The Plagues of Egypt and the Contest of Magicians
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- Episode 10: The story of the “Plagues of Egypt” - the signs and wonders performed by Moses and Aaron in the book of Exodus - has a complicated history, and the Priestly author’s contest of magicians is a particularly overlooked aspect of the story. Learn more about this tale and why some of the popular interpretations are probably incorrect.
Chapters:
0:03 - Prologue
0:36 - Signs and Wonders
3:04 - The Plague of Blood
4:17 - A Duel of Mages
8:00 - Sources of the Plague Story
12:18 - Pseudo-Academic Interpretations
17:01 - Summary
17:29 - Credits and Easter Egg
Buy me a coffee to support the channel:
⦾ ko-fi.com/pauldavidson
★ Special thanks to John Kesler for consulting and advice.
Download a PDF containing just the "contest of magicians" passages:
⦾ drive.google.com/file/d/1lusS...
Sources and References:
⦾ Currid, John D. (1997). Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament.
⦾ Gertz, Jan Christian (2014). The Miracle at the Sea: Remarks on the Recent Discussion about Origin and Composition of the Exodus Narrative. In The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation.
⦾ Greenstein, Edward L. (1995). The Firstborn Plague and the Reading Process. In Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom.
⦾ Greifenhagen, Franz Volker (2002). Egypt on the Pentateuch’s Ideological Map.
⦾ Harris, Mark (2015). The Thera Theories: Science and the Modern Reception History of the Exodus. In Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective. Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience.
⦾ Lemmelijn, Bénédicte (2009). A Plague of Texts? A Text-Critical Study of the So-Called ‘Plagues Narrative’ in Exodus 7:14-11:10.
⦾ Miller, James Maxwell, and John Haralson Hayes (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah.
⦾ Propp, William (1999). Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Yale Bible.
⦾ Römer, Thomas (2014). From the Call of Moses to the Parting of the Sea: Reflections on the Priestly Version of the Exodus Narrative. In The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation.
⦾ Van Seters, John (1986). The Plagues of Egypt: Ancient Tradition or Literary Invention? ZAW 98.
⦾ Van Seters, John (1995). A Contest of Magicians? The Plague Stories in P. In Pomegranates and Golden Bells.
Music by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au), Fesliyan Studios (fesliyanstudios.com), and WombatNoisesAudio.
“The Legend of Narmer” by WombatNoisesAudio ( / user-734462061 .
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
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#Bible #deconstruction #Exodus
The points against naturalistic explanations are extremely useful and relevant beyond the immediate subject material of this video. There definitely should be a book or edited volume out there (if there isn't already) that addresses the problems with naturalistic explanations for miraculous or mythological events. I'm sure it would be really useful given how seductive these explanations are.
Thanks. I see these explanations out there on websites and Bible forums so often, I thought they needed to be addressed.
I felt exactly the opposite. None of the explanations presented here against the naturalistic explanations seemed logical to me. Honestly, I don't even understand what they're supposed to mean or prove. It is not uncommon that the memory of great catastrophic events persist in the collective memory of a culture, and are reinterpreted over time, connecting them to the influence of divine beings and to different historical moments.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the naturalistic explanations are true, just that the arguments presented against them are of little value and persuasiveness.
@@DoloresLehmann
I'll see if I can address your points
> None of the explanations presented here against the naturalistic explanations seemed logical to me.
The three main points the video makes are basically:
1. Naturalistic explanations often raise more questions/problems than they solve.
2. They depend on a "perverse fundamentalism" that trusts the Bible's historical reliability while rejecting its supernatural elements.
3. Naturalistic explanations theories rely on cherry-picking the details of the text.
The first point is straightforward enough: They're just hard to believe. They rely on lots of coincidences that are unlikely. The second and third point are interwoven: These explanations are not examining the text in whole. They're seeing what they want and ignoring everything else. I think these are reasonable enough.
> It is not uncommon that the memory of great catastrophic events persist in the collective memory of a culture, and are reinterpreted over time, connecting them to the influence of divine beings and to different historical moments
I'm not sure how common that is. We do seem to have some examples (see Stephan Milo's video "maaaaybe the oldest stories in the world") but these things are devilishly hard to prove. That's why I question the commonality.
But that's not really what's being criticized here. They're not arguing against natural events being attributed to divine figures. That happens everywhere all the time. They're arguing against using the existence of naturalistic catastrophes to prop up the inerrancy of the Biblical narrative.
@@Imperiused Oh, thank you so much for your detailed answer!
But I think there's a misunderstanding here: I'm aware that there are fundamentalist efforts to use naturalistic explanations to prop up the inerrancy of the Biblical narrative, but that's just a subset of the whole thing.
What I'm referring to is naturalistic explanations as a hypothesis of where people could have gotten the motifs they embedded in the Biblical narrative. The former is self-contradictory anyway, because if you found out that something attributed to the deity actually had a simple natural cause, that would be proof AGAINST divine intervention, and since this intervention is what's so emphasized in the narrative, the inerrancy would be actually disproven.
