elite eat the grain that was obviously moldy anyway, instead of the grain that was not moldy? Nor does Marr\u2019s ingenious theory explain such things as the origin of the Passover ritual of protection from the \u201cangel of death\u201d by spreading lamb\u2019s blood on doorframes (certainly widespread exposure to animal blood risks the spread of an epidemic if so many diseases were as rampant as Marr and others allege, and in this case afflicting Israelites not Egyptians, contrary to the Biblical account).18 While the spread of mold may have been accelerated by the excess moisture theorized by Hort for the early part of the series of Plagues, the food supplies with any such mold would have been consumed or destroyed in the mass famine months before the final Plague. Also, Hort\u2019s intense drying phase that supposedly created a dust-borne Plague of Darkness would have inhibited mold formation.<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 72<\/p>\n
As with Hort\u2019s theory, Marr\u2019s theory is clever and convincing only at first glance, and does not withstand any kind of sustained scrutiny. It is well known that algae\u2014even the strange Pfiesteria<\/i>\u2014grow in stagnant bodies of water and estuaries, not in free-flowing rivers.19 Red tides occur in slower-moving or becalmed saltwater oceans and estuaries rather than in freshwater rivers (e.g., not one of the 1,109 worldwide Harmful Algae Events in the UNESCO database occurred in a river: UNESCO 2000).<\/p>\n
\u2018Red tides\u2019 are a coastal marine phenomenon…The algae involved are species of Dinophyta [dinoflagellates] usually of the genera Gymnodinium<\/i> or Gonyaulax<\/i> which, having red pigments…impart a reddish tinge to the sea (Round 1981:307; see UNESCO 2000).<\/p>\n
The eighth plague. \u201cSo Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the Lord made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail\u2014everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt (Ex 10:13\u201315).<\/b><\/p>\n
These environments are very unlike the massive freshwater Nile, the second largest river in the world and clearly not a stagnant pond.<\/p>\n
Attack of the \u201cUFO\u201d Blister Beetles\u2014Norton and Lyons<\/b><\/p>\n
A novel explanation for the Ten Plagues centers on the \u201cblister beetle\u201d and was published in 2002 in the respected medical journal, The Lancet,<\/i> but it too is based ullltimately on Hort (Norton and Lyons 2002). Subsequently, news reports out of India have claimed that certain alleged \u201cUFO\u201d encounters that proved injurious or fatal to humans and animals were actually caused by flying blister beetles (AP 2002).<\/p>\n
Army dermatologist Lt. Col. Scott A. Norton at Water Reed Hospital and university medical doctor Christina Lyons invoke a sequence of events that are causally linked a feature multiple plagues of blister-inducing rove beetles (Paederus alfierii<\/i>). Their scenario depends on Marr\u2019s version of the earlier widely endorsed theory of Hort, with its crucial initiating event, the massive bloom of red algae in the Nile, and hence is likewise fatally flawed. Without a red algae plague to trigger a biological chain reaction, both theories fail. Natural phenomena must naturally occur. But as previously noted, the history of biology never records a bloom of identifiable red algae in the Nile, not even in microscopic quantities, and neither Marr\u2019s or Hort\u2019s algae are red.<\/p>\n
