Those Tall Tales of Biblical Disasters: Part Two

Despite what you might hear in church, or view on Christian websites, the Bible isn’t all about those ten Godly commandments, loving your neighbour, doing onto others, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, truth,  justice and everlasting life. Star Wars aside, there’s a dark side to the Force. Even apart from hell, fire and brimstone and lots of sins and sinning, there’s much death and destruction all around. The Bible is full of tales of disasters that rival anything Mother Nature has conjured up. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

*Ten Disasters Rolled Into One: The Ten Plagues of Egypt (Exodus)

Despite there being no confirmation in ancient Egyptian historical records for these Biblical plagues, any of the first nine could have a natural explanation. I mean pestilences happen; ditto droughts/famine; locust swarms are hardly a novelty; even the Nile turning to blood can be seen to be just an ordinary toxic algae bloom – the ‘red tide’ common in other warm waters around the world, like the Gulf of Mexico.

The Tenth Plague however can not be attributed to a natural cause – death to all the Egyptian firstborn was literally a Deliberate Act of God; a deliberately calculated act of cold-blooded murder. Now, and most likely the case, it never happened and that’s supported by the fact that no such event is recorded in ancient Egyptian texts and it’s an event that can hardly have been unnoticed and been glossed over. If that’s so, then the related Passover celebration is a total fraud/fabrication. If on the other hand it happened as the Bible said it did, then God should be tried for crimes against humanity (specifically in this case crimes against the ancient Egyptian peoples), imprisoned for life with no hope of parole, since I assume He cannot be executed, though it would be justified, methinks.

*More Death by Drowning (Exodus)

To add insult to injury, I suppose one could also include the drowning of pharaoh’s army (Exodus) as a ‘natural’ disaster. There’s never an Ark around when you really need one! But gee whiz, gosh golly, guess what? Historians, and bookkeepers and accountants back in ancient Egypt somehow forgot to include the loss of all those chariots, horses and soldiers in their official inventories and recordkeeping. When you have that sort of appalling loss, scapegoats are found; heads roll. Alas, there’s also no record of any scapegoat or rolling heads over this unrecorded calamity. At least ancient Rome acknowledged that it lost their entire Ninth Legion, so something is screwy about Egyptian bookkeeping – or about the accounting in the Book of Exodus! 

*Your Numbers Are Up (Numbers)

If earthquakes and plagues (as in disease) are disasters, then the Book of Numbers is the place to find them (after Genesis and Exodus of course). There is dissention in the ranks of the Chosen People out there in the Sinai Wilderness and so there’s mutiny afoot and the Biblical equivalent of Captain Bligh (i.e. – God) will not be denied His wrath. The major mutiny ends with a bang and not a whimper. It ends when God kills thousands (14,700 – Numbers 16:49) of His Chosen People with a plague (love those germs) and a fiery earthquake (God’s hot to trot His shake, rattle and roll which kills another 250 - Numbers 16:32; 16:35 and 26:10) as punishment for rumblings in the ranks. Further on down the Wilderness track we have the episode of the ‘golden calf’ mark II (i.e. more idols; more idle worship). So God, knowing that His Chosen People didn’t build up sufficient immunity from His last bout of germ warfare, sends another – the local undertaker gets to bury another 24,000 Israelites (Numbers 25:9).

Turning now to the New Testament...

*The Ultimate Mother of All Disasters: Armageddon or the Apocalypse of Revelation

Here we are presented with destruction on a massive scale; the end of days; the end of the world; more hell, fire and brimstone (cubed) all around. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest (or Pestilence depending on interpretation), War, Famine and Death. This of course hasn’t happened yet (though it should have by roughly 100 CE according to Jesus), so it’s still in the ‘what if’ category, though actually I think that should read ‘iffy’ category. 

There are certainly potential natural scenarios that could easily mimic the Book of Revelation’s scenario, at least in terms of total firepower (or should that be Four Horsepower). Since this is near global destruction, we need something slightly bigger than a hurricane or an earthquake. All out nuclear or biological warfare might be a parallel, but then I’ve ruled out wars (and rumours of war) from the legit disaster category, though that might be little consolation if your city is nuked or if you’re infected deliberately with the bubonic plague. I’m thinking more along the lines here of an asteroid impact, as in the films “Armageddon” or “Deep Impact” (and a good dozen clones of these), though a good old nearby supernovae blast or gamma-ray burst would do the job nicely. Maybe there’s a Black Hole nearby which our solar system might be drifting towards. Gulp! In any event there’s a happy ending since out of the ashes the Phoenix (a new heaven and a new earth) will rise again.  

In conclusion, then as now, natural disasters inspire the creation of newer, better, bigger disasters: ten-fold the death count; twenty-fold the destruction. Of course this additional creation resides either in the land of pure fiction (browse your local DVD store and bookshop for examples), or at least as vastly embellished natural ones that actually happened, tales told well away from where they happened so no one’s the wiser. That F2 twister that passed several miles away from you now turns into an F5 that passed right overhead after several retellings!  

Since there is no supporting evidence for any of the Biblical disasters, I think it’s prudent to assign them to the category of, if not 100% fiction, then to the realm of greatly exaggerated campfire tall tales. As for Revelation, let’s just say that if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.