And if you see it that way, I don't think that naturalistic explanations create more problems than they solve, they actually solve the problem as a whole, leaving only some details up for doubt.
"They're just hard to believe. They rely on lots of coincidences that are unlikely." Not necessarily. In this concrete example, bot the single "plagues" as well as their rough order can be pretty well explained as interdependent consequences of a volcanic eruption. The only problem remaining is the dating, but since it's clear that the Exodus did not take place as described in the Bible, there's no fundamental problem in assuming that memories of such a catastrophe were later combined with the Exodus narrative, for which no concrete timing is given anyway.
Also, staying with this example, it's pretty clear that the parting of the Red Sea (which was most likely not supposed to be the Red Sea, anyway) consists of at least two different narratives combined: One where the water recedes completely during the night, leaving dry land, and one where there is a wall of water forming pretty quickly (which could be a reference to a tsunami). Those two very different events were obviously combined into one, changing the details to form a unified story, in which the water recedes during the night, leaving two walls of water with dry land between them. We can observe how two very natural events are being strung together, leaving a completely unrealistic version that only could be explained by supernatural forces.
Naturalistic explanations, together with a careful, detailed analysis of the text, can help uncover these mechanisms, revealing what actually most likely happened to inspire those stories. I see no problem with this attempt.
Amazing content involving scholarship explained succintly
Funny enough, the Thera eruption has more famously been to explain the origin for the myth of Atlantis describe by the Greek philosopher Plato.
Yeah, it's the gift that keeps on giving. :)
The eruption of Thera is a sometimes used explanation for Atlantis, but the more popular one is that Atlantis is Plato's fictional account of the most perfect utopia that Plato tries to rationally present as if the society and city described in his dialogue The Republic could function if it were true. However, it is difficult to ask Plato himself at this point what he himself meant by the story and where he actually got it from.
I came over from MythVision. You’ve got GREAT content!
I think that quote near the end about the authors not having as much detailed knowledge of Egyptian religion as we might assume is a great point. The same is true of the Joseph Story I think, the administrative systems described in the Joseph Story; it reads more like an outsiders perspective imagining the setting in Egypt, mixing in Assyrian/Babylonian elements as well - rather than intricate knowledge of Egypt. It does seem doubtful the authors of Exodus would have such intricate knowledge of all the deities of Egypt outside the primary ones.
That's interesting, can you give examples of the Joseph thing?
Great video. I came to your channel from Mythvision and Kim Mikey, and I'm subscribing.
Thanks!
I always want to make popcorn when I see there's a new video from you all!
Thanks for pointing out the passages about Yawheh saving the Hebrews from the Egyptian diseases. When reading those passages, I never thought of them in connection with the plagues. It reminds me of someone arguing that Haman's massacre was God’s punishment on the remnant that stayed in Babylon instead of returning to Israel after Cyrus's decree and that the Book of Esther was written to provide a different interpretation. It was so long ago that I don't recall who was promoting the idea. Hadn't given it much thought until now.
Thanks, Jennifer. That's really interesting about Esther.
gotta comment for the algo, these videos are too good
Looking forward to go through your content I’m here bc of Mythvision podcast
Mythvision mentioned you. Interesting stuff. Myths we still believe in even though we as a society should, IMO, be beyond such fairytales. I have subscribed.
Excellent!
Another great video!
My professor has uploaded 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Great video
I love the narrative
Great work.
As an escapee from the Jehovah Witness Fundamentalist Cult, I support your work!!
Glad you escaped!
@@InquisitiveBible thank you!!
Mr DeMille performed the miracle.
But he got lazy and skipped most of them!
Are you gonna do videos on the creation or the nephilim?
Yes, they're both on my short list.
I felt you in the point about the movies oversimplifying this story and leaving iut the best parts. The orince id Egypt doesnt even include Aaron during the plagues. Sad stuff..
And the Ten Commandments just skips over nearly all the plagues, mentioning them offhand in a single sentence.
Ancient Egypt really had these problems in slow progress not because of Yawee rath, but because of nature.
Great video! I do think the attack on the Egyptian gods theory doesn't fully explain the story, but it can suffice with a few plagues such as the death of cattle can be seen as an attack on Hathor (since she was associated with cattle), and the blocking of the sun could be seen as an attack on Ra. Though these could be coincidences. I definitely think the Biblical writers had knowledge of Egyptian religion considering they were in contact during the Persian Period, due to proximity, and the fact that foreign garrisons were placed all throughout the Empire (including the Jews at Elephantine). It would be surprising to me if they didn't have any knowledge at all, but I haven't studied this topic much.
Hey, thanks for the comment. In my view, even if there are echoes of Egyptian mythology or religion in some plagues, the connection is pretty weak.
As for the Darkness plague, consider the actual wording in Exodus 10, where it is described as “a dense darkness” and “a darkness that can be felt.” The Egyptians cannot see each other and *cannot even move* during those three days (verse 23). So it’s not just a matter of the sun being blocked by clouds (or whatever), but more of a supernatural blindness or an impenetrable fog.