Norton and Lyons follow the next several key steps of Hort\u2019s disproven and impossible scenario, seemingly unaware of its scientific contradictions\u2014the lethal rather than growth-promoting effect of the flood Nile on all such red tide algae, and the algae somehow removing (instead of adding) oxygen from the well oxygenated flood Nile, so fish die and frogs multiply. They hypothesize that the mass of frog carcasses provided carrion fodder for a \u201cpopulation explosion\u201d of scavenger insects such as the blister beetle, which then caused the Plagues of Gnats and Flies (actually Beetles and Beetles). Supposedly the beetles are \u201cfocal,\u201d which purportedly \u201cmay explain why the insects plagued the Egyptian community but spared the neighbouring Israelites.\u201d But this is a circular argument that does not explain why the beetles had a \u201cfocal\u201d concentration on the Egyptian locales instead of the Israelites in the first place, since both populations lived on close proximity in the \u201chumid Nile delta.\u201d Then Norton and Lyons say the blister beetles caused the Plague of Boils with the release of their toxin paederin, inducing painful necrotic blisters one-to-four days after exposure.<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 73<\/p>\n
But if the blister beetles caused the third and the sixth Plagues, and Norton and Lyons have adopted the eight-to-ten-month Hort-Marr timetable, then two Plagues and at least a month must have passed in between, not a mere one-to-four days, which is an impossibly short time interval. In addition, blister beetles cannot penetrate the tough hides of cattle or woolly sheep and goats and thus could not afflict these animals in a Plague. Large beetles are not like the \u201cfine dust\u201d of Exodus 9:9 in any case. Norton and Lyons have no \u201cnovel explanation\u201d for the remaining Plagues and must de facto<\/i> endorse Marr (and thus Hort) whom they mainly rely upon, and thus their theory is as equally unfounded.<\/p>\n
Humphreys\u2019 \u201cNatural\u201d Miracles<\/b><\/p>\n
The latest naturalistic theory of the Ten Plagues comes from Cambridge materials science professor Colin J. Humphreys, who published the book The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist\u2019s Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories<\/i> in April 2003. He uses \u201cmodern science to explain every miracle in the Exodus story\u201d (Humphreys 2003:339). Humphreys admits that his findings on the Plagues merely \u201cbuild upon, and in some cases correct, the work of Hort and also Marr and Malloy\u201d (114). He claims that by careful scientific \u201cdetective\u201d work paying the closest attention to \u201cminor…details\u201d he has proven that the Ten Plagues and other events of the Exodus were a \u201cconnected scientific sequence\u201d of \u201cescalating\u201d natural events of \u201cever-increasing severity\u201d that were \u201cremarkably accurate\u201d as recorded in the Bible (6, 9, 17, 127, 129). He has a \u201cnatural explanation\u201d for \u201call of the events\u201d of the Exodus and the only thing miraculous is the \u201ctiming\u201d (4\u20135). However, Humphrey\u2019s contribution suffers from the same fundamental scientific errors of Hort and Marr, to which he actually adds new errors and internal contradictions. Rather than proving the scientific accuracy of the smallest details of the Biblical account, Humphreys selects details that support his theory (and those of Hort and Marr) and ignores details that conflict which his theory (e.g., those showing the Bible does not depict any simplistic \u201cescalation\u201d in severity from one Plague to the Next\u2014this is pure Hollywood melodrama\u2014as the least damaging gnats plague should have been the first plague instead of the third, if the plagues were truly \u201cescalating,\u201d etc.).<\/p>\n
Humphreys begins with Hort\u2019s and Marr\u2019s attack of nonexistent \u201cred tide\u201d algae and \u201cred earth\u201d silt in the Nile as the cause of the Blood Plague, though quibbling only over the exact algae species\u2014which he never bothers to document as ever having \u201cnaturally\u201d occurred in the Nile and even denies that anyone has ever investigated algae in the Nile (115\u201318). He is oblivious to the more than 100 years of scientific algae research in the Nile which has been cited extensively here, cataloging more than 400 species in the Nile and about 1,000 in East Africa. Humphreys boldly asserts he has \u201cscientifically verifiable phenomenon for the first Plagues,\u201d but contradicts himself in admitting \u201cit is impossible now to identify the particular species of algae responsible\u201d (118). How is it \u201cscientifically verifiable\u201d if the algae cannot be scientifically identified? The refutations of Hort et al. (above and Parts 2 and 3) apply with equal force to Humphreys and will not be repeated here.<\/p>\n
Humphreys rightly recognizes that,<\/p>\n
Although red tides in saltwater seas are relatively well known, they are unknown in flowing freshwater rivers, although they can occur in static freshwater lakes and ponds (115).<\/p>\n
Perhaps he gained this insight from reading the present author\u2019s summary on the ABR website (Sparks 2002) in one of his Internet searches (347). Yet he does not reconcile this correct statement of scientific fact with his own contradictory claim that such a red tide supposedly occurred in the admittedly non-static \u201cfreshwater<\/i><\/b> river\u201d Nile at the height of the annual flood\u2014to create the Blood Plague (115, italics in original). He simply moves on to other criteria for algae bloom growth (sunlight, warm temperature, nutrients,) completely forgetting about the need for \u201cstatic\u201d bodies of water and thus how this means algae red tides are \u201cunknown in flowing freshwater rivers.\u201d He is oblivious to how the \u201clarge quantities\u201d of silt suspended in the water (115\u201317) would block out that crucial sunlight. Humphreys claims previous investigators of the Plagues \u201chave not fully appreciated the subtleties of the science\u201d involved here, yet his own science is flawed with his claim that Hort\u2019s algae \u201care indeed red\u201d and his failure to grasp the \u201csubtlety\u201d of Hort\u2019s argument that the algae killed the fish by oxygen starvation not by toxins. He even repeats Hort\u2019s mythical melted \u201cmelted snow\u201d source for the Nile (116)!<\/p>\n
His only partial attempt to reconcile this fatal discrepancy is to declare without a shred of scientific documentation that the Nile Delta is just one huge saltwater \u201cestuary,\u201d and thus capable of supporting saltwater red tides (118)\u2014an error of geology and microbiology as great as any by Hort. If, as Humphreys seems to think, the Delta as a whole (instead of just the coastal regions next to the ocean) has been overflowed with saltwater from the Mediterranean every year for thousands of years, its agricultural production would have been utterly destroyed long ago, as few crops can tolerate high salinity from such repetitive seawater incursions. The Nile washes over the Delta with freshwater not saltwater every year (in the pre-Aswan Dam days before 1970) making it the ancient \u201cbreadbasket of Egypt\u201d and also making the Delta inhospitable to algae growth and red tides during the floods (Butzer 1976:17, 94\u201396, passim<\/i>).<\/p>\n
Though Humphreys mildly disagrees with Hort\u2019s attribution of anthrax of the fifth Plague, he does buy into her anthrax theory of the Plagues of Boils, at least as one major possibility, along with Marr\u2019s glanders disease suggestion, with disease transmission by Hort\u2019s biting stable flies and Marr\u2019s midges (124\u201327). He is unmindful of the scientific impossibilities discussed earlier\u2014e.g., biting flies cannot bite into tough cattle hides or sheep wool and never have been shown to successfully transmit anthrax\u2014and he again provides no scientific documentation. His seven-month timetable of the Ten Plagues (121, 144\u201345) is similar to Hort\u2019s and Marr\u2019s eight-to-ten-month chronologies, but he shifts the dates enough so that he avoids the winter cold that would put stable flies into hibernation (he has them breed in November instead of January), a fatal flaw in the Hort and Marr theories.<\/p>\n