Then consider Deuteronomy 28:28-29: “Yahweh will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind; you shall grope about at noon as blind people grope in darkness, but you shall be unable to find your way…” There are close affinities with Ezekiel 32:7-8 as well. So we have other very plausible sources for this plague.
And then of course there's the treaty between Esarhaddon and Tyre, with a formula that might have have influenced the biblical covenant-and-curse texts: "May Shamash, the light of heaven and earth, not give you a fair and equitable judgment, may he take away your eyesight; walk about in darkness!"
Mythvision referred me to subscribe to you.
Would you make a video on the Divine Council?
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll certainly consider it.
@@InquisitiveBible 😍😍😍Awesome
Myth vision brought me
I don't think these can be considered plagues. To the Egyptians, these were minor inconveniences. Until the last one.
Obligatory @RyanGeorge …
media.tenor.com/JJomgDTwoskAAAAC/ryan-george-pitch-meeting.gif
The most memorable story in the bible that never happened. Along with, The Flood, The Tower of Bable, Adam and Eve, etc. etc.
So this is essentially an atheist trying to teach that the Bible was inspired not by God but by normal men with humanistic agendas?
All of this is mainstream scholarship based on close study of the biblical text and informed by archaeological findings. Nowhere do I draw conclusions about "inspiration" or tell people what religious beliefs they should hold.
Yeah not worth wasting my time on
Are there any actual ancient manuscripts that go along side all the other Torah manuscripts that show there were two versions? Or did some university just pull this out their butt? It's no strange thing for there to be variation in how something is done. That's actually reality. If it was too uniform it would actually seem unreal. It doesn't constitute creating two different versions.
Ps, It's not a contradiction for one section to give some detail and leave other detail out while the other version states all detail. Obviously that's not a contradiction so, wtf?
You guys telling this story as if a fairy tail despite your severe ignorance about dark matter, dark energy, and the quantum realm just shows your arrogance. Modern science is still too primitive to know what's actually possible. Fools.
Yoshi, thanks for the comment. It appears that you live in Japan like I do, which is cool.
The idea of multiple sources underlying the Pentateuch was not just pulled out of some university’s butt, believe it or not. This model for understanding the text goes all the way back to the 1700s and has been the dominant view for a long time and for good reason. It’s good to be skeptical, but I encourage you to look into it more seriously if you’re genuinely curious. I suggest the book *Reading the Fractures of Genesis* by David Carr as an introduction to the topic. This video by @JakeDoubleyoo is also quite entertaining and informative, even if it simplifies the matter a great deal: th-cam.com/video/wi1vuwGnKxI/w-d-xo.html
The Jewish website TheTorah.com also has some great articles for lay readers, such as this one: www.thetorah.com/article/genesis-exodus-and-the-composition-of-the-torah
@@InquisitiveBibleThe 1700s are very late and the majority believing it to be so does not give it any merit whatsoever. Actually It's been showed time and time again through history that the majority is usually wrong, so it would be better to leave that out of an explanation of merit to someone like me who is unaffected by the psychological affects of the phenomenon called "Group Think". The idea of multiple sources was not at all how the prophets or disciples of Yeshua understood it. Neither does it make sense in light of the whole passage being included in one manuscript of the ancient manuscripts dating back a lot older than the 1700s. No matter where or when the theory was developed, without more merit than simply the variation in type of plague and the way the plague was performed, it Indeed bears no merit at all, and actually on the contrary It's what we would expect from a God who is in the bible described as a personable being with a range of attitude rather than a uniform robot.
About the idea of contradictions in the story, I've seen the same accusation come up many times and It's almost always of the same nature. You point out how one portion says more detail than the other portion and incorrectly assume that not saying something means it didn't happen. But this is obviously ridiculous, so i'm unsure why people are using it as a meritable reason to clame contradiction. If one were to say that benches 1,2, and 4 were occupied at a stadium while another says that 3, 4, 5 and 6 were occupied it would be reasonable to conclude that that means benches 1 through 6 were all occupied. Only if the latter person said that bench 2 was NOT occupied while the first person said it was occupied would you find a contradiction.
To bring this home i will directly address your example of a contradiction. You mentioned how the first portion specifically states the Nile while the latter portion gets more detailed and states that all the waters of Egypt even It's rivers, canals, ponds and pools were all effected. There is no contradiction here and yet you call it a contradiction. Why??? If a passage does not mention the exact same details every time it recaps then It's contradictory? Obviously not. A contradiction requires specifically that you state two things that fundamentally cannot co exists. For example, the fish in the river died, and, the fish in the river didn't die. That's contradictory. Ps most water in Egypt if not all would have come from the Nile. The rivers, canals, and ponds are part of the Nile. It actually baffles me that i have to explain this. But actually i think It's simply an abandonment of logic and reason in attempt to prove the bible not literally true and not a historical record.