Humphreys adopts Hort\u2019s theory that the first khamsin<\/i> sandstorm of the year, in March, with maximum duration two-to-three days, astoundingly dried out all the exceptionally wet soil she postulates had spawned earlier plagues (frogs, flies, and locusts)\u2014even though he also agrees with Hort\u2019s idea that the rain with the Hail Plague added even more moisture to the ground for the locusts to breed in (133\u201339). Yet neither he or Hort can explain how the khamsin<\/i> could have dried out all this massive water saturation of the alleged \u201cred\u201d silt so it would turn into dust in only the first few hours, so that a full three days of a Plague of Darkness could ensue\u2014a Biblical \u201ctiny detail\u201d his detective work missed.<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 74<\/p>\n
Lastly, Humphreys endorses Marr\u2019s theory of mycotoxins in alleged moldy grain causing the Plague of the Firstborn (138\u201343)\u2014again ignoring the small Biblical \u201cdetail\u201d that there was no such food left by this time, or the logic that, since the grain was devoured continuously in the famine leading up to this time, no mold would have had a chance to grow in it, or that the Egyptian rulers would not eat the grain that was moldy. He adds a two-fold speculation that deaths of animal firstborn could be explained by a special Egyptian privileged status for firstborn animals for sacrifice, and that these would be fed first (from the moldy grain again for some inexplicable reasons). But he admits he cannot find documentation for this. \u201cI have searched ancient Egyptian literature and can find no indication of whether or not firstborn livestock were special to the Egyptians\u201d he writes (140).<\/p>\n
Acknowledgments<\/b><\/p>\n
My thanks to the following who kindly reviewed this manuscript in draft form and provided third critiques and invaluable assistance, though the final product of course is my responsibility alone: Antonio Loprieno, Chair of Egyptology, University of Basel; David Livingston, Associates for Biblical Research; Bernard Brandstater, Loma Linda University Medical Center; Donald M. Anderson, Director of U.S. National Office for Marine Biotoxins and HAB\u2019s, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Tim Wyatt, Editor, UNESCO-IOC Harmful Algae News;<\/i> Ian Jenkinson, Editor, Journal of Plankton Research;<\/i> the late Glenn Carnagey, Austin Seminary. My thanks to the following for their gracious assistance and\/or informed comment during the past 12 years of research into the \u201calgae plague\u201d theories: Paul Giem, Burke Cunha, Meryl Nass, Larry Geraty, John Bloom, Gleason Archer, Lambert Dolphin, Bill Sardi, Paul Ray, Gary Byers, Rick Lanser, Doug McKittrick, Steve Williams. And my heartfelt thanks to Bryant Wood for courageously deciding to publish this work in full, sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n
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2000 Review of Israel in Egypt,<\/i> by James K. Hoffmeier, 1997. Biblical Archaeology Review<\/i> 26.4:58\u201359. Online ed. at http:\/\/www.Biblicalarchaeology.org\/barja00\/reviews.html.<\/p>\n
Lloyd, Alan B.<\/b><\/p>\n
1976 Herodotus Book II,<\/i> \u00c9tudes Pr\u00e9liminaries aux Religions Orientales dans I\u2019Empire Romain 43, vol. 2. Leiden: Brill.<\/p>\n
Macalister, Alexander<\/b><\/p>\n
1902 Plagues of Egypt. Pp. 888\u201393 in A Dictionary of the Bible<\/i> 3, ed. James Hastings. New York: Scribner\u2019s. (reprint, Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1988).<\/p>\n
Marr, John S., and Malloy, Curtis D.<\/b><\/p>\n
1996 An Epidemiologic Analysis of the Ten Plagues of Egypt. Caduceus: A Museum Quarterly for the Health Sciences<\/i> (So. Ill. Univ. School of Medicine) 12.1:7\u201324.<\/p>\n
Matthews, Robert<\/b><\/p>\n
1999 Were the Ten Plagues of Egypt Triggered by an Ecological Disaster? The UNESCO Courier<\/i> 52.9:13. Online ed. at http:\/\/www.unesco.org\/courier\/1999_09\/uk\/planete\/txtl.htm#el.<\/p>\n
Meakin, John<\/b><\/p>\n
2001 Plagued by Doubt. Vision<\/i> (Spring 2001) at http:\/\/www.vision.org\/jrnl\/0104\/plagdoubt.html.<\/p>\n
Mebus, Charles A.<\/b><\/p>\n
1998 Rift Valley Fever. In U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA) Committee on Foreign Animal Diseases, Foreign Animal Diseases,<\/i> rev. 1998, at http:\/\/www.vet.uga.edu\/vpp\/gray_book\/FAD\/RVF.htm.<\/p>\n
Morris, Patrick A.; Largen, M. J.; and Yalden, Derek W.<\/b><\/p>\n
1976 Notes on the Biogeography of the Blue Nile (Great Abbai) Gorge in Ethiopia. Pp. 233\u201342 in, The Nile, Biology of an Ancient River,<\/i> Monographiae Biologicae 29, ed. Julian Rz\u00f3ska. The Hague: W. Junk B.V.<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 76<\/p>\n
Nass, Meryl<\/b><\/p>\n
1992 Anthrax Epizootic in Zimbabwe 1978\u20131980: Due to Deliberate Spread?. Physicians for Social Responsibility Quarterly<\/i> 2:198\u2013209. Online ed. at http:\/\/www.anthraxvaccine.org\/zimbabwe.html.<\/p>\n
NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)<\/b><\/p>\n
1999 Coordinating Committee for Interagency Task Force on Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia, Integrated National Assessment of Harmful Algal Blooms,<\/i> rev. October 22, 1999, online ed. downloaded from http:\/\/www.habhrca.noaa.gov\/, p. 15.<\/p>\n
2002 National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) Coastal Ocean Laboratory HAB Team Gulf of Mexico Species List website, rev. June 5, 2002, online at http:\/\/www.nodc.noaa.gov\/col\/projects\/habs\/mex_species.html.<\/p>\n
2003 Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Programs, Pfiesteria<\/i> and Harmful Algal Blooms in the Mid-Atlantic, website accessed March 25, 2003, at http:\/\/www.pfiesteria.seagrant.org\/.<\/p>\n
North Carolina State University<\/b><\/p>\n
2003 Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology (CAAE) website, accessed March 25, 2003, at http:\/\/www.pfiesteria.org\/pfiesteria\/index.html and http:\/\/www.pfiesteria.org\/pfiesteria\/misinformation.html.<\/p>\n
North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services<\/b><\/p>\n
1998 HAB Program website, rev. June 1998, at http:\/\/www.schs.state.nc.us\/epi\/hab\/facts.cfm.<\/p>\n
Norton, Scott A; and Lyons, Christina<\/b><\/p>\n
2002 Blister Beetles and the Ten Plagues. The Lancet<\/i> 359,9321:1950.<\/p>\n
Palmer, C. Mervin<\/b><\/p>\n
1980 Algae and Water Pollution<\/i>. London: Castle House.<\/p>\n
Petherick, John<\/b><\/p>\n
1861 Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa<\/i>. Edinburgh: Blackwood.<\/p>\n
Petrie, William M. F.<\/b><\/p>\n
1911 Egypt and Israel<\/i>. New York: E. S. Gorham.<\/p>\n
Pfeiffer, Charles F.<\/b><\/p>\n
1973 Old Testament History<\/i>. Grand Rapids: Baker.<\/p>\n
Pixley, George V. (transl. Robert R. Barr)<\/b><\/p>\n
1987 On Exodus: A Liberation Perspective<\/i>. Maryknoll MD: Orbis.<\/p>\n
Pringsheim, Ernest G.<\/b><\/p>\n
1966 Nutritional Requirements of Haematococcus pluvialis<\/i> and Related Species. Journal of Phycology<\/i> 2:1\u20137.<\/p>\n
Reichenow, (Johann) Eduard<\/b><\/p>\n
1909 Untersuchungen an Haematococcus pluvialis<\/i> nebst Bemerkungen \u00fcber andere Flagellaten. Arbeiten der Biologischen Abteilung f\u00fcr Land- und Forstwirtschaft am Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte<\/i> 33:1\u201345.<\/p>\n
Round, Frank E.<\/b><\/p>\n
1981 The Ecology of Algae,<\/i> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n
Rz\u00f3ska, Julian, ed.<\/b><\/p>\n
1976 The Nile, Biology of an Ancient River,<\/i> Monographiae Biologicae 29. The Hague: W. Junk B.V.<\/p>\n
Rz\u00f3ska, Julian; and Lewis, David J.<\/b><\/p>\n
1976 Insects as Factor in General and Human Ecology in the Sudan. Pp. 325\u201332 in The Nile, Biology of an Ancient River,<\/i> Monographiae Biologicae 29, ed Julian Rz\u00f3ska. The Hague: W. Junk B.V.<\/p>\n
Sailhamer, John H.<\/b><\/p>\n
1992 The Pentateuch as Narrative<\/i>. Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan.<\/p>\n
Salkeld, David<\/b><\/p>\n
1995 Comments on Great Hort\u2019s \u201cThe Plagues of Egypt.\u201d Chronology and Castastrophism Workshop,<\/i> no. 1.<\/p>\n
Sama, Nahum M.<\/b><\/p>\n
1986 Exploring Exodus<\/i>. New York: Schocken.<\/p>\n
1989 Genesis,<\/i> JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.<\/p>\n
1991 Exodus,<\/i> JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.<\/p>\n
Shaw, Glenn<\/b><\/p>\n
2000 Cyanobacterial Presentations at HAB 2000, Harmful Algae News<\/i> 19:2\u20133.<\/p>\n
Sparks, Brad<\/b><\/p>\n
2002 Did Anthrax Plague the Egyptians?<\/i> Associates for Biblical Research website article March 14, 2002, at http:\/\/www.christianswers.net\/abr\/redtides\/html.<\/p>\n
Talling, John F.<\/b><\/p>\n
1976a Water Characteristics. Pp. 357\u201384 in The Nile. Biology of an Ancient River,<\/i> Monographiae Biologicae 29, ed Julian Rz\u00f3ska. The Hague: W. Junk B.V.<\/p>\n
1976b Phytoplankton: Composition, Development and Productivity. Pp. 385\u2013402 in The Nile, Biology of an Ancient River,<\/i> Monographiae Biologicae 29, ed Julian Rz\u00f3ska. The Hague: W. Junk B.V.<\/p>\n
Talling, John F.; and Rz\u00f3ska, Julian<\/b><\/p>\n
1967 The Development of Plankton in Relation to Hydrological Regime in the Blue Nile, Journal of Ecology<\/i> 55.3:637\u201362.<\/p>\n
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2001 Agriculture Department, Anthrax in Animals<\/i> (Dec. 2001) website info at http:\/\/www.fao.org\/ag\/magazine\/0112sp.htm and http:\/\/www.fao.org\/ag\/aga\/agah\/anthrax.htm.<\/p>\n
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)<\/b><\/p>\n
2000 Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), Working Group on Harmful Algal Bloom Dynamics, HAE-DAT<\/i> (Harmful Algae Event Data Base), accessed July 2000, March 25, 2003, at http:\/\/www.ioc.unesco.org\/hab\/data33.htm.<\/p>\n
2002 IOC, Taxonomic Reference List of Toxic Algae,<\/i> rev. July 17, 2002, at http:\/\/ioc.unesco.org\/hab\/data4taxlist.htm.<\/p>\n
University of Maryland<\/b><\/p>\n
2002 University of Maryland Aquatic Pathobiology Center, Pfiesteria piscicida and Pfiesteria-like Organisms,<\/i> website rev. Nov. 7, 2002, at http:\/\/www.mdsg.umd.edu\/fish-health\/pfiesteria\/.<\/p>\n
USDA (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)<\/b><\/p>\n
2001 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Veterinary Services, Anthrax,<\/i> rev. Nov. 2001, at http:\/\/www.usda.gov\/anthraxbkgnd1017.doc.<\/p>\n
van Biema, David<\/b><\/p>\n
1998 In Search of Moses. Time<\/i> 152.24 (December 14, 1998), online ed. at http:\/\/www.time.com\/magazine\/1998\/dom\/981214\/cover4.html.<\/p>\n
Vaux, Roland de (transl. David Smith)<\/b><\/p>\n
1978 The Early History of Israel<\/i>. Philadelphia: Westminster, Engl. transl. (= Histoire ancienne d\u2019Isra\u00ebl<\/i>. Paris: J. Gabalda et Cie, 1971, 1973, 2 vols.).<\/p>\n
WHO (World Health Organization)<\/b><\/p>\n
2000 Rift Valley Fever,<\/i> Fact Sheet 207 rev. Sept. 2000, at http:\/\/www.who.int\/inf-fs\/en\/ fact207.html.<\/p>\n
Wollenweber, E.<\/b><\/p>\n
1908 Untersuchungen \u00fcber die Algengattung Haematococcus. Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Geseilschaft<\/i> 26:238\u201398.<\/p>\n
Wood Hole<\/b><\/p>\n
2001 U.S. National Office for Marine Biotoxins and Harmful Algal Blooms at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, website rev. Feb 22, 2001, at http:\/\/www.redtide.whoi.edu\/hab\/species\/speciestable.html and http:\/\/www.redtide.whoi.edu\/labweb\/projects.html.<\/p>\n
Zevit, Ziony<\/b><\/p>\n
1990 Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues. Bible Review<\/i> 6. 3:16\u201323, 42\u201343.<\/p>\n
BSpade<\/i> 16:3 (Summer 2003) p. 78<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part 1 of 3 Brad Sparks Naturalistic theories of the Ten Plagues attempt to account for the miraculous events of Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt using natural phenomena in an exotic biological chain reaction of red algae, anthrax and various other epidemic pathogens and insects, plus flood water, red river mud, … Continue reading “RED
\nALGAE THEORIES OF THE TEN PLAGUES:
\nCONTRADICTED BY SCIENCE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}